Civil War News November 2021

Robert E. Lee Monument; Vandalism and Removal

Publishers Note: The United States is a civilized country where laws are written to protect and guarantee citizens their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Every man, woman, and child has equal rights. It is against local laws, ordinances, and sometimes federal laws; when to make their point, protesters become violent, prevent free passage on streets and highways, beat on cars that try to pass, and destroy, loot, and burn businesses. Mob rule is the control of a political situation by those outside the conventional or lawful realm, typically involving violence and intimidation. Destruction of property is not the process that should initiate change. Tearing down, destroying, or vandalizing anything just because a group doesn’t like or agree with it should be met with swift arrests and convictions. Over the last few years, most of the people involved in the destruction of monuments were not charged or even held responsible, while others were arrested but had their charges dropped or reduced, even though camera footage clearly showed the damage as

they caused it. While we have seen many examples during these times, it sets a dangerous precedent when law enforcement officers are told to stand down and ignore those committing crimes. Suppose a community is offended by a Confederate monument. In that case, the community’s elected officials and designated representatives should allow the locality to sell it to a preservation group that would remove and relocate it: no riots and no destruction of monuments. The saddest aspect of memorial destruction and/or removal is not the near cowardly performance of officials more interested in reelection than the rule of law. It is, instead, that those who want change are missing out on using these symbols as talking points to generate precisely the change they seek. Because symbols have great value for how people see meaning, the symbolic statues could be utilized to bring longburied causes to the surface where they can be confronted. Instead, the symbols are being destroyed, just as the Buddhas of Bamiyan were “removed” by the Taliban in 2001.

and destruction of property across the country. We must consider that George Floyd’s criminal record includes eight jail terms between 1997 and 2005 on convictions related to theft, drug possession, and trespass. In a 2007 home invasion conviction, he was sentenced to five years in prison for aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon. While his death was tragic and has been ruled a homicide, we must remember that he was under the influence of fentanyl (50 to 100 times more potent than morphine) and methamphetamine when he died while resisting arrest. Both of which most likely attributed to his death, per the coroner’s report. Still, and rightfully so, charges were brought against the police officers accused of murdering or participating in the murder of Floyd. But does that make Floyd some martyr or hero? They have erected monuments in New York and New Jersey to honor a modern-day hardened criminal who acted out against society, time and time again. They tore down the historical monument of

Robert E. Lee in Richmond, Va. because part of today’s society doesn’t like what it believes the he stood for, but then two weeks later erect a statue of a black man being freed from shackles. Is it because it makes some people feel better? What is more odious, showing a man who has been chained, or a man who led an army fighting for their beliefs?

Is it possible that those who remove or destroy a symbol really believe what they do will effect a change in the hearts and minds of others? Maybe, but not likely in the case of the Taliban and probably not in the case of those who want to eradicate symbols that reflect, 1) Southerners standing for what they once believed in, 2) American military prowess, 3) white supremacy, 4) Jim Crow, or a host of other attributes. Please make your own choice, but remember others may see something else, and they have rights too, and who knows where the chicken will find a new roost.

On Sept. 8, 2021, The National Register’s designated bronze statue of Robert E. Lee, was removed from its pedestal, 133 years after it was unveiled May 29, 1890.

Following the George Floyd protests, vandals defaced the monuments large stone pedestal and base.

The death of George Floyd was the catalyst for protests, many of which turned violent, and served as the fuel for widespread burning

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The topic of removing Confederate monuments and other symbols of the Confederacy has been a sensitive subject lately. I have received so many comments and letters on this controversial topic that I have chosen not to publish any of them. It is the policy of CWN to remain unbiased and cover all sides of the story equally. That is becoming

By Jack Melton

TO THE EDITOR:

I feel a bit of clarification is necessary regarding Thomas Ryan’s review of Slavery in the Western States in the October 2021 issue. Referencing Utah and “Mormon leader Joseph Smith” in the same sentence is somewhat misleading in that Smith was murdered by an anti-Mormon mob in Illinois in 1844 years before there was any Mormon presence in or association with Utah Territory. It should also be noted that Smith changed or modified his views on slavery over the years, perhaps resulting in the review-noted law on the institution when the Mormons established their Zion in the Salt Lake Valley.

Stuart McClung Hagerstown, Md.

TO THE EDITOR: I’m delighted to see the new column “Photographic Archaeology” but please make it a little easier to find the results of what I should

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harder and harder to do these days. A difference of opinion often leads to quarrels, malice, and ultimately, destruction of property and physical harm to people; some innocent, some not so innocent.

Of the many great things our nation has to offer, freedom of speech and the right to assemble peacefully are two of the most sacred First Amendment rights. However, there are limits to the amendment, which are being pushed to the edge of an abyss.

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be seeing. I can’t find the answers anywhere in your paper. What am I missing?

Roy Askland

Editorial Response

Identification of materials in the photograph was planned for the next issue. CWN did not say that as part of the presentation. Due to the large number of books highlighted in this issue the answers will be printed in the December issue.

Gatherings that evolve into violence, theft, or destruction of property are forms of protesting that are not permitted and can be legally restricted under the government. For more of my opinion, please refer to the Publisher’s Note, which prefaces Leon Reed’s article on the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, Va.

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Nov. 27 & 28, 2021

Jan.

Lee Statue Removed

by Leon Reed RICHMOND,

Va.—

On September 8, 2021, the Robert E. Lee statue, once the centerpiece of Richmond’s National Register of Historic Places, the Monument Avenue complex, was removed. It was the latest in a series of removals and relocations that gained momentum in the aftermath of high-profile incidents such as the 2017 Charlottesville Unite the Right rally and the 2020 death of George Floyd.

The pace quickened over the past year. Through 2016, a total of 11 Confederate monuments were taken down or relocated. In 2017, a total of 36 were removed following the Unite the Right rally. The next two years saw the removal of eight more; then 94 were removed in 2020, the year George Floyd was killed. Removal spikes were triggered by events that caught national attention; the difference now may be the long-lasting nature of removals.

The Lee statue’s removal from Monument Avenue was coming for a long time. Monument Avenue was developed in the 1890s as the centerpiece of what was to become the most high-style neighborhood in Richmond. Lee’s statue was installed in 1890 before a crowd estimated at 100,000. Statues to Jefferson Davis, JEB Stuart, Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson,

and oceanographer Matthew Maury were added over the next few years; the suite was completed nearly a century later with the installation of a statue to Richmond-born tennis player Arthur Ashe.

For some years, Monument Avenue served as a ceremonial centerpiece for Richmond. The neighborhood had its ups and downs over time; by the 1960s, most of the stately homes had been carved up into boarding houses; but a strong preservation group maintained the “brand.” In 2007, the American Planning Association selected Monument Avenue as one of the “10 Great Streets in America for 2007” for its historical design, diversity of land use, and commitment to historic preservation. The Lee monument, located in the Monument Avenue Historic District, was also individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007 and the Virginia Landmarks Register. Nationally, some of the first prominent removals were made in New Orleans during 2017 and in Maryland. With the emergence of threats to monuments, Virginia and a few other states passed laws making it more difficult or impossible to remove any public monument. But with the election of a Democratic majority in both houses of the Virginia legislature, the Virginia law was repealed, and eventually, an injunction preventing removal was voided.

The Lee monument was cut in

half for transportation and is now in storage. Reportedly, several organizations have expressed interest in Richmond’s Lee statue.

The fate of other Monument Avenue monuments, removed earlier, is less clear.

Virginia was one of several states’ laws, including Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee, enacted, chiefly since 2000, to impede or prohibit the removal of Confederate monuments. Nevertheless, some city and county governments and private groups continued to press for removal.

The debate about Confederate monuments, such as it is, has been unedifying on both sides.

The primary arguments on behalf of removal are a) that it is inappropriate to erect memorials to men who rebelled against their country and, somewhat in contradiction, b) that they are not

really monuments to honor or mourn the old soldiers anyway, but instead are monuments to the Jim Crow system, intended to intimidate black residents. Monument supporters have tended to view monument preservation as a self-evident matter and have been less aggressive in “selling” their point of view; generally, they have used the argument that “you shouldn’t destroy our history.”

The arguments advanced by monument supporters haven’t been compelling and, while monuments have many merits as arbiters of memory, they are most undoubtedly historical symbols from a past time. Whether the memorial removed is King George III, Robert E. Lee, Thomas Jefferson, or Jefferson Davis, history is not being erased when a monument comes down or is relocated. The very nature of history involves

Graffiti were painted on all surfaces of the Lee statue base.

It is hard to believe that this sort of action will change racial justice. Both sides must actively engage in good faith to resolve this issue and heal this problem.

a continuous reassessment of people and events in light of new knowledge (revisionist history). Recent years have seen Grant, Eisenhower, and Truman, once considered mediocrities at best, be redeveloped into more positive historical figures while Jefferson and Woodrow Wilson have gone into eclipse. Arguments on behalf of bringing down monuments are not any more effective, but, to date, they have prevailed in many locales.

In the immediate aftermath of George Floyd’s death, public opinion remained in favor of keeping Confederate monuments. Still, the margin narrowed to 44% who favored keeping

monuments, 32% calling for their removal, and 23% undecided.

Numbers in a July 21, 2021, poll returned to “normal” levels, with 51% in favor of monuments and 30% against. A staggering 10,600 demonstrations occurred across the U.S. between May 24 and August 22, 2020. About 7,750 were protests/riots linked to the Black Lives Matter movement. Most of those arrested at these events had their charges dismissed or reduced.

From the beginning, proponents of removal have been more organized. There is now a (sort of) monument removal “industry” made up of the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Make it Right

project, various local activist organizations, and the largest of them all, the Black Lives Matter movement. For the most part, the fight has been waged in city and county council chambers, state legislatures, and courtrooms, but it has occasionally spilled out into the public domain. Most demonstrations and counterdemonstrations have been peaceful, but many monuments have been vandalized. A few have been torn down, including a statue known as “Silent Sam” on the University of North Carolina campus, and Confederate soldier monuments in Durham, N.C., and Seattle, Wash., by protesters, while law enforcement officers stood down. The practice has been especially widespread in Virginia, where serious vandalism or destruction occurred to monuments honoring Robert E. Lee (Roanoke), Jefferson Davis (Richmond), and Confederate soldiers (Portsmouth). In the same

Lee’s statue was cut into at least two pieces for easier transportation through the city’s infrastructure and low hanging tree limbs.

Lee’s statue being lowered from its pedestal right before being cut into smaller pieces.

A crowd of more than 100,000 people attended the May 29, 1890, dedication of the equestrian Robert E. Lee monument in Richmond.

“Defund the Police” just one of many demands by the activists.

state, Confederate monuments in Alexandria, Norfolk, Richmond, Leesburg, Farmville, Virginia Beach, Charlottesville, and Bowling Green were removed or recommended for removal by the actions, either of the state, city council, or UDC.

Monument defenders have had moments that didn’t reflect to their credit, most notably with the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally, which was ostensibly a gathering to defend the Robert E. Lee monument in Charlottesville but turned into a two-day celebration of white supremacy, anti-Semitism, and violence; another was the July 4, 2020, a mass outpouring of more than 1,000 armed militia and others at Gettysburg, to “defend the monuments” because of a rumor, thoroughly debunked by the time the “monument protectors” showed up, that said statues in the National Military Park would be destroyed. Neither side contributes to their cause with vandalism or armed response.

As predicted by proponents of keeping the Confederate monuments, removal and vandalism of historical monuments have not been limited only to Confederate monuments.

Several monuments to Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, who wrote the Dred Scott decision, have been taken down, as was a Charlottesville monument to Lewis and Clark, which was thought to show Sacajawea in a subordinate position. The Lincoln Emancipation monument also has come under fire for the patronizing, paternalistic attitude it supposedly shows.

Broadening the scope of historical revisionism, numerous monuments to individuals accused of participating in genocide against Native Americans have been removed, including monuments to Kit Carson, Father Junipero Serra, Christopher Columbus, and Spanish colonial governor Juan de Oñate. Monuments in Denver and Santa Fe honoring

soldiers who fought against Native Americans have also been taken down. It is ironic, in view of suggestions by some that Confederate monuments should be “contextualized” or sanitized, that the Santa Fe monument had been both sanitized to remove offensive, archaic language and contextualized with plaques explaining that attitudes in the 1800s were different than modern-day attitudes, but the monument still came down.

Regardless of what monument defenders think should be true, it is evident that there is a movement in favor of removing many or all Confederate monuments, even from National Parks. Removals have taken place all over the country, including in many states that ban monument removal. They have happened

through the actions of protesters, city and county governments, state governments, universities, churches, and the UDC. Many of the measures were taken under duress, but that pressure is likely to persist. Arguments advanced to date in defense of the monuments have not been effective, and it isn’t likely that they will be more effective in the future. Supporters of Confederate monuments need to re-examine the issue and develop arguments and tactics more effective than those that have been used to date.

Leon Reed is a former U.S. Senate aide and U.S. history teacher. He lives in Gettysburg and is the author of No Greater Calamity for the Country: NorthSouth Conflict, Secession, and the Onset of Civil War (2019).

The bronze statue, sculpted by Antonin Mercié, depicted Confederate General Robert E. Lee atop a horse. This photo was taken in 2013 by Martin Falbisoner.

Commonwealth of Massachusetts that preceded any commercial sales from London Armoury to the Confederacy. London Armoury also had contracts for their interchangeable parts P53 Enfields with the British War Department. The commercial gunmakers in London & Birmingham sold arms to whomever it was legal to sell to, as long as they could pay for them.

A great example was the firm of J.E. Barnett & Sons. Barnett was a London gunmaker well known as a large supplier the Confederacy. In fact, the first shipment of 3,500 P53 Enfields to run the blockade was aboard the steamship Bermuda and landed in Savannah, Ga., September 18, 1861. It included a number of P53 Enfields from Barnett. However, like London Armoury Company, Barnett did not only sell to the

Birmingham versus London Enfields

“Captain Joe Lee orders us to load and fire at will upon these batteries.

Our Enfields crack, keen and sharp.” – Samuel Watkins, 1st Tenn., Company H

The P53 Enfields referenced by Sam Watkins in his memoirs Company Aytch were commonly used by both U.S. and C.S. soldiers during the Civil War. A question on one of the internet forums inquired about which city in England produced the greatest numbers of commercially made P53 Enfields exported to the Southern states during the Civil War. In terms of overall statistics, as far as they are known, the conclusion was that over the course of the entire Civil War, the ratio was about 50/50 in terms of London vs Birmingham going to the South.

Especially early in the conflict, many P53 Enfields exported to the Confederate States were London made. Union purchases early in the war were more heavily tilted toward Birmingham commercial gunmakers. Later, in September 1863, the Union abruptly cancelled their existing contracts with the Birmingham Small Arms Trade “when the manufactories at Springfield and elsewhere in the United States were found sufficient to supply their wants.”

Therefore, after September 1863, the Confederacy was the only American customer for the Birmingham Small Arms Trade and total exports began to fall off rather dramatically.

Why were the London gunmakers primarily supplying the Confederacy early in the war? U.S. Consul F.H. Morse noted in his correspondence back to Washington, D.C., that the Commission Houses of Sinclair, Hamilton and S. Isaac,

Campbell & Co. had entered contracts that tied up the capacity of many London gunmakers for the Confederates by mid-1861 with orders for all they could produce for months to come. In other words, the Commission Houses representing Confederate interests immediately contracted for all available P53 Enfields from the largest commercial gunmakers before Federal buyers could do so. For their services, Commission Houses like S. Isaac, Campbell & Co., and Sinclair, Hamilton typically charged a two to three percent commission on each rifle.

So, if that was the case, did the Confederacy only receive Enfields made by London commercial gunmakers and none went to the Union? Things are seldom that cut and dried. There were also very early U.S. Government contracts with the London Armoury Company that date from May 1861, as well as a separate contract with the

Five soldiers in Union uniforms of the 6th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Militia outfitted with P53 Enfield muskets, and Enfield leather accoutrements, in front of encampment. Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs (Library of Congress).

Confederate soldier holding a P53 Enfield rifle. Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs (Library of Congress).

Confederacy. It is worth noting that at least one Confederate contract with J.E. Barnett & Sons fell into Union hands when the C.S. Government did not pay in a timely manner as U.S. Consul F.H. Morse reported to the Secretary of War on November 6, 1861:

“I have the satisfaction of informing you that one of the gun manufacturers here who had a contract with the rebels running to March (1862) has had a difficulty with them, broken the contract, and will hereafter send his guns, Enfield rifles, to New York on his own account. His name is Barnett and his rifles stand very well here.”

Hence, neither the U.S. nor C.S. solely did business with only Birmingham or London commercial gunmakers. There is also a question about which city produced more P53 Enfields for export to America during the Civil War? To be certain, both cities had a large and vibrant commercial gun trade however, one city had a decidedly larger number of exports to America. As far as total numbers produced by London vs Birmingham, if you trust the statistics reported at the time by John D. Goodman, the Chairman of the

Birmingham Small Arms Trade, in The Resources, Products and Industrial History of Birmingham and the Midlands (Samuel Timmins, ed. 1866) p. 418, the following table is insightful:

Number of Rifles Supplied to America During the War of 1861–1865

Birmingham..........743,303

London..................344,802

Total 1,078,205

There are also other tables that show production year by year, but in terms of the total P53 Enfields exported during the Civil Warera, Birmingham gunmakers outproduced their London counterparts by a rate of nearly 2 to 1. The largest numbers from Birmingham were exported in 1862 (388,264), despite a slight fall-off in January that year due to a brief embargo as a result of the Trent Affair. The next largest year in terms of production was 1863 (210,078). By the end 1864, when the C.S. Government and individual Confederate States were their only American customers, exports dipped to 42,242.

Did all P53 Enfields used in the Civil War come from either London or Birmingham? Not at all. There were also large

numbers P53 Enfields produced in Belgium (Liege), but some were also exported from Germany and France. There were even small numbers of P53 Enfields manufactured in America, but that is a topic for another day.

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). He has also published four books in the Suppliers to the Confederacy series on English Arms & Accoutrements, Quartermaster stores and other European imports.

It’s Complicated

The seat of Alabama’s Winston County is Double Springs, a small town where about 1,000 of the county’s 24,000 people reside. Both highways leading into Double Springs, U.S. 278 and Alabama 195, are only two-lane roads as they approach and pass through the community. Located here are some government offices, a few shops and other businesses, a post office, four churches (by my count) and, of course, a courthouse.

Before 1877, when Cullman County was formed from Winston’s eastern side, the county encompassed approximately double its current territory. During the Civil War the county held a population of about 3,500 souls.

Outside the courthouse stands a bronze statue of a soldier sculpted by Branko Medenica of Birmingham and erected in 1987. This work of art is entitled “Dual Destiny.” The plaques around the statue recount Winston County’s experience in the Civil War.

According to one tablet, 351 Winston County men fought in the war, two-thirds of whom fought for the Union.

“The Civil War was not fought between the North and South,” reads one inscription,

“but between the Union and Confederate armies. Perhaps as many as 300,000 Southerners served in the Union army. The majority of the Appalachian South from West Virginia to Winston County was pro-Union.”

The monument does not pay homage to the Confederate cause that was lost, nor does it praise the Union cause that prevailed. It honors the ordinary soldiers who filled the ranks, men who had little or no say so in the political decisions that led to war. It honors them, but does not attempt to glorify them. It does not recount their brave deeds on the battlefield or extol their martial virtues. There is no passage lauding the fidelity and courage of the women. There is no Latin motto stating that it is sweet to die for one’s country. Instead we are presented with an image of exhausted men who made it home.

“This Civil War soldier, one-half Union and one-half Confederate, symbolizes the war within a war and honors Winstonians in both armies. Their shiny new swords of 1861 were by 1865 as broken as the spirits of the men who bore them; their uniforms of blue and gray, once fresh and clean, were now as worn and patched as the bodies and souls they contained.

Johnny Reb and Billy Yank, disillusioned

GEORGIA’S CONFEDERATE MONUMENTS

In Honor of a Fallen Nation

Gould B. Hagler, Jr.

This unique work contains a complete photographic record of Georgia’s memorials to the Confederacy, a full transcription of the words engraved upon them, and carefully-researched information about the monuments and the organizations which built them. These works of art and their eloquent inscriptions express a nation’s profound grief, praise the soldiers’ bravery and patriotism, and pay homage to the cause for which they fought.

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by the realities of war, shared dual destinies as pragmatic Americans in a reunited nation.”

This monument in Double Springs and the sentiments it expresses are highly unusual. However, the story it tells about the people of Winston County is far from unique. As all CWN readers know, the conflict not only divided the United States, but also created rifts within states, within communities, and within families. Let’s take a look at some of these divisions.

We start with the Lee family in Virginia. The Lees best known to history were Confederates, but some members of that large clan stayed with the old flag. Robert E. Lee’s cousin Samuel Phillips Lee held important commands in the U.S. Navy during the war. A nephew of General Lee’s, Louis

Henry Marshall, served on Gen. John Pope’s staff. Lee wrote to his sister (Louis’s mother) that he could forgive his nephew “for fighting us, but not his joining Pope.”

Montgomery Meigs, the Union army’s Quartermaster General during the war, was a native of

Augusta, Ga. Meigs may not be a good example to cite, as he was raised mostly in the North and his family, as near as I can tell, were all on the same side. There is a plaque in Augusta marking the location of Meigs’s birth.

George Henry Thomas was born into a slave-owning Virginia family. Before the war, he served in the 2nd U.S. Cavalry Regiment under Robert E. Lee but, unlike many Southern officers in this regiment, Thomas decided to stay with the Union. His family in Virginia never forgave him. His decision caused no trouble in his own household: his wife was a native of Troy, N.Y. Many other prominent examples could be cited, but we will move on to the Unionist sister of a famous Confederate general and to some ordinary Southern men who fought for the North.

Stonewall Jackson’s sister, Laura Jackson Arnold, was an ardent Unionist. As her brother served his cause in battle, Laura supported her side by nursing Federal soldiers in Beverly (Virginia or West Virginia, depending), a town held by the Federals throughout the war. The war separated not only brother and sister but also husband and wife: Mr. Arnold was pro-Confederate. Jackson and his sister differed in at least one other aspect. He is known for his deep Christian faith; she was an agnostic, or at least leaned in that direction. I suspect that Thomas was more troubled by Laura’s lack of faith than by her political views. A number of Southerners

Double Springs, Alabama. Courtesy of Alabama Department of Archives and History

Tablet marking location of Montgomery Meigs’s birthplace in Augusta, Ga. Photo by Gould B. Hagler II.

Gaylesville, Alabama. Courtesy of Alabama Department of Archives and History business firm. When war loomed, the elder Gracie returned home to New York, but the son stayed with his adoptive state. He rose to the rank of brigadier general and was killed at Petersburg.

served with Col. Abel Streight’s raiding force that was pursued by Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest and captured in May 1863. When Streight surrendered, he asked for and received Forrest’s assurance that all his men would be treated as prisoners of war, a significant matter considering that the Southerners with Streight were subject to the Confederate draft and could be considered deserters. A 1939 monument in Gaylesville, Ala., commemorates this event.

In another campaign, this one started the following May, the 1st Alabama Cavalry Regiment (U.S.) marched with Sherman’s force to Atlanta, to the sea, and through the Carolinas.

Let’s turn to some Northerners who fought for Dixie.

Who was the highest-ranking officer in the Confederate army? This is always a good trivia question because of the interesting and unexpected answer: Samuel Cooper of Hackensack, N.J., the Confederate army’s Adjutant General.

Gen. Archibald Gracie, C.S.A., was a member of a prominent New York family. Gracie Mansion, the residence of New York City’s mayor, was built by Gracie’s grandfather, also named Archibald, as were General Gracie’s father and son. After West Point and a few years of service, Gracie moved to Alabama to join his father’s

and managed to keep the Confederate forces armed until the very end.

Finally, we can point to ordinary civilians in the South who were secret Yankees; to Copperheads in the Midwest; and, obviously, to citizens of the Border States.

Many more examples could be found, but let’s terminate the list and reflect a bit on what these examples tell us about the war and the warring factions.

Was this a war between two sovereign political entities, or an internecine affair? People started opining on that question when the war began and the opining has never stopped. I will weigh in on that question only to this extent: its complicated.* Certainly, the Confederate States of America possessed the attributes of sovereignty, at least according to some definitions and at least for a time. It is also certain that the C.S.A.’s sovereignty was challenged from the get go and was never recognized by other powers. Whatever the situation was during the war, the Union victory determined the question for the future.

