Civil War News September 2022

Mackowski Receives Outstanding Service Award from American Battlefield Trust

ST. BONAVENTURE, N.Y—Dr Chris Mackowski, professor of journalism and mass communication in St. Bonaventure University’s Jandoli School of Communication, was honored by the American Battlefield Trust’s Teacher Institute.

The American Battlefield Trust is the largest nonprofit organization devoted to preserving American’s hallowed battlegrounds. Although primarily focused on the protection of Civil War battlefields, the trust works to save battlefields connected to the Revolutionary War and War of 1812, as well. Through educational programs and heritage tourism initiatives, the trust also informs the public about the vital role battlefields played in determining the course of our nation’s history.

The trust recognized Mackowski with an Award for Outstanding Service at its Teacher Institute held July 21-24, 2022, in Mobile, Ala.

“Chris has been a great partner for us for years,” said the trust’s Deputy Director of Education Kristopher D. White, a long-time collaborator with Mackowski, in presenting the award. “He goes above and beyond, and we appreciate everything he brings to the table for us, from his teacher workshops to his tours to his appearances in on our videos. If you’ve ever watched him, his passion shows through. You know he loves what he does, and we love what he does for us.”

David N. Duncan, president of the American Battlefield Trust, added his congratulations.

“The trust is lucky to work with a tremendous number of talented historians,” Duncan said. “Some we consider family,

Chris Mackowski among them. He embodies our mission and priorities in all that he does, and our work is richer and more vibrant for his contributions.”

Mackowski has worked closely with the trust for a number of years, especially with its Education Department, hosting video content on the trust’s YouTube and Facebook pages, conducting tours, and writing articles for the organization’s print and online publications. He has also been involved with a number of preservation initiatives for endangered Civil War battlefields.

“This award was an incredible and unexpected honor for me,” Mackowski said. “The trust has given me some amazing opportunities over the years, and I am deeply grateful to everyone there for those opportunities. It’s my privilege to serve a cause and an organization I’m so passionate about.”

The Teachers Institute, which celebrated its 20th year in 2022, annually attracts hundreds of K-12 teachers from all over the country. While in attendance, teachers share in three and a half days of workshops, battlefield and museum tours, and guest lectures designed to give educators the tools to more creatively and engagingly teach about the pivotal conflicts of America’s first century.

In addition, during the two years COVID necessitated a suspension of the in-person Teacher Institute, the trust spearheaded the creation of a Virtual Teacher Institute (VTI), which has serviced more than a thousand teachers since its inception.

At this year’s in-person Teacher Institute, Mackowski offered presentations titled

“Abraham Lincoln as a Writer” and “What’s in a Name: Names as Frames for Understanding Historical Events.” During this year’s Virtual Teacher Institute, he presented a workshop on the intersection between technology, ethics, and journalism as the first draft of history. Past workshops he has presented looked at teaching Civil War controversy in the classroom and the Civil War in pop culture. Mackowski has also moderated a number of sessions for the VTI each year it’s been held.

In June, Mackowski traveled to Boston, Mass., to host a

“virtual field trip” for the trust on Revolutionary War and Civil War sites for middle- and high-school students. In September, he’ll host a similar virtual field trip for the trust in Charleston, S.C.

Mackowski has taught at St. Bonaventure as a writing professor in the Jandoli School of Communication since the fall of 2000. He is also the editor-inchief and co-founder of Emerging Civil War and editor of the awardwinning Emerging Civil War Series, published by Savas Beatie. He has authored, co-authored, or edited nearly two dozen books on the Civil War; his articles have

appeared in all the major Civil War magazines. Mackowski serves as vice president on the board of directors for the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust, a regional battlefield preservation organization based in Fredericksburg, Va., and he serves on the advisory board of the Civil War Roundtable Congress and the Brunswick (NC) Civil War Roundtable— the largest in the country. His is also historian-in-residence at Stevenson Ridge, a historic property on the Spotsylvania battlefield in central Virginia. Visit www.battlefields.org.

Chris Mackowski (right) accepts an award for outstanding service from the American Battlefield Trust from the trust’s Deputy Director of Education Kristopher D. White at a July 23 event in Mobile, Ala.

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9th Annual U. S. Grant Symposium in St. Louis

by Professor Earnest Veritas Special Correspondent to the Civil War News -Western Theater-

The Missouri Humanities doubly ensured the memory of Ulysses S. Grant’s death is not forgotten by providing an opportunity for U.S. Grant symposium participants and attendees, to place wreaths at the impressive statue of General Grant on the grounds of City Hall. The solemn and moving ceremony took place on the morning of July 23, the anniversary of the death of General and President Grant.

Dr. Curt Fields and Frank Scaturro placed a ceremonial wreath at the foot of General Grant’s statue. Marty Aubuchon from the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, U.S. Grant Camp #68 and also representing the Grand Army of the Republic, St. Louis, then laid a GAR wreath. A representative of St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones presented the group a Mayoral Proclamation

declaring the day as “Ulysses Grant Day.”

The participants and attendees then spent an informative day enjoying a very successful U. S. Grant Symposium held in the famed and beautiful Soldier’s Military Museum building. This event was the 9th U. S. Grant symposium put on by the Missouri Humanities.

Eighty-five people attended the program and 70 more attended via the internet, including some in England. Four speakers gave a wide-ranging look at Grant, both as soldier and as a politician, with the reverberations both those historic roles have in our history into the present day. Their presentations were informative and thought-provoking.

From Grant’s engagement where he first led troops, to what transpired later with the unprecedented three surrenders he took during the Civil War, the topics were well-chosen and designed to inform and provoke thought.

Greg Wolk, Missouri Humanities Heritage Programs Coordinator said of this year’s Symposium: “Frank Scaturro,

L to R: Curt Fields, Mark Sundlov, Greg Wolk, John Samson, and Frank Scaturro.

Curt Fields portraying General Grant.

Curt Fields and Frank Scaturro place wreath at Grant statue.

Dr. Sylvana Saddli.

Frank Scaturro.

Curt Fields and Frank Scaturro help carry wreath to Grant statue.

John Samson.

Grant Statue in St. Louis.

Marty Abuchon holding the U.S. Grant Day proclamation.

President of the Grant Monument Association, was a worthy successor to past keynote speakers, John Marszalek, Ronald C. White Jr., Frank Williams, and Timothy B. Smith.

Scaturro, already a force in the movement to rehabilitate Grant’s reputation, presented a powerful case for Grant’s oft overlooked successes as president. This proved a major theme of the ninth annual U. S. Grant Symposium, as Professor Silvana Siddali of St. Louis University chose to discuss Grant’s commitment to the passage and ratification of the 15th Amendment. John Samson, a St. Louisan who serves on the Board of the Ulysses S. Grant Association, provided an interesting and engaging new look at Grant’s Battle of Belmont, while Dr. Curt Fields, “batting” fourth in this lineup, brought the crowd to its feet with a rousing performance as General Grant, depicting the only man in American history to accept the surrender of three entire armies. The Soldier’s Military Museum is in a beautiful art deco, 1930’s building. Built in downtown St. Louis to honor the WWI

veterans of St. Louis, it was totally renovated in 2016-17. It is a stunning place to visit and enjoy how St. Louis honored its citizens who fought and suffered in the ‘War to end all wars.’ For information about the Soldier’s Memorial Museum contact:: mohistory.org

The wreath-laying participants and the symposium presenters collectively represented: the Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library, the Ulysses S. Grant Association, The Ulysses S. Grant Boyhood Home, The Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, The Grand Army of the Republic, and the Grant Monument Association.

The statue of General Grant was sculpted by Robert Binghorst who is reputed to be the first professional sculptor to live in St. Louis. The plaque inset on the pedestal is a relief of the Battle of Lookout Mountain. The statue was dedicated in 1918 as a gift from the Grant Monument Association of Missouri.

Professor E.

Grant’s Statue in Washington Square Park. The sculptor, Robert Binghorst.

“Simply put: tell the simple truth, simply.”

Veritas

By Jack W. Melton Jr.

Hidden Evidence

A Look Inside Civil War Artillery Projectiles

CWO4 John D. Bartleson Jr., U.S. Navy EOD Author of Civil War Explosive Ordnance 1861–1865

6-PounderSphericalCaseShot

Theexpedienttriedbytheconfederatesinimitationof

What do they say?

Jack Melton’s latest endeavor, Civil War Artillery Projectiles – The Half Shell Book, is a remarkable addition to Civil War artillery ammunition literature. For archaeologists and collectors the clearly written text and the excellent photographs provide a wealth of information to properly identify recovered shells and burst fragments. For bomb squad and EOD specialists this book should be on every units’ shelf. The material found in these pages will help EOD personnel identify what has been found, whether or not it is dangerous, and how to inert the round without the necessity of destroying an important historic object. This book takes Civil War artillery ammunition studies to a new level.

Douglas Scott Adjunct Research Faculty, Colorado Mesa University. Author of Uncovering History: Archaeological Investigations of the Little Bighorn.

Inthisexample,riflebulletswereutilizedasthecaseshotmaterialincluding3-ring.58caliberbullets,3-ring.69caliberbul lets,andU.S.ring-tailSharpsbullets.IthasabrassBormannsupportplug(underplug)thatiscountersunkonbothsidesof

flame’scommunicationchannel.Theblackpowderburstingchargewaspouredinloosearoundthebullets.Thismethoddid notworkverywellandoftenonlysucceededinblowingthefusesout.Projectilesfilledwithbulletsusedascaseshotarerare. Thisspecimenwasrecovered,alongwithotherConfederateandUnionprojectiles,fromthepost-CivilWardumpsitelocated neartheConfederatePowderWorksinAugusta,Georgia.

• 392 pages of full color photographs with descriptions

• Covers projectiles, fuses, canister, grapeshot and more

• 850 photos, drawings, radiographs, patents and maps

• A must for every serious artillery enthusiast

at

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Wow. I have been reading a lot of different books on ordnance from this era, but this one takes the cake. Most of the other books drift off in directions that are not helpful with the ordnance specific information I am usually looking for. But this book stays on task and topic from start to finish.

Tom Gersbeck MFS, Graduate Faculty, Arson-Explosives Investigation (AEI), School of Forensic Sciences, Oklahoma State University

Jack Melton’s new book Civil War Artillery Projectiles – The Half Shell Book, promises to be one of the most important volumes on Civil War artillery in recent times. Anyone who has studied the wide variety of Civil War projectiles knows that what is inside is just as important, and maybe more so, than what is outside the shell. In this book, cutaway shells are graphically explained with superb color photographs and detailed notes. They reveal important details and differences in a variety of similar projectiles that tell us U.S. from C.S. and between type variations, in a way that no other approach has ever done. It is supremely helpful in explaining to others just how a shell works, whether it is still dangerous or not, and why.

Les Jensen

Former Curator of the Museum of the Confederacy

ChapterThree –SphericalHalfShells

"Through Jack’s superb photography; the collector and professional can now view an extensive exposure to sectioned projectiles. This is new for the average person in that for the first time since radiography; one can examine the internal makeup of a shell."

158th Anniversary Reenactment of the Battle of Cedar Creek

October 15th and 16th, 2022

During this two-day event, reenactors recreate the last major battle in the Shenandoah Valley. See cavalry, artillery, and infantry soldiers in action and in camp. Battle scenarios, music, symposia, and medical, military, and civilian demonstrations are scheduled each day. Fundraising raffles, period merchants, and food vendors onsite. Single Day, Two Day, and Discount Ticket Options Available! Children 6 and under are free!

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Artifacts, documents and works of art from the collections of Gettysburg National Military Park and the Civil War Museum of Philadelphia, acquired by the Gettysburg Foundation, offer a window into the lives, experiences and memories of those who struggled, suffered and survived a century and a half ago.

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USS Iron Age Search for Clone CSS Tacony

by Joan Wenner, J.D.

Historians note that the Confederate Navy demonstrated very well how an inferior naval force could hold off a vastly superior one. One example was the highly successful French shipyard-built raider cruiser CSS Florida that was ‘cloned’ in August 1863 as the CSS Tacony.

The USS Iron Age was sent to search for her; each met the same fate off North Carolina’s Holden Beach at Lockwood Folly Inlet where her wreckage remains visible to this day.

Union Secretary of Navy Gideon Welles was said to typically name a board of experts to study a problem or situation. This included a Blockade Strategy Board that soon had a planning staff, laying the foundation for the

Union blockading the Southern coast by the Federals applying ‘unendurable pressure.’

CSS Florida

The vessel with her twin funnels and full complement of sails would evade many

Union blockading warships. The Florida was fast, once making 14-1/2 knots, and her low-lying hull was hidden in high waves and rough seas.

During Florida’s cruises she captured 24 ships. Using one prize “she cloned herself”

according to J. Simson’s Naval Strategies of the Civil War to be the CSS Clarence, subsequently the CSS Tacony. Using the clones, 21 ships were captured and destroyed.

USS Iron Age

A steamer acquired by the Union navy to patrol navigable waterways for preventing the South’s trading with other countries, the USS Iron Age was

built in Maine in 1862, purchased in Boston, and commissioned in June 1863. Lt. Commander E.E. Stone captained the 144-foot screw-propelled vessel armed with three 30-pounder Dahlgren rifles and six 8-inch Dahlgren guns.

When sailing from Boston she was on the trail of the commerce raider Tacony which was taking a heavy toll of New England shipping. Both ships headed south. When the Tacony was captured and burned off the North Carolina coast, the Iron Age was reassigned to the Atlantic Blockading Squadron in September 1863. Off Wilmington she assisted two other vessels in destroying the blockade runner Venus. On Christmas Eve the Tacony destroyed a large and desperately needed stockpile of salt at Bear Inlet along with smashing irreplaceable equipment.

In January 1864 the Iron Age spotted the blockade runner Bendigo aground on shoals.. After locals had helped salvage what supplies they could, the captain abandoned his ship and set Bendigo afire. Iron Age, together with the USS Daylight, attempted to refloat what was left of the Bendigo but Iron Age ran hard aground. After efforts to lighten her failed, she was ‘put to the torch,’ her magazine soon exploded.

By spring 1865, blockade running was no longer economically viable. As noted in British Blockade Runners in the American Civil War by Joseph McKenna, there is evidence suggesting some 350 steamers from all origins were directly or indirectly involved in supplying the Confederacy. About 80 were built in Northern and Southern states; 200 in Great Britain; and about 10 in other countries. For the British their blockade-runners were ‘just business’ and “that’s all it was.”

Of the approximately 300 steamers that attempted to thwart Lincoln’s blockade, roughly 160 were captured, destroyed, or burnt by the Federal navy, many after numerous successful runs through the blockade. In official records some 1,022 steamers, schooners, barks, and brigs were captured or destroyed.

Joan Wenner, J.D. is a longtime contributor to Civil War News and published in numerous history publications with a special interest in naval operations and military courts of inquiry. She presently resides in once-blockaded coastal North Carolina. Comments are welcomed at joan_writer@yahoo.com

CSS Florida

Wreckage of the USS Iron Age

CSS Tacony, also called CSS Florida No. 2.

A 40-horse wagon train pulls

Jackson’s engines to Staunton

by Carl Sell Jr.

The February issue of the Civil War News included a story about Colonel Thomas Jackson’s spring 1861 raid on the B&O Railroad that resulted in engines and cars being hauled to Strasburg, Va., for use on Confederate railroads. The story left open a report that the engines and equipment also were carried to Staunton so they could be sent to Richmond via the Virginia Central Railroad.

Since publication of that article, information has been found that shows that the equipment was hauled up the Valley Turnpike south of Winchester. A recent visit to the Valley Turnpike Museum in Harrisonburg by Ben Trittipoe and Bill Kamenjar, two members of the team that produced the February story, recorded information concerning Jackson’s feat.

The February story was based on a 2021 Both Sides Tour that visited stops along the B&O where Jackson’s raid was carried out. It also included stops between Harpers Ferry and Winchester along the Winchester and Potomac Railroad. Eye

witnesses and diary information reported the railroad equipment was pulled by horses to Strasburg, where it was reset on the tracks of the Manassas Gap Railroad.

The article did not report that engines and equipment absolutely continued on to Staunton and the Virginia Central, although several claims were made stating that they had. Trittipoe and Kamenjar’s subsequent visit provided the missing link.

The Valley Museum offers

a model of the last engine traveling through the streets of Harrisonburg on the Valley Turnpike. The model is based on historic and archaeological information collected by the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Historical Society.

The model can be viewed at the Valley Turnpike Museum, located in the Hardesty-Higgins House (circa 1848), located at 212 South Main Street in Harrisonburg. The Museum is open seven days a week, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Carl Sell is a frequent contributor to CWN. He has written books about his great grandfather, James Farthing, in the Civil War as well as a recent update on the life or Major General James Ewell Brown Stuart. Ironically, Carl also has published a booklet about Civil War activities in the area of Snickers Gap, the break in the Blue Ridge that overlooks the Shenandoah River and the Cool Spring battlefield. The Gap was one of the main avenues of movement by both sides during the war. Contact Carl at sellcarl@ aol.com of 703-971-4716.

The model depicts the last engine being drawn through town by a

40-horse team.

Civil War News is the only national monthly Civil War publication in newsprint and digital form for history lovers, battlefield travelers, collectors, and avid readers. Each issue covers various topics from the Calendar of Events, including shows and seminars, reenactments, living history, and current book reviews. Regular columns include interesting articles by renowned authors Salvatore Cilella, Stephen Davis, Stephanie Hagiwara, Gould Hagler, and Michael K. Shaffer.

We are proud to partner with the American Battlefield Trust and provide up-todate news on their latest preservation efforts. The annual subscription is just $41, and there is something for everyone in each issue.

The Artilleryman is a quarterly magazine for collectors, competition shooters and those interested in ordnance from the Revolutionary War to World War II, primarily focusing on cannon, implements, projectiles and related artifacts from the American Civil War.

This full color magazine features articles on cannon safety, artillery history, projectiles, fuses, places to visit, book reviews, competition events, and so much more. The annual quarterly subscription price is just $37.95.

Military Antique Collector is a bi-monthly magazine with detailed high-resolution color photographs of some of the world’s most beautiful and unusual military collectibles. Dedicated to both the expert collector and novice alike, each issue is teeming with informative articles written by leading authorities in their fields of expertise, including distinguished well-known authors, along with prominent museum and auction professionals. Issues spotlight rare and unusual military objects, craftsmanship works, and their relationship to historical figures dating from early American and European history to limited coverage of the post-1898 artifact. Priced at only $39.95 for 6 issues. It’s easy to see why Military Antique Collector magazine has become so popular so fast.

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Artillery at Fort Moultrie

100-Pounder Navy Parrott Shells

Stephen Davis Wins Awards

Our “Critic’s Corner” columnist has won more awards for his recent books on General Hood. The latest is the Fletcher Pratt Award given by the Civil War Round Table of New York.

Steve is author of Texas Brigadier to the Fall of Atlanta: John Bell Hood (2019) and Into Tennessee and Failure: John Bell Hood (2020). Both are published by Mercer University Press, https://www.mupress.org.

The Round Table award was created in 1956 shortly after the death of Fletcher Pratt, distinguished Civil War historian and former president of the CWRTNY. Previous winners include James M. McPherson and Edwin C. Bearss.

“I’m thrilled to stand amidst such tall cotton,” Steve remarked. His two Hood books have also received the Richard Barksdale Harwell Award of the Atlanta Civil War Round Table, as well as the Douglas Southall Freeman Award of the Military Order of the Stars and Bars.

Celebrating their 70th Season— Civil War Round Table of New York

The Civil War Round Table of New York celebrated its 70th season with a program on John Bell Hood by Fletcher Pratt Award winner Stephen Davis, and Civil War period music by John Gregor of the Sons of Union Veterans and his vintage banjo. Present were six past and present RT Presidents. Although, like most

other Round Tables, they had been forced to do a combination of Zoom and live meetings the past couple of years, they were able to add to the celebration with a tour the following Sunday to Grant’s Tomb, where the park ranger gave an enlightening history of the memorial’s origins and choice of location and style.

Civil War Round Table of New York presents the 20202021 Fletcher Pratt Award to Stephen Davis for The Generalship of John Bell Hood.

New York Round Table members gather at Grant’s Tomb. Second from right is Patrick Falci, Chair of the Round Table’s Book Award Committee. Note his red shirt: Pat played General Hill in Turner’s Gettysburg

Additional Backlist—Civil War Era History

Atlanta’s Fighting Forty-Second: Joseph Johnston’s “Old Guard” W. Clifford Roberts, Jr. and Frank E. Clark H985 | $39.00t | 9780881467413

Into Tennessee and Failure: John Bell Hood Stephen Davis H998 | $35.00t | 9780881467673

Texas Brigadier to the Fall of Atlanta: John Bell Hood Stephen Davis H980 | $35.00t | 9780881467208

Incidents in the Life of Cecilia Lawton: A Memoir of Plantation Life, War, and Reconstruction in Georgia and South Carolina Karen Stokes, editor H996 | $25.00t | 9780881467659

Camp Oglethorpe: Macon’s Unknown Civil WarPrisoner of War Camp, 1862–1864 Stephen Hoy and William Smith H967 | $35.00t | 9780881466911

Combat Chaplain: The Life and Civil War Experiences of Rev. James H. McNeilly M. Todd Cathey H947 | $35.00t | 9780881466379

The Damnedest Set of Fellows: A History of Georgia’s Cherokee Artillery Garry D. Fisher and Zack C. Waters H983 | $35.00t | 9780881467390

Like a Great Feudal Landlord: How Architecture and Slavery Created the World of the Upcountry Planter Heidi Amelia-Anne Weber H1017 | $40.00t | 9780881468229

Breaking the Heartland: The Civil War in Georgia John D. Fowler and David C. Parker, editors H824 | $29.00t | 9780881462401

The Strange Journey of the Confederate Constitution: And Other Stories from Georgia’s Historical Past William Rawlings H939 | $29.00t | 9780881466263 e-book | $12.00t | 9780881466393

Author Stephen Davis proudly holds his Fletcher Pratt Award and his latest book, Into Tennessee & Failure John Bell Hood. (Photograph by Hunter Hawk)

Emerging Civil War Series Spotlight

Determined to Stand and Fight: The Battle of Monocacy, July 9, 1864 by Ryan Quint. Savas Beatie, 2017.

