Issue 11

THE OVERLAND CAMPAIGN IN PICTURES

P. 50

FIGHT SONGS

P. 40

VOL. 4, NO. 1

“ A ONEARMED JERSEY SON-OFA-GUN” The Privileged, Restless, and Reckless Life of Major General Philip Kearny

NEW! CIVIL WAR EVENTS CALENDAR P. 6

PLUS

MATHEW BRADY’S ACCIDENTAL EXPOSURE

SPRING 2014

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P. 22

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Winchester-Frederick County VIRGINIA Commemorates Three Civil War Battles in 2014 Second Battle of Kernstown

July 19-20

Participate in a day-long motorcoach tour with author/ historian Scott Patchan, revisiting the places and events leading up to the battle. Kernstown Battlefield will also host the Civil War 150 HistoryMobile, guided tours, live period music, period fashion shows, and living history demonstrations with sharpshooters and cavalry units.

Third Battle of Winchester

Battle of Cedar Creek

October 18-19

Witness one of the most exciting battle reenactments in the country! This unique opportunity also includes a children’s activities tent, Sutler Row shopping area, a luminary commemoration service, and night firing of cannons. Guided group tours are available and include grandstand seating for the reenactments. Free admission for children 6 and under.

September 19-20

HARPER’S WEEKLY ; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2); HATHI TRUST DIGITAL LIBRARY

The site of an ambitious restoration project, Third Winchester Battlefield will host special battlefield tours, a kids camp, living history programs, a battle re-creation on the pivotal “Middle Field,” and a Commemorative Program on Third Winchester and the 1864 Shenandoah Campaign.

Plan Your Visit

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Contents DEPARTMENTS

VOLUME 4, NUMBER 1 / SPRING 2014

FEATURES

Fight Songs 40

Salvo

From inspiring anthems to humorous ditties, Civil War soldiers crafted a variety of musical lyrics to help pass the time, air laments, amuse comrades, and share their struggles.

{Facts, Figures & Items of Interest}

by christian mcwhirter

TRAVELS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 A Visit to Frederick, Maryland

VOICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Hardtack

PRESERVATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Interpretation: Half the Battle

FIGURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 A Ticket Home

“A ONE-ARMED JERSEY SON-OF-A-GUN” 28

DISUNION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

An unquenchable thirst for war transforms a restless son of privilege into a fearless but controversial commander.

IN FOCUS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

by stephen w. sears

The Freedmen of Wisconsin

Brady’s Accidental Exposure

Columns CASUALTIES OF WAR. . . . . . . . . 24 Albert Moses Luria

BATTLEFIELD ECHOES. . . . . . . 26

HARPER’S WEEKLY ; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2); HATHI TRUST DIGITAL LIBRARY

The Wilderness, Body Counts, and Fading Hopes

Books & Authors VOICES FROM THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC, PART 2. . . . . . 69

BY GARY W. GALLAGHER

RIVERS, ROADS & REGIMENTS 50 The 1864 Overland Campaign in Pictures. by garry adelman

CIVIL WAR PERSONAL JOURNALS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

BY ROBERT K. KRICK

In Every Issue EDITORIAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 AGENDA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 NOTES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78 PARTING SHOT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Take Me Out to the … Battlefield

The Ubiquitous Mr. Tanner 60

Grievously wounded during the conflict, Union soldier James Tanner went on to achieve both fame and infamy during his remarkable postwar life. by james marten

ON THE COVER: Major General

Philip Kearny. Image courtesy Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection

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editorial VOLUME 4, NUMBER 1 / SPRING 2014

Terry A. Johnston Jr. EDITOR-IN-CHIEF TERRY@CIVILWARMONITOR.COM

Laura June Davis Angela Esco Elder David Thomson Robert Poister CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Personal Favorites ask a civil war buff to name their “favorite” general, regiment, or battle, and you’re likely to get a speedy and enthusiastic response. Some might wax poetic about Grant or Lee, famous commands like the Irish or Stonewall brigades, or well-known engagements like Gettysburg. Others might champion lesser-known personalities—like a Civil War ancestor— or units raised and battles fought near their hometowns.

