Civil War News July 2020

America’s Monthly Newspaper For Civil War Enthusiasts

Gettysburg Tourism: 50% Open

by Leon Reed

The reopening of Gettysburg will be a welcome change for merchants, unemployed workers, and people wanting to visit, but while Devil’s Den and the Pennsylvania monument will remain as iconic locations, returning visitors in coming weeks will encounter a very different place from what they remember. While tourists will still be able to obtain lodging and food (carry out and outdoor seating) and do some shopping, many of the most visible attractions will remain closed for now.

Governor Wolf announced that Adams County would enter “Phase Yellow” on Friday, May 22. This means most businesses were able to open with requirements for face masks, limited crowds to facilitate social distancing, and frequent cleaning. No announcement has been made about the Park, which means its status for now will remain the same: the Park grounds are open but the visitor center is closed and all ranger programs and other park activities are off for now.

Like all towns in America, Gettysburg suffered during the shutdown. Unemployment increased from ~3% to well over 10%; businesses catering to

tourists, weakened by several down years of park visitation, had to shelve plans for a strong recovery year. Business, government, and community groups were busy during the shutdown preparing for a smooth opening. The Borough of Gettysburg offered no-interest loans to help local businesses survive the crisis. Main Street Gettysburg, a downtown merchants association, developed and distributed a “pandemic” kit with hand sanitizer, fact sheets, signs, and “social distancing” markers. Destination Gettysburg prepared a “visit Gettysburg” ad campaign to run when reopening is authorized.

Norris Flowers, President of Destination Gettysburg, believes tourists will return quickly. He predicted that families may avoid long vacations that require an airplane trip and may revive “the family vacation in a car.” He suggested that proximity to major cities and the predominantly outdoor setup will both help draw visitors. A B&B owner shared a similar prediction. “I predict business will come back when the museums, shops, and restaurants are able to open, hopefully by mid-June 2020 will see mostly local and regional business with visitors from an approximately 200 mile radius. … Gettysburg is fortunately located within a 3 hour drive for a few million people, many of whom already love coming to Gettysburg.”

Another hotel owner predicted a “slow, long recovery.” He noted that his order book for June and July, when his hotel normally is 80-90% full, stands at 20-30% now. He noted that the status of major events, such as Bike Week, will go a long way to determine how the rest of the summer goes.

Whether the decision maker is the Park Service (activities in the Park), the Gettysburg Foundation (the visitor center), a local government, or individual businesses, visitors are likely to encounter much more emphasis on social distancing and crowd control. Some merchants seem to be taking an even more cautious attitude than the state requirements.

Local Park Service or Foundation officials need to make

tough decisions about issues such as whether there is a way to open the visitor center safely; when, or whether, to resume such popular activities as ranger talks or Cyclorama visits, and whether visits can resume at the Wills House or the Eisenhower farm. The days of three busloads of middle school students arriving simultaneously at the visitor center are probably over.

Superintendent Steven Sims commented “The health and safety of our visitors, employees, volunteers, and partners continues to be paramount. At Gettysburg National Military Park and Eisenhower National Historic Site, our operational approach will be to examine each facility’s function, and services provided, to ensure those operations comply with current public health guidance and will be regularly monitored. We continue to work closely with the NPS Office of Public Health using CDC

guidance to ensure public and workspaces are safe and clean for visitors, employees, volunteers, and partners.”

Most decisions about park operations remain in flux at this writing. From numerous conversations with people familiar with Park operations, it seems that planners haven’t yet identified a way to open the visitor center safely. Opinions of people knowledgeable about park operations ranged from “it won’t open this year,” or “it won’t reopen until Adams County goes to green,” to “they still haven’t identified a safe way to open the facility.”

Other events that draw crowds, such as ranger talks, are areas of concern and may remain so even after park facilities open. While formal ranger talks are off, effective May 22, rangers were authorized to interact occasionally with visitors by “roving” through the park. The Lincoln Fellowship, which sponsors “100 Days of

Taps” at the Soldiers National Monument, announced the park was prohibiting such live events and that the sundown “Taps” would be a virtual event until further notice.

Licensed battlefield guides were permitted to resume tours as of May 22 with some restrictions, including compliance with a manual prepared by a committee of guides, including two who are MD’s. Tickets will be available at the Guide Office or the Gettysburg Heritage Center.

Battlefield bus tours will run from the Gettysburg Tour Center on Baltimore St., weekends only at first, but not from the visitor center. The buses are not operating at full capacity in order to maintain social distancing.

The park is also considering crowd control measures such as limits on audiences for ranger

The Pennsylvania State Memorial is a monument in Gettysburg National Military Park that commemorates the 34,530 Pennsylvania soldiers who fought in the July 1 to 3, 1863, Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. Photo Jack Melton.

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This year we did not publish a separate Gettysburg section due to the cancellation of all of the events in Gettysburg and the COVID-19 impact on the town. Instead, we have made this issue a Gettysburg issue. It contains all of the content that would have been

Letters Editor to the

TO THE EDITOR:

Joe Bilby and his “Black Powder; White Smoke” column continues to be my first read with each new issue. He always manages to come up with interesting and informative scholarship.

I also appreciate Ms. Hagiwara’s terrific “Through the Lens” articles with the wonderful colorized photos.

Craig Barry seems to really do his homework and has a knack for inserting some great off the wall minutiae that just blows me away.

John Sexton and Shannon Pritchard both present the most amazing artifacts to share with those of us who can only dream of ever handling such important relics. Tim Prince always fascinates me, not only with his fantastic firearms expertise, but also his attention to detail. His artifact photography enhances the whole experience of learning from these experts.

Captain David A. Sulin

TO THE EDITOR:

I read with great interest the June edition of the Civil War News and the article: “Fact or fiction? Black Confederates” by Dr. Lawrence E. Babits. Based on the large amount of information on this subject, I hope this article is the first of many.

In regard to the Dr. Lewis Steiner/Maryland-Antietam account, I found that this account was included in the book “Antietam and the Maryland and Virginia campaigns of 1862 from the government records—Union

included in a separate section.

You may have noticed that we have not been publishing the Calendar of Events section over the past couple of months. This exclusion has been due to the cancellation of almost all events and gatherings. When everything

and Confederate—mostly unknown and which have now first disclosed the truth; approved by the War department” by Captain Isaac W. Heysinger.

This book can be found on line on the website: archive.org/

is safe to open to the public and Civil War shows, reenactments, living history programs, etc. are re-scheduled, we will begin publishing the Calendar of Events section again. We are all looking forward to that day and hope it happens very soon.

details/antietammaryland00hey/ page/n13/mode/2up.

While I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this book, I think it is well worth reading and drawing your own conclusions.

Bob Brewer Gaithersburg, MD

By Lawrence E. Babits

Civil War Alphabet Quiz - E

1. General Lee’s bald, “bad old man”

2. John B. Hood first led the Texas Brigade in this 1862 Virginia battle

3. The other name for the Battle of Pea Ridge

4. The engineer who designed and built Mound City gunboats

5. Commanding officer, NY Fire Zouaves, shot by an Alexandria, Va., hotel owner

6. Sherman’s brother in law who also came from 13th Infantry to be a general

7. Confederate division commander who lost a leg at Grovetown, Va.

8. He gave the “other,” much longer Gettysburg Address

9. Remote power source that detonated Confederate river torpedoes

10. This Jan. 1, 1863 document only freed slaves in Confederate controlled territory

Answers found on page 47.

walks. Town tours and carriage rides are also still on hold, but may be opening soon if not already by the time this issue reaches CWN subscribers.

The concern is magnified by worries about visitor behavior.

On a pleasant Sunday afternoon in the midst of the shutdown, at least five groups of 8 or more people were seen clustered together in Devil’s Den; none of them were practicing social distancing or wearing a mask. Maskwearing has become a partisan issue in Gettysburg. The state senator representing Gettysburg has been a leader of the “open now” movement and lately has called on his supporters to refuse to wear masks. Several local merchants expressed concern about confrontations between their staff and visitors insisting on their “constitutional rights.”

Most businesses and many local attractions are preparing to open with modified practices. Restaurants continue to offer carry-out and sometimes delivery service. Effective June 5th outdoor seating is permitted for businesses in the “yellow phase.”

Bars remain closed as well. Most hotels will be open with heightened cleaning and disinfecting efforts. Carry out of alcoholic beverages is permitted, and will soon available to be served (June 5).

The Lightner House B&B is practicing social distancing and asking guests to wear face masks at check-in and while socializing inside. To facilitate distancing, they are offering breakfast in guests’ rooms just this year.

Eileen Hoover, owner of the B&B, also said they have adjusted to accommodate the likely surge in last minute booking and cancellation. “Lodging properties need to be flexible with last minute bookings and penalty free cancellations.”

Many other businesses opened starting May 22 but with restrictions. For the Historian Bookstore is opening with a requirement for masks and limiting the number of visitors inside at any time. The Gettysburg Heritage Center will be opening its store, weekends only at first.

The Regimental Quartermaster and Jeweler’s Daughter are open. Customers will need to wear a mask at all times in the shop.

Regimental Quartermaster is allowing customers 60 years and

older to shop an hour before opening to the public. This will help to ensure everyone can get the items they need in a less-crowded environment. Their store hours are: Monday-Friday & Sunday: 10-5, Saturday: 10-6.

The Antique Center of Gettysburg, a popular source of Civil War memorabilia, reopened on Friday, May 22 on an appointment basis both for customers and vendors. The antique mall is limited to 15 guests in the shop at a time and masks are required. Some private attractions will open but many will remain closed. The Shriver House Museum opened Saturday, May 23, but will be operating with limited hours. Besides masks, sanitizers, and 6 foot separation, they are sanitizing the shop and house after each tour and limiting size of tour groups, etc. Nancie Gudmestad said, “We may have shortened hours throughout the week. We will be playing it by ear for a while.”

The Jenny Wade House museum, home of the only civilian casualty during the battle, will be opening for weekends only until Gettysburg moves into the “green” category. For now, tours will be self-guided rather than groups with a guide. The Gettysburg Tour Center will be opening and will be operating bus tours at reduced capacity for social distancing.

Gary Casteel, the sculptor who created the Longstreet statue and is preparing a series of

miniatures of Gettysburg and other monuments is open with mask requirements.

For those who come to Gettysburg for the ghosts, Ghostly Images resumed tours May 23, weekends only for now.

Mark Nesbitt Ghost Tours is holding off opening for now.

Some other businesses are remaining closed for now. Waldo’s and Co., a local coffee house, arts center, and popular gathering place, is staying closed.

Chris Lauer said “we are taking our time to make sure that we are opening in the most responsible way. … as a space that fosters community, i.e. strangers meeting strangers, tourists meeting locals, etc., we recognize that there is still some risk of spread. We have chosen to wait until the next phase of reopening and taking that time to prepare our staff and our space to mitigate any risk we can.”

The Seminary Ridge Museum, for now is “working on a plan to ensure staff, visitor, and resource safety when we reopen,” said COO Peter Miele. There is no firm reopening date.

Gettysburg isn’t just a tourist town: to a great extent, it’s also a special events town. Some events that draw large crowds (college graduation, Memorial Day parade, anniversary reenactment and Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association’s July 4 reenactment at Daniel Lady Farm) have already been cancelled or postponed; the future of

others is uncertain. On the other hand, Nancie Gudmestad said that Shriver House will be augmenting its “Confederates Take the Shriver House” program over July 4, “since both reenactments have been canceled … and so many people come over the holiday …”

Bike Week, which typically occurs in mid-July, is still on the schedule, as are events such as the Apple Festival and Dedication Day. Several major conferences scheduled for later in the year, including the Lincoln Forum, are currently assessing the feasibility of moving forward. Gettysburg College’s Civil War Institute, scheduled for June, was canceled, but the organizers plan a Facebook Life event at the time the conference was scheduled and, perhaps, a one day event in the fall.

The situation in Gettysburg will continue to evolve. Discussions in online Gettysburg discussion groups make it clear that there is a yearning on many people’s part to visit Gettysburg. Many people will undoubtedly agree with an adapted version of the old golf gag: a bad day at Gettysburg is better than a good day somewhere else, but it appears that the Gettysburg experience will remain a partial experience for much of the summer.

See the following links to get a more up-to-date status of guidelines.

• Cocktails to go: https://www. governor.pa.gov/newsroom/ gov-wolf-signs-cocktails-togo-bill

• Outdoor restaurant service: https://patch.com/pennsylvania/newtown-pa/pa-restaurants-can-open-outdoor-dining-rooms-june-5

• PA – red, yellow, green phase: https://www.governor.pa.gov/process-to-reopen-pennsylvania

Leon Reed is a former congressional aide, defense consultant, and US History teacher. He lives in Gettysburg, volunteers at the visitor center when it’s open, and is the author of Stories the Monuments Tell: A Photo Tour of Gettysburg, Told by its Monuments.

Ohio Private at Gettysburg Receives Medal of Honor

by Joan Wenner, J.D.

Ohio soldiers were said to have fought well at Gettysburg. Included with monuments to the 25th and 75th Ohio Infantry are 16 others for cavalry regiments and artillery batteries. While most of the 300,000+ Ohioans were in the Western theatre, some 4,400 fought at Gettysburg.

There were many acts of bravery on that battlefield, both recorded and unrecorded. For example, during Pickett's Charge, when Henry Hunt, artillery chief for the Army of the Potomac, gave the order to hold their fire, the gunners waited. When they at last opened fire, one Ohio letter writer recalled, “It was like an earthquake for a couple of hours.”

Then there was a single Ohio sniper; Private Charles Stacey, who voluntarily snuck into Confederate territory on July 2, 1863, for the purpose of attacking a band of Southern sharpshooters. Alone, he remained hunkered down in a wheat field on the wrong side of the skirmish line over four hours, firing 23 shots, and taking out sharpshooters so completely it was said that not a single man in his company was harmed. Stacey wrote in a 1918 letter to his grandson, “that I don't believe any man ever had a line of battle fire at him as many times as I was fired at and live to tell of it.”

He earned the Medal of Honor for his actions. Charles Stacey died peacefully in his hometown of Norwalk, Ohio, in 1924 at age 82.

His citation reads “Voluntarily took an advanced position on the skirmish line for the purpose of ascertaining the location of Confederate sharpshooters and under heavy fire held the position

thus taken until the company of which he was a member went back to the main line.”

His headstone photo can be found at https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/8363542/ charles-stacey.

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Private Charles Stacey. Photo Courtesy Dept. Veteran Services State of Ohio (www. dvs.oh.gov).

The 55th Ohio Volunteer Infantry monument is in the National Cemetery, Gettysburg.

by Mike Shovlin

In this current time period of watching how individuals react to the change of their lifestyles, jobs and lack of basic supplies, it is amazing to see the difference in actions. We all now have experiences in dealing with situations we may have never imagined being part of our lives.

Now, more than ever, we really can stand in awe of how our ancestors survived the aftermath of Civil War battles. Living in Gettysburg gives one pause on how the suffering after the battle must have been. Many stories have been written about the aftermath. We have seen books, articles, or town guides that try to relate what the Gettysburg citizens had to face in the months after the fighting.

I became interested in researching a family whose members reacted differently from each other. This led to choosing the Study family members who had settled in Gettysburg.

The Study’s were from Allegany County, Md. Their parents were Dr. John Study and Hannah Sell Study. The six children were: Jacob, David, John, Elizabeth, Catherine, and Lydia.

Three children had moved to the Gettysburg area before the battle. The first we will look at is Dr. David Study.

David first settled in Cumberland Township before he bought his home and office

The Study’s Of Gettysburg

on Baltimore Street. I find Dr. Study fascinating because we can see him depicted in the Gettysburg Cyclorama leaning over a wounded soldier beside a haystack on his sister Lydia’s farm. During the battle, his sister and her children had taken refuge in his home. I am curious why a doctor’s home would not be used as a field hospital, especially with its location on Cemetery Hill. Many words have been written about the army surgeons having a poor opinion of local doctors thus limiting their use on the battlefields, but I find it odd that they did not use a facility that had

medical supplies.

Dr. Study’s sisters both had their homes used as temporary field hospitals Maybe David did go to Lydia’s farm to give aid. Was it after the fighting had stopped? What stories were told that led Paul Philippoteaux to put him in the painting?

Dr. Study never married and eventually his home became a part of the orphanage on Baltimore Street. In the tough times after the battle, he had two nieces serve as housekeepers. David was buried in Evergreen Cemetery in 1872.

Catherine Study was born in 1809 and married John Slyder

on Sept. 25, 1838; together they moved to Gettysburg. They later bought 74 acres along Plum Run and Big Round Top. John and Catherine built a stone house and several outbuildings as they worked the farm. They had four children; William, Matilda Catherine, John, and Isaiah. On July 2, the family was told to leave the house. The Second US Sharpshooters under Colonel Homer R. Stoughton set up behind

their walls and fences, defending against the Law’s Brigade’s 14th and 47th Alabama. The Sharpshooters fell back past Big Round Top as Hood’s Division moved beyond the Union’s left. The next day Farnsworth’s Brigade moved across the farm in an ill-fated cavalry attack. The family returned to find their crops destroyed, possessions gone or damaged. The buildings were used for a few days as an

The Leister farm right after the battle. Dead horses are visible on the road and farm. Library of Congress.

Dr. David Study’s headstone.

John and Catharine Slyder’s headstone.

Lydia A. and James Leister’s headstones in Evergreen Cemetery.

The John and Catherine (Study) Slyder Farm was on the western side of Big Round Top.

July and he helped burn the horses; the family collected the bones and sold them for fertilizer at fifty cents per one hundred pounds.

Lydia Study Leister was faced with damaged buildings, ruined crops and peach trees, bad water and needed to replace her fencing. The home was used as an aid station/hospital as well as General Meade’s headquarters.

When one thinks of all the adversities one can face in their lives, we can look back at Lydia Leister for inspiration on what can be done. Lydia replanted her crops and rebuilt her fences.

made the decision to move into town. When she learned the Association was going to tear down her addition, she had them move it next to the Dobbin house she had purchased. Later she added to this house, and it still is in use as a bed and breakfast. Lydia lived her final days there, dying on Dec. 19, 1893. She is buried in Evergreen Cemetery.

I cannot think of another who overcame more. A widow, still owing money, two children at home, her oldest son in the army and then seeing her older sister pull up stakes and move.

The Slyder family found things beyond their capability. Compensation would only be made for damages done by the Union army that were supported by receipts or by eyewitnesses. By September their farm was up for sale and the family moved to western Ohio.

Their oldest son William lost his wife, Rebecca, in 1862.

William planned to move with his parents to Ohio, but first he would marry the girl across the Emmitsburg Road, Josephine Miller.

In the Gettysburg Compiler John stated “As I intend to move to the west, I will sell on very reasonable terms.” The farm today is better known as the Granite Farm.

The last of the Study family in Gettysburg was the youngest. Lydia Study was born in 1811. She married James Leister around 1830 and they lived about 15 miles south of Gettysburg. By 1850 they moved to Greenmount, Penn. James had a drinking problem that led Lydia’s father to put her inheritance in a trust. When James died in December 1859, Lydia moved. She sold her late husband’s tools, and together with the money she inherited, bought nine acres along the Taneytown Road from Henry Bishop for nine hundred dollars.

Lydia’s son Amos enlisted in the 165th Pennsylvania regiment, infantry in 1862. This left Lydia with her two youngest living in

the home at the time of the battle.

When asked to leave on July 1st they went to David Study’s home on Baltimore Street. After the battle, they were faced with destruction. Lydia did an interview in 1865 and never mentioned one thing about the battle itself. What she saw on her nine acres was burnt into her memory.

The National Homestead at Gettysburg was an orphanage and widows home opened in October 1866, on Steinwehr Avenue on the north foot of Cemetery Hill. aid station. Remarkably, in looking at the research done by Greg Coco and Edward Richter, only three or four bodies were buried on the farm. One was identified as Colonel John A. Jones, 20th Georgia Infantry. His body was disinterred in December 1865, and shipped to his family in Columbus, Ga.

“I owed a little on my land yit, and though I’d put in two lots of wheat that year, and it was all tramped down, and I didn’t get nothing from it. The fences was all torn down, so that there wasn’t one standing, and all the rails was burnt up. One shell came into the house and knocked a bedstead all to pieces for me. The porch was all knocked down. There were seventeen dead horses on my land. The dead horse’s spoiled my spring, so I had to have my well dug.”

Amos was discharged in late

Amazingly, by 1868 Lydia doubled the size of her farm by expanding to the north for nine hundred dollars. In 1874 she constructed a two-story addition to her home where she lived until 1888.

The Battlefield Preservation Association offered her three thousand dollars for her farm. Her health was poor, and she

Anytime I face adversities I can sit back, smile, and ask myself: What would Lydia do?

Mike Shovlin is a graduate of Westminster College where he majored in history. He is currently employed by the Gettysburg Foundation as the lead Assistant at the Rupp House History Center.

General Meade’s Headquarters, Lydia Leister Farm, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. A photochrom postcard published by the Detroit Photographic Company.

by Sue Boardman

The Gettysburg National Cemetery is an important part of any visitor’s experience on the battlefield. It is sobering to walk among the unique landscape architecture and understand the enormous sacrifice in lives represented by row upon row of solemn graves. Many visitors don’t realize the graves in the cemetery represent only a portion of the battle’s dead. Not only were there a significant number of solders’ remains taken home by families after the battle, but the national cemetery, according to the laws of its creation, excluded Southern casualties. The graves of Southern dead at Gettysburg would have to wait nearly a decade before the situation was properly addressed.

When the Battle of Gettysburg ended on July 3, thousands of bodies lay across 6,000 acres of trampled ground under the hot sun and pouring rain. The outcome of the conflict was a Union victory on Pennsylvania soil. Just the year before, the Pennsylvania legislature passed an act that provided for the care of her wounded and burial of her battle dead. Within days of the battle, Pennsylvania’s Gov. Andrew Curtin visited the battlefield and was appalled by the haste with which the brave dead had been buried. He appointed David Wills to carry out the requirements of the law.

Southern Dead at Gettysburg

Will’s first report emphasized the rapidly deteriorating condition of the temporary graves. Curtin authorized Wills to arrange for the exhumation and transportation of all Pennsylvanians killed in the battle. At least 700 bodies were shipped home in pine coffins to their families, but the decaying bodies created a terrible stench and a health risk. By the end of July, the military authorities ordered the cessation of further exhumations.

What we know today as the national cemetery system was already in place by 1863; nearly a dozen cemeteries were established in 1862. Those cemeteries, like Pennsylvania’s, allowed only for the burial of “loyal dead,” thereby automatically ruling out a solution for Confederate dead simply because they fought on behalf of states in rebellion and therefore were not “loyal.” Wills eventually acquired the 17 acres of ground that provided for establishment of the Soldiers National Cemetery at Gettysburg.

Union dead were exhumed from October 1863 through March 1864. During the grueling work of reburying the dead, a dedication ceremony was held at which President Lincoln delivered his immortal address.

Throughout the process of gathering and reburying the Union dead in their newly dedicated national cemetery, Southern dead remained on the field, many in

unmarked graves or with identification markers rapidly becoming illegible. Fortunately, two individuals, Drs. J. W. C. O’Neal and Rufus Weaver, walked the fields and recorded as many names as they were able to make out. Weaver eventually took a much more active part in removing Southern dead from Gettysburg.

As plans were underway for dedicating the national cemetery in November 1863, local attorney David McConaughy received an inquiry from Governor Andrew Curtin who expressed an interest in knowing how much it would cost to remove and rebury the Southern dead. Curtin’s interest was inspired by the potential for bad publicity resulting from the large crowds visiting the battlefield for the cemetery’s dedication and seeing the poor condition of Confederate graves. McConaughy suggested that, although he was aware of a rumor that Southern sympathizers were raising funds to create a cemetery for their dead, it might be better if the government took control of the situation to prevent displays of disloyalty in the process. McConaughy gave assurances that Confederate graves would be properly covered by the dedication’s date. However, no further plans were forthcoming from the Pennsylvania legislature regarding removal of Confederate dead. There were other futile discussions on the matter as well. In February 1864, a newspaper article lamented the condition of the graves and the difficulty farmers would soon encounter trying to cultivate their fields. It went on to suggest that common decency

should prevail so that Southern families and friends of the fallen could have a place to visit when the war ended, to remember those they had lost. Later that spring, New York Governor Horatio Seymour contacted Gettysburg attorney Moses McClean offering to raise funds to give decent burials to Southern battle dead but those plans also failed to materialize. Although the topic appeared in local and regional papers from time to time, no further official action was discussed or taken.

When the war ended, the Federal government developed a very ambitious project to recover all Union dead scattered on battlefields across the land. The arduous task was able to be accomplished because the South was under Federal control. It was largely completed by late 1870, when more than 300,000 Northern soldiers were reburied in 72 newly established national cemeteries. Southerners hoped the Federal government would eventually include all the battle dead that were as yet improperly buried, however, in spite of discussions to that effect, Confederate soldiers were ultimately excluded from the government’s recovery efforts.

Meanwhile, Southern newspapers lamented the failure of the Federal government to include Confederate soldiers, blaming it on partisan politics. A Richmond paper’s message regarding Gettysburg was that while Northerners set the example of honoring their dead with eulogies, monuments, and great expenditures of money in turf, flowers, and plants, “the poor

southerner was cast aside from the scene, sleeping uncared for in his narrow and neglected house.” It went on to say that the expense for the Gettysburg ceremony was paid in part by Southerners but radicals censured the Southern people for wishing to take care of their own dead. The article ended by stating it was the Southerners’ right and duty to look after their own boys who died for their cause.

When it became clear that no help would be forthcoming from Federal authorities or the Northern people, work commenced under the auspices of Ladies Memorial Associations to raise funds to locate and identify Southern soldiers’ graves and care for them. They earnestly and faithfully carried out their work on battlefields within their own states throughout the late 1860s, but they had no organized plans for recovering their lost soldiers at Gettysburg.

At the 1869 dedication of the Soldiers National Monument, keynote speaker General George Meade included the following statement in his remarks: “When I contemplate this field, I see here and there the marks of hastily dug trenches in which repose the dead against whom we fought…. Above them a bit of plank indicates simply that these remains of the fallen were hurriedly laid there by soldiers who met them in battle. Why should we not collect them in some suitable place? In all civilized countries it is the usage to bury the dead with decency and respect, and even to fallen enemies respectful burial is accorded in death. I earnestly

Nearly 7,000 bodies were buried on the Gettysburg Battlefield in the several days after the fighting ended. Union dead were removed within the following 9 months. Confederate dead remained in their original graves location for nine more years. Library of Congress.

hope that this suggestion may have some influence throughout our broad land, for this is only one of a hundred crowded battlefields.” Meade’s words inspired no further action on the part of Gettysburg citizens, state officials, or Federal authorities.

This was soon followed by a protest against the neglect of Confederate dead, delivered during a speech by Henry Ward Beecher. He said, “Can it be possible that a great and generous nation will much longer suffer the Confederate dead to lie disheveled in such utter and contemptuous neglect?”

The last straw that spurred initiative among Southerners to reclaim their Gettysburg dead came in March 1870, when a bill was passed by Maryland’s Senate to establish a cemetery near Hagerstown for the internment of Confederate dead from the battles of Antietam, South Mountain, and Gettysburg. The senate committee reported that the incorporation of the Antietam National Cemetery provided for including Confederate dead but in 1869 trustees of that cemetery refused to do so. Consequently, the senate took the initiative to establish a burial ground within

the recently established Rose Hill Cemetery that became known as Washington Confederate Cemetery. However, its stated purpose was to rebury the dead from battles and skirmishes in western Maryland. This included the dead from Antietam, South Mountain, and areas that saw skirmishes within the state in which Lee’s retreating army were engaged, thus excluding the bulk of Confederate dead still in Gettysburg.

At this point, the Hollywood Memorial Association took the lead. They appealed to each Southern state whose soldiers

still lay at Gettysburg to raise the necessary funds. The directors also appealed to General Lee to support their mission. Lee at first declined, not wishing to put himself into the public arena because he thought it would detract from the cause. He finally relented and issued a letter from Lexington, Va., on March 8, 1870, that was published in Southern newspapers. It read, “I have felt great interest in the success of the scheme of the Hollywood Memorial Association of Richmond for the removal of the Confederate dead at Gettysburg, since learning of the neglect of their remains on the battlefield. I hope that sufficient funds may be collected by the association that it will receive the grateful thanks of the humane and benevolent. May I request you to apply the enclosed amount [$125] to this object.” This endorsement by General Lee spurred the Ladies Memorial Associations to redouble their efforts in their respective states but funds were slow in coming from poverty stricken Southern states. In what could be described in today’s world as public shaming, a Charleston newspaper chided its citizens with the headline, “Nothing from South Carolina.”

The article enumerated the funds raised by other states that totaled just over $1,000 by April 1870, the majority of which was raised in Virginia; and stated, “So far, only a miserable sum has been collected for the purpose, and it will be noticed that there is nothing from South Carolina….the state which poured out her blood like water in the cause of the south, has, up to this time, given nothing for preserving from insult and pollution the mouldering bones of the gallant men who fell in the mighty conflict in Pennsylvania. Now that the truth is known, this reproach will not be allowed to rest upon our people.”