Editor’s Note: Civil War News is pleased to continue a new monthly series highlighting books in the Emerging Civil War Series (ECWS) published by Savas Beatie, LLC.

The mission of the series is to offer compelling and easy-to-read overviews of some of the Civil War’s most important battles and issues. Each volume features more than a hundred and-fifty photos and graphics, plus sharp new maps, visually engaging layouts, and thought-provoking appendices. To date, forty-three books have been published in the series.

The Army Historical Foundation honored the Emerging Civil War Series with its Lieutenant General Richard G. Trefry Award for contributions to the literature on the history of the U.S. Army, calling it “an invaluable collection of Civil War battlefield guides.”

The series has also served as a fertile starting point for a lot of “emerging voices” in the field, something important to us here at Civil War News

About the Book:

In early July 1864, a quickly patched together force of

outnumbered Union soldiers under the command of Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace prepared for a lastditch defense along the banks of the Monocacy River. Behind them, barely fifty miles away, lay the capital of the United States, open to attack.

Facing Wallace’s men were Lt. Gen. Jubal Early’s Confederates. In just under a month, they had cleared the Shenandoah Valley of Union soldiers, crossed the Potomac River, invading the north for the fourth time in the war. The veterans in Early’s force could almost imagine their flags flying above the White House. A Confederate victory near Washington could be all the pro-peace platforms in the north needed to defeat Abraham Lincoln in the upcoming election.

Then came Monocacy. Over the course of that one day, Union and Confederate soldiers attacked and counter-attacked, filling the fields southeast of Frederick, Md., with dead and wounded. By the end of the day, Wallace’s men retreated, but they had done their job; they had slowed Jubal Early. The fighting at Monocacy soon became known as the “Battle that Saved Washington.” Determined to Stay and Fight by Ryan T. Quint tells the story of that pivotal day and the even more pivotal campaign that went right to the gates of Washington, D.C. Readers can enjoy the narrative and then easily follow along on a nine-stop driving tour around the battlefield and into the streets of historic Frederick. Another fascinating

title from the award-winning Emerging Civil War Series.

About the Author:

A Maine native, Ryan Quint is a Park Guide at the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park. He formerly worked at the Richmond National Battlefield Park, Colonial Williamsburg, and the George Washington Foundation. Ryan has a history degree from the University of Mary Washington.

“Behind the Scenes” by Ryan Quint

When I reflect on the battle of Monocacy and the origins of what eventually became Determined to Stand and Fight, I think back to how the engagement outside Frederick, gave me a greater

appreciation for the Civil War’s smaller actions.

As a student of the Civil War, I had certainly spent my fair share of time studying Antietam or Gettysburg, but then came the documentary No Retreat from Destiny. Depicting Jubal Early’s 1864 Invasion of Maryland and the ensuing battles of Monocacy and Fort Stevens, I first watched the film sometime around junior year of high school. I was drawn to the fact that these smaller engagements were just as dramatic and had just as much human interest as bigger battles that had entire bookshelves devoted to them. So, I made it my mission to read as much about them as I could get my hands on.

Fast forward a couple of years, and I was an intern at Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park in the summer of 2013. On one particularly slow day out at the Wilderness Exhibit Shelter, I pulled out Glenn Worthington’s Fighting for Time; Worthington’s words were some of the first written about the battle, and as a witness to the actions as a young boy, Worthington’s perspective was particularly gripping. I was working with Chris Mackowski that day, and at some point, he asked me what I was reading. The ensuing conversation was the first time I spent any considerable amount of time discussing Early’s Maryland Invasion with another historian, and eventually Chris invited me to write a guest post about Lew Wallace’s role in the battle. That marked my introduction to Emerging Civil War.

As I worked my way through those first guest posts, I was reminded about the importance of small, and sometimes forgotten, battles. Especially surrounded by the behemoth stories of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania, I realized that Monocacy was just as important to the participants as those much bigger and bloodier engagements. So, I read more, and wrote more. I made the battle of Monocacy the topic of my senior thesis for my history degree at the University of Mary Washington. I went on my first trips to the Monocacy National Battlefield, and saw the red brick Worthington House, where young Glenn saw the fighting from his basement.

Then came the offer from Chris to write the Emerging Civil War Series book for Monocacy. I was nervous about taking the leap to

Ryan Quint.

that next step, but had plenty of support from friends, family, and from the park staff and volunteers at Monocacy who helped with all sorts of research and answered questions, no matter how mundane. The book began to take shape over a year; my senior thesis became Chapter 5, and gradually the whole thing began to take shape. The time finally came to visit Monocacy to take all the photographs, and fittingly, I went with Chris to take them. Without his suggestion to write about Monocacy, I’m not sure I ever would have. No blog posts, no senior thesis, and certainly ECW book. I’m extremely thankful for those suggestions, and for the gentle nudging along the way.

I remember a very cold January night going to the post office to pick up three boxes full of the book when it came out in early 2017. I eagerly opened the boxes when I got home and stared at the cover, not fully believing my eyes; I put aside the first copy in the box for myself and pulled the rest out. It was a bit of an outof-body experience signing the inside pages for people who had bought copies of the book; I was a published author.

At the time I write this, it’s been more than ten years since I saw No Retreat from Destiny; it’s been eight since that conversation at the Wilderness with Chris, and it’s been about five years since Determined to Stand and Fight came out. What remains still is my focus on smaller battles. Understanding those actions that have been all but swept under the rug of memory has driven me with new projects and new appreciations for the people who were thrown into conflict in the 1860s.

What got you first interested in the battle of Monocacy?

When I was in high school, I saw the documentary No Retreat from Destiny. Before then, I had never heard of the battle of Monocacy. The documentary was well done, and I wanted to learn more about the battle.

What inspired you to translate your interest in the battle of Monocacy into a book?

As I started reading more about it, I interned with the National Park Service. As a break from the battlefields where I was interning, I read more about Monocacy and decided to take a crack at writing some blog posts for

Emerging Civil War. I don’t think I did anything groundbreaking or made earth-shattering discoveries with those blogs, but it was enough to get the creative bug, so to speak. After I made Monocacy the topic of my senior research topic at college; the book for the Emerging Civil War Series was just the next step.

Were there particular misconceptions about the battle of Monocacy you were hoping to clarify?

When some talk about Monocacy, they shrug it off and say something along the lines of, “The Confederates could have never taken Washington, D.C., anyways.” To me, that always seemed like missing the point. Even if the Confederates couldn’t hold the capital, the threat of nearly 15,000 combatants getting into the city during a crucial election year when Abraham Lincoln wasn’t so sure he’d win always stuck out to me. How would the Northern people react to that? Would Lincoln and his cabinet have to be whisked away to safety? The Federals’ stand at Monocacy and the fighting near Fort Stevens made it so those dire situations didn’t need to happen.

As you did your research, did you come across any new discoveries? Was there anything that surprised you?

I was fortunate to get permission from a family that owned a photograph of James Van Valkenburg, a Confederate officer killed at Monocacy, to print his image in the book. I know that seems like a small thing, but I’ve always believed in the power of photographs and images. With a photograph, the person becomes more than just a name on the page, they become an individual, and as far as I’m aware, before my book that image had not been published.

What was the most challenging part about writing the book? Why?

There are a lot of Confederate sources for the part of the battlefield that today is preserved as the Monocacy National Battlefield, but there are not as many for the northern part of the battlefield, near what was known as the Jug Bridge. Trying to piece together what happened there was a bit difficult. The Confederate commanders who oversaw the fighting at the bridge, Stephen Ramseur in the morning and

Robert Rodes in the afternoon, were both killed later in 1864, before either wrote an official report.

Who is someone in the book you came to better understand or appreciate? Why?

I already had a pretty strong respect and appreciation for Lew Wallace, the Federal commander at Monocacy, but researching and writing the book only further strengthened that. Here was a guy that no one, at least not Grant or Henry Halleck, whose opinions were the only ones that arguably mattered in the summer of 1864, cared much for, and who actually thought Wallace was a hindrance to the Federal war effort. When they dropped the ball and did almost nothing until it was too late, Wallace stepped up and did his best with a cobbled-together force. Wallace was sometimes his own worst enemy, and let his mouth run a little too much, but I still think he’s an underappreciated figure for what he did during the war.

Is there some part of the battlefield, or some other related historical place, that your book helped you better appreciate or understand? Why?

Near the Thomas Farm, where

the battle came to a head, one of the assaulting Confederate brigades was able to use some folds and rises in the ground to advance without taking very heavy fire. That protection allowed them out to outmaneuver a Federal brigade, forcing the Union battleline back. Walking those hills in preparation for the book allowed me to understand those pivotal minutes better.

What did you learn about the writing process by writing this book? No matter how many times you or someone else reads the drafts, there will be a typos. It’s a cruel fact of life.

What sort of feedback have you gotten on the book since it came out? Is there something people particularly enjoy or are surprised by?

Feedback has been overall positive; I couldn’t be happier with it. I think people enjoy having a chance to read about something that hasn’t always been the marquee attention grabber; it gives them opportunities to learn stories they haven’t read a thousand times before.

Have you had to make revisions since the first draft? If so, what have you had to

update?

Those typos I mentioned earlier? The second edition has already been put together to fix some of those. I say “some” because, again like above, I’m sure there are others that have evaded prying eyes.

I work at and talk about some of the biggest battles of the entire war as a part of my day job. so I appreciate the chance to research and write about the smaller actions once I get home. Since Determined to Stand and Fight has been published, I have spent the intervening years researching and writing a book about the Battle of Dranesville. It should come out sometime in 2023, and that’ll be another exciting chance to introduce people to events that are outside the usual scope of study.

What advice would you give to young writers who are thinking about writing their first book?

Constructive criticism can sometimes seem mean-hearted, but it very rarely is. Rather, it is people who want to help, and can help, make you a much better writer. Don’t take it personally, and if you’re willing to listen, your writing will come out much stronger than it went in.

delivered 2,225 arms into store during fiscal year 1845 (July 1, 1844 to June 30, 1845). The M1842 muskets remained in production until 1855, with

U.S. Model 1842 Musket Production Numbers

U.S. Model 1842 Rifled Musket

A question came up on one of the internet forums about the U.S. Model 1842 smoothbore musket compared to the rifled version of that model, specifically how common were the rifled versions?

The M1842 muskets were not designed to be rifled, and it was something of an afterthought to upgrade and modernize the arms. In attempting to answer the question, I looked up the figures on M1842 production from my 2006 book, The Civil War Musket: A Handbook for Historical Accuracy. I had the M1842 production figures in the chapter on smoothbore muskets as 272,565 (p. 218) which is awfully precise. So where did that come from? I did not cite the

source and the text was written quite a while ago ... as I recall it was from the Springfield Armory National Park website, but I could be wrong. Hence, I decided to look a little further.

In fellow Civil War News columnist Joe Bilby’s Civil War Guns website, the article on the U.S. M1842 gives a somewhat similar but rounder number:

“The Model 1842 U.S. Percussion Musket was produced in great numbers by both the Harpers Ferry and Springfield Armories from 1844 to 1855. The Model 1842 was notable in several respects, chiefly, that it was the last .69 caliber musket. Additionally, it was the first weapon made at both Harpers Ferry and Springfield with completely interchangeable parts. Harpers Ferry produced 103,000, while Springfield produced 172,000, for a total production

surpassing a quarter of a million arms.”

Fellow Civil War News columnist Tim Prince, of College Hill Arsenal, gives a similar but slightly different figure in a listing he had for a M1842 rifledmusket as follows: “The U.S. M1842 percussion musket went into production at the Springfield Arsenal in 1844; with 2,956 completed guns being delivered into stores that fiscal year (July 1, 1843-June 30, 1844). Production did not commence at Harper’s Ferry until 1845. That armory

Union soldier wearing frock coat and havelock/hat combination with bayoneted Model 1842 musket, knife, and Colt revolver. Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs (Library of Congress).

Springfield Armory producing 165,970 and Harpers Ferry producing 106,629, making the total production for the M1842 musket 272,599.”

Sixty-nine caliber lead projectile for smoothbore muskets.

As far as the numbers rifled and sighted, Tim states “Between 1855 and 1859 slightly less than 44,000 M1842 muskets were rifled at five U.S. arsenals and armories, including the Springfield, and Harper’s Ferry armories, and the Saint Louis, Frankford, and Benicia Arsenals. Of the 43,759 muskets rifled, 23,683 received long-range rear sights. The rifled and sighted alterations took place at both Harper’s Ferry and Springfield, as well as at Saint Louis and Frankford. Benicia Arsenal did not apply long-range rear sights to any guns they altered. Between 1856 and 1859 Springfield rifled and sighted 9,929 M1842s; Harper’s Ferry rifled and sighted 11,060 M1842s. Frankford Arsenal rifled and sighted 1,313 between 1857 and 1858 while the Saint Louis rifled and sighted 1,381 in 1857.”

Summarizing U.S. Armory production by year from American Military Shoulder Arms vol. 2 and vol. 3, by George D. Moller, are listed in the production numbers table.

Moller further noted that between 1856 and 1859, 20,076 U.S. Model 1842 Muskets were rifled and a further 23,683 rifled and fitted with a ladder rear sight.

Craig L. Barry was born in Charlottesville, Va. He holds his BA and Masters degrees from UNC (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.

Left: During the production life, between 1844–1855, Harpers Ferry manufactured around 100,000 Model 1842 muskets and Springfield produced around 172,000. This .69 caliber smoothbore musket fired a spherical lead ball. (Arston Grant collection)

Chattanooga Antique Militaria & Americana Show & Sale

Annual event better than ever!

For the 6th straight year, the Camp Jordan Arena in Eastridge, Tenn., hosted what is becoming one of the “have to be there”

Civil War and Antique Military shows in the southeast. Dealers and collectors from across the country attended this year’s show, one of two such events each year put on by American Digger magazine. The other event is their Charleston show held each January.

One of the tasks of a promoter is to get out word about the show,

including to the public. The later was accomplished by widespread advertising and news coverage, including a five minute guest appearance by show promoters

Butch Holcombe and Mark Schuessler on Chattanooga TV Chanel 12’s live morning news the day before. Other news media reported from the arena once the doors officially opened. According to Holcombe, “There is nothing better to draw the public than media coverage. Not only does it make the public aware of what is going on, it also introduces many to a hobby they may never have known existed,

collecting history.”

There were over 230 eight foot display tables set up in the spacious air-conditioned hall; all were filled with items from ancient to WWII. Previous to the event, a huge collection of Civil War relics from Atlanta was sold by a deceased collector’s family, resulting in a huge array of relics at Chattanooga that were never offered to the public before. As at all American Digger shows, awards were given. Winners this year were: Best Non Dug, Jeremiah Simmons (a wallet belonging to CSA Major General Howell Cobb); Best Dug, Tommy

Crook (a SS Nazi Officer’s hat insignia); Most Educational, Del Thomasson (a flagstaff topper display); and Robert Bushnell (a Republic of Texas display).

An informal survey among dealers revealed that most did well at the show, with one major

dealer saying it was his best show ever.

The 2023 show date has already been announced for July 22 & 23 at the same Eastridge, Tennessee venue. For more information, email anita@americandigger. com or call 770-362-8671.

Due to heavy promotion, the show hall was crowded with members of the public.

Award winners at the American Digger Chattanooga Show, L-R: Del Thomasson, Jeremiah Simmons, Tommy Crook, and Robert Bushnell.

Media participation helped bring in the public. Here, promotor Mark Shulser is interviewed at the arena by a local TV station.

Artifacts of all types could be found at the show.

The town of Eastridge has been very accommodating for the annual show, even hanging a banner across their main street.

Confederate Fort Names Change proposal

On May 24 the commission to consider renaming installations currently named after Confederates released its initial report. The proposed changes to army forts are:

• Fort AP Hill, Va., to Fort Walker, for Dr. Mary Edwards Walker

• Fort Benning, Ga., to Fort Moore, for Lieutenant General Hal Moore and Julia Moore

• Fort Bragg, N.C., to Fort Liberty

• Fort Gordon, Ga., to Fort Eisenhower, for General Eisenhower

• Fort Hood, Texas, to Fort Cavazos, for General Richard Cavazos

• Fort Lee, Va., to Fort Gregg-Adams, for Lieutenant General Gregg and Lieutenant Colonel Adams

• Fort Pickett, Va., to Fort Barfoot, for Technical Sergeant Van Barfoot

• Fort Polk, La., to Fort Johnson, for Sergeant William Henry Johnson

• Fort Rucker, Ala., to Fort Novosel, for Chief Warrant Officer Michael Novosel

The commission of eight people included six former service members (ranging in rank from four-star to sergeant), one U.S. House member (from Georgia), and one person who formerly served in the State and Defense Departments. Buildings and streets named for Confederates on other army, navy, and air force installations will also be considered for renaming. More about the commission’s origins, objectives, members, and process is at https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/The_Naming_Commission. The commission’s final report is to be delivered to Congress by October 1, 2023, and the names must change by January 1, 2024.

The Commission is chartered with five primary activities:

Assessing the cost of renaming or removing names, symbols, displays, monuments, or paraphernalia that commemorate the Confederate States of America or any person who served voluntarily with the Confederate States of America.

Developing procedures and criteria to assess whether an existing name, symbol, monument, display, or paraphernalia commemorates the Confederate States of America or person who served voluntarily with the Confederate States of America.

Recommending procedures for renaming assets of the Department of Defense to prevent commemoration of the Confederate States of America or any person who served voluntarily with the Confederate States of America.

Developing a plan to remove names, symbols, displays, monuments, or paraphernalia that commemorate the Confederate States of America or any person who served voluntarily with the Confederate States of America from assets of the Department of Defense, within the timeline established by this Act.

Including in the plan procedures and criteria for collecting and incorporating local sensitivities associated with naming or renaming of assets of the Department of Defense.

The Commission was authorized $2 million to conduct its work, and must brief the House and Senate Armed Services Committees on its progress by October 1, 2021, and then present a final briefing and written report to the armed services committees by October 1, 2022. The Commission meets biweekly and will brief the Secretary of Defense on its progress and recommendations. The Commission’s focus throughout the summer and fall of 2021 comprised visiting the nine Army installations named for those who voluntarily served in the Confederacy. The Commission is meeting with installation leadership to gauge

their level of planning and their local assessments.

The Commission has expanded their investigation of military assets to include assets with names that commemorate other Civil War era events or places to see if the name has a connection to the Confederacy. Examples given are USS Antietam (CG-54) and Fort Belvoir.

Until December 1, 2021, the Commission had collected suggestions from the general public for possible replacement names for the military assets that the Department of Defense may finally decide to rename. After receiving thousands of suggestions, the Commission posted a list of 90 names in March 2022 that it plans to consider as possible replacement names for the nine Army installations before the list is further narrowed to produce the list of finalists.

In March 2022, the Commission determined that Fort Belvoir does not meet the criteria provided in the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act for a

renaming recommendation but the commission recommends that the Department of Defense conduct its own naming review of the post, based on results of the commission’s historical research.

At end of the same month, the Commission posted a list of 758 Defense Department items at U.S. military installations

in the United States, Germany and Japan that have ties to the Confederacy. Many of the items on the list are streets, signs, paintings and buildings. Included on the list, Arlington National Cemetery has a memorial dedicated to Confederate war dead which includes “highly sanitized depictions of slavery.”

American Battlefield Trust “Relentlessly” Seeks to Save 170 Acres Tied to the Civil War’s Western Theater

The American Battlefield Trust is currently working to preserve 170 acres across three Western Theater battlefields: Lookout Mountain, Tenn., Mill Springs, Ky., and Fort DeRussy, La. Troops were relentless in their campaigns on these fields. Today, developers are relentless in their purchase and development of land without regard for historic battlefields. So too must the Trust be relentless in our mission to preserve precious pieces of hallowed ground for generations to come.

The three targeted properties have a total transaction value of $1,590,288 but the Trust was relentless in its efforts to secure funding. Thanks to grants and a generous landowner, only $149,144 is needed. With a $10.66-to-$1 match, it is important to remember that all contributions can have a massive impact on these historic treasures.

Lookout Mountain is where more than 13,000 Federal and Confederate troops were killed, wounded, or captured. However, if you look around, your eyes will come to rest on the Lookout Mountain Tourist Lodge, abandoned, graffiti-strewn, and a complete eyesore. Now, the Trust aims to buy the one-acre tract, tear down the old motel’s remnants and begin the process of preserving the site in perpetuity.