While non-Civil War buffs might wonder how anyone has “favorites” in this regard, those of us who have researched or studied or reenacted the conflict for years know that it’s only natural for some aspects of the war to intrigue us more than others.

Indeed, what so often draws us to the war— and holds our eternal interest—are its unique personalities and places.

This issue’s lead article on the bold yet reckless Major General Philip Kearny (page 28) touches on two of my own personal Civil War favorites: the Battle of Chantilly, Virginia, where Union forces held off advancing Confederates looking to follow up their recent victory at Second Bull Run; and Isaac Stevens (above), the underrated (at least I think) Union general who was shot dead while leading his troops forward during the engagement. And after you read about Kearny, you may find yourself adding him to your list of Civil War personalities that you can’t help but want to learn more about.

Stephen Berry Patrick Brennan John Coski Judith Giesberg Allen C. Guelzo Amy Murrell Taylor EDITORIAL ADVISORS

Jennifer Sturak COPY EDITOR

Matthew C. Hulbert SPECIAL PROJECTS MANAGER MATT@CIVILWARMONITOR.COM

Brian Matthew Jordan BOOK REVIEW EDITOR BRIAN@CIVILWARMONITOR.COM

Katie Brackett Fialka SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR

Patrick Mitchell CREATIVE DIRECTOR MODUS OPERANDI DESIGN (WWW.MODUSOP.NET)

Zethyn McKinley ADVERTISING DIRECTOR ADVERTISING@CIVILWARMONITOR.COM (559) 492 9236

Margaret Collins ADVERTISING ASSOCIATE MARGARET@CIVILWARMONITOR.COM

Howard White CIRCULATION MANAGER HWHITEASSOC@COMCAST.NET website

www.CivilWarMonitor.com

M. Keith Harris Kevin M. Levin Robert H. Moore II Harry Smeltzer DIGITAL HISTORY ADVISORS

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: letters@civilwarmonitor.com

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Views expressed by individual authors, unless expressly stated, do not necessarily represent those of The Civil War Monitor or Bayshore History, LLC. Letters to the editor become the property of The Civil War Monitor, and may be edited. The Civil War Monitor cannot assume responsibility for unsolicited materials. The contents of the magazine may not be reproduced in whole or part without the written consent of the publisher.

Copyright ©2014 by Bayshore History, llc all rights reserved.

printed in the u.s.a.

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

speaking of favorites: In this issue, we’re launching a new regular feature—our Civil War events calendar (see page 6). With so many lectures, reenactments, book signings, and other programs occurring all the time, we thought it would be a good idea to regularly highlight the ones that catch our attention (and that we’d love to attend ourselves). Know about an interesting Civil War event coming up? Please send us an email at events@civilwarmonitor.com and let us know all about it.

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CivWar

Every Sat. 8 am – Mon. 8 am ET Watch American History TV every weekend for 48 hours of people and events that help document the American story.

Weekly Programming on the Civil War Sat. 6 pm & 10 pm ET PHOTOGRAPH CREDIT HERE

Debates and interviews about the events and people who shaped the Civil War era.

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was responsible for the organization of the Missouri State Militia and the Enrolled Missouri Militia, both of which took a leading role in fighting guerrillas, thus freeing up thousands of other soldiers to join the armies of Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman at the front.

The 25 Most Influential

I really enjoyed reading your winter 2013 issue [Vol. 3, No. 4], in particular the lead article about the 25 most influential individuals of the Civil War … that people have probably never heard of. A few names I would have included on the list are: J.W. Garrett, the president of the B&O Railroad, who provided intelligence to Washington that helped stave off Confederate general Jubal Early’s raid against the capital in 1864; Robert Parrott, the artillery and ordnance inventor whose rifled cannon and projectiles arguably brought about a speedier end to the war, due to their brutal accuracy and destructive capabilities; and Thomas Eckert, whose organization of the telegraph office in the War Department was invaluable to President Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, allowing for a more effective means of communication with generals in the field.