But what about the people? Peoples and polities are not the same thing. Some polities comprise two or more peoples, as

in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In other cases, there are peoples who have no state of their own and are split by international borders; the Kurds come to mind. Was there one people, or were there two peoples fighting the war? Less opining on that question, I think, but it is easy to find references to the Yankee nation** or the Yankee race. Or, if you read Raphael Semmes, you will see references to the despised Puritan race which inhabited the North. On the other hand, nearly all the participants shared a history, spoke English, worshipped in Christian churches, grew up under the same laws and political system. In a word, the same culture.

Everyone knows that the American Civil War was not as simple as a fight between the United States and the Confederate States or between the Northern people and the Southern people. The monument in Double Springs reminds us of the jumbled-up nature of the conflict and the overlapping lines of loyalties. The stories of individuals who hailed from one side of the border but fought on the opposite side put emphasis on the same point. In other words, these examples tell us that the

questions I posed in the two preceding paragraphs have no clear answer. It’s complicated.

*The reader can google “attributes of sovereignty” and find out how complicated. I found this on one political science website:

“The distinctive attributes or characteristics of sovereignty are permanence, exclusiveness, all-comprehensiveness, unity, inalienability, impress scriptability, indivisibility, and absoluteness or illimitability.”

**”Nation” is derived from the Latin word nātiō which means a people, a race or a tribe. Nātiō is related to the word nātus, which means “born.” “Yankee nation” here refers to a people, not to a political entity.

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 of Georgia’s Confederate 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.

Everyone knows that the fall of Vicksburg and Port Hudson in 1863 gave the Federals control of the entire Mississippi River. Gen. John Pemberton commanded at Vicksburg and surrendered on July 4; Gen. Franklin Gardner, commanding at Port Hudson, capitulated five days later. Pemberton was a Pennsylvanian, Gardner a New Yorker.

Another irony involves the defensive works protecting Richmond and Atlanta. Both were constructed by Northern men in the service of the Confederacy. Gen. Walter Husted Stevens, of Penn Yan, N.Y., oversaw the building of Richmond’s fortifications. Captain Lemuel Grant, a Mainer, designed the defenses shielding Atlanta. In both cases the defenses were never breached: the cities were evacuated when the last rail lines were cut.

Stonewall Jackson’s famous mapmaker, Jedediah Hotchkiss, was a New Yorker who settled in Virginia and taught school. His journal, Make Me a Map of the Valley, was published in 1973.

Our list must also include Gen. Josiah Gorgas, of Running Pumps, Pa. Gorgas ran the Confederacy’s Ordnance Bureau

MEMORIAL FOR HISTORIAN EDWIN C. BEARSS POSTPONED

A memorial service for Edwin C. Bearss (1923–2020), initially planned for October 9, has been postponed indefinitely by the Bearss family. Rather than strictly limit attendance to reflect current guidance amid a spike in Coronavirus cases, the family hopes to have a public gathering welcoming the many friends and admires that the legendary historian and preservationist accumulated in his long decades as a leading expert in American military history. Although no new date has been set, a spring 2022 event held outdoors on one of Ed’s beloved battlefields—honoring his decades-long commitment to protecting and promoting historic landscapes—is envisioned.

Bearss travelled up to 200 days per year leading historic tours well into his 90s.

In collaboration with the Bearss Family, the Trust has established a special memorial fund to be used to preserve battlefields of the Vicksburg Campaign, an area of special importance to Ed. Details and a donation mechanism are available via the Trust website at www.battlefields. org/remembering-ed-bearss.

The organization will continue collecting written messages and recollections on behalf of the family until the memorial service is held. Such letters, cards and remembrances may be addressed to: Bearss Family, c/o American Battlefield Trust, 1156 15th Street NW, Washington DC 20005.

Campaign Continues to Save Gaines’ Mill–Cold Harbor Forever

Last year the Trust introduced an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to save some of the most important unprotected Civil War battlefield land in all of America: Nearly one square mile of supremely hallowed ground at the heart of both the Gaines’ Mill and Cold Harbor battlefields in Virginia. Thanks to the generosity of Trust

members, the first phase of this five-year effort was successful, protecting 96 acres of this treasured landscape. Now, we’re on to “phase two” and saving 99 acres at “The Intersection” of these two epic battles.

On June 27, 1862, Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Confederates grappled mostly with Union Gen. Fitz-John Porter’s V Corps in the Battle of Gaines’ Mill. That afternoon, the main Federal line drifted south onto our target tract and some of the most ferocious fighting took place at and around the McGhee House. By dark, the bloodiest day

of the Seven Days Battle ended. Lee’s final and successful assault that day remains the largest attack ever made on American soil.

Nearly two years later, on the very same land in danger, fighting returned during the Battle of Cold Harbor. The Confederate defensive line faced east, running north-south through the farmland. After Federals opened a large hole in Confederate lines, Col. Nelson

A. Miles’ Brigade pushed through the gap, fought its way into the yard of the McGhee House, and hunkered down. A Confederate counterattack pushed them back, in what proved to be the most intense combat during the 1864 battle.

The 99-acre opportunity will be coupled with the chance to save a nearby 51-acre tract at Second Deep Bottom.

Instead of disclosing the cumulative cost of the conservation easement that will protect the entirety of this land at Gaines’ Mill–Cold Harbor, we are able to share an immediate funding need of $1,192,429

for the 150 acres in this year’s phase. Thanks to early gifts from major donors, $529,429 remains to be raised. Every donation helps bring us closer to saving this piece of American history forever. For more information on this opportunity, visit www. battlefields.org/GMCH2021.

American Alliance for State and Local History Honors Trust President Emeritus

In leading the American Battlefield Trust for 21 years, Jim Lighthizer made quite an impression on the history community. The more than 53,000 acres saved with Lighthizer at the organization’s helm speak to his unyielding determination to ensure that American history can be taught upon the fields it unfolded and shared for generations to come. For his impact, he was selected as a 2021 recipient for the American Association for State and Local History’s Award of Excellence. The award was accepted by a Trust representative on his behalf during the AASLH Annual Meeting held in Little Rock, Ark., in late September.

A decorated U.S. Marine veteran of the Pacific Theater of World War II, Bearss attended college and graduate school on the GI Bill before pursuing a distinguished career in the National Park Service, ultimately rising to be chief historian of that agency. A prolific author and frequent commentator, he brought history alive for millions of Americans with his deep voice and evocative descriptions. Among the originators of the modern battlefield preservation movement and a devoted guide,

“For more than 80 years, AASLH has connected all those who are dedicated to protecting and interpreting the American story through its advocacy work, conferences, slew of growthoriented programs, research and publications,” said Lighthizer. “But no matter the endeavor, AASLH makes certain the value that history carries within local and regional communities and provides pathways to highlight those stories in practical and thoughtful ways.”

The Trust draws upon may AASLH values, especially regarding its concern for community impact. Preserved land often translates to

Edwin C. Bearss. Photo by Buddy Secor.

Cold Harbor sunrise. The latest phase of the Trust’s “Gaines’ Mill – Cold Harbor Saved Forever Campaign” will protect another 99 acres at the overlapping battlefields. Photo by Matthew Huntley.

American Battlefield Trust President Emeritus Jim Lighthizer.

Gaines’ Mill battlefield. Photo by Matthew Huntley.

sought-after, much valued open green spaces; outdoor classrooms for students who travel near and far to learn about the places where our nation’s formative conflicts unfolded; or identity builders for American towns seeking to showcase their unique history and profound past. History creates bonds that unite cities, towns, states, and regions. The Trust’s members demonstrate the unifying power that history holds, as they’ve given generously to see it preserved.

The Trust Welcomes Its Newest Set of Advocates, the 2021-2022 Youth Leadership Team

The Trust has identified and trained a talented new group of teens to serve as the organization’s 2021–2022 Youth Leadership Team (YLT). The 14 participants will engage classmates, neighbors and local decision makers by taking on custom-designed projects that pursue preservation and interpretation goals and make a tangible impact in their corner of the country.

“We hope to foster a love of history in the next generation and connect them with the battlefields that defined our nation,” said Trust President David Duncan. “The Youth Leadership Team is a crucial ingredient in turning these hopes into a reality, as these students position themselves to hold meaningful conversations that bring to light the value of history education and battlefield preservation.”

Successful candidates underwent training in many aspects of the organization’s mission, from the mechanics of land transactions to the philosophies of place-based education, and in advocacy skills, like interacting with the media and petitioning support from public officials. Trust staff

will work with and mentor each student, as they craft a project tailored to fit their passions and interests.

Planned projects for the academic year include a children’s book discussing female soldiers in the Civil War, a video series featuring Revolutionary and Civil War reenactors, expanded on-site and online interpretation for a Civil War-era raid on Richmond, and the promotion of under-told historical narratives.

The program has been wildly successful, attracting the attention of the Pipkin Charitable Foundation. The group issued a generous grant, investing in the advocacy work that each YLT member will bring to their community.

Through the Youth Leadership Team program, the Trust challenges young minds to seek out adventure, creativity, an expanded network, and a greater understanding of both the American past and the present-day efforts to preserve it. Youth-oriented classroom programs, plus on-site and digital battlefield interpretation, and online resources are critical tools in keeping history relevant and fresh. But they require passionate supporters and financial backing. Thanks to the generosity of the HTR Foundation and the firsttime availability of the federal interpretation and restoration matching funds, the Trust’s education fundraising campaign will allow each donation to be matched dollar-for-dollar. To learn more about this opportunity, visit www.battlefields.org/ supporteducation.

YLT member Hank Thompson, 17, is hoping to expand Civil War interpretation in his hometown of Richmond, Va.

Top Biographies and/or Autobiographies of the Common Soldier

For this November Book Issue of Civil War News, we asked our contributors for their Top biographies and/or autobiographies of the common soldier. Here are their choices. Enjoy.

My Ten Books for 2021

2 In Memory of Self and Comrades: Thomas Wallace Colley’s Recollections of Civil War Service in the 1st Virginia Cavalry, Thomas Wallace Colley edited by Michael K. Shaffer, The University of Tennessee Press, 2018.

by Sarah Kay Bierle

Just ten books written by or about Civil War soldiers below the rank of lieutenant? What a great challenge! Here, listed in no particular ranking of favorites, are a few of my top picks for unique perspectives on the lives and experiences of the common soldier through autobiography or biography.

1. Personal Recollections of the War of 1861, Charles August Fuller, News Job Printing House, 1906.

Beginning his autobiographical recollections in March 1861, Fuller chronicled his military experiences from enlistment and campaigning with the 61st New York Infantry Regiment. He wrote with particular detail about drill and discipline, campaigning on the Virginia Peninsula, and the Battles of Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. By the summer of 1863, he had been promoted to lieutenant, but his soldiering days ended after suffering serious wounds at Gettysburg. The detailed description of his wounding and life-altering medical care is particularly useful for studying a low-ranking officer’s days in field hospitals. Fuller’s time in the ranks changed his life and influenced his thought patterns for the rest of his life. In his short writings, he “told my story as a soldier.”

Colley did not have an easy life, and he finished his autobiographical memoir in 1915 at age 78. However, his adventures in Confederate uniform and his life during the Reconstruction Era and decades beyond read like a novel sprinkled with real-life wisdom from a man who went through danger and dark moments. Whether dashing ahead in a cavalry charge, surviving dangerous injuries, or battling alcoholism after the war, Colley showed remarkable courage and told his story with notable honesty. Throughout his writing, Colley traced his personal journey of religious faith and how his beliefs changed and ultimately transformed his life. Beyond telling his own story, Colley’s memoir is incredibly important for studying Confederate cavalry in Virginia, specific details of the 1st Virginia Cavalry, perspectives on officers, and notes on Confederate medical care. His war and life story is an incredibly authentic and open look at the confusion and sorrow contrasted with the exciting or humorous moments that crowded the days of this Confederate cavalryman.

3. Cushing of Gettysburg: The Story of a Union Artillery Commander, Kent Masterson Brown, The University of Kentucky Press, 1993.

A military biography of Alonzo Cushing follows the key moments of his 22-year life from his mother’s home to the barracks at West Point, Civil War camps and battles, until the final moments during the afternoon of July 3, 1863, when he ordered his battery forward toward Gettysburg’s outer angle’s wall.

The book opens with a

description of the young officer’s funeral, leaving no doubt that the biography will end with a shortened life and horrifying battle tragedy. Then, the chapters delve into the life events and character forming moments that shaped Cushing’s life. Technically, Cushing was promoted to brevet major after the Battle of Chancellorsville, but the majority of his military training and service was below or at rank of lieutenant. Brown’s writing about Cushing strongly reflects the memorial words written by Frederick Fuger who fought with Cushing and held him in his final moments: “a most able soldier, a man of excellent judgment, and a decision of character…”

4. Four Years In The Stonewall Brigade, John O. Casler, Appeal Publishing Company, 1906.

Understandably from his experiences (and the title of his book), Casler took great pride in his service in the 33rd Virginia Infantry, part of the famed Stonewall Brigade. His autobiography focuses heavily on the Civil War years, but also includes a few details about his childhood and youth and some final thoughts on the South with a Lost Cause view in the ending pages. One of the best things about Casler’s writings is the color and details he recorded. Though he included details known with hindsight, he wrote about little incidents that happened in camp, campaign, or battle.

For example, Casler gives overview details about the Battle of Chancellorsville as if to set the stage, and then takes the reader on a much more personal journey. He describes his encounter with a wounded Union officer, including taking the Yankee’s weapons. A few paragraphs later, Casler vividly recalled enduring artillery fire while crouching in a shallow depression with a prayerful comrade and another soldier who mocked the others and the flying projectiles. Details like these set against the attempted overview history give readers interesting material for study on common soldier, memory, Lost Cause, and unit history.

5. Personal Reminiscences of James A. Scrymser, In Times of Peace and War, James Alexander Scrymser, Eschenbach Printing Company, 1915.

This collection of short articles contains some humorous and unique stories from the Civil War

years and the later life of a Union veteran. While it is possible that Scrymser exaggerated or accidentally misremembered some details in his writings, there are a few verifiable points that seem accurate, suggesting there may be more truth to some of the “impossible” tales in his reminiscences. Some favorites include his enlistment story, fixing a cook stove in the Lincoln White House, records of soldiers’ rumors, and even the supposed revelation of a “great conspiracy.” Whether completely accurate or not, Scrymer’s remembrance of the war years of his life are filled with dashes of laughter, often a welcome relief in Civil War studies.

6. War Reminiscences by the Surgeon of Mosby’s Command, Aristides Monteiro, published in Richmond, VA, 1890.

Everyone writes their story with a purpose, and Monteiro clearly emphasized a justification of the war from a Confederate view point throughout his memoir. Published in 1890 and entrenched in the Lost Cause viewpoint, his reminiscences also offer interesting notes about the officers he served with in “Mosby’s Confederacy.” Unlike some other memoirs, Monteiro does not start with an overview of his youth, but rather jumps into his story in 1864 when Mosby asked him to join his command as a surgeon; pieces and hints of the doctor’s earlier life are woven into the early chapters; his postwar views are clear throughout the text and in the concluding chapters. Surprisingly, there are not as many medical details as a reader might expect from a surgeon’s story, but the action from riding with Mosby takes a more prominent role in the life tale. Monteiro’s writings about his experiences during his most famous years of the Civil War are almost a time capsule for a closer look at motivation, memory, and war justification woven together with some adventurous escapades.

7. Riding With Stuart: Reminiscences of an Aidede-Camp, Theodore Stanford Garnett edited by Robert J. Trout, White Mane Publisher, 1996.

The introduction to this published portion of Garnett’s writings creates a tantalizing puzzle. He clearly states that the pages are a continuation of his war reminiscences…but

where the earlier pages of his story reside is mystery unsolved at the time of the publication. Garnett’s autobiographical and military details provide valuable information into the lives and worn-down days of the Confederate cavalry, particularly during the winter of 1863–1864 and the Overland Campaign. Although he wrote about General Stuart’s pranks, several dances, and parties, the grittier side of cavalry service contrasts with the heroics and glory image that he wanted to believe. Devoted to Stuart and later to that general’s memory, Garnett frames this portion of his life reminiscences with seemingly fond stories about that cavalry commander, helping readers to catch a glimpse of how particular moments could later transform into hero worship.

8. The Long Road To Gettysburg, Jim Murphy, Clarion Books, 1992.

Yes, this is a book found in the children’s sections of the library. However, it is worth a mention for the admirable job that it does in highlighting the lives of Lieutenant John Dooley (1st Virginia Infantry) and Corporal Thomas Galway (8th Ohio Infantry) and narrowing in on their experiences during the Gettysburg Campaign. Drawing from the Virginian and Ohioan’s primary source diaries, Murphy paints an accurate and younger reader-appropriate version of these men’s lives which were altered by their wounds and experiences at Gettysburg. For some students, this might be the first introduction to a common soldier’s biography and it touches more detailed topics like slavery and states’ rights, prejudice, and “personal war.” Not all books have to be 200 pages of biography; sometimes the 110 pages of large print and photos can be just as effective for understanding that sometimes “his entire world and all of his dreams had been consumed by the Civil War.”

9. Hospital Days, Jane Woolsey, Van Nostrand, 1868. She was neither an officer nor a soldier, but Jane Woolsey’s reminiscences deserve to slip into this list for their readability and glimpse into soldiers’ lives and deaths in her hospital wards. Starting with her journey to volunteer as a medical nurse, Woolsey wrote her story and how she wanted her service to

be remembered shortly after the war’s end. Special diets menus, interactions with sick or wounded soldiers, observations of the chaplain, and a collection of notes sent to her by soldiers’ families, and details about the little observations of the changes of seasons that kept up her spirits fill the pages. Woolsey generally wrote with the grand “we,” not frequently directly telling her own personal experience. However, her observations and the situations she worked through during her hospital days are clearly written, even if she does not use the personal first person the majority of the time. Woolsey’s high social status, clear observations, and straightforward style of writing ensured that her story of her life in the hospitals was told the way she wanted it to be remembered.

10. Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops, Late 1st S. C. Volunteers, Susie King Taylor, Self Published in Boston, 1902.

“I now present these reminiscences to you, hoping they may prove of some interest, and show how much service and good we can do to each other, and what sacrifices we can make for our liberty and rights, and that there were “loyal women,” as well as men, in those days, who did not fear shell or shot, who cared for the sick and dying; women who camped and fared as the boys did, and who are still caring for the comrades in their declining years.” With these words, Susie King Taylor began the book to share her life and Civil War service. She did not enlist in the military, but arguably she was there and as much a part of an African American regiment as the men in uniform. Her narrative begins with memories of her ancestors and her childhood in slavery, learning to read, and the first time she met Union soldiers and found freedom. Living alongside a company of soldiers and working as a laundress, Taylor had plenty of first-hand military experience. She learned how to clean and fire a rifle, took care of the wounded after battle, and even occupied Charleston with “her regiment.” Toward the end of her reminiscences, Taylor wrote directly about inequalities and racism that she personally witnessed and endured at the end of the 19th Century, ending with a plea for justice.

Sarah Kay Bierle volunteers as the managing editor at Emerging Civil War and works for a nonprofit preserving battlefields

and teaching about the land’s history. She has had four books published and is currently working on several other Civil War research and writing projects.

My Ten Best Books About The Civil War’s Common Soldier

researched study reveals more contradictions than common causes among soldiers trying desperately to survive. Here is one of the most realistic and original studies of men at war from the Director of the Gettysburg College Civil War Institute. It is a major achievement that all but deals an overdue death blow to the nostalgic view of romanticized war.

4. Lincoln’s Men: How President Lincoln Became Father to an Army and a Nation, by William C. Davis (Free Press, 2000).

got to hear him lecture on this book as well.)

by Harold Holzer

1 What They Fought for, 1861–1865 (Louisiana State University Press, 1994) and For Cause and Comrades: Why Men Fought in the Civil War (Oxford University Press, 1997), both by James M. McPherson.

These are two separate titles, but they are inextricably connected: the first, a preliminary survey of soldiers’ patriotic aspirations, based on original sources; the latter, a deep-dive analysis of their motives, hopes, dreams, and fears and, importantly, their coming to terms with emancipation as a motive for combat among Union troops. This is top-notch McPherson, which means the best there is.

2. Soldiers Blue and Gray by James I. Robertson, Jr. (University of South Carolina Press, 1988).

Anyone who ever got to hear the legendary “Bud” Robertson lecture on the diet, health, sanitary challenges, and religious beliefs of “Billy Yank” and “Johnny Reb” will recognize in this pioneering study his unmistakable, honeyed voice and his profound understanding of the human spirit under pressure. Robertson knew this subject better than anyone; his gentle authority is evident on every page. The book is more than 30 years old, but it still thrums with vivid stories and telling detail. A classic page-turner.

3. The War for the Common Soldier: How Men Thought, Fought, and Survived in Civil War Armies, by Peter S. Carmichael (University of North Carolina Press, 2018).

Truly revelatory, this deeply

Rich in telling anecdote, this wonderful book shows why a quintessentially civilian commander-in-chief won the hearts and loyalty of his soldiers; he represented the common man. The stories of the troops’ reaction to Lincoln’s visits to the front are alone worth the price of the book, which puts to use a lifetime of study in original, sometimes obscure sources. This is a personal favorite of mine: Davis’ research is as always masterful, his story-telling captivating, and this book made a real contribution to Lincoln studies.

5. Thunder at the Gates: The Black Civil War Regiments that Redeemed America, by Douglas R. Egerton (Basic Books 2016).

Among the essential books on the “colored troops,” Egerton’s is the most recent and perhaps the most deserving of a careful read. Noah Trudeau’s and Dudley Taylor Cornish’s earlier efforts are worth noting as well, but Egerton has done something special with his new survey, summoning an analysis-based empathy for these soldiers’ special sacrifice. One critic declared that no one can read this book without developing an understanding of the Black Lives Matter movement. I tend to agree.

6. Midnight in America: Darkness, Sleep, and Dreams

During the Civil War, by Jonathan W. White (University of North Carolina Press, 2017). How could common soldiers not be tempest-tossed and haunted each and every night? White’s terrific study painstakingly illumines their hopes, longings, and fears, deftly balancing examples from both memoir and popular illustration. The result is gripping. Blessedly short on Freudian analysis and rich in original reminiscence, this is a truly original contribution to the Civil War bookshelf. (Full disclosure: White is my friend, and the vice chairman of the Lincoln Forum, which means I

7. All for the Union: The Civil War Diary of Elisha Hunt Rhodes (Vintage Books, 1992). It’s been around forever, but Ken Burns made it immortal. Rhodes could write like an angel, and some of his entries approach the poetic; that they were written under the cloud of almost constant combat danger makes them even more breathtaking. Rhodes served and survived the war from Bull Run all the way to Appomattox, mustering out at the ripe old age of 23 and living another 50 years. Read this edition, which features a new preface by gifted historian Geoffrey Ward, who scripted Burns’ Civil War mini-series.

8. “Co. Aytch,” Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment; or, a Side Show to the Big Show, by Samuel R. Watkins (Cumberland Presbyterian Publishing House, 1882).

Justly famous and still remarkably entertaining, this is one of the best original accounts of Confederate soldiers at leisure, in combat, riled up, and struck down. Humorist Watkins first published the stories in a newspaper series, but the book version has been a must-read since it first appeared in 1882. It has been republished many times since (beginning in 1900), and remains widely available in paperback.

9. The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy (Louisiana State University Press, 1943) and The Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union (BobbsMerrill, 1952), both by Bell I. Wiley.

Here is the granddaddy of collected reminiscences of the ordinary fighting men on both sides. These companion books are nearly 80 years old, and maybe a bit musty, but they all but launched the genre, deeply influenced subsequent generations of historians, and still deserve places on any top-ten list.

10. What this Cruel War was Over: Soldiers, Slavery and the Civil War, by Chandra Manning (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007).

This eye-opening study posited that both Union and Confederate foot soldiers ultimately came to understand that slavery was the cause of the war, and for the South, the means of its destruction. Manning mined many new original sources for this, her debut book, and the result is a stunning, must-read accomplishment.

Harold Holzer, Chairman of the Lincoln Forum and former cochairman of the U. S. Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, is the author of more than 50 books on Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. He won the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize and four other awards in 2015 for his book Lincoln and the Power of the Press, and received a 2008 National Humanities Medal.