Two parcels totaling 147 acres will be sought at Mill Springs, the site marking the first significant Union victory in the Western Theater of the Civil War. The Federal victory there not only helped bolster Northern morale but also ensured that Kentucky would remain under Union control for the remainder of the war.

Lastly, at Fort DeRussy, the site of the first battle of the Red River Campaign, the Trust is eyeing a 22-acre tract. The two-monthlong battle ended on May 22, 1864, and resulted in a landslide Union victory. As a result, the Red River from New Orleans to Alexandria was opened and helped the Union achieve their target, Shreveport, the capital city of Confederate Louisiana.

Even better, each site being pursued is adjacent to land the Trust has already protected. We could very well build connected and contiguous stretches of preserved battlefield land. To learn more about this effort, visit www.battlefields. org/170WesternTheaterAcres.

Commemorating the 160th Anniversary of the Battle of Cedar Mountain: Signage and Seminars!

Just in time for the 160th anniversary of the battle that unfolded upon its soil, the Cedar Mountain Battlefield in Culpeper County, Va., is the recipient of brand-new interpretive signage. Over 10 panels discussing the 1862 battle were installed through the collaborative efforts of the American Battlefield Trust, Civil War Trails, Inc., Friends of Cedar Mountain Battlefield and the Culpeper Department of Economic Development and Tourism.

The interpretive signs will enrich the visitor’s experience by highlighting the story of the battle and its participants, both of which

will be illustrated by including maps and photographs. They are a welcome addition, especially considering the battlefield’s upcoming incorporation into the new Culpeper Battlefield State Park.

To further commemorate the 160th anniversary of the August 9, 1863, Battle of Cedar Mountain, the Friends of Cedar Mountain Battlefield are hosting a History Seminar from July 28. The event will include a number of presentations from architects, historians and authors, while the keynote presentation will be given by Pulitzer Prize nominee, Jeffry D. Wert. A variety of tours will also be offered throughout. To learn more about this event, visit https://friendsofcedarmountain. org/history-seminar-7-2022/.

Standing Tall in the Face of ModernDay Development, Opportunity to Save 52 Acres

The epicenter of the Civil War’s Eastern Theater, Virginia witnessed some 40 percent of that conflict’s major battles. Suburban development pressures in Northern Virginia even spurred the creation of a modern battlefield preservation movement, and the concentration of historic resources has driven the protection of thousands of acres across from the Blue Ridge to the Tidewater. Today, development pressure remains feverish throughout the Old Dominion, partially because of the unprecedented demand for 21st century infrastructure like data centers, solar farms and distribution facilities. In line with its ongoing vigilance, the American Battlefield Trust has begun its latest Virginia campaign, seeking to protect 52 acres of historically valuable land at Cumberland Church, Reams Station and Manassas.

The total transaction value for

the three tracts is $1,018,500, but more than 85 percent of that funding is already accounted for, leaving just $145,000 left to raise, and offering donors a 7-to1 return on their investment.

The three-acre tract at Manassas is the most expensive of the three properties targeted for development; it is also at the heart of the Second Manassas Battlefield very near the famous “Deep Cut.”

At Reams Station, the Trust has the opportunity to fill a “hole in the doughnut” with a threeacre property that will contribute to a critical mass of protected battlefield. Currently, a modern home sits on the property.

The 46-acre property at Cumberland Church, which marks one of the last desperate actions by the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, is the Trust’s first acquisition opportunity on the battlefield. Here a letter from Gen. U.S. Grant passed through battle lines to eventually land in the hands of Gen. Robert E. Lee. The letter asked that Lee surrender a portion of his Army of Northern Virginia, a request to which Lee did not comply.

For more details on the Trust’s current fundraising effort to save 52 acres at Manassas, Reams Station and Cumberland Church, visit www.battlefields. org/52VirginiaAcres.

Huzzah! 29 Acres at Cold Harbor Tavern Preserved Forever

In late July, the Trust announced a long-awaited preservation victory on the 29-acre property once home to the “Old Cold Harbor Tavern” and across which two separate battles unfolded. The effort was made possible with support from the HTR Foundation, the National Park Service, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. Adjacent to the previously-saved 50-acre tract that had been designed for a

Cedar Mountain Battlefield in Culpeper County, Va. (Photo by Judith Muffley)

Mill Springs Battlefield in Nancy, Ky. (Photo by Michael Byerley)

sportsplex, this land’s future is now certain.

Despite succumbing to fire in the early 1900s, the Cold Harbor Tavern amassed over 100 years of memories and had particular importance during the Civil War. Its position at the intersection of the Gaine’s Mill and Cold Harbor Battlefields guaranteed the tavern’s front-row seat to combat.

While the Trust wishes the original tavern was still standing, another dilapidated, semi-modern structure tarnished the battlefield landscape. So, with intent to revert these 29 acres to more closely resemble their historical appearance, President David Duncan, Chief Land Preservation Officer Tom Gilmore, and Land Stewardship Manager Matt George, along with a professional demolition crew, rolled up their sleeves and removed this eye-sore!

Explore People and Places of the Revolutionary War!

Teaming up with the Daughters of the American Revolution, the Trust launched a brand-new digital exhibition: The American Revolution Experience. The exhibit examines the lives of 13 unique individuals who witnessed the dawn of a new nation.

Touching on the fates of Patriots and Loyalists, men and women, black and Native populations, users will watch the physical journeys of the Revolution’s participants, discover thematic connections and explore contemporary connections. Check it out at https://american-revolutionexperience.battlefields.org.

While

the structure no longer stands, the Cold Harbor Tavern was digitally recreated and can be viewed on the American Battlefield Trust’s YouTube channel.

The American Revolution Experience interactive map connects people with place.

Manassas Battlefield in Manassas, Va. (Photo by Buddy Secor)

Champagne Dreams

John Hunt Morgan’s 1863 Raid – Part II

“A street fight is one of the most desperate modes of warfare known to a soldier.

The advantage is strongly against the storming party.”

Lt. Kelion Franklin Peddicord, 2nd Ky. Cavalry

On July 2, 1863, C.S. Gen. John Hunt Morgan launched his “Ohio and Indiana Raid” by crossing the rain swollen Cumberland River into Kentucky. On July 4, Morgan had to find an alternate Green River crossing after losing experienced officers against a much smaller force during the Battle of Tebb’s Bend, Ky. Kentucky newspapers assisted the raiders creating “scare and clamor,” by exaggerating the size

of Morgan’s force and speculating on where he would attack next.

U.S. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, Dept. Of Ohio, sent a message to U.S. Col. Charles Hanson, 20th Ky., stationed at Lebanon, Ky., “to select some defensible position and hold out if attacked until re-enforcements came, and not to let the enemy take me.” Hanson had about 380 men; Morgan’s 2,400 men were less than eight miles distant.

Morgan’s dilemma was that he needed the Federal supplies in Lebanon but wanted to minimalize casualties. Union colonel Hanson was the brother of Confederate General Roger Hanson, who had not only aided the Morgan’s Raiders, but had been killed in battle. Furthermore, the Federal force included former friends and family of Morgan’s men.

On July 5, 1863, the Battle

of Lebanon, Ky., began at 6:30 a.m. with skirmishing. Hanson had built a barricade of wagons across the road and positioned 330 skirmishers who he planned to have fall back through town to the brick railroad depot that had been prepared for defense.

Morgan’s men formed a two rank front, stretching two miles across open fields. At 7:00 a.m., C.S. artillery Capt. Edward Byrne fired his guns at the barricade. As the defenders retreated, Morgan sent Col. Robert Alston under the flag of truce to demand a surrender. Hanson declined. “Then notify the women and children to leave immediately,” Alston replied, “The town will be shelled.”

C.S. Lt. Thomas Hunt Morgan, 2nd Ky. Cavalry. Colorization © 2022 civilwarincolor.com, courtesy civilwarincolor.com/cwn. (University of Kentucky Libraries Special Collections and Research Center)

Before the townspeople could be evacuated, Byrne opened fire; two guns aimed at the railroad depot and two into the streets. The temperature was in the nineties. The Federals’ Enfield and Springfield rifles kept the Confederates at least 1,000 yards away from the depot.

C.S. Col. Roy Cluke, 8th Ky., was pinned down in the weeds. Byrne’s guns were ineffective striking the depot’s first floor sheltering the Federals but did set the roof on fire in two places. Col. Basil Duke realized that what was needed was a regiment experienced in street fighting.

Duke sent in Maj. Thomas Webber, 2nd Kentucky. Lt. Kelion Peddicord was part of the first mounted charge. The men came within 75 yards of the railroad depot before dismounting, “under the most deadly fire that we ever saw. The artillery took position on our right, opening on the depot in dead earnest. At every report the boys would cheer, the building tumbling at every discharge.” About noon, Morgan’s attempt to send in a messenger bearing the white flag of truce failed as both sides would not stop firing.

The cavalry rode up and down the streets. “Some of our troops would frequently run their guns and pistols through the windows and fire, while others would storm the doors and gain their entrance. … The whole town was quickly in a blaze and getting disagreeably hot.”

Col. Charles Hanson, 20th Ky. Colorization © 2022 civilwarincolor.com, courtesy civilwarincolor.com/cwn. (Public Domain)

C.S. Lt. Kelion Franklin Peddicord, 2nd Ky. Cavalry. Colorization © 2022 civilwarincolor.com, courtesy civilwarincolor.com/cwn. (Public Domain)

George A. “Lightening” Ellsworth. Colorization © 2022 civilwarincolor.com, courtesy civilwarincolor.com/cwn. (Public Domain)

Running ahead of the first charge was Lt. Tom Morgan, the well liked 19-year-old brother of the general. He was shot in the chest in the first volley. “His brother Calvin caught him as he fell, and he died in Calvin’s arms; his only words were: ‘Brother Cally, they have killed me.’”

Morgan ordered the buildings burned. About 1:20 p.m. Hanson “reluctantly surrendered.” C.S. Capt. Charlton Morgan had to be prevented from shooting surrendered U.S. captains McLeod and Parrish of the 20th Ky. The protesting Hanson was grabbed by his beard. The general vowed to shoot the man who harmed a prisoner. He turned to Hanson saying, “Charles, when you go home, if it is any source of gratification to you, tell Mother you killed brother Tom.”

The news that long-awaited Federal reinforcements were approaching compelled the Rebels to quick march out of town “herding the prisoners before them.” A heavy rainstorm was the salvation of the dehydrated, badly treated men. The following day, Morgan paroled the prisoners.

On July 6th, Morgan’s telegrapher, George “Lightening” Ellsworth, rode off with a detachment to the telegraph office at Bardstown Junction. Ellsworth had studied in Samuel Morse’s telegraph school and had the skill set to mimic another telegrapher’s cadence or “fist.”

The Federals were sending messages conjecturing Morgan was heading towards Louisville, Ky., and Ellsworth, a pioneer in counterintelligence, confirmed

been transported from Kentucky to Indiana that night.

The raiders were gleeful at arriving in a land untouched by the War. Some gave champagne parties supplied by the boats. Sgt. Henry Lane Stone wrote that “… We intend to live off the Yank hereafter and let the North feel like the South has felt of some of the horrors of war. … I just imagine now how the women will bug their eyes out at seeing a Rebel army.”

Sources:

★ Brown, Dee., The Bold Cavaliers: Open Road Media, 2012.

★ Mowery, David L., Morgan’s Great Raid: The Remarkable Expedition from Kentucky to Ohio: Arcadia Publishing, 2011.

★ Logan, India, W. P., Kelion Franklin Peddicord Of Quirk’s Scouts: Neale Publishing Company, 1908.

Stephanie Hagiwara is the editor for Civil War in Color.com and Civil War in 3D.com. She also writes a weekly column for History in Full Color.com that

covers stories of photographs of historical interest from the 1850’s to the present. Her articles can be found on Facebook, Tumblr and Pinterest.

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the inaccurate intelligence.

Instead, Morgan actually was headed to Brandenburg, Ky., to cross the Ohio River into Indiana. He tasked 10th Ky. Cavalry captains Sam Taylor, a nephew of former President Zachary Taylor, and Clay Merriwether to capture boats.

When the packet steamer

John B. McCombs arrived in Brandenburg as scheduled, 40 armed men leaped aboard from the wharf, surprising Captain Ballard, the crew, and 50 passengers. The men soon spotted a faster mailboat, the Alice Dean, which was not scheduled to stop. According to the Cincinnati Gazette, “the McCombs was headed out just in time to touch her bows, when the Rebels who were concealed on the McCombs, jumped on board the Dean and effected the capture of that boat also.”

On July 8th, Morgan loaded his men and supplies on to the vessels. The morning fog lifted to reveal some Indiana Home Guards on the opposite riverbank with an old cannon on a farm wagon chassis. The defenders’ cannon whistled and their rifles blazed; Byrne’s Parrott rifles and howitzers responded. It took only one round for the Indianans to scatter. By midnight, the raiders were in Indiana.

The Alice Dean was torched. Ballard’s friendship with Duke and his assurance that he would immediately travel to Louisville, spared his boat. The captain reported that by actual count 4,800 men, 5,000 horses, two 6-pounder cannon, and two 12-pounders had

★ United States, War Department. The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Washington: 1894. Series 1: Volume 23, Serial 34, page 647–648.

engaged in that business from the middle of the 18th century to the early 20th. From 1858 until his death in 1873 Wyon was the Chief Engraver of Her Majesty’s Seals, a prestigious position also held by his grandfather, father, and brother.

Deo Vindice

When I interviewed Scott Thompson for last month’s column, I saw, among the numerous items decorating his office walls, an image of the Great Seal of the Confederate States. The image was impressed on a square of aluminum foil. Its color and sparkle made the piece stand out in a space crowded with frames encasing various documents. Since this aluminumfoil seal didn’t fit in with the main theme of Scott’s collection (Civil War items related to insurance) I didn’t mention it in August and decided that this piece is worthy of its own column.

The term “seal” refers both to the hardware that makes the image and to the image itself. I will first discuss the image, then address the story of the welltravelled hardware.

The design of the seal was established by a joint resolution of the Confederate Congress adopted on April 30, 1863. The most prominent feature of the Great Seal is the image of George Washington, based on Thomas Crawford’s equestrian statue of the first president. This monument, in Richmond’s Capitol Square, was the location

of Jefferson Davis’s inauguration as president of the Confederate States on the 130th anniversary of Washington’s birth, Feb. 22, 1862. That date is inscribed on the seal, along with the nation’s motto, Deo Vindice. The Latin motto is best translated as “With God as our Protector.” Surrounding Washington is a wreath depicting the South’s principal agricultural products.

The presence of Washington makes a statement about the Confederate States’ view of their cause and their rights as sovereign entities. They did not consider themselves to be in rebellion against the federal polity that George Washington and other Founding Fathers established; rather, they were asserting the independence they had won severally under Washington’s leadership and which they had never relinquished.

What’s missing from the image is also interesting. The absence of any symbols of industrial might reminds us of the Confederacy’s main weaknesses, a weakness that contributed to their failure in asserting their independence.

That’s the image. Now to the hardware, outsourced to England. A Confederate diplomat in London, James M. Mason,

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.

www.mupress.org

866-895-1472

toll-free

The press and some other materials were left in Bermuda. More on the press below.

contracted with the sculptor John Henry Foley and the engraver Joseph Shepherd Wyon to design and produce the die, based on a photograph of the statue and a written description of the seal’s other elements.

Mason was one of the figures in the 1861 “Trent Affair,” when he and John Slidell were taken from the RMS Trent by a Union ship and later released at the insistence of the British. Foley, a native of Ireland, was a prominent artist in London. Foley also sculpted a statue of Stonewall Jackson in 1875, the famous work which in 2021 was moved from the Virginia Military Institute to the Virginia Museum of the Civil War. Wyon was a member of a distinguished family of engravers

The solid silver circular die weighs in at three troy pounds. It measures three and fiveeighths inches in diameter and is three-quarters of an inch thick. The recessed image on the die, pressed against a cake of wax, would create a raised image on the government document. The large screw press that went with the seal was also made in London.

Lieutenant Robert T. Chapman, CSN, was in charge of transporting the seal and its accoutrements across the Atlantic. Chapman had been Raphael Semmes’s second lieutenant on the Confederate raider CSS Sumter and was later first lieutenant on the CSS Georgia. Chapman and other naval officers escorted the seal, press, and related materials to Halifax on a British ship. From there, on another British steamer, the officers and their cargo sailed to Bermuda. Bermuda, of course, was the most important jumpingoff point for blockade runners. On the fourth attempt, in August 1864, the ship carrying the die ran past the Federal blockaders into Wilmington.

The seal was delivered to Confederate Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin in September 1864. As the press was left behind in Bermuda, the seal could not be used as designed. However, with the help of a jury-rigged contraption, the seal was used at least twice. For the most part the Confederacy continued to use a seal of an older design, the seal of the Provisional Government.

The postwar saga of the seal is filled with mystery and some chicanery. The first character to appear in this part of the story is William J. Bromwell, a clerk in the Confederate State Department. Bromwell took ten cartons containing department papers to Charlotte, and stored them in the courthouse on April 1, 1865, just one day before the evacuation of Richmond. The seal had been placed in one of those cartons. The government was dissolving. There was no one to give Bromwell any instruction about the material he was holding. He stored them in his own name and took them to Washington, D.C., the following year. There Bromwell was employed by the next character to step on the stage, John T. Pickett. At some point Bromwell told Pickett about the boxes and their contents.

Negative die of the Great Seal to produce raised image in wax. (Heritage Auctions)

With Pickett as the go-between, Bromwell sold all the papers to the United States government in 1872 for $75,000. The documents had been inspected and certified as authentic by Thomas O. Selfridge, USN.

Selfridge has a notable backstory, one that involves four lost warships. He was on the USS Cumberland when it was sunk by the CSS Virginia

in the Battle of Hampton Roads. He briefly commanded the USS Monitor after that ship’s captain was injured. Transferred to the Mississippi Squadron, Selfridge was captain of the USS Cairo when that gunboat went down in the Yazoo River in December 1862, the same month the Monitor was lost off Cape Hatteras. In 1864 Selfridge commanded the USS Conestoga when it was

sunk in a collision with another Federal ship.

The seal was not part of the deal reached between Bromwell and the U.S. Government. For some unknown reason Bromwell gave the seal to Selfridge while the sale was being finalized. Selfridge loaned the artifact to Pickett, who had 1,000 electroplate copies made. Proceeds from the sale of the replicas were to be used for the benefit of Confederate widows and orphans. Whether any widows and orphans received any aid is questionable.

After Pickett died in 1884 the only two people aware of the seal were Selfridge and the man who made the electroplate replicas. Bromwell had died in 1873; the electroplater was sworn, by Masonic oath, to secrecy.

Around the turn of the century some people got curious about the seal. A North Carolina judge, Walter Montgomery, researched documents in the Library of Congress and came to believe that Selfridge, by that time a retired admiral, was in possession of the goods. In 1911 Montgomery reported on his findings in the Richmond Times-Dispatch A long article in the Oct. 15, 1911, edition presents the details of Montgomery’s findings and casts Bromwell, Pickett, and Selfridge in a very unflattering light.

The following year Gaillard Hunt, chief of the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress, conducted his own research and reached the same conclusion as Montgomery. Hunt pressured Selfridge by threatening to publish. Selfridge conceded, but demanded payment of $3,000. I found no explanation why Selfridge yielded to Hunt’s pressure in 1912 after ignoring the negative publicity the previous year. Perhaps Hunt knew more of Selfridge’s dealings than what was reported in the TimesDispatch. Perhaps pressure from other sources was brought to bear.

Gaillard Hunt convinced three prominent Richmond men to chip in $1,000 each to meet Selfridge’s price. The buyers wanted to make sure the seal was genuine, of course, but who could verify the seal’s authenticity? Why Allan G. Wyon of course, the nephew of Joseph Wyon, who was continuing the family business in London. Three decades earlier, at John Pickett’s request, the firm had declared that Pickett’s electroplate replicas “could not have been produced except from the original seal.” In 1912 Allan Wyon said the silver seal being sold by Selfridge was the genuine article.

The Richmond buyers acquired the seal to preserve it for the public.

Hunt arranged for the seal to be transferred to the Confederate Memorial Literary Society. The organization operated the facility that was later named the Museum of the Confederacy and is now known as the American Civil War Museum. The Great Seal of the Confederacy has resided in this museum since 1912.

What happened to the screw press that was left in Bermuda back in 1864? That story can be told briefly. A Confederate commercial agent, John Bourne, held onto the press until he died two years after the war. It was then sold at auction. Its whereabouts for the next 20 years are unknown.

In 1888 a Bermudan named John S. Darrell bought it “as a piece of junk.” Once cleaned up, the “piece of junk” proved to be in good condition. Darrell had a replica of the Great Seal cast in brass. According to the Bermuda National Trust, the brass seal was made by the original engravers in London. So, for the fourth time in this story the Wyon firm entered the picture.

Darrell’s descendants, the Cox family of Hamilton, Bermuda, have the replica seal and the authentic press in their private collection. The Globe Hotel Museum in St. George’s, which is operated by the Bermuda National Trust, has working copies of the seal and the screw press on display. As Scott Thompson told me, “If you ever go there you can take a piece of aluminum foil and press it and make your own Great Seal of the Confederacy.”