Just some ideas! Keep up the great work. I enjoy the Monitor and recommend it to my fellow Civil War buffs often.

Dayton Henceroth VIA EMAIL

* * * In response to your invitation to nominate others as the Civil War’s most influential persons you never heard of, I note that none of the men and women mentioned in the article was from west of the Mississippi River. Therefore, I submit the following name: Hamilton R. Gamble.

Gamble came out of retirement to return to Missouri during

James W. Erwin K I R KWO O D, M I SS O U R I

In Living Color

the secession crisis of 1860-1861.

Previously a successful lawyer and justice of the Missouri Supreme Court, he was a leader in the 1861 convention called to consider Missouri’s secession—and largely responsible for its overwhelming vote against leaving the Union. After Missouri’s prosecessionist elected officials were driven from the state by the Union army, the remaining loyal members of the convention named Gamble the provisional governor of Missouri—a position in which he served until his death in 1864.

Gamble held the civil government together in the midst of a bitter guerrilla war while working with a succession of generals—Nathaniel Lyon, John Frémont, Henry Halleck, John Schofield, Samuel Curtis, and Schofield again—and

Letters to the editor: email us at letters@civilwar monitor.com or write to The Civil War Monitor, P.O. Box 428, Longport, NJ 08403.

Thank you for focusing part of your fall 2013 issue on reenactors such as Matt Dellinger [“Why I Fight,” Vol. 3, No. 3]. Readers of Civil War publications have always put up with crudely colored tintypes of the conflict’s figures and fighters. Seeing modern-day people in period gear brought the past alive in a way that was very real to me. This was a refreshing change, and I applaud The Civil War Monitor’s decision to make a live person the cover subject.

Speaking of modern realities, I enjoyed that issue’s Chickamauga travel feature as well. I have contemplated road trips thanks to features like these. Please continue to inspire.

Thanks again for the fine publication.

John Baber T I T U SV I L L E , F LO R I DA

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agenda

Trial Issues!

Your Guide to Civil War Events

SPRING 2014

MARCH 2014 LECTURE

USS Monitor ’s Turret Reveals Her Secrets SATURDAY, MARCH 22, 1 P.M.

The Mariners’ Museum NEWPORT NEWS, VIRGINIA

USS Monitor Center director Dave Krop will share some of the most interesting stories and secrets discovered while archaeologists and conservators performed excavations and treatments within the famed ironclad’s revolving gun turret.

Civil War News Current Events Monthly Newspaper civilwarnews.com

$12 ADULTS; $11 SENIORS AND MILITARY; $10 STUDENTS WITH VALID ID; $7 CHILDREN 6-12; CHILDREN 5 AND UNDER ARE FREE; FOR MORE INFORMATION: MARINERSMUSEUM.ORG or 757-596-2222

APRIL 2014 TELEVISION

EXHIBIT

Homefront & Battlefield: Quilts and Context in the American Civil War FRIDAY, APRIL 4–SUNDAY, AUGUST 24

The New-York Historical Society NEW YORK, NEW YORK

Organized by the American Textile History Museum, this exhibition uses a variety of quilts, textiles, clothing, and other artifacts to tell compelling stories about the Civil War, its causes, its participants, and its aftermath. $18 ADULTS; $14 SENIORS; $12 STUDENTS; $6 CHILDREN; CHILDREN 4 AND UNDER ARE FREE; FOR MORE INFORMATION: NYHISTORY.ORG/EXHIBITIONS/ HOMEFRONT-BATTLEFIELD-QUILTS-CONTEXT-CIVILWAR or 212-873-3400

PBS

(CHECK LOCAL LISTINGS)

The

Artilleryman

For People Interested In Artillery 1750-1900 theartilleryman.com CWM11-FOB-Calendar.indd 6

The first episode in a five-hour, five-part documentary examines the Civil War through the lens of its often-overlooked western theater of operations. The series, narrated by actress Elizabeth McGovern, features state-of-the-art 2D and 3D graphics, fascinating archival imagery, and incisive expert commentary by Civil War historians and scholars.