In early 1871, the long-awaited process to remove Confederate dead from Gettysburg was finally begun with a request by the Ladies Memorial Association of Charleston, S.C. Although Samuel Weaver, who was instrumental in removing Union dead to the National Cemetery in Gettysburg, was the initial recipient of the request, his untimely death in a railroad accident left his son, Dr. Rufus B. Weaver to take up the task. By Memorial Day, May 10, 1871, Weaver had shipped the

Unburied bodies at Gettysburg. Library of Congress.

Burial trenches on Culp’s Hill, 1876. C.J. Tyson/Boardman Collection.

Nearly identical image of Confederate burial trenches on Culp’s Hill. Caption reads, “…containing 75 Rebel bodies.” PS & HE Weaver/Boardman Collection.

Antietam National Cemetery denied permission for Confederate burials.

It is some of the most sacred ground in America, made so by the men who fought and died there, regardless of whether they were from the North or the South.

Further Reading:

One of three unknown sections in the Gettysburg National Cemetery where Confederate bodies found on Culp’s Hill, mistakenly thought to be Union, were buried in 1899.

bodies of 80 South Carolina soldiers to Charleston where they were buried with ceremonies in Magnolia Cemetery. His work on behalf of the Memorial Association of Charleston led to requests from other like associations. Ultimately, in response to requests from Ladies Memorial Associations and individuals during the summers of 1871, 1872, and 1873, Weaver exhumed and shipped 3,253 sets of Confederate remains to Charleston, S.C. (80); Savannah, Ga. (101); Raleigh, N.C. (137); and Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Va. (2,935). He also exhumed the bodies of 73 individuals that were sent to various locations throughout the south. Each shipment was lovingly received and reinterred with solemn and patriotic ceremonies. Weaver

received far less in compensation than was personally expended by his efforts. As of 1887 he was still owed over $11,000, a sum he most likely never received.

A question, often asked by visitors who are told about the removal of the Confederate dead from the battlefield, is whether any bodies remain on the field. The affirmative answer allows historians to impress upon visitors the fact that the Gettysburg battlefield is indeed hallowed ground, not just for the battle that was fought there but also because there are still soldiers’ remains there. Dr. Weaver was not able to remove all the Confederate dead nor did he attempt to do so. Some bodies buried in out-of-the way places were left undisturbed. Some were simply not found. Some were found over the years

Magnolia Cemetery, Charleston, S.C., where some Gettysburg dead now repose. as farming, the building of roads, and other improvements required ground to be disturbed. A number of discoveries are recorded in the reports of governing bodies over the years. For example, it is known that approximately 200 soldiers were buried on the 11th Corps Hospital site at the George Spangler Farm; conflicting records report that between 4 and 20 of them were Confederates. Yet there is no record of their removal in Dr. Weaver’s notes.

During War Department years (1895–1933), Park Commissioner William Robbins noted in his journal in September 1899, that one crew working on the battlefield “found on the southwestern side of Culp’s Hill about 17 bodies of Union soldiers. We had the remains put in boxes and sent to the Custodian of the National Cemetery to be buried there among the unknown.” The discovery was reported in regional newspapers which prompted David Monat, a veteran of the 29th Penn. Volunteers to write to Col. John P. Nicholson, head of the Park Commission, to explain why he felt the bodies were actually Confederate. He shared that on July 4, 1863, he and his

fellow soldiers filled two burial trenches with Confederate bodies, 13 in one trench and 16 or 17 in the other. He said they covered the bodies with their old (US) blankets because they picked up new ones the day before from the Maryland Eastern Shore troops. This explained why the bodies were originally thought to be Union. Monat drew a crude map to show where the bodies were.

There were a number of other incidents in which bodies, both Union and Confederate, were found on the field over the years. Some were sent to the Confederate Cemetery in Hagerstown, some to the National Cemetery, and some were simply moved out of the way and reburied. The most recent discovery was a partial skeleton found in 1996 in the side hill of the railroad cut on the first day’s field. It was thought to be that of a Confederate after the remains we analyzed by Smithsonian archaeologists. Those remains rest in the Gettysburg National Cemetery today.

It is this author’s hope that my article has reinforced the need to preserve the Gettysburg Battlefield for future generations.

Early Photography at Gettysburg, by William Frassanito (1995); A Strange and Blighted Land, by Gregory Coco (1995); Wasted Valor, by Gregory Coco (1990); “The Removal of the Confederate Dead from Gettysburg,” by Edward Richter in Gettysburg Magazine, January 1, 1990; “The Aftermath and Recovery of Gettysburg,” Part 2 by Eric Campbell in Gettysburg Magazine, July 1, 1994; Richmond Dispatch and The Charleston News, various dates, 1866–1871; “Journal of Major William Robbins,” Gettysburg National Park Commission, GNMP Archives.

Sue Boardman, a Gettysburg Licensed Battlefield Guide since 2001, is a two-time recipient of the Superintendent’s Award for Excellence in Guiding. Sue is a recognized expert of not only the Battle of Gettysburg but also the National Park’s early history including its many monuments and the National Cemetery.

Sue is Director Emeritus of the Gettysburg Foundation’s Leadership Program. Her program, In the Footsteps of Leaders has been well-received by corporate, government, non-profit and educational groups.

Sue is a native of Danville, Penn., and an Honors Graduate from Penn State/Geisinger Medical Center School of Nursing and attended Bloomsburg University. A 23-year career as an ER nurse preceded her career at Gettysburg. Sue served as President of the historic Evergreen Cemetery Association and is currently on the Board of Trustees. She has worked as an adjunct instructor for Harrisburg Area Community College and Susquehanna University.

Washington National Cemetery, Hagerstown, Md.

Washington National Cemetery entrance, Hagerstown Md.

Pandemic affects history profession in multitude of ways

by Chris Mackowski

Canceled talks, postponed tours, lost book sales, closed facilities, Civil War historians have dealt with an array of problems since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

“I’ve had to wave off travel plans, conferences and speaking engagements have been put off or cancelled, publication schedules are up in the air, and I’m doing much more over video and Zoom than I had before,” says Chris Kolakowski, chief historian for Emerging Civil War. “My colleagues and I have found ourselves looking to historical examples for perspective and strength during these days.”

“It is truly a historic event,” says Kevin Pawlak, site manager at the Bristoe Station Battlefield and Ben Lomond Historic Site in Prince William County, Va. “As historians, it is stunning to live in a time sure to be studied by humans decades and centuries from now.”

Pawlak and Kolakowski are two of nearly three-dozen Emerging Civil War historians, representing a broad cross-section of the profession: historic site supervisors, tour guides, authors, academics, National Park Service rangers, museum employees, volunteers, and independent historians. Their stories offer a glimpse into the

ways the virus has impacted the way historians do history.

“It has changed how we share history with others,” Pawlak says.

“I empathize with anyone who’s trying to scratch out a job in history right now,” says Edward Alexander, a historical cartographer who owns Make Me a Map (makemeamapllc.com). A former park ranger, he now describes history as “a hobby that also provides freelancing opportunities.”

“That being said, the ways in which I still interact with the public history world is being impacted,” Alexander explains.

“One tour I had scheduled for the summer has been postponed already and another might follow. Map work has also slowed down. A few projects that I’m involved with are seeing delays, and new jobs are not coming in as fast. I am trying to use the extra time I have at home to tinker with new design styles and work on the business side of mapmaking.”

Historians have lost speaking gigs at conferences, Civil War Roundtables, and historical societies, and tours have been cancelled. This, in turn, has led to lost revenue, in the thousands of dollars for some people, as well as lost book sales.

“Historic sites and battlefields are closed for programming and public interaction,” Pawlak adds.

That often means seasonal hiring is frozen and paid internships are not available. Such closures likewise impact book sales.

For Ryan Quint, who works as a costumed interpreter at a site in Williamsburg, Va., such closures mean life is on hold. “The museum I work for has been closed for months,” he says. “There is a tentative timeline to reopen, but no one is sure.”

Kolakowski, who works as director of the Wisconsin Veterans Museum, had been on the job for just two and a half months when the pandemic struck. “For two solid weeks, March 11-25, I faced a daily-changing situation, while leading a team that I was still getting to know and they were getting to know me,” he says. “We successfully shifted into dispersed operations and started doing many things, including programs, online. It required tough decisions to be made quickly, similar to crisis reactions on battlefields; indeed, it was a lesson about leadership in a dynamic and uncertain environment.”

Kolakowski noted an important collateral result, though. “An interesting, and quite positive, side effect is that my staff and I have bonded faster and more thoroughly than we may have in more normal times,” he says.

Bert Dunkerly, who works as a historian for Richmond National Battlefield Park, faced a similar transition. “We really scrambled at first trying to transition to teleworking,” he says. “Our jobs involve working with the public, being out in the field, and being on site. With park laptops, we are doing things digitally now, research and online presentations. We are doing a series of Facebook Live talks, as well as pre-recorded videos for schools and the general public. We’re doing more with Twitter and Instagram.” Other national parks have responded in similar fashion, with programming varying from park to park as technical capabilities and employee availability have allowed.

“We’re not sure what the summer will look like,” Dunkerly admits, “but I think we’ve made a good transition to keep our audiences engaged the best we can.”

Academics also had to make the shift to online. “I have not seen my students in nearly two months,” says Derek Maxfield, an assistant professor at Genesee Community College in Batavia, N.Y., as the end of the semester was bearing down. He’s had to operate mostly by using software that allows him to post class lessons and materials to an online

space that students can access and then post their homework there in response. Both professor and students had to make adjustments to their college experience.

“I am trying to be as flexible as possible,” Maxfield adds.

Maxfield also has been trying to take advantage of social media to promote his new book, Hellmira: The North’s Most Infamous Civil War Prison, Elmira, NY, part of the Emerging Civil War Series. “The book is out, thankfully, but all the presentations and signings are on hold,” he says.

Zachery A. Fry, Ph.D., also had to transition his classes to an online format, “which has required an unprecedented level of administrative headache,” he admits. Fry is an assistant professor in the Department of Military History at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Ft. Belvoir, Va. He’s also author of the newly released book A Republic in the Ranks: Loyalty and Disunion in the Army of the Potomac.

“The pandemic has also closed all brick-and-mortar bookstores, so the release of A Republic in the Ranks was marred by a complete absence of any actual lectures or signings,” he says. “I hope to make up for lost ground in the fall, but the Civil War publishing world is so fast-paced and dynamic that there’s really no telling how that will go. In the meantime, I’m trying to maximize the number of virtual interviews and blog entries to broaden awareness of the book.”

Along with canceled talks, delays in book publications and promotions were among the most common, and, says author Dwight Hughes, “the most serious repercussion,” cited by historians.

Leon Reed, a developmental editor for the Emerging Civil War Series, had a book published in December, No Greater Calamity for the Country: North-South Conflict, Secession, and the Onset of Civil War. The book, he thought, “had extraordinary potential for personal appearances, not only at the ‘traditional’ Civil War and historical society events, but also at stamp collector groups. The book makes heavy use of patriotic envelopes of the time period. I’ve had a book launch party as well as a dozen speaking engagements or book signings cancelled or delayed; sales of all my books are pretty much limited to online sources.”

`Like Maxfield and Fry, Reed has tried to push the book on the internet but hasn’t “had a lot of luck goosing online sales.” He

adds, though, “One consolation is that I’ve been invited to do a regular series of online ‘stamp chats’ by the American Philatelic Society.”

The pandemic has also impacted historians’ research and writing time. “I had research trips scheduled to several research libraries in New York and to the Army Heritage Center in Carlisle.... So these research efforts are deferred,” Reed said.

Jon-Erik Gilot is one such archivist who’s been shut out of his archives. “This week marks my seventh week home from work,” he said on April 30. “My wife is considered ‘essential’ and has remained working full time, which leaves me home with our two daughters, ages 8 and 2, who have likewise been home from school for the past seven weeks. I juggle my time between the two as both a teacher and an entertainer. Needless to say by the time they go to bed I’m exhausted and my research and writing have been dragging. I’ve started to wake up early, before the girls, and do some writing then. The quarantine has forced me to find small pockets of time with which to work.”

Others, like Reed, have found “PLENTY of time to write.” Quint has seen that as a major positive. “The quarantine has allowed me to finish my manuscript, which I was working on for nearly three years,” he says. Doug Crenshaw, who volunteers for Richmond National Battlefield, has also “found time to do a lot of research and writing.”

“I’m also preparing for a major tour in the fall,” Crenshaw adds. “And I have ordered a bunch of books and am enjoying burning through them. On a non-historical note, there has been a lot of time to take long walks with my wife, and these have been fun.”

Some historians, though, have faced more challenging personal situations. “I was supposed to visit family in Pennsylvania and New Mexico, both canceled,” reveals Dunkerly. “In fact, I don’t know when I’ll get to visit family, partially because I don’t want to expose them as they’re older and at risk. Do I just go to help them out, or wait till things are better, while they keep going to the grocery and pharmacy? No easy answer.”

Quint, meanwhile, has a family thick in the COVID fight. “With both of my parents on the frontlines of public healthcare, I could not be prouder of what they have done, and will continue to do, to combat this pandemic,” he says.

“In the grand scheme of things, cancelled book talks are minuscule in the list of problems.”

Many historians have embraced the pandemic as an opportunity rather than a problem. As examples, virtual tours, YouTube videos, Zoom interviews, ranger talks, and Facebook groups have exploded online since the pandemic began.

Phill Greenwalt, a National Park Service historian who’s also the chief historian for Emerging Revolutionary War, says the pandemic inspired his Rev War colleagues to have an online chat they unofficially call ‘Rev War Revelry.’ The public is invited to watch and comment. “We discuss in a more informal way a topic while we drink our favorite brew,” Greenwalt explains. “It’s a kind of virtual happy hour for historians. So, that has been something positive, using technology to continue to talk and share history.”

Pawlak sees such initiatives as good adaptations. “I can’t help but notice how this challenge has made history more accessible,” he says. “The abundance (perhaps over-abundance) of online talks, interviews, programs, and articles has brought history programs to people who live hundreds of miles from the hosting

organizations. It seems that these efforts have met with success and a multitude of followers. While it’s been difficult to take in all of these programs, we have all been able to attend more from our homes than we could if these programs were held all across the country and not online. Historians have met the task of educating our public in this time of social distancing.”

For all the problems individual historians have struggled with since the pandemic began, the profession itself has largely risen to the challenge.

Chris Mackowski teaches writing in the Jandoli School of Communication at St. Bonaventure University. He is the editor-in-chief of Emerging Civil War (www.emergingcivilwar.com) and the historian-in-residence at Stevenson Ridge, a historic property on the Spotsylvania battlefield. Chris has authored or co-authored more than a dozen books on the Civil War and frequently contributes to the major Civil War magazines. Prior to his career as a professor and writer, he was an award-winning journalist.

Some thoughts on the Henry

In the years following the Civil War, a lot of folklore regarding small arms became part of the American story. One of these tales, regarding the Henry rifle, provided the information that President Abraham Lincoln had test fired the Henry in the summer of 1861. The origin of the story was apparently the faulty memory of one William A. Stoddard, a secretary in the White House given to latter day self-promotion. It was probably inspired by Lincoln’s actual test firing of the Spencer rifle. That event was also misinterpreted after the war, but testing the Henry never happened.

The lever action, fifteen shot (sixteen if one counts a round in the chamber) Henry, a perfected version of the Volcanic repeating arms of the 1850s, was invented by B. Tyler Henry, works superintendent of Oliver Winchester’s New Haven Arms Company, that purchased the patent from Henry. The Henry, patented in 1860, was a major advance in firearms design, essentially due to its use of a .44 caliber self-contained rimfire cartridge with powder, projectile, and primer all in one package.

Oliver Winchester, more of a marketing than a technical expert, had promoted the troubled Volcanic arms as providing “every quality requisite in such a

weapon” in an 1858 story he planted in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper. In an alleged testimonial, he included quotes by a purchaser of a Volcanic handgun, quotes that claimed the gun was “the ne plus ultra of Repeating or Revolving Arms and far superior in many respects to Colt’s much extolled revolver.” Another bit of hyperbolic advertising referred to the Volcanic as “the most powerful and effective weapon of defense ever invented.”

Winchester was well aware of the Henry’s significance and its superiority in a number of ways to any other rifle on the market in 1860. The onset of the Civil War seemed to provide a ready market for the Henry, and Winchester tried to interest the Chief of Ordnance, General James W. Ripley, in the gun. The spring and summer of 1861, however, was not the right time frame to adopt innovative but essentially unproven arms and Ripley, condemned by many for his conservative view of new products, was actually being reasonably astute.

Winchester did not hesitate to go over Ripley’s head, however, and sent presentation grade Henrys to administration officials, including Navy Secretary Gideon Welles, a fellow Connecticut man. A naval officer tested the Henry in May 1862, and found it performed well in accuracy and endurance tests. There were other favorable tests, but orders were

by Joe Bilby

not forthcoming. Had those orders come, however, Winchester would not have been able to fill them. Who actually manufactured the first 500 Henrys, with an iron rather than the familiar bronze frame, is murky. One historian believes Colt manufactured them, but there is no conclusive evidence for that, although Winchester did have a contract with Colt during that period, mostly for machinery, The first Henry rifles were not on the market until the summer of 1862. The guns were shipped to dealers in the Midwest and Kentucky, a state in considerable internal strife. Secretary of War William Stanton personally sent one to pro-Union Louisville Journal editor George D. Prentice. Prentice praised the gun to the skies, writing that his Henry was “the most efficient and beautiful rifle we ever saw,” adding that a shooter with one was the equivalent of “fifteen men armed with regular guns.” Although it is not widely known, there were Henrys, privately purchased from dealers in Kentucky, that ended up in the hands of Confederate guerillas and the first Henry shots fired in the Civil War were probably fired by Rebels in Kentucky, Henry production was never extensive, By October 1862, only 900 Henrys had been manufactured. By late 1864, Henry production peaked at 290 rifles per month, and a total of 13,000 were

produced through 1866. Most were scattered throughout the Union armies by 1865.

The vast majority of Henry rifles used in combat during the Civil War were privately purchased, or captured.

The only Henrys bought by government contract were those purchased for Colonel Lafayette Baker’s 1st DC cavalry. Baker, whose special unit was intended to be used in counter-guerilla and military police duties in addition to secret service operations, wanted the very best small arms available. He initially ordered 300 Henrys, but General Ripley arbitrarily cut the order to 240 and then 120 rifles. Through some back door negotiations, the number was raised back to 241 although many of them were kept in the government arsenal in Washington. As Baker’s unit, mostly recruited in Maine, grew, he petitioned for more Henrys and, fortunately for him, Ripley had been replaced by General Ramsey. In the end, Winchester shipped an additional 800 rifles to Washington by the summer of 1864.

Ironically, some of these guns, captured from the 1st DC in fighting around Richmond, ended up in the hands of Confederate cavalrymen in the Shenandoah Valley during the 1864 campaign and some were reportedly later carried by Jefferson Davis’ bodyguards when the Confederate president fled Richmond in April 1865. Many remained in the Washington Arsenal as the war wound down and were offered to “Veteran Volunteers,” soldiers who reenlisted after having served three years.

The Spencer repeating rifle, rather than the Henry, was purchased in great numbers by the government during the Civil War, but in the end, the Henry’s descendants, from the Winchester Model 1866 on down, secured a dominant share of the civilian market.

Joseph G. Bilby received his BA and MA degrees in history from Seton Hall University and served as a lieutenant in the 1st Infantry Division in 1966–1967. He is Assistant Curator of the New Jersey National Guard and Militia Museum, a freelance writer and historical consultant and author or editor of 21 books and over 400 articles on N.J. and military history and firearms. He is also publications editor for the N.J. Civil War 150 Committee and edited the award winning New Jersey Goes to War. His latest book, New Jersey: A Military History, was published by Westholme Publishing in 2017. He has received an award for contributions to Monmouth County (N.J.) history and an Award of Merit from the N.J. Historical Commission for contributions to the state’s military history. He can be contacted by email at jgbilby44@aol.com.

Nobody even comes close to building a Civil War tent with as much attention to reinforcing the stress areas as Panther. Our extra heavy duty reinforcing is just one of the added features that makes Panther tentage the best you can buy!

Henry Model 1860 .44 caliber rimfire, inscribed lever action repeating rifle. Sold for $30,550 at Poulin’s Antiques and Auction Inc.

Spencer Model 1860 Cavalry Carbine. .56 caliber rimfire, 22-inch barrel.

NEWS

Gettysburg Foundation Appoints Five New Members

to Board of Directors and New Chair of the Board

GETTYSBURG, Pa.—At its May meeting, the Gettysburg Foundation Board of Directors welcomed five new Directors, honored three Directors with emeritus status, and approved the appointment of its new board chair.

Joining the Foundation’s Board of Directors for a three-year term are Cynthia Hill; Thavolia Glymph, Ph.D.; Hal Kushner, M.D.; Richard Morin, and Charles ‘Cliff’ Bream.

“We are delighted to add five new directors to the Board of the Gettysburg Foundation, each with a unique set of experiences that strengthen our diversity and governance,” said Eric B. Schultz, outgoing chair.

Cynthia D. Hill, a former Board member and Gettysburg Friend since 1996, retired as Chief Program Officer of the District of Columbia Bar, after working over three decades to expand its programs and develop its strategy. Hill also served as Director of the Election Services and Litigation Division of the League of Women Voters Education Fund. She holds a Juris Doctor degree from Georgetown University Law Center.

Thavolia Glymph, Ph.D., professor of history and law at Duke University, specializes in nineteenth-century social history in the U.S. South. Glymph is the author of Out of the House of Bondage: The Transformation of the Plantation Household and The Women’s Fight: The Civil War’s

Battles for Home, Freedom, and Nation. She is an Organization of American Historians Distinguished Lecturer, an elected member of the Society of American Historians, the American Antiquarian Society, and currently serves as the 86th President of the Southern Historical Association.

Hal Kushner, M.D., served in the U.S. Army from 1965 to 1977 as military flight surgeon, retiring from the Army Reserve in 1986 as a colonel. Dr. Kushner spent five-and-a-half years as a POW in Vietnam. He received the Silver Star, the Soldiers’ Medal, the Bronze Star, the Air Medal, 3rd award, the Purple Heart, 3rd award, the Army Commendation Medal, and was inducted into the Army Aviation Hall of Fame in April 2001. Now an accomplished ophthalmologist in Daytona Beach, Fla., Dr. Kushner has served as a visiting surgeon in Peru, Turkey, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, India, and Africa.

Richard A. Morin retired as the Executive Vice President for Finance and Administration and Chief Financial Officer after nearly two decades with Cognex, a leading global provider of machine vision software products. Morin is a Certified Public Accountant. He serves on several non-profit boards, including the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library Foundation.

Charles “Cliff” Bream, whose family goes back eight generations in Adams County, is a seasoned executive and turnaround expert with more than 30 years of experience leading companies in the telecommunications, computer, office products, and packaged

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goods sectors, including Xerox and Epson.

“Richard and Cliff are both enthusiastic citizen-historians who also bring deep business acumen to our board,” Schultz said.

Members of the Gettysburg Foundation Board of Directors serve a three-year term and are eligible to serve three consecutive terms.

“History, law, strategy, education, program development, business expertise—from New England, the Southeast, and the West Coast. This is an extraordinary class of new directors committed to the mission of the Gettysburg National Military Park and our Foundation,” Schultz added.

The Board also named Michael Higgins, Sandra Mellon, and George Will, Ph.D., as Director Emeriti.

“Mike, Sandy, and George have all made substantial contributions to the Foundation over the last decade,” Schultz said. “We look forward to their continued close involvement in our mission.”

Completing his seventh year as a Director and third as Board Chair, Schultz was elected at the May meeting to the class of 2023 emeriti.

“I believe in the work of the Foundation and the Gettysburg National Military Park and look

forward to supporting Dr. Moen and our new Board,” Schultz added.

Schultz is the former Chair and CEO of Sensitech, a former CEOpartner with Ascent Ventures and author of four books, including (with Michael Tougias) King Philip’s War: The History of America’s Forgotten Conflict and most recently, Innovation on Tap: Stories of Entrepreneurship from the Cotton Gin to Broadway’s Hamilton.

The Foundation’s Board of Directors approved its next Chair, James Hanni. Hanni, a current Board member and member of the Friends of Gettysburg, is the retired Vice President of Public Affairs of AAA Club Alliance, Inc., an affiliate club of the American Automobile Association. Previously, he served as the Chair of the Gettysburg Foundation’s Membership Committee and Board Secretary.

“We are so pleased to be led by Jim Hanni, who brings both corporate and non-profit experience and years of passion for this place as a long-standing Friend of Gettysburg,” said Dr. Matthew Moen, President of the Foundation. “We are so grateful for three years of dedicated service by outgoing Board Chair, Eric Schultz, who ably steered us through a time of transition for the Park and the Foundation

alike, helping drive a host of preservation and education achievements.”

“I am so honored to be involved with the Gettysburg Foundation and serve in the shadow of the legacy that the original Board, under the leadership of Bob and Anne Kinsley, launched nearly 15 years ago,” said Hanni. “The partnership created between the National Park Service and the Gettysburg Foundation to ‘enhance the preservation and understanding of the heritage and lasting significance of Gettysburg and the National Parks,’ has been abundantly fruitful for Gettysburg’s parks. We look, with confidence and pride, for new ways to support the Park in the pursuit of the mission. Our Board looks forward to finding those pathways of support together with the Park.” At the meeting, the Board of Directors also ratified its Executive Committee members.

• James R. Hanni, Chair

• Matthew C. Moen, Ph.D., President and CEO

• W. Craig Bashein, Vice Chair

• Barbara J. Finfrock, Vice Chair

• A.J. Kazimi, Secretary

• Shanon R. Toal, Jr., Treasurer

The Gettysburg Foundation Board of Directors is scheduled to hold its next meeting in the

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The 2020 Civil War Dealers Directory is out. To view or download a free copy: www.civilwardealers.com/dealers.htm

100 Significant Civil War Photographs: Atlanta Campaign collection of George Barnard’s camera work. Most of the photographs are from Barnard’s time in Atlanta, mid-September to mid-November 1864, during the Federal occupation of the city. With this volume, Stephen Davis advances the scholarly literature of Barnardiana.

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by Sarah Kay Bierle

“The moment I saw them, I knew we should give them Fredericksburg,” declared Captain Henry Livermore Abbott, recalling when he spotted the Confederate infantry advancing to attack the Union center the afternoon of July 3, 1863. The Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble Charge moved across nearly a mile of open fields, destined to meet a devastating fate. Some Union soldiers waiting along the stonewall could have used their experience six months earlier to warn the gray-clad troops, but it was no time for warnings. The soldiers of the 20th Massachusetts recognized a moment for revenge, a change to pay back the losses suffered on the plains in front of Marye’s Heights.

At both battles, the 20th Massachusetts, “The Harvard Regiment,” fought in the Third Brigade, Second Division, II Corps. Formed in 1861 and initially including many university graduates and students, the volunteer unit served until the end of the war and suffered the most casualties of any Massachusetts regiment. The unit had battle experience from Ball’s Bluff, the Peninsula Campaign, and Antietam by December 1862 when they stood on Stafford Heights, looking across the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg, an open plain, and Marye’s Heights rising to the west.

On Dec. 11, 1862, the 20th crossed the Rappahannock under fire and help secure a Union foothold on the Fredericksburg side, pushing Barksdale’s Confederates back and allowing completion of the pontoon bridge at the Upper Crossing. Forming on Hawke Street, the regiment received orders to “clear the street leading from the bridge at all hazards.” Supported by two other regiments, the Harvard Boys plunged into the fight, driving back the Confederates and securing the Federal grip at the Upper Crossing. That night and the following day some tended to the wounded, others took advantage of the situation to plunder homes or have impromptu concerts on pianos left behind by fleeing civilians. Another day of combat dawned on December 13, one that would be etched in the minds of the regiment’s survivors.

From Marye’s Heights, standing west of Fredericksburg’s close streets, Colonel Edward

“Give Them Fredericksburg”: The 20th Massachusetts at Gettysburg

P. Alexander’s guns trained a crossfire over open ground that Union infantry would have to cross to reach the high ground. Below the heights, in a sunken road, Confederate infantry from Longstreet’s Corps waited to add their rifle fire to the defense.

French and Hancock’s Divisions from the II Corps made the early assaults. Howard’s Division, including the Third Brigade with the 20th Massachusetts followed in the footsteps of their unsuccessful attacks. Around 1p.m., their brigade went into action, deploying in line of battle after crossing the infamous millrace that cut across the open ground.

Anchoring on William Street, the 20th Massachusetts formed the brigade’s right flank with their attack aimed at rifle pits along the heights, not the actual Sunken Road further down the line.

The Harvard Boys advanced about sixty yards under artillery and rifle fire, then stood fast, and returned fire. Other regiments in the brigade fell back, and for a little while the 20th stood alone, unwilling to retreat and suffering heavy casualties. “The Twentieth Massachusetts stood firm and returned the fire of the enemy, till I had, with the assistance of my staff and other officers, reformed the line and commenced a second advance,” recalled Colonel Hall, the brigade’s commander.