My Top Ten Favorite Civil War Bios of Common Soldiers

by C. Michael Harrington

In no particular order, here’s my ten favorite bios or autobiographies of common soldiers of the Civil War:

1. Rebel Private Front and Rear. By William Andrew Fletcher. Press of the Greer Print, Beaumont, 1908.

This slender book is a refreshingly honest account of the Civil War service of a carpenter from Beaumont, Texas, Pvt. William Fletcher. Fletcher served first an infantryman in Hood’s Texas Brigade, and later, after suffering a leg wound at Chickamauga, he rode with Terry’s Texas Rangers, making him the only Texan to have served in these two celebrated Confederate commands. Fletcher ended the war in North Carolina where he fought at Bentonville in the last charge of the Rangers. Fletcher accepted defeat without remorse, taking the advice of a Tar Heel to “grease and slide back into the Union.”

What makes Fletcher’s memoir especially attractive to me is his abstention from puffery and brag. For example, Fletcher describes how on the evening of the second day at Gettysburg he was overcome by a “bad case of cowardly horror” when confronted with the prospect of participating in a frontal assault on Union lines. He confesses: “I tried to force manhood to the front, but fright would drive it back with a shudder.”

Original editions of Fletcher’s book are rare and costly, most of the small 1908 first edition having been destroyed in a

warehouse fire. Fortunately, relatively inexpensive reprints are available.

2. Fourteen Hundred and 91 Days in the Confederate Army: A Journal Kept by W. W. Heartsill … of the W. P. Lane Rangers. By W. W. Heartsill. Hand printed by the author, 1876.

I would die for a first edition of this book, by far the rarest of all Civil War books. Fortunately, it’s been reprinted several times. More than its rarity makes this book valuable. Heartsill’s journal is well written, perceptive, modest, and often humorous. Heartsill printed his journal from a day-by-day record he kept during his service, lending considerable accuracy to his account.

An 1859 immigrant to Texas from Tennessee, Heartsill enlisted as a private in April 1861 in the W. P. Lane Rangers, an independent Texas cavalry company.

Initially, the Lane Rangers guarded the Texas frontier. The few Indians they saw eluded the Rangers, but Heartsill’s entertaining record of frontier service is a highlight of his book.

Taken prisoner at Arkansas Post, Heartsill served time in a Chicago POW camp. Late in the war he did guard duty at a Confederate POW camp in Texas, giving Heartsill the rare experience of serving on both sides of prison walls. In between, Heartsill participated in his only significant battle, Chickamauga, and afterwards took French leave from Bragg’s army to return to his company in Texas.

Heartsill’s journal ends with the disbandment of his unit in May 1865, after 1,491 days of service.

3 Carrying the Flag: The Story of Private Charles Whilden, the Confederacy’s Most Unlikely Hero. By Gordon C. Rhea. Basic Books, 2004.

Spoiler alert: I put Gordon Rhea, an authority on the Overland Campaign, onto the story of Charles Whilden. What Rhea did with the story is strictly to his credit, however.

A native of Charleston, Charles Whilden was working as a civilian clerk at a New Mexico army outpost when war erupted. Whilden could have sat out the war in the Southwest, but being an ardent southern patriot, he risked life and limb to get home to Charleston and enlist.

Passed over for service several times due to his epilepsy, in the spring of 1864 Whilden was finally allowed to enlist as a private in the Second South Carolina Infantry, a regiment serving in Virginia. In short order, this aging epileptic found himself plunged into bloody combat. In an astonishing act of courage, Whilden wrapped the Rebel flag around his body and led a charge at Spotsylvania that won back crucial ground for the Confederates, changing the course of one of the war’s most significant battles and arguably extending the war for nearly a year.

Shortly after the war, when back home in Charleston, this most unlikely hero drowned

in a shallow puddle of water following an epileptic seizure.

4. Berry Benson’s Civil War Book: Memoirs of a Confederate Scout and Sharpshooter. Edited by Susan Williams Benson. University of Georgia Press, 1962.

Teenager Berry Benson could not wait for his native Georgia to secede, so in early Jan. 1861 he crossed into South Carolina and enlisted as a private in a Palmetto State regiment. Benson was singled out early on for his scouting abilities. His reconnaissance exploits make up one of the main stories in Benson’s memoir.

Benson’s battlefield experiences are prominent in his memoir. A crack shot turned sharpshooter, Benson participated in the major battles in the East, from First Manassas to Petersburg. At Appomattox, Benson, ever the diehard Rebel, slipped away, refusing to surrender.

For me, Benson’s account of his two escapes from prison is the most engaging part of his memoir. Benson swam out of the POW camp at Point Lookout, narrowly evading sharks. Recaptured, he was sent to Elmira Prison in New York. There he was part of the only successful tunnel escape in Elmira’s history. Remarkably, he made it back to his command in Virginia.

Benson wrote his memoirs thirteen years after the war, consulting his wartime diary. Critics have questioned the authenticity of some of Benson’s derring-do, but if only half of it is accurate, Benson still ranks as a remarkable private soldier.

5. Chapters from the Unwritten History of the War Between the States…. By R. M. Collins. Nixon-Jones Printing Co., 1893 (reprinted by Morningside, 1988).

When war erupted, Bob Collins was 23 and a shop clerk in a small Texas frontier town. Evidently a lukewarm Rebel, Collins delayed Confederate service until joining the 15 Tex. Cav. as a private in March 1862.

Posted first to Arkansas, Collins’ regiment was converted to infantry a few months before Collins was taken prisoner at Arkansas Post in Jan. 1863 and shipped off to a POW camp in Ohio. When exchanged, Collins soon found himself serving in what became Granbury’s Texas Brigade, one of the premier fighting units in the Confederacy’s main western army.

Promoted to lieutenant, Collins saw hard service in the West, fighting at Chickamauga and

Missionary Ridge as well as in the Atlanta Campaign and Hood’s disastrous Tennessee Campaign. Collins surrendered with Joe Johnston’s army in April 1865, walked home to Texas, and eventually became a newspaperman.

Despite scanty formal education, Collins was decidedly literate. His account of Confederate service is lively and crisp, devoid of the heavy prose of the Victorian era. Besides being easy to read, Collins’ book is factual to a fault, often humorous and without partisan rancor.

6. A Texan in Search of a Fight, Being the Diary and Letters of a Private Soldier in Hood’s Texas Brigade By John C. West. Press of J. S. Hill & Co., 1901 (reprinted by Texian Press, 1969).

If John West was, as he maintained, a “Texan in search of a fight,” when he enlisted in the 4 Tex. Inf. in April 1863, he found it soon enough. Before his discharge in Feb. 1864, Pvt. West was wounded at both Gettysburg and Chickamauga. He also endured Longstreet’s grueling East Tennessee campaign. This slender book consists mostly of the diary West kept and the letters he wrote home during his short but eventful tenure in Hood’s Texas Brigade.

West was hardly the typical Confederate volunteer. Exempted from the draft by his employment, West was also college educated, nearly 30, and married at enlistment. West wrote well and, for the most part, honestly, especially when chronicling the hardships his brigade endured. He also showed frequent humor in his writings, as this remark after Gettysburg attests: “I am having my only underwear washed today, and owing to a large rent in my pants, would be subject to arrest in any well managed city for improper exposure of my person in a public place.”

West compiled his memoir long after Appomattox. West’s attribution of his enlistment to his “being more determined than ever to see a fight” looks like classic Old Soldierism.

7. The Ragged Rebel: A Common Soldier in W. H. Parsons’ Texas Cavalry, 18611865. By B. P. Gallaway. University of Texas Press, 1988.

This modern biography of David Nance makes my list for several reasons. First, Nance defies stereotypes of most Confederate volunteers. Born in Illinois and reared in an antislavery family in a Texas area with strong Union attachments,

the teenaged Nance nonetheless volunteered for Confederate service early in the war, chiefly seeking a chance for adventure. Second, Nance’s story takes place in the Trans-Mississippi Theater, a relatively unappreciated area of the war.

The principal reason I like this biography, however, is the author’s skillful development of the impact that war had on Nance’s youthful romanticism. Together with many 1861 volunteers, Nance’s concepts of the honor and glory of war soon gave way to the realities of hardship and disease. Those realities included several battle wounds that Nance suffered and the excesses of enemy occupation he witnessed.

What emerges from Nance’s story is a young man who, when confronted by unanticipated experiences, becomes vehemently antiwar, despite his being a good soldier who eventually attains the rank of sergeant. Late in life, Nance expressed regret about entering the army, both because he assisted in protecting the evil of slavery and “because war is murder, and murder has no mercy in it.”

8. Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade. By John O. Casler. State Capital Printing Co., 1893.

Private John Casler spent barely two years on active duty in Virginia’s heralded Stonewall Brigade. Short as his service was, Casler still managed to participate in several major battles, including First Manassas. Casler was long in the tooth when his war memoir was first published. Not surprisingly for a book written decades after the war by an illeducated man, Casler confuses some facts and consistently misspells some proper names. Warts and all, however, the memoir reads well and is a fairly accurate and comprehensive account of Casler’s wartime experiences.

Mostly, it’s the realism of Casler’s account that endears it to me. Casler’s service record is pockmarked by persistent straggling, multiple unauthorized leaves and arrests, theft of hooch in camp and grub on the march, fistfights with comrades, and a general unwillingness to bend to military discipline. Instead of papering over his transgressions, Casler fesses up to them. As an example of his candor and his lack of Victorian romantism about war, Casler confides in the final paragraph of his book: “No man dreaded going into battle more than I did or was more anxious for one to be over.”

9-10. The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy and The Life of Billy Yank: The Common Soldier of the Union. By Bell Irvin Wiley. Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1943 and 1952, respectively.

The late Bell Wiley’s twovolume study of the common soldier of the Civil War broke new ground when published. Admittedly somewhat dated now, Wiley’s twin books remain generally reliable guides to the army life of everyday Confederate and Federal soldiers.

Each book covers multiple facets of the soldiers’ lives, from their backgrounds and education, to their clothes, the food they ate, the crude shelters they built, their training and drill, their attitudes to officers and one another, their heroism and cowardice, and their reaction to battle. Near the end of The Life of Billy Yank, Wiley concludes that the “similarities of Billy Yank and Johnny Reb far outweighed their differences.”

Wiley relied heavily on soldiers’ letters, diaries, and recollections in detailing the experiences of the grunts who too often elude the attention of historians. Wiley’s emphasis upon soldiers’ letters has both plusses and minuses for readers today. Deciphering Johnny Reb’s or Billy Yank’s typically unrefined spelling and grammar can be a chore. On the positive side, the Civil War was an era before wartime censorship of soldiers’ letters, so Civil War soldiers’ letters tend to convey their writers’ thoughts and emotions more accurately than, say, letters written by WWII GIs who suspected that their officers might read and censor their missives.

The Life of Johnny Reb especially shows its age in places. For instance, there is scarcely a mention of blacks outside references to body servants; and Wiley, with his gentle southern bias, leaves the rectitude of the Confederate cause largely unexamined.

C. Michael Harrington is a retired lawyer, resident in Houston and Galveston. 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 immediate past president of the Houston CWRT.

My Best Books

but in 1863 they became a part of the XVI, and later, IX Corps. After the siege of Vicksburg they were attached to XV Corps for the remainder of the war fighting with Sherman in Tennessee, Georgia, and the Carolinas Orendorff’s letters give a nice view of the life of an average soldier and also show a bit of insight to his psyche as many of them were written to women. Despite this, in his letters he shares honest and straightforward observations about army life. When the war ended, Henry Orendorff took a business course in Chicago and would be become the owner of a hardware company in Ohio. He died in 1910.

maker and a dairy farmer. He died relatively young age in either 1896 or 1899

5. Upcountry South Carolina Goes to War-Letters of the Anderson, Brockman, and Moore Families 1853–1865. Tom Moore Craig, editor. The University of South Carolina Press, 2009.

Books, Parkersburg, Iowa.

by Thomas J. Ryan

1. The Civil War Diary of Allen Morgan Geer-Twentieth Regiment Illinois Volunteers. Mary Ann Anderson, editor, 1977. Cosmos Press, New York.

Organized in late 1861, the 20th Illinois was involved in almost every Western Theater major battle and campaign. It was a part of the XII Corps from late 1863–1864, and ended the war as a part of the XVII Corps.

Geer was a 21-year old teacher before the war and his education clearly shows in his writing. This may also explain why he started the war as a private and ended as a lieutenant. The strength of his diary is that he spends a great deal of time discussing the little things, like nicknames soldiers gave each other or how they passed the time in camp.

After the war Allen Geer moved to Missouri and became an attorney. He died in 1926. I will readily confess to being a sucker for soldiers discussing mundane, everyday life, and Geer does one of the best jobs of it. He also gives one of the best descriptions of the burning of Columbia, S.C., I have ever read.

2. We Are Sherman’s MenThe Civil War Letters of Henry Orendorff. William Anderson, 1986. Western Illinois University, Macomb, Ill.

Then 22-year-old Orendoff joined the 103rd Illinois Infantry Regiment in 1862 and served for the duration of the war and rose in rank from private to lieutenant. Originally Orendorff’s regiment was attached to the XII Corps,

3. Civil War Experiences of a Foot-Soldier Who Marched With Sherman. John C. Arbuckle, 1930. N/P Columbus, Ohio.

Arbuckle joined the 4th Iowa Infantry as a 16-year-old in 1864 just in time to participate in the Atlanta Campaign, the March to the Sea, the Carolinas Campaign, and the Grand Review in Washington, D.C. He was one of the first Union soldiers in Columbia and gives a very descriptive account of the taking and destruction of the city.

It is interesting to note that Arbuckle was born in Scotland. After the war Arbuckle became a minister. When interviewed in the 1920s, he described the march to the sea as a “picnic” compared to the Atlanta campaign. His memoirs were apparently selfpublished. Rev. Arbuckle died in 1939

4. Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory-Combat Diaries of Union Sergeant Hamlin Alexander Coe David Coe, ed., 1975. Associated University Press Inc., Cranbury N.J.

Coe joined the 19th Michigan Regiment in 1862. He was instantly made a corporal and ended the war as a sergeant. His regiment was attached to the Army of the Cumberland for much of the war, but because they were assigned to the XX Corps, they became a part of what would be known as the Army of Georgia and participated in the March to the Sea and the Carolinas Campaign. Coe was shot in the shoulder and received a concussion from a cannonball that almost took his sight, but he recovered fully from injuries.

The diary is noteworthy in that it was discovered over a century after the war and gives a very frank account of life in the army. The war had a definite effect on Coe’s religious beliefs, which for a time he questioned.

After the war Coe was a wagon

Although these three families, related by blood or marriage, were wealthier than most of their neighbors, having sent four children to college, they suffered the same problems as their less affluent neighbors. At first glance, these 124 letters seem rather mundane, talking about the weather, crop prices, people’s health, etc. The children in college seemingly always wrote back home for money, proving that after 150 years some things have not changed. However, that emphasis on every day matters is the strength of these letters. We do not get details about battles, or insights into great leaders, just about regular folks trying to survive those difficult times.

African American scholars will find interesting the two letters written from Wilmington, N.C., by a Moore slave, who accompanied his master, to his wife back home in South Carolina.

I will confess to some favoritism here as the families are from the part of South Carolina that my family is from.

6. Left for Dixie–The Civil War Diary of John Rath. Kenneth Lyftogt, ed., 1991. Mid-Prairie

Rath joined the 31st Iowa in 1862. For most of the war, his unit was attached to the XV Corps of the Army of the Tennessee. He was one of the first Union soldiers into Columbia, S.C., and his description of the chaos that followed is very vivid. He stayed with his unit until the end of the war and marched in the Grand Review.

John Rath was born in Germany in 1840. When he was 15, he and a brother immigrated to America and settled in Iowa with an uncle. There Rath took English and business classes and worked in the flour and lumber industries before the war. After the war he returned to business, but also became a banker and the Mayor of Ackley, Iowa. He named one

Slaughter

of his sons after Gen. Sherman. He died in 1914

Being a foreigner, Rath, offers a somewhat different perspective of the war than what one usually sees. One thing in particular that I found impressive, is that despite being in America for only seven years, his command of the written English language was excellent, and he writes with a clear, distinctive, but honest style. Given his background, his ability to describe what he saw is remarkable.

7. With Sherman to the Sea. The Journal of Theodore F. Upson. Oscar Osburn Winther, ed. 1958. Indian University Press, Bloomington, In.

Theodore Upson (1845–1919) served as a private in the 100th Indiana. He saw action at Vicksburg, Chattanooga, the Battle of Atlanta, the March to the Sea and the Carolinas Campaign. Upson participated with his regiment in the Grand Review in Washington, D.C. on May 20, 1865. During his time in the Army, Upson had marched around 4,000 miles and was engaged in 25 battles.

After the war he became a carriage maker and lived in New Jersey and Indiana. He died in 1919

What I found particularly interesting were his observations about Savannah, Ga., and Beaufort, S.C. Given the fact that most, if not all, the men in his regiment had never seen the ocean, it led to some unfortunate, but humorous, incidents. Also noteworthy is his open disdain for African American soldiers.

8. Co. Aytch-A Side Show of the Big Show. Sam Watkins, 1952. McCowat-Mercer Press, Jackson, TN.

Watkins served in Company H (or as he called it “Aytch”) of the 1st Tennessee Regiment. He was 21 when he enlisted in May 1861 and was with the Confederate Army of Tennessee until it surrendered in 1865. The regiment fought from Shiloh to Nashville and everything in-between. At the time of its

surrender, only 65 out of the 1200 men who served in the regiment were still with the regiment. Watkins was one of only seven survivors of some 120 men who served in his company. He died in 1901.

Watkin’s book, first published in book form in 1882, is generally regarded as one of the finest first-person accounts of the war by a common soldier, because of Watkins ability to combine humor and seriousness. It was often quoted in filmmaker Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary.

9. The Civil War Letters of Alexander McNeil2nd South Carolina Infantry Regiment Mac Wyckoff, editor, Cora Lee Godsey Starling, translator, 2016. University of South Carolina Press

This book is an extensive collection of letters written by Alexander “Sandy” McNeil, a 29-year-old merchant from Greenwood, S.C., to his fiancé Almirah Haseltine “Tinie” Simmons whom he would marry during the war. The letters, all extremely well-written even by 21st century standards, start on April 17, 1861, and end on May 2, 1865. During the war McNeil’s unit, the 2nd South Carolina Infantry, fought in the Battles of Manassas, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg. They went with Longstreet to Tennessee and then rejoined Lee’s army to fight in the Overland and Shenandoah campaigns. In early 1865 they were sent back to South Carolina to try to stop Sherman’s army and surrendered with Johnston in North Carolina.

After the war McNeil returned to Greenwood and resumed life as a businessman until his bizarre death caused by being hit by a train in 1889.

Wyckoff was the perfect person to edit this book as he is the author of the definitive book about the 2nd South Carolina Regiment. At 672 pages, this is the largest and best collection of letters from a soldier I have ever seen. Just about every detail about what it was like to be a Confederate soldier during the

war can be found in these pages. In addition, I found information about Sherman’s march through the Carolinas that I had never seen before.

Author of the multiple awardwinning ’Lee is Trapped and Must Be Taken’: Eleven Fateful Days after Gettysburg, July 4-14, 1863, with co-author Rick Schaus, and the multiple award-winning Spies, Scouts, and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign: How the Critical Role of Intelligence Impacted the Outcome of Lee’s Invasion of the North, JuneJuly 1863” A new book pending publication is titled In Their Role as Commander in Chief: Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis during the Gettysburg Campaign.

Top Ten Biographies/ Autobiographies of LesserKnown Figures

Winchester, General Robert H. Milroy, and interactions with African Americans.

by Jonathan Noyalas

1. His Autobiography, Poems, and Comic War Papers. James M. Dalzell Cincinnati, OH: Robert Clarke & Co., 1888. From his home in Caldwell, Ohio, slightly more than two decades after the Civil War’s end, James Dalzell, who enlisted as a private in the 116th Ohio Infantry in August 1862, fulfilled a promise he made to the “public” and published his autobiography. By the time of the book’s publication, Dalzell had been elected to various political posts in Ohio including prosecuting attorney for Noble County and member of Ohio’s House of Representatives. While Dalzell’s autobiography covers all facets of his life until the mid1880s this volume has always been one of my favorites because Dalzell and his comrades in the 116th Ohio spent a great deal of time in the Shenandoah Valley in 1863 and 1864. Included in the book are twelve “War Sketches” which focus on various moments during Dalzell’s service as a private in the regiment. These short vignettes focus on Dalzell’s military service including reminiscences about the winter of 1864 in the Shenandoah Valley, the Battle of Piedmont,

2. Carrying the Flag: The Story of Private Charles Whilden, the Confederacy’s Most Unlikely Hero. Gordon C. Rhea. New York: Basic Books, 2004. While historian Gordon C. Rhea is best known for his classic studies covering various aspects of the fighting during the Overland Campaign, arguably the most powerful book he has written to date is this volume which traces the life Private Charles Whilden, 1st South Carolina Infantry. Whilden, nearly forty years old at the time he enlisted in 1864, endured numerous failed ventures in the decades prior to the war and when the conflict broke out, he attempted to enlist to fight for the Confederacy, but epilepsy precluded him from enlisting; that is, until 1864 when Confederate ranks became so depleted that requirements eased. At the epicenter of Rhea’s biography of Private Whilden are his actions during the Confederate counterattack on the Bloody Angle at Spotsylvania. As the 1st South Carolina advanced, Whilden, who carried the regimental flag, noticed it was coming loose from the staff. Aware that the flag falling from the staff might stymie the Confederate advance, Whilden became, as Rhea noted “a human flagpole,” wrapped the standard around himself, and continued forward. While Rhea’s biography powerfully traces Whilden’s story, including his wounding at Spotsylvania and death in 1866 when an epileptic seizure caused him to fall face down in a “mud puddle” and drown, it provides a compelling example of how the biography of a common soldier can be used to explore such broad themes as Confederate perspectives about devotion to duty, slavery, honor, and combat.

3. With the Old Confeds: Actual Experiences of a Captain in the Line. Samuel D. Buck. Baltimore, MD: H.E. Houck & Co, 1925.

A native of Warren County, Va., Samuel Buck never intended that his reflections about his service during the Civil War would be published, but after his death in 1920 his friends convinced his wife, Alice, to publish them. Buck, who enlisted in the 13th Virginia Infantry in the spring of 1861 rose from the rank of sergeant to captain by the spring of 1863. Wounded on multiple occasions throughout the war, Buck’s thoughts about his wartime experiences have always

appealed to me for the insight his thoughts offer about Stonewall Jackson’s 1862 Valley Campaign and operations in the Shenandoah Valley in 1864.

4. “From a ‘Whirlpool of Death… to Victory”: Civil War Remembrances of Jesse Tyler Sturm 14th West Virginia Infantry. Mary E. Johnson, ed. Charleston, WV: West Virginia History, 2002.

Forty years after the Civil War’s end, Corporal Jesse Tyler Sturm, 14th West Virginia Infantry, published stories about his wartime exploits in a variety of newspapers in Kansas and West Virginia. Following the rediscovery, in 2000, of Corporal Sturm’s typed manuscript by a descendant, Sturm’s observations about the Civil War were published in this volume. The bulk of Sturm’s account focuses exclusively on the Shenandoah Valley. While Sturm provides detailed accounts of the battles in which the 14th West Virginia participated, the difficulties of soldier life, both in camp and on the battlefield, and his assessments of officers in the Shenandoah are candid and revealing. Additionally, Sturm’s reflections provide some insight into the tension that existed among the various elements of General Philip H. Sheridan’s Army of the Shenandoah. Following the appearance of Sturm’s personal reflections in 1911, Granville Davisson Hall wrote Sturm and declared that Sturm’s writings were “so readable… so graphic and vivid.” More than a century later that assessment still holds.

5. America’s Corporal: James Tanner in War and Peace. James Marten. Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2014.

I have long been-interested in the Grand Army of the Republic so needless to say that my level of excitement about James Marten’s biography of James Tanner was off the charts when it was released seven years ago. Tanner enlisted as a private in the 87th New York Infantry in the autumn of 1861; in 1905 he was elected the G.A.R.’s commander in chief. Tanner’s story is a powerful one. While Marten notes that Tanner “relished fame” throughout his life, Tanner’s

biography is inspiring. After losing both legs during the Second Battle of Bull Run and then learning how to walk using prosthetic limbs, Corporal Tanner knew he had to reinvent himself. After learning stenography, Tanner worked as a clerk in the War Department for the conflict’s duration. His home’s proximity to Ford’s Theater on the evening of April 14, 1865, and skill as a stenographer thrust him into the important role of recording testimony in the Petersen Boarding House about President Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. Although an obscure figure today, Tanner proved quite powerful for decades in postwar politics and veterans’ affairs.