FOR MORE INFORMATION: FACEBOOK.COM/CIVILWARTHEUNTOLDSTORY

Battle of Pleasant Hill Reenactment FRIDAY, APRIL 4–SUNDAY, APRIL 6

Pleasant Hill Battle Park DESOTO PARISH, LOUISIANA

Commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Pleasant Hill—fought on April 9, 1864, during the Red River Campaign—with three days of events and activities, including a parade, a period ball, and several battle reenactments. $5 FOR PARKING; FOR MORE INFORMATION: BATTLEOFPLEASANTHILL.COM or 318-658-5785

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THE GETTYSBURG FOUNDATION

THURSDAY, APRIL 3, 9 P.M.

REENACTMENT GREAT DIVIDE PICTURES; THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The Civil War: The Untold Story

THE CIVIL WAR MONITOR LECTURE

EXHIBIT

Civil War Richmond 1865— A Virtual Tour

1864 Sesquicentennial Exhibit

THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 6:30 P.M.

The Southern Museum of Civil War and Locomotive History

The Museum of the Confederacy-Appomattox APPOMATTOX, VIRGINIA

Using Google’s SketchUp software, along with period maps and photographs, the museum’s director of operations, Eric App, will create a stunning virtual replica of the Confederate capital, one that promises to bring historical events alive like never before.

FREE FOR MEMBERS; $5 FOR NON-MEMBERS FOR MORE INFORMATION: MOC.ORG/VISITUS?MODE=APPOMATTOX or 855-649-1861 x203 LECTURE

L OOKING FOR BACK ISSUE S?

SATURDAY, MAY 3–SUNDAY, JULY 20

OUR PREMIER ISSUE (Limited quantities—order now!)

KENNESAW, GEORGIA

Through the use of never-before-seen artifacts, interactive displays, and letters that expose the untold story of two families that experienced the effects of war firsthand, this exhibit will present a fresh and provocative look at what 1864 meant to the common soldiers and civilians who lived through it. $7.50 ADULTS; $6.50 CHILDREN 4-12; CHILDREN 3 AND UNDER ARE FREE; FOR MORE INFORMATION: SOUTHERNMUSEUM.ORG or 770-427-2117 LECTURE

Injuries in the Civil War SATURDAY, MAY 3, 2 P.M.

National Museum of Civil War Medicine FREDERICK, MARYLAND

Speaker Dr. John Golski, DDS, will discuss the practice of dentistry and the treatment of myofascial injuries during the Civil War, including the advances made in reconstructive and therapeutic treatments.

Evening with the Painting SATURDAY, APRIL 26, 6 P.M.

Gettysburg National Military Park Museum and Visitor Center GETTYSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA

Join Gettysburg Licensed Battlefield Guide and author/historian Sue Boardman for an exclusive “after-hours” program with the Gettysburg Cyclorama painting. The presentation will include a discussion of the massive multi-year conservation effort of our country’s largest painting. The program concludes with extended time on the platform to view the painting in full light. $20 ADULTS; $10 CHILDREN 6-12; FOR MORE INFORMATION: GETTYSBURGFOUNDATION.ORG/18 or 877-874-2478

MAY 2014

$9.50 ADULTS; $8.50 SENIORS; $7 STUDENTS; CHILDREN UNDER 9 AND MUSEUM MEMBERS ARE FREE; FOR MORE INFORMATION: CIVILWARMED.ORG/ CALENDAR/ or 301-695-1864 LECTURE

The Spring of 1864: A Season of Hope in the United States and the Confederacy

THE LINCOLN MOVIE ISSUE (See if the film got its histor y r ight!)

WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 5:30 P.M.

The Virginia Historical Society RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

Distinguished Civil War historian Gary W. Gallagher speaks about the state of the conflict in early 1864, highlighting the importance of generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee to their respective nations’ expectations for a favorable outcome of the war.