Twice, the regiment advanced. The 20th “showed the matchless courage and discipline,” but courage and training would not prevail against the deadly crossfire; the brigade finally fell back to the millrace where they held a position into the night. Despite the risks, some soldiers crawled back into the field and dragged wounded comrades to safety under the cover of darkness. According to their official records, the regiment lost 163, over half the 307 men they had in the ranks when the battle began; the majority were lost in the assault on Marye’s Heights.

Nearly six months later, the 20th Massachusetts laid low on July 3, 1863, as a terrific cannonade shook the ground. Across open fields, Alexander’s Confederate artillery again pounded the Union army, but this time the roles were reversed. Federal troops waited in defense; the Confederates could make the attack.

Captain Henry L. Abbott described the afternoon in his battle report: “After the cessation of the enemy’s artillery fire, their

infantry advanced in large force. The men were kept lying on their bellies, without firing a shot, until. . .the enemy having got within 3 or 4 rods of us, when the regiment rose up and delivered two or three volleys, which broke the rebel regiment opposite us entire to pieces, leaving only scattered groups. When the enemy’s advance was first checked by our fire, they tried to return it, but with little effect, hitting only 4 or 5 men. We were feeling all the enthusiasm of victory, the men shouting out, “Fredericksburg,” imagining the victory as complete as everywhere else as it was in front for the Third Brigade.”

However, disaster loomed for the Union line as Confederate units broke through. Quickly, the officers of 20th Massachusetts repositioned the men, where “the enemy poured in a severe musketry fire, and at the clump of trees they burst also several shells, so that our loss was very heavy, more than half the enlisted men of the regiment being killed or disabled while there remained but 3 our of 13 officers. .

.

. Notwithstanding these adverse circumstances, the men of this command kept so well together that after the contest near the trees, which last half an hour or so was ended, I was enabled to collect. . . nearly all the surviving men of the regiment and returned them to their original place in the pits.”

The cost had been heavy for the 20th Massachusetts, but they had helped hold and secure the Federal line on Cemetery Ridge. The reputation of their unit had been forged on many fierce battlefields, but in these soldiers’ minds Fredericksburg had been the moment that prepared them for Gettysburg. Feelings of relief and revenge prompted the chant “Fredericksburg, Fredericksburg” as they poured a shocking volley into the Confederate infantry in front of their position near the center of the line at Gettysburg.

The battle in central Virginia six months earlier had left a deep impression on the 20th Massachusetts soldiers. Their urban attack, assault on Marye’s Heights, and horrifying night on the battlefield left that town’s name as the place where they fought against terrible odds with a foe most probably never got close enough to see. On a ridge in Pennsylvania, they had their moment of payback, and they knew it. They gave them

“Fredericksburg” and all the tragedy, carnage, and horror that word had come to symbolize for those survivors from Massachusetts.

Sarah Kay Bierle serves on staff at Central Virginia Battlefields Trust. CVBT is dedicated to preserve hallowed ground at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, The Wilderness,

and Spotsylvania Court House. To learn more about this grassroots preservation non-profit, please visit: www.cvbt.org.

Captain Henry L. Abbott recognized his regiment would unleash "Fredericksburg" on the advancing Confederates at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863.

The 20th Massachusetts Monument stands near The Angle at Gettysburg. Public Domain.

Isaac Hollis & Sons (formerly Hollis & Sheath)

The English Gun Trade has families that overlap and intertwine over the course of the decades, and in some cases centuries, while they are in the trade. There are many cases where nephews share the same names as uncles, eldest sons with fathers, etc., J.E. Barnett commercial gunmaking firm is a great example of this. Reconstructing the Isaac Hollis story is somewhat complicated because it was a family with several branches in the Birmingham Gun Trade. The seminal gun-maker William Hollis was born in 1777 and established his business in 1807 at St Mary's Row; he was recorded there until 1811. He most likely had at least one brother, Richard Hollis, in the firm.

There was also a nephew named Richard Hollis (1829-1853).

Around 1814 William and his brother moved to 73 Bath Street and did business as Richard & William Hollis at Bath Street until 1829. In 1838 the firm became William Hollis & Sons, but reverted back to a sole proprietorship as William Hollis in 1839 when sons Frederick and Isaac formed Hollis Bros & Company. When William Hollis died in 1856 at the age of 79 he claimed to be the oldest manufacturer and contractor in Birmingham.

In 1829 William’s brother Richard Hollis opened his own premises at 3 Lench Street. In 1833 Richard also occupied 20 St Mary's Row, but for a short time only. In 1847 Richard moved from Lench Street to 79 Weaman Street, and it appears that he teamed up with Christopher Hollis, possibly a brother or son,

as the record is not clear. This firm is no longer recorded after 1853.

The firm of Hollis Brothers & Co started trading from 11 Weaman Row in 1839. The partners were Isaac Hollis and Frederick Hollis. The well-known pistol maker William Tranter, also a member of Birmingham Small Arms Trade, was apprenticed to the firm of Hollis Bros & Co. at the age of 14. Tranter left Hollis Bros in 1839. He went into partnership with John Hollis at 1011 Weaman Row between 1844 and 1849, and then with Isaac Brentnall Sheath from 1845.

The firm of Hollis & Sheath, a partnership of John Hollis and Isaac Brentnall Sheath formed in Birmingham, England, was located at 10-11 Weaman Row in 1844 through 1850, then 49 Whittall Street through 1853, and finally at 5-11 Weaman Row from 18531861. The firm stopped trading as Hollis Bros in 1848 some years after the death of Frederick Hollis. Hollis & Sheath Company was the name of the firm when it was involved in setting up the first Ordnance contracts for the

Enfield pattern 1853 and later as founding members of the Birmingham Small Arms Trade. Around 1861 the firm became Isaac Hollis & Sons and claimed establishment from 1814, however their immediate predecessor was the firm of Hollis & Sheath. Isaac Hollis & Sons were recorded in 1861 through 1900 after which time the firm became Hollis, Bentley & Playfair. When the first Ordnance Department contract for Enfield long rifles was placed with Birmingham gun makers in October 1853, the responsibility for “setting up” or assembling he weapons fell to four firms, one of which was Hollis & Sheath. They were supplied by names familiar to students of the Civil War Enfield. We have previously examined in detail the outworker system of manufacture of Birmingham in use by gun makers. The piecemeal system resulted in delays when a lack

of standardization with the component parts led to problems in manufacturing the arms. Even with sealed patterns and government inspections at the “Tower,” tolerances were sloppy and much work had to be rejected. Ironically, the original four firms selected as “setters up” (including Hollis & Sheath) had to default on their obligation due to a lack of enough rear ladder sights; other makers were found to finish the orders, including Deane, Adams & Deane, and Wm. Tranter. Hollis was not strictly dependent on military arms, as an advertisement from the late 1860s suggests that if it shoots, Isaac Hollis could probably make it for you:

ISAAC HOLLIS & SONS (late Hollis & Sheath) Manufacturers of Every Description of Breech or Muzzle Loading Sporting & Military Guns, Rifles, Pistols, Revolvers &c., A Large Finished

Isaac Hollis & Sons Limited advertisement. Courtesy Grace Guide, UK.

Stock always on hand of BreechLoading Double Guns and Double Rifles for Central Fire or Pin Cartridges; MuzzleLoading Single and Double guns, at all prices from the lowest; Military Rifles of all kinds, Long and Short Enfield, Cavalry and Artillery; Pistols &c.; BreechLoading Military and Sporting Rifles on 'Snider's,' 'Chassepot's,' "Major Fosbery's,' 'Green's,' and other Patented Systems; Gun Cases and Implements, Portable Leather Cases, Holsters &c. Manufactory 5 to 11 Weaman Row, Birmingham, established 1814.

You can tell a good deal about a business from court records of the time and what activities landed them before a judge. Samuel and Saul Isaac of the commission house of SIC & Co were in court quite often. The assassination attempt on Emperor Napoleon in January 1858 by two Italian revolutionaries (Pierri & Orsini) involved bomb components made in England. The two would be assassins were armed with Adams revolvers made by Hollis & Sheath. France began threatening overtures to invade “Perfidious Albion” in retribution, which directly led to the 2nd formation of the British Volunteers to address

the so-called “Crisis of 1858.” Fortunately for militarily disaster-prone French, cooler heads prevailed. At the April 1858 trial of the conspirators, gun maker Isaac Hollis was called to give testimony, which took an amusing turn under cross examination, as follows:

Examined by the AttorneyGeneral—State your name and occupation.

Isaac Hollis —I am a manufacturer of guns and pistols at Birmingham. On the 29th of October last (1857) two persons came to me and purchased two revolvers. I have since seen both those persons in prison at Paris. The Director of the prison, or the Governor, I do not know his name, pointed out two persons to me; they were Pierri and Orsini. They purchased two revolvers, each with five chambers. This is one of them (looking at one produced by Estien), the numbers are 5,609 and 5,561. This is the other (looking at it). Each of them had a case or box with implements complete. Those are the cases (those produced by Estien); the price was 95 (this should probably be shillings) each, including the boxes, all complete. Orsini paid, and we sent them to the hotel in Worcester Street in

our town, to Mr. Pierri. Orsini then wore a beard that had disappeared when I saw him in Paris in prison.

(Cross-examined by James)

James – Revolvers lately have come a good deal into use, have they not?

Hollis – They have.

James – Are they used more than other pistols, should you say?

Hollis – I should say so, now much more than ever.

James – They were used, as we know, a good deal in the Russian War; almost every officer in the army is now provided with them.

Hollis – I believe they are.

James – How many may you make in the course of a year?

Hollis - I could not tell you, some hundreds.

James – It [the revolver] is an American invention, is it not?

Hollis – Not at all…

James – I thought they took the credit of it.

Hollis – Not at all, these are Adam's patent.

Isaac Hollis & Sons became volume producers of military guns and inexpensive trade guns, but they also made quality sporting guns for the South African as well as the Asian/Indian markets, the Australian and New

Zealand markets, and the domestic English civilian market. In 1861 Isaac Hollis, by now at least 66 years old, patented a trigger guard (No. 1082) and he patented another in 1868 (No. 4922) when he was over 73. Other patents for the firm include Patent No. 386 of 21 Feb.1855, and 3,036 of 22 Dec. 1856, for F. Prince's Percussion Breech-loading arms. This license was taken over by the London Armoury Co. Ltd. in 1861, probably at the time Hollis and Sheath were reorganized into Isaac Hollis and Sons. Isaac Brentnall Sheath was granted British Patent No 996 in April 1853 for a percussion revolver. Isaac Hollis was granted British Patent No. 1083, 1 May 1861 for a Trigger Guard Construction; he also registered Design No. 4922 on May 18, 1868, for a Trigger Guard design; presumably while Isaac Sheath was no longer a named partner after 1861, although he was still affiliated with the firm as late as 1868. A later court case which caused a lot of comment in the Gun Trade concerned a rival firm charged with conspiracy to defraud J. Hollis & Greener by stamping the firm’s names on sporting guns they sold as genuine articles. Both Greener and Hollis sued and recovered damages.

Craig L. Barry was born in Charlottesville, Va. He holds his BA and Masters degrees from the University of North Carolina (Charlotte). Craig served The Watchdog Civil War Quarterly as Associate Editor and Editor from 2003–2017. The Watchdog published books and columns on 19th-century material and donated all funds from publications to battlefield preservation. He is the author of several books including The Civil War Musket: A Handbook for Historical Accuracy (2006, 2011), The Unfinished Fight: Essays on Confederate Material Culture Vol. I and II (2012, 2013) and three books (soon to be four) in the Suppliers to the Confederacy series on English Arms & Accoutrements, Quartermaster stores and other European imports.

Wiley Sword, regarded as an esteemed scholar, respected as a gentleman, and known for authoring many Civil War books, also collected period documents and letters. Wiley passed away in November 2015. This writer misses conferring with a trusted source and friend. On several occasions, when working on a project, a call to Wiley would always yield fruit; a never seen quote from a soldier who just managed to survive an engagement, an observation from an officer regarding thoughts on one of his peers.

The list could continue, as will the legacy of Wiley Sword!

Before Sword's death, the Pamplin Historical Park and The National Museum of the Civil War Soldier worked out an arrangement to secure, archive, and eventually enable researchers, globally, to benefit from the several thousand documents in Wiley's collection. In late May 2020, Pamplin Park announced completion of the initial digitization effort and the creation of a new section on the park's website. Please see the respective page,

shown right, and visit https:// phparchives.wordpress.com/civil-war-documents/ to view the first crop of letters. As the park staff continues to digitize additional letters and documents, the harvest will only ripen!

As of this writing (late May 2020), 45 letters exist on the site; Federal accounts thus far. Wiley had a soft spot for the common soldier and compiled his collection to augment his research and writing. Do not let the absence of “big names” from the war disappoint. Is anyone familiar with Colonel William R. “Pecos Bill” Shafter of the 17th U.S. Colored Troops? If not, thanks to Wiley and Pamplin, he lives on. Shafter’s letter after the December 1864 Battle of Nashville, one written to his sister, carried the unfortunate news of the death of her husband, Job. The letter captures the pain and suffering families experienced, North and South, after the loss of a loved one. Remembering the fallen, the colonel lamented, "He was as dear to me as either of my own brothers. It was an awful battle, Sis, and we are of the many who are called to mourn.” In closing, he noted, “The good die first, while those whose hearts are dry as summer dust burn to the socket.” For each of the letters populating the site, Pamplin staff and interns have provided an image of the actual document and an overview of the letter’s content. (Also included, in bold print, a synopsis of the soldier’s career—thank you, Wiley!) Bookmark this site and check back frequently, as the digitization work continues. For those researchers who may wish to use a letter image in work for publication, the site provides an image-use request form and contact instructions to obtain additional information. Whenever safe to do so (COVID-19), plan a visit

Transcription of Shafter letter.

to this beautiful historic site, and explore (in addition to the excellent museum and battlefield site) their research library of over 3,000 volumes. For more information on Pamplin, visit www. pamplinpark.org.

Next month, we will investigate additional primary sources. Until then, good luck in researching the Civil War!

Michael K. Shaffer is a Civil War historian, author, lecturer, instructor, and a member of the Society of Civil War Historians, the Historians of the Civil War Western Theater, and the Georgia Association of Historians. Readers may contact him at mkscdr11@gmail.com, or to request speaking engagements, via his website www.civilwarhistorian.net. Follow Michael on Facebook www.facebook.com/ michael.k.shaffer and Twitter @ michaelkshaffer.

Wiley Sword Collection at Pamplin Park

Image of Shafter letter.

by Bruce Allardice and Wayne L. Wolf

Nathaniel Collins McLean (1815–1905) was a Cincinnati lawyer, farmer, and Union army general, the son of Supreme Court Justice John McLean. A Harvard Law School graduate, he helped organize the 75th Ohio Infantry and became its colonel. He saw action under General Fremont in western Virginia and with the Army of the Potomac. Later in the war he led a brigade in Sherman’s army. He was promoted to Brigadier General in 1862.

Throughout the war he wrote numerous letters to his second wife, Mary Louise Thompson (1835–1908).1 McLean had 13 children by his two wives. The letter below, written in the last month of the war, mingles news of the war with homesickness and doubts about the couple’s future. Newly discovered, and never before published, this letter shares the confidence of one of Sherman’s generals that the war would soon end.

Everything Looks Bright for Us

to me. It is the latest news I have had from you and was gladly received although you will persist in encouraging me by doubting the strength of my love for you. I have so often given you the strongest assurance of my entire devotion that I know not in what way to give you more convincing proof, unless I leave the service. I feel greatly tempted to do this even against my own judgment, for I cannot bear to feel that you are so miserable without feeling the strongest inclination to sacrifice everything for the sake of making you happy in your own way. Did I not doubt this result of my acting as you wish, there would be little to keep my [sic] longer in the service. I have not yet been able to convince myself that my whole duty has been performed by serving up to this time, bit [sic] setting this aside let us look at some other matters which concern both you and I equally. You know that when I resign my pay at once ceases and this lessens our income some three thousand dollars at once.3 It will be impossible for me to make up this deficiency by the practice of my profession for some considerable time, and even then I must be very fortunate to do so. You find great difficulty in getting along now, but to what we will be reduced then.

to enable them to get into some business.4 Small as this compensation would be, it would afford time to get at something.

I know that you will answer me by speaking of the danger I run in battle, and your argument is a strong one, but I reply that the end of life does not depend upon the situation in which we are placed, but the will of God. He can preserve me in the midst of danger or strike me down whilst I am peacefully at home I trust that I may be preserved, and permitted to return home in peace and happiness. I ma trying to perform my duty, and when the war is over you will love me all the batter for having done so. Did I alone consult my inclination, nothing could keep me from you, for it would be my greatest happiness to go to you without a moment’s delay.

has returned from a consultation with Genl. Grant, and we may expect very soon to move forward. We are making every effort to get the men properly equipped for another campaign, which I hope will end the war. Everything looks bright for us. Every battle of any moment seems now to terminate in our favor. A few more such fights with a like result as that of Fort Steadman by Grant and the Rebels must quit for want of soldiers.

Love to your Ma, Lindy8 and the children. With loving good night kiss to my darling little wife.

McLean

To: Mrs. N. C McLean, Glendale, Ohio.

Endnotes:

10, 1865.

5. Probably English-born Benjamin Morgan (1823–98), Colonel of McLean’s old regiment, the 75th Ohio.

6. Probably Samuel B. Allen (1817–79), wealthy drug manufacturer and a neighbor of the McLeans in Glendale, Ohio.

7. His son Jacob Burnet McLean (1841–1926), a banker.

8. Malinda Thompson, Mrs. McLean’s sister.

Bruce S. Allardice is Professor of History at South Suburban College in Illinois. He is a past president of the Civil War Round Table of Chicago.

Head Qrs. 2nd Division, 23rd A. C. Camp near Mosely Hall, N.C.2

April 1st, 1865

Long after I had written you my usual daily letter last night, Dear wife, and gone to bed, your letter of the 23rd inst. Was brought

I know that you feel willing to make any necessary sacrifice in order to have me home, but I fear you do not realize the reality. For myself to see my family so shortened from the comforts we have always enjoyed would be to me a source of great trouble. But this would not be the worst we would have to fear, for my resigning before the end of the war may so injure me that my business prospects may be seriously interfered with and I may have to plod on[,] a laborious and unsuccessful lawyer to the end. I have thought very seriously of all these things Dear Wife, not with the selfish feeling that I alone might suffer for that has little to do with it, but it is my wife and children who will suffer and the thought of them holds me back in the hope that the war will soon end, and then I can quit under the most favorable circumstances, with perhaps some reward from the government. There was a Bill before Congress giving three month’s pay to those officers who remain in the service until the close of the war. I do not know whether it passed or not, but something of that sort I have no doubt will be done in order to give a support for a little while to officers

To day I received your letter of the 16th of last month, and in it you mention Col. Morgan.5 Has he paid you the two hundred dollars I loaned him at Wilmington? By this time he has no doubt gone home and this money will help you a little. It is stranger Mr. Allen6 does not answer my letter. You had better get Burnet7 to see him and ask for an answer. I do not think it would be well to sell the place at auction, but judge we can do better at private sale. You speak of renting the place for $800 and taxes. I think this is too little unless rents have fallen, but at this distance it is folly for me to attempt to give a correct opinion. If you should rent the place, when could you go yourself? Would not have to pay more than $800 for another house not as good? I think perhaps we had better hold on and try to sell rather than rent unless you before hand know exactly what you can do to make yourself comfortable.

I would not raise Conrad’s wages but let him go if he will not stay at the present price. I [sicit] would be much cheaper to sell our horses and buy vegetables than increase his wages, and in fact keep him at all. If I should come home the first thing I would do would be to cut off our stables and do without horses.

Can you tell me how our fruit promises this year? Perhaps the pears may bear a crop and help us out of our difficulty. I am glad you have sent my summer underclothing by Mr. Morgan for I shall need them very soon. My present winter clothing is in very bad order and shall be compelled to give it up very soon because it will not hold together any longer.

As yet we have no marching orders by [sic but] Genl. Sherman

1. March 1865 McLean letters were published in June 2018’s Civil War News.

2. Mosely Hall (now LaGrange, NC) is just west of Kinston.

3. A Brigadier’s pay was $315 per month. It appears the McLean family, quite wealthy prior to the war, was feeling the pinch, even with a general’s salary.

4. The law mentioned passed March 3, 1865. See Appropriations Act of March 3, 1865, Section 4, Mentioned in the National Republican, March

Wayne L. Wolf is past president of the Lincoln-Davis Civil War Roundtable.

Nathaniel Collins McLean. Families, p. 84. National Archives.

Mary Louise Thompson

Digital Issues of CWN are available by subscription alone or with print plus CWN archives at

July 6, 1863 Clashes at Hagerstown and Williamsport Chronicled

by Carl L. Sell Jr.

Not enough has been written about it, but the Civil War cavalry activities in and around Hagerstown, Md., on Sunday, July 6, 1863, were extremely important to the Confederate effort to leave Pennsylvania after the Battle of Gettysburg.

Union cavalry threatened Confederate wagons lined up along the Potomac River at Williamsport, Md., waiting for high water to subside so they could cross and reach safety on the Virginia side. A thin defense line made up of the Eighteenth Virginia Cavalry, the Sixty-Second Virginia Mounted Infantry, and the Virginia Partisan Rangers, backed by wagon drivers and walking wounded, as well as 23 cannon, helped Brigadier General John Imboden repulse an attack by Union Brigadier General John Buford and his cavalry.

The Eighteenth Virginia Cavalry was led by Colonel George W. Imboden, the general’s son. Earlier during the retreat, the younger Imboden saved his father from capture near Greencastle, Penn. Colonel George H. Smith led the Sixty-Second while the Virginia Partisan Rangers were headed by Captain H. H. McNeill.

Meanwhile Union riders under Brigadier General Judson Kilpatrick occupied Hagerstown, just six miles to the north. The two Union brigadiers met earlier that day on the Boonsboro Road

and planned a two-pronged attack on the Confederate wagon train.

Kilpatrick was full of himself, having claimed the destruction of Ewell’s wagon train at Monterrey Pass the night of July 4-5. Officers under Brigadier General George Custer said they were able to penetrate Ewell’s train, destroying and capturing many wagons full of supplies and wounded. However, they were not able to prevent the bulk of Ewell’s wagons from reaching the river. Imboden said: “At the end of this long day of desultory fighting and harassment, the train was rolling into Williamsport, having lost only a handful of wagons to the enemy.”

After replenishing ammunition near Frederick early on July 6, Buford pushed westward toward Williamsport. Along the way he met Kilpatrick, who had broken contact with General Jeb Stuart’s cavalry at Smithsburg the previous evening. Kilpatrick led his column north toward Hagerstown before planning to join Buford at nearby Williamsport and destroy the Confederate wagons before the bulk of the Southern infantry would arrive.

Stuart did not leave the Gettysburg area until July 5, opting to wait out heavy rain the previous night. His force was depleted by battle losses, tired horses, and low ammunition. In his absence, Kilpatrick passed through Emmitsburg and attacked the

Confederate wagon train before the Confederate cavalry got underway.

Stuart sent two brigades under Major General Fitzhugh Lee to guard the flank of the wagons using the Cashtown Road. Stuart and the rest of the command rode into Emmitsburg on the morning of July 5, then continued on a circuitous route through the Catoctin and South Mountain passes. He didn’t catch up with Kilpatrick until that night in Smithsburg. After a short artillery duel, Kilpatrick retreated toward the Boonsboro Road.

That same night, Stuart sent a courier to General Lee, moved his force toward Leitersburg, where he received a reply and information from scouts the following morning. According to his report, Stuart was convinced Kilpatrick had moved toward Boonsboro, so he planned to position himself between the Yankees and the retreat route.

Stuart sent Colonel John Chambliss and Brigadier General Beverly Robertson’s brigades toward Hagerstown. Shortly thereafter, he learned that Kilpatrick was moving westward along the Boonsboro Road and elements of his command had occupied Hagerstown. Stuart ordered brigades led by Brigadier General William (Grumble) Jones and Colonel Milton Ferguson, along with artillery, toward the town.

Ferguson was filling in for Brigadier General Jenkins, who had been wounded July 2.

Stuart wrote about his thoughts at that point in his report:

“I felt sure that the enemy’s designs were directed against Williamsport, where, I was informed by General Jones, our wagons were congregated in a narrow space at the foot of a hill, near the river, which was too much swollen to admit their passage to the south bank.

“I therefore urged on all sides a most vigorous attack to save our trains at Williamsport. Our force was very perceptibly much smaller than the enemy’s, but by a bold and determined attack, with a reliance of that help which has never failed me, I hoped to raise the siege of Williamsport, if, as I believed that was the real object of the enemy’s designs.

“Hagerstown is six miles from Williamsport, the country in between being almost entirely cleared, but intersected by innumerable fences and ditches.”

When a regiment from Colonel Chambliss’ brigade approached Hagerstown, it was attacked by several Union regiments, according to Colonel Richard Lee Tuberville Beale, the commander of the Ninth Virginia Cavalry. The Tenth Virginia Cavalry made the first contact, then retreated north of town where a contingent of Confederate infantry

was posted behind a stone fence. Cavalrymen with carbines were ordered to dismount and join the infantrymen and drive the enemy from the town.

The Confederate infantry, according to Stuart’s report, was part of a North Carolina brigade under the command of Brigadier General Alfred Iverson Jr. The North Carolinians had been badly mauled, losing 900 killed on July 1. The Federals at Hagerstown were led by Colonel Nathaniel P. Richmond, who took command of the Third Cavalry Division’s First Brigade after Brigadier Elon Farnsworth had been killed near Big Round Top on July 3.

Fighting raged house to house and on the grounds of churches and cemeteries in the town until Federals from the First West Virginia Cavalry charged up Main Street. It was met by a volley from the Confederate infantry, then charged by cavalry, and driven into a nearby field and captured. The Ninth and Thirteenth Virginia Cavalry then occupied Main Street. The Fifth New York and First Vermont Cavalry also were involved in the fight with the former suffering “significant” casualties. Some of the First Vermont, who fought as sharpshooters, were cut off; they sought refuge in nearby houses of Union sympathizers, who outfitted them in civilian clothes. Legend has it that Private Antipas Curtis of Company D tipped his hat to General Lee as he subsequently marched through town.

General Stuart arrived on the scene late in the afternoon and immediately organized an attack south of town with the Tenth and Thirteenth Virginia regiments in the lead. After about a mile, Federal guns placed on the crest of a hill began firing. Colonel Beale reported that Lieutenant James Kendall Ball and Sergeant Richard Washington, one of three grandnephews of George Washington in the Ninth Virginia Cavalry, were in the lead.

“Upon nearing the summit, and not over twenty paces from the muzzle of the guns, the last charge of canister, before escaping from the net of wire which enclosed it, struck one of our men in front, who reeling, fell heavily to the ground,” Beale wrote.

Thinking his son (Lieutenant Richard Channing Beale) had been shot; Colonel Beale stopped and unloaded his pistol at the Federal line. Stuart went to the head of the column, got his men all pointed in the right direction, waved his sword and hollered “Charge.” The Yankees retreated toward Williamsport

Brig. Gen. John D. Imboden. Library of Congress.

Brig. Gen. John Buford (Maj. Gen. from July 1, 1863). Library of Congress.

before turning eastward toward Boonsboro along with Buford’s command.

Colonel Beale returned to the spot where he thought his son had been shot and found instead that it was Sergeant Washington who lay dead in the arms of his weeping brother, Lawrence. Colonel Beale ordered his son to see that the remains of his fallen comrade were taken across the river and back to Westmoreland County.

During the early fighting, Captain Ulrich Dahlgren of the Eighteenth Pennsylvania Cavalry, the son of Rear Admiral John A. Dahlgren, was wounded in his right leg; that was eventually amputated. He recovered and was killed early the next year during the controversial “Dahlgren Raid” that focused on capturing Richmond and eliminating the Confederate high command.

Captain Nathaniel Rollins of the Second Wisconsin Infantry was among Union prisoners being taken south after being captured when Confederates overran the Iron Brigade on July 1. He kept a diary of his activities during the war, including while in captivity. Rollins was 31 years old at the time and spent the rest of the war at Richmond’s Libby Prison. Six weeks after his release, he wrote a book about his experiences in prison. At Hagerstown, he described General Lee as he passed the prisoners:

“Genl. Lee rode past an hour since. He is quite gray, wearing full beard, appears dignified and self possessed. His salute was

very elegant and soldier like. He certainly has the external appearance of a general. He wore a blue loose coat and a black hat. Sits finely on his horse. His face indicates high living.”

At Williamsport, cavalry units headed by Fitzhugh Lee broke through Union lines and reinforced Imboden’s makeshift line of defense. The Confederate brigadier had fooled the Union advance by constantly shifting troops from one side of the line to the other to make it appear he was stronger than he was.