6. A Volunteers Adventures: A Union Captain’s Record of the Civil War. John William DeForest, Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996.

Although slim, this volume presents a compelling narrative of the life, service, and thoughts of Captain John William DeForest, 12th Connecticut Infantry. Originally published in 1946 by Yale University Press, elements of DeForest’s reflections on his military service appeared in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine between 1864 and 1868. DeForest’s perspectives about his service, which ranged from early March 1862 through the Battle of Cedar Creek, presents a compelling narrative of a company commander’s experiences in Louisiana and Virginia. This volume has always appealed to me because it provides DeForest’s candid assessment of the directives his superiors ordered him to carry out. Of particular note are DeForest’s thoughts about having four companies under his charge shoot at nothing for several hours prior to Union general George Crook’s flank attack at the Battle of Fisher’s Hill on September 22, 1864.

7. A Rebel Cavalryman with Lee, Stuart, and Jackson. John N. Opie. Chicago: W.B. Conkey Company, 1899.

Thirty-two years after the Civil War’s end, John Opie, a Shenandoah Valley native, published the story of his experiences as a soldier in the 6th Virginia Cavalry. Opie’s volume follows his enlistment as a private, at the age of seventeen, through his capture in early 1865, imprisonment at Elmira, and parole. It has always been a staple in my library because of his descriptions of the Shenandoah Valley’s landscape and his

reflections the conflict’s impact on the region. Particularly poignant is Opie’s meditation on one of the most destructive periods during the conflict in the Valley, the Burning. While Opie did not deny the devastating toll that period between late September and early October 1864 took on the Valley’s landscape and its families, he placed the Burning into historical context and asked his readers to ponder: “Which is the worst in war, to burn a barn, or kill a fellow-man?”

8. A Duryee Zouave. Thomas P. Southwick. Brookneal, VA: Patrick A. Schroeder Publications, 1995.

Originally published in 1930, Sergeant Thomas P. Southwick’s reflections on his service in the 5th New York, Duryee Zouaves, has long-been one of my favorite histories by one of the conflict’s rank and file. Southwick enlisted in the regiment in the spring of 1861 and mustered out of service in May 1863; he might have fallen into obscurity had it not been for the efforts of his daughter Elizabeth to publish her father’s story. While Southwick’s narrative of his regiment’s experiences at engagements such as Gaines’ Mill and the Second Battle of Bull Run are quite powerful, Southwick’s musings about glory and balancing patriotism with personal circumstance have always attracted me to this volume, one I continually reference in my courses at Shenandoah University.

9. Hanging Rock Rebel: Lt. John Blue’s War in West Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley. Dan Oates, ed. Shippensburg, PA: The Burd Street Press, 1994.

Between 1898 and 1901, John Blue, a lieutenant in the 11th Virginia Cavalry published a series of articles recounting his experiences as soldier and scout for The Hampshire Review. While Blue’s reflections about various actions, including irregular operations, in the Shenandoah Valley and West Virginia initially drew me to this book years ago, I find Blue’s accounts of his experiences as a prisoner of war, attempted escapes, and descriptions of interactions with Union guards quite compelling.

10. The Bonds of War: A Story of Immigrants and Esprit De Corps in Company C, 96th Illinois Volunteer Infantry. Diana L. Dretske. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2021.

While each of the books on this list highlights an individual story,

this book illuminates the wartime experiences of five individuals, all immigrants, Edward Murray, Loughlin Madden, Jr., James Murrie, William B. Lewin, and John Y. Taylor, who all enlisted in the 96th Illinois Infantry during the summer of 1862. By war’s end two of the five, Madden and Taylor, had made the ultimate sacrifice for their adopted country. This book’s appeal is that it not only uses micro-history to present an intimate portrait of how conflict impacted five 96th Illinois’ infantrymen or what motivated immigrants to fight for their adopted nation, but how the Civil War impacted their loved ones at home during the conflict and in the years after. Dretske’s collective biography of these five men who journeyed to the United States between 1841 and 1854 is a powerful volume and illustrates the usefulness of studying the lives of the common soldier.

Jonathan A. Noyalas is director of Shenandoah University’s McCormick Civil War Institute in Winchester, Virginia, a professor in Civil War Era Studies at Shenandoah University, and founding editor of Journal of the Shenandoah Valley During the Civil War Era. He is the author or editor of fourteen books. Noyalas’ latest book, Slavery and Freedom in the Shenandoah Valley during the Civil War Era, was published by the University Press of Florida.

My Six Favorite Soldier Memoirs

Memoirs, he conceded, offered a limited view, but, he explained, “as spring, rivulet, brooks and creeks combine to form great rivers, so the incidents of personal endurance, daring and heroism of the private soldier are indispensable to the accomplishment of the great events.” Veterans, therefore, had a responsibility to write their accounts. “[I]f not recorded by the actor or participator while living, [it] will leave a vacant page in our great nation’s history to be filled by the less desirable article of fiction,” he said. A frequent contributor to The National Tribune, Miles had a somewhat self-justifying perception about memoir. but that doesn’t make him wrong, either. Soldier memoirs, in particular, shed crucial anecdotal light on major actions, illuminating “topdown” history from the bottom up.

My favorite Civil War memoir is John Haley’s The Rebel Yell & The Yankee Hurrah: A Civil War Journal of a Maine Volunteer, edited by Ruth L. Silliker (Down East Books, 1985). Haley was a private in the 17th Maine Infantry, a regiment that joined the Army of the Potomac right after Antietam and served through Appomattox. Haley kept a journal during his time in the army, which he used years later as the basis for his memoir, Haley’s Chronicles 1862–1865. The hand-written, 440-thousand-word epic sat in the Historical Room of the Dyer

Library in Saco, Maine, where editor Silliker found it. Her work trimming the book was invaluable.

Haley writes with a fantastic sense of snark but also empathy. He’s incredibly insightful, and he turns a phrase better than any soldier I’ve come across. His book is a delight to read.

My second-favorite memoir written by a soldier is Thomas Francis Galwey’s The Valiant Hours: An Irishman in the Civil War (Stackpole Books, 1961). Galway, an Irish immigrant, served in the 8th Ohio. The regiment began its service in 1861, campaigning in western Virginia, and then joining the Army of the Potomac after Second Manassas. Galwey remained with the regiment until it mustered out in July 1864 during the Siege of Petersburg.

Galwey’s wartime diary, unpublished in his lifetime, is filled with gem after gem of anecdotes about soldier life. His battle accounts are interesting, even if limited by what he himself could see, but that soldier’s-eye view brings with it its own kind of wisdom. Editor W. S. Nye brought Galwey’s work to print a hundred years after it was first written.

For a few other honorable mentions: Rice Bull, Soldiering: The Civil War Diary of Rice C. Bull, 123rd New York Volunteer Infantry, Karl Jack Bauer, editor

November

Parking garage behind hotel accepts cash or credit

by Chris Mackowski,

Editor-in-Chief of Emerging Civil War

In his self-published book An Epic on “Old Abe,” The War Eagle (The War Eagle Book Association, 1894), S. C. Miles, a veteran of the 8th Wisconsin, extolled the virtue of firstperson accounts of the war. Such accounts required “no coloring of imagination or romance to satisfy the taste of the reader for the romantic or heroic phases of life. Romance could not exceed the reality. . . .”

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(Presidio Press, 1977).

The 123rd served in both the eastern and western theaters, giving Bull a front-row seat to a number of important actions. His account of the battle of Chancellorsville got me hooked on his work, but students of Sherman’s March to the Sea will find Bull’s work equally compelling.

Wilbur Fisk, Hard Marching Every Day: The Civil War Letters of Private Wilbur Fisk, 18611865, Emil Rosenblatt, Ruth Rosenblatt, editors (University Press of Kansas, 1992)

A school teacher before the war, Fisk served in the 2nd Vermont and wrote letters as a soldier-inthe-field correspondent for The Green Mountain Freeman.

Theodore Lyman, Meade’s Army: The Private Notebooks of Lt. Col. Theodore Lyman, David Lowe, editor (Kent State University Press, 2007)

Lyman was a civilian volunteer aide to Meade, and his deep loyalty to Meade comes through. Lyman turns a good descriptive phrase.

Daniel M. Holt, A Surgeon’s Civil War: The Letters and Diary of Daniel M. Holt, M.D. (Kent State University Press, 1991)

A doctor with the 121st New York—Emory Upton’s original regiment, which found itself in hot spot after hot spot—Holt captures the naked horror of war as only a doctor could see it. Holt had a sublime eye and besieged sense of empathy that both inform his work.

As for Miles’s work, you can find fragments from his epic on “Old Abe” the War Eagle in the Wisconsin Historical Society’s online collection: https://content. wisconsinhistory.org/digital/ collection/quiner/id/41362. Quotes from Miles that appear in this piece come from pp. 5 and 6. Miles’s was the last in the string of veteran-authored accounts of Joseph Mower’s “Live Eagle Brigade” and so was perhaps the most over-the-top. See also, as examples, Frank Abial Flower, Old Abe, the Eighth Wisconsin War Eagle. A Full Account of His Capture and Enlistment, Exploits in War and Honorable as well as Useful Career in Peace (Madison, WI: Curran and Bowen, 1885) and John Melvin Williams, The “Eagle Regiment,”: 8th Wis. Inf’ty. Vols. (Belleville, WI: Recorder Print, 1890).

Chris Mackowski is the editor in chief of Emerging Civil War (www.emergingcivilwar). He teaches writing in the Jandoli School of Communication at St. Bonaventure University.

Some of My Most Favorite Books Read in 2021

imprisoned in the St. Louis area and while some of questionable character were included with those of impeccable upbringing, all were loyal to the South.

Germans in the Civil War: The Letters They Wrote Home edited by Walter D. Kamphoefner and Wolfgang Helbich; translated by Susan Carter Vogel. University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill (2017, 2006), originally published in 2002 in Germany.

newspapers, and particularly hated war correspondents. He reportedly once said, “Reporters print their limited and tainted observations as their history of events they neither see nor comprehend.” Correspondents should swing from the nearest tree and said he would have been delighted to perform the task himself.

life at Camp Carrollton and Benton Barracks to his unit’s battles at Shiloh, Corinth, and Vicksburg. His adventures don’t end on the battlefield but continue at the hospital at Helena, Ark., and his service after the war.

by Joan Wenner, J.D.

Women Making War: Female Confederate Prisoners and Union Military Justice by Thomas F. Curran. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 258 pages (2020).

Readers can find in this book many interesting facts on a topic not typically addressed. Curran, a history journal editor and author of another Civil Warrelated book, provides detailed documentation he relied on for his comprehensive study of numerous Confederate women who came in contact with military commands and were tried for their support of the Southern cause by Federal military commissions in accordance with general orders issued during the war. One particularly noxious commander was Major General John Fremont who declared Martial Law in St. Louis on August 14, 1861. We’re cautioned that an 1880 publication by the Department of War concerning opinions of the judge advocate general that not all cases of accused civilians, male and female, had been adjudicated by formal military commissions. That statement tells only part of the story.

Curran notes, for example, that he studied two collections of documents from Record Group 109 of the National Archives; 300 microfilm rolls of the Union Provost Marshals’ File of Papers Relating to Individual Civilians [M345]; and the 94 rolls of the Union Provost Marshals’ File of Papers Relating to Two or More Civilians [M416]. While conceding these also may not tell the whole story, they did provide a wealth of data that made much of his research possible in conjunction with the War Department record on Confederate Prisoners of War, 1861–1865, contemporary newspapers, and the Official Records.

One female prisoner roughly summed up the thoughts of many saying that most were unjustly

This 560 page book with over 40 illustrations contains hundreds of letters including more than 30 written by soldiers in uniform from the North and South telling “of battles and boredom, privation and profiteering, motives for enlistment and desertion and for avoiding involvement altogether.” People from a variety of backgrounds, including some women and male civilians, make reading especially interesting as the text describes the war from a German view.

The soldiers’ letters, mostly from privates, corporals, lieutenants, sergeants to a captain are from the Eastern and Western Theaters. For overall context the editors have included an introductory section on the Civil War era and the role German immigrants played in it drawn from these letters and the editors’ own research.

One editor, Walter D. Kamphoefner, is a professor of history, Texas A&M University; the other is Wolfgang Helbich, a history professor emeritus, Ruhr Universitat Bochum.

Reports From America: William Howard Russell and the Civil War.

By history professor and editor, llana .D. Miller, 2001. Originally published by Sutton Publishing Ltd., 1838, with reports of this Irish The Times of London journalist who covered four wars including the American Civil War reporting on soldiers and battles. While despising the term ‘war’ which would bring Russell international renown, (1820–1907), was said to be one of the first ‘war correspondents.’ And according to en.wikipedia. org, later Florence Nightingale credited her entry into wartime nursing to his reports. The public could now read about the reality of warfare, and from frontline soldiers noting Russell “a vulgar low Irishman, drinks anyone’s brandy, smokes cigars—and just the sort of chap to get information out of youngsters.” He would spend 22 months in America.

As an interesting aside, Sherman for example was no friend of particularly Southern

Joan Wenner, J.D. has contributed for many years to the Civil War News and The Artilleryman among other history publications and has a law degree. Comments are welcomed at joan_writer@ yahoo.com.

My Ten Best Books for 2021

2. The Petersburg Regiment in the Civil War. By John Horn, Savas Beatie Publishers, 2019. This is the story of the Petersburg regiment and its campaigns under William Mahone and David Weisiger at 2nd Manassas, Crampton’s Gap, Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg, as well as several smaller engagements. Not limiting himself to battle reminiscences, the author included personal glimpses into the lives of the men who made up the 12th Virginia.

3 War Talks of Confederate Veterans. By George S. Bernard. Fenn and Owen Publishers, 1892. Here are wonderful personal accounts of campaigns, battles, prison life, hospital horrors, and war sacrifices by the common soldier and how even decades later, these remembrances were still vivid and formative to the men who fought the war.

by Wayne L. Wolf

1 The Story of a Common Soldier. By Leander Stillwell. Franklin Hudson Publishing Company, 1920. This book details fascinating life of Leander Stillwell of the 61st Illinois Infantry’s Co. D from barracks

4. Reminiscences of the War of 1861–1865. By Philip Brown. Richmond: Whillet and Shepperson Publishers, 1917. Brown presents a Southern soldier’s experiences in the trenches with all the fears, pathos, struggles, and suffering endured during four long years.

5. Gunner with Stonewall. By Monroe Cockrell, ed., Louisiana

State University Press, 1995. These are the recollections of William T. Poague, Lt. of Artillery in the Army of Northern Virginia. This book is a memoir written specifically for his children as the story of his service and sacrifices so that his children could appreciate the courage and reasons why Southerners fought for four long years against overwhelming odds.

6. Personal Recollections of the War of 1861. By Charles A. Fuller. Sherburne, N.Y. News Job Publishing, 1906. This is another intimate and well written account of one soldier’s life in the Union army whose sole purpose was to save the Union. His intimate details make everyday life in the army come alive and cover both the tedium of camp life and the horror of war.

7. New Perspectives on the Union War. Gary W. Gallagher and Elizabeth Varon, eds. Fordham University Press, 2019. This book is a series of articles that explores both the common soldier and civilian contributions to the war effort including such previously neglected topics as Catholic Conservative Unionism, radical rhetoric as an influence on the war, Elizabeth Keckley, and

the role of regimental histories. A great read on often neglected insights into the war and the home front.

8. Disaster on the Mississippi: The Sultana Explosion. By Gene E. Salecker. Naval Institute Press, 1996. The Sultana was transporting over 2,000 survivors of the Andersonville and Cahaba prisons when it exploded in April 1865 taking the lives of over 1,500 Union soldiers. This book not only details the disaster but delves into the personal lives of those on board, the fates of every passenger on the Sultana, and the methods of death. The volumes of research made available would lead any researcher to new avenues of inquiry into the common soldier.

9. Best Girl: Courage, Honor and Love in the Civil War. By Steve Magnuson. Dog Ear Publishing Company, 2018. The inspiring story of two young lovers embroiled in the cauldron of the Civil War. Rufus Dawes and Mary Beman Gates are ordinary civilians who experience the war first hand when Rufus joins the 6th Wisconsin of the Iron Brigade and Mary serves on the home front. Part biography, part history, and part fiction, this love

story could have been about any young couple in the war.

10. The War Outside My Window: The Civil War Diary of LeRoy W. Graham. By Janet E. Croon. Savas Beatie Publishers, 2018. The diary of a disabled young boy who, although disabled, records life in the South through the war years by reading everything he could get his hands on. A wonderful picture of home life during the Civil War.

Wayne L. Wolf is Professor Emeritus at South Suburban College, the past president of the Lincoln-Davis Civil War Roundtable, and the author of numerous Civil War books including Two Years Before the Paddlewheel, The Last Confederate Scout, Heroes and Rogues of the Civil War, and Soldiers, Sailors and Scoundrels of the Civil War.

Sherman’s March and America: Mapping Memory

In conjunction with the sesquicentennial of the American Civil War, in 2014 historian Anne Sarah Rubin authored Through the Heart of Dixie: Sherman’s

March and American Memory.

Working with Kelley Bell and others at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, Rubin developed a companion

website, one offering a visual guide to the Savannah Campaign or March to the Sea: http:// shermansmarch.org. Begin your exploration of this site at http://

shermansmarch.org/about/, to get an overview of the material provided and navigation tips.

Five interactive maps offer various views of the campaign: The Sherman or Fact Map, The Civilians Map, The Tourism Map, The Soldiers Map, and The Fiction Map. Visit the suggested starting link for an explanation of the data contained within each map. For this exercise, the Sherman or Fact Map (see screen shot) will serve as the foundation.

As shown at the bottom of the screenshot, the sliding bar allows one to drag left and right to advance or reverse, showing the movement of Sherman’s left and right wings through the various stages of the campaign.

Many of the pins on the map, when clicked, will offer popups containing period quotes. Some pins provide video clips or images. Researchers studying the campaign will benefit from this visual guide and the information

contained within specific pins. See, as an example, the data from the Madison, Georgia, pin. Check out the Civilians Map for details from folks on the home front—including African Americans—and spend time with the Soldiers Map for accounts of action during the campaign. Continued good luck in researching the American Civil War!

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

Sherman’s March homepage.

Sherman or Fact Map.

Madison popup.

An Antebellum New Orleans Retailed English Bentley Revolver

On December 4, 1852, Joseph Bentley received British Patent No. 960/1852 for a percussion revolver, and on April 4, 1854, he received an additional patent for “improvements to the revolver,” No. 768/1854. Bentley was a long time Birmingham, England, gunmaker, who specialized in handguns and was listed in directories of the time as a “Pistol Maker.” He opened his business in 1829 at 11 Steelhouse Lane, where he was listed as a “Saddle Pistol Maker,” specializing in the single shot, muzzleloading “military sized” handguns of the period.

By 1839, he was working toward producing the new,

innovative repeating pistols and received his first British Patent, shared with gunmaker George Stocker. Their patent, No. 8,024 issued on April 9 of that year, was for a pepperbox revolver. In 1844, he received British Patent 10,280 for “nipples mounted parallel with the bore of guns,” a concept essential to the eventual manufacture of revolving percussion pistols with a multi-shot cylinder and a single barrel, rather than the simpler “pepperbox” concept.

It was, however, Bentley’s 1852 patent for a “self-cocking,” double action revolver design that would make his name synonymous with many mid-19th century major British handgun makers. His design was for a double-action only revolver with an open frame, spurless hammer pistol. Unlike the Colt design, Bentley’s did not incorporate

a bolt-stop in the bottom of the frame that engaged a slot in the cylinder’s side to ensure positive lock up when the gun was indexed. Instead, Bentley’s system locked the cylinder from the rear. When the trigger was fully pulled, an arm actuated by the trigger pivoted to engage the side of a wing on the cylinder’s that prevented the cylinder from rotating out of battery.

Rather than incorporating a half-cock mechanism to free the cylinder to rotate for loading, Bentley devised a simple hammer nose safety. This allowed the hammer to rest just off the cones on the cylinder’s rear, with the safety pressing against the frame. Pulling the trigger to fire the gun automatically disengaged the safety device.

Bentley’s revolver was designed with a cast, malleable iron frame with an integral grip, and a wedge retained barrel secured to the central cylinder arbor pin that screwed into the rear of the frame. It is likely that the use of the Philip Webley patented “wedge frame” design gave rise to the long-standing reference to most of the revolvers produced along these lines as “Webley-Bentley’s,” essentially a misnomer.

Bentley certainly produced his own pattern of revolvers that did incorporate the wedge connection system between the frame and barrel, but the guns were otherwise based entirely on his own patents or designs in the public domain. Webley likely never produced a Bentley patent revolver, but probably sold some made by other Birmingham gun makers with his own retailer mark on them, thus adding to the confusion. However, the huge number of “WebleyBentley” revolvers produced in Birmingham during the mid-19th century had little to do with either gunmaker.

While the “Webley-Bentley” guns had the general appearance of the Bentley design, they were cheaply made and quite different. They rarely incorporated Bentley’s patent hammer safety, instead relying upon the simpler,

frame mounted spring safety found on the Model 1851 Adams revolvers and other Continental designs like the French Perrin. These cheaper guns were almost always produced with a removable side plate for access to the action based on the Bentley double action lockwork. Bentley manufactured revolvers, on the other hand, were made with a solid cast iron frame without side plates, always used his patented hammer safety, and were nearly always produced with his own patented loading lever system, covered under 1854 Patent No. 768. The lever was based upon the Colt system but used a different retention latch. Interestingly, it appears that Bentley did not produce a large number of these guns, with British authors Taylerson, Andrews & Firth noting in The Revolver 1818–1865 the extant examples of Bentley revolvers are found in the 1 to 850 serial number range, with an “A” prefix appearing around #200. They suggest that his production of this model may have only been around 850 pieces, making a real Joseph Bentley made Bentley revolver rather scarce. They further note that most guns are marked by Bentley; although a handful do exist with the names other Birmingham gunmakers and retailers, these are far from common.

Bentley would receive additional patents during his lifetime, including No. 780/1856 for a percussion breechloading rifle and No. 2657/1857 for additional improvements to his loading lever. Joseph Bentley would go on to partner with Charles Playfair, forming the firm of Bentley & Playfair and would leave the trade in 1864.

The pictures accompanying this article show a real, Joseph Bentley manufactured Bentley percussion revolver, not a cheaper Birmingham knockoff. The gun has all the features that you would look for to identify a true “Bentley – Bentley.” It has a solid, cast-iron frame without a sideplate; it has Bentley’s patented hammer nose safety and loading lever, and has the Bentley production range serial number of A 840. However, the most intriguing feature of the gun is that barrel is engraved with the very scarce and desirable preCivil War retailer mark of Daniel Kernaghan of New Orleans. The barrel marking reads in a single line, MADE EXPRESSLY FOR D. KERNAGHAN & Co NEW ORLEANS.

Daniel Kernaghan and his brothers Alexander, Henry, and William were all born in Ireland

between about 1818 and 1828, with William’s year of birth given as 1818, Alexander’s as 1828, and Daniel and Henry’s appearing during the 1820s. The family apparently emigrated to America between about 1848 and 1850 with Alexander arriving in New York in November 1848 and William arriving in May 1850. All the brothers eventually settled in New Orleans.

Alexander initially found work in the stores of various New Orleans “Fancy Goods” merchants during his first years in the city; by 1854 he was listed in city directories as being a Fancy Good dealer himself, located at 91 Canal Street. During the period a “Fancy Goods” shop offered all sorts of items, a class and grade above the typical “general store.” Typically, such merchants sold jewelry, watches, cloth and trimmings, notions, perfumes, firearms, and a wide variety of items that were often imported from England and France. Some also offered eyeglasses and even optician services.