FREE; FOR MORE INFORMATION: VAHISTORICAL.ORG or 804-358-4901

Battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Reenactment THURSDAY, MAY 1-SUNDAY, MAY 4

9019 Old Battlefield Blvd.

SPOTSYLVANIA, VIRGINIA THE GETTYSBURG FOUNDATION

GREAT DIVIDE PICTURES; THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY

REENACTMENT

A full weekend of living-history demonstrations, tours, lectures, and battle reenactments marks the 150th anniversary of two of the 1864 Overland Campaign’s most significant engagements. $12 ONE-DAY TICKET; $5 ON-SITE PARKING; FOR MORE INFORMATION: 150SPOTSYLVANIA.COM or 540-507-7205

Share Your Event Have an upcoming event you’d like featured in this space? Let us know:

events@civilwarmonitor.com

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CALL TO ORDER 877-344-7409

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V I S I T C I V I LWA R M O N I T O R .C O M / I S SU E L I B R A RY F O R A C O M P L E T E L I ST O F OU R BAC K I S SU E S & T H E I R C O N T E N T S

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FA C T S , F I G U R E S & I T E M S O F I N T E R E S T

}

As Confederate troops march through Frederick during the Maryland Campaign of 1862, staunch Unionist Barbara Fritchie defiantly waves a U.S. flag from the window of her home, a likely apocryphal event made famous when John Greenleaf Whittier commemorated Fritchie in verse. FOR MORE ON FREDERICK, TURN THE PAGE. âž˝

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IN THIS SECTION Travels

A VISIT TO FREDERICK . . . . . . . 10 Voices

HARDTACK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Preservation

INTERPRETATION: THE OTHER HALF OF THE BATTLE . . . . . . . . . 16 Figures

A TICKET HOME . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Disunion

THE FREEDMEN OF WISCONSIN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 In Focus

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

BRADY’S ACCIDENTAL EXPOSURE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

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Destination: Frederick, Maryland frederick, maryland—a strategically situated crossroads town less than 50 miles northwest of Washington, D.C.—witnessed a great deal of the Civil War. Union and Confederate troops marched through its streets in September 1862 en route to the Battle of South Mountain, as did elements of the Army of the Potomac the following year as it pursued the Army of Northern Virginia in the lead-up to the Battle of Gettysburg. But Frederick’s main claim to Civil War fame is the Battle of Monocacy, fought just southwest of town on July 9, 1864, when Confederates under General Jubal Early— making their way toward Washington in an attempt to capture the vital city—clashed with Federals under General Lew Wallace. The Rebels were victorious, but the battle THE EXPERTS

Downtown Frederick

JOHN FIESELER

has been executive director of the Tourism Council of Frederick County, Maryland, since December 1997.

He also serves on the board of directors for the five-state Civil War Trails organization.

cost Early and his army time and significant casualties, dashing his chances to capture the U.S. capital. Within days, Early would abandon that mission and return his army to Virginia.

Interested in visiting Frederick? To help make the most of your trip, we’ve enlisted a couple of experts—individuals who are intimately familiar with the historic town—to offer their personal suggestions for what to see and do.

BEST SLEEP

| j.f. | Frederick’s lodging options range from quaint B&Bs in the

city’s historic district to the brandnew TownePlace Suites by Marriott. Many of the community’s hotels are within minutes of Monocacy National Battlefield and South Mountain State Battlefield. From the Frederick County line you’re only minutes from Gettysburg, Antietam, or Harpers Ferry. For more choices, you can visit the official tourism website of Frederick County: visitfrederick.org. | g.w. | I usually suggest the Marriott cluster off Route 85 just south of town. There is a Fairfield Inn, a Courtyard, and a Residence Inn all on the same

GEORGE WUNDERLICH is execu-

tive director of the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick.

He lectures regularly on various Civil War topics and has appeared on the History Channel, PBS, National Geographic Channel, and the BBC.

property. The prices are reasonable and all three hotels are very nice.