Sources: I consulted several online sources to piece this story together. The most detailed and reliable source is a 1987 article written by Guy R. Swanson in the Summer Edition of the Museum of the Confederacy Journal (online reprint by the Confederate Historical Society of Belgium) Swanson had earlier been the museum’s Curator of Manuscripts and Archives. The Bermuda National Trust provided much information, including a photo of the screw press. The Oct. 15, 1911, edition of the Richmond Times-Dispatch devoted a full page to detail the research conducted by Walter Montgomery. An even more detailed article, appearing on May 19, 1912, recounted the entire story including information on Hunt’s role and the sale to the three Richmonders, which by that date had been completed, subject only to verification by the Wyon firm.

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. His email is gould.hagler@gmail.com.

Take a piece of aluminum foil to Bermuda and make your own Great Seal of the Confederacy.

Great Seal of the Confederacy in brass. Inscription: * THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA: 22 FEBRUARY * DEO VINDICE. (Library of Congress)

Replica of press on display at Globe Hotel Museum (Bermuda National Trust Collection)

Chronicling America Maps and Visualizations

In previous installments of this column, researchers have read about various Civil Warera newspapers now digitized and available via different websites. One of the best just got even better! The Library of Congress (LOC), through the ‘Chronicling America’ collection, now provides visual aids for navigating almost 20 million newspaper pages. https://tinyurl. com/yckzvdwu.

As the LOC suggests, review the “...links and descriptions to several different types of interactive maps, graphs, and charts designed to assist users in better understanding the scope and coverage of newspapers in Chronicling America.”

This writer selected ‘Chronicling America Temporal Coverage by State (Map)’ in this example https://tinyurl.com/ mpsk8wfr.

See (Map) image. Next, select the ‘View the Interactive visualization’ link. Click and drag on the graph, as shown in the graph image, to choose the years 1861-1865. Next, right-click these selected years and click the line image beside ‘exclude.’ A ‘Full Data’ window will open, as shown below. Click ‘Full Data’ to retrieve all the specific newspaper stats from the LOC.

Three columns appear in the next window: year, state, and count (newspaper issues). Researchers can sort any of the three columns in ascending or descending order. For this exercise, the writer sorted newspaper issues in descending order of quantity of issues at LOC (click next to the column headings to sort).

‘Chronicling America’ collection at https:// chroniclingamerica.loc.gov.

Sorted newspaper issues by state and year.

Sorted newspaper issues by quantity at Library of Congress.

Chronicling America Temporal Coverage by State (Map). Graph.

Full Data window.

Until next month, continued luck in researching the primary sources from 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 at www.civilwarhistorian. net. Follow Michael on Facebook, www.facebook.com/ michael.k.shaffer, and Twitter @ michaelkshaffer.

Until now, a daily account (1,630 days) of Georgia’s social, political, economic, and military events during the Civil War did not exist. In Day by Day through the Civil War in Georgia, Michael K. Shaffer strikes a balance between the combatants while remembering the struggles of enslaved persons, folks on the home front, and merchants and clergy attempting to maintain some sense of normalcy. Maps, footnotes, a detailed index, and bibliographical references will aid those wanting more.

February 2022 • $37.00, hardback

Michael K. Shaffer is a Civil War historian, instructor, lecturer, newspaper columnist, and author. He is a member of the Society of Civil War Historians, Historians of the Civil War Western Theater, and the Georgia Association of Historians. Contact the author: mkscdr11@gmail.com

• 866-895-1472 toll-free

Mark Twain and the War (I) Sam Clemens, Confederate Deserter

“Twain in his later years was more Westerner and New Englander than Southerner, so that his work does not properly belong to this volume,” write the editors of The Literature of the South (1968 [1952]).1

That may be correct, but I’ve always considered Mark Twain to be a Southern writer, just one who retired to Connecticut.

This is all the more true when one considers Sam Clemens’ brief experience in the Civil War.

Clemens was born in Florida, in northeast Missouri, in 1835, of parents who traced their ancestry to early Virginia and Kentucky. When he was just a few years old they moved to the Mississippi River town of Hannibal. At the age of fourteen he started work as a printer’s apprentice. In 1857 he began serving as a steamboat pilot until the start of the war shut down river traffic.2

His parents, J. Marshall and Jane L., had been slaveholders in Missouri, albeit small ones (Jane brought two or three slaves into the marriage). Marshall, an attorney and judge, then acquired more as he could afford them. For her part, as Twain remembered in his Autobiography, Jane Clemens was a diehard Southern sympathizer who detested Yankees “with a splendid energy.”

As crisis loomed in 1860, the young river pilot affirmed his Southern loyalties to family and friends. His niece remembered that “his sympathies were with the South.”3

Minnesota.6 The three weeks thus spent refreshed the writer’s inspiration, and it was also the only time Twain visited Civil War battlefields and talked extensively with Southerners about their war experiences.

Thus it should come as no surprise that when some young men in Hannibal organized the Ralls County Rangers, Clemens (aged twenty-four) joined up and was elected second lieutenant. But after two weeks of dull drill and hiding from Yankees, Sam decided this kind of soldiering was not for him. When his brother Orion announced plans to take a job in Nevada Territory, Sam went with him.

Settling in Virginia City, a hotbed of Southern sentiment (note the name), Clemens proudly claimed to have been a first lieutenant in the Confederate Army. When it came out that, as Arthur Pettit writes, “this Southern hotspur had actually been a second lieutenant of Missouri farm boys who spent most of their time retreating,” an embarrassed Clemens had to backtrack. By the spring of 1862 he had begun to morph into a Union sympathizer; six months after that he was railing in letters to friends against “the bastard confederacy” and predicting that a triumphant Union would soon be dictating terms “to submissive and groveling rebeldom.” 4

Thus was Sam Clemens’ conversion from Rebel to Yankee. His transformation from Confederate deserter to Unionist cheerleader became quite evident in his writing for the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise. It was in this newspaper that Clemens first signed himself as “Mark Twain,” Feb. 3, 1863.5 (The term, called out by riverboat leadsmen, meant that the river was two fathoms—twelve feet—deep, and safe water for navigation.)

Twain’s conversion, however, became a decided source of discomfort twenty years later.

In the early 1880s Twain was already an established writer, with The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calavares Cunty (1867), The Innocents Abroad (1869), Roughing It (1872) and Tom Sawyer (1876). Around that time he conceived the idea of a book based on his youthful riverboat piloting experiences. To stock his imagination he revisited the Mississippi after two decades’ absence. In April-May 1882 he travelled downstream from St. Louis to New Orleans and back upriver to St. Paul,

Samuel Clemens, however, had very few experiences to share. As he toured the South in 1882, Twain the Confederate deserter and converted Unionist probably felt uneasy among Southerners in whose conversations the war still figured so prominently. Twain’s task was in effect to distinguish between his actual war experiences and what he chose for others to know about them.7

His river-travel book, Life on the Mississippi, appeared in 1883. One sees in it Twain reflecting on what he had seen and heard in the South, essentially as an outsider looking in. He remarked, for instance, on Southerners’ fondness for “waw” talk. “In the South,” he wrote, “the war is what A.D. is elsewhere: they date from it. All day long you hear things ‘placed’ as having happened since the waw; or du’in the waw; or befo’ the waw; or right aftah the waw; or ‘bout two yeahs or five yeahs or ten yeahs befo’ the waw or aftah the waw.”

“…might not almost anybody reproduce for himself the life of that time in Vicksburg? Could you, who did not experience it, come nearer to reproducing it to the imagination of another nonparticipant than could a Vicksburger who DID experience it? It seems impossible; and yet there are reasons why it might not really be.” Believing it possible to reproduce in his imagination the ordeal of Vicksburg, and thus in a sense to impersonate a participant of the siege, Twain applies himself to the task of describing the bombardment as if he had been there to witness it. For two pages the shells crash vividly and dramatically, more dramatically, in fact, than in the diaries of actual observers.

In the Vicksburg passage, though, one sees that Twain fails in his effort to bring the war to personal terms. As an alternative tactic he reduces its scope and import through one of his favorite devices, comic deflation. The story of Admiral Porter’s dummy ironclad is to Twain “a very large joke…a very funny joke indeed.” In his notebook Twain recorded the story of a Federal bombardment which after thirteen days had done nothing more than break the leg of an innocent dog. Twain added this quip: “It was a rebel dog. Claim for pension

in Congress.” Typical of the author was his notebook entry in which he told of the Federal bombardment of Natchez in the comic dialect of an old darky. But as in his other attempts, he failed to achieve humor and to deflate his subject.

Though he could not share experiences with noncombatants at Vicksburg, Twain seemed to search about for a means of relating himself to the war. His most successful effort, something one sees plainly in Life on the Mississippi, involves the war on the river. It is clear that all the river battles interested the author, though he had participated in none of them. The best Twain could do was to pad his own narrative with thinly concealed plagiarisms from standard histories. Accounts of the naval battle at Memphis and the fighting at Port Hudson were lifted straight from J. S. C. Abbott’s series, “Heroic Deeds of Heroic Men,” which appeared in Harper’s Monthly. Yet at times Twain showed a remarkable ignorance of the river war. In his notebook he garbled the details of the battle at Plum Run; in Life he mentions “Grand Gulf and Rodney, of war fame”’ when it is apparent that Twain did not know for what Grand Gulf and Rodney were famous.

Twain is more successful when

At a dinner with some gentlemen, Twain heard a story about how a young New Yorker had remarked to an elderly black woman, “What a wonderful moon you have down here!” To which she replied, “Ah., bless yo’ heart, honey, you ought to seen dat moon befo’ de waw!”

One may well assume that Twain felt uneasy about his desertion when he was among ex-Confederates. To assuage his conscience he sought to come to terms with the war by imagining for himself a role in it. In Chapter XXXV in Life on the Mississippi, he literally tries to become a survivor of the siege of Vicksburg. He toyed with the idea:

Seldom published cabinet card portrait of Mark Twain, by Mora, Broadway, New York, 1882.

Book cover of Life on the Mississippi, 1883.

he confines his attention to the experiences of riverboating; he felt a genuine kinship with both men and locale. For instance, Twain takes particular pride in his ability to remember that Island No. 10, “a place so celebrated in the war,” was a mile nearer the Kentucky shore in 1861 when he was a pilot. More important are the associations Twain makes with pilots who fought in the war. More than once the author announces that in his own river days he had served under Horace Bixby and Ed Montgomery, who had led the opposing flotillas at Memphis. In that battle, after his ship had gone down, Confederate Captain Montgomery “swam ashore, fought his way through a squad of soldiers, and made a gallant and narrow escape. He was always a cool man; nothing could disturb his serenity.” It is clear that Twain had found an aristocracy with whom he could associate and share an exalted status. When describing the river aristocracy Twain could even exhibit the same flowery romanticism (as in references to “gallant escape” and “honorable death”) that otherwise he would have scorned. Evidently Twain would have liked to have been one of these romantic heroes himself. In his notebook he recorded a short tale about how some wily Confederates, Jeff Thompson’s “Swamp Rats,” outwitted the enemy at Island No. 8. The importance of the story is the unconscious slip Twain made

mechanism involved a way of perceiving the war as a whole. Having failed to deflate it, having failed to experience or even to associate meaningfully with it, Twain transformed the image of war so that it ceased to be a thing of awe and reverence, but became one of loathing.

in writing it: when he referred to Thompson’s men he wrote “we,” then had to strike it for “rebels.”

Try as he might, though, Twain could not share in the heroism of the river war. The pilots and soldiers were long gone; even the places themselves had changed. The only permanent vestige of the conflict that remained with which Twain might associate was the war cemetery. With these graveyards the author seemed to be enthralled, for his notebooks are dotted with references to them. Twain included in Life the inscription over the gateway of the Vicksburg National Cemetery. Privately he carried his tribute further, as when he transcribed in his notebook Theodore O’Hara’s famous eulogy: “On fame’s eternal camping ground/Their silent tents are spread/And glory guards with solemn round/The bivouac of the dead.”

Twain’s reverence for the war dead may be viewed in a sense as atonement for his own shirking of duty. Though he never served his country—either of them— he paid honor to those who did.

Yet Civil War graveyards were manifestly the least satisfying of all of Twain’s associations with the war. Throughout Life on the Mississippi the author searched vainly for a war experience, even an ersatz one, in which he might attain status as a hero and thus efface his memory of skulking.

Twain failed, of course, and had to cope with his guilt through defense mechanisms. One such

…which brings us to Fort Pillow. Forty miles above Memphis Twain passed the place where Bedford Forrest’s Confederates had butchered, some say deliberately massacred, a garrison of black Federals and white Tennessee Unionists. The author’s reaction to the incident is severe: “Massacres are sprinkled with some frequency through the histories of several Christian nations, but this is almost the only one that can be found in American history; perhaps it is the only one which rises to a size correspondent to that huge and somber title. We have the ‘Boston Massacre,’ where two or three people were killed; but we must bunch Anglo-Saxon history together to find the fellow to the Fort Pillow tragedy; and doubtless even then we must travel back to the days and the performances of Coeur de Lion, that fine ‘hero,’ before we accomplish it.”

This passage is significant in several ways. It underlines a theme of Huckleberry Finn, Twain’s distinction between the romance of the river and the violence along its banks. As such, the Fort Pillow massacre takes its place with the shooting of Boggs and the GrangerfordShepherdson feud. Moreover, the passage corresponds to an incident that Twain would relate two years after publishing “In “Private History,” the author tells of how the Marion Rangers’ first foray against the foe resulted in the death of a mysterious stranger, presumably an innocent civilian. The tragedy may never have occurred, but its narration allows Twain in a way to characterize the whole war as one big massacre, a lot of senseless killing. In the end, this is the image of war which Twain found most satisfying, for fleeing from senseless violence, the murder of the mysterious stranger, the massacre at Fort Pillow, provided the best possible justification for his desertion.

During his Southern foray, Twain was sometimes confronted with storied Confederate generals, of whom there were quite a few in postbellum New Orleans. In such encounters, Twain’s sense of inferiority led him to reduce their stature through one of his favorite devices, comic deflation.

At the Washington Artillery Armory in New Orleans, Twain

had the opportunity to view E. B. D. Fabrino Julio’s famous equestrian portrait, The Last Meeting of Lee and Jackson. When referring to it in Life on the Mississippi, he sought to deflate the overblown aura of sanctity surrounding the two Confederate heroes by giving Julio’s painting alternative titles: “First Interview between Lee and Jackson”; “Last Interview between Lee and Jackson”; “Jackson Introducing himself to Lee”; “Jackson Accepting Lee’s Invitation to Dinner”; “Jackson Declining Lee’s Invitation to Dinner—with Thanks”; “Jackson Apologizing for a Heavy Defeat”; “Jackson Reporting a Great Victory”; “Jackson Asking Lee for a Match.”

Reminds us that even when addressing America’s Civil War, Mark Twain could still be a funny guy.

Notes

1. Thomas Daniel Young, Floyd C. Watkins and Richard Croom Beatty, eds., The Literature of the South (Glenview IL: Scott, Foresman, 1968 [1952]), 100.

2. Arlin Turner, “Samuel Langhorne Clemens [Mark Twain]” in Robert Bain, Joseph M. Flora and Louis D. Rubin,

Jr., eds, Southern Writers: A Biographical Dictionary (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979), 85-86.

3. Arthur G. Pettit, Mark Twain and the South (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1974), 13-14, 18, 20, 24.

4. Pettit, Twain and the South, 25-27.

5. Ibid., 28, 194 n.17.

6. Frederick Anderson, Lin Salamo and Brenard L. Stein, eds., Mark Twain’s Notebooks and Journals (Berkeley, 1975), vol. 2, 43637. Subsequent references to Notebooks will appear in my text.

7. Steve Davis, “Mark Twain, the War, and Life on the Mississippi,” Southern Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the South, vol. 18, no. 2 (Summer 1979), 232. This article for Civil War News draws on my essay from way back.

Stephen Davis earned his Ph.D. in American Studies from Emory University back in ‘79. Since then he’s been writing articles and books on “de waw.” His next title, The Atlanta Daily Intelligencer Covers the Civil War, is now released by the University of Tennessee Press.

The best selection of historical reenactment items from Medieval era to Civil War era. Print

Mark Twain with cigar in hand. A.F. Bradley, New York, 1907.

www.emergingcivilwar.com

From the Editor

Symposium season is upon us at Emerging Civil War; this is always a great time of year to get together with members of the extended ECW family and enjoy the fellowship that comes from our shared love of history. YOU aren’t a part of that extended family, and I’m grateful to have you with us; hopefully you’ll be able to join us in person someday.

At this year’s event, we’re asking “What If,” a fun chance to do some arm-chair generalling while also asking some serious questions about what we know, what we think we know, and what we assume. Along with a lineup of great Symposium talks, we’ll also be supplementing that with a What-If series on the blog, some What-If videos on the ECW YouTube page, and a forthcoming second hardcover volume of What-If essays.

I want to take a moment to turn the question around on ourselves for a moment.

What if people stopped paying

attention to history? What if people stopped paying attention to the Civil War? What if people refused to heed the lessons and advice our own past offers us?

These are hypothetical questions, aren’t they? In fact, if you really think about them, there’s even a sense of urgency to them. The stakes underlying such questions are high.

On a more personal level, I sometimes wonder, what if Kris White, Jake Struhelka, and I hadn’t come up with the idea for Emerging Civil War eleven summers ago? Where would I be? How would my life be different?

Those are unanswerable questions, of course, but asking them helps me better appreciate what I do know. That’s a valuable reason for asking “What if?” It’s a question that can be fun, it can lead to insight, and surprisingly, it can invite gratitude. A life of gratitude is a full life, indeed.

Thank you for being a valued part of ours.

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

ECW News & Notes

Our historians keep busy! We’re pleased to share their adventures, and we hope it inspires you to track down their publications and attend their presentations.

Sheritta Bitikofer and her husband are just inches away from finishing up their new home, but she took time out of her crazy schedule to serve as staff for the American Battlefield Trust’s Teacher Institute in Mobile, Ala. It was a welcome break from the chaos.

Neil Chatelain just got back

from a European trip. He started in England and hit most of Scandinavia, the Baltic States, and Switzerland. Besides the plentiful castles, palaces, city walls, and churches, Neil also checked out the hulks of medieval ships, WW II German coastal artillery bunkers in Denmark, a Soviet nuclear missile silo in Lithuania, and explored the Swedish island of Gotland, where NATO naval forces worked this summer with Swedish military forces as part of Sweden’s application to join NATO. He also just published the article “New Orleans’ Floating Battery Duo” in the Summer 2022 issue of Civil War Navy–The Magazine. (“Attached is an obligatory picture of me with an old cannon at the old city walls of Tallin, Estonia,” he says.)

From Meg Groeling: “Just sitting on the porch, enjoying my cider (iced!) and reading Robert Tonsetic’s Special Operations During the American Revolution. No triple-digit temps, no one dying on the lawn delivering for Amazon, staying away from the mall so as not to get shot, just the usual. I swear I am going to learn about special ops and then plug in Elmer Ellsworth’s Zouave drill. It is all there; I just have to get it teased out and organized. I will miss everyone at the Symposium, but airlines have become impossible to book unless you want to get in at 1:00 in the morning.”

Steward Henderson had a talk at the Chancellors Village retirement community on July 28. His presentation was on the USCT and the Buffalo Soldiers. He was also the speaker at the Rappahannock Valley Civil War Round Table September meeting where he talked about New Market Heights and Fort Harrison.

Dwight Hughes presented a paper in June at the North American Society for Oceanic History (NASOH) Annual Conference in Wilmington, S.C.,

“Rebels and Aliens: Confederates on the Far Side of the World” about culture clash when the CSS Shenandoah visited the Pacific Island of Pohnpei in April 1865. On Gettysburg anniversary weekend, he gave at talk at the Gettysburg Heritage Center, “The Sailor and The Soldier at Vicksburg: Unprecedented Joint Operations” discussing Admiral David Porter’s navy partnership with Grant. This month, he had a one-day twofer in Williamsburg, Va., at the Brass Cannon Brewing Monthly Lecture Series and the James City Cavalry SCV Camp on the battle of Hampton Roads based on the ECW Series book “Unlike Anything That Ever Floated.” The ECW 10th Anniversary volume The Civil War on the Water: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War, which Dwight was lead editor on, will be on its way to the printer soon.

In the Autumn 2022 issue of America’s Civil War, Frank Jastrzembski shared Shrouded Veterans’ effort to place a veteran headstone on Brevet Brigadier General Herman H. Heath’s unmarked grave in Lima, Peru. Heath flirted with the idea of serving the Confederacy but later joined the Union war effort. He relocated to South America after the war and died in Lima in 1874. Heath is the first Civil War general to have a governmentissued veteran’s headstone installed in South America.

From Brian Matthew Jordan: “It has been an exceptionally busy month, from participating in two panels at the Society of Civil War Historians biennial meeting to leading a four-day tour of Antietam and Gettysburg for the Yale Club of Washington, D.C. I also delivered talks at the Seminary Ridge Museum and Gettysburg National Military Park for the 159th anniversary of the battle of Gettysburg. En route to these events, I crossed

off a major bucket list item, Fort Donelson, and visited the marker commemorating Island No. 10 in New Madrid, Missouri. I’m looking forward to the ECW symposium next month and an invited talk at Pamplin Historical Park.”