William went into the fancy goods business around 1853 and remained in that line until the fall of New Orleans. His shop was listed at 65 Canal Street between Camp and Magazine streets. More than likely he followed his brother Alexander’s path of learning the business by working for other retailers and establishing relationships with importers, suppliers, and learning the local market. It is not clear when Daniel Kernaghan emigrated to America, but he is first listed in the New Orleans directories in 1857, located at 65 Canal Street, the same address as his brother William’s business. A November 1857 advertisement in the New Orleans Times-Picayune for the firm reads:

Kernaghan & Co.’s JEWELRY. – Messrs. D. Kernaghan & Co., importers and dealers in watches, jewelry, cutlery, guns, pistols and fancy goods of every description have received by the latest arrivals large additions to their extensive and comprehensive stock. They are also the sole agents for the sale of Semmons & Co.’s Brazilian pebble spectacles. They repair and warrant watches and jewelry, promptly and with despatch [sic]. They have just received a large invoice of double and single patent breech twist guns, which they say they will sell exceedingly cheap, Go to No. 65 Canal Street and examine the work of Kernaghan & Co.

On January 2, 1858, another advertisement in the New Orleans

Times-Picayune announced that an auction would be held at the 65 Canal Street premises on January 4th for the sale of inventory, as the building was going to be torn down and the firm was moving. The notice read that the sale would commence “On Monday, 4th January, 1858, at 10 o’clock, and each succeeding day until the entire stock is disposed of, as their store.” The inventory listed was quite varied and included:

“FINE ENGLISH GUNS; Colt’s Dean & Adams’s Deringer’s and other PISTOLS; FINE SHEFFIELD CUTLERY – Consisting of Pocket Knives, Razors, Scissors, and Table Cutlery; VIOLINS, FLUTES, GUITARS, ACCORDEONS [sic], MUSICAL BOXES; COMBS BRUSHES, CLOCKS, and a variety of FANCY GOODS; WATCHES JEWELRY, &c. &c. ALSO, The Show Windows, Glass Cases, Counters, Shelving and a large iron safe.”

By the spring of 1858 the brothers were back in business at their new location, 21 Camp & 78 Common Street and were continuing to advertise their wide variety of imported and American produced goods with firearms comprising a large portion of their inventory. The firm continued to advertise through the period of secession and into the early period of the Confederacy, with more and more emphasis placed upon their optical business, with only that portion of their business being promoted more than their retail sales of firearms and jewelry.

A search of the National Archives Record Group known as The Confederate Citizen Files reveals two invoices from D. Kernaghan & Co. to the Confederacy, both for the sale of firearms. These invoices were made out to Lieutenant Thomas B. Mills of the Confederate Navy. The first is dated May 27, 1861, is for the following items shown below in invoice number 1:

The second invoice, shown below in invoice number 2, was dated two days later, on May 29th and is for:

The second invoice obviously indicates the sale of higher-end British percussion sporting rifles

Invoice Number 1

13 Full Stock Rifles e/a 10 $130

10 Davis Iron(?) Stocked do 16 $160

10 ½ Stock Maple 16 $160

Invoice Number 2

15 ½ half Stock Patent British Rifles fine 20/ea $300

with patent (probably hooked) breeches; the price is indicative of the quality. The first invoice is most likely for domestically produced mid-grade sporting rifles. Dozens of men with the surname “Davis” were producing rifles in America during this period and these guns could have originated almost anywhere from upstate New York to Ohio, and nearly anywhere in between.

Lt. Mills was a native Louisianian who had previously served in the United States Navy, achieving the rank of Master. He resigned from the service was commissioned into the Confederate States Navy on March 28, 1861. His promotions were Acting Lieutenant on September 19, 1861, 2nd Lieutenant on February 8, 1862, and 1st Lieutenant on October 2, 1862. His first duty station in

1861 was New Orleans and he was subsequently sent to special service at the Richmond Naval Station later that year.

Over the next three years Mills would serve on the CSS Dalman and CSS Florida, both on the Mobile Station during 1862, the CSS North Carolina on the Wilmington Station during 1863–1864, and would eventually command the famous

Close up of the muzzle of the Kernaghan marked Bentley, showing the multi-groove

Overall obverse view of Kernaghan retailer marked Bentley revolver #A840. All photos by Tim Prince.

Overall reverse view of the Kernaghan marked Bentley – inset showing the frame marking PATENT No A 840.

Barrel marking of the Kernaghan marked Bentley revolver, inset showing the detail of the engraved retailer mark on the barrel.

casemate ironclad CSS Savannah and later the sidewheel gunboat CSS Sampson during 1864.

Over the years a small number of Kernaghan marked imported shotguns and sporting rifles from various sources have been identified and survive in private collections today, but they are far from common. The above purchases suggest that some of these sporting rifles could have a Confederate naval association.

Kernaghan also imported English revolvers as well as selling domestically produced revolvers. Today only a handful of Kernaghan marked revolvers are known.

Probably the most famous Kernaghan marked handgun known today is a double action Bentley revolver, serial number A 843, in the collection of the American Civil War Museum (formerly the Museum of the Confederacy). It is engraved on the top flat of the barrel the same as the one pictured in this article. The gun is identified to Robert T. Aunspaugh who served in the Bedford Virginia Light Artillery and the 10th Battalion Virginia

Heavy Artillery, Co. B. Aunspaugh was a 22-yearold merchant when he was commissioned as a 3rd Lieutenant in the Virginia Bedford Light Artillery on May 8, 1861. On October 4, 1862, he was discharged for promotion during the unit’s reorganization; on November 1, 1862, he was commissioned into Company B, 10th Battalion of Heavy Artillery as a 2nd Lieutenant. On December 23, 1863, he was promoted to 1st Lieutenant, and on April 15, 1864, was made the Acting Assistant Quartermaster.

After the war Aunspaugh was a partner in the firm of Aunspaugh, Cobb & Co., and died in 1905, at the age of 68. To date only three other examples of authentic Kernaghan retailer marked revolvers are known to me, including the one in this article. All are the same type and pattern as this gun.

The D. Kernaghan New Orleans retailer marked percussion revolver pictured here is a mid-sized handgun that is 80-Bore, nominally about .38 caliber. The gun measures

roughly 7.75-inches in overall length with a 3.5-inch, octagonal barrel rifled with fourteen narrow grooves that have a moderately fast rate of twist. The revolver has a “self-cocking,” double action only lockwork, a five-shot cylinder and a two-piece design with a wedge securing the barrel assembly to an arbor pin screwed into the iron frame. Bentley’s patented, Colt inspired loading lever is present under the barrel, as is his patented safety on the hammer.

The frame is delicately engraved with simple floral motifs that are more open and flowing than the tight “bank note” style engraving that would become popular on high end English sporting arms during the next few decades of the 19th century. The frame is engraved behind the cylinder on both sides and below the cylinder on the right side. It is also engraved with the same flowing foliate motifs on the butt cap and triggerguard. The hammer edges are lightly engraved as well. The revolver was originally blued, with a color casehardened cylinder and butt

PLOWSHARES TO SWORDS: ARMING 19TH

The Confederate secretary of war, Judah P. Benjamin, said, “Laws cannot suddenly convert farmers into gunsmiths.” Consequently, most martial hardware the South used in the Civil War was imported from England. But some weapons were made right here in South Carolina in the 19th century, and some of those were carried into battle.

Our new exhibit has a significant collection of firearms and edged weapons to tell the story of how an agrarian state managed to arm itself while struggling to manufacture independently of industrialized regions. Come see how gunsmiths, silversmiths, and retailers were arming the Palmetto State!

cap, but retains no finish. The revolver is fitted with two-piece checkered walnut grips with round German silver escutcheons. A simple notch in the rear of the frame serves as a rear sight and a blade front sight is dovetailed into the top of the barrel, near the muzzle. Other than the retailer marking and serial number, the only other markings are the usual Birmingham commercial proof marks. These are found on the lower left angled flat of the barrel and between the cylinder chambers, along with chamber numbers on the cylinder.

Tim Prince is a full-time dealer in fine and 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 and researcher. Tim has been a contributing author to two major book projects about Civil War era arms including The English Connection and a book on southern retailer marked and Confederate used shotguns. Tim is also a featured Arms & Militaria appraiser on the PBS Series Antiques Roadshow.

Civil War Artillery Book

392 page, full-color book, Civil War Artillery Projectiles –The Half Shell Book. For more information and how to order visit the website ArtillerymanMagazine.com or call 800-777-1862.

$89.95 + $8 media mail for the standard edition.

By Lawrence E. Babits

Civil War Alphabet Quiz – S as in... November

Marshall’s Lincoln

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

It was an instant success. Perhaps it came so closely after

his assassination; perhaps it was the uncanny likeness; perhaps the engraving’s sheer artistic achievement by its creator William Edgar Marshall insured its acceptance as “the definitive Lincoln portrait.”

When he died of pneumonia in 1906, William Marshall had been largely forgotten. In fact his

obituary stated that he “lived a life so retired, always occupying the same studio on Broadway near Washington Square, keeping entirely aloof from the ambitions and contests in and out of the National academy, that his death will be a surprise to many who supposed he was no longer among the living.”1

Marshall was a native New Yorker, his parents Scottish immigrants. He began his adult life at an early age as an engraver of watches in Washington, D.C., but it was at his job with the Treasury Department where he learned to engrave; that set him on his course as a recognized artist. At Treasury he engraved likenesses of James Buchanan and John C. Fremont. At age 21, feeling the need to formally learn art, Marshall decamped to Paris. Returning at War’s end, he painted portraits of Grant, Sherman, James G. Blaine, and George Washington (after a painting by Gilbert Stuart). His likeness of Washington was described by Edward Everett as a “perfection of execution.” Washington’s portrait firmly established Marshall’s reputation as a portrait engraver.

Marshall’s portrait of Lincoln placed him in the pantheon of mid-19th century artists. After Lincoln’s assassination, a distraught Marshall painted this portrait from other prints and photographs. Lincoln never sat for Marshall as an art subject. The print elicited immediate admiration as the finest portrait of the martyred president. The Boston firm of Ticknor & Fields announced an agreement to have Marshall engrave his painting on copper; he did, and it was published in 1866. Like the painting, the engraving of Abraham Lincoln won wide acclaim. The president’s son, Robert Todd Lincoln, declared it excellent “as a likeness,” and could not “suggest any improvement.” The French artist, Gustave Dore, declared it “the best engraving ever made by any artist living or dead.” Fredrick Douglas owned a copy.2

Marshall solicited endorsements, which came readily, without reserve. Lincoln’s old partner, William Herndon called it a “work of the highest art.” Those who knew Lincoln, Herndon testified, “may rest assured that the expression…and mood of the man are well caught, expressed and observed.” The print captured Lincoln “in kindness, tenderness and reflection.” Edwin Stanton was as effusive: “As one who knew and loved him, I rejoice that you have so well succeeded in your effort…preserving the memory of his countenance, and enabling the world to know what manner of man he was.”

William Sumner focused in on Marshall’s rendering of Lincoln’s expression, “where gentleness and sympathy unite in strength.”

Speaker of the House, Schuyler Colfax thought Lincoln appeared “calm but grave.”3

On July 25, 1866, Marshall wrote the Atlantic Monthly with information about his new print. In his letter, Marshall emphasized that it was “a truthful portrait of…Lincoln as he appeared in his calm and thoughtful moments.” He touted the myriad endorsements he received from Lincoln’s contemporaries. He finished his sales pitch with: “The execution of this portrait has been a pleasant labor to me during the many months I have been engaged upon it; and in executing it, 1 have endeavored not merely to gratify a professional ambition in producing a work of art, but 1 have sought, so far as could be done in one picture, to represent Mr. Lincoln as he was, and as he will be known in the pages of history and biography.”4 Similar “announcements” were made in newspapers and magazines nationwide.

In the end, the print was a huge success for Marshall and is today considered by many to be one of the best-engraved likenesses of Lincoln.

Endnotes:

1. “William E. Marshall Dead,” NYTimes, August 30, 1906 Obituary.

2. Harold Holzer, Gabor Boritt, Mark E. Neely, Jr. The Lincoln Image: Abraham Lincoln and The Popular Print, New York: Scribner Press, 1984. 212-213.

3. Ibid., 214.

4. https://graphicarts. princeton.edu/2017/05/19/ abraham-lincoln-for-sale/

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), received 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,” an edit of Upton’s letters to his wife 1868–70, was published in 2020 by the Oklahoma University Press.

William Edgar Marshall (1837-1906), Abraham Lincoln, 1866. Engraving. Gift of John Douglas Gordon, Class of 1905. Graphic Arts collection GA 2008.00294.

Preservation Victory at Fisher’s Hill Another Important Property

Permanently Protected Thanks to the Stevenson – Bromley Family

8 building lots down to 1 422 Acres of Battlefield Saved

MIDDLEBURG, Va.—Land Trust of Virginia (LTV) in conjunction with the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation (SVBF), who co-holds the conservation easement with LTV, are pleased to announce that John Stevenson and Amber Bromley have permanently protected their 422-acre farm. When looking for ways to ensure that the expensive scenic views and significant history of their land would be here not only for their young son, but for future generations, Stevenson and Bromley concluded that the best and only way to accomplish this goal was by entering into a protective conservation easement agreement.

“Everyone in the community benefits from open space and the preservation of the history of this property,” said Stevenson, “My hope is that this inspires others in the valley to put their properties into easement.”

The Stevenson-Bromley farm is located just 2 miles southwest of the village of Strasburg in Shenandoah County, Va., known for its grass roots arts culture and rich history. Located on the eastern-facing slopes of Little North Mountain, the property has expansive ridgeline views and is highly visible from several public roads, including 1-81 and Virginia Byways – State Routes 623, 55 and US 11. With this easement, the scenic integrity of this area will now be preserved and continue to be enjoyed by the public. In addition, a portion of the property’s ridgeline boundary is adjacent to Devil’s Backbone State Forest, a 705.5acre property maintained by the Virginia Department of Forestry to conduct research, support biological diversity, and allow outdoor recreation. Creating large swaths of connected, conserved habitat is of amazing benefit to the local wildlife.

The conservation agreement with Stevenson and Bromley will also protect the farm’s significant historic resources by maintaining its historic landscape and structures. Regarding the Civil War context of the property, as explained by Keven Walker, chief executive officer of SVBF, “This property is an extremely important part of the Fisher’s Hill Battlefield. It’s the site where the Army of West Virginia, under the command of Union General George Crook, arrived after their secretive flank march and from where they launched an attack that would crush the Confederate left and win the battle for the Union. This property, this hallowed ground is a critical contributor to the rural, historic landscape of

the Shenandoah Valley and to the history of our nation.”

Due to SVBF’s expertise, they have agreed to watch over the preservation of the property’s historic values while LTV will watch over the property’s open space and natural resource values.

Walker added, “SVBF’s membership in particular responded with an amazing gift that helped this young family with most of the costs of the easement donation, which was a critical component of getting this property protected.” LTV’s Deborah Whittier Fitts Battlefield Stewardship Fund also assisted in covering some of the costs.

Sally Price, Executive Director of LTV, comments, “Community partnerships with organizations like SVBF, caring supporters and

passionate landowners like John and Amber, are why conservation can be a solution, protecting the character and history of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.”

The Stevenson–Bromley

Easement is the 206th conservation easement recorded

by the Land Trust of Virginia. For more information about their work, please visit http://www. landtrustva.org.

The 23rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry Regiment tool part in the attacks that broke the Confederate line at Fisher Hill.

Map of battle and preserved properties on battlefield, with newly preserved property shown in yellow.

Union soldier Isaac N. Hendrickson, who lost his left eye to a shell fragment during the attack across the property during the Battle of Fisher’s Hill.

Lesser Known Southern Memoirs by Veterans of the Late Unpleasantness

by Roger Semplak and Marc Ramsey

Periodically we are challenged to come up with an article which addresses a topic off the beaten path. This time we are going to take a look at some lesserknown Southern memoirs and attempt to keep the list of works to those written by non-senior officers. Having set the criteria, we needed to come up with a few titles to start with, so this listing is in no order of preference or importance but rather just as they came to mind while sitting at a military show when customers were not browsing, buying, or asking questions. The following list is books that provide insight into some element of the war from a more personal and limited perspective and provide an enjoyable read. While we are recommending that you read some of these memoirs, you should be aware that, when looking at writers in lower levels of a military organization, their knowledge and perspective will be limited to the immediate area they witnessed. So, if during your reading you experience what appears to be exceptional insight and analysis, be aware of when the book was published and what the author was basing his memoir on because they may be using information not available when the event occurred. Don’t let this dissuade you from an enjoyable read; just realize you are benefiting from an evolving level of information the author was using that came available after the war. With that we are going to start with an interesting book that does not actually fit into being a memoir but will provide readers an excellent example of what was

witnessed and written about at the time of the events presented. This book shows how original beliefs are altered over time and, with the addition of other resources, somewhat changes the original knowledge reported at the time.

The first book is by J. Keith Jones, Echoes from Gettysburg: Georgia’s Memories and Images This book, published in 2013, was reissued in 2020 with an expansion of images and maps but the text really wasn’t expanded. The reason we are recommending this book is that the reader will witness how perceptions change over time and are influenced by outside forces. The author found letters from most Georgia regiments involved in the Gettysburg Campaign and battle that were published shortly after the event in the local papers. He then provides follow-up writing about the same event in the Southern Historical Magazine that, in many ways either contradicts or changes the emphasis of the earlier documents. An added benefit is that the author including disagreements of memory between regimental members. For readers interested in the Georgia regiments at Gettysburg it is a worthwhile read. For individuals who are not as familiar with the challenges associated with primary source writing, this book should both whet your appetite as well as provide an appreciation for the evolution of perception over the times in which the primary writers were living.

Our favorite book on Hood’s Texas Brigade, and one that most people seem not to have

read, is Rags and Hope. The Recollections of Val C. Giles, Four Years with Hood’s Texas Brigade, Fourth Texas Infantry, 1861–1865, Edited by Mary Lasswell and published by Coward-McCann in 1961. This is a charming, very wellwritten book, with a rare sense of humor at times; it is a surprise that the manuscript was not published earlier. It details and personalizes the crucial battles from the Seven Days through Chickamauga, focusing on the Texans who marched from Austin to Richmond in 1862. Giles eventually made sergeant, was captured, and sent to Camp Morton, Ind., and then managed to escape. He died near Austin in 1915. His wartime diary was discovered and eventually published by Mary Lasswell, resulting in the creation of one of the best personal recollections of the Civil War by a soldier either North or South. Though somewhat hard to find, this work is highly recommended as a valuable book that should be in every Civil War Library.

Robert Stiles, Four Years Under Marse Robert has long been considered an excellent read on the common solider. Stiles was born in Kentucky, educated in New England, and after graduating moved to Richmond and became captivated by the south. A strong Unionist, when the war broke out he felt obligated to fight for the south. His writing style moves along with apt descriptions of the major battles especially during the 1864–1865 period. He also gives the reader looks into everyday life and the simpler pleasures of camp life. He does not spare the reader some horrors of war when he describes decaying corpses of the previous day’s battle when the fighting continues. Additionally, there is an underlying religious commentary that will appear in many of these writings especially after the initial two years of conflict. The book is an entertaining and informative memoir. Appearing initially in 1903 with a first and second edition published that year, it continued to sell well for many years with a third printing in 1910. There were two additional printings in 1977 and 1988 as the book was recognized by Richard B. Harwell in his In Tall

Cotton as one of the top 200 Most Important Confederate Books.

Our next book is James Dinkins, 1861 to 1865, by an Old Johnnie; Personal Recollections and Experiences in the Confederate Army. Dinkins enlisted at the age of 16 and was promoted from enlisted to a Captain at a young age. He experienced the war in both major theaters, beginning in the East. His observations, especially during the Peninsular Campaign, make the book well worth reading. He participated in over 27 battles so the book covers the full length of experiences associated with a solder. He served under some noteworthy commanders including Joseph Johnston and Nathan Bedford Forrest. This book only had two printings, the initial one in 1903 and a 1975 reprint, but as with most (if not all) the books being mentioned in this article, they can be found on line in digital format. This book is also a must read Confederate memoir.

From the Rapidan to Richmond by William M. Dame

the winter of 1863 to the end so, while a wonderful read, it should be understood that the facts presented are not actually based on original documents by rather the author’s memory. Finding a first edition of this book can be a challenge but it was reprinted in 1987 and is worth the reader’s time.

John C. West, A Texan in Search of a Fight, Being the Diary and Letters of a Private Soldier. As the complete title states, and we do love this title(!), this book comes directly from two primary sources, a personal diary and the letters sent to his wife and others back home. While not appearing in print until 1901, the author using his own period sources helps to make his effort an enjoyable and informative read.

West had a terrible time getting into the war because he was a District Attorney and, while enlisting both in 1861 and 1862, it was not until the spring of 1863 that he actually got enrolled as a private in the 4th Texas Infantry. He detailed his trip from Texas to the Army of Northern Virginia and then all the activity in which Hood’s Texas Brigade was involved. He got another deferment from the military with its associated discharge about a year later and returned to Texas.

He is also very truthful about the causes of the war and is not as influenced by some of the Lost Cause rhetoric as were other authors of his time. The book was reprinted about 1969 and is well worth the effort to find for worthwhile read.

is a collection of human interest stories of Dame’s career as a member of the Army of Northern Virginia with the Richmond Howitzers. The author enlisted at the age of 16 and was a Number 1 on the battery’s fourth gun. The book was originally published in 1920, well over 55 years after the war, and after a career as an Episcopal rector which makes the first-hand detail and accuracy a little questionable. That said, the author will reminisced about building camp quarters, to associated camp duties and recreation. Additionally, the book focuses on the war from

George M. Neese’s 3 Years in the Confederate Horse Artillery is based on his personal diary providing everyday experiences of the common fighting man. Neese’s account focused on the Shenandoah Valley and, while his unit occasionally served with the Army of Northern Virginia during the latter half of 1862 and part of 1864, most of his entries deal with the soldier’s life in the Valley and surrounding country. His section on Trevilian Station in June 1864 is particularly noteworthy. His military service was cut short toward the end of 1864 when he was captured and sent to Point Lookout and not released until June 1865. This book was initially printed in

1911; two more recent printings came 1983 and 1988. It is an enjoyable and rewarding read based on personal observations of events he witnessed.

Luther W. Hopkins, From Bull Run to Appomattox; A Boys View, is the war reminisces of a member of the 6th Virginia Regiment in Stuart’s Cavalry.

of that facility. Originally published in 1899, the book had an additional printing in 1972.

Berry Benson, Berry Benson’s Civil War Book. Memoires of a Confederate Scout and Sharpshooter was originally published in 1962. Edited by

Based primarily on memory and first published in 1908, it is still an excellent read and probably one of the better memoirs on the Confederates for that area.

clothing, food, and even sleep. The reader gets to appreciate how these simple things take on great importance for a soldier’s survival.

the next few years. One reason for this is the subject matter, but the second and probably more important was that Reverend Jones’ relationship with, and writings pertaining to, Robert E. Lee. That said, this gives a very interesting and informative overview of religious revivals within the Army of Northern Virginia and provides a better understanding of the importance of religion for the soldier’s everyday life. One needs to be mindful however that Jones probably writes like he preached, with the very long flowing and colorful sentences popular during that period. If a reader can handle the sentence structure, this will be an informative and enjoyable read.

Beginning at the age of seventeen, Hopkins was actively involved with the Army of Northern Virginia cavalry campaigns. He shares his first-hand combat experiences in addition to being twice captured and imprisoned. He experienced the loss of his brothers and friends due to illness associated with military operations. He spent a short time with John Mosby on a raid toward the end of the war and as a result was not with his squad when they surrendered at Appomattox. He actually never got a parole but simply went home, refusing to surrender. His love of horses comes through clearly in the book to the point that he actually has a chapter devoted to their suffering during the conflict. This book was initially published in 1908, then again in 1911 and 1914, indicating his writing’s popularity. The reader should enjoy spending time with him in this book.

A Rebel Cavalryman with Lee, Stuart and Jackson by John N. Opie is a truly delightful read of Opie’s career in the cavalry. The author has an excellent eye for detail and some rather good powers of recall. The reader will find his accounts somewhat opinionated when relating some critical events, but this adds value to the read.

He was also a member of the 6th Virginia Cavalry Regiment’s Company I, as was Luther W. Hopkins, so the reader will gain additional insights by reading both accounts.

Opie was captured in the Shenandoah Valley and ended up in Elmira until the end of war. He provides an accurate account

Susan Williams Benson, the book tells of this South Carolinian’s career from the firing on Fort Sumter through the retreat of Lee’s army to Appomattox. One of the most fascinating parts of his tale is his capture and imprisonment in Elmira, then his famous escape and return to service. The book covers a lot of the activity of his reconnaissance exploits. The book also details more than just his experiences and provides the reader with a better understanding of the times and mindset of some individuals involved in this conflict. Towards the end, he takes a shot at a Yankee and misses, and in a beautifully, poignant passage, he tells us how sad he is to know that he has taken a last, final shot at the enemy.