Despite the high water, Imboden disclosed that the Confederates had been able to get two wagon loads of ammunition across the river, adding to his firepower for both artillery and those serving as infantrymen.

General Lee assigned several batteries of artillery to Imboden’s wagon train guardians in an effort to stymie Union attacks. Imboden had at his command eight guns of the Washington Artillery of New Orleans led by Major Benjamin F. Eshleman, six headed by Captain John H. McClanahan, and four each led by Captains James F. Hart and Captain W. A. Tanner. A Whitworth long-range cannon team from Hart’s Battery was led by Colonel William (Willie)

Ransom Johnson Pegram.

In addition to wagon loads of sick and wounded, the lineup included thousands of prisoners, captured horses, forage for the animals and food for the troops. It was the last of a steady stream of captured supplies that flowed back

to Virginia during the Gettysburg campaign. Confederate records show just how effective Lee’s efforts to resupply his army from the rich Pennsylvania countryside turned out to be.

Imboden lauded three wounded Confederate officers for their help in organizing walking wounded and wagon masters into an effective defensive arrangement. They were Colonel John Logan Black, First South Carolina Cavalry, artilleryman Captain James F. Hart, also from South Carolina, and Colonel William Aylett of the Fifty-Third Virginia Infantry. Aylett, a grandson of Patrick Henry, was wounded during the cannonade prior to Pickett’s Charge. He recovered and was captured April 6, 1865, at Sailor’s Creek.

Black was ordered by General Lee to organize stragglers and what he called “game-legged cusses and wagon rats” for the defenses on July 6. He was recovering from typhoid fever. Hart’s guns, normally with Stuart’s Horse Artillery, were attached to A. P. Hill’s Third Corps on July 2 and 3.

In addition to the constant threat of attack and construction of defensive earthworks, the troops were subject to unsanitary conditions caused by dead horses and cattle. Private Isaac Baker of the Eighteenth Virginia Cavalry said many of his comrades were felled by disease and had to be evacuated along with the wounded. Two flatboats were available, allowing Imboden to send those wounded across the river who indicated they could walk to Winchester.

In his report, Brigadier General Buford said his forces had drove in the enemy’s pickets and made preparations to capture Williamsport, “The enemy was driven handsomely to within a half mile of his trains, at the town, when he came out strong enough to prevent our further progress.” He said that General Wesley Merritt’s brigade was on the right, Colonel William Gamble’s brigade on the left, and Colonel Thomas Devin’s brigade was on the left rear as reserve.

“The enemy made an attack on Gamble,” Buford wrote, “but was driven back to its stronghold.” He also said the enemy “attempted to turn our right,” but also was driven back. Just before dark, Kilpatrick’s troops gave way and passed to Buford’s rear. “The expedition had for its object the destruction of the enemy’s trains, supposed to be at Williamsport. This, I regret to say, was not accomplished. The enemy was too strong for me,” Buford concluded. He said that the Confederates

were “severely punished” for their obstinacy and “his casualties were more than quadruple mine.”

The Sixth Michigan Cavalry reported that it had been ordered to the front at Hagerstown on July 6, but upon arriving there, General Custer, having driven the enemy, ordered them back. That same day, they were engaged with the enemy at Williamsport and “were the last to leave the field, protecting our guns and holding the enemy in check while the remainder of the command fell back toward Boonsboro.”

At the end of the day, General Imboden maintained his position at Williamsport, buoyed by the arrival of Fitz Lee and his cavalry. As more infantry arrived over the next few days, the Confederates dug defensive positions between Williamsport and Falling Waters. Stuart’s troopers bivouacked on the Boonsboro Road west of Hagerstown on the night of July 6. The next day Stuart began to advance units toward the Federal lines. They encountered Federals led by General Buford at a bridge over Beaver Creek, just west of Boonsboro. The ground was too muddy for horses, so all the fighting occurred on foot. Despite claiming to be outnumbered, Stuart said his forces led by Fitz Lee, Colonel Laurence S. Baker (filling in for Rooney Lee), and Chambliss drove the Yankees back into the village.

At this point, Stuart said it became evident that the Federals were bringing up reinforcements so he ordered a withdrawal toward Funkstown. Artillery fire from Colonel Robert P. Chew’s five guns effectively blocked any Federal chance to engage the retreating Confederates. Darkness ended fighting that had lasted most of the day.

The Confederate cavalry bivouacked at Funkstown that night and spent a quiet day on the ninth. Union forces attacked on July 10 and another day of fighting on foot ensued. Seeing that his right flank was in jeopardy, Stuart pulled back to the west side of Antietam Creek, ending the day’s fighting. All was quiet on July 11 as the enemy made no movement toward Stuart’s forces. Back at Williamsport, Imboden had sent all the prisoners across the river on July 9 and what was left of the entire army north of the Potomac was dug in ready to protect the wagon train. At Falling Waters, a new pontoon bridge was being readied to carry troops, horses, and artillery across the river. On July 12, Union General George Meade’s command staff voted against an attack against the position. Meade changed his mind

two days later, but it was too late.

The night of the thirteenth was chosen for crossing the Potomac with the cavalry serving as a rear guard. Longstreet and A. P. Hill’s corps crossed at Falling Waters while Fitz Lee’s cavalry protected their rear. Longstreet’s column went first and was followed by the Confederate cavalry, who thought Hill had already crossed. Federal cavalry interfered with Hill’s subsequent crossing, and, because they were not recognized as the enemy, inflicted damage including mortally wounding Brigadier General James Pettigrew of North Carolina.

Stuart’s column crossed at the Williamsport ford with all Confederates south of the river by 8 a.m. on July 14.

The heroic actions by Imboden and Stuart at Hagerstown and Williamsport on July 6 delayed the Union cavalry’s advance on the Confederate column. They also allowed Stuart to buy more time with his stubborn fighting at Boonsboro on July 8 and Funkstown on July 10.

Historians and writers are quick to criticize Stuart for what they deemed his late arrival at Gettysburg. Never mind that the epic battle was almost an all-infantry and artillery affair, and that Lee had two cavalry brigades with him on July 1. Stuart fought the Union cavalry to standoffs on July 2 at Hunterstown and July 3 at Gettysburg’s East Cavalry Field. There is little doubt that his cavalry performance during the retreat to the Potomac allowed the Confederate army to leave Pennsylvania and Maryland with enough firepower and supplies to continue the war for almost two more years.

[Except for the last paragraph, this article is based on the Official Records, diaries, and letters relating to July 6, 1863, events of in and around Hagerstown and Williamsport, Md., as the Confederate army struggled to cross the Potomac River. There is no doubt other important documents exist that add to the engagements between the forces]

Among the Confederate wounded who safely crossed the Potomac at Williamsport were the author’s great grandfather and a great uncle. It is not clear when either crossed, by judging by the date his great grandfather reached a military hospital in far-away Danville, Va., he had to have been one of the lucky ones to cross early. Sell has written two books about his ancestors at Gettysburg and another about Major General James Ewell Brown Stuart. Sell can be reached at sellcarl@aol. com or 703-971-4716.

Maj. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick. Library of Congress.

Amid The Shriek Of Death

“Ah!” said I to a friend, “how is it possible you live here?”

“After one is accustomed to the change,” she answered, “we do not mind it; but becoming accustomed, that is the trial.” – Mary Ann Loughborough

Seizing control of the Mississippi River was part of the grand Federal strategy to split the Confederacy in two. Perched atop bluffs towering above the river, Vicksburg, Miss., foiled the plan. The Federals launched their Vicksburg Campaign in December 1862. By April 1863, six different attempts from the

north, east, and west had failed. Gen. Ulysses Grant resolved to gamble all his resources and career on an attack from the south. First, his naval resources attacked Vicksburg’s river batteries. Grant’s May 16-17 victories at Champion Hill, and Big Black River Bridge, Miss., positioned the Federals to attack Vicksburg

from the only place that had any hope of success. The movements to reach this point have been considered “one of the greatest campaigns in history.”

As the Confederates fell back to Vicksburg, Confederate Gen. John Pemberton pondered his choices. President Jefferson Davis considered the loss of Vicksburg a political, military, and personal disaster; his plantation Briarwood was in the area. Davis telegraphed Pemberton “to hold Vicksburg at all hazard,” adding that, “if besieged he would be relieved.” His commanding officer, Gen. Joseph Johnston, considered locations lost could be regained, “but an army lost was lost forever.”

Johnston warned Pemberton, “If . . . you are invested in Vicksburg, you must ultimately surrender. Under such circumstances, instead of losing both troops and place, we must, if possible, save the troops. If it is not too late, evacuate Vicksburg and its dependencies, and march to the northeast.” Pemberton still considered Vicksburg, “the most important point in the Confederacy.” He rode in silence with Maj. Samuel Henry Lockett, the only staff-officer with him. Lockett recalled, “He was very much depressed by the events of the last two days. … He finally said, ‘Just thirty years ago I began my military career by receiving my appointment to a cadetship at the U. S. Military Academy, and today – the same date – that career’s ended in disaster and disgrace.’”

On May 17, disheartened soldiers began arriving in Vicksburg. “I shall never forget that woeful sight of a beaten, demoralized army that came rushing back— humanity in the last throes of endurance”, recalled Dora Miller. “‘What can be the matter?’ we all cried, as the streets and pavements became full of these worn and tired-looking men. … The reply was: “‘We are whipped; and the Federals are after us.’”

On May 19 and 22, Grant’s men attacked Vicksburg. Instead of attacking demoralized men, 10,000 men who had not fought days earlier were ferociously defending the City. Pemberton’s reserve repulsed the Federals. Grant turned to setting up a twelve-mile siege line around the City. “The soldiers got so they bored like gophers and beavers, with a spade in one hand and a gun in the other.” As his men dug, Grant shelled Vicksburg with 220 guns and additional 100 naval guns from the river.

To protect themselves, residents sheltered in caves dug in the yellow clay hillsides. “So great was the demand for cave workmen,

that a new branch of industry sprang up and became popular.” Caves ranged from a cubby hole to many roomed dwellings outfitted with furniture, rugs, and doors. The residents kept busy by visiting the balcony of the courthouse to view the Federal batteries “amid the clump of trees on the far distant hillside,” and the gunboat in the river “that had the temerity to come down as near the town as possible.” They watched as “one of the transports had been fired by a shell, and was slowly floating down as it burned.” They would sing as “the noise of the shells threw a discord among the harmonies.” Loughborough would wonder, “How could we sing and laugh amid our suffering fellow beings—amid the shriek of death itself?”

“When the real investment began a cat could not have crept out of Vicksburg without being discovered.” The livestock Pemberton had driven into the city were gone. As hunger grew, other animals disappeared. The Mississippi may have been nearby but flowed with muddy water. Sentinels were posted around wells, so that “none might be wasted for purposes of cleanliness.” As the days passed, the hope that “Joe Johnston is coming!” was fading.

Johnston knew he lacked the troops to effectively attack Grant or mount a rescue attempt; he had serious challenges acquiring more men. Gen. Robert E. Lee was planning to take the War to the North, a venture that ended at Gettysburg. Johnston’s high regard in the Confederacy was diminishing. He ignored critics like the Mobil Register claiming Johnston was “fighting Grant daily by giving him a ‘terrible letting alone.’”

On June 28, a note was slipped under Pemberton’s door urging, “If you can’t feed us, you better surrender us, horrible as that idea is, than suffer this noble army to disgrace themselves by desertion.” On July 3, Johnston sent word that to save the army; he would create a diversion by attacking on July 7. Pemberton had intercepted messages that Grant would be attacking on July 6. Pemberton polled his officers then made his decision.

On July 3, white flags were raised as Gen. John Bowen and Col. Louis M. Montgomery rode out from the surrounded city to negotiate “terms for the capitulation of Vicksburg.” Bowen was dying of dysentery but was selected as Grant’s former neighbor and friend to facilitate negotiations. Grant sent his reply, “… Men who have shown so much endurance and courage as those

View from the Courthouse; Vicksburg, Approx. 1864; Colorization © 2020 civilwarincolor.com courtesy civilwarincolor.com/cwn. Library of Congress.

Bivouac of the 45th Illinois near the Shirley House, Vicksburg, Miss.; Colorization © 2020 civilwarincolor.com courtesy civilwarincolor.com/cwn. Smithsonian American Art Museum.

now in Vicksburg, will always challenge the respect of an adversary, and I can assure you will be treated with all the respect due to prisoners of war.” His terms were unconditional surrender.

Pemberton was holding out for his men to be paroled instead of taken prisoner. Grant’s officers urged that it would be better to parole the men then ship 30,000 POWs to northern prison camps. “There are no troops more difficult to control, officers and men, than those on parole,” Gen. Lew Wallace had written three months before. They “become lousy, ragged, despairing and totally demoralized.” Combined with logistical issues, it was decided that, “All things considered, dropping a large lump of paroled soldiers in the heart of the Confederacy might do the Confederates more harm than good.”

On July 4, Pemberton surrendered. Gen. John Logan’s 45th Ill. had dug bombproofs near the James Shirley home on the outskirts of town. His division was the first to enter the city. The men carried food they shared with the remark, “Here, Reb, I know you are starved nearly to death.” Regardless, it would be nearly 80 years before Vicksburg would resume Fourth of July celebrations.

Congratulations poured in for Grant. Perhaps the most

rewarding was from a writer who acknowledged disagreements with Grant’s strategy. “I never had any faith, except a general hope that you knew better than I.”

The letter ended with President Abraham Lincoln admitting, “I now wish to make the personal acknowledgement that you were right and I was wrong.”

Sources:

• Loughborough, Mary Ann. My Cave Life in Vicksburg With Letters of Trial and Travel: D. Appleton and Company. 1864

• Korn, Jerry. The Civil War: War on Mississippi: Time Life Books. 1985

• White Jr, Ronald C.. American

Ulysses: A Life of Ulysses

S. Grant: Random House Publishing Group. 2016

• Symonds, Craig L.. Joseph

E. Johnston: A Civil War

Biography: W. W. Norton & Company. 2015

• Catton, Bruce. U. S. Grant: The Civil War Years: Grant Moves South: Open Road Media. 2015 Stephanie Hagiwara is the editor for Civil War in Color.com and Civil War in 3D.com. She also writes a column for History in Full Color. com that covers stories of photographs of historical interest from the 1850’s to the present. Her articles can be found on Facebook, Tumblr and Pinterest.

The American Civil War was the rst war in which both sides widely used entrenchments, repeating ri es, ironclad warships, and telegraphed communications. It was also the rst American War to be extensively photographed. Mathew Brady, Alexander Gardner and Timothy O’Sullivan are famous for having made iconic photographs in the Civil War’s eastern theater. George N. Barnard deserves to be ranked in this top tier for his photographic work in the war’s western theater. A civilian photographer hired by Gen. William T. Sherman’s chief engineer to take pictures of forti cations around Atlanta, Barnard took several hundred of them in and around the city in the fall of 1864. His most famous is the site of Union Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson’s death in the battle of Atlanta, July 22, 1864. Thus far, no comprehensive, de nitive listing has been made of the photographer’s work. For this book we have chosen a hundred images we deem “signi cant.”

128 page Paperb ac k: $19.95 (+$3.50 S & H)

Ordering info: $19.95 plus $3.50 s&h South Carolina residents add 9% sales tax Mail

“The best little book on Barnard”

West Point

The Graphic War highlights prints and printmakers from the Civil War discussing their meaning and most importantly, the print maker or artist’s goals.

The firm of Currier and Ives had a stellar stable of established artists whose work today commands premium prices in the auction world. Each carved out particular areas to depict:

Louis Maurer specialized in horse portraits and prints; Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait concentrated on sporting life and the great outdoors; Thomas Worth was a master at comics; George Durrie left a legacy of nostalgia in his winter scenes of pioneer tranquility. The only woman in the group was Fanny Palmer.

She was born Frances Flora Bond. Married to Edward S. Palmer, the two emigrated from Leicester, England, to America with two young children. Edward was fond of shooting and

drinking, and his son very much mirrored the old man. Fanny was relegated as the family’s breadwinner; fortunately she had the talent and skill to carry it off.

How and when she joined the Currier firm is unknown, but colleague Louis Maurer described

her as “a small, frail woman with large dark eyes and typically English complexion, on the whole rather plain in appearance, but perfectly delightful manners.” Like a modern woman, she worked from home and did all she could to “add to the family income.”1

She was employed by the Currier firm to sketch and paint “atmosphere and background.” Many of her compositions show the New York City area and the lush hills and valleys of the Hudson River. She would rapidly sketch out the scene much like a camera’s eye. Her expertise lay in capturing country scenes, cottages, and other views of nostalgia so common to Currier’s more famous prints. During her 26 year tenure with Currier, Palmer produced more than 200 lithographs.

During the Civil War, Currier and Ives became a household name. Their scenes of battles, generals, maritime engagements,

Mississippi River landscapes, and patriotic motifs were extremely popular with their northern customers. Fanny’s proficiency at what could be called “set designs” or “tableaus,” made her invaluable to the Currier firm. She produced the “Terrific Combat between the Monitor and the Merrimac.” Perhaps the rarest print Fanny was responsible for was “The Hudson, From West Point: Grounds of the U. S. Military Academy.” It is “a sign of the longtime neglect of women artists in the nineteenth century and of the tendency to stereotype warfare as a province of male interest alone that her achievement as a war artist has not heretofore been recognized.”2

Unfortunately, as skillful as Fanny was creating the scene, she was less adept at drawing the human figure. As the print of West Point indicates, the few humans who occupy the scene are less important than the accoutrements of war and splendor of the Hudson River Valley. In the foreground four cadets survey the river northward, one with a spyglass. They are surrounded by three mortars and two pyramids of solid shot. The title margin indicates that the brass mortars were taken in the Mexican War. In the distance are Constitution Island and the town of Cold Spring on the east bank of the river. “In the middle of the Civil War, they were comforting reminders of a previous American victory.3

The print of West Point was one of several executed by the Currier firm showing northern military strength as the rebellion raged on. Fanny was employed to produce more bucolic military forts and installations, particularly around New York City. It was not lost on the firm that many southern sympathizers populated New York.4

Fanny spent her entire career with Currier. Her life was not without heart ache. Husband Edward fell down stairs drunk and broke his neck. He died

March 7, 1859. James Ives was reported to remark that it “was the best thing (Edward) ever did.” Fanny’s son succumbed to tuberculosis at age 33. Fanny passed away, also of TB, August 20, 1876, at the age of sixty-four. She is buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn.5

Endnotes:

1. Harry Peters. America On Stone: The Other Printmakers to the American People. New York: Doubleday & Co., 1931, 113. See also Charlotte Streifer Rubenstein, Fanny Palmer: The Life and Works of a Currier & Ives Artist. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2018. Hereafter, Rubenstein, Palmer.

2. Mark E Neely, Harold Holzer. The Union Image: Popular Prints of the Civil War North. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000, 112.

3. Gale Research Company, Currier & Ives: A Catalogue Raisonné. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1984, Vol. 1, 331; Rubenstein, Palmer, 127.

4. Bryan F. Le Beau. Currier & Ives: America Imagined. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001, 70.

5. Peters, 115.

After 43 years in the museum field, Salvatore Cilella devotes his time collecting American prints and maps and writing. His last professional position was President and CEO of the Atlanta History Center. His most recent books are Upton’s Regulars: A History of the 121st New York Volunteers in the Civil War (U. Press Kansas, 2009). His two-volume Correspondence of Major General Emory Upton, (U. of Tennessee Press, 2017), is the recipient of the 2017–2018 American Civil War Museum’s Founders Award for outstanding editing of primary source materials. His latest book “Till Death Do Us Part,” is an edit of Upton’s letters to his wife 1868-70, published this spring by the Oklahoma University Press.

The Hudson, from West Point. Public domain.

Francis Flora Bond Palmer— “Fanny Palmer.” Only female artist hired by Currier and Ives. Public domain.

Brian Steel Wills

Receives Houston Civil War Round Table’s “Frank E. Vandiver Award of Merit”

HOUSTON, Texas—

Continuing a 38-year tradition, the Houston Civil War Round Table (HCWRT) announces that it has awarded the Frank E. Vandiver Award of Merit to Dr. Brian Steel Wills.

The Vandiver Award recognizes outstanding contributions to Civil War scholarship or preservation efforts by an individual or an institution. Presented annually, the award honors the memory of Dr. Frank Everson Vandiver (1925–2005), a renowned Civil War historian and one of the earliest members of HCWRT. Lynda Crist, a longtime member of HCWRT and editor of the Jefferson Davis Papers at Rice University, was the first Vandiver Award recipient in 1982. Other past winners include Gary Gallagher, Ed Bearss, Richard Sommers, William C. “Jack” Davis, Ed Cotham, Frank O’Reilly, Don Troiani, James “Bud” Robertson, Eric Jacobson, Gordon Rhea, James McPherson, John Nau III and Wilson Greene.

HCWRT selected Dr. Wills for this year’s award in view of his contributions to the historiography of the Civil War era and his service as a Civil War tour guide, speaker, and preservationist over a career spanning more than three decades.

A native of Virginia, Brian Steel Wills is a graduate of the University of Richmond (B.A.) and the University of Georgia (M.A. and Ph.D.). He is currently Professor of History and the Director of the Center for the Study of the Civil War Era at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Ga. A prolific writer on Civil War topics, Dr. Wills is especially noted for his biographies of Union General George H. Thomas and Confederate Generals Nathan Bedford Forrest and William Dorsey Pender. His

of the Civil War. Grant’s success in the Vicksburg Campaign split the Confederacy in two, along the line of the Mississippi River, and led to his appointment as general-in-chief of all Union armies.

most recent book, Inglorious Passages: Noncombat Deaths in the American Civil War, has also drawn acclaim. In addition, Dr. Wills has authored articles and book reviews in multiple publications, including the Journal of Military History and Georgia Historical Quarterly.

In announcing the award to Dr. Wills, President Mike Harrington commented: “It is a real privilege to honor an outstanding member of the Civil War community, especially one who is known as a dynamic classroom instructor who has succeeded in passing along his love for history to countless of his students.”

A large, wooden Minié ball symbolizing the award will be presented to Dr. Wills when he addresses the Houston Civil War Round Table at its meeting scheduled for November 19, 2020.

Miller Wins 25th Austin Civil War Round Table’s Prize for his Book on the Vicksburg Campaign

AUSTIN, Texas—Donald

L. Miller, the John Henry McCracken Emeritus Professor of History at Lafayette College, has won the twenty-fifth annual Daniel M. & Marilyn W. Laney Book Prize awarded by the Austin Civil War Round Table, Inc. The winning work is Vicksburg: Grant’s Campaign That Broke the Confederacy, published by Simon and Schuster.

The book is Miller’s first book venture into Civil War history. Three of his previous ten award-winning books, most of them best sellers, focus on World War II, among them Masters of the Air, which is being made into a ten-part dramatic series by Tom Hanks and Stephen Spielberg for Apple productions. Vicksburg examines Ulysses Grant’s yearlong campaign to take the city and the entire Mississippi Valley, arguably the decisive campaign

Miller’s book is a war history, not a strictly military history, a deeply researched examination of the social, economic, and political implications of military conflict and a book about civilians as well as soldiers. In the Mississippi Valley campaign, Grant freed over 100,000 slaves and put nearly 26,000 of them in Union blue, as soldiers of the republic. “In this carefully research book, written with sizzling and persuasive prose, Miller has found the way to write both military and emancipation history in one profound package,” writes Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David W. Blight.

The Wall Street Journal called Vicksburg, “An epic story. Books like Vicksburg are exactly what Thomas Hardy had in mind when he wrote that ‘war makes rattling good history.’” Historian and Pulitzer Prize winner James McPherson declared it, “The fullest and best history of the Vicksburg campaign.” Past winner of the Laney Prize, Professor Elizabeth Varon wrote: “At the heart of his story is U.S. Grant, who emerges here as a master of maneuver and improvisation, and a hero made human and real. This is military history at its best.” Prize winning historian John Berry called it “a magnificent book, certainly one the very best ever written about the Civil War. It makes the reader truly understand not only the battle of Vicksburg, not only the Civil War, but war itself.”

The book previously won the Civil War Round Table of New York’s prestigious Fletcher Pratt Award.

The Laney Prize, which includes a stipend, will be presented to Miller at the October 15, 2020 meeting of the Austin Civil War Round Table, Inc. The prize is awarded yearly for distinguished scholarship and writing on the military or political history of the Civil War.

Established by the membership of the Austin Civil War Round Table, the Prize honors the Laneys for their splendid efforts on behalf of the Austin Civil War Round Table, Inc. and especially, for their many efforts to protect the endangered battlefields of the Civil War.

Among the previous winners of the Laney Prize are William C. Davis for The Cause Lost, Gary Gallagher for The Confederate War, Richard McMurry for Atlanta: 1864, Gordon C. Rhea

for Cold Harbor, Jeffry D. Wert for The Sword of Lincoln, A. Wilson Greene for Civil War Petersburg, Craig L. Symonds for Lincoln and His Admirals, Donald S. Frazier for Fire in the Cane Fields, Edwin Bearss and J. Parker Hills for Receding Tide, Elizabeth Varon for Appomattox, and S.C. Gwynne for Rebel Yell. For more information, contact the President of the Austin Civil War Round Table, Inc., David White, email: hdwhite1978@att. net.

H Little Mac

from page 46

Stotelmyer persuasively argues that “South Mountain should be considered more catalyst than antecedent” to Antietam. By scoring “a clear operational campaign victory” at South Mountain, McClellan checked the enemy’s momentum and forced Lee to abandon his plans to invade Pennsylvania (90). Now, the very best Lee could do was take up a defensive perch in the hills around Sharpsburg.

Stotelmyer finds that McClellan directed a “determined and respectable” pursuit of the enemy after South Mountain (102). In the third essay, the author provides a thorough review of the operational situation McClellan faced as his troops wound their way toward Antietam Creek. Too often, he implies, armchair generals fortify themselves with hindsight and fail to appreciate the vexing contingencies of that fraught moment. “The overriding question facing McClellan,” he writes of the period between South Mountain and Antietam, “was not how to destroy Lee’s army, but how to successfully

conclude his campaign against an enemy he believed outnumbered him while occupying a strong defensive position” (131).

The influence of politics and partisanship on military events is a thread that runs through all five essays, but the theme is most pronounced in the last two. These essays consider two perennial counterfactuals associated with the Maryland Campaign: McClellan’s alleged failure to commit his reserves at Antietam and his sluggish pursuit of Lee back into Virginia. In both cases, Stotelmyer argues, an ongoing partisan struggle within the Union high command to define the meaning and aims of the war found operational articulation. McClellan emerges here not as a would-be-traitor, but rather as the unfortunate target of duplicitous Radical Republicans. In the final chapter, the author even hints that Secretary of War Edwin Stanton hatched a scheme to deny McClellan’s threadbare troops much-needed supplies after Antietam. The scheme hampered Little Mac’s designs for a new campaign and supplied the pretext for his ouster by President Lincoln in November.

Readers will doubtless find some of Stotelmyer’s arguments more convincing than others. The author is at his best when he supplies context and at his weakest when he entertains old conspiracy theories. Still, this clearly written and passionately argued book merits the serious attention of anyone interested in Lee’s fabled first foray north of the Potomac. Its judgments will be debated for decades to come.

Brian Matthew Jordan is Assistant Professor of Civil War History at Sam Houston State University and the author of Marching Home, a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in History.

100 Significant Civil War Photographs: Atlanta Campaign collection of George Barnard’s camera work. Most of the photographs are from Barnard’s time in Atlanta, mid-September to mid-November 1864, during the Federal occupation of the city. With this volume, Stephen Davis advances the scholarly literature of Barnardiana.

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The Confederate long arms produced by the firm of Cook & Brother are some of the best made and most sought after guns produced in the South during the American Civil War. Thanks to the research done by the late Dr. John Murphy & Howard Michael Madaus presented in their two volume set Confederate Rifles & Muskets and Confederate Carbines & Musketoons, we know quite a bit about the company and its contracts and have a reasonable estimate regarding their total production of long arms. Ferdinand W.C. Cook was born on July 23, 1823, to Harry Cook and Ann Bradwin Wright Cook. He was baptized William Charles Ferdinand Cook in St. Mary’s Church, Islington, London. At

the age of 9, Ferdinand immigrated to America with his father and older brothers Henry (18) and Theodore (16), on board the Ontario. The ship arrived in New York City on April 17, 1833; about three months shy of Ferdinand’s tenth birthday. Murphy & Madaus note that Ferdinand Cook was 16 when he reached America, but this does not appear to be correct, and it is possible that they used the census records for his brother Theodore to establish that age. In 1834, the rest of the family, including Ferdinand’s mother Ann and brothers Arthur (15), Francis (13), and Frederick (5) immigrated to America as well and joined the Cook family in New York. It was in New York that Ferdinand, Francis, and Frederick received their training in metal work and engineering, as all three worked for the "Novelty Iron Works"

(formerly Stillman & Co.), a large and well-established engineering and industrial manufacturing company in the city. Along with their education, this on-the-job training gave them all real knowledge and skill regarding the engineering and manufacturing of heavy industrial equipment, foundry work, castings, and military armaments. The training could not have come from a better company, as the Novelty Iron Works was known top-quality workmanship in New York and throughout the growing United States.