ECW’s newest regular contributor, Patrick KellyFischer, headed to New York and Vermont for the rest of July. First for a wedding and sometime home in the Hudson Valley, and then off to New York City, where he visited some Civil War-related sites for the first time, including Grant’s Tomb. “When I’m back in Denver in August,” he says, “I’ll be spending some quality time with the Silas Soule papers in the Denver Public Library.”

Derek Maxfield presented on his book Hellmira: The Union’s Most Infamous Civil War Prison Camp – Elmira, NY on Saturday, July 23 at the Genesee Country Village and Museum’s annual Civil War weekend in Mumford, NY. On August 15, Derek will present “Ancestors in Peace and in Pieces,” about his six great grandfathers who served in the Union army during the Civil War, at the Genesee County Genealogical Society meeting at the Holland Land Office Museum in Batavia, N.Y.

Terry Rensel spoke about the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust to the Rotary Club of Rappahannock-Fredericksburg and attended the 36th Annual Reunion of the Descendants of the 154th NY Volunteer Regiment, in Machias, NY, to speak to them about the preservation of the Dowdall’s Tavern site at Chancellorsville, where the 154th saw significant action. In non-Civil War history, Terry travelled to Put-In-Bay, Ohio, and visited the Perry’s Victory and International Peace Memorial, and also made a stop at the Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site in central Penn.

Five Questions . . . with Cecily Nelson Zander

In recent newsletters, we’ve been highlighting some of ECW’s volunteers who handle our multitude of behind-the-scenes efforts. Cecily Nelson Zander is part of our social media team. You can read her full ECW bio here: https://emergingcivilwar. com/author-biographies/authors/ cecily-n-zander/.

How do you define social media? That is a tricky question to start. Social media, at its best, brings together those who share

Chris Mackowski

What if Stonewall Jackson had not been shot? Would there be an Emerging Civil War?

Neil Chatelain provides the obligatory “photo with cannon” from his recent trip to Europe. Here, he’s pictured in Tallin, Estonia.

common interests or passions and allows them to connect beyond the constraints of time and geography. At its worst, it allows those friendships based on shared passions to devolve into factions that carp at one another in ultimately futile exchanges. One of the great joys of ECW’s social media is that those who make our content and those who engage with it tend to avoid this kind of negativity almost entirely; this sets the blog apart and makes it a very fun project to be a part of.

What do you do as part of ECW’s social media team? I often feel like I am the third wheel to Paige and Eric, who really make the whole machine run smoothly. I cover our channels on Monday and Thursday, and since I’m in Texas, that’s why the posts come at funny times of day. Pesky time zones!

Do you have a particular social media channel that’s your favorite to use?

On a personal level I really like Instagram. I have one for myself and a separate one for my dog, a classic millennial move. For ECW, Facebook really seems to be where the action is, and I love how engaged our audience is; it only seems to be expanding!

What got you involved in social media in the first place?

I was recently notified by Twitter that I have had my account there for 14 years, which I will note is half my life. Initially it was to engage with pop culture in the way many young people tend to do; as I grew up, it transitioned into more of an academic and networking tool. I have made many friends via social media, both in the Civil War world and beyond. When people stay positive and lift one another up, as the ECW community tends to do, it makes me want to stick around.

What advice would you give to someone who might feel a little intimidated by “social media”? First, I would say, we have all felt that way; it is really no different than standing at a reception where you might not

know anyone. I would say, the best move is to find the people who seem engaged and who strike you as positive and begin to interact with them. There are people in any realm who like to use their platform to tear others down, and they are not worth wasting your mental energy on. Again, I think the ECW community can be a great place to begin, especially Facebook, because Chris and the team encourage and welcome dialogue grounded in evidence and knowledge, and then let conversations happen. So, reply to a comment, share a post with your friends, start telling us what our content means to you!

Bonus question: If a roundtable or historical society wanted to invite you to speak to them, what areas of specialty do you focus on? I often joke that in my Civil War historian life, I have tended to work on a set of buckaroos that could best be characterized as difficult: Braxton Bragg on the Confederate side and John Pope for the Union; I’m always eager to talk about either of them. I also work a great deal in my scholarly life on the Regular Army in the Civil War era and the Indian Wars and love sharing my work on the relationships between the Civil War and the American West.

ECW Multimedia

On the Emerging Civil War Podcast in July:

• Chris Mackowski spoke with Gary Gallagher about Gary’s recent co-edited collection about iconic primary sources.

• Chris also spoke with ECW historian Sean Michael Chick about Sean’s recent biography Dreams of Victory: P. G. T. Beauregard in the Civil War.

Check out the Emerging Civil War podcast on places like Apple Podcasts and Spotify

You can also subscribe to our podcast through Patreon,

the podcast. In July, we included a special interview with historian Joe Owen as part of our “Civil War to Civil Rights” Series; Joe talked about President LBJ and the Civil Rights Act of 1864. Check us out!

On the ECW YouTube page, July took us to

• Franklin, Tenn., for a look at the recently installed monument to the USCT from the area who served in the Civil War

• Spring Hill, Tenn., with Greg Wade of the Franklin Civil War Roundtable for some stories from the Spring Hill town cemetery

The ECW YouTube page also featured video versions of our recent “Tale of Two Stonewalls” podcast with Chris, Sarah Kay Bierle, and Doug Crenshaw and our Gary Gallagher interview on iconic works

Please don’t forget to like and subscribe! You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

Greetings from Emerging Revolutionary War HQ!

always be a Civil War historian first. It was this era and topic that were my first big spark into the field of history at a tender age, and it will always hold a special place when researching, writing, and working in the field of public history, but, over the years, as I have really grasped a much larger understanding of the war, searched out new subtopics within in the field to research and learn, and checked off battlefield after battlefield from my ‘to visit’ list, I realized it was time to now place this era in American history into an even broader context of our short, yet complicated past. ERW co-founders Rob Orrison and Phill Greenwalt opened my eyes, or brought me to the Dark Side if you ask Chris Mackowksi or Jon-Erik Gilot, to how much more the Revolutionary War era has to offer than just the major stories and players one gets familiar with during school. Well, for me, I was hooked. Over the last year or so, I have had to buy more bookshelves and make room for a new ‘Rev War Wing’ in my personal library. My wife is thrilled by this addition (ahem). My subfloor and floor joists are equally excited. Anyway, my growing editorial experience

and journey into the Rev War came together at the right place and right time. ERWS’s previous series editor, Phill Greenwalt, has given me the opportunity to learn the ropes (and cigars!) at ERW and dig into this period even deeper as his successor. There is no way, simply no way, I would have been able to get on board and up to speed without Phill’s hard work over the years and the immense foundations he has laid. I thank him for that. I look forward to upholding ERWS’s high standards as series editor and bringing many more engaging books to print.”

Speaking of books, we have some great ones in the works. Look for more information coming soon on books about New Jersey and Charleston during the war, the battle of Camden, and George Rogers Clark. In the meantime, don’t miss out on the few remaining seats for our November bus tour to Valley Forge and Monmouth with ERW historians Billy Griffith and Phill Greenwalt. Head on over to the ERW blog for more information and registration: www.emergingrevolutionarywar. org. Even that new guy, Dan, will be there!

First, we’d like to take a minute and welcome historian and author Dan Welch aboard as the new series editor for the Emerging Revolutionary War Series. If you’ve been around a while now, you might recognize Dan for his many contributions at Emerging Civil War over the years, most recently as a staunch defender and reputation rebuilder of Civil War General John Pope. He has spent considerable time over the last 18 months on the “other” side of the pen as an editor and coeditor, so we could not be more excited to have him come aboard with the ERWS.

So why a Civil War historian at ERW? Dan explains: “I will

where we are now also offering exclusive bonus content for subscribers. That’s just $3.99/ month, and proceeds go toward defraying the production costs of

Cecily Nelson Zander and her dog, Mollie, try to stay cool in the Texas summer.

Dan Welch makes the jump from the Civil War to the Rev War in his new duties as managing editor for the Emerging Revolutionary War Series.

In de Land ob Cotton: Dan Emmett’s Famous Song

by Stephen Davis

I’m trying to remember where I read some observer’s only half-jestful comment about the difference between “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and “Dixie.” If one were to look at the lyrics, and measure them for their power to sustain soldiers’ idealism in wartime, why, no wonder the North won the Civil War. I was once on a panel, and we were asked why the Yankees won. My answer: “they had a better song.” (Laughter.) Yet, for good or ill, “Dixie” is still the song that best conveys to most people images and feelings about the Old South and its War for Independence. As Richard Barksdale Harwell claims in Confederate Music (1954), “Dixie” is the closest thing to a national song the Confederacy had. Its lyrics may not have the lofty ring of Julia Howe’s, but, with the tune, they stir up a lot of excitement. Henry Hotze, Confederate soldier and later propagandist, writing in Norfolk in May of ’61, commented on the power of “Dixie”: It is marvellous with what wild-fire rapidity this tune of “Dixie” has spread over the whole South….What magic potency is there in those rude, incoherent words, which lend themselves to so many parodies, of which the poorest is an improvement on the original? What spell is there in the wild strain that it should be made to betoken the stern determination of a nation to achieve its independence? I cannot tell.1

You probably know the origin of the tune: how Daniel Decatur Emmett, performer and songwriter for Bryant’s Minstrels, wrote it in New York in 1859 as a “walk around” for his troupe.* It was a hit, spread by minstrel shows through North and South. Music publisher P. P. Werlein of New Orleans brought out the first Southern edition in 1861. Confederate soldiers carried it to the front, and bards behind the lines wrote their own war-lyrics to fit the melody. Albert Pike, Confederate general and parttime poet, fashioned the most popular of these lyrical substitutes, titled “Southrons, Hear Your Country Call You,” whose opening lines trill, “Southrons, hear your country call you! Up! lest worse than death befall you!” Then came the chorus:

Advance the flag of Dixie!

Hurrah! Hurrah!

For Dixie’s land we take our stand, And live or die for Dixie!

To arms! To arms!

And conquer peace for Dixie!

To arms! To arms!

And conquer peace for Dixie!2

With all of these stray lyrics floating around, Emmett’s original words have become obscure. Confederate Veteran Magazine in September 1895 reproduced the original manuscript, which Emmett lent Veteran publisher S. A. Cunningham. We reproduce:

Dixie’s Land. ‘Walk ‘Round.’

1859

Composed by Daniel D. Emmett

For Bryant’s Minstrels.

Chorus: I wish I was in the land ob cot-ton, Cim-mon seed an san-dy bot-tom, Look a-way—look ‘way, a-way Dix-ie Land. In Dix-ie land whar I was born in, Early on one fros-ty mor-nin, Look a-wayLook ‘way, a-way Dixie Land. Den I wish I was in Dix-ie, Hoo-ray, Hooray. In Dixie’s Land, we’ll took our stand, To lib an die in Dixie, Away, a-way, a-way down south in Dix-ie, a-way, a-way, a-way down south in Dixie.3

Confederate Veteran even published the handwritten note sent by the composer to Cunningham three decades after the war:

Mt Vernon Knox Co. O July 31st 1895

S A Cunningham, Esqr

My Southern friend.

I appreciate your coming all the way from Nashville, Tenn, for the sole purpose of seeing me. Your kind assurances of the friendship of the Southern people are very gratifying to me. My parents were Southern born. My father, Abraham Emmett, was a native of Staunton Va., and my mother Sarah Zerick of Frederickton Md. In compliment to you and the messages of good will you bring, I hand to you to engrave for the Confederate Veterans the original copy of ‘Dixie,” made on that rainy Sunday in New York city in 1859.

Daniel Decatur Emmett 3

That “rainy Sunday” story merits elaboration. Jerry Bryant had a minstrel group that in 1859 was performing on Broadway in New York City. One of its performances on a Saturday night drew such apathetic audience response that he turned to one of his minstrels, Dan Emmett, and asked him to write a new, lively tune, a “walk-around” or “hooray” song. And Mr. Bryant wanted it for Monday night’s performance.4 So it was on that busy, rainy Sunday in New York that Emmett composed his tune and lyrics, the rest of which read:

Old Missus marry Will de Weaber, William was a gay deceaber; When he put his arm around ‘er, He look as fierce as a forty pounder. Chorus-Hooray! Hooray!! &c

His face was sharp like a butchers cleaber. But dat did not seem to greab ‘er; Will run away missus took a decline, O’ Her face was de color ob bacon rhine. O’ Chorus Hooray! hooray! &c

While missus libbed she libbed in clover. When she died she died all ober; How could she act such a foolish part, O’ An marry a man to break her heart. O’

Chorus Hooray! hooray! &c

Buck-wheat cakes an stony batter, Makes you fat or a little fatter; Here’s a health to de next old missus, An all de galls dat wants to kiss us. Chorus Hooray! hooray! &c

Now if you want to drive ‘way sorrow, Come an hear dis song to-morrow; Den hoe it down an scratch yer grabble, To Dixies land I’m bound to trabble

Chorus Hooray! hooray! &c

The first performance of Emmett’s new song occurred Monday, April 4, 1859 at Bryant’s stand, 472 Broadway. “Mr. Dan Emmett’s new Plantation Song and Dance DIXIE’s LAND” was an instant hit.5

So that’s the song. What about the name? The origin of Dixie is in dispute, but one leading notion involves the Mason-Dixon line—the demarcation of South from North (the Maryland/Pennsylvania line) by the surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in the 1760s. (Roger Long debunks this, though, asking why the South wasn’t called “Masie.”) Another idea is that Dixie came from the French word for ten, dix as printed on popular New Orleans bank notes. “Traders came from afar to the land of dix-ies to get them,” Long writes.6

*For an idea of how Emmett meant his “walk around” to be performed on stage, you ought to stay up late one night and tune in if your TV station runs the old movie Dixie (1943), starring Bing Crosby as Dan Emmett. The sight of the minstrel troupe’s performance, and the whole theater standing and whooping it up with “Dixie” is corny, but thrilling.

So “Dixie” isn’t much played today, just as Ole Miss cheerleaders won’t march beneath the Confederate battle flag. But as a testament to the South’s war spirit in the’60s, the song has no equal.

Notes

1 Richard B. Harwell, ed., The Confederate Reader (New York: David McKay Company, 1976 [1957]), 27.

2 E. Lawrence Abel, Confederate Sheet Music (Jefferson NC: McFarland, 2004), 236.

3 “’Uncle Dan’ Emmett—’Dixie’s Land,’” Confederate Veteran, vol. 3, no. 9 (September 1895), 266-69.

4 E. Lawrence Abel, Singing the New Nation: How Music Shaped the Confederacy, 1861-1865 (Mechanicsburg PA: Stackpole Books, 2000), 30.

5 George Bird Evans, “Original Copy of Dixie Identified,” Civil War Times, vol. 3, no. 7 (November 1961), 14; Philip Graham, “A Song Was Born: The South’s Dixie,’” Texas Quarterly, vol. 1, no. 2 (Spring 1958), 51-54.

6 Roger Long, “Uncle Dan and ‘Dixie’: Music That Moved the South,” Civil War Times Illustrated, vol. 20, no. 1 (April 1981), 15.

Steve Davis grew up in Atlanta, and as a kid attended Margaret Mitchell Elementary School. In music class, when Miss Kilpatrick led them in singing “Dixie,” his classmates would pause in the refrain to hear him roar about libbin’ and dyin’ in Dixie.

Daniel Decatur Emmett, circa 1900. (WikiCommons)

Handwritten note by Daniel Decatur Emmett published in the Confederate Veteran magazine. (Courtesy GregTonCurrency.com)

Confederate Uprising on the SS Maple Leaf

by Joe Wilson

Fifty Confederate officers marched out of a Union prison in New Orleans on June 2, 1863, and boarded the SS Cahawba waiting in the harbor. A jovial mood permeated the deck of the steamer as the prisoners knew freedom waited at the end of the voyage. At City Point, in Hopewell, Va., the Southern captives would be exchanged and free to rejoin their units and get back in the fight. At least that was the expectation.

A 200 man detail from the 6th New York Infantry under Colonel William Wilson guarded the prisoners. Known as Wilson’s Zouaves, the Yanks were just as eager to set sail as the prisoners. The Sixth had served their time and were headed for New York to muster out of service. After weighing anchor, the Cahawba glided out of the harbor with a festive atmosphere on board not typical of the usual prisoner transport. Any prospect of trouble wasn’t expected from captives about to be set free.

Guards and prisoners on the steamer mingled and talked freely. Both groups enjoyed the six-day voyage to Fort Monroe, Virginia. From Fort Monroe they were to proceed up the James River for exchange at City Point. Gouverneur Morris of the 6th NY later wrote, “These gentlemen the sixth found a very pleasant lot of fellows, and as it is much pleasanter to drink and exchange yarns with a man than to shoot at him, the officers and men got on the best of terms with their friends the enemy.” In a few days the pleasantries would quickly sour for one group.

Fortress Monroe in Virginia came into view on June 8 as the Cahawba steamed into the harbor. The prisoners left the Cahawba and spent the night on an old troop ship. Still

basking in the prospect of their coming freedom, the thankful Confederate officers presented a rather unusual resolution to Colonel Wilson that read:

“Resolved, that we tender our gratitude and thanks to Colonel William Wilson, his officers, and his men of the 6th NY Volunteers, for their kind and courteous treatment received at their hands during our passage from New Orleans to Fort Monroe.”

Next morning, June 9, the Confederates boarded the SS Maple Leaf for the last leg of the trip to freedom. Captain Henry W. Dale skippered the ship along with three mates and a crew of 30 men. First, the steamer stopped at nearby Fort Norfolk just below Fort Monroe to pick up more prisoners. She dropped anchor for the night still holding a cheerful bunch of officers. In the morning, 47 more officers boarded the Maple Leaf and joined the prisoners from New Orleans. The 47 officers brought the total of Confederate prisoners to 97.

Shocking news came aboard with the Norfolk officers that the men from New Orleans had not yet learned. At first, cordial pleasantries took place between the Confederate officers. The casual banter soon turned to anger among the prisoners from New Orleans when the Norfolk men revealed that prisoner exchanges had been halted. Thoughts of freedom vanished with all prisoner swaps being terminated. The new destination was the Union prison at Fort Delaware. Hostility among those held at Fort Norfolk had been festering for days since hearing the bad news. Now, the resentment took hold in the New Orleans group who felt betrayed by the Federals. Tempers flared among prisoners eagerly looking forward to gaining their liberty. Prisoner

Captain John U. Green wrote of his disappointment, “It would be difficult to describe our feeling.”

The journey up the James River fell by the wayside. Instead of exchange at City Point, the Maple Leaf charted a new course for Fort Delaware. A future clouded with uncertainty hung over the entire group. Long term confinement at Fort Delaware till the war ended now seemed a distinct possibility. Trading one prison for another wasn’t acceptable to the disgruntled officers.

After being so close to freedom, the officers believed the arrangement so abruptly put in place by the lying Yankees was a deception. Many prisoners from Fort Norfolk had been recently transferred from Fort Delaware to Fort Norfolk for exchange. Now, they were going back. A return to Fort Delaware brought even more disappointment for men who thought they saw the last of the filthy island prison.

The afternoon of June 10, 1863, the Maple Leaf steamed for Fort Delaware with the 97 officers on a trip where the mood on board stood in stark contrast to the gaiety experienced on the voyage from New Orleans. Men on board the Maple Leaf once again saw the Yankees as their enemy. Any friendly conversation enjoyed previously with their captors vanished.

Unlike the trip from New Orleans, when 200 men guarded the prisoners, only a 12-man guard detail commanded by Lt. William Dorsey from the 3rd Penn. Heavy Artillery guarded the prisoners bound for Fort Delaware. It was thought that miles of surrounding ocean offered a natural barrier to thwart any escape. A smaller detail of guards seemed to be sufficient for guarding prisoners on the open sea. That miscalculation didn’t take into account the rage

festering in the officers who by nature of their rank naturally had a disposition for planning.

Preparation for hatching a plan soon emerged among the officers.

Leading the group, Captain Emelius W. Fuller surveyed the situation Fuller immediately called for a council to lay out a plan. With Fort Delaware so near, Fuller needed to devise a plan quickly. A scenario for returning to “Dixie Land” took precedent. It was clear that Fort Delaware wasn’t going to be a part of their future.

Captain Fuller had commanded Confederate gunboats and gained much respect from Admiral David Farragut in their confrontations. Another leader of the plot was Captain Oliver Semmes, son of Admiral Raphael Semmes. Oliver’s famous father commanded the CSS Alabama Newspapers in the north often referred to Oliver Semmes as “the son of the rebel pirate.”

The Maple Leaf steamed off the Virginia coast with the Federals never suspecting that 97 irate officers of the Confederacy had other plans for their journey. The southern officers had free range on board the ship. One affable officer, Captain Eugene Holmes, made quick friends with the ship’s captain and his officers. Captain Dale and his mates allowed Holmes easy access to the pilot house for casual and mundane conversation. Holmes had another motive. Captain Holmes engaged

the unsuspecting crewmen in mindless talk while he focused entirely on the ship’s bell.

It was decided that the bell offered the best opportunity for a signal that could be heard all over the ship. After three taps of the ship’s bell, the free roaming Confederates would overpower the guards. Holmes had his assignment. The other scheming Confederates took their places around the guards they were assigned to subdue when the bell rang. Men assigned to each guard waited for the bell. Once the bell rang out, the officers would spring into action.