BEST FAMILY ACTIVITY

| j.f. | Rose Hill Manor Park in Frederick features a children’s museum that is both fun and educational. The property was the home of Maryland’s first governor, Thomas Johnson, and later the site of a huge Union artillery camp in the days before the Battle of Gettysburg. A farm museum and carriage museum, as well as the historic house, are also part of the park. | g.w. | There are many childfriendly sites and activities in and around Frederick. For natural beauty, Cunningham Falls State Park in Thurmont, Maryland, is outstanding—it offers great walking trails as well as a lake to swim in during the summer. The children’s museum at Rose Hill Manor is very popular, as is the Brunswick Heritage Museum, a railroad and history museum in nearby Brunswick. Agricultural sites including Crumland Farms and South Mountain Creamery—a working farm that offers terrific ice cream—are also great options.

BEST TIME TO BE HERE

| j.f. | Fall is a wonderful time in Frederick. The changing foliage accents the surrounding mountains and countryside, and every fall weekend is loaded with festivals and other special events, including the Catoctin Colorfest, a large, juried craft show that has

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY CLAUDIO VASQUEZ

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taken place on the second weekend in October for over 50 years; the Maryland Christmas Show, which occurs over two weekends near Thanksgiving at the Frederick Fairgrounds; and Brunswick Railroad Days, a celebration of the rich railroad heritage of Brunswick during the first weekend in October. | g.w. | My favorite time is fall— the colors in the mountains are spectacular and the weather is perfect. All of the area farms are

Clockwise, from top: Rose Hill Manor Park; the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton; and the Worthington House on Monocacy National Battlefield.

open and offer activities like petting zoos and corn mazes, there are festivals all over the county, and the golf is the best!

CAN’T MISS

| j.f. | Many visitors to the area miss the National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Emmitsburg. Located in northern Frederick County, just minutes below Gettysburg, the beautiful and serene shrine not only interprets the life of the first American-born

saint, but also tells the story of how her home became the site of a large Union encampment the day before the Battle of Gettysburg. The shrine’s new Charity Afire exhibit showcases the religious sisters who traveled to Gettysburg and other battlefields to serve as nurses and aid workers. | g.w. | As its director, I will always suggest the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, where we strive to break the many myths about Civil War medical care and

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highlight how wartime innovations in medicine influence the lives of every American today.

one distinction of such importance, let alone two.

BEST-KEPT SECRET

BEST OF THE BATTLEFIELD

| j.f. | The Worthington House on Monocacy National Battlefield is my favorite spot. The trails surrounding this quiet, somewhat secluded farmhouse are great for hiking. It is compelling to stand near the home and imagine six-year-old Glenn Worthington, who was taking refuge with his family in their cellar as the battle raged on July 9, 1864, watching the fighting through a boardedup window. He would later write Fighting For Time, the first booklength account of this “battle that saved Washington.” He also led the effort to establish the national battlefield park there. | g.w. | The Best Farm in Monocacy, which witnessed both the discovery of Robert E. Lee’s Special Order 191 by Union troops in September 1862, which helped turn the tide of the Antietam Campaign, and less than two years later the battle that is credited with saving Washington, D.C., from advancing Confederate forces. Few spots can claim

| j.f. | Cunningham Falls State Park in nearby Thurmont, Maryland. I enjoy making the pleasant half-mile hike from the parking lot near the park’s lake to see the 78-foot-high falls, Maryland’s tallest cascading waterfall. | g.w. | The local shopping. Frederick County boasts a broad variety of shops, from jewelry and antique stores to those selling Eastern European decorative arts and country furnishings.

You can buy anything here, and you can do it without ever going into a national chain store. This is a great place to find the unusual.

FREDERICK NAVIGATOR

BEST BOOK

* PLACES OF INTEREST

| j.f. | Either Paul and Rita Gordon’s Frederick County, Maryland: Never the Like Again (1995) or John W. Schildt’s Frederick in the Civil War: Battle & Honor in the Spired City (2010). Both books were written by local historians who spent decades researching the sites and stories related to Frederick during the Civil War. Paul Gordon is a former mayor