While he was employed at Novelty Iron Works, Ferdinand visited New Orleans in the early part 1840s. There he functioned as a sales agent for the company’s customers in that region. These were mostly business firms in the sugar and cotton industry. The allure of New Orleans must have been great, as Ferdinand moved there in 1845; in 1849 he married a local woman, Mary Jane Wilcox. In 1852 Ferdinand’s younger brother Frederick joined him in New Orleans; by 1855 his brother Francis had as well.

The threesome established the Belleville Iron Works in Algiers, La., where they concentrated on manufacturing large-scale industrial machinery and agricultural equipment. This type of industrial engineering and manufacturing was practically unknown in the South, which had relied for decades upon northern manufactures for their machinery. The Cooks even dabbled in the manufacture of small arms and artillery, and as early as May 1856 they had corresponded with U.S. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis about the possibility of establishing a national foundry for the manufacture of cannon and arms in New Orleans.

While he was making his own business successful, Ferdinand remained a sales agent for the Novelty Iron Works, but by 1861 he had resigned from that position. Brothers Ferdinand and Francis also spun off their portion of the Bellville Works sometime in late 1860 or early 1861, establishing the Nashua Iron Company

for producing small arms. This company was headquartered on Canal Street in New Orleans proper, across the Mississippi River from their Algiers factory.

According to the Cooks, the firm was established to prove “that rifles could be made here as well as in Yankee land or in Europe.”

Not very long after establishing this new manufactory, the name was changed to Cook & Brother and would remain so through the rest of the war. Initially the firm concentrated on manufacturing Enfield pattern “short rifles” based upon the English P1856 rifle, with saber bayonets. Early orders included rifles and bayonets for the “Sunflower Guards” (Company I, 21st Mississippi Volunteer Infantry) and for the state of Alabama, which ordered 1,000 Cook rifles with bayonets. While the company clearly focused on producing “Enfield pattern” rifles and bayonets, it also manufactured more than 2,000 additional saber bayonets, many for shotguns and some for civilian rifles, and a small number of carbines and musketoons based on “Enfield” patterns before the Federal capture of New Orleans forced the Cook brothers to relocate further east. It is believed that the firm produced about 2,200 long arms while in New Orleans; most were rifles, with a much smaller number of carbines and musketoons produced as well, prior to their forced evacuation in April 1862.

The Cooks took as much machinery, finished parts, and raw materials as they could and escaped by river to Vicksburg, Miss., and then traveled via wagon to Selma, Ala. From Selma the Cooks moved on to Athens, Ga., and established a new factory there. With many previously finished parts on hand, they were able to assemble completed arms prior to the factory really being up and running. As a result, the original Alabama state contract for rifles was completed by mid-August 1862, about the same time the Confederate Ordnance Department entered into an agreement with Cook & Brother to deliver “50,000 stand of arms” (rifles & bayonets, complete) at the rate of $25 each.

The new manufactory was up and running by early 1863. In addition to making rifles and bayonets, there was new emphasis on producing carbines and musketoons. The musketoon had a 24 inch barrel and was based upon the English Enfield P1853 artillery carbine. The carbine had a 21 inch barrel and was based on the English Enfield P1856 cavalry carbine.

It is generally believed that the

Cook & Brother carbines and musketoons produced in New Orleans were numbered in a separate serial number range from the rifles. It appears that once the operation was moved to Athens, all the long arms were serial numbered in the same range, and somewhat randomly, with rifle, carbine, and musketoon numbers mixed together.

The new factory was apparently quite impressive and according to Confederate Chief of Ordnance Josiah Gorgas, "the establishment of the works reflects much credit upon their senior partner, and he has exhibited a much better appreciation of the requirements of an Armory than any other person who has attempted a like enterprise in the Confederacy." Further kudos were provided by Confederate Col. James H. Burton, initially the superintendent of the Richmond Armory, but soon made the overall supervisor of all Confederate armories. During an 1864 inspection, Burton noted that the Cook & Brother Armory was "the best fitted up and regulated private armory I have yet inspected in the C. States."

Ferdinand Cook was clearly somewhat leery that the company might be forced to move again due to Yankee thrusts into the south; to that end he established a local militia company comprised of some of his workers and other Athens locals to serve as a defense force. The group was officially designated the 23rd Georgia Local Defense Battalion with Ferdinand Cook as major. The battalion was engaged during the November 1864 defense of Griswoldville, Ga., and during fighting around Hardeeville, S.C., the following month. Major Ferdinand Cook was killed in action by a Federal sharpshooter on Dec. 11, 1864. As is well known, the surrender at Appomattox signed the death knell for the Confederate south, both militarily and financially.

In March 1867, U.S. Federal Marshalls seized the defunct Cook & Brother factory to sell it as former enemy property. Francis L. Cook managed to stave off the confiscation through a series of legal battles, but after managing to retain title to his property he was forced to sell the manufactory at a sheriff’s sale to pay his debts. The buyer, Athens Manufacturing Company, subsequently used the factory as a cotton mill.

As previously noted, the Cook & Brother Rifle was based upon the British made Enfield P1856 “Short Rifle.” The Cook rifle followed the general profile of the British guns and was similar in

Confederate Cook & Brother Rifles

size, barrel length, and caliber. Both had 33-inch barrels and nominal overall lengths around 48 inches. The British rifle was .577 caliber (25 bore); the Cook rifle was nominally .58 caliber. Like the British rifles, the Cook was rifled with three lands and grooves. The barrels of the Cook & Brother carbines were made from iron bars that were heated and twisted around a steel mandrel, unlike British barrels that were either hammer forged iron or, eventually, cast steel. This twisting process produced a distinct grain pattern, similar to the “Damascus” steel pattern of fine 19th century shotguns, but without the striking appearance and designs. Some Cook barrels were browned, and those were probably quite attractive with the twisted pattern; those left in the bright were much less attractive, although they still typically show the distinctive twisted grain in the metal.

Like the British rifle, the Cook variant used a jag-head ramrod, threaded at the end for implements for cleaning and extracting unfired bullets. While the English P1856 rifle was iron mounted, the Cook rifle utilized cheaper and easier to manufacture brass furniture for the buttplate, triggerguard, and nosecap. The Cook rifle even used brass for the barrel bands and sling swivels, unlike the British guns with iron barrel bands. The side nail cups (lock screw escutcheons) were iron on the British P1856 rifle but brass on the Cook variant. Another primary difference between the rifles was that the Cook utilized a fixed rear sight on most guns rather than the adjustable leaf sight found on the British made guns.

The Cook rifles were originally designed to accept a saber bayonet like their English counterparts. They initially mounted a keyed lug on the barrel near the muzzle for affixing the saber bayonet. These lugs only appear on the earliest production Cook rifles; they were eventually supplanted by a removable bayonet adapter ring with the bayonet lug mounted on it. The lug had a unique inverted trapezoidal shape, with the wide end of the trapezoid on the outer side and the trapezoid tapering towards the mounting ring.

The Cook rifles underwent some minor evolutionary changes from their initial New Orleans production, through the end of their production in Athens. The evolution of the bayonet lug is a good example of one of those changes. While these changes are more plentiful and apparent in the Cook carbines, there were also

some changes in the rifles. Most obviously, the New Orleansmade rifles have different lock and barrel markings than the later Athens production guns, with a different style of flag stamped to the rear of the hammer and New Orleans rather than Athens as their production location. The prototypical Athens produced rifle is quite similar to the New Orleans version, with a new lock marking that reads: COOK & BROTHER ATHENS GA (Serial Number) over the date 1863 or 1864. The Confederate First National Flag stamped at the rear of the lock plate is slightly different on Athens guns as well, showing a distinct “wrinkle” in it, as though it were waving in the wind. The barrels were typically marked in three lines COOK & BROTHER / ATHENS GA (Date) / (Serial Number). The serial numbers appeared on the majority of the rifle’s components, such as the nose cap, the triggerguard, the rear surface of barrel bands, and the heads of the lock and tang screws. The number also appeared on the saber bayonet that had been fitted to the gun.

The guns produced in New Orleans had a two-piece triggerguard similar to U.S. made arms of the era and different from the Enfield pattern guns. The Athens made guns typically had a one-piece triggerguard much more closely patterned after the English ones. The bottoms of the barrels and the breech plugs were

Reverse overall view of Cook & Brother rifle #6188.

Counterpane of Cook & Brother rifle #6188 showing the “PROVED” mark in detail.

Barrel detail of Cook & Brother rifle #6188 showing the barrel markings and the visible twist pattern of the barrel.

Close up of the lock of Cook & Brother rifle #6188 with insets showing marking details.

Close up of the muzzle area of Cook & Brother rifle #6188 showing the barrel patterning, the late production rifle musket style front sight and the brass barrel band and sling swivel. Note the mismatched 15 on the nosecap.

Overall view of Athens production Cook & Brother rifle #6188. All photos by Tim Prince.

both stamped with matching alphanumeric or simply numeric mating marks. Early Athens rifles also had alphanumeric mating marks inside the locks, although these generally had no relationship to those found under the barrel or the serial numbers. Some Cook long arms bear the “FWC” cartouche of Ferdinand Cook, but these are quite rare, and the mark is rarely visible either due to wear or not having been stamped in the first place.

The majority of saber bayonets produced for Cook & Brother rifles were also based upon their British P1856 Enfield rifle counterpart. While the British saber bayonets were produced with an iron hilt and mounted with press checkered leather grip scales, the Cooks used a sand cast, one-piece brass hilt and grip. The British bayonets used a nominally 22 inch long semi-Yataghan shaped blade the Cool & Brother rifle bayonets emulated. Interestingly, most Cook & Brother saber bayonets produced for use on shotguns used a straight, spear-point blade.

The rifle saber bayonet’s grip had grooves cast into it to improve the gripping surface and an integral muzzle ring with a rudimentary “cock’s comb” finial on the top. The lower part of the cross guard terminated in a flat disc finish. The pommel cap had a basic bird’s head profile; bayonets designed for use with the adapter rings were cut for a trapezoidal bayonet lug. A spring bayonet lug catch was attached to the

grip with a screw on the obverse and operated with a push-button stud on the reverse. This allowed the bayonet to lock on the lug and to be released from the lug as well. A serial number stamped on the obverse of the crossguard matched the bayonet to the rifle.

The Cook & Brother rifle pictured that accompanies this article is a late production, Athensmade gun with the serial number 6188. It has an 1864 dated lock.

As is often encountered on later production guns, some parts are either not numbered or have mismatched numbers that likely came from unused or reused parts. This rifle does not have a bayonet adapter lug and may never have had one. On Jan. 14, 1864, the Confederate Adjutant & Inspector General’s Office issued General Order #6; this discontinued manufacturing saber bayonets within the Confederacy. As such, this rifle may never have received a saber bayonet to go with it.

Tim Prince is a full-time dealer in fine & collectible military arms from the Colonial Period through WWII. He operates College Hill Arsenal, a web-based antique arms retail site. A long time collector & researcher, Tim has been a contributing author to two major book projects about Civil War era arms including The English Connection and a new book on southern retailer marked and Confederate used shotguns. Tim is also a featured Arms & Militaria appraiser on the PBS Series Antiques Roadshow.

In Memoriam to Homer “Mac” McArthur Cole

“Let us cross over the river and rest under the shade of the trees.” –Stonewall Jackson’s last words.

On May 11, 2020, Homer “Mac” McArthur Cole, proprietor of Cole’s Coins and Civil War Shop of Chester, Va., passed that great divide between all of us and our ancestors. Mac, a native of Riegelwood, N.C., came from a very poor family of seven children and worked his way far up the line to ultimately become the Director of Health and Safety for Reynolds Metal Company. Educated at both St. Andrews College and UNC-Chapel Hill, Mac was a self-made man of high intelligence, strong will, and unwavering determination who never lost contact with his younger playful self or his humble beginnings. He had a wry sense of humor, a sharp wit, and often concealed his sensitive side from most who met or dealt with him, but he had a heart of purest gold. He truly loved Civil War history and artifacts and was an avid relic hunter in Virginia for many years. His other passion was golf.

Mac was a highly rated collegiate wrestler in his younger years. He lost his first wife, Beth,

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to cancer after 39 years of marriage and remarried (to Lynn) in 2007. He first operated an antique furniture business after his retirement from Reynolds and then launched his dream business in 2009, a combination antique, coin, and Civil War artifact shop. Mac set up at most east coast Civil War shows from Charleston to Gettysburg for close to two decades, but in recent years, due to his health, restricted his travel to coin and military shows in Virginia. I think he cherished dug bullets, bottles, buttons, and coins far more than other things, but he wanted to compete with the upside of the business and branched out into firearms, swords, and uniforms.

He had a very small circle of close friends and a much larger circle of people who truly enjoyed his company. He loved the banter and interaction of the relic trade and was a constant (and harmless) flirt to cute waitresses

in restaurants. Even while using a cane and barely able to get up and down, he would stop to pick up a penny if he saw one and, when chastised, would just grin and say “Well, I’ve got more now than I had!” He was a true friend to all who really knew him, and I don’t think any show will ever be the same for me again. I will sincerely miss his company and conversation as well as his interesting outlook and perspective on life in general as will his three children (Dan, Brian, and Beth) and many others.

His family requests that if anyone wishes to donate to his memory they should contribute to the Melanoma Research Foundation, www.melanoma.org, PO Box 759329, Baltimore, MD 212759329. Condolences may be registered at www.jtmorriss.com (Chester Chapel, J.T. Morriss & Son Funeral Home). Farewell, my friend, until we meet again down by that river. – Will Gorges

Will Gorges (L) and Homer “Mac” Cole (R) at the Nov. 2019, Richmond Civil War Show.

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vs. McClellan, 1864

According to the Franklin Repository, Chambersburg’s Republican newspaper, the presidential contest in 1864 presented a clear choice to the electorate. A vote cast for McClellan would mean a “humiliating surrender to our barbarous foes.” A choice for Lincoln was a choice for the “utter overthrow of treason.”

The Valley Spirit, edited by Democrats, also saw a stark contrast. The Spirit embraced McClellan, who as president “would remove all obstructions and make the road to re-union and peace easy….” A ballot cast for Lincoln was a vote for “executive despotism and the destruction of constitutional liberty in America….”

In this column we will return to the Valley of the Shadow archive and review the Chambersburg newspapers in October and November of 1864. Through these two different prisms we will examine the candidates, the issues at stake, and the campaign as it was waged in the local press. After election day we will view the significance of the Republican victory as it was seen by the highly partisan journalists in this Pennsylvania community of 5,000.

By 1864 Abraham Lincoln

was a stranger to no one. Nevertheless, the Repository reminded the readers of the details of his life in an article that also introduced Lincoln’s running mate, Andrew Johnson. The laudatory biographies stressed their humble origins. Both men were born in slave states, “into a class of poor whites which slavery creates and preserves for its own convenience.” Lincoln entered Illinois as a “portionless, illiterate boy.” Johnson in his youth was “poor as Lazarus.” These two determined, self-made men were the ones to lead the country to victory.

The Repository further emphasized that Lincoln and Johnson were not fanatics. “Mr. Lincoln was never an Abolitionist until slavery declared war on the Union.” Johnson was “a tacit supporter of slavery until slavery struck at the life of his country.”

The Valley Spirit reminded readers of George McClellan’s military record and contrasted his approach to the war with Lincoln’s. By his victory at Antietam McClellan saved Pennsylvania from invasion in 1862, a matter of some importance to the citizens of this vulnerable border region. Though McClellan was not in command

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Gould B. Hagler, Jr.

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at Gettysburg, the victory there was largely due to his efforts, as the army that drove the invaders from Pennsylvania was the army he built.

The Democratic candidate was not only a skillful general but also

a humane one. The Spirit quoted a letter written by McClellan to Lincoln urging that the war be “conducted upon the highest principles known to Christian civilization.” McClellan had criticized the destructive campaign waged in the Shenandoah Valley. The war ought not be a “war upon populations, but against armed forces and political organizations.” The Spirit argued that there was more at stake than Christian principles: there would be payback for this “desperately wicked” method of warfare, a policy “revolting to the civilization of this age.” The people of south central Pennsylvania would be the ones to suffer from any retaliation that was sure to follow.

In one issue the Repository named prominent Democrats who were supporting Lincoln. One was the James Reynolds, Pennsylvania’s quartermaster

general and brother of Gen. John Reynolds, slain at Gettysburg. Another was Gen. George McCall, formerly the commander of the Pennsylvania Reserves, who had served under McClellan but “espoused the cause of Lincoln as soon as McClellan was nominated.” These and others named had “adhered to the Democratic party until it proved itself utterly faithless to the government, and they have sacrificed party to save a country imperiled by treason.” These Democrats are doing the right thing, the Repository told it readers. Other Democrats should do the same. Both newspapers ran articles on the soldier vote, seen to be a significant factor in the election for two reasons. The votes themselves mattered, of course, and the sentiments of the soldiers also would influence others.

One Franklin County soldier,

Lincoln

"Presidential campaign, 1864. Candidates for President and Vice-President of United States. Election, Tuesday, November 8, 1864." Library of Congress.

writing from a hospital, informed the Repository that a vote was held there and “it was unanimous for Lincoln.” The same soldier reported a similar outcome in another military hospital: 147 for Lincoln and only 16 for “Geo. B. Stick-in-the-mud.”

The Spirit ran a report on some chicanery aboard a naval vessel. A correspondent wrote that “Today two citizens came aboard…vested with authority to receive votes for the State of New York.” Three hundred New Yorkers lined up to get ballots but “it was ascertained that none but Union Abolitionist tickets were in possession of the deputies….” The vast majority of the sailors were McClellan men and they “were privileged to return to their quarters.”

The Repository also reported on such shenanigans (allegedly committed by Democrats, of course), with one article detailing massive fraud in New York. The Republican paper also wrote on the problematic logistics of collecting votes from soldiers in the field. A Pennsylvania official, commissioned to deliver election blanks to soldiers in Atlanta, was stuck in Chattanooga. “It is possible,” wrote the editors on October 12, “that most of the votes in that army, if not all, will be lost.”

The Confederates had a stake in this election also. Their preferred candidate? It depends on whom you ask. “All the traitors, north and south, are on [McClellan’s] side,” proclaimed the Repository. Not so, answered the Spirit. Citing editorials in two Richmond papers, the Democratic editors in Chambersburg stated confidently that Southern leaders feared that the election of McClellan would result in the swift demise of their new nation.

The position of the Repository was straightforward and easy to understand. Lincoln was prosecuting a hard war and would hammer the South into submission. Peace and reunion would come with overwhelming victory. The Spirit’s goal also was peace and reunion, but the method it advocated required some nuanced argumentation. The hard war united the South in its rebellion. McClellan’s humane approach would separate the Southern people from their misguided leaders.

The Richmond Enquirer, argued the Spirit, fervently sought “disunion and a Southern Confederacy, and it is but natural that it should espouse the cause of the man who has done more to make re-union of the States impossible…than any other man living. Had Lincoln conducted the war on the humane Christian and constitutional principles advocated by McClellan…the rebellion

would have long since ended. The masses of the Southern people…would have revolted against their leaders and returned to their allegiance and brought the seceded States again within the fold of the Union.”

Lincoln’s policy made this course impossible and forced the Southern masses to support the rebel leaders. The South was fighting against a war “waged for the purpose of subjugating the South, and to uproot and destroy her domestic institutions and, if necessary, to exterminate her inhabitants.” Consequently “every Southern man capable of bearing arms became an active rebel….”

The Spirit argued vehemently that Lincoln was getting no closer to winning the war. “If the people have not learned that there are elements of strength in the South to last thirty years in resistance to a war of extermination, the lesson of the last four years has been most unprofitable.” Readers who believed that the Confederacy was on the verge of collapse should “ask the first soldier you meet, who has struggled with these men in the field….”

The issue of race loomed large in the minds of the Spirit’s editors. Three weeks before the election came the alarm that “while our brave soldiers, the laborers and mechanics of the North, are bravely shedding their blood for the Union…Shoddy supporters of Lincoln are filling their places of labor at home with Negroes and are preparing to offer them the right of suffrage on perfect equality with… those same gallant white soldiers….” A Republican victory would mean that “the poor whites shall be compelled to consort with them as equals.”

the “popular majority against McClellan will be the largest ever cast” and that the electoral vote would be at least 205 of the 234. The despondent Spirit wrote: “The election is over and the Democracy are defeated, by what means we need not stop to inquire….” The Lincoln victory would be “fraught with the most dire consequences to our poor and bleeding country, and will render peace and reunion an almost hopeless possibility….” The Spirit argued that “unless the honest and conservative portion of the Republican party… will now organize in opposition to [Lincoln’s] disruptive and ruinous policy and compel him to change it, we can see no hope for the future. Without a change in policy the future must be dark and bloody.”

We can stop here with the election’s immediate outcome and the two newspapers’ assessment of the consequences. Their future is our past, so we know what they could only guess at. However, I will add a

postscript that will be news to most readers of Civil War News. Our friends in Chambersburg wrote about Lincoln, his running mate Johnson, and his opponent McClellan, but not a word about the Democrats’ nominee for vice president. His name was George H. Pendleton, an Ohio man who had served in the United States House of Representatives. After the war he was elected to the Senate and later was ambassador to Germany. He never became vice president, of course, but perhaps that failure did not trouble him. We know what John Vance Gardner said about that office. Not worth a bucket of warm… well, let’s say warm spit.

Sources: The newspapers cited can be found in the Valley of the Shadow archive, http://valley.lib. virginia.edu.

Gould Hagler is a retired lobbyist living in Dunwoody, Ga. He is a past president of the Atlanta Civil War Round Table and the author Georgia’s Confederate

CHARLESTON IN THE WAR

CHARLESTON IN THE WAR

100 Signi cant Civil War Photographs: Charleston in the War features newly restored images of scenes in the famed city, taken 1860–1865. e cameramen include the better-known, such as George N. Barnard and George S. Cook, as well as some lesser-known ones: Samuel Cooley, Charles Quinby, the partners Haas & Peale, Osborn & Durbec. Text by Stephen Davis and Jack Melton accompanies each featured photograph, describing the pictured scenes and the history surrounding them. e selected images depict a variety of settings: that portion of Charleston known as e Battery, the “Burnt District” (the area of the city destroyed by the Great Fire of December 1861), the Charleston Arsenal, and the many churches that allow Charlestonians to call theirs “the Holy City.” Special sections of this book are devoted to the huge Blakely guns imported from England by the Confederates and close-ups of Barnard’s views. e history of Civil War Charleston goes back to e Defense of Charleston Harbor (1890) by John Johnson, Confederate major of engineers, and to Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-’61 (1876) by Capt. Abner Doubleday, Federal second-in-command. Since then Charlestonians have contributed to the history of their city, notably Robert N. Rosen and Richard W. Hatcher III. e historical text surrounding 100 Signi cant Photographs draws on these and other works. A unique feature is its reliance upon the writings of actual participants, such as Augustine T. Smythe (1842–1914) and Emma Edwards Holmes (1838–1910).

A week before the election the Repository drove home the message to loyal men. “In less than one week the people of the North must determine by their suffrages whether war for the life of the Republic shall be arrested in the midst of our victories by a humiliating ‘cessation of hostilities’ – whether our sacrifices of brave men…shall be pronounced vain and fruitless.” A verdict for Lincoln would be “a declaration that the war…shall be prosecuted until the despairing traitors yield to the majesty of the laws and the unity of the States.” A strong turnout was needed because the other side was cheating. “Already the most glaring frauds are shown to be in course of consummation by our desperate and unscrupulous foes.”

100 Signi cant Civil War Photographs: Charleston in the War features newly restored images of scenes in the famed city, taken 1860–1865. The cameramen include the better-known, such as George N. Barnard and George S. Cook, as well as some lesser-known ones: Samuel Cooley, Charles Quinby, the partners Haas & Peale, Osborn & Durbec.

Text by Stephen Davis and Jack Melton accompanies each featured photograph, describing the pictured scenes and the history surrounding them. The selected images depict a variety of settings: that portion of Charleston known as The Battery, the “Burnt District” (the area of the city destroyed by the Great Fire of December 1861), the Charleston Arsenal, and the many churches that allow Charlestonians to call theirs “the Holy City.” Special sections of this book are devoted to the huge Blakely guns imported from England by the Confederates and close-ups of Barnard’s views.

As a contribution to this literature, 100 Signi cant Civil War Photographs: Charleston in the War o ers rewards for all readers, from the casual novice to the serious student.

The history of Civil War Charleston goes back to The Defense of Charleston Harbor (1890) by John Johnson, Confederate major of engineers, and to Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-’61 (1876) by Capt. Abner Doubleday, Federal second-in-command. Since then Charlestonians have contributed to the history of their city, notably Robert N. Rosen and Richard W. Hatcher III. The historical text surrounding 100 Signi cant Photographs draws on these and other works. A unique feature is its reliance upon the writings of actual participants, such as Augustine T. Smythe (1842–1914) and Emma Edwards Holmes (1838–1910).

As a contribution to this literature, 100 Signi cant Civil War Photographs: Charleston in the War o ers rewards for all readers, from the casual novice to the serious student.

On Wednesday, November 9, the Repository gleefully announced Lincoln’s victory with the headline “The Republic Lives!” The paper predicted that

Monuments: In Honor of a Fallen Nation, published by Mercer University Press in 2014. Hagler speaks frequently on this topic and others related to different aspects of the Civil War and has been a regular contributor to CWN since 2016. He can be reached at gould.hagler@gmail.com.

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www.emergingcivilwar.com

right now called Emerging Civil War. . .” he told his attendees.

“I think our hope for the kind of traditional history that we have come to consume at historical sites rests in that particular movement . . . young scholars who are rolling up their sleeves and taking up work that the fellas and gals from my generation now are giving up. So I do think there is some hope there.”

That sleeve-rolling continues. It requires a lot of behind-thescenes work to keep the blog populated with a wide variety of quality content. Most of that’s handled these days by our managing editor, Sarah Kay Bierle.

America’s defining event. Thank YOU for getting us this far. Here’s to the many more stories that lie ahead for all of us.

— Chris Mackowski, Ph.D. Editor-in-Chief, Emerging Civil

War

The Seventh Annual Emerging Civil War Symposium at Stevenson Ridge

The million-dollar question remains, “Is there still going to be a Symposium this year?”

At Press Time: We are still good to go for the upcoming ECW Symposium, August 7-9, 2020, at Stevenson Ridge in Spotsylvania, Va. Our theme is “Fallen Leaders,” with a keynote address by Gordon Rhea and a line-up of nine other speakers, plus a Sunday tour that traces the wounding of James Longstreet in the Wilderness.

Our editor-in-chief, Chris Mackowski, posed this month’s questions.

CM: I always look at May as “battlefield season” because of the anniversaries of Chancellorsville, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania, where we both cut our teeth as young historians. What is it about those battlefields you love so much?

longer than 30 minutes. It shows the power of the cult of Jackson, and the postwar memory battle fought inside and outside the former Confederate ranks.

From the Editor Emerging Civil War celebrated an important milestone this month: we published our 5,000th post.

When Kris White, Jake Struhelka, and I sat on the front porch of the caretakers cottage at the Stonewall Jackson death site in August 2011, brainstorming the creation of what would become ECW, we had hopes and plans for our little blog. But here we are, eight and three-quarters years later, going stronger than ever.

As I said in our 5,000th post, which you can read here, (www. emergingcivilwar.com) I've been especially proud of the great talent ECW has nurtured over the years, the platform we've provided for "emerging" voices, and the many other projects that have sprung from the blog. I also think of the enduring friendships I have developed within ECW and in the wider Civil War community because of Emerging Civil War, for which I'm deeply grateful.

I was delighted when, at our second symposium, keynote speaker Dana Shoaf, editor of Civil War Times, offered some kind words for ECW, which was just then four years old. “Emerging Civil War is a fantastic organization,” he said. “It is giving people the chance to get started, to get themselves published on the blog, and giving new voices a place to express themselves. I think that is really, really important, to see new historians coming up and new material being explored.”

Historian Will Greene, then still at Pamplin Park, also lauded us at one of his symposia. “[T] here is a very vital and vibrant publishing movement going on

Kevin Pawlak, as the new chair of our editorial board, helps maintain the quality control.

To commemorate our 5,000 posts, I invited my ECW colleagues to reflect on their favorite memories. For my own part, I tend to think of days the site unexpectedly "blew up:" a random day last January when Meg Groeling's "War Chicken" (already one of our most-read posts of all time) suddenly exploded for no apparent reason; January 25, 2017, when Mary Tyler Moore died and Eric Wittenberg broke the story of her Civil War connection; the Confederate monument controversy in August 2018; my recent video tour of Longstreet's wounding site, which WordPress featured for some reason. Even as I write this, Jon-Erik Gilot's "I served under both Lee and Grant" from earlier this week is getting a lot of love after being randomly showcased by Google.