Two hours out of port, the ship passed the Cape Henry Lighthouse. Captain Holmes made his way to the pilot house to engage Captain Dale. Around 5:30 p.m. the ship’s bell rang out three times over the sound of the ship’s churning engine. After the bell rang, the rousing rebel yell punctuated the air. All hell broke out on board the Maple Leaf. Butternut clad men wrestled with the boys in blue for control of their muskets and the ship. The fight didn’t last long.

Confederate Captain Richard Seckel remarked, “I had my man subdued after the first ring of the bell.”

The surprised guard detail, along with their Yankee officer, went from captors to captives in an instant. Armed Confederates introduced Captain Emelius Fuller to Captain Dale as the new

Illustration of the side-wheeler Maple Leaf. (NPS)

Captain Emelius W. Fuller. (WikiCommons)

Captain of the Maple Leaf. Being a navy man, Fuller had no trouble operating the ship. Captain Fuller turned the ship around and headed south past the Cape Henry Lighthouse once again. Now firmly in control of the ship, men celebrated by raiding the pantry and stores of liquor on board. Lt. Dorsey, commander of the disgraced guard, knew his career just ended.

With the Confederates in command of the Maple Leaf, Captain Fuller summoned Captain Semmes and a few senior officers to a meeting to decide what came next. Some on board wanted to sail to the friendly confines of Nassau. A shortage of coal and the threat of blockading Union ships ended that conversation. It was decided to flee on foot.

Not all the prisoners wanted to leave the Maple Leaf. A total of 27 of the 97 on board decided to stay with the ship. Many still carried wounds that prevented an arduous journey on foot. Included among the wounded was Captain Fuller who remained with the ship. A few others wanted to honor an oath they had taken earlier not to escape.

Fuller conned the ship to a point a half mile off the Outer Banks close to the North Carolina border. As the sun faded on June 10, the 70 officers went ashore in the Maple Leaf’s lifeboats leaving the ship back in Yankee hands. Out of respect for 27 officers remaining on board, the escapees didn’t scuttle the Maple Leaf. Setting the ship on fire would’ve surely offered better odds of success for the fleeing former prisoners. With the mutineers gone, Captain Dale took back command of the ship and had Fuller locked up.

Despite a promise to go directly to Fort Delaware, Dale promptly returned to Fort Monroe that night. For reasons known only to Lt. Dorsey, the humiliated commander of the guard waited till next morning to notify his superiors. Colonel William Ludlow, acting commander at Fort Monroe, promptly directed officials in Suffolk and Norfolk to send out search parties to track down the southerners. Union cavalry from the 7th NY set out immediately to recapture the rebels.

Landing on the Outer Banks portion the North Carolina coast left the escapees with a formidable challenge. Once on shore, the men elected Captain Semmes their leader. Far from being in the clear, the Confederates stood on the shores of the Outer Banks with Currituck Sound separating them from the mainland. Semmes

led the group south along beach of the Outer Banks into North Carolina. Luckily, they ran into Southern men boiling down sea water for salt, who agreed to ferry them across Currituck Sound.

On the mainland the Rebel fugitives remained in Yankee held territory with the Confederate lines still 60 miles away. Semmes and his band of escapees wisely moved by night to evade the hundreds of cavalrymen scouring the area. The Union search parties had the advantage of being on horseback, while the southerners travelled on foot. Still 200 miles from Richmond, they had to traverse the Dismal Swamp, cross numerous rivers, and many miles of woodlands. To reach Richmond, the group would need plenty of help. The good women of the south came to the fore.

Many local women had men fighting for the Confederacy. Aiding the escaped prisoners offered the ladies an opportunity to do their part. Food and drink came by the cartful. One loyal southern woman whose husband was away fighting for the Confederacy introduced Semmes to Captain Willis Sanderlin, a local Confederate partisan. Sanderlin knew the area well and steered the group away from the roving bands of Yankee cavalry.

Captain Sanderlin made it his mission to guide the men all the way to Richmond.

welcome the adventurers who bested the Yanks on the sea and land. Back pay lined the pockets of the men enabling them to stay at the luxurious Spotswood Hotel for drink and a welcome bath. Accompanying the group all the way to Richmond was the celebrated Partisan Ranger, Captain Willis Sanderlin. For his role, the officers presented Sanderlin with a fine new Colt revolver.

took place on June 9 at Brandy Station. Not long after the cavalry clash, General Robert E. Lee invaded Pennsylvania in the epic Gettysburg Campaign. Almost a month after the escaping officers left the Maple Leaf, Vicksburg finally fell to General Grant. Newspapers had many other stories to fill their pages.

Spending time in the Dismal Swamp wasn’t comfortable, but the wetland offered a bit of protection only a swamp could provide. Moving out of the swamp brought the first obstacle. The Pasquotank River proved much too deep for fording. Fortunately, Lt. Sanderlin had boats hidden away for maneuvering in Yankee territory. His Home Guard safely brought the men across the river.

Every halt along the route seemed to bring out a welcoming committee. Locals all along the way furnished the wayward rebels with food, drink, and any needed medical supplies. At some point, Semmes decided to break the seventy men into three groups. All headed for the Seaboard and Roanoke Railroad.

Once beyond Yankee lines, some men came upon Confederate cavalry who escorted them to the rail junction. All three groups reached the rail line at different times the same day. Once on board the train, spirits soared as the train carried the victorious men to freedom. For over a week they had foiled the Union cavalry.

At Weldon, the newly free Confederates transferred onto the Petersburg & Weldon Railroad that carried them to Petersburg.

On June 22, the last leg was on Richmond & Petersburg line that carried them to Richmond. When the train pulled into the station, many turned out to

The Confederates spared the Maple Leaf from destruction on June 10. She continued sailing eight more months until the ship’s career abruptly ended when she struck a mine on the St. Johns River, 12 miles above Jacksonville, Fla. In the early morning of April 1, 1864, the flagship of General Truman Seymour struck a Confederate mine and sank into the river. Over fifty souls escaped the steamer but four men died when the mine exploded. Because of the thick mud in the river, a plethora of preserved artifacts were preserved; some have been salvaged with the support of the State of Florida. The Jacksonville Museum of Science and History now exhibits an impressive array of the Maple Leaf’s artifacts. The epic adventure garnered little attention in history books as the escape took place among some of the more famous chapters of the Civil War. On the same day the rebel officers boarded the Maple Leaf, the largest cavalry battle of the war

The officers who seized the Maple Leaf and outwitted the Yankee cavalry had a fantastic yarn to spin for many years at reunions long after the war. The little-known story is one of the most extraordinary tales of the Civil War.

Joseph F. Wilson lectures on Andersonville Prison and Walt Whitman in the Civil War. The author also produced the documentary film “Civil War Prisons – An American Tragedy” now available on Amazon. Contact – joef21@aol.com.

Brig. Gen. Truman Seymour, Capt. at Fort Sumter, 1861. (Library of Congress)

Philadelphia’s Cooper Volunteer Saloon Revisited

The Graphic War highlights prints and printmakers from the Civil War discussing their

meaning and the print maker or artist’s goals.

A year ago, this past August we featured a lithograph produced by artist James Queen and published by Thomas Sinclair. It depicted the Volunteer Saloon of

Philadelphia founded by South Philadelphia grocer Barzilla S. Brown who began by passing out food to transient soldiers on their way to the front. Last month we featured a collaborator and/ or competitor, the Cooper Shop Volunteer Refreshment Saloon

located in close proximity to Brown’s “USO.” This month we highlight an extremely unusual print lithographed by Charles Baum highlighting the latter.

The print features the Cooper Shop establishment and was intended to be a fund raiser for the Saloon. Like many other German immigrants gifted with the ability to produce art, Baum came to America to ply his trade. He was born ca. 1824 and settled in Philadelphia. During the Civil War, he produced prints of Union camps around Philadelphia; Camp Meigs in 1861, Camp Brandywine, and Camp Dupont the following year. Little is known of his personal life except that he lived with his second wife, Elizabeth, and a daughter (b. ca. 1849) at Second Street above Ontario Street (Ward 23) in 1860 in Philadelphia.1

Baum’s purpose in producing this remarkable print was to honor the 29th Pennsylvania.

“On the 23rd of December, 1863, the officers and men of the 29th Pennsylvania regiment, Col. Rickards, returning after three years’ service, were entertained at the Soldier’s Home, where nearly three hundred, officers and men, enjoyed a bountiful dinner.” So wrote the Cooper Union’s historian, Dr. James Moore.2 The 29th, a three-year regiment, proudly served in both theaters of the war. It mustered in at Philadelphia in July 1861, for three years, and reenlisted as a veteran regiment. Its total strength was 2,517, of whom 147 were killed or died of wounds. It was present but unengaged at Cedar Mountain and Antietam. It missed the battle at Fredericksburg but participated in the Chancellorsville campaign and the battle of Gettysburg. In February 1862, the regiment was in a skirmish where its organizer and commander Colonel John Murphy was captured. “On

View of the Reception of the 29th Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, at Philadelphia.(Library of Congress)

Sept. 23, 1863, the regiment was ordered west and reached Murfreesboro, Tenn., Oct 5. The troops conducted themselves heroically at the battles of Wauhatchie, Lookout mountain [sic] and Ringgold and through all the hard service of the army on its way to Atlanta, remaining with the army of Gen. Sherman until the end…”3

This historically rich print contains a myriad of images beginning with the overwhelming, snaking procession of the 29th Pennsylvania moving in seven levels to the top, which is surmounted by a large eagle holding an American shield. On either side of the eagle are patriotic banners, which read “Welcome Home.” The American flag on the left is torn as is the regimental flag on the right. Yet, both are proudly displayed. Leading the procession are soldiers on horseback “followed by infantrymen transported in horse-drawn wagons….and a small brass military band. After the musicians, the 29th …. marches on foot, with some men carrying flags. Intermixed with the marching soldiers are additional military bands and officers on horseback.” The parade began “at about one o’clock from Market Street Bridge down Market Street to Twenty-First Street, eventually arriving at the Cooper Shop Soldiers Home, where the members of the 29th regiment had dinner before proceeding to the National Guards Hall (518520 Race Street) to be welcomed by Colonel John Price Wetherill.”

The title margin contains the artist’s name on the lower right and the names of the Cooper Shop’s directors on the left. In the middle of the busy print is the dedication to the 29th Pennsylvania and also a depiction of Cooper’s new “Soldiers Home.” On both side margins “are the names of the ‘Veterans of the 29th,’ listing the field and staff officers, the noncommissioned officers, and each company, including the African American Company K.”

The artist’s depiction of a Civil War regiment is overwhelming until one realizes that several other units of civic origin are also

included. Artist Baum chose to incorporate local fire companies in the parade including the “Northern Liberty Fire Company, Number 1; Vigilant Fire Company; Assistance Fire Company, Weccacoe; Southwark Hose Company; and Hope Hose Company.” In addition, the crowded scene included “the First City Troop; 27th New York Battery; Liberty Coronet Band; Henry Guards; four companies of invalids corps; Provost Guard; discharged members of the regiment; Birgfield’s Band; former (Murphy) and present (Rickards) commander of the regiment; Lieutenant Colonel Zulick of the regiment; the regiment; female family members; First Regiment; Jefferson Coronet Band; Pennsylvania Military Institute cadets; City Council members; other guards and regiments; and lastly, the ambulances of the firemen.”4 The great reveal came during the day when it was announced that the veterans of the 29th would reenlist for another tour of duty. The regiment eventually mustered out near Alexandria, Va., July 17, 1865.

Endnotes:

1. Philadelphia on Stone Biographical Dictionary of Lithographers. The Library Company of Philadelphia, Charles Baum, https:// digital.librarycompany. org/islandora/object/ digitool%3A78824. See also Harry T. Peters, America on Stone, 91.

2. History of the Cooper Shop Volunteer Refreshment Saloon, James Moore, MD, Philadelphia, 1866, p.96.

3. The Union Army, vol. 1, 368.

4. Cooper Volunteer Shop Saloon 29th Pennsylvania Notes, LoC description https://www.loc.gov/ resource/gdcwdl.wdl_09526/ ?r=-0.008,0.199,1.015,0.72,0

After 43 years in the museum field, Cilella devotes his time collecting American prints and maps and writing. 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. “Till Death Do Us Part,” an edit of Upton’s letters to his wife 186870, was published in 2020 by the Oklahoma University Press.

Sites

Herr Tavern 900 Chambersburg Road Gettysburg, PA 17325

Herr Tavern since 1812. Fine Dining, tavern, 17 room B&B and banquet/wedding facilities. Includes 4 bedroom owners residence: 600+ combination event seating. (2) Full "R" Liquor License. Twelve consecutive years award winner "Best of Wine Spectator Award." Wine cellar rated as one of the best in Central PA. "Select Registry Property Inn."

“Defending Against Jackson’s Chancellorsville Flank Attack”

Since 1996, Central Virginia Battlefields Trust has worked diligently to acquire properties associated with the battles of Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania Court House. One of CVBT’s areas of greatest success has been along the route of Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s Chancellorsville flank attack. Starting with acquisitions in 1998, and up to the most recent victory with the “Beckham Tract” this year, the long string of “Flank Attack” preservation opportunities and successes continues.

Jackson’s Chancellorsville flank attack has received significant attention from several different perspectives by historians. However, sometimes overlooked in the story of the smashing Confederate success are the Federal efforts to stop, or at least slow down, the momentum of the avalanche-like assault along the Orange Plank Road and Orange Turnpike.

Gen. Joseph Hooker, commanding the Army of the Potomac, believed that the May 2, 1863, reports he received

about Jackson’s 28,000-man marching column indicated the Confederates were retreating toward Orange Court House or Gordonsville, not targeting his right flank held by Gen. Oliver O. Howard’s XI Corps. Howard, after earlier being upbraided by Hooker about making some effort to protect his flank, did make some minor changes to his line should an attack from the west be attempted. Despite receiving little direction from Gen. Charles Devens, who commanded the Third Division of the XI Corps on the far right, some of Devens’ officers worried about their troops’ vulnerable disposition. However, some blame also goes to Hooker, who ordered a brigade away from Howard to the III Corps in hopes of capturing some of Jackson’s marching Confederates, who, again, Hooker believed were in retreat. Howard did not help matters though by joining the loaned brigade for part of their detached excursion.

At about 5:15 pm, Jackson ordered Gen. Robert Rodes to begin the attack. The massive assault, over twice as large as Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg, flushed small game from the surrounding Wilderness as they moved east. Wildlife invaded the XI Corps camps as its many soldiers rested and cooked their evening rations. The routed Federals made their way east as fast as their legs could carry them. Holding briefly, and then folding, were the two brigades of Devens’ Division. As they retreated, word spread to the other two XI Corps divisions. Gen. Carl Schurz’s Third Division next met the gray tide. Effectively shifting his men to face west, Schurz’s Division attempted to put up a defense near the Wilderness Church. It briefly

checked the advance; however, outflanked on both ends, it soon dissolved.

Near the intersection of the Orange Plank Road and Orange Turnpike, at the Wilderness Church, Capt. Hubert Dilger set up his six-gun artillery battery in effort to put a dent in Jackson’s juggernaut. Firing double canister at the charging Confederates, Dilger’s cannoneers stood to their guns as long as possible, doing as much damage as they could before withdrawing. Dilger later received the Medal of Honor for his brave actions. His citation stated in part that he “fought his guns until the enemy were upon him. . . .” Schurz noted in

his official report that, “Captain Dilger limbered up only when the enemy’s infantry was already between his pieces. His horse was shot under him. . . .” Dilger was forced to leave a cannon behind only after trying to “drag this piece along with the dead horses still hanging in the harness. . . .”

Posted near Dowdall’s Tavern, at the time of the battle the home of Rev. Melzi Chancellor, and also Howard’s headquarters, was Gen. Adolph Von Steinwehr’s Second Division, the last XI Corps division. With Barlow’s Brigade earlier detached to the Third Corps, the division consisted of only Col. Adolphus Buschbeck’s Brigade.

Howard arrived back at his headquarters just in time to see his corps start disintegrating. On horseback, Howard bravely grabbed a flag, tucked it under his right arm stump and implored his men to rally, stand, and fight. Many continued their flight, but some answered Howard’s call, particularly Buschbeck’s Brigade, which consisted of 29th New York, the 154th New York, 27th Pennsylvania, and the 73rd Pennsylvania. Three of the regiments fought south of the turnpike. The 29th New York was on the road’s north side. Using rifle pits, Buschbeck’s regiments temporarily halted the progress of that part of Jackson’s

Map of Jackson’s Flank Attack on May 2, 1863. Dowdall’s Tavern site is located in the yellow shaded area. (CVBT)

Dowdalls Tavern Howards Hd.-Qtrs, by Alfred R. Waud. Inscribed below image: position of the Right of the line of battle. May 2nd 1863. 2 miles from Chancellors previous to the Germans running away. Published in: Harper’s Weekly, May 23, 1863, pp. 328-329, as: The Battles at Chancellorsville Howard’s Head-Quarters, and Position of the Right Line of Battle, May 2. (Library of Congress)

attack column. Von Steinwehr implored Buschbeck to hold the “position as long as possible.” The division commander also noted, “The men fought with great determination and courage.” Flanked on both ends, like their comrades previously, Buschbeck’s Brigade fell back, but not before losing about onethird of its men killed, wounded, or captured. As the brigade withdrew, they stopped twice and fired volleys before they finally reached the III Corps’ position. Buschbeck, willing to stand and fight, even offered his division commander to “advance again to a bayonet charge.” During the

fighting, three of Buschbeck’s four regimental commanders received wounds. The official record reported that the brigade lost 494 men and officers in their defensive attempts.

General George Doles, commanding a brigade in Robert Rodes’ Division, mentioned being checked twice in his report. One pause came early in the attack for about 10 minutes, and then at the so-called Buschbeck line of rifle pits and entrenchments for 20 minutes, where Doles claimed they received “a very severe fire from musketry and battery of four pieces. . . .”

While darkness and a confusing

mixture of units eventually slowed the momentum of Jackson’s attack, the defensive efforts on the part of the XI Corps, especially Buschbeck’s Brigade and Dilger’s Battery, deserve credit for the part they played as well. Considering the situation under which they found themselves, some of the XI Corps responded about as well as possible.

CVBT has again partnered with the American Battlefield Trust to save yet another key piece of Jackson’s flank attack. This 42-acre parcel is where Dowdall’s Tavern stood and Col. Buschbeck’s Brigade attempted

to slow the assault. You can help save this pristine piece of hallowed ground forever. For more information and to make a donation, visit: https://www.cvbt. org/dowdallstavern

Tim Talbott is the Chief Administrative Officer with the Central Virginia Battlefields

Trust. The mission of CVBT is to preserve land associated with the four major campaigns of: Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Wilderness, and Spotsylvania. To learn more about this grassroots preservation nonprofit, which has saved over 1,700 acres of hallowed ground, visit: www.cvbt.org.

Dowdall’s Tavern. George E. Chancellor’s house on Plank Road in 1865. (Library of Congress)

Present day view of Dowdall’s Tavern location. (CVBT)

Howard Tries to Rally XI Corps. (Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Vol. 3.)

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.

A Different Perspective on a Historic Town

Gettysburg 1963: Civil Rights, Cold War Politics, and Historical Memory in America’s Most Famous Small Town. By Jill Ogline Titus. Gallery, notes, bibliography, index. University of North Carolina Press, https://uncpress. org Nov. 2021. Hardcover $95, paperback $27.95.

Reviewed by Thomas J. Ryan

anniversary fast approaching, however, the community zeroed in on constructing a new Visitor Center that opened to the public in March 1962. That year, nearly two million people descended on Gettysburg.

playing the National Anthem, “while all the participants assembled at attention behind the Angle to salute the flag and recite the Pledge of Allegiance.”

Gettysburg 1963 is a comprehensive critique of myriad events associated with the centennial celebration/ remembrance of the Battle of Gettysburg and its ramifications. The author, Jill Ogline Titus, provides insight into the longterm after effects of the July 1863 three-day engagement when the nation’s fate hung in the balance.

Titus examines racial progress in America as reflected in the microcosm of the small south central Pennsylvania community that experienced traumatic events and embedded its name in the minds of people worldwide. The author relates the significance of the battle that brought prominence to this community, while emphasizing the fate of the black residents abducted by Southern troops.

The author cites Gettysburg’s geographic location a few miles above the Pennsylvania/ Maryland border, and the mindset of some local white residents that reflected the longstanding racial practices of the time. During the battle at Gettysburg, for example, blacks who had not fled to safer environs became vulnerable. When Confederate forces gained control of sectors within the community, they rounded up all the blacks and shipped them South into slavery with the knowledge of their commander, Gen. Robert E. Lee, and his senior officers.

Fast forwarding one hundred years to the battle’s anniversary; Titus relates “contemporary racial politics, intertwined with and infused by Cold War principles, profoundly shaped nearly every aspect of the anniversary.” Why?

Because the “Civil War of the 1960’s” found Americans divided “along lines of race” not unlike the situation as it existed in the 1860’s.

The town of Gettysburg and the battle became a symbol for the American people on both sides of the conflict, and over time millions have trekked annually to this small town to dwell in the mystical atmosphere ingrained in a few square miles by those who fought and died there during July 1863. These visitations were crowned when the “Mission 66” public works project led to constructing a building to house Paul Philippoteaux’s magnificent cyclorama painting depicting “Pickett’s Charge” on the third day of the battle.