The following book is a western theater offering by Samuel B. Barron, The Lone Star Defenders; A Chronicle of the Third Texas Cavalry, Ross Brigade. In this offering the author brings to life the trials and tribulations of Trans-Mississippi Theater campaigning. He chronicles events experienced by the 3rd Texas Cavalry life in camp through their various campaigns.

The next book has the same short coming as the S.B. Barron offering in that it was written a half century after the action and from memory; that should not stop any reader from enjoying John M. Hubbard’s Notes of a Private. The author was a member of Company E, 7th

Blood & Sacrifice: The Civil War Journal of a Confederate Soldier, Company B 46th Mississippi is the journal of William P. Chambers. This book is a relatively new publication edited by Richard A. Baumgartner who provides some enumeration and clarification to some the entries but does not take away from the importance stressed by the account’s author. The journal covers the period from March 1862 through May 1865; the reader will get a better understanding of both the physical and spiritual strength derived from the author’s deep religious convictions combined with his belief in the Confederacy. The author’s training as a school teacher comes clearly through in both his writing style and observations, expressing his hopes and fears as the conflict evolves.

Again, as stated at the beginning, there is no order nor logic to these selections, just random remembrances by the authors during a down period at a Civil War show about some books that they felt needed to be brought back into the forefront of the reading public’s consideration. There are some really great books coming out these days, but we just felt that some of the old classics needed to be mentioned and not forgotten. We hope this short list might get you to look at some of these earlier primary source offerings, and we wish you Happy Reading!

Tennessee Cavalry in General Nathan Bedford Forrest’s Cavalry Corps. Hubbard provides both a refreshing and informative look at their various campaigns. This book was originally published in 1909 with two reprinting in 1911 and 1913, which shows considerable interest in the book at the time of release.

Louis Leon, Diary of A Tar Heel Confederate Soldier was originally published in 1913, but unlike the previous two books, it is primarily diary entries with some elaborations. He began his military career on May 21, 1861, and, like many of his fellow veterans, ended up spending the War’s last 11 months as a guest of the Federal Government. His diary contains extensive references to what became almost as important to him as battles during his four years of service,

One theme that many of these authors mentioned is the importance of religion, especially during the winter of 1863–64 and 1864–65. With this in mind we have included Rev. J. W. Jones, Christ in the Camp or Religion in Lee’s Army Originally printed in 1887, this popular book was reprinted a number of times over

Roger Semplak lives in south central Pennsylvania with his wife and four very patient and pampered Bichon Frise who tolerate his reading habits. He occasionally provides insight and critiques to Owens and Ramsey on new Civil War book releases and has provided logistical support to the Owens and Ramsey tables at some major Civil War shows north of Richmond.

Marc Ramsey is co-owner, along with his wife Jill, of Owens & Ramsey Booksellers. For the past 26 plus years they have specialized in the buying, selling, and trading of rare, collectible, and new books on military history, especially Civil War titles, as well as artifacts and paper items. They also provide appraisals for estate planning, charitable deductions, or insurance purposes. The Ramseys send out a monthly direct-mail catalog, and can be seen at many Civil War shows and conferences throughout the year. Call Marc at 804-272-8888 or visit their website at www. owensandramsey.com.

Confederate Staff and Field Officer’s Sword

Ask The Appraiser:

I have a Civil War sword that I would like to know more about. Not a spectacular story really, it was purchased so long ago from my dad. He bought it in North Carolina from a guy who lived a few houses down from a Civil War veteran’s family back in the 1960’s. I don’t have any names unfortunately. There are letters SHO on the pouch but I don’t know if that’s a name or what that is. I’m basically looking for someone who is smarter than me to learn who made the sword and if there are others like mine. I can’t seem to find any sites that sell Civil War swords like mine. Does that mean it’s rare or nobody is selling? I may decide to sell it one day; perhaps an auction would be best but I’m not sure. What would a summary appraisal report show? Other than who made the sword and how old it is, what else you can say about it? Let me know if you need any more details or if you need better angles of those photos. Steve

Answer:

Your sword is not rare, but this pattern with the hilt cast in form of letters “CSA” is a very popular and valuable Confederate staff and field officer’s sword. There were two almost identical makers of this pattern, Louis Froelich of North Carolina & B. Douglas of South Carolina. Values on either maker are the same for unmarked examples.

There are subtle differences between the makers; Froelich normally had assembly markings in the form of Roman numerals cut into edge of the guard and top of scabbard throat. The lack of these assembly marks is one reason I believe your sword was made by B. Douglas of Columbia, S.C.

Your sword is “as found,” with no restoration or cleaning making it very popular among purist collectors. The attached white buff belt predates the Civil War and may have an old maker’s mark stenciled if you look closely. The buckle is the 1832 artillery pattern.

The buckle is unusual in that it has an eagle cast in relief on one side which is typical but other side is plain and smooth. I have not seen lack of device before on other half. It is possible that there was an applied device such as state seal though no solder or attachment marks. The belt on its own sells in auction for around $1,000. The valise is not military but similar items associated with Confederate officers are marketable and initials add a partial identity to a soldier.

The sword, though not in best condition, is still a fine survivor complete and authentic. Most grip leather is missing due to poor storage, but the single strand brass wire wrap is intact. Blade and scabbard body have iron patina; the brass hilt and scabbard mounts have mottled

chocolate/mustard patina. The finest examples sold in heyday of the sword market for close to $20,000. In auction today, a presale estimate of $7,0009,000 would probably get good participation and could easily sell for more.

John Sexton is certified appraiser with International Society of Appraisers (ISACAPP) and Accredited senior appraiser with American Society of Appraisers (ASA).

He authenticates and evaluates other rare and valuable historic items as well. His website is www.civilwardealer.com.

He is coauthor of the book

Confederate Bowie Knives (2012)

by

Jack Melton, Josh Phillips and John Sexton, that was published by Mowbray Publishing, Inc. Send “Ask The Appraiser” questions and photographs to civilwarappraiser@gmail.com.

Beautiful chocolate brown patina found on brass hilt with cast CSA.

Scabbard has pinned brass throat and narrow brass ring mount standard to this pattern.

Blade showing typical Confederate forging with unstopped fuller.

Confederate staff officer sword most likely made by firm of B. Douglas, Columbia, S.C., in “attic as found” condition with prewar militia belt and officer used valise.

5 inches is standard length for Civil War era sword grip north or south with rare variation.

– MAKER –LEATHER WORKS

(845) 339-4916 or email sales@dellsleatherworks.com WWW. DELLSLEATHERWORKS.COM

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

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1832 pattern, 2-piece militia buckle attached by central “S” hook, one side has eagle, the other side is undecorated.

Grip is made from spirally cut wood with leather cover and wire wrap. Much of the leather has chipped away due to the dry environment where it was stored the past 150 years in attic or barn.

Maj. Robert Beckham

by Sarah Kay Bierle, CVBT

Four days before his twentysixth birthday, Major Robert Franklin Beckham sighted his artillery pieces from high ground along the Orange Turnpike. After firing, he ordered the cannon to be limbered and moved to the next rise, racing alongside the Confederate infantry and helping clear the road as panicking Union soldiers retreated or hastily formed defensive lines. Commanding the Stuart Horse Artillery was a new role for Beckham, but on May 2, 1863, as the Confederate Flank Attack struck against Federal lines in the late afternoon, his guns played a crucial role and even won the notice of a lieutenant general.

twenty miles west of the Flank Attack Fields at Chancellorsville Battlefield. He graduated from West Point in the Class of 1859, ranking sixth of twenty-two. For the next two years, he served in the U.S. Engineers, and then in 1861, left the U.S. Army, returned to Virginia and entered the Confederate military. At the Battle of First Manassas, Beckham commanded an artillery battery. He later joined General Gustavus W. Smith’s staff and fought during the Peninsula Campaign.

The Jeff Davis Artillery elected him their captain, but he declined the position, preferring to keep his rank of major and work with ordnance. His promotion to commander of the Stuart Horse Artillery arrived on April 8, 1863, and he obeyed General J.E.B. Stuart’s request to lead that unit.

The Stuart Horse Artillery, first organized in the autumn and early winter of 1861, was first commanded by Alabama’s Major John Pelham. Rising to new levels of artillery effectiveness with almost every battlefield encounter in 1862, they were known for their swift maneuvers, startling attacks, accurate shooting, and the ability to defend or carry out a defensive cover by moving rapidly from high ground to high ground. Pelham’s March 17, 1863, mortal wounding at Kelly’s Ford left the horse artillery without a commander. To the surprise of some, Stuart brought in Beckham, rather than promoting a battery captain from the unit’s ranks. James Breathed and others would get their chance at higher command later in the war as Beckham ably stepped into his new role during the spring of 1863.

1, 1863, going into advanced positions at the request of an infantry general to help clear the enemy from their front. In his official report Beckham described the experience on the Battle of Chancellorsville’s first day, saying, “I do not think that men have been often under a hotter fire than that to which we were here exposed.” His engaged batteries took heavy losses and some cannon were disabled.

On May 2, 1863, Beckham moved the Horse Artillery “over to the Orange Turnpike road, within a few hundred yards of where the enemy’s right flank rested, and held near this point until General Jackson’s corps came up and the attack was commenced. Through the hours while “Stonewall” Jackson’s gray-clad corps marched over the winding trails of The Wilderness and along Brock Road, the artillerymen quietly held the road in case any Union reconnaissance started to probe to the west. By late afternoon, Jackson felt ready to attack and ordered his division commanders, “You can go forward.”

fire. Beckham kept a full battery of the horse artillery in reserve, ready to use as replacements or if the terrain changed and would allow for more artillery fire. Though hampered by the narrow road and eventually by the Federal roadblocks, Beckham determined to follow his orders and keep two guns on the road as the advance began.

Directed to advance with the Confederate skirmish line, Beckham and Breathed fired off the opening artillery shots of Jackson’s Flank Attack. The “thunder of our horse artillery,” according to another cavalry officer, heralded the attack, accompanied by the fierce Rebel yell as the infantry plunged from the woods into the camp of the unsuspecting XI Corps Union soldiers. While the Confederate infantry pressed the attack through the woods and fields, driving the Union troops east toward the Chancellorsville clearing, Beckham oversaw Breathed’s movements along the Orange Turnpike, ensuring that cannon shot swiftly “persuaded” the Union troops to keep moving.

and had an abiding fondness for cannon, particularly in the hands of the Stuart Horse Artillery. Somewhere along the road, Jackson rode up to Beckham, extended his hand, and said “Young man, I congratulate you.” The high praise capstoned Beckham’s success at Chancellorsville and was one of the last battlefield recognitions from Jackson as the sun set and he rode into the darkening woods hours before friendly fire would take him from command.

Proud of the commendation and his tactics in his first major battle, Beckham went on to other artillery successes with the Stuart Horse Artillery including a commendation for his actions during the Battle of Brandy Station (June 9, 1863). He also helped rebuild and refit the batteries, keeping them in the field. In February 1864, Beckham was promoted to colonel and went west to take command of the artillery in the Second Corps of the Army of Tennessee. He was mortally wounded November 29, 1864, at Spring Hill, Tenn., and died on December 5.

Beckham grew up near Culpeper, Virginia, approximately

The Battle of Chancellorsville is not readily recognized for its cavalry involvement. However, the Stuart Horse Artillery, though technically part of the Confederate cavalry, had a history of getting to important points and making a difference in infantry fights until other artillery units could arrive. Beckham and his batteries had engaged on May

Meanwhile, Beckham had been studying the topography between Jackson’s infantry and the Union XI Corps’ camps. He called it “of such a character as to render it almost impossible to employ artillery, except along the road, and the enemy, to increase the difficulty, had blocked up the road at several points with fallen trees.” Holding the Orange Turnpike would be one key to the success of Jackson’s attack plans. Beckham had already placed two guns on the turnpike commanded by Captain Breathed, an experienced officer. He held two more cannon nearby as back-up for Breathed and to rotate the guns if needed for more effective

In his official report Beckham noted the narrowness of the turnpike and the obstacles, but reported that “we were able to keep up almost a continual fire upon the enemy from one or two guns from the very starting point up to the position where our lines halted for the night. The guns were rushed forward, and every slight eminence seized which served to bring a fire to bear upon the enemy.”

In the midst of the attack, Beckham caught “Stonewall” Jackson’s attention. That officer had commanded artillery during the Mexican-American War, taught artillery tactics and drill at Virginia Military Institute,

The Central Virginia Battlefields Trust has been working on research about Major Beckham and his role during the Flank Attack at Chancellorsville. To learn more, please visit: www. cvbt.org/chancellorsville.

Sarah Kay Bierle serves as the Chief Administrative Officer at Central Virginia Battlefields Trust. CVBT is dedicated to preserving hallowed ground at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, The Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Court House. To learn more about this grassroots preservation nonprofit, please visit: www.cvbt.org.

Robert F. Beckham commanded the Stuart Horse Artillery during the Battle of Chancellorsville. (Public Domain).

Two cannon from the Stuart Horse Artillery advanced during the famed Flank Attack at Chancellorsville on May 2, 1863.

Photo by Sarah Bierle.

County Battlefields Memorial National Military Park, Petersburg National Battlefield, and Fort Sumter National Monument. He retired in 2013.

Pfanz has written seven books about the Civil War, including Richard S. Ewell: A Soldier’s Life, Clara Barton’s Civil War, and War So Terrible: A Popular History of the Battle of Fredericksburg. He and his wife, Zandra, live in Spotsylvania County.

In 2001, Pfanz was inducted into the American Battlefield Trust’s Hall of Fame and presented with the Trust’s Edwin C. Bearss Lifetime Achievement

Donald C. Pfanz Selected as Recipient of Central Virginia Battlefields Trust (CVBT)

Ralph Happel Lifetime Achievement Award in Civil War Preservation

In 1987, while working as historian at Petersburg National Battlefield, Pfanz wrote a letter to several colleagues expressing concern over the destruction of battlefield lands in Chantilly, located in northern Virginia.

Pfanz’s letter called for the creation of an organization “to preserve battlefield land by direct purchase,” a call that led to creating the Association for

the Preservation of Civil War Sites and the start of the modern Civil War battlefield preservation movement.

“The group first met in a riverside restaurant in Fredericksburg,” noted CVBT President Tom Van Winkle.

“Their efforts sparked a national movement, centered right here in central Virginia. The organization eventually grew into what is today the American Battlefield Trust, with its nationwide mission, but it also inspired the creation of local battlefield preservation groups like CVBT.”

Pfanz was born in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and is a graduate of the College of William and Mary. In his 32-year career with the National Park Service, he worked at three parks: Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania

Award.

In 2003, the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust received a $150,000 bequest from the estate of the late Ralph A. Happel. A local son of the region, Mr. Happel had a very distinguished 36-year career as the first historian of the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park. Recognizing the unique battlefields and historic resources in the Fredericksburg area, Mr. Happel directed that a portion of his estate be used to support CVBT’s ongoing preservation efforts. To honor the lifelong work of this dedicated historian,

the Trust’s Board of Directors established the Ralph A. Happel Preservation Award, to be bestowed on individuals who have made extraordinary contributions to battlefield preservation in the central Virginia region. Since 2004, CVBT has honored nine individuals with this award.

Central Virginia Battlefields Trust has been saving hallowed ground since 1996 and has preserved nearly 1,500 acres at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, The Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Court House. To learn more, please visit www.cvbt.org.

Donald C. Pfanz at Chancellorsville Battlefield, 2021

Past award recipients include:

H Former New York Congressman Robert J. Mrazek, of N.Y.’s Third Congressional District.

H Brian C. Pohanka

H NPS Chief Historian Emeritus Ed Bearss

H CVBT founding director Enos Richardson

H Former Virginia Speaker of the House of Delegates William J. Howell

H Historian/Preservationist Clark B. “Bud” Hall

H Richmond attorney John P. “Jack” Ackerly III

H Hal Wiggins, formerly – Fredericksburg Field Office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

H Dr. Michael P. Stevens, Founding Member and Past President CVBT.

Chris Mackowski

From the Editor

I’ve had the chance to hit the road quite a bit in September. Roundtables have been trying to reopen, although the COVID Delta surge has made in-person meetings more challenging than originally expected. Conditions vary from place to place, and roundtables are doing their best to adapt to their specific situations. Some roundtables have required masks, others have strongly suggested them, and others have been as lax as local guidelines will let them be. I have a four-year-old at home who can’t get vaccinated, so I’ve been doing my best to mask-up as a precaution.

My colleague David Dixon, who’s been on the road promoting his excellent August Willich biography, Radical Warrior, reports a reaction similar to the one I’ve experienced. “People are crazy excited to be meeting in person again,” he told me,

“though attendance is muffled and groups . . . have been forced to meet in churches or other larger venues where social distancing is easier.”

Social distance guidelines have varied, depending on location. Some roundtables, conscious that at-risk members might still be wary of venturing forth in person, have tried hybrid meetings, allowing people to attend live while also simulcasting on Facebook or YouTube or recording presentations for later posting.

In short, folks are trying to make due. It’s nice that our shared passion for Civil War history still brings us together despite the challenges. I hope everyone still remembers to take precautions, though, and exercise patience as roundtables continue to make adjustments and do the best they can to help us share that passion (and not the virus!).

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

Eighth Annual Emerging Civil War Symposium at Stevenson Ridge

August 5-7, 2022: “Great What Ifs of the Civil War” We’ll start rolling out early announcements in October followed by the speaker line up around the first of November, so stay tuned to the website for details. Early-bird tickets are $200 through December 31,

2021. For event details, or to order tickets, visit our website: https://emergingcivilwar. com/2022-symposium/.

ECW News & Notes

Check out the American Battlefield Trust’s YouTube channel for the Trust’s coverage of the 159th anniversary of the battle of Antietam, featuring ECW members Kevin Pawlak and Kris White: https://www.youtube. com/c/AmericanBattlefieldTrust.

Paige Gibbons Backus was recently interviewed for the next season of Legends and Lies: Battles for America. The documentary series will air in the spring 2022, and Paige will be featured in the Manassas, Antietam, and Vicksburg episodes.

Sarah Kay Bierle has spent nearly two years working at the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust. She is grateful for the opportunity to learn and advocate for battlefield preservation at the local, grassroots level. Later this autumn, she will be joining the American Battlefield Trust’s Education Department where she will continue her career in the history field, assisting with the preparation, distribution, and support of history resources and curriculums for students and teachers across the nation; and, yes, she will still be involved with Emerging Civil War!

Sheritta Bitikofer is incredibly excited about her new part-time position with the University of West Florida Historic Trust in Pensacola helping out in their archives and collections department. “Other than that,” she adds, “I’m writing articles (ECW, ABT, and CWT) and working on my degree.”

University of Tennessee Press.

Guy Hasegawa’s Matchless Organization: The Confederate Army Medical Department, part of ECW’s “Engaging the Civil War” Series with Southern Illinois University Press, has been garnering a lot of positive press. “Matchless Organization will be of interest both to students of the Civil War but also to those interested in the history of the development of American military medicine,” says the AMHEDD Historian, published by the Army Medical Department’s Center if History and Heritage.

“Though written for the general reader, it is extensively end-noted and indexed, contains a useful bibliography, and is replete with an array of photographs, including Col. Moore, other key players, and some medical department buildings.” Civil War Books and Authors called it “a history that is arguably the greatest singlesource advancement in our knowledge of the Confederate Army’s medical apparatus since Cunningham’s Doctors in Gray (1958).” (https://cwba.blogspot. com/2021/08/review-matchlessorganization.html).

Chris Kolakowski had a short essay on Charles Francis Adams appear in the latest America’s Civil War. It was part of a series examining unheralded civilians who impacted the war.

From Meg Groeling: “At the request of Chris Mackowski, I would like to announce that I have achieved a specific status among friends, family, and assorted medical personnel: I am officially a ‘cute little old lady!’ So top that one!”

book, Ohio at Antietam: The Buckeyes Sacrifice on America’s Bloodiest Day.

In September 2021, the Brunswick (NC) Civil War Roundtable met in person for the first time in more than a year and a half. Attendees masked up and gave themselves plenty of elbow room. Mackowski isn’t wearing a mask because he’s up on the stage, socially distanced, and about to speak.

In the November issue of America’s Civil War, ECW›s Book Review Editor Steve Davis has two brief pieces. “A Little Freehand” features a drawing that Bvt. 2nd Lt. Robert E. Lee drew while working on Cockspur Island, below Savannah in 1830. In it Lee drew a terrapin and an alligator, fauna he saw in abundance while working in the swamp on what would become Fort Pulaski, at whose National Monument they now repose. Under the heading “Home Front Heroes: 12 extraordinary civilians who impacted the Civil War,” Steve highlights John H. Steele (1807–1871), editor of the Atlanta Daily Intelligencer during much of the war.

With Bill Hendrick, Steve has written The Atlanta Daily Intelligencer Covers the Civil War, due out next year from the

Dan Welch did an interview with WVXU-FM, an NPR affiliate in Cincinnati, about the new book he co-authored with Kevin Pawlak, Ohio at Antietam Listen here: https://tinyurl.com/ d3kj2n6m.

Kris White will be leading a tour at Salem Church for Central Virginia Battlefields Trust on October 9.

On September 22, LSU Press is publishing Civil War Witnesses and Their Books: New Perspectives on Iconic Works, edited by Gary Gallagher and Stephen Cushman. Cecily Nelson Zander has a chapter on Elizabeth Bacon Custer’s three memoirs of life with her husband in the postbellum army appearing in the volume. You can read more at LSU Press: https://lsupress. org/books/detail/civil-warwitnesses-and-their-books/.

ECW Bookshelf

Dan Welch and Kevin Pawlak welcome the arrival of their new

The book details the role of Ohio and her native sons during the war’s earliest days, the state’s total contribution to the war effort, and the cost to the Buckeye regiments during the battles of South Mountain and Antietam. Their work also pays respects to those Ohio soldiers who “gave their last full measure of devotion,” with stories about those who are buried in the Antietam National Cemetery; it also joins these aged veterans as they return to Antietam in the early 1900s to fight for and preserve the memory of their sacrifices all those years ago. Kevin and Dan note it was an honor to share these stories from Dan’s home state

10 Questions . . . with Neil Chatelain

Neil Chatelain (photographed here in Gibraltar) is the newest addition to the ECW team. As a guest author, he’s written quite a few posts about naval warfare, so we thought it was time to bring him aboard! You can read his full ECW bio here: https://emergingcivilwar.com/ author-biographies/authors/ neil-p-chatelain/.

What’s your Civil War “origin story”? (How did you get interested in the war?) Being from New Orleans, I was surrounded by museums, monuments, and the memory of the Civil War everywhere. I can’t remember a time, even in elementary school, when I was not trying to read about it. I literally did projects on battles and uniforms in middle school, and was fortunate to travel to many of the biggest national battlefields with my dad as a teenager.

Dan Welch and Kevin Pawlak co-authored Ohio at Antietam, published by History Press.

Last fall, you published a book, Defending the Arteries of Rebellion: Confederate Naval Operations in the Mississippi River Valley (Savas Beatie, 2020). Can you tell us about that project? Defending the Arteries of Rebellion looks at Confederate naval operations on both the Mississippi River itself and its numerous tributaries, bayous, and coastal approaches. There has been plenty written about U.S. riverine naval operations, but relatively little on the ships and sailors opposing them or on battles after the 1863 Vicksburg campaign. I started digging and realized that the Confederate Navy tried to forge a naval squadron to gain parity with that of the U.S. Navy on the Mississippi, and later to reforge numerous smaller squadrons on the tributaries and distributaries.

Confederate efforts failed, thanks to lack of resources, lack of time, poor leadership and communication, and the strength and coordination of U.S. naval efforts. The book also looks at how the Confederacy’s naval forces innovated on these inland waters, with ironclads, torpedoes, ram tactics, privateering, commerce raiding, and submersibles all introduced along the Mississippi River Valley.

Did you hit any particular snags or have any particular challenges writing that book? The biggest snag I encountered was a lack of Confederate naval records, especially when compared to those of the U.S. Navy’s riverine forces. For example, each volume of the Official Naval Records is generally three quarters U.S. records and one quarter Confederate records. Archival material is generally the same, and in many instances, there are no firsthand accounts or archival material for Confederate river warships at all. To add to it, many Confederate warships were destroyed in early stages of construction or conversion, and all records of those vessels were destroyed with the burning hulls as U.S. forces approached. It

Lightning Round (short answers with a one-sentence explanation)

Favorite primary source? The letters of Roswell H. Lamson, edited into the book Lamson of the Gettysburg by James and Patricia McPherson, have a special place in my heart because of its portrayal of the monotony and chaos of naval life, which relates to my own time in the U.S. Navy very well.

with one daughter, Zoë.

made investigative work tedious, but also served to compound my excitement when a new source or account was found.