Such phenomena tend to obscure the stalwart, steady readership we get at the site every day, though. Posts like Ashley Webb’s “Reactions to Lincoln’s Death” (April 15, 2015) and Steward Henderson’s “African-Americans in the Civil War (part one)” (November 17, 2011) remain our most-read posts because they continue to get dozens of views per week; “War Chicken” does, too. We have so many fantastic pieces in our archives. I urge you to take some time one day and just explore them at your leisure.

I appreciate the work of the many talented historians who’ve gotten ECW this far. I also appreciate you, Faithful Reader, for reading along. After all, that’s why we do this, to help people like you stay connected with

As is the case elsewhere, the pandemic situation remains fluid, but as of this moment, Governor Northam still expects Virginia to be in Phase Three of the state’s re-opening plan. That would allow us to hold the Symposium as scheduled. Tickets are $155 and are still available.

Of course, the situation could change quickly, so keep an eye on our blog, emergingcivilwar.com, for the latest updates.

10 Questions... with Kris White

Kristopher D. White is a co-founder of Emerging Civil War. He struck the deal with Savas Beatie that started the Emerging Civil War book series. He co-founded ECW’s Engaging the Civil War Series at Southern Illinois University Press, and he’s written a small library’s worth of books and magazine articles. By day, he’s the education manager at the American Battlefield Trust. We first profiled him in the January 2017 newsletter (https://conta.cc/2kpx6sH), and he has a full ECW bio here (https://emergingcivilwar.com/ author-biographies/authors/ kristopher-d-white/).

KW: First and foremost, it’s the memories associated with those sites. I visited all those battlefields for the first time with my parents back in the mid-90’s. We visited the Fredericksburg area sites for a week. We drove through Poplar Run on the Jackson Flank March Trail in a clean car, and my dad drove us to a car wash immediately thereafter; he loves his cars and they have to be clean. We got lost on the Gordon Flank Attack Trail and found Lake of the Woods for the first time. I interacted with Greg Kurtz at the Stonewall Jackson Shrine; someone that we worked with years later. The whole time I was covered in poison ivy, a normal summer-time occurrence for me.

Fast forward to 2005 when I became an intern at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. I met many people who are still in my life today and helped to form me as an historian, and we created many new memories from the parties and cigars at Quarters 2 to meeting my wives (Sarah and Chris Mackowski). You and I witnessed the Hindenburg crash into the Titanic as it hit the iceberg in Saunders Field. That park also led to the creation of ECW.

Overall, I love most of the stories and sites associated with those battlefields. The story of Phennie Tapp and Longstreet’s counterattack in the Wilderness are two great examples of stories that I find entertaining and compelling. Of course there is the overlooked Second Battle of Fredericksburg; there’s the overlooked wounding of James Longstreet, which is fascinating when compared to Jackson’s wounding just a few miles down the road. The fascination of Longstreet’s wounding is more tied into the memory aspect of things, from the fact that Jackson had a visitor center built near his wounding site, a visitor center movie largely based around Jackson, a walking tour called “The Wounding of Stonewall Jackson Tour,” and then the Stonewall Jackson Death Site. Then you head to Longstreet’s wounding site and it has a few signs, only one of which deals with his wounding, and a sign that doesn’t allow you to park for

The memorialization, or should I say, non-memorialization, of the battlefields, which are not littered with monuments and visitors, allows you to take in the landscape in a more focused fashion, and walk a lot of the ground as it looked in 1863-1864. You don’t need 1,400 monuments to illustrate the battle’s importance; you need good interpretation on the ground. The battlefield is the #1 resource. While Chancellorsville only has nine monuments on the battlefield proper, and two have nothing to do with the battle, people still come to Chancellorsville because they know the Jackson wounding story, or some form of the story. It’s the story of Jackson’s wounding and the want or need to interact with the place that brought those visitors through the visitor center door. While many historians like to over complicate or over-think these characters and events of the past to make a name for themselves, at the end of the day, history really is about telling an and accurate and compelling story, and hoping that we can take a visitor’s understanding to a new level in the finite amount of time that we have to interact with them and their family. It’s much easier said than done when we are dealing with vacationers. At these places, many visitors are there because they sought these sites out specifically to interact with in their free time. As many of us noticed, most visitors who drove farther from I-95 were the ones who really were into the subject. I had some of the best, most fulfilling, and entertaining interactions with visitors in the Wilderness and at Spotsylvania.

My favorite memory of Spotsylvania came in 2008 when a visitor came whipping into the parking lot with his car; he jumped out, and asked me if he was at Cold Harbor. I told him that he wasn’t, and it was about 45 miles away. He said, “Shit! Don’t tell my wife. We have been looking for Cold Harbor for hours, and I am just going to tell her that this it so that I don’t look like an idiot.” I did mention that all our signs said Spotsylvania Court House, and he replied, “Luckily she don’t read the signs.” Welcome to life as a public historian!

CM: You also cut your teeth at Gettysburg, where you first fell in love with the Civil War. What keeps drawing you back there?

Chris Mackowski

Emerging Civil War co-founder Kris White.

KW: Well, what drew me there in the first place was my dad’s love of cars. We stayed in Gettysburg so that he could go to the car shows in nearby Carlisle. Back in the day, it was cheaper and quieter to stay in Gettysburg. Because of staying in the town, we started to explore the town, battlefield, and the history of the area.

Today, I am drawn back there by my boss, Garry Adelman. He has a form of Civil War Tourette’s Syndrome. You say “battlefield,” he says “GETTYSBURG!” You say “Civil War,” he says “GETTYSBURG!” You say “Gettysburg,” he says “AWESOME!” So, you might say that our department at the American Battlefield Trust spends a little bit of time at Gettysburg.

Gettysburg is the starting point for many buffs’ understanding of, or engagement with, the Civil War, and that draws me back as an historian. For some, the CW is only those three days in July. Thus, it is important as an historian to be engaged with the granddaddy of all Civil War battles. If an American is asked to name one Civil War battle, many can come up with Gettysburg. So, from a storytelling starting point, you can work forward or backwards using the battle to tell the story of the Civil War. Engaging with students and teachers, Gettysburg is the #1 destination for our Field Trip Fund funding. Again, this is a great catalyst for instilling a passion for the past. Then of course, for me, it’s the memories of being there with friends and family, and the stories from the battlefield.

Over time, my understanding and interpretation of the battle has changed. I like to think they have improved. Nothing beats being on the battlefield in the late fall or winter when you have the place to yourself.

CM: Since you began working at the American Battlefield Trust, you’ve pretty much had the entire country as your Civil War playground because of all the travel you’ve been able to do for your job. What’s a place you finally got to visit that you’d always wanted to but hadn’t been able to? What did you think?

KW: Unlike the Alamo, Alcatraz has a basement! Back in 2018, we traveled through California on an extended filming trip. The trip was an amazing experience from start to finish. Steve Johnson, who is part of Friends of Civil War Alcatraz, rolled out the red carpet for us. He spent days with the crew taking us all around San Francisco. While Fort Point was the best preserved

third-system fort I have ever visited, the true gem was spending time with Steve at Alcatraz. He took us to places that are off limits to normal visitors, including the underside of the prison that was part of the original fort. I felt like Nicholas Cage! Then he took us to the old gunner’s tunnel that cut across the island, and where they filmed parts of The Rock and Escape from Alcatraz. Being a movie nut, this was cool beyond belief. Alcatraz played an important role in US history well before Clint Eastwood broke out and Nicholas Cage and Sean Connery broke in. There is a Civil War section of the museum, which is small but well done, and an old howitzer at the entrance to the fort, but of course, the average person is there to experience the prison. Thus, that timeframe is the primary interpretation period. Oh, we also saw the largest NPS ranger hat ever, and Steve let us open and close the cell doors, that was cool, too.

On top of that, the Huntington Library opened their collection for us, and I was able to hold the knife that Lewis Powell attacked William Seward with on the night of April 14, 1865. I went through the original memoirs and sketchbook of Joseph Revere. I held an original copy of an Emancipation Proclamation book created specifically for distribution in New Orleans in 1863. Of course, they filmed many TV and movies at the library and their gardens. Check that one off my Hollywood filming locations.

But my favorite memory of the trip, outside of the bat-crap crazy hotel in San Francisco next to the all-male XXX review, was when we visited the San Pasqual Battlefield outside San Diego. When we got out of the car, there were rattlesnake warning signs everywhere. I told one of our crew members, Connor Townsend, that if we saw a rattlesnake, she was on her own. I will do a lot of things for the Trust, and I respect Connor, but it was every person for them self when it came to rattlesnakes.

CM: Your job at the Trust keeps you pretty jam-packed, but is there any project you’re working on in what little spare time you have?

KW: Spare time? You know what my daily schedule looks like. After a 10-12 hour work day, you would think that history is the last thing on my mind. Luckily, I have a job that I love, and that allows me to do what I love, so I get much of my Rev War, 1812, and CW fix at work. I do come home and work on a few projects, the last two titles in our

Gettysburg run for the ECW series, and some other side projects.

When I am not working on those titles, I live mentally in Europe. I have been working to collect materials for a WWII book that only two people know about at this point. I have immersed myself in European history during my working vacations abroad; my Audible account that has more European history titles than the Cleveland Browns have Lombardi Trophies. To be fair, I guess any number is larger than zero.

I think that if you are working on any sort of history book, context of the time period and geographic location is key. Thus, immersing myself in what happened before, during, and after the event that I am writing about allows me to view the event(s) from many, many different angles. If you have ever been on a tour with me, you will find that I am full of seemingly useless information from the time period, but this allows me to weave the story that I am telling on the field to their times, and into ours using cultural references, this makes the history more relevant to the public.

Most of my other spare time is used up by researching history and my next NFL fantasy draft. Five times I have come in second in the ECW league. I feel like your Buffalo Bills. I spend time with my wife planning our next adventure abroad and hanging out with my research assistant, Mosby the greyhound. I watch and quote a crapload of movies. “Don't take life too seriously, you'll never get out alive.” Van Wilder.

Lightning Round

Favorite primary source?

Generals in Bronze. It’s a book by William Styple that consists of the interviews and notes of artist and sculptor James Kelly.

Favorite Civil War-related monument?

What did I ever do to you to ask me that kind of lightning rod question?

Favorite unsung hero of the Civil War era?

Nathan Kimball. He beat Jackson and Lee. How do you like them apples? If we are talking the Marvel Cinematic Universe Civil War era, I’m all-in for Nick Fury.

What’s a bucket-list Civil War site you’ve not yet visited?

I’m glad that you didn’t specify which Civil War I could choose from. I’d flip a coin between Corfe Castle and Banqueting House. I also need to get to the Leipzig/Halle Airport. This is

where they filmed the epic fight scene in Captain America: Civil War. Bucket list priorities.

Favorite ECWS book that’s not one of your own?

Any ECW book that I didn’t have to write or coauthor. Researching is awesome. Writing sucks.

What’s something I haven’t asked you that I should have?

I don't have anything on this front; it's not like I have been giving serious answers to most of the questions. :)

ECW Bookshelf

Zack Fry's new book A Republic in the Ranks: Loyalty and Dissent in the Army of the Potomac (University of North Carolina Press) examines the role political debate played in the Union ranks. His analysis, drawn from largely untapped newspaper opinion pieces and voting totals, shows how important junior and field-grade officers were to the process of political mobilization in the Union Army. The book analyzes how this contentious field army went from worshipping George McClellan in 1862 to voting overwhelmingly against him for president in 1864, in the

process highlighting the dramatic story of the army's stand against Copperhead Democrats and widespread support for Lincoln's policies. A Republic in the Ranks received the Edward M. Coffman Prize from the Society for Military History.

Brian Matthew Jordan and Evan Rothera have co-edited a volume of essays now available from Louisiana University Press, The War Went On: Reconsidering the Lives of Civil War Veterans. “Essays in this collection approach Civil War veterans from oblique angles, including theater, political, and disability history, as well as borderlands and memory studies,” LSU Press says.

ECW News and Notes

Edward Alexander says, “I’m looking forward to some map projects hitting the shelves soon, but the publication timelines might be pushed back, so I don't wanna throw out some titles that might see delays. I’m beginning new map work for Fort Donelson, Harpers Ferry, and Rev War Camden.”

Sarah Kay Bierle has been reading a lot these days. She's currently working through The Mosby Myth: A Confederate Hero in Life and Legend, which is a fascinating look at ways to separate and address myths and trace their origins when writing biography.

From Bert Dunkerly: “I work at Richmond National Battlefield Park, and all of the summer programs I had prepared are cancelled. I've shifted gears and dug out old research that I began in the past but put aside. So right now I'm digging into such varied things as the Army of the Potomac's 1865 march through Richmond on its way to the Grand Review in Washington, the organization of Local Defense Troops in Richmond during the war, the Cold Harbor truce, colorbearers on battlefields, the 1690 Malvern House, and the Louisiana Tigers at Gaines' Mill. Plenty of variety to keep me going.”

Jon-Erik Gilot published an essay in the Spring 2020 issue of the Upper Ohio Valley Historical Review examining Civil War Sanitary Fairs, with an emphasis on the 1864 Wheeling Sanitary Fair.

Meg Groeling has been enjoying the presentations of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine. They are available at this website: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdGkf5Y7aEZsXEBhRhEKjg. “Jake Wynn is doing a stellar job,” Meg says. Here's a great one on coffee: https://www.youtube.com/

The latest releases from ECW historians Zack Fry, Brian Matthew Jordan, and Evan Rothera.

watch?v=JmORp0siOcs, and one on Civil War soldiers and their dreams: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=tT6dJBlTJGQ.

“My office is clean,” Meg says—“finally.” She gave away over 100 books, lots of magazines, and her Civil War Nurse Barbie. “What's left is still fairly massive,” she admits. She adds, “I took a risk and made plane reservations for Virginia in August, so hopefully I will see some of you then. Covid-19 has kept us home, but I have been sheltering in place most of my life anyway.”

Dwight Hughes conducted his first ever virtual presentation for the Civil War Roundtable of North Florida in Gainesville on the subject of the USS Monitor. “Not as good as being there in person, but still a fun exchange with a great group,” he says.

Dwight also received a pingback on a post he wrote in April 2017 on Confederate ironclads at the Battle of New Orleans. Curious. “Turns out the post was referenced in a footnote with a link in an article on L’inferno sul Mississippi in a polished Italian online magazine called Ignotus,” he says, “which, I discovered, is also an English word meaning ‘unknown, foreign, alien, strange, odd, weird.’ Couldn’t read article, but it looked interesting. The home page had another article titled La Guerra Civile Americana. Anecdotal evidence that ECW gets around.”

The Civil War Books and Authors blog posted a review of Constance Hall Jones’s The Spirits of Bad Men Made Perfect, a title in the Engaging the Civil

War Series published through Southern Illinois University Press. The reviewer said, “In expanding her study's purview beyond a brief Civil War diary to encompass its writer's personal, family, and professional connections with Richmond commerce, culture, and society over many decades, Constance Hall Jones has created a work of significant historiographical value on multiple levels. The Spirits of Bad Men Made Perfect is highly recommended.” You can read the full review here: https://cwba.blogspot.com/2020/04/review-spiritsof-bad-men-made-perfect.html

Chris Kolakowski has been helping the Wisconsin Veterans Museum put together digital outreach content, including a video on the museum's history and a program for a virtual/at-home Memorial Day observance. For more information, please visit www.vistvetsmuseum.com.

Rudely Stamp'd, a historical theatrical group featuring Derek Maxfield, Tracy Ford, and Jess Scheuerman, scored a full-page story in the May issue of Civil War News about the early March performance of their three act play, Now We Stand by Each Other Always, at the Brunswick Civil War Roundtable in North Carolina. The play features a series of conversations at pivotal points in the Civil War between Union Generals Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman.

Kris White is finishing off his part of the third book in the ECW Gettysburg series, Stay and Fight it Out, which will focus on the July 2 fighting at Culp’s Hill.

He and Chris Mackowski have co-authored a piece on the fascinating story of James Wadsworth and Patrick McCracken, slated for an upcoming issue of America’s Civil War.

and to develop ways to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on their organizations.

Finally, if your CWRT does not have the CWRT Congress on its website, please do so. We have a variety of resources there just for you and your members. Speakers, vendors, and proven practices have been developed with you in mind. That’s www.cwrtcongress. org And, if you are interested in a more dynamic way to engage, we are on Facebook, too: www. facebook.com/cwrtcongress.

his command, especially during the successful retreat, showed that the training during the winter encampment at Valley Forge by Baron von Steuben had begun to pay off. The Continental army would march out of Valley Forge the following month as a better trained military force than the one that had trekked into that winter cantonment six months earlier.

He has a talk on the bombardment and street fighting at Fredericksburg as part of “Lunch With Books with the Wheeling Library” on May 26, and he’s doing “The Last Days of Stonewall Jackson” for the Carnegie Library Second Saturday Series on June 13. Both are virtual events available on Facebook.

“And I have been to my kitchen a lot,” adds, who’s been working from home. “How's that?”

Don’t forget to check out ECW’s YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram pages. Please “Like” and “Share” our posts!

News from Our Partners at the Civil War Roundtable Congress

The CWRT Congress has been holding a continuous lecture series with 5-Star speakers since early April. We are encouraging CWRT members around the country (and world, for that matter) to join in the discussions. They are held on zoom.us and involve a lecture and the ever-popular Q&A session. Some sessions are actually longer than the lecture, which is phenomenal. Speakers include Eric Wittenberg, John Scales, John V. Quarstein, and Scott Mingus among many more. We are planning to release all the lectures for even wider distribution in July, so, stand by!

In addition, we know that CWRTs will be facing a variety of challenges as the quarantines are lifted. One of the most pressing is their regular meeting venues closing or open with very restricted hours. We will be holding some open forum zoom meetings to discuss the concerns and fears that CWRT leaders are facing

History is full of coincidences, both large and small, and the month of May in the American Revolution saw such. On May 10, 1775, forces under Colonel Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allan captured Fort Ticonderoga from the British. This victory ensured, months later, the use of the armament there by an enterprising young officer named Henry Knox who spirited the guns away to Boston and forced the British evacuation. In addition, both Allan and Arnold made an early name for themselves for the American cause.

Three years later on the same date, May 10, 1778, American and Oneida forces held off and successfully retreated from British General William Howe's forces at the Battle of Barren Hill outside Philadelphia. Led by the Frenchman Marquis de Lafayette, the steadfastness and demeanor under fire by the soldiers of

In May 1781, the “War of Posts” concluded with Whig forces successfully taking virtually all the minor British outposts in the Carolina Backcountry. Fort Watson, Orangeburg, Fort Motte, Fort Granby, and Fort Galphin all fell to a mix of militia, State Troops, and Continentals. This campaign was the background for the sieges of Augusta and Ninety Six that went on into June.

As most of us face stay-athome orders and other temporary safe measures during this pandemic, the historians at Emerging Revolutionary War have been busy writing content, working on the next publications for the Emerging Revolutionary War Series, and developing a series of Zoom/Facebook Live "Rev War Revelry" chats. Join us on Sunday evenings for "Rev War Roundtable with ERW:" a panel of ERW and guest historians discusses various aspects of the Revolutionary era of America in a virtual “happy hour” setting. Check out our blog, www.emergingrevolutionarywar.org to keep up with content. On Thursdays, we announce the topic of that week's "Rev War Revelry," so make sure you click on over on that day at least!

The third volume in the Emerging Civil War Series’ Gettysburg series is nearing completion.

by Shannon Pritchard

The most common accoutrement waist belt in the Confederate army was a standard belt that utilized a plain buckle with a single tongue made out of iron or, less frequently, brass. There were also many more fixed tongue frame buckles, and forked tongue frame buckles made and worn during the War than CS marked buckles. However, the survival rate of these simple utilitarian belts is much lower than CS marked specimens for several reasons.

When the armies surrendered, the privates turned over their arms and accoutrements to the victors, and of course many of those victors wanted to take a War souvenir home. It is certain that they would have preferred to carry a belt with a CS buckle home than a plain unmarked belt; so many CS marked belts were saved in this manner.

Another reason for the low survival rate of the plain utilitarian belts was simply that they were utilitarian. The South was destitute after the War. Everything was in short supply. Returning Rebels not only needed draft animals to make a crop, they also needed harness. Consequently, most of these belts were adapted to farm use and were quickly worn out.

This well-worn, simple belt is not very glamorous, but it was when new. Private Watkins had his name and regiment professionally engraved into the buckle’s face to serve as identification.

As can be seen by the metal and material under both sides of the rivet that secures the buckle, the belt was covered with yellow cloth and brass braid when it was new. It must have been bright and ornate in those early days. This likely would not have lasted long in the field with cap and cartridge box, bayonet scabbard, and perhaps a knife all mounted on it. You can see from the bends in the buckle that the belt saw very hard usage, but it still remains strong enough to wear. We collectors often use and hear the term “if only it could talk” when examining a particularly intriguing artifact. This one does. The face of the buckle reads: “Priv W C Watkins 23rd N Car.”

Private Watkins’ North Carolina

“Killed in Battle September 17th”

Roll of Honor Citation tells us that the Anson County, N.C., volunteer entered the N.C. State Troops on May 22, 1861. Watkins enlisted in the Confederate Army in Company A, the Anson Ellis Rifles of the 13th North Carolina Infantry on Sept. 10, 1861, for twelve months service. He was thirty-eight years old at the time of his twelve-month enlistment and was not required to be in service. Shortly after enlisting he was sent home sick, but soon returned and bore his part in the Peninsula Campaign in the spring of 1862.

That spring the regimental designation was changed to the 23rd North Carolina Infantry, under Brigadier General Jubal Early. Ordered to take up the mud march to Richmond on roads in which mules disappeared, they were about faced and marched back to aid General Longstreet in the battle at Williamsburg on May 5. After burning a small amount of powder in which four of the 23rd were wounded, they once again took up that muddy path through the woods “wet as rain can make us, with knapsacks and every shred of extra clothing gone, we marched back to the brow of the hill where we first formed in line of battle. Here amid mud and rain we were held in line of battle till 3 a.m. …then twelve miles were tramped, or rather stumbled, through darkness, mud and slush, before halt was made for rest of sleep, the tenacious mire was often knee deep. Shoes were pulled from our feet by it and lost. Pantaloons became so caked and weighted with mud that many, in sheer desperation and utter inability in their exhaustion, to carry an extra ounce, cut off and threw away all below the knees.” It did not get any better for four more days, when they finally reached the Chickahominy on the evening of May 9.

While the Confederates rested around Richmond, the army was reorganized and the 23rd found themselves in Samuel Garland’s Brigade of Daniel Harvey Hill’s Division. On May 30 a reconnaissance by the 23rd in which several men were killed and wounded, discovered the enemy’s weakness at Seven Pines. The following

day D. H. Hill’s Division furiously assaulted the Yankees. A Northern writer observing the attack of the 23rd wrote: “Our shot tore their ranks wide open, and shattered them in a manner frightful to behold, but they closed up and came on as steadily as English Veterans. When they got within four hundred yards, we closed our case shot and opened on them with canister. Such destruction I never witnessed. At each discharge great gaps were made in their ranks. But they at once closed and came steadily on, never halting, never wavering, right through the field, right up to our guns, and sweeping everything before them, captured our artillery and cut our whole division to pieces.”1 The attack drove the invaders back on their third line, two miles in rear of the first line they attacked, but at a terrible cost for the 23rd, which lost in excess of 50% casualties.

Having escaped the carnage of the June 26 attack at Mechanicsville, the following day the men were marched to the Confederate far left at Gaines Mill, where they skirmished through the afternoon and then charged the Yankees near sundown, breaking their portion of the line, in the great assault that broke McClellan’s Army.

Though allowed to lick their wounds while the battles of Savage Station and Glendale were fought, they were yet to see the worst, Malvern Hill. Of that awful, disjointed uphill attack of men against iron, Major General D.H. Hill said, “it was not war, it was murder.” Destroyed, only seventy men of the gallant regiment were left when it was over. The regiment arrived at Second Manassas too late to do more than march over the mangled bodies that were strewn about, “the most gruesome of our whole war experience” wrote a 23rd officer.

On Sept. 5 they waded the Potomac River and entered Maryland to drums beating and flags flying. “We were a hungry, jaded, weather beaten, battle worn set. In the forced marches to the northward, wagon trains had been outstripped, green corn and apples forming for days almost our only food… One of General

The face of the buckle reads: “Priv W C Watkins 23rd N Car.” the dawn of the most desperate conflict the New World had ever seen. To face the onslaught the 23rd was able to muster but few men; between battle losses and bare feet the regiment was a skeleton. After fighting desperately in the Cornfield, the regiment retired to the famous “Sunken Road” and continued to suffer. Somewhere on that bloody field, Private William C. Watkins went to his reward, his discharge in his coat pocket,3 and a bullet through his body. The belt that he had turned into a “dog tag,” now worn, torn, and bent, was removed and sent home as a souvenir. Watkins’ mortal remains rest there still, but his spirit lives on in those who remember his sacrifice.

Hill’s first acts after crossing the Potomac in to Maryland was to buy a large field of corn and turn in his division” wrote a veteran of the march. From Sept. 5, until the 10, the 23rd remained in camp near Frederick, Md. Private Watkins, despite his age, the merciless battles around Richmond, and the severity of the march, was still with his comrades and ready for the fray. Watkins’ term of enlistment expired on Sept. 10; he had been discharged for being physically unfit to continue, but he expressed his wish to take part in the coming battle.2 After all the hardship and bloodshed, only truly devoted patriotism could have kept the man in the ranks.

Leaving the camps at Frederick, the 23rd marched up South Mountain and laid down without covering on the western slope through the night of Sept. 13.

The following day the men took a position at Fox’s Gap, a critical crossing if McClellan was to be held until Stonewall Jackson could return from Harper’s Ferry. Their position was at the center of General Garland’s one thousand man brigade along the ridge crest, behind a fallen down stone fence. Though outnumbered three to one, Garland’s men held the gap even as their general was dying, but late in the day as the brigade was being enveloped and enfiladed, they were ordered to withdraw; this they did in a scramble for life down the mountainside in the quickly fading light. The necessary time had been bought and paid for in blood.

Marching along the Boonsboro Road, they reached Sharpsburg on the 15, crossed Antietam Creek, “took position along the ridge in an open field,” and waited. Daylight on Sept. 17, saw

Endnotes:

1. North Carolina Troops 1861–65 Vol. II page 205

2. North Carolina Troops 1861–65 Vol. II page 224

3. North Carolina Troops 1861–65 Vol. II page 224

Shannon Pritchard has authored numerous articles relating to the authentication, care and conservation of Confederate antiques, including several cover articles and is the author of the definitive work on Confederate collectibles, the widely acclaimed Collecting the Confederacy, Artifacts and Antiques from the War Between the States, and is co-author of Confederate Faces in Color.

Leather belt and belt buckle of Private Watkins. Courtesy OldSouthAntiques.com.

USS Monitor ’s Dahlgren Guns Continue Undergoing Conservation at Monitor Center

by Bob Ruegsegger

The USS Monitor’s two XIinch Dahlgren shell guns continue to undergo conservation at the Batten Conservation Laboratory Complex in Monitor Center at the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Va.

“The Dahlgren guns are kind of my focus,” said Erik Farrell. “I’m an archeological conservator working here on staff. I work primarily on Monitor objects and within that focus heavily on the two guns,” he explained. “We are coring out the guns. Basically, we are taking all the marine growth and the concretion inside the guns and cleaning it out.”

While John Ericsson would have preferred XV-inch guns in the turret of his iron warship, the largest gun approved by the U.S. Navy was the XI-inch Dahlgren shell gun. Admiral John Dahlgren worried about the safety of guns larger than XI-inch.

When Ericsson submitted the design for his warship, he incorporated two XI-inch Dahlgren shell guns on slide carriages in his plans for the turret.

The two muzzleloading,

smoothbore Dahlgren shell guns that eventually served aboard the Monitor were originally assigned to the USS Dakotah. The Monitor’s Dahlgrens (registry numbers 27 and 28) were cast at the West Point Foundry in Cold Spring, N.Y., in 1859. The cast iron tubes each weighed about 16,000 pounds (The Worden gun weighs 15,720 pounds.) and the artillery pieces sold for $1,391.00 each.

In 2002 a team of U.S. Navy divers and NOAA archaeologists recovered the Monitor’s turret from 230 feet of water, about 16 miles SSE off Cape Hatteras lighthouse.

In 2004, conservators began the delicate process of removing the large iron guns from the turret and stabilizing the artifacts by placing them in conservation tanks. “The two guns were found inside the turret. The turret had come off the Monitor’s hull when it sank and both turret and hull were upside down. The guns are right side up now,” said Erick Farrell. “When sinking, the turret fell off the ship because it was held in place by its weight.

It and everything in it was upside down.”

Each gun’s exterior was cleaned of marine growth that formed a concretion, a product that forms when iron corrodes in seawater and combines with calcium in the water, sea life, sand, anything else found on the sea floor, cementing itself into a rock-like coating on the outside of the artifact.