Titus describes the debilitating aspect of racism perpetuated in the community despite the passing of time. A Social Action Committee formed in 1962 with the goal of improving work-related and educational opportunities for minorities. With the battle’s centennial

May the following year, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson came to Gettysburg and delivered a speech “in support of equal rights for Black Americans.” The Pennsylvania Gettysburg Centennial Commission, however, planned on extending the remembrances “to Confederate soldiers, their descendants, and contemporary white southerners,” while, at the same time, excluding references to blacks. Nonetheless, Gettysburg’s mayor did his best to welcome visitors during the celebration, and assured both whites and blacks “their motel reservations will be honored.” The potential fallout over racial issues led President John F. Kennedy to avoid Gettysburg’s centennial celebration, because it might “offer too much political risk for too little potential gain.”

Official guests at the 1863 celebration included Robert E. Lee IV and George Gordon Meade III, great-grandsons of the commanding generals at Gettysburg. Concern about potential racial demonstrations led to assigning 185 Penn. State Police officers to help maintain control of the crowd. During the actual ceremonies, views expressed by speakers related the gathering and remembrance at Gettysburg to the ongoing “Cold War” between the United States and the Soviet Union, and debated “Lost Cause” issues as well as “equal justice in housing and education.”

Notre Dame University’s Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh spoke at the Eternal Peace Light Memorial, and challenged his listeners to condemn discrimination, and take something home with them other than photos of the battlefield. In contrast, another crowd at the Peace Light Memorial gave “enthusiastic applause” for George Wallace, future governor of Alabama and a staunch proponent of separation of the races.

Some 40,000 visitors gathered near the “Angle” to observe a reenactment of “Pickett’s Charge” with about 1,500 “Confederates” marching across the field to “attack” perhaps 500 defenders in blue; —both groups included descendants of Civil War veterans. In stark contrast to the original event on July 3, 1863, the opponents lowered their weapons and shook hands prior to the U.S. Navy band

Titus points out, however, that Newsweek Magazine cited “the longevity of racial inequality and battle over federal authority and states’ rights itself rendered the lofty sentiments of patriotic unity hollow for some observers.”

The irony and tragedy of President Kennedy’s decision not to attend the November 1963 ceremony four months later honoring the Gettysburg Address, but to go to Dallas, Texas instead, dramatically changed “the course of American history.” Secretary of State Dean Rusk accepted an invitation to speak at the Gettysburg Address commemoration that, in effect, became a memorial to both Lincoln and Kennedy, the latter having been assassinated on November 22 in Dallas.

The author emphasizes the challenge to the ongoing “Black freedom struggle” by “emboldened Confederate memory demanding additional space on the battlefield for its narratives.” The 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. drew dramatically different reactions on the Gettysburg College campus depending on the color of the students’ skin. At the same time, the “Lost Cause memory at Gettysburg” was expanding based on the claim that it “strengthened American patriotism.”

In her epilogue to this study, Titus offers personal views on “the unpopular war in Southeast Asia,” and its impact, in particular on the students at Gettysburg College. She also comments on the contemporary political scene, and associates the rise of the “Black Lives Matter” with “the escalating campaign against police violence” and “heightened concern over the future of Confederate symbols, and the resurgence of white supremacy….” After going out on this political limb, Titus alleges the issues she cited were “emboldened by an openly racist president,” a reference to former

president Donald Trump, whom she censures as “a persistent defender of Confederate symbols and monuments in the face of civil unrest….” In contrast, the author found that Joe Biden delivered “a widely acclaimed speech in the waning days of the 2020 presidential election campaign that “laid out a Lincolnesque vision of a more just future.” So much for impartiality and objectivity!

The previous segment notwithstanding, Gettysburg 1963 provides a well-researched and in-depth account of how the Battle of Gettysburg became an integral part of the American political, cultural, and literary landscape, with special emphasis on the fate and progress of black members of the community. It adds a new chapter to our ongoing fascination with a small Adams County, Pennsylvania, town that received thousands of unexpected guests in early July 1863, and how the passage of a century failed to dim the impression those events made on the American psyche while reminding us work remains to improve and ensure equality among the races.

Thomas J. Ryan is author of the 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, June-July 1863, and ‘Lee is Trapped and Must Be Taken’: Eleven Fateful Days after Gettysburg, July 4-14, 1863 (the latter with co-author Richard R. Schaus). He also published Essays on Delaware during the Civil War: A Political, Military and Social Perspective. His latest book pending publication is titled To bring the war to an end!: Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis during the Gettysburg Campaign. He formerly served as president of the Central Delaware Civil War Round Table, as special contributor to the Civil War Page of the Washington Times, and author of a weekly column titled “Civil War Profiles” for the Coastal Point newspaper in Ocean View, Del.

A Confederate in the Early Days of the War

On Rising Ground: The Life and Civil War Letters of John M. Douthit, 52nd Georgia Volunteer Infantry Regiment by Elaine Fowler Palencia. Maps, photos, notes, index, 832 pp., 2021. Mercer University Press, www.mupress.org. $27.00.

Martha. Accounts from those in the 52nd Georgia Infantry, their brigade, the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion, and some newspapers helped fill in gaps and further explain Douthit’s story.

Lessons in Persistence & Reason

he mentioned camp life, food, sickness, and having remittent fever. After the capture of Vicksburg, Martha would learn of her husband’s death due to illness.

Stephen A. Swails: Black Freedom Fighter in the Civil War and Reconstruction. By Gordon C. Rhea. Images, notes, index, 200 pp., 2021. Louisiana State University Press, lsupress. org. $29.95.

who gathered much material about Swails.

Finding a Confederate soldier’s letters had been more the exception than the rule over the years since the Civil War. Discovering these treasures has become more common in time as more Confederate letters and diaries have been making their way into institutional special collections and book publications in the recent past. John M. Douthit’s letters are no exception. Elaine Fowler Palencia’s latest work, “On Rising Ground: The Life and Civil War Letters of John M. Douthit, 52nd Georgia Volunteer Infantry Regiment” is an examination into the war years of a Georgia father and his family as he struggles through the first part of the War in the Western Theater.

Palencia paints an alluring picture and tells the story of the Douthit family and Fannin County, Georgia. She also weaves a fascinating tale of how a small farmer, Douthit, joined the 52nd Georgia, known as the Fannin Rifles. Joining the army helped Douthit avoid the draft. However, this decision meant Douthit would leave behind a pregnant wife and baby daughter. The bulk of the letters used included those between John and his wife Martha, along with two letters John wrote to his sister-in-law and one letter from a neighbor and fellow soldier to

Douthit’s letters also give the reader a glimpse into the life of this small farmer-turned soldier during training camp. His regiment was brigaded with the 40th, 41st, 42nd, and 43rd Georgia; the brigade’s 6,769 men were led by Brigadier General Seth Barton and later came under the command of Brigadier General Marcellus Stovall. During his time in camp, Douthit mentioned voting for officers, which played a significant part in the brigade’s development. Sickness was a prevalent concern of those within the camp. Douthit managed to stay healthy for the time being, but it was not long before he mentioned being ill and lonely for news. After camp, it was on toward East Tennessee, with one bright spot during this dismal time being the birth of his daughter. However, leaving the army to see her never materialized.

Douthit’s letters concerning the movements to and around Cumberland Gap, Perryville, and Chickasaw Bayou are particularly interesting. In the movement into Kentucky, Douthit described some citizens showing their support by waving handkerchiefs and Confederate flags but little else. While there is helpful information concerning what he did and saw, Douthit and the regiment were not involved in the battle at Perryville. However, at Chickasaw Bayou, Douthit wrote his wife Martha, “Enemy was firing at us all this time we fired two three or four rounds at them”(Palencia, 101). From this point, Douthit found himself in the siege at Vicksburg where

While John M. Douthit’s story contains few battle details or great exploits upon the field, it does include the common soldier’s struggle to press on amid adversity. It is a story of a family ripped apart by war and a community left to pick up the pieces. Sadly, no letters covered Champion Hill or Douthit’s feelings toward Vicksburg’s surrender. Palencia’s wellresearched examination into the death and final burial place of John Douthit is commendable. Yet, more primary sources could have proved advantageous concerning other situations and events around Douthit’s time and local while in service.

Those that might find this work especially interesting would include those interested in genealogy, Civil War soldier camp life, the life of the common Confederate soldier during the early part of the war, and the effects of loss upon a family and overall community during this war.

Stewart Bennett is a Professor of History and Department Chair of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Blue Mountain College in Blue Mountain, Mississippi. His latest contribution to Civil War literature includes, “’A Ghost on Horseback’: The Many Wounds and Curious Death of General William H.T. Walker,” in Lawrence Lee Hewitt and Thomas E. Schott, eds., Confederate Generals in the Western Theater: Vol. 4 (University of Tennessee Press. January 2018). He is continuing his research on the battle of Atlanta, fought July 22, 1864.

Reviewed by Jonathan A. Noyalas

To Captain Luis F. Emilio, a white officer in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, Stephen Swails, a free black from New York who enlisted in the regiment during the spring of 1863, proved an inspiration. Accounts of Swails’ heroism, wounding in combat, and exemplary conduct appear throughout Emilio’s 1891 regimental history. However, the person Emilio believed possessed “many soldierly qualities,” epitomized “gallantry,” earned the distinction of being the first black soldier commissioned as an officer in a combat unit, and who proved to be an important figure in South Carolina politics after the war; fell into obscurity by the early twentieth century. Fortunately, Gordon Rhea’s fine biography restores Swails’ remarkable life and situates him among the pantheon of heroes in the war for union and emancipation.

Rhea, best known for his outstanding scholarship on the Overland Campaign, makes it eminently clear from the outset that although he is this book’s author, this work stands on the shoulders of individuals who played a critical role over the past four decades to resurrect Swails’ story. Particularly significant are Jimmy and Edward Moore, two brothers who rescued a trunk full of Swails’ writings from a garbage dump, and William “Billy” Jenkinson, an attorney from Kingstree, South Carolina,

Throughout this engagingly written and deeply researched biography Rhea masterfully traces Swails’ life from a young child in Pennsylvania, his family’s move to New York, military service in the 54th Massachusetts, work with the Freedmen’s Bureau, and career in South Carolina politics. The usefulness of this volume rests not only in that it revives the story of an important historical figure or that it serves as an exemplar of biography, but that it utilizes Swails’ life to offer important insight into the obstacles African Americans confronted during the Civil War era in both North and South. Additionally, it illustrates how persistence sometimes broke down barriers. For example, following Swails’ appointment as second lieutenant by Massachusetts governor John Andrew on March 11, 1864, Rhea intricately explores the ways in which Swails and his supporters confronted individuals, especially officials in the War Department, who opposed Swails’ commission solely on the basis of his race. Persistence on Swails’ part, coupled with determination from the regiment’s commanding officer, Colonel Edward N. Hallowell, ultimately resulted in Swails being mustered in as second lieutenant on February 8, 1865. Rhea convincingly contends that Swails and his advocates persevered not only because Swails deserved the promotion based on his leadership abilities and gallantry in combat, but that they were keenly aware Swails’ promotion set an important precedent for all black soldiers in blue.

Rhea’s analysis of Swails’ postwar life in South Carolina provides key insights into the complexities of life for African Americans during Reconstruction. Swails’ work with the Freedmen’s Bureau, first near Charleston, and then near Kingstree, underscores the important role Bureau officials played in maintaining peace between ex-Confederates and formerly enslaved people. For example, when a contingent of African Americans threatened violence after two former plantation owners attempted to recover property occupied by formerly enslaved people as a result of General William T. Sherman’s Special Field Order No. 15, Swails intervened and

Reviewed by Stewart Bennett

diffused the situation.

Swails’ talent to reason with diverse groups propelled him into South Carolina’s political scene, first as a delegate from Williamsburg County to the South Carolina constitutional convention and then state senator. Rhea praises Swails, and deservedly so, not merely for his ability to reach such important political heights, but for how Swails used his platform to promote peace in a state rampant with violence. While Williamsburg County was not entirely immune from conflict, Rhea provides compelling evidence to illustrate how Swails’ desire to listen to people of all races and backgrounds and develop logical solutions to problems created a comparatively more stable environment in the county.

Despite Swails’ success in maintaining peace among his constituents, he could not avoid the effects of redemption in South Carolina by the late 1870s. Although he resigned from the senate on November 27, 1877, and was threatened with death if he did not leave, Swails never wavered in his resolve to help

improve life in South Carolina. Although he suffered a slew of political defeats in the years after his resignation, the author shows that Swails’ persistence could never be crushed.

Students of the African American experience will find much to admire and little to decry in this outstanding volume. But the power of Rhea’s fine study exceeds its historiographical significance. Swails’ life serves as a lesson in the value of persistence. Furthermore, Swails’ story reminds us of the importance of approaching difficult moments with balance, reason, and an open-mind.

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.

The Fourth of July and the 1876 Centennial Exhibition

Contesting Commemorations: The 1876 Centennial. Independence Day, And The Reconstruction-Era South. By Jack Noe. Notes, Bibliography, and Index. 244 pp., 2021. Louisiana State University Press, lsupress.org. $45.00 Cloth.

Reviewed by David Marshall

CHARLESTON IN THE WAR

Between May and November 1876, a world’s fair called the International Exhibition of Arts Manufacturers and Products of the Soil and Mine, also known as the Centennial Exhibition or Centennial was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It attracted more than ten million visitors, one fifth of the U.S. population. Its purpose was to celebrate one hundred years of national existence, presenting an opportunity for whites, African Americans, Northerners, and Southerners to reflect and engage with ideas about their identity as Americans. It provided an opportunity for expressions of nationalism, patriotism, healing sectional wounds, or for the white South to reject reconciliation following the Civil War. Together with the 1876 presidential election of Republican Rutherford Hayes, Reconstruction ended partly due to agreements made with representatives from Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina.

“Contesting Commemoration” provides a captivating representation of post-Civil war reunion and reconciliation, using white Southern reactions to and involvement with these celebrations. Jack Noe offers a colorful discourse on the economic, social, and political aspects of reunification, and the difficulties behind the changes that occurred in a

post-Appomattox American identity. Throughout this well written book, a comparison is made between the points of view of white Southerners and African Americans utilizing the voices of many.

Noe spends a considerable number of pages in his six-chapter study linking the recent work of historians such as Gregory Downs, Anne Sarah Rubin, and Richard Zuczek. They suggest that white guerrilla-style terrorism, a defiant white public, and Federal military control of the South, resisted the Radical Republican measures to completely unify and rebuild the New South during Reconstruction. An important argument is suggested by historian David Blight that sectional reunion was achieved at the expense of African Americans, resulting in reconciliation by both north and Southern whites and the beginning of the Jim Crow era.

In The 1976 Centennial, Independence Day readers will gain an understanding of how former slaves used the memory of the Revolutionary War, and its commemoration to demand the status of full citizenship as per the fifteenth amendment. Noe asserts that a reason for the Civil War was the emancipation of African Americans. Additionally, he further extrapolates the challenges between reunion and reconciliation in this deeply researched narrative.

Little has been written on the Revolutionary War Centennial. What has been published on the fair itself, and its design is very different than what is examined throughout this study. Noe emphasizes how America experienced and felt about the events and celebration of American history and the meaning of the Fourth of July throughout this title. The writer tells a story that the North and the South were moving away from an agricultural past and into an industrial future with increased importance as the railroad and other inventions for manufacturers, farmers, and people, allowing the U.S. to become a world economic giant.

Noe found that some southern women, such as Ellen Long of Florida, believed the Centennial would unite America, and restore the South to prosperity. Furthermore, he analyzed how over time that some Southern governments and businesses realized the Centennial was

an opportunity to showcase their great states and benefit economically by participating in the fair. Finally, this tapestry was a focus of national memory and shared identity that used rituals such as the Fourth of July, and the Reconstruction era to portray our sectional identities and differences.

This tome depicts the nationalism fought for by the South between 1861–1865 through commemorative activities such as celebrating our nation’s founding and issues that Southern States had with the Centennial and the Federal government during Reconstruction. During this period, many African Americans were killed or harassed in the South, which resisted any recognition of citizenship for freed people. White Southerners both shunned and engaged with the celebrations of American nationhood. Noe contends that African Americans embraced the opportunity to claim full agency and citizenship. He further postulates that commemorations and historical memory during Reconstruction was intertwined with politics, biased newspapers, partisanship, and racial divisions. While Southern participation in the 1876 Centennial was limited with only Mississippi and Arkansas having any official presence, the Southern States finally had opportunities to market themselves in future fairs in Chicago, New Orleans, Atlanta, and Nashville during the late nineteenth century. They were linked to the idea of a New South, progress, and patriotism. The fairs included black exhibits that focused on education. Noe points out that the fairs forged a link between race and progress during the Jim Crow era. In the end, he suggests that the United States was reunited but far from reconciled. This reviewer recommends this new volume.

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

COLLECTION

Two African American boys, barefoot, and wearing ragged clothing.

CDV Backmark reads:

J. (John) R. Shockley, Photographer. West side of Main St., Hannibal, Mo. On a side note Tom Sawyer’s fence, where he persuaded his gang to pay him for the privilege of whitewashing, is located in Hannibal, Mo.

Most African Americans in Missouri lived in what R. Douglas Hurt, the author of Agriculture and Slavery in Missouri’s Little Dixie, referred to as “Little Dixie” prior to the Civil War. The Southern states of Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee, provided the majority of the new immigrants to these counties. These settlers brought with them a Southern culture that was dependent on slavery and included commercial agriculture in the form of hogs, hemp, and tobacco. According to Hurt, the seven counties of Clay, Lafayette, Saline, Cooper, Howard, Boone, and Callaway comprised the core of antebellum Little Dixie. Each county’s entire population in 1850 was at least 24 percent made up of slaves. These counties led the state in tobacco and hemp production and were among the top 10 slave counties in terms of population.

The farm owners believed that the labor-intensive, back-breaking job required by the hemp and tobacco crops was better suited for slaves. As a result, the majority of African Americans in antebellum Missouri were transported there as slaves to work in agriculture. There weren’t many free African Americans. They were domestic workers and laborers, mostly on riverboats or levees. Before the Civil War, free African Americans had the legal right to own property (including slaves), bring legal claims against one another, and testify in court. Law and societal mores severely limited their options otherwise. Free African Americans in Missouri had to get licenses starting in 1835. A law from 1859 that narrowly failed to pass would have forced Missouri’s free African Americans to leave the state or convert to slavery. In 1860, Missouri had 114,931 slaves and 3,572 free African Americans.

Medium: Photographic print on carte de visite (CDV) mount: albumen; 10 x 6 cm.

Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-ppmsca-11186. William A. Gladstone Collection (Library of Congress). The William A. Gladstone Collection of African American Photographs provides almost 350 images showing African Americans and related military and social history. The Civil War era is the primary time period covered, with scattered examples through 1945. Most of the images are photographs, including 270 cartes de visite. For information visit http://loc.gov/pictures/collection/gld.

1863–1864 Saw Russian Squadrons and Fancy Balls in America

by Ivan Agyeyev and Yuriy Kirpichoff

The American Civil War broke out 160 years ago. The Russians were involved, either directly or indirectly...

The ball thundered! It was gorgeous and opulent. Even though it didn’t measure up to some previous balls in New York, it was celebrating the Prince of Wales’s visit. Beautiful American women were waltzed around by valiant Russian officers, surrounded by countless men and women, a large orchestra, and tables with fine cuisine.

Yes, the ball was noteworthy, and a few of the dishes would live on in culinary annals. More than a hundred different varieties of delectable food treats, including oysters, truffles, pheasants, goose liver, and pigeon cutlets. The following dishes were created especially for this ball: “Snitmitch a la Russe,” “Siberienne and New Yorkaises charlottes,” “d’antzick Orientales jelly,” and “Pains d’abricots a la Beresina.”

Numerous glazing options include “Pierre le Grand,” “Washington,” “Alexander II,” “Lincoln,” “L’ermitage Russe,” and “L’aigle Americain.” Additionally, there was “Nesselrode pudding” and a unique “Bombes spongade.”

The banquet used 3,500 bottles of wine in addition to 12,000 oysters, 10,000 fowl, 2,000 pickled cucumbers, etc.

The Nesselrode pudding, and several other Russian references, indicate an awareness of Russian

things. Karl Nesselrode was not only the Russian Empire’s Chancellor and Minister of Foreign Affairs, he was also an expert food critic. His personal chef, Mui, came up with the idea and gave the dish its name, a frozen dessert or sauce made from mashed chestnuts.

The June 25, 1863, authorization by Emperor Alexander II to send two cruising squadrons to both coasts of the United States was the catalyst for the celebration.

A squadron led by Rear Admiral S.S. Lesovsky, consisting of three frigates, two corvettes, and a clipper, traversed the Atlantic Ocean. The Oslyabya, another frigate, arrived in New York from the Mediterranean. Three corvettes and two clippers made up the squadron visiting San Francisco under the direction of Rear Admiral A.A. Popov.

Expeditious goals

Russian sources claim that, during the Civil War, Russia came dangerously close to saving the North, and that the tsar-liberator, who outlawed slavery, dispatched squadrons to fight for them out of great affection. However, this is untrue. Furthermore, it’s probable that the United States saved Russia from a new conflict with the most powerful European nations as well as from a fresh humiliation.