What got you interested in brownwater navies? In college, I started getting more interested in the naval aspects of the war. In my History of New Orleans class, the professor asked everyone to research something about the city’s history that we did not know about, so I took the chance to dive deeper into the campaigns for the city at that time. For that 5-page assignment, I turned in a 50-page report on the CSS McRae. Fortunately, my professor encouraged me, even getting me approved to speak at a history conference soon after. From there, I just kept digging deeper into Confederate riverine activity.

What are you working on next? My next big project is an examination of the Civil War campaigns to control America’s mineral wealth. In short, an examination of gold and silver in the war, just not the buried treasure kind. This is a combination of activities taken by both the United States and Confederacy in the western territories, the Pacific coastline, and along the Panamá route at sea to secure the bullion mines of the west directly and the trade routes transporting this wealth. It is an aspect of the war largely overlooked, and even though more is now being written about the far western campaigns of the war, almost no one is looking at the larger picture of how western mineral wealth helped stabilize the U.S. government’s war effort. Efforts by the Confederacy to seize control of these territories and states, as well as to interdict the shipping lanes directly, to stabilize their own economy and bolster it in European markets have been largely ignored. The U.S. effort also had impacts on how the U.S. attempted to maintain the Monroe Doctrine during the war and how the U.S. Navy’s activity in the Caribbean and Pacific in the war had far larger impacts than many realize.

Favorite Civil War-related monument? It is not really a monument, but the Organ Cavern in West Virginia, where Confederates mined saltpeter, has many family memories that I treasure.

Favorite unsung hero of the Civil War era? The latest unsung hero I have been looking more into has been Rear Admiral James Lardner. He commanded a ship at the Battle of Port Royal Sound, commanded the East Gulf Blockading Squadron, then spent a year and a half commanding the West India Squadron where he cleaned up international messes caused by Admiral Charles Wilkes while protecting U.S. commerce across the Caribbean. What’s a bucket-list Civil War site you’ve not yet visited? I would love to get out to San Francisco soon and be able to see the bay, Alcatraz Island, and get a better feel in person of how the US defended its critical Pacific port during the war.

Favorite ECWS book? Dwight Hughes’ Unlike Anything that Ever Floated is fantastic in how it uses ship diagrams and imagery to display the complexities of naval service.

Behind the Scenes –Cover Designs by Ian Hughes

Ian Hughes designs the covers for the Emerging Civil War Series, which have become an instantly recognizable part of our publishing brand. We asked Ian to talk a little bit about his work.

I have been involved with publishing ever since leaving college, starting my career at an educational publisher called Longmans. I moved on after a year to a general design studio in south London. They handled books and in-flight magazines along with other general design work; I handled most of their book design. It was hard work and long hours, but you learned how to work very fast! From there I moved on to a subsidiary of the Times Mirror group and, after a couple of years, found myself as art director at one of the leading publishers here in the UK. We produced about 800 covers a year across all ranges of books. Given my position, I handled most of the mass market and lead titles for the authors that made the most money. I designed the covers for Stephen King and John le Carré for many years, which was great fun.

So, around twenty years ago, I moved on to set up my own business. I have been very lucky in that I have worked with some lovely companies with professional staff and have pulled in a lot of work through their recommendations. Most of my time is still spent within publishing, and I find my time split between text design, cover design, and eBook production.

I rarely turn away work (who does?) but I have to say that my preference is to work with the smaller or niche publishers. They usually operate with fewer staff and somehow you feel more a part of the team, even though I rarely meet them personally. It’s the same when you are approached by self-publishing authors. It’s quite rewarding to guide someone through the publishing process and offering advice.

my favorite has been, and still is, the Sickles at Gettysburg cover. That said, I really like the recent Summer of ’63: Vicksburg and Tullahoma jacket. Away from military books, my favorite is a strange choice, Nathaniel’s Nutmeg by Giles Milton (Hodder & Stoughton Publishers). At the time it was a bit radical in the approach, but the publisher went with it. First-time author, 150,000 sales in hardback/paperback in the first 12 months. Job done!

When I am not working, I enjoy cooking, particularly the bit when you put on some lounge jazz and open a bottle of wine from the southern Rhone Valley, France. Cairanne, Vacqueyras and Gigondas are my favorites. I would encourage you all to try them.

How long have I been in the business? A long time. Just look at my website name: www. mousematdesign.com! Who uses mousemats these days?

by Phill Greenwalt

Although the battle happened in August, Emerging Revolutionary War historians Rob Orrison and Mark Wilcox traveled to Camden, South Carolina, to take pictures of the battlefield and trek routes the armies marched to that August 16, 1780, engagement. Check out Emerging Revolutionary War’s Facebook page for the photos and news about why they were in the Palmetto State. Great things on the preservation and interpretation of the battle are in the works, as well.

To give you a little background information about myself: I am based in the UK, living about 15 miles south of London, married

I have often been asked, what is my favorite cover? Daunting question as I have literally designed thousands of covers over the years. For Savas

Beatie

For those looking toward colder weather, ERW invites you to sign up for the first annual bus tour, taking place November 12 through the 14, 2021, in New Jersey and covering the Trenton and Princeton campaigns. To gather more information and to sign up, check out the ERW blog at www. emergingrevolutionarywar.org There is still some space on the bus, but seats are filling up quickly!

To prepare for the bus tour a few of the upcoming “Rev War Revelry” Sunday night historian chats will focus on various personas and topics related to this campaign. Remember to tune in to ERW’s Facebook page Sunday evenings at 7 p.m. If you missed any of the previous revelries, including the last one with AmericanaCorner blog founder Tom Hand, check out our YouTube page to watch it: https:// tinyurl.com/k6s6xrjn.

Neil Chatlain, steady as Gibraltar at Gibraltar.

Ian Hughes favorite cover design was Nathaniel’s Nutmeg.

“Cheers” from Ian Hughes.

CIVIL WAR BOOK,___ B mv 11:

Civil War News book reviews provide our readers with timely analysis of the latest and most significant Civil War research and scholarship. Contact email: BookReviews@CivilWarNews.com.

An Army of the Potomac Engineer’s Unique Diary & Memoir

A Volunteer in the Regulars: The Civil War Journal and Memoir of Gilbert Thompson, US Engineer Battalion. Edited by Mark A. Smith. Photographs and drawings, maps, notes, index, 501 pp., The University of Tennessee Press, www.utpress. org, $58.00.

Reviewed by Paul Taylor

upkeep as “dull business.” His observations vividly described the engineers’ efforts in building roads, bridges, and field fortifications, as well as surveying the ground and then producing maps needed by those assigned to create the army’s strategy and tactics.

Thompson’s boyhood upbringing in the utopian community of Hopedale, Mass., gave him a solid education and helped turn him into quite a literate young man. His talent in portraying routine camp life in both words and pictures resulted in a journal containing numerous artistic and literary references. Not only did Thompson produce the expected battlefield observations but he also offers acute insights into the ways and habits of his fellow soldiers.

am thankful I was so fortunate as to have the opportunity to do so,” Thompson acknowledged in his 1879 introduction, realizing how the hand of fate had spared him.

For this work, Editor Mark A. Smith, a professor of history at Fort Valley State University and the author of Engineering Security: The Corps of Engineers and Third System Defense Policy, 1815–1861, has skillfully merged the two seemingly disparate volumes to create an integrated whole. Passages from each work that pertain to similar events or timeframes are presented together and clearly identified so as not to confuse the reader. A key benefit is that by so doing, the reader may understand how Thompson’s perspective evolved over the years. Smith has also added his own editorial introduction, epilogue, annotations, and a whopping 109 pages of explanatory endnotes that further supplement Thompson’s writings.

Battle of Hampton Roads Revisited

Unlike Anything That Ever Floated: The Monitor and Virginia and the Battle of Hampton Roads, March 8-9, 1862. By Dwight Sturtevant Hughes. El Dorado Hills, California: Savas Beatie, 2021. 144 pp. appendices, $14.95.

Reviewed by John D. Fowler

steam power, or any of the other innovations sweeping the navies of the Western world, but they put these ideas and technologies to use in a great conflict with limited time and, in the case of the Confederacy, very limited resources. The author does an excellent job of presenting each vessel’s design, along with its weaknesses and strengths.

The J.M. Caiella illustrations of cutaways, ship profiles, and cross-section diagrams are invaluable and much appreciated; they give the reader an exquisite look into the vessels and their inner workings.

Unlike most young men who enlisted into their home state’s volunteer units following the start of the Civil War, twenty-twoyear-old Gilbert Thompson opted for the regular army when he volunteered in November 1861. Thompson was soon assigned to the Army of the Potomac’s 100man engineer battalion where he served for the next three years before mustering out in November 1864.

During those war years, Thompson diligently kept an almost-daily journal which ultimately filled three volumes, even as he referred to its proper

Thompson did not stop with his wartime diary, however. In the years and decades following the war, Thompson turned to his memory and added postwar recollections to his journal. Given the relative paucity of Civil War primary sources written by trained specialists, Thompson’s keen engineer’s eye and thoughtful insights give the reader a distinctive and uncommon eastern theater account that covers the spring-summer 1862 Peninsula Campaign through the 1864 Petersburg siege. In counting up the battles, the author noted how he took part in thirty of the Army of the Potomac’s engagements yet was never wounded, though he admitted to coming perilously close in several instances. “I wonder how I wrote as much and as well, and

Gilbert Thompson also possessed some artistic skills. In addition to his splendid wartime journal and postwar memoir, this book is profusely illustrated with 116 wartime sketches by Thompson that range from important figures to the mundane depictions of army life in a manner similar to those in the classic Hardtack and Coffee. Two modern maps and a handful of Thompson’s maps round out the hand-drawn illustrations. Collecting period photographs also happened to be a Thompson hobby. With a few clearly identified exceptions, the photographs included in this book were acquired by Thompson during or after the war and contained in his original work.

This handsome hardcover book features a printed case binding rather than the traditional clothcovered boards with dust jacket which, so I am told, appears to be a cost-savings trend within the university press /Civil War community. Sadly, this important book’s hefty $58 price tag will not help spur sales with casual readers. Despite that pecuniary disappointment, Thompson’s wartime journal and memoir stand as a welcome and valuable contribution to Civil War scholarship.

Paul Taylor is an award-winning author and editor of eight books pertaining to the Civil War era. His newest book is “My Dear Nelly”: The Selected Civil War Letters of General Orlando M. Poe to His Wife Eleanor which was recently published by the Kent State University Press.

The March 1862 battle between ironclads at Hampton Roads is a familiar story to most students of the Civil War. While it is certainly an interesting story of seapower and nineteenth century naval architecture and technological development, is there anything new to add to the story? Is there a need for another book on the battle? Well, the answer to the first question is probably no, but the answer to the second question is definitely yes.

Unlike Anything That Ever

Floated is another volume of the Emerging Civil War series. The author, Dwight David Hughes, is a Naval Academy graduate (1967) who served twenty years in the Navy before retiring as a Lieutenant Commander. He thus brings a wealth of sea experience to his retelling of the battle between the Monitor and Merrimac/Virginia just as he did with his book A Confederate Biography: The Cruise of the CSS Shenandoah (Naval Institute Press, 2015).

While the ground that Hughes covers has been plowed before, it still bears fruit with his approach, his presentation, and his timing. Like previous books on the subject, Hughes’s work begins with detailing and exploring the challenges the U.S. and Confederate navies faced in building and utilizing warships at the dawning of a new age of naval warfare. These two navies were not the first to use iron plating, high caliber guns,

In addition to presenting a history and description of the Monitor and Virginia, Hughes provides a fantastic account of the epic March 9, 1862, Monitor vs. Virginia clash and the preceding day’s Hampton Roads battle. What makes Hughes’s account so engrossing is that it is written in much the way as a novel. He skillfully weaves real dialogue and events from firsthand accounts into an exciting and entertaining story. Given that the Emerging Civil War books are purposely designed to be gateway books, his writing style is right on point.

The book also contains an epilogue that describes the fate of the two vessels after their historic battle, as well as three important appendices. The first serves as a guided tour of sorts for the battle site today, the second is a discussion of Civil War ironclads, and the third an analysis of the USS Monitor preservation efforts at the Mariners Museum and Park in Newport News.

In sum, while the book tells a familiar story, Hughes manages to tell it with flair while providing the reader with a guide to discover even more of the story. Moreover, given that the military history of the war is disappearing from traditional academic study of the conflict, books such as this are increasingly valuable as introductions to important subjects. This is an excellent work, as is his previous study of the CSS Shenandoah. Hopefully the author will continue to explore the naval history of the war.

John D. Fowler, Ph.D., is the author of several books and articles on the Civil War Era. He is the author of Breaking the Heartland: The Civil War in Georgia. He is currently a Professor of History at Dalton State College.

Both Sides Brought Out Their Bibles

A Holy Baptism of Fire and Blood: The Bible and the American Civil War. James P. Byrd. Full notes serving also as bibliography, index, appendix, 376 pp., 2021. Oxford, University Press. $34.95.

Reviewed by Salvatore Cilella

Civil War. Byrd’s work is a follow on to his Sacred Scripture, Sacred War: The Bible and the American Revolution. It is a most worthy addition to that company as Byrd further illuminates the very human reaction to death and destruction on a level never witnessed before, particularly here in America. Byrd’s difference is his discourse on the everyday American’s reliance on the Christian Bible. As one progresses through Byrd’s wellresearched and crisply written work, one concept surfaces continually: “Understanding.”

This is not to distill Byrd’s work down to one word, but that term seemed to flow seamlessly through his narrative connecting all the dots. In effect, the 19th century American strove incessantly to “understand” the war and its brutality as it was visited on the land through its varied interpretations of the bible.

development and read into the tea leaves their consoling, often contradictory thoughts. After a battle, it behooved the victor to thank God for his good fortune but also reminded him of the sin of pride and, as the saying goes, “pride goes before the fall.” “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18, is the actual wording.

In recent years, modern Civil War historians have grappled with the issues of religion, morality, and death, and the very human responses to them.

In 2006, Professor Harry Stout penned his Upon the Altar of the Nation: A Moral History of the Civil War (Penguin). It was soon followed two years later by Drew Gilpin Faust’s ground breaking This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (Knopf, 2008) and Mark Schantz’ Awaiting the Heavenly Country: The Civil War and America’s Culture of Death (Cornell, 2008).

Joining that elite group is James Byrd’s A Holy Baptism of Fire & Blood: The Bible & The American

Setting the table is Lincoln’s Second Inaugural address, which is cited several times. Harry Stout, in his dust jacket blurb quotes it; Byrd’s publisher cites it on the jacket; and in the first paragraph of his introduction and countless times later in the book, Byrd reminds the reader that Lincoln said that “both sides read the same Bible and pray to the same God.” Byrd then proceeds to reveal before, during, and after the war, how Americans turned to the Bible for guidance, reassurance, and forgiveness.

The King James Version was the “go to” catechism not just for the nation’s preachers, but its statesmen, soldiers, and civilians. North and South turned to the good book at every new

Before the war, the toxic mix of religion and public policy reached fever pitch with John Brown’s raiding. It was not lost on abolitionists that Brown saw his attack as a sacred crusade to free those in bondage, while Southern plantation owners saw it as an evil conspiracy designed to rob them of their property and perhaps open the door to mass murder of whites. When secession came, the new Confederate constitution placed God front and center in direct opposition to the “godless” Union constitution. In Confederate eyes, Union loyalists had replaced God with their evil constitution. When war came, both sides struggled with the notion of a “just war.” In the South, the question was, did Lincoln unleash an “unholy war?” Americans wondered in their quest for “understanding” whether the Old Testament (“an eye for an eye”) or the New (“turn the other cheek)” provided a path forward.

Battles brought out the bibles on both sides. Beyond battles, Byrd cites numerous examples of religious reactions to nearly every major event. After First Manassas, to take the most exceptional example, Southerners saw a parallel to Exodus, twisting the

tale of freedom from slavery into a victory for slavery. Further, The Memphis Daily Appeal reminded readers that in the Old Testament “Manasseh” meant “making to forget.” In the Old Testament, Joseph had been put through many trials, including slavery at the hands of the Egyptians. When he became a father, he named his first born “Manasseh” “to forget” his youthful sufferings. When slaves began “understanding” Exodus, they saw it as a sign of eventual emancipation.

When Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, a whole new round of bible reading produced pro and con arguments of its wisdom, north and south, free and slave. Byrd also cites several examples of the nation’s reactions to Lincoln as a “savior” or a Moses leading his people out of desolation well before his death. His assassination sent Americans scrambling to their theology and bibles for “understanding.” He was shot on Good Friday, in a theater and by an actor, no less, died on Holy Saturday, forcing countless ministers, preachers, and priests to quickly re-write their sermons that Easter Sunday. The religious symbolism of Lincoln’s death was not lost on most Americans. To many, it was a hopeful sign that there was a hereafter and surely Lincoln had been lifted to heaven to dwell with the sainted Washington. Newly freed slaves saw their Moses taken away; some northern preachers lectured revenge. Some ministers viewed John Wilkes Booth as the American Cain. Others preached forbearance: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord”

The Last Shall Be First

index, chapter endnotes, and bibliography. 368 pp. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge www.lsupress.org, hardcover. $50.00

Reviewed by Richard J. Blumberg

Studying the state of Tennessee provides readers a unique insight into the Civil War. Its motto, “Agriculture and Commerce” portrays America’s economy during this time. Additionally, its three distinct geographic regions: eastern, central, and western, evolved with different economic, cultural, and political beliefs.

“The Volunteer State” was the last to join the Confederacy and the first to be readmitted into the Union.

Dr. Liulevicius uses this

backdrop to analyze the initial trials, missteps, and execution of Reconstruction programs in Tennessee. She received her PhD in nineteenth century United States History at the University of Tennessee.

Reconstruction is considered a federally sanctioned program, implying a top-down management approach, but that was not the case, especially in Tennessee. In fact, the opposite occurred. President Andrew Johnson did not have a clear vision regarding the planning and execution of Reconstruction policies. As a result, a bottomup management approach evolved. Dr. Liulevicius states in her introduction, “This book examines the improvised and unpredictable process of pardon

(Romans 12:19). Booth, as he lay dying, couldn’t “understand” why God had forsaken him. After all, hadn’t he slain the tyrant?

The most quoted biblical text used by Northern preachers, newspapers, and others was Acts 17:36, “and hath made of one blood all the nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bound of their habitation.” It was a citation that proclaimed brotherhood. The Southern verse most quoted was Job 1:21, “the lord giveth and the lord taketh away.” Byrd thoughtfully provides an annex listing the most popular biblical citations by both sides.

Byrd’s book is a gold mine of new insights that demand close reading. Thankfully the author writes in a clear, understandable language that draws you in. It belongs on the shelf with Shantz, Faust, and Stout. After all, it adds immeasurably to our “understanding” of America’s most tragic era.

Salvatore Cilella is the retired CEO of the Atlanta History Center. Between 2001 and 2006 he served as President and CEO of the Indiana Historical Society. He is the author of Upton’s Regulars, A History of the 121st New York Volunteers in the Civil War, University of Kansas Press, 2009; editor of The Selected Correspondence of General Emory Upton, 2017, University of Tennessee Press and Till Death Do us Part, The Letters of Emory and Emily Upton, 1868–1870, University of Oklahoma Press, 2020.

and amnesty in Tennessee.”

Her exhaustive research includes records of more than 630 Tennessee petitioners representing all social and economic backgrounds. She clearly defines pardon and amnesty, which ensures the reader gains a better understanding of the process. A pardon usually was granted for an individual where amnesty was provided collectively to a group of individuals.

to life through the information he provided in his request. Some admitted treasonous actions while others denied doing anything wrong.

This work is an excellent reference tool describing the missteps, trials, and successes that occurred while charting a path for reconciliation and future race relations. Dr. Liulevicius’ work is well worth the $50 price tag. I give this tome high marks for a superb appendix including the petitioner records used, an excellent bibliography, and a comprehensive index.

1) political savvy,

The prose is written with an anecdotal perspective giving readers insight on a variety of issues impacting each individual’s request. Some of these included:

2) economic and social status, and

3) honor and trustworthiness. Additionally, each soldier comes

Richard J. Blumberg has reviewed books for Civil War News for nearly twenty years. Several of his articles have been published in Civil War News.

Rebel Salvation: Pardon and Amnesty of Confederates in Tennessee. By Kathleen Zebley Liulevicius, Map, appendix,

Deals With a Wide Range of Slavery Topics and Trade

Slavery Interpreting American History, edited by Aaron Astor and Thomas C. Buchanan, Kent State University Press, 2021. www. kentstateuniversitypress.com. Paperback. $39.95

Reviewed by Leon Reed

also curate a set of six chapters, dealing with a wide range of topics such as slavery and the economy, politics, and resistance.

In the introduction, the editor’s note the political background that has made this topic so timely, and dangerous, notably the growth of white supremacy, the convulsions set off by the death of George Floyd, and the 1619 project and the controversies it triggered. They then go professionally about their business and avoid getting ensnared in these presentday controversies.

A Southern Sympathizer Spy

the South and the nation.” Both Pollard and emancipationist historians continued to assert that economically, slavery was an economic dead end. W.E.B. DuBois was the first historian to link the development of the cotton south with broader worldwide industrial developments, such as industrialization in England, but even DuBois thought the development of the single-staplecrop-dependent economy stifled development.

Rose Greenhow’s My Imprisonment: An Annotated Edition. Edited by Emily Lapisardi. Illustrated, photos, notes, index, 398 pp., 2021. Winston Lewis Publishing, Matamoras, PA, 2021. www. winstonlewis.com. Hardcover. $45.00.

This book has a lot going against it. First, no matter how good the concept sounds when you’re reading the publisher’s brochure, anthologies often disappoint. It’s hard to keep a tight focus and a consistent quality; then, any historiography, the study of how historians’ treatment of a subject has changed over time, is always hard to pull off. Finally, trying to deal in an academic fashion with an issue that is the subject of impassioned political debate is always perilous.

That being said, Astor and Buchanan succeed nicely with this project. Astor contributes a solid overview chapter that summarizes the book’s themes and another on emancipation, while Buchanan co-authors (with Kelly Birch) a chapter on free African Americans. But they

The treatment of the economy (by Calvin Schermerhorn) provides an example of the book’s approach. Schermerhorn notes that for many years, historians viewed the institution of slavery in primarily societal terms and considered the slavelabor-based plantation economy to be backward and inefficient. Along with many slaveowners and politicians at the end of the 18th century, many historians of that era thought slavery was an anachronistic institution that would soon die out.

Historians writing from an abolitionist perspective, starting in the 1830s, actually provided the most accurate economic analysis of slavery, correctly noting the economic importance of the internal slave trade and the widespread dependency of large sectors of the economy (bankers, manufacturers, shippers, and others) on the profits derived directly or indirectly from the labor of slaves.

Schermerhorn writes, “After the war, pro-Confederate apologists like Edward Pollard revived the script of slavery as a benign, organic social institution, viewing the prewar past through a mnemonic fog. Pollard contended that slavery was a blessing for

Civil War Artillery Book

392 page, full-color book, Civil War Artillery Projectiles –The Half Shell Book.

For more information and how to order visit the website www.ArtillerymanMagazine. com or call 800-777-1862.

$89.95 + $8 media mail for the standard edition.

This view prevailed well into the 20th century with the work of the enormously influential Ulrich Phillips. The Phillips school came under assault in the 1950s with the work of Kenneth Stampp and other revisionists, who argued that plantations were market institutions and business entities that fully participated in a global economy. With time, the view of slavery as an institution totally linked in with the international economy, with territorial expansion, and an expansionist foreign policy has been fleshed out by many historians and a more sophisticated view of the economics of slavery has begun to emerge.

This book isn’t light reading, but it’s essential. Anyone approaching the current discussions of the role of slavery in our society as a matter of inquiry rather than as a cudgel in present-day political debates must read this book to understand how the institution affected out politics and economics, and how historians’ views of this have changed over time.

Leon Reed is a former U.S. Senate aide and U.S. history teacher. He lives in Gettysburg and is the author of No Greater Calamity for the Country: NorthSouth Conflict, Secession, and the Onset of Civil War (2019).