“Iron rusts. If you have salt plus iron plus water, the iron is going to go away eventually,” noted Farrell. “We try to take the salt out of the iron so these objects can be dried off and displayed.” According to Conservator Farrell, most concretion on the outside of the guns had been removed by 2012, and they were in desalination. Driving salt out of iron objects that have been submerged in saltwater is the primary focus of the desalination process. “The guns would normally be in electrolysis. They are not hooked up now because we’ve been working on them the last couple of weeks,” said Farrell. “A negative current will be applied to the guns, driving negatively charged chlorides and salts out on a positively charged current to some sacrificial materials in the water, but away from the guns” he explained.

“We’ll check periodically and wait for it to plateau. When it plateaus, we change the water and start again,” said Farrell. “When that plateau is as close to zero as we can possibly get it, then we’ll know that it’s stable and can come out.”

The problem with the guns

specifically is that in order to effectively drive salt out, the surface needs to be exposed. While the gun’s outside was cleaned, there was still concretion covering some surface inside the gun’s bore.

“The last year and a half or so we have been looking into methods and have designed a new horizontal coring drill rig specifically to work on these guns. It is extremely adjustable,” Farrell observed. “You want that drill to be lined up perfectly with the bore of the gun so it is removing only

the concretion down the middle and not straying or wandering off into the gun metal.”

During the drilling and coring process the guns rest in a cradle. The guns are a little over 13 feet in length and each originally weighed nearly 16,000 pounds. Unlike working with smaller guns, the Dahlgrens were not clamped down during the coring operation because it wasn’t necessary; they were too heavy.

“The Monitor carried two XIinch Dahlgren shell guns. They are smoothbore muzzleloaders.

This diamond-bonded coring bit was used to bore out the concretions inside the Monitor’s XI-inch Dahlgren guns.

Material Cultural Specialist Hanna Fleming sifted through the concretions removed from the guns during the coring process.

Concretion is a substance formed when iron corrodes in saltwater. It typically consists of iron, salt, sand, and sea life.

This exhibit at the Mariners’ Museum’s Monitor Center illustrates via a cutaway display how the Monitor’s XI-inch Dahlgrens were mounted on sliding carriages within the turret.

The Monitor Expedition arrived in Newport News in August 2002 with the Monitor’s turret.

Director of Conservation Will Hoffman (far right) and Archaeological Conservator Erik Farrell focus intently on the boring process. Courtesy of Brock Switzer/The Mariners’ Museum and Park.

They were a work horse for the Union navy,” Said Farrell. “John Ericsson originally wanted XVinch Dahlgren guns; however, those weren’t available on short notice so the XI-inch guns were mounted instead,” said Farrell. “They were taken off another vessel and repurposed for Monitor.”

The coring-cleaning operation of Monitor’s guns took two weeks to complete. The insides of the tubes have been cleaned. The concretion is out. There is now more surface exposed inside the guns. They’ll be going back into desalination. More chlorides will be coming out of the iron.

“If you go up to the turret [tank], you’ll see a lot of steelmesh plates hanging around it that are the sacrificial anode material and wires going to iron artifacts,” said Farrell. “There’s none of that in the gun tanks right now because we’ve had them out for cleaning. That all has to go back in, but the cleaning stage itself is finished. The next step is back in to desalination.”

After the desalination process has been completed, conservators will try to consolidate the outside surface of the guns as best they can. The Monitor’s guns are made of grey cast iron, an alloy of iron and carbon. The carbon used for grey cast iron is graphite, like pencil lead.

“When the grey cast iron corrodes in seawater, the iron comes out. Some forms the concretion material; some dissolves. Some becomes nutrients for sea life, but it’s no longer even iron,” said Farrell. “The outer surface is just graphite. It’s about a quarter-inch in depth. You can break pencil lead. It’s a fragile material.”

Farrell and his colleagues will spend considerable time consolidating the cannon, trying to add strength to it, and protecting the graphitized layer with its inscriptions, weight marks, and makers marks.

“All those things are on the graphitized layer. It will take some time to make sure they stay there,” said Farrell. “We do intend to exhibit them, but I couldn’t tell you when, especially, right now,”

Having just cleaned the bore, Farrell anticipates that the chloride content is going to spike since more surface has been exposed. More chloride will come out. Until Farrell knows how high that spike is, he won’t really have an idea of how much chloride is left to come out and can’t really predict with any degree of accuracy how long that might take. “It will probably take a couple more years desalination. That’s a very give or take number because we don’t have the information yet,” said Farrell. “That will be

followed by a year or so in drying and coating. These guns will also require extremely specialized display environments.”

When conservators are fighting 150 years of corrosion, it’s impossible to remove 100-percent of the salt, but they eliminate as much as they possibly can. To ensure that the little bit of salt that remains will do no harm, they control the environment around the artifacts to make certain that they stay intact.

“If you have something the size of your hand and you need it in an extremely dry environment, it’s reasonably easy to do,” said Farrell. If you have something 14x6x4 feet and you need it to stay unbelievably dry indefinitely, that’s actually a significant engineering problem.”

For the gun itself, humidity is the major factor. Iron corrodes with oxygen and water. If salt is added, iron corrodes more quickly. Removal of water and oxygen [air] stops the corrosion. “Water is easier to get rid of than oxygen,” Farrell said. “Both of can be removed from display environments, but there’s a balancing act between how much you need and how big a problem it will be to achieve the right balance.”

Hannah Fleming, material culture specialist at the Mariners’ Museum, participated in the recent gun boring project. Her role was to sift through all the concretion removed from the inside the gun tubes to look for artifacts that might be inside the concretion. In the first gun, the Worden gun, 2 ½ to 3 pounds of coal were found.

In the second, the Ericsson gun, a single bolt was found.

“They had to get the gun perfectly aligned with the drill so that the drill went down the gun at the right angle and didn’t do any damage to the inside. That was the most difficult part,” said Hannah Fleming. “If that wasn’t aligned correctly, we were going to damage the gun. It was meticulous. It was very successful,” she said. “Erik did an excellent job. He really nailed it.”

Bob Ruegsegger is an American by birth and a Virginian. His assignments frequently take him to historic sites throughout Virginia, the Mid-Atlantic, and the Southeast. His favorite haunts include sites within Virginia’s Historic Triangle—Jamestown, Yorktown, and Williamsburg. Bob served briefly in the U.S. Navy. He is a retired educator and has been an active newspaper journalist for the last twenty years.

been on removing

Archaeological Conservator Erik Farrell works primarily with Monitor artifacts at the Batten Conservation Laboratory Complex at the Monitor Center. Recently, his focus has

concretion inside the XI-inch Dahlgren shell guns.

The inscription on this Dahlgren shell gun, registry number 28, reads: “Ericsson, Monitor and Merrimac.” This engraving was added in October 1862. Courtesy of The Mariners’ Museum and Park. Dahlgren shell gun lifted out of its tank. Courtesy of Brock Switzer/The Mariners’ Museum and Park.

Material Culture Specialist Hannah Fleming (left) and Christina Altland examine materials removed from the gun for artifacts. Courtesy of Brock Switzer/The Mariners’ Museum and Park.

The ends of the cradle that supported the Dahlgren shell gun during the gun-coring project.

The Devastation of Leadership

Generals Killed At Gettysburg: Battle Summary

Included. Edit by Joe Mieczkowski. Illustrations, Photos, Appendix, Index, 2020, 152 pp., Pedia Press, pediapress. com, softcover. $23.90.

Reviewed by Joseph Truglio

Gettysburg Guides’ Book Offers Focused, Thorough Narrative of Peach Orchard Fight

Gettysburg’s Peach Orchard: Longstreet, Sickles, and the Bloody Fight for the “Commanding Ground” Along the Emmitsburg Road. By James A. Hessler and Britt C. Isenberg. Maps, photos, notes, index, 381 pp., 2019. Savas Beatie, savasbeatie.com. $34.95.

Reviewed by Noah F. Crawford

platform, and for all the terrible fighting, “neither side was helped by Sickles’s advance to the Peach Orchard.”

Unlike most battle books, this one is more a human interest story concerning eleven men whose deaths had a great impact on the war effort of both sides.

The first several pages contain an overview of the campaign and battle. This should familiarize the novice reader with the events that take place. Next comes several paragraphs on the battle’s effect inflicted on the armies, nations, etc. This section encompasses about one third of the book. It is well annotated and has a sufficient bibliography for further

study.

The next section contains a brief history of the battle, the casualties, and short biographies of the principal characters lost. It is presented in chronological order. The information is brief, but succinct and amply annotated. Again, there is a strong bibliography for further study.

The final section covers the retreat and a death bed promotion.

Overall, there is much to learn here, especially for novice students of the battle. Its format allows students to carry it with them as they travel the battlefield and study events. The documentation presented makes further research an easy task.

This book is a unique publication. Although I personally am not a big fan of Wikipedia, this tool may give the growing number of self-publishing authors an easier way to reach their target audience. My only criticisms, and they are minor, are the need for stronger editing and perhaps a lower price. I feel that $25 may be a bit out of reach for younger students. Despite that, I highly recommend you get a copy for your library. Better yet, give a copy to a younger student and send him/ her on a journey of learning more about American history.

Joseph Truglio, of Manchester, N.J., is a retired Motion Picture Technician who has a lifelong interest in the Civil War. He is currently President of the Phil Kearny CWRT in Hasbrouck Heights, N.J.

Gettysburg’s Peach Orchard: Longstreet, Sickles, and the Bloody Fight for the “Commanding Ground” Along the Emmitsburg Road demonstrates that there is still much for even the most avid student of the battle of Gettysburg to learn about that crucial engagement. Licensed Battlefield Guides James A. Hessler and Britt C. Isenberg, both authors of other books on the battle’s second day, provide a page-turning, precise narrative of the fighting in and around Joseph Sherfy’s famous Peach Orchard. More importantly, the authors forward a compelling argument that at Gettysburg “no other single terrain feature can claim such far-reaching impacts as the Peach Orchard.”

The majority of the monograph discusses the fighting in the Peach Orchard and the fields immediately to its north and northeast between 3 and 7 p.m. on July 2, 1863. The authors provide a thorough discussion of the bombardment before and during James Longstreet’s assault and principally examine the fight between Union units under Charles Graham and Andrew Humphreys and Confederate brigades under Joseph Kershaw and William Barksdale. The importance of these actions, they argue, is that “the ground gained in and around the Peach Orchard was a lynchpin of Lee’s July 3 plans.” However, Confederate officers misunderstood the “limitations of this position” as an artillery

The authors’ expertise and familiarity with the battlefield shines through in their writing. Hessler and Isenberg embrace modern identifiers when describing locations of events; for example, they describe the location of an artillery battalion as “5075 yards east of modern West Confederate Avenue.” Such descriptions allow visitors to the battlefield the benefit of situating historic events within the current battlefield geography and what they see around them.

The authors zoom in on such a small geographic area and short span of time to focus on recognizable, but oft-overlooked individuals. How often do history buffs hear about the martinet Andrew Humphreys’ profanity or his marginalized brigadier Joseph Carr being described as the “model colonel?” What of the dispute between two Confederate battery commanders that almost led to a duel on July 2nd that was only averted because of the fighting in which both officers participated that afternoon? Dozens of monographs relay the mortal wounding of the 21-year old “Boy Colonel” Henry Burgwyn on the first day of battle, but what of 21-year old Colonel Edward Bailey who commanded the 2nd New Hampshire in the desperate fight for the Peach Orchard? As famous is the tragic story of John W. Culp, the Confederate soldier who ironically fought and died on the hill that bore his family’s name; far less known is the story of Henry Wentz, who unlimbered his cannon in the Peach Orchard mere feet from his boyhood home where his parents at that moment huddled in the basement. These fascinating anecdotes provided by Hessler and Isenberg bring the lives of the soldiers who fought at the Peach Orchard to life.

The authors add their voices to the historiography that examines James Longstreet’s merits and mistakes. While critical of Longstreet’s poor communication that at times resulted in uncoordinated, sequential attacks, the authors refute accusations of Longstreet “sulking” by opining that “He was a professional soldier acting as he felt his military duty required…” The authors criticize many of Sickles’ actions, but they assert that the “theory that political aspirations motivated Sickles’s advance”

is “unsubstantiated.” They also point out that many of his subordinates and enlisted men avidly defended their corps commander’s actions in the postwar disputes.

A possible shortcoming is that for a book that emphasizes the value of a particular piece of ground, relatively little is said about this ground itself. Besides comparing its height to nearby Little Round Top, few metrics of the ridge’s elevation are given—critical information when considering the area as an artillery platform as many officers deduced. Readers might also wonder about the foliage and vegetation of the Peach Orchard’s surrounding area; how the Peach Orchard contrasted with neighboring pastures, gardens, groves, and plowed fields is not discussed.

For its ability to situate the reader within the historic and modern geography of the Peach Orchard, this book is especially useful for the battlefield visitor seeking a detailed work of the fighting there. Armchair readers will also benefit from its fascinating illumination of little-known accounts and personalities as well as its argument regarding the position as the “lynchpin” of Lee’s critical July 3rd decisions.

Noah F. Crawford is a graduate student at Virginia Tech; he studies the experiences of refugees and the intersections of social history and military history in the Civil War’s Eastern Theater.

Slave, Soldier, Decent Man

Carrying the Colors: The Life and Legacy of Medal of Honor Recipient

Andrew Jackson Smith. By W. Robert Beckman and Sharon S. MacDonald. Illustrated, notes, appendix, bibliography, Westholme Publishing, 2020, 261 pp., cloth $28.

Reviewed by Wayne L. Wolf

Born a slave in 1842, the property of Elias Smith, his white father, Andrew Jackson Smith escaped from slavery in January 1862 when he learned he was to be sent to the Confederate Army to work on fortifications. Successfully reaching the lines of the 41st Illinois Volunteer Infantry, he was hired as a servant by Dr. John Warner and traveled with him and the 41st to witness the action at Forts Henry and Donelson, as well as the Battle of Shiloh. He then returned to Clinton, Ill., to assist Dr. Warner who was recovering from an intestinal illness. This task accomplished, he left Clinton, traveled to Massachusetts, and joined the 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry (Colored).

From his enlistment until his discharge in 1865, he served in both the Quartermaster Department and with the Provost Marshal’s Office. The service for which he would eventually be awarded the Medal of Honor took place while he was stationed in the Sea Islands off South Carolina. Both at the Battle of Grimball’s Causeway, and the charge of the 55th at Honey Hill, where he carried the colors after the original color bearer was killed, exhibited the bravery required to earn the nation’s highest honor. Throughout his entire military career, he was never censured, served with valor and commitment, and was highly praised by his commanding officers. A paucity of paperwork would deny him the Medal of Honor for over six decades.

His remarkable story did not end upon his discharge. He returned to his native Kentucky and resumed farming, tobacco growing, raising livestock, buying and selling land. He also gave back to his community by donating land for a cemetery, helping to feed those in need, treating children to candy, and giving loans to those in need. This remarkable life story would have been lost if his papers had not lovingly been preserved by his daughters Geneva and Coruth. After years of keeping his life’s papers in a safe spot, they turned to Smith’s grandson Andy Bowman to gather all additional relevant documentation and begin haunting politicians with a demand for recognition of his grandfather’s service. Finally, with the help of two Illinois members of Congress, Thomas Ewing and Richard Durbin, he was successful in finally gaining the necessary legislation to permit President Clinton to award Andrew Jackson Smith the Congressional Medal of Honor in January 2001.

This book is one of the best biographies of an individual USCT soldier to reach the market in recent memory. It is very readable, well documented, and hard to put down. It begs the reader to delve further into the history of the 55th Massachusetts. Two good books to achieve this goal would be Noah Andre Trudeau’s Voices of the 55th: Letters from the 55th Massachusetts Volunteers, 1861–1865 and Burt Wilder’s The 55th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, Colored. This book is highly recommended for any Civil War enthusiast, especially those with an interest in the contributions of black soldiers to the Union victory.

Wayne L. Wolf is Professor Emeritus at South Suburban College, past President of the Lincoln-Davis CWRT, and author of numerous books and articles including Soldiers, Sailors and Scoundrels of the Civil War and The Last Confederate Scout.

A Wonderful Collection of Letters from the Iron Brigade

Dear Delia: The Civil War Letters of Captain Henry F. Young, Seventh Wisconsin Infantry. Edited by Micheal J. Larson and John David Smith. Maps, photos, notes, index. 319 pp. University of Wisconsin Press, 2019. uwpress.wisc.edu. $29.95.

Reviewed by Jonathan W. White

Throughout the war, Young expressed strong patriotic sentiments. “I am going to see this war through if I come out not worth the first damed red cent,” he wrote in November 1861. “I would rather spend the last drop of blood I have and let my wife and children have the free government of the united states to live in than to have our government and institutions broken up and be worth millions.”

frequently Union commanders were replaced. “They are eternally changing changing,” he complained. “They will displace a good officer that has been tried, for some political favourite that never seen a field of Battle. It is enough to make a man desert and damn the whole institution.”

The Civil War correspondence of Capt. Henry F. Young of the Iron Brigade should be on the bookshelf of every reader interested in Civil War military history. Young’s letters offer a company-level officer’s perspective of the war from August 1861 to November 1864, including detailed accounts of his experiences at Second Manassas, Antietam, Gettysburg, the Overland Campaign, and the siege of Petersburg.

Young’s writing is lively and perceptive. Early in the war he described how the men of his regiment, the 7th Wisconsin, disliked their German colonel. “The trouble is he cant command americans,” wrote Young, because they could not understand his orders.

“Then he gets mad as thunder and raves and belows like a mad bull; and abuses all the officers for not anticipating his damned dutch command.”

Young quickly became hardened by combat. In September 1862, he wrote his wife that he “can go to sleep with a fight raging within a mile of me,” but he always had a tender word for his family and longed to be with them. “My dear little woman if I am so unfortunate as to fall my last thoughts will be of you and the dear ones,” he wrote in May 1864. One of the saddest moments in the book comes when he learns of his daughter’s death at the end of the war.

For Young, the war was about preserving the Union. “We are fighting for to crush out rebellion, not for the abolition of slavery,” he wrote in December 1861, but, he then added, “every man of common sence [sic] knows that as the army advance, the slaves of every Rebble [sic] will be set free.” When Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862, Young admitted that “I dont know what effect [it] will have on the South. But there is one thing certain it is just what was wanted.” Nevertheless, he maintained a very negative view of African Americans, telling his wife that he would never command black soldiers “for reason they are the infernalist set of cowards in the world,” and, “The great majority of them would prefer to be slaves rather than fight for their liberty.”

Young’s impressions of southerners are revealing. Upon entering the town of Falmouth, Va., in April 1862, he wrote, “Nearly every white woman was crying, for they all have friends in the Rebble [sic] army, and all the darkies were dancing for joy.” He resented southern Unionists, who, he said, “are union only while we are here. They are a cowardly sneeking [sic] set of Devils, that would submit to annything [sic] rather than fight”

Throughout his letters Young expressed strong feelings about the Union’s political and military leaders. He wanted to serve under generals who would fight and he got frustrated by how

After Lincoln issued the final Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, Young heard soldiers “swear they would never go into another fight, that they did not volunteer to fight for negroes.” Young never wavered in his support for Lincoln’s reelection in 1864, but his letters reveal how support among many Union soldiers was less stable. If Lincoln did not enforce the draft, Young wrote during the long, terrible summer of 1864, “Mc[Clellan] will get a large soldier vote.” More importantly, however, the Democrats’ decision to nominate a Peace Democrat for vice president “hurt the McClellan tickett [sic] with the soldiers.”

Dear Delia is one of the finest collections of Civil War correspondence to appear in recent years. It is expertly edited and annotated, and the letters touch nearly every aspect of the soldier experience during the Civil War. Highly recommended.

Jonathan W. White is associate professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University and is the author or editor of ten books, including Midnight in America: Darkness, Sleep, and Dreams during the Civil War (2017) and “Our Little Monitor”: The Greatest Invention of the Civil War (2018), co-authored with Anna Gibson Holloway. Visit his website at www.jonathanwhite. org or follow him on Twitter at @ CivilWarJon.

Thirty Minutes of Bloody Excitement

Personal Accounts of Two Officers Who Faced Each Other From Opposite Sides of a Great Battlefield

by Roger Semplak and Marc Ramsey

Two first-hand accounts that you might want to consider when looking for books to read that include interesting sections related to the Battle of Gettysburg are the ones we will discuss in some detail within this article. Both are well-written, primary sources, penned by two articulate officers who were there. One is a memoir while the other is actually an autobiography. Both were written more than 20 years after the war but neither was published until well into the twentieth century. The two authors commanded troops that faced each other on the third day of the battle of Gettysburg. Both were wounded during the action and they witnessed much of this event; their writing clearly shows how their individual perspectives and other’s observations influenced their accounts.

We start with John Gibbon’s Personal Recollections of the Civil War, originally published by G.P. Putnam’s and Sons in 1929, with a forward by Brig. General C.A. Woodruff. The author’s original manuscript was finished in 1885 as noted by a number of references within the text, but it took an additional 44 years for the book to be printed. It was published by his daughter who added a few footnoted comments but never provided an explanation as to why it took so long to see the light of day. While original copies of the book can still be

found on the rare and secondary market, the reading public is fortunate that in 1988 Morningside Bookshop provided an excellent reprint, with an introduction by Don Russell, making it available again, though even this edition is becoming more difficult to find.

John Gibbon was an artillery captain stationed at Camp Floyd, Utah Territory, as a result of the Mormon uprising, an outpost in the middle of nowhere. The military’s knowledge of what was happening in the east was much delayed and also limited in scope with a great reliance on the Pony Express. Once hostilities began, Gibbon expressed his frustrations at the slow process of returning east with the Battery B, 4th U.S. Light Artillery, so he could turn both the guns and enlisted personnel over to authorities at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. He commented on the rather slow

process of destroying large quantities of government material that could not be taken with the unit and had to be eliminated to insure Mormon insurgents can’t get their hands on it. His frustration as a career officer at the time it takes to accomplish this and then move eastwards towards a war that wasn’t originally expected to last over 90 days can be felt in his writing.

Once back east and available to serve in a war that wasn’t going to end in the near term, Gibbon’s career started to move in a upward direction when he was named chief of artillery in General Irwin McDowell’s Division. As with the vast majority of his professional peers, he initially had a rather low opinion of the volunteers particularly when it came to discipline. Being trained and used to a discipline derived through the administration of punishment, the fact the volunteers were not motivated by fear was frustrating. Over the course of the book, a slow but steady transition in Gibbon’s opinions and methods occurred. He found that artillerists under his command were much quicker to understand the organizational structure and responsibilities required and were actually quicker to learn the battery’s drill than the regulars he had previously commanded.

Due to other officers’ advancement Gibbon found himself commanding an infantry brigade. While this move allowed for greater career enhancement, Gibbon had been an artillery officer his entire career and had no experience commanding infantry. He never commanded an infantry company much less a regiment; he now had responsibility for a brigade. This resulted in many hours burning the midnight oil to become familiar with an infantry regiment’s commands and movements. During this learning

learned to be excellent soldiers. They handled themselves well against Stonewall Jackson’s forces at Groveton and were engaged from late in the day until they were withdrawn long after dark. The brigade was again be heavily engaged at South Mountain, where they obtained their name, and Antietam after which Gibbon was assigned to command a division with the I Corps. During this assignment he was wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg.

experience, he realized the movement of multiple artillery batteries was similar to that of an infantry brigade, thereby making the transition a little more manageable.

The brigade he initially commanded came to be known as “The Iron Brigade” and consisted of three Wisconsin regiments, the 2nd, 6th, and 7th, plus the 19th Indiana. The westerners did not take well to the professional discipline instituted by Gibbon; while he glossed over his various problems in his book, the History of the 6th Wisconsin provides a deeper understanding of the conflict of wills between Gibbon’s strict, almost martinet style of discipline and their more laid back approach to soldiering.

Gibbon tried to instill more soldierly pride in these volunteers by making them professional looking with the appearance of U.S. Army Regulars in their uniform and accouterments even to being forced to wear leggings. The leggings resulted in an incident that pushed the volunteers to their limit of tolerance, and while Gibbon didn’t mention it, the regimental history of the 6th records that some member of the regiment placed leggings on Gibbon’s horse. While not well received by Gibbon, it did bring an end to the extreme discipline associated with conformity to dress. This corresponded with the period when Gibbon finally began to realize these western volunteers were not as motived by fear but rather reward. After this Gibbon began to comment on how he improved his brigade’s discipline by acknowledging a job well done and allowing the volunteers time to pick blackberries resulting in a happier situation for all involved.

By the time the regiment participation in the Second Manassas campaign, his volunteers have

Upon his return to active duty he was given command of the Second Division, II Corps under Major General Winfield Scott Hancock. The relationship between these two men was very congenial, professionally respectful, and friendly to begin with but after the Battle of Gettysburg it became somewhat testy.

At Gettysburg the II Corps did not deploy on the field until the morning of the second day. Hancock was initially detailed to provide General Meade with reliable information as to what was happening at Gettysburg after learning of General Reynolds’ death and receiving conflicting reports from those left on site. In the absence of General Hancock, Gibbon took over temporary command of the II Corps and got them ready to move toward the fight. Upon Hancock’s return the evening of July 1, Gibbon had the II Corps ready to move and reverted back to commanding the Second Division. The II Corps moved forward, initially in a support role, prior to their second day deployment on Cemetery Ridge. When Major General Sickles was wounded, Meade assigned Hancock responsibility for stabilizing and holding Cemetery Ridge. This shift resulted in the II Corps coming under Gibbon’s immediate command again.

At the conclusion of the second day, there was the much mentioned Council of War convened by General Meade to establish a clear picture of his capabilities where the various corps commanders all expressed their opinions. General Gibbon, as the junior commander present, was first to comment on the situation. Gibbon’s book seemed to rely on notes taken by General Butterfield and the comments and opinions found their way into many histories of the battle. The minutes of the meeting from Meade’s personal papers are included in the text as well. Whether or not the material previously presented was drafted at

General John Gibbon. Library of Congress.

the time, and when Gibbon was made aware of Meade’s minutes, is subject to debate, especially since there are subtle differences between the two. What is worth noting however is the parting conversation between Meade and Gibbon as the meeting broke up, where Meade informed Gibbon that if General Lee attacked the next day it would be on Gibbon’s front. General Meade then stated that Lee tried both flanks and failed, so if he tries again it will be the center. This comment has appeared in many volumes pertaining to the battle, but since it takes place basically between only the two generals, this reference is probably the best primary source of this interesting and insightful observation.

When the assault occurred where Meade predicted, Gibbon sent one of his aides, Lt. Haskell, to inform the army’s commander. During Lt. Haskell’s absence, Gibbon was wounded and actually did not witness most of the assault and its repulse as he was taken off the field to the hospital. What’s interesting in this account is Gibbon’s concern about the entry point of the wound possibly being in his back. He is greatly relieved to learn the wound he initially experienced was actually the exit wound. For the coverage of the actual assault Gibbon included a 15 page letter written by Lt. Haskell to his brother shortly after the event where he detailed his own experiences. Gibbon gave credit to Haskell for the letter, and also recognized the enormous effort exerted by this staff officer, in both rallying the various elements of the Second Division, II Corps in stemming and finally repulsing the assault. Gibbon, like Hancock, returned to the Army of the Potomac in the spring of 1864, however their relationship soured, resulting in a post war dispute over actions related to the May 6 Wilderness fighting. Their dispute resulted in a number of letters that were included in the mid 1880’s edition and might be a reason for the delay in publication, but that is only speculation by the authors of this article.

Gibbon concluded his Civil War service as a Major General commanding the XXIV Corps, Army of the James, under General E.O.C. Ord. After the war he reverted back to his original prewar rank, in his case as a captain of the 4th Artillery. By 1866 he was named colonel of the 38th U.S. Infantry, then transferred to the 7th U.S. Infantry in 1869 when the 38th was deactivated. Gibbon was finally promoted to Brigadier General in the Regular Army in July 1885 and retired in April 1891.

Our second book is very different. It is the Autobiography of Eppa Hunton. The foreword lays the ground rules for this piece when Eppa Hunton, Jr., the author’s son, writes:

“My wife and son have urged me to add a few notes to the autobiography of my father and to have a few copies printed for my immediate family and a few intimate friends, as a part of the unwritten history of important events of the period in which he figured.”

He added:

“No copy will be sold, and none has been given away, but when advisable a copy may be loaned to a friend who may desire to read it.”

In the book’s preface his father stated: “I have written this little unpretentious volume for them” [my children] “and for them only”

To this he added: There are many facts in the book, and especially some relating to the war, which would probably lead to bitter and acrimonious controversy that I deeply regret.”

As an autobiography this book covers a good portion of the author’s life and since it wasn’t meant for anyone outside the family it is rather frank in some areas. In many ways Hunton was a very successful self-made man starting from humble beginnings to becoming a successful attorney. He was a very early advocate of secession. He says; “When the State of Virginia seceded from the Union we believed that we had a perfect right to withdraw, and had no intention in the world of disturbing the united forces or interfering with the United States.” He then added, “All that Virginia asked for was to be let alone, to pursue her course under the new order of things brought about by secession.”