Simply put, Russia was dealing with its own issues. On January 22, 1863, an uprising

started in Warsaw and quickly spread throughout all Poland. Russian forces started putting down the rebellion, but in April 1863, England, France, and then Austria, issued angry communications to the Russian government; a serious possibility of war with a coalition of the most powerful Western powers loomed. Because the Baltic fleet would have been stuck in the Gulf of Finland, just like during the Crimean War, if war broke out; the government planned in advance to send a portion to sea to threaten England with a cruiser war.

But where should the flotilla be exposed? Although Russia abolished slavery on February 19, 1861, less than two months before the American Civil War started, there was not enough time for a change in societal attitudes. The majority of the Russian fleet’s officers and commanders were descended from landowner families or from slave owners.

The decision was made to visit the northern states because hostile England and France supported the South and because northern ships blocked the southeastern coast. The tsar did not even consider aiding the Northerners before Russia’s internal rebellion began and the Anglo-French threats followed.

Russian ships, particularly swift multi-gun frigates, were definitely capable of damaging English commerce vessels, but ocean warfare required an

operating base. It could only be obtained from the northern U.S. states. They swiftly came to an agreement with President Lincoln because the presence of friendly naval forces was in both their best interests. The efforts of Captain 1st Rank Stepan Stepanovich Lesovsky, the Russian naval attaché in the United States, also helped in this regard. He was given the rank of Rear Admiral was made commander of the Atlantic squadron.

The mission of the expedition was to “act with all possible and available means against our enemies, inflicting the most sensitive damage and damage to enemy trade by means of individual cruisers or making attacks by the whole squadron on the weak and unprotected places of the enemy colonies in the event of a war with the Western powers now anticipated.”

The squadron was required to wait in America for the outcome of talks with the European countries and only start cruising in the event of a “unfavorable decision.” Every ship was given a designated cruise region. The flagship frigate Alexander Nevsky was assigned to patrol along “the path of British ships heading from Liverpool to Nassau with various military supplies for the South American states; frigate Peresvet on the route of ships from England to the East Indies; corvette Varyag on the route of ships from England to South America; and corvette Vityaz on the route of East Indies ships traveling from the Cape of Good Hope to the island St. Elena.” The frigate Oslyabya was given the territory of the Azores; the clipper Almaz was given a zone in the central Atlantic just north of the equator.

The arrival of the Russian squadron caused quite a stir. The American newspapers, New York Times, New York Herald, New York Daily Tribune, Daily Alta California, Harper’s Weekly, National Intelligencer, etc. published a ton of articles, illustrations, and announcements about parades, displays, receptions, and dinners in honor of Russian sailors in the fall of 1863. Harper’s Weekly created a large number of top-notch graphics and in-depth essays. Many Americans were aware of the true significance of the Russian fleet’s appearance: “There is one moment in the Russian fleet’s arrival here that should not be disregarded. All Russian ships were halted at

various ports throughout the Crimean War. If Russia now finds itself at war with the nations who made such a fuss about Poland, her fleet will be free and have the chance to pursue the enemy’s commerce shipping (New York Herald, October 7, 1863).

The 45-gun frigate Oslyabya was the first to anchor in New York Harbor, on September 11, 1863. The frigates Alexander Nevsky (50 guns) and Peresvet (43 guns) arrived two weeks later, on September 25. The corvettes Vityaz (17 guns) and Varyag (17 guns) arrived the following day. The Almaz clipper (5 or 7 guns), which had been waiting for nearly two weeks due to a calm, finally showed up on September 29. Captain P. Zelenoy did not want to take a chance by using up his tiny allocation of coal. Not all of it went perfectly. It was not simple to cross the ocean. Shortage of experience on lengthy voyages caused sailors to suffer from overwork, wet, windy weather, and a lack of fresh supplies. Many people became ill, and some died. Luckily, a private hospital for the care of sick emigrants in New York assigned two wings to the Russian sailors; 87 individuals were sent “from the frigates Alexander Nevsky,” Peresvet, 68, and from the corvette Vityaz,” 5; 115 were down with scurvy. The majority of the sailors recovered quickly because of the clean air and fresh food.

The emphasis of the Secretary of State W. Seward and Secretary of the Navy G. Welles was focused on the Russian seamen. The wives of the American president and the leaders of the U.S. Congress, as well as senators, representatives, and members of the House of Representatives and their families (a total of more than 500 persons), paid visits to the ships.

The Russian sailors’ escape from the Baltic became a significant issue once they arrived in America. Thirty sailors deserted by November 3, 1863, “of whom 7 Chukhons, 9 Poles, 9 Russians, and 5 were converted from Jews.”

It is understandable why Jews fled the Russian Empire; even after changing their religion, life there was not pleasant. The Poles’ decision was easy to make because Russian troops were currently occupying their country. Lesovsky defended himself by saying that some of the fugitives escaped despite having spouses and children at home, “in whom

The Great Russian Ball at the Academy of Music, November, 5, 1863. (Harpers Weekly)

one could least of all anticipate a purpose to flee.”

The admiral made an effort to provide an explanation for the desertions by pointing to the temptation offered by U.S. Army recruiters. “300 dollars, which at the present time are given per person when recruiting [a large number of] people in the army and which make on the coast speculators of the lowest hand resort to possible tricks, soldering, etc. to seduce sailors from their duty,” he said.

It may have been more about their longing for freedom than it was about money. If some enlisted in the military, it was because doing so was the quickest path to acclimating in a foreign land.

Lesovsky was forced to stop sending crews ashore to thwart additional escapes, following the lead of the French and British, whose ships were also stationed in the harbor. However, despite the steps adopted, including the requests of the Consul General in New York, Baron P. Austen-Saken, to the American authorities, the desertions did not stop, and it proved to be incredibly difficult to get their men back. Some 87 sailors left the squadron while it was in the United States; many of them joined the Union Army.

Despite the Russians’ passionate encounter in America, the marriage ended up being one of convenience because of

the way things played out, and they also feared an overreaction in St. Petersburg. The head of the Russian foreign policy department, Alexander II, Gorchakov, acknowledged that no proposal for an alliance had been made by the Americans by September 23, 1863, although not all Russian ships had yet arrived in New York. The minister added, “We would, however, reject it as meaningless. Our political objectives and traditions overlap, thus the treaty already exists in practice.”

American rapture and cooling

Soon, the Americans’ extraordinarily cordial reception of the Russian sailors warmed even Gorchakov’s heart. In St. Petersburg, the warm welcome given the Russians had a lasting impact. The Russian fleet’s successful tour to the United States was most especially celebrated in the navy ministry.

Admiral N. Krabbe, Russia’s navy minister and fleet reformer, wrote Lesovsky, “The dazzling and solemn reception given to you in New York inexpressibly pleases me and all the friends of the fleet... Everyone is talking about you, dear Stepan Stepanovich, and you are the true lion of the moment.”

Even here, things didn’t go perfectly. Lesovsky complained

the Polish insurgents, along with a long-existing antipathy for authoritarian regimes, were the underlying causes of the chill, not the disgruntled lady’s fury.

Smart N. Krabbe suggested to Lesovsky that he “take a trip through other American ports” since he anticipated the transition from elation to satiety.

President Lincoln agreed with this viewpoint. The squadron did not leave New York until November 15, but eventually set sail and arrived in Washington on December 3 with the Oslyabya frigate, joined by the Vityaz, Varyag, and Almaz corvettes.

Russian ships docked in Alexandria, across the Potomac from Washington.

On December 5, Secretary of State William Seward introduced the sailors to the Cabinet in the capital. Two days later, the secretary of state and other cabinet members attended a supper with the Russian consul after Seward hosted a banquet for the admiral and the ship commanders. On December 9, Lesovsky attended a reception at the Navy Ministry with the ship commanders and diplomatic personnel from Washington.

As a result of Saint Petersburg’s realization that conflict with the Western powers was no longer a possibility, on April 28, Krabbe expressed his strongest desire to return to the commander of the Atlantic Ocean fleet.

After some of the squadron were sent to the Far East, Lesovsky traveled to Boston with the remaining ships. A committee of city residents was established to welcome the visitors, and a “special pier meant solely for Russian rowing ships” was constructed in the harbor. On the frigate Oslyabya, a sizable reception was held that May 16. Excursions, a trip to Harvard College, a tour of the navy yard and workshops, a stop at an armaments factory, and other locations, a gala supper and music, as well as a holiday and treats for sailors and lower ranks in Boston Park, were all on the agenda for the visit. “The Russian squadron did not offer us either weapons or military munitions to repress the insurrection,” the mayor of Boston declared at the goodbye banquet, “but it brought with it more than this – a sense of international brotherhood, its spiritual assistance.”

about the aggressive materials to the New York Herald, regardless of how kind the Russian officers were or how the ladies circled at the balls: “The wife of the editor of this newspaper, an arrogant and quarrelsome woman, was on my frigate and complained to her husband, that she was insulted... There is not a shred of justice in this at all. I was informed of her arrival, personally welcomed her, drove her about the frigate, treated her with the same courtesy as many other women who visited the frigate, and introduced her to our embassy’s secretaries, Messrs. Bodisko and Davydov, as well as our consul general, Baron Osten-Saken.”

The New York Herald lashed out, saying “After the Russian navy arrived, Russian frenzy seized us. We discussed speeches and banquets and even compared Alexander to Abraham Lincoln. We doubt Russia would send its navy here if it needed to aid us in our fight against England, but it did so to keep it safe in case of a war with France. Her fleet was not worthwhile to dispatch. With all these savages on board, one of our battleships could destroy it in two hours.”

The price of democracy is as follows. A free press, which has never existed in Russia, is one of its essential characteristics. The improvement in the northerners’ worldwide stature and the American public’s sympathy for

On December 12, “500 people: senators, representatives of the House of Representatives and their families” were welcomed on board the flagship frigate in a particularly lavish ceremony.

Schuyler Colfax, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, spoke on behalf of the visitors.

President Lincoln asked Lesovsky to delay his departure while he recovered from chicken pox. He stated that while he would be receiving the sailors at his home, he was unable to board the ship. The admiral and ship commanders were introduced to the President and Mrs. Lincoln at a formal reception attended by members of Congress, top government officials, and members of the diplomatic corps. The President attributed the military inability of Britain and France to intervene in the Civil War between the North and the South to the presence of Russian squadrons off the American coast.

In order to persuade London and Paris that Russia was a prospective ally of the United States, Lincoln and Seward were interested in a cordial reception of Russian ships; they were somewhat successful in this endeavor. Napoleon III refused to recognize the Confederacy, and warships the Southerners had built at Liverpool remained in England.

The Russian ships left in New York in the spring of 1864 were soon leaving for their homeland.

By this time, the Polish revolt had been largely suppressed, finally put down in early June, and on July 20, the ships Oslyabya, Peresvet, and Vityaz went to sea. That marked the end of Russian assistance to the North. When the Union launched the Petersburg campaign in July, it was evident that the Confederates would be defeated. The authors don’t believe the Russian squadrons made a significant contribution to the ultimate Union victory. The famous Mahan principle, that a good fleet will carry out its duties and restrain the adversary by virtue of its very existence, was reaffirmed by the Russian squadrons, something that rarely happened to them.

Yuriy Kirpichoff is the author of popular publications on naval history on the website of the Russian Navy, in the Russian naval magazine Gangut, The Artilleryman magazine, and in other publications.

Ivan Agyeyev is studying history at the University of Northern Florida.

The Alexander Nevsky in New York Harbor, 1863. Detail from an illustration in Harper’s Weekly.

Visit our new website at CivilWarNews.com and it will take you to HistoricalPublicationsLLC.com. The calendar is online and an updated before the print issue. To submit an event send it to:

Before

Sept. 24, Illinois. Civil War & Military Extravaganza

Zurko Promotions presents The National Civil War Collectors Fall Show and Sale which will be held at the DuPage County Fairgrounds, 2015 W. Manchester, Wheaton, Ill. Hours: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is $10, Early Admission $25. Free parking. For more info: visit www.chicagocivilwarshow. com or call Zurko Promotions at 715-526-9769.

September 24, Virginia. Walking Tour

Shenandoah University’s McCormick Civil War Institute in partnership with the Fort Collier Civil War Center will offer a tour with Prof. Jonathan A. Noyalas, “A Theme for the Poet, a Scene for the Painter”: Fort Collier and the Third Battle of Winchester. The one-hour tour, beginning at 9:30 a.m., will be held at Fort Collier, 922 Martinsburg Pike, Winchester, Virginia. Event is free and open to the public. No pre-registration required. For information; jnoyalas01@su.edu or 540-665-4501

Sept. 30-Oct. 2, Virginia, Annual Conference

Central Virginia Battlefields Trust hosts its 2022 annual conference, “1862The War Comes to Fredericksburg.” This year’s conference kicks off with a Friday evening President’s Reception at the CVBT office. Saturday features a special screening of “Fire on the Rappahannock” in the morning, and river crossings and Prospect Hill battlefield tours during the day. Saturday evening includes a banquet and annual meeting with a keynote address by historian John Hennessey at historic Belmont in Falmouth. Sunday brunch at Stevenson’s Ridge includes a panel discussion moderated by Chris Mackowski with historians Sarah Kay Bierle, John Hennessey, Greg Mertz, and Scott Walker. Full weekend registration is $195.00, or Saturday evening banquet only is $95.00. More information and registration are available at: https://www.cvbt.org/cvbt-annual-conference.

Oct. 1, Pennsylvania. Honor Ceremony

Major Octavius V. Catto Honor ceremony; wreath laying; military salute at the Catto Monument at city hall in Philadelphia at 11 a.m. honoring the great black equal rights and military leader. Wreath-Laying ceremony. All military units, period civilians, veterans and heritage groups are welcome. Colors, wreaths and music encouraged. Following the city hall ceremony, PA National Guard Medal Ceremony at 12:30 p.m. in the Union League for the ‘Major Catto Medal.’ For info: Dr. Andy Waskie awaski01@gmail.com.

Oct. 1-2,

Tennessee. Military Collectors Show & Sale

6th Annual Military Collectors Show & Sale hosted by The Elite Civil War Collectors Facebook Group. Hours Sat. 9-4, Sun. 9-2. Admission $5, under 12 free. Come see some of the finest Civil War displays in the country. Collectors from all over the mid-South will be on hand to discuss and share their collections and history. Located at the Stewart County Visitors Center, 117 Visitors Center Lane, Dover, TN 37058. For more information email john@fortdonelsonrelics.com.

Oct. 7-9,

Virginia. Period Firearms Competition

The North-South Skirmish Association 146th National Competition near Winchester. Over 3,000 uniformed competitors in 200 member units compete in live-fire matches with muskets, carbines, revolvers, mortars and cannon plus costume competitions and historical lectures. The largest Civil War livefire event in the country. Free admission, large sutler area, and food service. For more information visit the N-SSA web site: www.n-ssa.org.

Oct. 15-16, Virginia. Reenactment

The 158th Anniversary Reenactment of the Battle of Cedar Creek recreating the last major battle in the Shenandoah Valley will be held the weekend of

Oct. 15th & 16th at 8437 Valley Pike in Middletown, Va. See cavalry, artillery, and infantry soldiers in action and in camp. Battle scenarios, music, symposium, and medical, military, and civilian demonstrations are scheduled each day. Fundraising raffles, period merchants, and food vendors onsite. Don’t miss the Evening Candlelight Tour Program. 1-day, 2-day, and discount options available! Children 6 & under are free! For more information; 540-869-2064, Info@ccbf.us or www.ccbf.us.

Nov. 5, Virginia. Seminar & Tour

Shenandoah University’s McCormick Civil War Institute annual fall seminar and tour with Prof. Jonathan A. Noyalas, “My Mind is Full with Thoughts of the Past”: The Second Battle of Winchester Through the Eyes of Combatants and Civilians.” $25 registration fee covers morning lecture at Shenandoah University (1460 University Drive, Winchester, VA), lunch at SU, and vehicle caravan of sites, including sites not regularly accessible to the public. Event begins at 10:30 a.m. and concludes at 4 p.m. To register visit su.edu/mcwi. For info; jnoyalas01@su.edu or 540-665-4501.

Nov. 10, Pennsylvania. US Marine Corps Birthday Observance

Laurel Hill Cemetery located at 3822 Ridge Ave, Philadelphia at 11 a.m. at the grave of General Jacob Zeilin, 7th Commandant of the Marine Corps during the Civil War. A special ‘Veterans’ Day tour of heroes ‘killed in action’ and buried at Laurel Hill Cemetery will follow. Co-sponsored by: The Legion Post 405; MOLLUS; General Meade Society For information; 215-228-2800, or 215-423-3930, Dr. Andy Waskie: awaski01@gmail.com, www. thelaurelhillcemetery.org

Nov. 12, Virginia. Civil War Show

Bullet and Shell is proud to present the 41st 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. Over 300 tables! 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 www.MilitaryAntiqueShow.com.

Nov. 19, Pennsylvania. Remembrance Day in Gettysburg

General Meade & his Generals and the veterans of the Battle of Gettysburg Honor/Dedication ceremonies during the Remembrance Day Observance. Honoring all commanders and veterans of the Battle. Meet at the General Meade Equestrian Monument at 10 a.m. For information; Jerry McCormick at 215-848-7753 or gedwinmc@msn.com.

Nov. 19, Pennsylvania. Gettysburg Remembrance Day Parade

Sponsored by the Sons of Veterans Reserve, the Military Department of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War. Parade briefing at the Unity Park Monument on Lefever St. at 12 p.m. Units form up at Noon on Lefever St. between Baltimore St. and E. Confederate Ave. Parade begins at 1 p.m. For information; Major David Hann, Provost Marshal SVR at 609-816-2012, majorsvrprovost@gmail.com.

making plans to attend any event contact the event host.

Nov. 19, Pennsylvania. Civil War Ball

The original Gettysburg Ball will be held 8 p.m. to midnight at the Wyndham Gettysburg Hotel locate at 95 Presidential Circle in Gettysburg. Tickets $20 in advance, $25 at the door. Music by the Philadelphia Brigade Band. Dances led by the Victorian Dance Ensemble. Period dress encouraged, but not required. Door prizes, plus prizes for Ladies Cake Walk. Cash bar. Make check payable to SVR Remembrance Day Ball. Include stamped, self-addressed envelope for tickets. Ticket orders received after Nov. 12 will be distributed at the Ball Mail to: Col. Steve Michaels SVR, 6623 S North Cape Rd., Franklin, WI 53132-1227. For information; 414-712-4655 or Lt.col.sm@gmail.com.

Nov. 19-20, Louisiana. Reenactment

Join us for the annual reenactment 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 (opens at 9 a.m.). Various drill demonstrations on Sunday Nov. 20 at 10 a.m. Museum closes 4 p.m. Grounds close 4:30 p.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.

Dec. 3-4, Tennessee. Civil War Show and Sale

MK Shows presents the 35th 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 750 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. Free Parking. Admission is only $10/adults and children under 12 are free. For information; www.MKShows.com or Mike@MKShows.com.

Dec. 31, Pennsylvania. Birthday Celebration

207th annual anniversary of the birth of Gen. George G. Meade, the heroic commander of the Union army at the Battle of Gettysburg. The General Meade Society of Philadelphia will celebrate his birthday at Historic Laurel Hill Cemetery, 3822 Ridge Ave. at noon. A champagne toast and reception will follow the program. For info; 215-228-8200 Laurel Hill Cemetery.

Middle Tenn Civil War Show

December 3 & 4, 2022

MK Shows presents the 35th 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 750 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. Free Parking. Admission is only $10/ adults and children under 12 are free. For information visit www.MKShows.com (Scan Me) or Mike@MKShows.com.

The Largest Civil War Show Under One Roof!

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The following terms and conditions shall be incorporated by reference into all placement and order for placement of any advertisements in Civil War News by Advertiser and any Agency acting on Advertiser’s behalf. By submitting an order for placement of an advertisement and/or by placing an advertisement, Advertiser and Agency, and each of them, agree to be bound by all of the following terms and conditions:

1. All advertisements and articles are subject to acceptance by Publisher who has the right to refuse any ad submitted for any reason. Mailed articles and photos will not be returned.

2. The advertiser and/or their agency warrant that they have permission and rights to anything contained within the advertisement as to copyrights, trademarks or registrations. Any infringement will be the responsibility of the advertiser or their agency and the advertiser will hold harmless the Publisher for any claims or damages from publishing their advertisement. This includes all attorney fees and judgments.

3. The Publisher will not be held responsible for incorrect placement of the advertisement and will not be responsible for any loss of income or potential profit lost.

4. All orders to place advertisements in the publication are subject to the rate card charges, space units and specifications then in effect, all of which are subject to change and shall be made a part of these terms and conditions.

5. Photographs or images sent for publication must be high resolution, unedited and full size. Phone photographs are discouraged. Do not send paper print photos for articles.

6. At the discretion of Civil War News any and all articles will be edited for accuracy, clarity, grammar and punctuation per our style guide.

7. Articles can be emailed as a Word Doc attachment or emailed in the body of the message. Microsoft Word format is preferred. Email articles and photographs: mail@civilwarnews.com

8. Please Note: Articles and photographs mailed to Civil War News will not be returned unless a return envelope with postage is included.