Reviewed by Juanita

Leisch Jensen

spouses of military and civilian leaders, but are unable to show many, or any, would have made a similar impact in the absence of their having a personal relationship with the leader. Other historians highlight individual women who served as soldiers, lauding them as prescient supporters and promoters of modern views of feminism. Still others think it remarkable that a few identifiable women in that period might have understood political situations to the point of making insightful, if caustic, comments about personalities and events. Even the most fervent of these historians struggle to find incidents where any of these women made a greater difference to battles or campaigns than to the women themselves.

Since the Civil War, historians have studied the arms & equipment and the hardtack & coffee minutiae of soldier life, but it is by highlighting the battles & leaders that most people come to understand the bigger picture and overall chronology of this primarily military event. As such, the subject of women’s roles and involvement in the Civil War sometimes encounters a big “so what”?

It’s widely acknowledged and easily proven that women provided logistical, moral, medical, monetary, mourning, memorial, social, spiritual, and psychological support for the war effort. So what? In evaluating the importance or impact of women’s roles the most legitimate criteria seems to be whether the soldiers themselves credited the women with making a positive impact on their ability to fight. Fortunately, thousands of contemporary accounts describe the importance and impact of women’s role on soldiers and on units. Historians have found it much more challenging to find similar contemporary accounts documenting roles in which women made a significant difference in a battle, much less an entire campaign.

In an effort to write women back into Civil War history, some modern historians celebrate the

Finally, when historians have found evidence that a woman provided advice that was later followed by military leaders, they struggle to find evidence that the military or political leaders of the time appreciated, much less implemented, advice from a woman. There is, however, one woman who is a notable exception.

Rose O’Neal Greenhow was a southern sympathizer and a self-identified spy. She admitted that she ‘used every gift God gave me’ to befriend and charm military and civilian sources in Washington, D.C. Starting in 1861, she arranged to pass valuable and actionable intelligence about planned military and political actions to southern contacts. The efficacy of her clandestine operation was acknowledged during the war, and by the civilian and military leadership of both sides. Rose O’Neal Greenhow made a difference to battles, leaders, and campaigns, and did so as a completely independent woman.

Some have asserted that General P.G.T. Beauregard, President Jefferson Davis, and members of his cabinet, including Judah Benjamin and Stephen Mallory, were simply being polite when they praised her efforts as a Southern spy. The same cannot be said of civilian and military leaders on the Union side, including General McClellan, Alan Pinkerton, William H. Seward, and Edwin M. Stanton, all of whom considered her a most dangerous person, and testified to her effectiveness.

In 1861 General McLellan

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complained that her treachery forced him to several times change his plans for the campaign that ultimately resulted in the Battle of Manassas. Officials in the Lincoln cabinet, including Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, and command structure, such as General George B. McClellan, feared she would continue her espionage even if exiled to the South, so they instead took the extraordinary action of imprisoning her in Washington, D.C., for nine months.

When she was eventually released, Jefferson Davis personally thanked her for her efforts, and endorsed her selection as a semi-official emissary to undertake a diplomatic mission to Europe on behalf of the Confederate government. During her overseas mission, she met with high-ranking officials in England and France. As noted in the Introduction to Rose Greenhow’s My Imprisonment: An Annotated Edition, Greenhow’s biographer, Ann Blackman, argues that her mission as a female governmental emissary on foreign soil was unprecedented. In France, Emperor Napoleon III granted her a private audience. In England, Edward Smith-Stanley, three times prime minister of the UK, declared her the best diplomatist he had ever seen. While in Europe, Rose published an account of her imprisonment as part of her efforts to encourage England and France to support the Confederacy.

Rose drowned during her 1864return trip to America and was given a funeral with full military honors.

Why, you may ask, does she not top every list of the most important /most significant / most honored women of the Confederacy? In large measure it is Rose’ own fault.

Hundreds of women wrote diaries, journals, and memoirs focused on their lives and accomplishments; they are rightly lauded for their war-time activities. A small number even gave presentations after the war publicizing their activities. If Rose had named names, she might have had a best seller, but instead she wrote and published an account focused on exposing the wrongs of the Federal government. Her published work was an extension of her mission to generate support in Europe for the south.

Rose published her account in England, directing it to a

European rather than American audience. Far from being widely read in the US, it was a very rare book until digitized and published online by the University of North Carolina. Even then, any juicy and informative bits were virtually inaccessible as Rose peppered her account with so many biblical and classical references, foreign phrases, and allusions to political and military events that the document is extremely difficult to read, much less fully understand.

Enter Emily Lapisardi. Emily has studied Rose Greenhow for twenty-four years, immersing herself in Rose’s life through reading, research, and travel. She has also portrayed Rose Greenhow for museums, historical societies, round tables, and educational institutions throughout the U.S., including the International Spy Museum, several National Park Service sites, the Surratt Society and book launching events for Ann Blackman’s biography, Wild Rose. Emily is currently serving as the Director of Musical Activities for the Catholic Chapel at the United States Military Academy.

After spending two decades studying Rose Greenhow’s life, Emily spent three years editing and annotating Rose’s account of her Imprisonment. Emily has made Rose’s account not only readable but also understandable. She uses clear and concise footnotes to explain each of hundreds of references to biblical, classical, and foreign words and phrases. In addition, she identifies people Rose has mis-named, mis-identified, or failed to identify by name at all. Emily’s encyclopedic knowledge of Rose’s world, neighborhood, and personality enabled her to provide backstories of people, places, and events that would be entirely lost to most modern readers.

In so doing, she reinforces the story of Rose as someone who not only observed, analyzed, and made caustic comments about political and military events, but also took actions supporting her beloved Confederacy. Her espionage network was so effective she was considered an ongoing threat by the highest-ranking general in the Union Army. The Confederacy considered her services so valuable she was compensated considerably more than other spies, the equivalent of about $65,000. Far more than a temptress and amateur spy;

she was a valued and respected Confederate asset. The military and civilian leaders of the US government considered her so dangerous that they arrested her on August 23, 1861, and put her under house arrest. Since she continued her espionage while under house arrest, in January 1862, they moved her to the Old Capitol Prison, a building where she spent part of her childhood. They kept her imprisoned there for an additional five months until she was released and “exiled to Dixie” May 31, 1862.

Perhaps they expected her to follow their order to remain in Dixie. She did not. In 1863, Rose embarked on the semi-official diplomatic mission to Europe where she tried to generate support for and public recognition of the Confederacy and published My Imprisonment. On her return voyage, the blockaderunning Condor ran aground a few hundred yards off the North Carolina coast. Rose drowned when she tried to escape capture.

She is the only woman granted a funeral with full military honors during the war by the Confederacy.

In the study of women’s roles in the Civil War, Rose Greenhow stands alone as an independent woman whose successful espionage efforts were acknowledged by the civilian and military leaders of both sides and as the first independent woman sent on a diplomatic mission by an American president.

We owe a debt of gratitude to Emily Lapisardi for making Rose Greenhow’s account of her wartime activities both readable and understandable. Emily’s book and Rose’s account give us, at long last, an example of an independent woman who made a significant difference to the ‘battles and leaders’ of the Civil War.

This book is a must-have and must-read for anyone interested in women and their roles in the Civil War.

Reviewer Juanita Leisch Jensen is a Fellow and former Governor of the Company of Military Historians, and a past president of the Society for Women and the Civil War. She is the author of Who Wore What and An Introduction to Civil War Civilians.

Folksy Style History of the 129th Illinois Infantry

They All Wore a Star: In the Fight for the Four-Gun Battery

During the Battle of Resaca, Georgia May 15, 1864. By Robert G. Miller. (Mauvaisterre Publishing, 2020) Second edition, 567 pp, bibliography, index, $24.99.

Reviewed by John D. Fowler

CSR could help with a detailed discussion of sickness, wounds, desertion, etc. Also missing is the census data of the men. This data would allow an examination of myriad items such as wealth and occupation, household proximity, and kinship patterns for the regiment’s soldiers. These two resources in particular are crucial to any comprehensive regimental study. They can provide an invaluable trove of information on the men’s background as well as each soldier’s individual military experience.

For the historian, first-hand accounts of events, whether important or mundane, are of great value. Letters and diaries are more useful than after-thefact reminiscences because they represent a record of what an individual saw, felt, and thought at a particular moment without any time lapse that will inevitably alter perspectives and memories.

In They All Wore a Star, Robert G. Miller attempts to use the first-hand accounts of Civil War soldiers to paint a picture of their experiences and thus provide readers with a better understanding of the men who fought in that great national tragedy. After conducting genealogical research to uncover more about his great-greatgrandfather Joseph Peters, who fought at the battle of Resaca, the author decided to tell the story of the 129th Illinois Infantry.

On the positive side, the author uses myriad letters, diaries, newspapers, and even regimental histories to sketch a portrait of the regiment’s men. He also attempts to cover their story from enlistment through the battle of Resaca. The use of such sources is critical if one is to create a solid examination of a regiment, but it is an old-fashioned regimental examination.

On the negative side, the author failed to use the Compiled Service Records or any materials on the regiment available at the National Archives. The

Finally, the author attempts to present the experiences of his ancestor and his comrades in a personal, storytelling style. This leads the reader down several roads that stray from the history of the regiment. Some will like this folksy style, full of literary quotes and musings, but others who are used to more traditional or academic writing might find it disjointed and disorganized, something akin to a long search through an attic full of related and unrelated items. While many readers will consider the book far too long because of this, however, the author is clear in the beginning that this is the style he has chosen. He did not intend the volume to be a narrative unit history or a modern study. Rather, it is a chronologically arranged collection of material through which the reader must sift.

This book was clearly a labor of love. It will certainly find an audience, but it could have had a much broader one had it been edited in a traditional fashion; if it had attempted to place the regiment in context of other units for Illinois, the Union Army, etc.; if it had contained greater prewar and post-war information on the men; and if it had focused on some of the larger issues of the war.

John D. Fowler, Ph.D., is the author of several books and articles on the Civil War Era. He is currently a Professor of History at Dalton State College.

Yank and Rebel Rangers: Special Operatives in the American Civil War.

By Robert W. Black. Pen & Sword Books Limited, 327 pp. Softcover. $24.95.

Reviewed by Meg Groeling

The Beginning of Special Ops

gave it much consideration. Instead, they used it to cover their marauding.

Both the Union and Confederacy used small forces of fearless, highly motivated soldiers for special operations behind enemy lines. Skilled in infiltration, these men scouted deep into enemy territory, captured essential personnel, and disrupted lines of communication and logistics.

Their lack of consideration for life, gender, age, or physical condition sowed confusion and fear among the civilians of both sides. Sometimes wearing the uniform of the enemy, they faced execution as spies if captured.

The first half of Yank and Rebel Rangers focuses on operations in mountainous West Virginia and the lush Shenandoah Valley.

the Thurmond brothers (who sent seven sons to the Confederate army), the Iron Scouts (rangers who were part of J. E. B. Stuart’s famous ride around the Union Army in 1862), and the independent unit of Elijah White, which “pitched a fit” when it was mustered into regular Confederate service in late 1863, are covered Finally, there are separate chapters on the famous St. Albans Raid and Confederate Ranger Robert Martin’s plan to burn New York City on November 25, 1864.

The information he was able to deliver to Grant gave the general the advantage many times. Ruggles was quite the character.

It has long been my opinion that the Civil War was a modern war in many more ways than most even realize. Because of a personal interest in the Zouave infantry drill, the subject of Robert Black’s book is of particular interest to me. He carefully explains the difference between Confederate and Union partisan forces, explaining that Confederates were much more often willing to go outside the rules to achieve their ends. Aware of this, Confederate Major John Scott, one of the famed Black Horse Cavalry founders, wrote the Partisan Ranger Act in 1862. The act spelled out authorization for the army to “form bands of partisan Rangers in companies, battalions, or regiments, either as infantry or cavalry….” Although this act should have positively affected partisan groups, few

The importance of these areas to the war was tremendous. In addition, the rural settlement of the population therein made it easier for Rangers, also known as bushwhackers, guerillas, and partisans, to operate with much secrecy. It is generally acknowledged that these groups were considered to be terrorists, especially those led by William Clark Quantrill, John Hanson, Jesse McNeil, Nathan Bedford Forrest, John Singleton Mosby, Alfred Pike, and John Hunt Morgan. Morgan, Forrest, and Mosby are not covered in this book. They are, however, the subjects of the author’s Black’s Ghost, Thunderbolt, and Wizard

There are single chapters on such well-known Confederate partisans as the Hatfields and the McCoys, John Imboden, Turner Ashby, and Harry Gilmore. Additionally, groups like the Moccasin Rangers from West Virginia, the mountain clan of

The second half highlights the northern partisans. In a charming opening chapter, the author discusses Abraham Lincoln’s experience as a ranger. Apparently, his experiences in the Black Hawk War qualify him as such. As a result, Lincoln’s name is inscribed in the U.S. Army Ranger Hall of Fame because, “Once a Ranger, Always a Ranger.” As a member of Captain Elijah Isle’s company of Independent Rangers, Lincoln qualified. Union army units such as the Loudon Rangers, the Jessie Scouts, the Snake-Hunters, the Swamp Dragons, and the Blazer Scouts are covered in depth, no matter how obscure they may seem at first. Ranger groups who worked as scouts for the Union army are given a chapter, as are rangers who worked farther west with the military to control violence between Native Americans and settlers.

“Grant’s Ranger,” C. Lorain Ruggles, is one of the more interesting men individually featured. He was based at the Union camp at Bolivar, Tennessee, and acted as a spy. He could easily pass for a Southerner and did—quite often.

Author Robert W. Black is a decorated U.S. Army Ranger colonel who fought in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. In 1966 he was assigned to Military Advisory Command, Vietnam (MACV). Together with his Korean War experience, Colonel Black saw combat actions in eight campaigns. Twice awarded the Combat Infantryman Badge, he holds the Silver Star, three Bronze Stars (two for valor), the Legion of Merit, the Air Medal, the Joint Service Commendation Medal, two Army Commendation Medals, the Vietnam Cross of Gallantry, and the Vietnam Cross of Honor. Perhaps because he truly understands the role of irregular warfare, Black makes no value judgments concerning any of these partisan groups. Instead, each is presented clearly and without prejudicereword “prejudice; he lets the

readers”-let the readers make up their own minds about the moral implications of the actions of these groups and individuals. Because Black is so fair, I recommend Yanks and Rebel Rangers to anyone interested in partisan warfare in general and Civil War partisans specifically.

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, and she has written First Fallen: The Life of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, which Savas Beatie will also publish. In addition, she is a regular contributor to the blog Emerging Civil War. She and her husband live with three cats in a 1927 California bungalow covered with roses on the outside and books on the inside.

Middle

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Oct. 21-24, Pennsylvania. Artillery Seminar

Artillery in the Civil War based in Chambersburg. Featuring tour guides Tom Clemens, James Hessler, David Shultz and Eric Wittenberg as well as talks by Craig Swain, Steve Nelson, Chris Stowe, David Powell and others. For information; www.civilwarseminars.org or civilwarseminars@gmail.com.

Oct. 23-25. Online Seminar - Virtual Infantry in the Civil War Tours will include Longstreet’s assault on July 2 at Gettysburg, the fighting in the West Woods at Antietam, Jackson’s attack at Harpers Ferry, and the Confederate assaults at Monocacy. Tour guides include Dennis Frye, Dr. Tom Clemens, Jim Hessler and Matt Borders. Lectures will cover some of the great infantry fights of both the Eastern and Western Theaters of the Civil War. Portions of the conference will be pre-recorded, but all tour guides will be LIVE via Zoom for commentary and questions. Entire conference cost is $150 for members, $160 for non-members. Register at www.civilwarseminars.org.

Oct. 30. Online Seminar

HISTORYtalks – at 7 p.m. Eastern – Stephen Atkins Swails, an unsung African American hero of the Civil War & Reconstruction by Gordon Rhea. Cost is $5/person. Zoom login details sent with confirmation. Register at www.civilwarseminars.org/lectures.

Nov. 6, Louisiana. Camp Parapet Day

Originally Fort Morgan was a massive Confederate fortification in Jefferson Parish (County) on the Mississippi River built to defend the City of New Orleans from Federal assault. After capture by Federal forces and renamed Camp Parapet, the fortification was expanded to defend against retaliatory Confederate assault. All that remains today is one of its powder magazines. During this yearly event, go inside the powder magazine and imagine soldier conversations that were spoken within its walls. Be part of flag waving ceremonies representing the progression of the war. Meet and visit with uniformed civil war reenactors. View displays of weapons, clothing and artifacts while being entertained by vintage musicians and dancers. Enjoy lunch on the grounds. Exhibitors attending include Louisiana Lt. Governor’s Office of Tourism, Jefferson Historical Society, Destrehan Plantation, Camp Moore Museum, Beauvoir, and other historic organizations and sites. Gates open at 8 a.m. for exhibitors, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. for public. Admission is free.

Nov. 6, Virginia. Seminar

Shenandoah University’s McCormick Civil War Institute’s fall seminar and tour “We Shall Have Graveyards at Every Door:” The Lower Shenandoah Valley’s Border Region during the Civil War with Prof. Jonathan A. Noyalas. $25 registration fee covers morning lecture, lunch at SU, and afternoon caravan tour of sites between Stephens City south to the banks of Cedar Creek. Space is limited, so visit www.su.edu/mcwi to register. For information; jnoyalas01@su.edu or phone 540-665-4501.

Nov. 13, Virginia. Civil War Show

Bullet and Shell is proud to present the 40th Central Virginia Military Antique Show (formally Mike Kent’s Capital of the Confederacy Civil War Show). In conjunction with the Central Virginia Civil War Collectors Association, we plan to continue to do everything to make this one of the best shows in the country. The show will host vendors and displays of American military history from the Revolutionary War through WWII. Bring your relics for appraisal or to sell. There will be many historical items to add to your collection. Show hours are 9-5 on Saturday, vendor setup on Friday. Parking is free and admission is only $10/adults with children under 12 free. For more information or registration go to MilitaryAntiqueShow.com.

Nov. 19-21, Pennsylvania. Remembrance Day Weekend Civil War Expo

Make plans to attend the Remembrance Day Weekend Civil War Expo in its 19th year at the Hotel Gettysburg located at 1 Lincoln Square. Join Civil War & More selling books and CDs, Lucyshairwork specializing in Victorian hair jewelry, Miller’s Millinery selling authentic handmade 18th & 19th-century headwear, and Sullivan Press reproductions of books, documents, and stationery. Expo opens at 11 a.m. on Friday, 10 a.m. on Saturday; stays open until 10 p.m. both nights, so please come by! Open 9 a.m. to noon on Sunday. Admission is free all weekend long. The parking garage behind the hotel accepts cash or credit. For more information; contact Jim Schmick at 717-7661899 or email: genjenkins@aol.com.

Nov. 20, Pennsylvania. Parade

The 64th Annual Remembrance Day parade, Gettysburg, Pa. is sponsored by the Sons of Veterans Reserve, the Military Dept. of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War. Parade briefing at the Wyndham Hotel at 9:30 a.m. Units form up at noon on Lefever St. between Baltimore St. and E. Confederate Ave. Parade will start at 1 p.m. For information; majorsvrprovost@gmail.com or 609-816-2012.

Nov. 20, Pennsylvania. Civil War Ball

The original Civil War Ball will be held at the Wyndham Gettysburg Hotel located at 95 Presidential Circle. Price per person is $20 advance, $25 at the door. Music by Philadelphia Brigade Band, dances led by Victorian Dance Ensemble. Period dress encouraged. Door prizes, plus prizes for ladies’ cake walk. Cash bar. 8 p.m. to midnight. For information; email Col. Steve Michaels SVR at Lt.col.sm@gmail.com, 414-712-4655.

Nov. 20-21, Louisiana. Reenactment

Join us for the annual reenactment at in Tangipahoa at Camp Moore. It was the largest Confederate training camp in Louisiana and the only one in the United States still open to the public. Skirmish is at 2 p.m. both days. Spectators are welcome to tour the museum (opens at 10 a.m.), and soldier campsites (open at 9 a.m.). Food and beverages may be purchased on site. Tangipahoa is located 75 miles north of New Orleans. Admission is $5 for adults, $3 for students and under 6 are free. For information; visit www.campmoorela.com.

Nov. 30. Online Seminar

HISTORYtalks – at 7 p.m. Eastern – “Let Us Die Like Men: The Battle of Franklin” The great attack on the late Indian Summer afternoon of Nov. 30, 1864 has been regarded as the “Death of an Army.” Cost is $5/person. Zoom login details sent with confirmation. Register at www.civilwarseminars.org/lectures.

Dec. 4-5, Tennessee. Civil War Show and Sale

MK Shows presents the 34th Annual Middle Tennessee Civil War Show and Sale at the Williamson County Ag Expo Park, 4215 Long Lane in Franklin. The nation’s largest Civil War show, featuring 800 tables of antique weapons, artifacts and memorabilia from top dealers and collectors around the country and encompassing all eras of military history from the Revolutionary War through World War II. Appraisers are always on hand to help you identify and value your military collectibles at no cost. Hours are 9-5 on Sat., 9-3 on Sun., parking is free and admission is only $10/adults and children under 12 are free. For more information; www.MKShows.com or Mike@MKShows.com.

Dec. 7, Virginia. Online Book Discussion

Please join Prof. Jonathan A. Noyalas, director of Shenandoah University’s McCormick Civil War Institute, for an online discussion via Zoom with Jonathan White, associate professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University, about White’s recent book To Address You as My Friend: African Americans’ Letters to Abraham Lincoln. Discussion begins at 7 p.m. EST. Although FREE (donations appreciated), registration is required. Email jnoyalas01@ su.edu to register.

2022

Jan. 4-11, Virginia, Online Seminar

Please join Prof. Jonathan A. Noyalas, director of Shenandoah University’s McCormick Civil War Institute, for a three-part online seminar via Zoom examining various aspects of the Civil War Era in the Shenandoah Valley. January 4, “Kindred Will all be Divided”: The Eastern Panhandle on the Eve of Civil War; January 6, “An Expression of Helplessness”: Sigel, Hunter, and the Lower Valley’s Civilians in May 1864; and January 11, “That this War May Soon Come to an End”: Perspectives on the Meaning of Union Victory in the Shenandoah Valley, Autumn 1864.” All sessions begin at 7 p.m. EST. Although FREE (donations appreciated), registration is required. Email jnoyalas01@ su.edu to register.

Jan. 15-16. South Carolina. Civil War Show

Low Country Civil War Show & Sale at Omar Shrine Temple, Mount Pleasant, Sat. 9-5, Sun. 9-3. Sponsored by American Digger Magazine. For information, 770-362-8671, 716-574-0465, www.americandiggerevents.com.

Feb. 18-20, Florida. Reenactment

Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park will host the weekend long 45th Annual Reenactment commemorating the 158th anniversary of the Battle of Olustee. More than 1,500 living historians will give presentations of both civilian and military life during the Civil War. Events will include educational exhibits and speakers, battle reenactment, a skirmish, medical demonstrations, ladies’ tea, sutlers, artillery night firing, an old-fashioned barn dance! Spectators can visit authentic campsites, view artillery inspections, living history programs, listen to a period music and watch the battle reenactment. Festivities will end with the Battle of Olustee Ball at the Ball Tent. Period attire re-quired. Ball is for participants only. For information; 877-635-3655; www.battleofolustee.org.

April 2, Virginia. Seminar

Shenandoah University’s McCormick Civil War Institute’s annual spring conference on the cam-pus of Shenandoah University, Winchester, Virginia, “Beyond the Mere Routine of Everyday Life”: Encounters & Experiences during the Civil War. Presentations with Jonathan A. Noyalas (Shenandoah University), Lauren K. Thompson (McKendree University), Kathryn J. Shively (Virginia Commonwealth University), and Jonathan W. White (Christopher Newport University). $30 registration fee covers all presentations and lunch at SU. Space is limited, visit www.su.edu/mcwi to register. For information; jnoyalas01@su.edu or phone 540-665-4501.

Trivia Answers

1. Fort Sumter, but a twofer as you could also claim Fort Moultrie

2. General Edwin H. Stoughton

3. General John Sedgwick

4. General Winfield Scott

6. Generals George H. “Maryland” Steuart, Alexander “Old Straight” Stewart, and John Ewell Brown Stuart

7. General Henry H. Sibley

8. CSS Shenandoah

9. Sioux

10.

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