As a member of the Virginia State Militia, Hunton achieved the rank of Brigadier General but resigned to accept command of the 8th Virginia Infantry as

a Colonel, much to the dissatisfaction of Virginia Governor Letcher. As commander of the 8th Virginia he led troops under General Johnston in the Shenandoah Valley, then moved by rail to participate in the Battle of First Manassas. He reminisced after the battle while General Beauregard had his army at Fairfax Courthouse, that there were four notable Rebel girls, whom he names, and who were noted for their beauty and violent loyalty to the Confederacy. After Southern forces withdrew from the area, these same Rebel girls became great belles with the Yankee officers, eventually not only forgetting to hate but learning to love Yankees.

Hunton’s next major action was at Balls Bluff where the Confederates successfully repulsed a Union advance which got out of hand with the arrival of Union Colonel Baker, who he mistakenly referred to as General Baker. While being offered the rank of general by the Lincoln administration, Baker didn’t accept it because it would cost him his seat in Congress. He did not survive the battle. During the early defense of Richmond, the 8th Virginia was involved in a number of engagements and Hunton was there on some occasions, however due to poor health there were times when he was not with his regiment.

As the war progressed Hunton’s 8th Virginia had different brigade commanders. After the Battle of Fredericksburg, General Richard B. Garnett was assigned to command and Hunton wrote the following: “General Garnett was a graduate of West Point, a member of the distinguished Garnett family of Essex County Virginia and, while he was not a man of much mental force, he was one of the noblest and bravest men I ever knew.” Hunton’s regiment and the brigade missed Chancellorsville, being previously assigned to North Carolina, but returned to serve in the Gettysburg campaign.

As part of General Pickett’s Division, Hunton’s regiment arrived on the battlefield very late the second day. He wrote that, “The action was brought on without General Lee’s orders. His intention was to fight at Cash Town six miles southeast of Gettysburg, and on this side of South Mountain, but General Ewell [sic A. P. Hill] had accidentally encountered quite a force of the enemy at Gettysburg, the fight commenced … and a heavy battle ensued.” He goes on to further state; “General Gordon says that he was driving the enemy from Seminary Ridge when he was

ordered by Ewell to retire.”

For the second day Hunton recounted that, “The next morning the 2nd of July – Longstreet was ordered at an early hour of the day to make an attack on the left of General Meade.” The objective point in the attack was “Little Round Top.” He later noted in the same section that Pickett’s Division, including Garnett’s Brigade, reached the vicinity of Gettysburg about night on the 2nd, “very much worn down by the march.”

During the Pickett, Pettigrew, Trimble assault, aka Pickett’s Charge, Hunton was wounded and forced to leave the field of action. This wounding probably resulted in some of the most controversial observations of his remembrance when he commented on where General Pickett was during the assault. Hunton wrote, “No man who was in that charge has ever been found, within my knowledge, who saw Pickett during the charge.” He further added that “One of my soldiers whom I met here at the laying of the cornerstone of the Jeff Davis monument in Monroe Park told me that he was detailed to carry water to Pickett and his Staff during the fighting at Gettysburg.” When asked where, he said “they were behind a limestone ledge of rocks, about 100 yards in the rear of the position that we were prior to the charge.” To add to this controversy, Hunton also stated that “neither Pickett not [sic] any of his Staff was killed or wounded, and that not one of their horses was killed or wounded, whereas every man who was known to have gone into the charge on horse-back was killed or wounded, or had his horse killed.”

Hunton continued to soldier through almost to the end of the conflict when he was captured by Custer’s troops at Sailors Creek. After the war he returned to his law practice and then moved on to politics. He was a strong believer in the “Lost Cause;” General Lee never did anything wrong, and the Battle of Gettysburg was lost simply because neither Longstreet nor Ewell could execute orders in a timely manner.

These two books look at the

war from different perspectives. While both actively participated throughout Civil War, their writing efforts took different approaches as to how they presented the facts. Both are wonderful reads, with the Gibbon volume being much easier to find and well worth the time. If you’re ever fortunate enough to find the Hunton volume, which does reside in the Virginia State Library, and odd copies do appear for sale at certain antiquarian bookshops from time to time, you, as the reader are in for a unique journey alongside a veteran officer who was there and who lived to tell the tale very well.

Happy reading! Somewhere buried within each of these great books are nuggets of knowledge and adventure just waiting to be rediscovered.

Marc Ramsey is co-owner of Owens and Ramsey Historical Booksellers with his lovely wife Jill, who, for the past 25 plus years, have specialized in the buying, selling, and trading of rare and collectible Civil War books, artifacts and paper items, They provide appraisals for estate planning, charitable deductions, or insurance purposes. They also love making recommendations to readers looking to expand their Civil War knowledge as well as providing customers with very rare and collectible volumes for their libraries. The Ramsey’s send out a monthly catalog, and can be seen at many Civil War Shows and conferences throughout the year. Call Marc at 804-272-8888.

Roger A. Semplak is a close friend and consultant to the Ramsey operation, often times providing insight and critiques of certain Civil War books, new or antiquarian. An avid reader and collector of many things Civil War he is a strong proonent of battlefield preservation. Roger can often be found working as staff at the Owens and Ramsey tables, especially for the larger events such as the two Gettysburg shows and the Mosby Heritage Conference in Middleburg, Va., where he is tasked with book sales whose proceeds are earmarked for preservation efforts.

General Eppa Hutton

Well Crafted Historical Fiction

Gettysburg: The Living And The Dead.

New Lincoln Book is a Pleasure to Read!

Reviewed by Jeffry D. Wert

The book’s narrative is divided into four sections, one for each day of the battle and one for its aftermath. The author, Kent Gramm, Professor at Gettysburg College, further divides the work into 87 poems or pieces of prose, nearly all of which are one or two pages in length. The voices of the dead describe many events of the three-day engagement that are familiar to any serious student of Gettysburg. It seems that a soldier from nearly all the states present at the battle has been given a voice.

Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington. By Ted Widmer. Simon & Schuster, New York, NY, www. simonandschuster.com, 2020, ISBN 978-1-4767-3943-4, 618 pp. including endnotes, index, and map. Hardcover, $35.

Reviewed by Meg Groeling

president-elect Lincoln as he changed trains in Baltimore, Md., has been proven to absolutely have existed. Pinkerton’s diary, as well as modern digital research, has turned up messages, t-mails, and other tasty allusions to the murder conspiracy.

Joshua Chamberlain believed that Civil War battlefields were vision-places of souls, where “the shadow of a mighty presence” abides. For those who visit and linger on a battlefield perhaps it is as Chamberlain stated while dedicating the 20th Maine’s monument at Gettysburg.

Is there “a mighty presence” as one stands by the edge of the Cornfield at Antietam, in the Hornet’s Nest at Shiloh, on the crest of Snodgrass Hill at Chickamauga, or the bottom of the long slope at Malvern Hill? The answer likely lies within each of us, who come to these vision-places, walk across the hallowed ground, honoring those who fought there, and trying to understand it all.

At its opening, this book quotes Chamberlain’s words, a wisely chosen prologue for what follows. In its pages the dead have been given voices in finely wrought prose and poetry. We hear from many who were there, unidentified but present, Yankee and Rebel alike. We hear from those who come later, who just visit or lead tours.

The book is, however, a work of historical fiction. The poetry and the prose, stories and dialogues, have been crafted by the author. There is a historical basis for nearly all but, while the words seem to ring true, they are Dr. Gramm’s creation. Many passages are finely, if not beautifully, composed.

Chris Heisey’s photographs, nearly all in color, grace these pages and add immeasurably to the book’s appeal. His and Dr. Gramm’s collaboration offers a sobering, even haunting, portrait of one of Chamberlain’s vision-places. In a way, this book is a memorial to those who fought there and the battlefield itself, and an anti-war, elegiac work.

Unquestionably, this book is different from any recent study of our most written about battle. Perhaps, it conveys what many of us have felt as we walked through the Peach Orchard, stood beside the 20th Maine’s monument, looked at Iverson’s pits, or gazed across the ground from Cemetery Ridge toward the Virginia monument. It is recommended without reservation.

Jeffry D. Wert, of Centre Hall, Pa., a longtime book reviewer for Civil War News, is the author of nine books on the Civil War, including Gettysburg-Day Three and Cavalryman of the Lost Cause: A Biography of J. E. B. Stuart.

Something seemed familiar as the reading of Ted Widmer’s Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington began. Familiar, but in the best of ways, like talking with a friend. It took a while to figure out. Finally, the inside back cover provided the answer; Ted Widmer is one of the New York Times writers who created “Disunion” during the Civil War 150th. He is also a Distinguished Lecturer at New York’s City University and writes for The Washington Post, The New Yorker, as well as The Times.

A voice like Widmer’s guarantees this new book is a pleasure to read. The author used close readings of Lincoln’s whistlestop speeches at towns along the presidential train trip from Springfield to Washington as well as newspaper articles to create the basis for his unique point of view: the Inaugural Express allowed president-elect Lincoln to tie the North together, readying the Union for the fight ahead. Widmer quotes George Nicolay:

“As Mr. Lincoln’s journey progressed, his wisdom in making it one of public oration became apparent. His whole bearing, manner, and utterance carried conviction to all beholders that the man was of them as well as for them.”

p. 435

Widmer builds a sturdy framework for his political musings. The inaugural journey has been the subject of many books, and even more conjecture. Once regarded as a complete fabrication, the Baltimore Plot to assassinate

With the plot as a given, Widmer moves into an artistic weaving of modern politics with the Lincoln election of 1860. Lincoln’s speeches evolved as the inaugural train journey lengthened. At first, excepting his short statement in Springfield, Lincoln was unclear and vague as to how he and the Republican party were going to deal with secession, slavery, and a possible war. The news reporters brutally pointed out every error or hesitation. The speeches changed, however. By the time Lincoln reached Philadelphia on Washington’s Birthday, the president-elect had found his voice, and a magnificent one it was.

An excellent retelling of small stories about the trip is part of Widmer’s book as well. The nearloss of the inaugural speech by Robert Lincoln, who may have been enjoying himself a little too much, thank you John Hay!), the foibles concerning an anxious Mrs. Lincoln, the careful plans that fell apart almost immediately, leaving a shortage of beds, food, and everything else; they are all there and more. Arms get broken, hair gets pulled, Lincoln cannot speak for a while. Against this chaos, Dorthea Dix, General Winfield Scott, Allen Pinkerton, two Sewards, and Samuel Felton collude with Norman Judd to upset a plot to end Lincoln’s presidency before it even begins. If the stakes had not been so high, the comedy might have outweighed the tragedy. However, the stakes were high and continued to be so until April 14, 1865.

Ted Widmer writes this story with care, respect, and dignity. The quotes from John Hay and George Nicolay, scattered copiously throughout the book, give a definitive air of authenticity to Lincoln on the Verge. The Lincoln family made it safely to Washington due to the care of the group of supporters who saw to Lincoln’s secure arrival. Widmer manages to sprinkle a little Walt Whitman in, along with Homer, and a beautiful map on the endpapers. This reviewer was sorry it ended.

Lincoln on the Verge deserves a wide readership, especially at this time in our history. Widmer began with the idea of a snapshot look at America, as well as Lincoln,

“on the verge” in February 1861. Somewhere along the line his point of view changed. According to a short conversation with the author, “I went somewhere deep as I thought about all of these things, I stopped being a ‘historian’ and became something more like a documentary filmmaker.”

The snapshot took on many different dimensions. As Widmer finished his book, the current political scene took a change in focus. America of today and the past have developed many similarities. They also share some of the same stresses. “I didn’t know our politics would be so bad when I started it, but somehow, it does feel as if Lincoln might be able to help us get better again.”

Covid-19 has impacted writers, historians, museums, and booksellers, among others. Many have lost speaking engagements. Tours, conferences, and other events have been canceled. Timely promotional efforts for upcoming books are almost impossible to plan. New publication opportunities may be postponed or even canceled.

Please take advantage of the opportunity to purchase and read Ted Widmer’s Lincoln on the Verge: Thirteen Days to Washington while it is new. Then talk about it and share this book with friends and coworkers. Everyone reading this is affected by changes in publishing. Support the authors and historians you enjoy and take a little time to explore new ones. Verge is a great place to start.

Meg Groeling received her Master’s Degree in Military History, with a Civil War emphasis, in 2016, from American Public University. Savas Beatie published her first book, The Aftermath of Battle: The Burial of the Civil War Dead, in the fall of 2015. Her biography, First Fallen: The Life of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, the North’s First Civil War Hero. It will be published by Savas Beatie in 2020. She is a book reviewer for LSU, Civil War News, and a regular contributor to the blog Emerging Civil War. She lives in Hollister, Calif., in a 1928 bungalow with her husband, her cats, and a lot of books and roses.

By Kent Gramm. Photographs by Chris Heisey. Illustrated. Southern Illinois University Press, www.siupress. com. 225 pp., 2019, hardcover, $29.95.

A New Study on an important Civil War Battle’s Turning Point

Anaconda’s Tail—The Civil War on the Potomac Frontier, 1861–1865

.

By Donald G. Shomette. Illustrated, Notes, Bibliography, Index, Millstone Publishing, Dunkirk, Md., 2019, 767 pp., softcover. $45.

Reviewed by

L.

E. Babits

when the U.S. Navy tried to break the Confederate blockade against vessels going up to the District of Columbia.

Anaconda’s Tail was originally intended to be a two volume study but publishing demands reduced it to one without many illustrations and maps that would be helpful. The text seems, in fact is, compressed to tell a border state’s story that, to most, if they ever think about it at all, relates only to John Wilkes Booth. Even then, most folk don’t understand how the Union pursuit knew where to go and who to intimidate for information. They knew because they had been there almost four years conducting an unsuccessful counterinsurgency operation less than 20 miles from the District of Columbia.

The Cornfield: Antietam’s Bloody Turning Point. By David A. Welker. Appendices, Bibliography, Endnotes, and Index, 384 pp., 2020. Casemate Publishers. www.casematepublishers.com. Cloth, $34.95.

Reviewed by David Marshall

deterioration in the confidence of Northern soldiers and citizens.

Military historians consider the Battle of Antietam a tactical stalemate and a Union strategic victory. After the Army of Northern Virginia departed the battlefield and returned to Virginia, President Lincoln was able to finally release his Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862. The end of slavery in the territory in rebellion became the second main reason for the Union fighting the Civil War against the Confederate States of America, weakened the South’s ability to win the war, and helped the Federal’s ability to ultimately win this important moment in U.S. history.

Longstreet, Hood, and others enabled Northern forces to regroup, attack over, leading to far too many lives lost, but in the end, a political victory.

Welker makes the important observation that McClellan was unable to change his battle plan and failed to make changes as the fighting went on throughout September 17, 1862. Perhaps if the Union commander adapted to the fighting, then he would have been able to use a greater amount of his forces throughout the battlefield and won a decisive victory.

Don Shomette, an author with numerous Chesapeake and Maryland historical and archaeological books to his credit, has taken on the little known story of how Southern Maryland was turned into a militarized zone, the Potomac River shores into a frontier, and Confederate sympathies crushed under a Federal occupation. There have been virtually no adequately researched studies of Civil War activity and its impact on Southern Maryland. Across the Potomac, Virginia’s Northern Neck also lacks a detailed examination yet the two areas were closely linked by water and trade. Anaconda’s Tail is a study of the Civil War from a new angle; as one example, the Battle of Sharpsburg (Antietam) does not appear in the index, because the war effort in Southern Maryland was another thing entirely. The winner of the Bancroft Prize, Anaconda’s Tail is THE text for those who think they know nearly everything about the War.

Military activity was certainly present, well over a brigade of Union soldiers literally occupied the region; four regiments of US Colored Troops, the 7th, 9th, 19th, and 30th were raised and trained at Camp Stanton, near Benedict, the largest training base for black troops in the state. There were raids and ambushes as Union troops attempted to eradicate networks moving information and supplies to the Confederacy and intimidate those with any tinge of Southern sympathy. There were repeated naval bombardments of Virginia’s Northern Neck from the Potomac River, especially

Like the other Border States, Maryland was a zone of intrigue and smuggling. Southern Maryland played a significant, although overlooked, role in the Civil War. The peninsula, especially the Potomac shore, thrived on it, even as late as 1865. Basically surrounded on three sides by navigable water, it had ways in and out that dictated combined operations, and generated over almost three pages of vessel names in the index. It had dual existences for everything from the 44-vessel Potomac Flotilla’s naval operations and amphibious assaults, to clandestine signal stations, regular mail routes with post offices, and military supplies. Each side existed unto itself but constantly cross linked with the other as life along the Potomac went on.

Just the Potomac River crossing activity, the people and watercraft involved, and the Union’s efforts to interdict it, make this book worth reading. It might encourage people to wonder, and perhaps understand, why Surrattsville, named for the post office where Mary Surratts’ husband handled both Union and Confederate mail, had a name change to Clinton, but the elementary, middle, and high schools are still named Surrattsville. The occupation’s impacts linger even today.

Larry Babits lived in Southern Maryland, then went to the University of Maryland and Brown University before becoming a professional archaeologist working on sites ranging from prehistoric to WW II. Now retired, he writes, consults, and also shoots black powder competitively.

At the start of David Welker’s stunning new title on the battle of Antietam, Generals Robert E. Lee and George B. McClellan plant the seeds of a campaign that moves the fighting to Northern territory. It was the culmination of Lee’s goal to change the map of the eastern theater with hopes of winning the war, threatening Washington, D.C., convincing the United States population to turn away from preserving the Union, and gaining foreign intervention or recognition by England or France. The Battle of Antietam, also called the Battle of Sharpsburg, occurred on Sept. 17, 1862, along Antietam Creek near Sharpsburg, Md. In the end, this fight was America’s single bloodiest day when 22,000 soldiers became casualties. The battle’s outcome would be vital to shaping America’s future.

Welker is one of the most readable of historians. With his latest book, “The Cornfield,” he tells the story about one of several turning points in the Civil War. Considered an important moment in the conflict, the author shows how Lee’s first invasion of the North changed the impetus of the war, since prior to September 1862, the Confederacy had lost several naval and military battles in the Western Theater to Union forces. A Southern victory in the east might lead to the end of hostilities and foreign recognition. However, the Union victory at Sharpsburg reversed a terrible

One essential location in this important battle, Miller’s Cornfield, passed through both armies’ hands several times and led to many casualties. Union General “Fighting Joe” Hooker led three divisions to the Cornfield where they fought with ferocity with men from Lee’s elite forces, including Hood’s Texas Brigade and others to win the day. This small thirty-acre farmland saw many regiments on both sides confronting and counterattacking for many hours, until this land was filled with many dead bodies. This significant piece of land and the efforts of the Union army did not allow the Confederate army to achieve their goal of a significant victory but did stall McClellan’s overall plans.

Welker has done excellent work in clarifying the scrambled story of the battle of Antietam and the fighting that took place in the Cornfield. McClellan’s many difficulties in directing this fight, the complicated contexts of Yankee and Southern plans, and in assessing the successes and failures of Lee and McClellan. He was able to weave the various threads of a back and forth fight for this contested ground in real time with numerous units fighting to gain ground during terrible carnage. Readers will gain a comprehensive and convincing understanding of what took place and will be yearning for more.

The author’s analysis is often right on and groundbreaking.

An important example is showing that after the Confederates determined to fight the battle, it was unable to seize the initiative and gain an advantage during the many counterattacks launched throughout this critical phase of the battle. The failure of Southern commanders such as Jackson,

This new text is lucid, lively, well written, and energetic, meticulously researched, the prose flows, and people will read from cover to cover without putting this exciting volume down.

Welker’s scholarship provides an important contribution to the study of the battle of Antietam that complements an important body of work as well as enhances our understanding of the fighting in the Cornfield. It is a valuable addition to the genre. The author has woven a fascinating story that includes many firsthand accounts by officers and common soldiers not usually found in modern scholarship. The twenty maps and twenty illustrations greatly illuminate the tactics and the battle action for the reader. The author could have increased his coverage of the Confederate forces throughout this wonderful narrative and included many more pages on each phase and individual in his index.

One of the best features of this narrative is Welker’s fabulous breakdown of both armies’ commanders decision making throughout. He mentions goals, successes, and failures by both commanding generals and other leading figures during this significant conflict which greatly helps make this an enlightening experience for scholars, students, and enthusiasts of the Civil War battles in the Eastern Theater. Highly recommended by this reviewer.

David Marshall is a high school American history teacher in the Miami-Dade School district for the past thirty-three years. A lifelong Civil War enthusiast, David is president of the Miami Civil War Round Table Book Club. In addition to numerous reviews in Civil War News and other publications, he has given presentations to Civil War Round Tables on Joshua Chamberlain, Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, and more.

“The Despot’s Heel is on thy Shore!”

Timely New Biography of Confederate General John Bell Hood

Texas Brigadier to the Fall of Atlanta: John Bell Hood. By Stephen Davis. Maps, bibliography, index, 514 pp., 2019. Mercer University Press, www.mupress. org., hardcover, $35.

Reviewed by C. Michael Harrington

As the first full-length biography of the general in nearly 40 years, Davis’ study benefits from the recent discovery and publication of a trove of the general’s previously unknown private papers.

Born in Kentucky in 1831, Hood pulled political strings to win an appointment to West Point. An undistinguished academic record at the Military Academy resulted in Hood’s commission into the infantry at graduation. Stationed at an isolated fort in California, Hood longed for the greater excitement he perceived in the cavalry. Political influence also may have been a factor in Hood’s obtaining a transfer in 1855 to the newly formed 2 US Cavalry, a posting that brought Hood to Texas for the first time. Over the next five years, Hood chased Comanches across Texas, but seldom found them.

Seven Days, Second Manassas, and Sharpsburg in 1862 and the next year at Gettysburg and Chickamauga reflected well on Hood’s generalship and, to some extent, propelled him to ever higher command.

Davis devotes the great bulk of his book to Hood’s service in the Army of Tennessee, beginning with his assumption of corps command in Feb. 1864 and ending with the fall of Atlanta in early Sept. The author of four books on the Atlanta Campaign, Davis’ encyclopedic knowledge of the subject shows through in his account of this phase of Hood’s military career.

was simply no better alternative to Hood.

As everybody who has seen the movie Gone With the Wind knows, Atlanta eventually fell to Sherman, notwithstanding the change in Confederate command. It was not without a fight on Hood’s part, however. Shortly after taking command on July 18, Hood did what his government had asked by launching three offensive strikes. Despite being repulsed, Hood slowed Sherman’s advance. During August Hood’s cavalry defeated three separate Yankee advances against his rail lines.

depict.

Davis’s text is heavily footnoted, attesting to the prodigious research the author put into the book. Davis packs a good deal of collateral as well as bibliographic information into many footnotes. In one footnote, for instance, Davis ridicules the persistent but baseless accusation that Hood self-medicated his wounds with the opiate laudanum to the point of his actual addiction to the drug.

Among the eight men who attained the rank of full general in the Confederate army, John Bell Hood’s ascension to that rank was the most improbable. Hood was barely 33 when commissioned a full general, making him the youngest such officer in a group of predominantly middle-aged or older men. Hood alone advanced upward through the ranks from lieutenant to full general. The fact that Hood lost a leg during the war at Chickamauga and the use of his left arm at Gettysburg in 1863 makes his promotion to full general the following year all the more remarkable.

Steve Davis’ superb new book is the first of a planned two-volume biography of General Hood.

Too Useful to Sacrifice:

Reconsidering George B. McClellan’s Generalship in the Maryland Campaign from South Mountain to Antietam

By Steven R. Stotelmyer. Photos, notes, index, 272 pp., 2019. Savas Beatie, www.savasbeatie. com, hardcover. $32.95.

Reviewed by

Brian Matthew Jordan

It’s a good time to be a controversial Civil War general. In recent years, historians have plied readers with reappraisals of Braxton Bragg, John Bell Hood, Roswell Ripley, and George Gordon Meade. George B. McClellan has been the beneficiary of several fresh takes over the years, but the publication of this daringly revisionist study

As uneventful as his service in Texas was, it would prove pivotal in his future. When war came in 1861 and Hood’s native Kentucky remained in the Union, Hood’s service in the Lone Star State gave him a second identity as a Texan. Thin as his claim to Texan status was, it was sufficient to secure his promotion in Sept. 1861 to colonel of the 4 Texas Inf. Regt., one of the three Texas infantry regiments brigaded together in Virginia that, with the 3rd Arkansas, came to be called the “Texas Brigade.”

When command of the Texas Brigade became vacant early in 1862, Hood’s ties to Texas let him leapfrog a senior colonel with no such ties and take command of the brigade.

The heroics of the Texas Brigade at Gaines Mill during the

As a corps commander during the retreat of Gen. Joseph E. Johnston’s army from Dalton to Atlanta in the spring and early summer of 1864, Hood performed creditably in the field. Johnston called upon Hood to execute key assignments during this retrograde movement, and consulted closely with Hood in his tactical planning. Less to his credit, Hood corresponded clandestinely with Richmond in a transparent attempt to undermine confidence in Johnston and to position himself as Johnston’s successor.

Davis is unequivocal that Hood’s intrigue with Richmond, as unprofessional as it was, did not result in Johnston’s removal from command on July 17, 1864. Jefferson Davis removed the Army of Tennessee commander only after Johnston failed repeatedly to assure the president that he would not abandon Atlanta without a fight. As for Hood’s appointment as Johnston’s successor, Davis presents it as something of a fait accompli: there

When Sherman finally succeeded in maneuvering Hood out of Atlanta, he did so by cutting Hood’s last railroad supply artery after stretching the Southern defensive lines beyond their ability to fend off Union attacks.

Davis assesses Hood’s performance favorably despite failing to hold Atlanta, an outcome he views as “inevitable after Joseph E. Johnston crossed the Chattahoochee River.” Hood ultimately gave way, Davis asserts, only under the weight of Sherman’s superior numbers.

Davis writes well. His text is also exceptionally well edited, with a minimum of distracting typos or factual errors.

The book features more than two dozen maps. Each map occupies a full page and, with few exceptions, is easily readable without resort to a magnifying glass. My (mild) criticism is that the maps are bunched together in the middle of the book, instead of being dispersed throughout the book near the accounts of the particular battles or marches they

Getting right with Little Mac

suggests that the work is not yet finished.

In Too Useful to Sacrifice, author Steven R. Stotelmyer, a founding member of the Central Maryland Heritage League and

longtime South Mountain and Antietam battlefield guide, draws on his intimate knowledge of the campaign and its landscapes. His scholarship also builds on the pioneering work of Joseph Harsh, whose untimely death prevented him from producing a Union counterpart for Taken at the Flood, his classic treatment of Confederate strategy in the Maryland Campaign.

Stotelmyer’s long-awaited book is really a collection of five essays assessing McClellan’s generalship during the 1862 Maryland Campaign. Each essay can stand alone, but they are perhaps best consumed together. Collectively, they render a portrait of an embattled Union general: one forced to confront not just an invading rebel enemy, but also supply woes, sniping

subordinates, and the machinations of determined political enemies in Washington.

The first chapter considers McClellan’s response to finding the Lost Orders. In a field near Frederick, Md., on Sept. 13, 1862, a party of Union soldiers discovered a stray copy of Confederate Special Orders No. 191 wrapped around three cigars. Generations of historians have reliably scolded McClellan for failing to act on this extraordinary find. Instead of acting with alacrity, they contend that McClellan tarried for eighteen hours, squandering a choice opportunity to destroy Lee’s army.

Stotelmyer counters these claims with some welcome context. First, the discovery of the Lost Orders was hardly exceptional. “McClellan’s ‘singular’

While on the subject of footnotes, kudos to Mercer University Press for setting the text in easyto-read double spaced type, and for including the notes at the foot of the pages instead of parking them in the back of the book, thus sparing diligent readers the chore of flipping back and forth between text and end notes. A photo or two of Hood, however, would have been a nice addition to the book.

This book should appeal to a broad range of Civil War enthusiasts, particularly those with an interest in the Atlanta Campaign, the Texas Brigade, or Hood himself. If Davis’ second volume of his biography of Hood is up to the high standards he has set in his first, it will be another worthy addition to Civil War historiography. This reviewer can hardly wait to reread it.

C. Michael Harrington is a retired lawyer, resident in Houston. He’s authored several published articles on South Carolina soldiers, and he’s lectured to Civil War organizations in Houston on multiple topics, including Yale’s Confederate alumni and South Carolinians in the war. He’s president of the Houston CWRT.

find,” he writes, “was in reality the fifth such incident” in less than a month (26). Second, McClellan was already moving “as rapidly as he could to engage Lee’s army” (44). McClellan faced not insignificant logistical obstacles, especially as his columns moved through the knotted streets of Frederick. It is also worth mentioning that McClellan mined “little new information” from the orders (30). The author concludes that the discovery of the Lost Orders was neither a missed opportunity nor a turning point in the campaign.

The next essay considers the fierce combat that erupted in the gaps of South Mountain on Sept. 14, 1862.

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Ridge’s other name)

4. James B. Eads (Mound City gunboats)

5. Col Elmer E. Ellsworth

6. Charles Ewing, foster brother/brother in law of Sherman 13th Inf.

7. Richard S. Ewell (lost a leg at Groveton, Va.)

8. Edward Everett

9. Electricity stored in galvanic batteries 10. Emancipation Proclamation