Rose Hill Manor Park (1611 North Market St.; 301-600-1650) Cunningham Falls State Park (14039 Catoctin Hollow Rd., Thurmont, MD; 301-271-7574) Brunswick Heritage Museum (40 W. Potomac St., Brunswick, MD; 301-834-7100) Crumland Farms (7612 Willow Rd.; 301-845-8099) South Mountain Creamery (8305 Bolivar Rd., Middletown, MD; 301-371-8565) Catoctin Colorfest (colorfest.org) Maryland Christmas Show (marylandchristmasshow.com) Brunswick Railroad Days (brunswickmd.gov/railroaddays/) National Shrine of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (339 S. Seton Ave., Emmitsburg, MD; 301-447-6606) National Museum of Civil War Medicine (48 E. Patrick St.; 301-695-1864) Monocacy National Battlefield (5201 Urbana Pike; 301-6623515)

* LODGING TownePlace Suites (5050 Westview Dr.; 301-624-0050) Fairfield Inn & Suites (5220 Westview Dr.; 301-631-2000)

I

n of M inv on her in h Sta

Courtyard Marriott (5225 Westview Dr.; 301-631-9030) Residence Inn (5230 Westview Dr.; 301-360-0010)

* DINING Double T Diner (5617 Spectrum Dr.; 301-620-8797) Brewer’s Alley (124 N. Market St.; 301-631-0089) Family Meal (880 N. East St.; 301-378-2895)

12 THE CIVIL WAR MONITOR SPRING 2014

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of Frederick, and John Schildt is a retired minister. | g.w. | B. Franklin Cooling’s Monocacy: The Battle That Saved Washington (1997). Cooling provides a complete and rare glimpse into an engagement that is little known, yet highly important. He puts you in the middle of one of the more improbable battles of the Civil War—one that would end Confederate hopes of breaking into Washington, D.C., and out of the siege of Petersburg. It’s a great read.

BEST EATS

| j.f. | Frederick has so many great dining choices that it’s hard to pick favorites. Historic downtown Frederick has the greatest concentration of restaurants— from a casual brew pub to fine dining choices owned by celebrity chefs—all within walking distance of each other. Most can be found along Market and Patrick streets.

Many have sandwich boards with their daily specials out on the sidewalk, so it is easy to stroll by and see what looks good. The

Above: Brewer’s Alley. Opposite page: South Mountain Creamery (left) and Cunningham Falls State Park.

surrounding countryside offers great options, too, and many of the chefs pride themselves on using fresh local ingredients. | g.w. | Double T Diner near the Monocacy battlefield is a traditional diner with hearty breakfasts and delicious desserts. For lunch, I like Brewer’s Alley, a downtown

brewpub. The “wood-fired smokehouse macaroni and cheese” is amazing. Family Meal, also downtown, is a great choice for dinner.

Its chef, Bryan Voltaggio, offers some of the best food in Maryland, yet the prices are affordable.

My favorite dish: the fried chicken, which is the best I’ve ever had.

I

n 2014, commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Monocacy, “the battle that saved Washington.” Lee’s final invasion of Maryland led to the Confederates’ largest victory on northern soil, but it cost him critical time. While you’re here, don’t miss the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in hip and historic Downtown Frederick, South Mountain State Battlefield, and dozens of other Civil War Trails sites.

VISITFREDERICK.ORG 800-999-3613

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voices

/ HARDTACK

“ PLEASE TURN OUR WATER INTO WINE, AND BLESS AND BREAK THESE CRACKERS.” “ Some were dated 1796, and, to all appearance, were part of a lot baked for the revolutionary army; and were so hard, that they had to be brought in contact with a boot-heel to break them.”

LIEUTENANT WARD B. FROTHINGHAM, 59TH MASSACHUSETTS INFANTRY, JANUARY 1864

“ SERGEANT: BOYS I WAS EATING A PIECE OF HARD TACK THIS MORNING, AND I BIT ON SOMETHING SOFT; WHAT DO YOU THINK IT WAS? PRIVATE: A WORM? SERGEANT: NO, BY G—D, IT WAS A TEN PENNY NAIL.” CAMP DIALOGUE OVERHEARD BY S.M. FOX, 7TH KANSAS CAVALRY, AS REPORTED AFTER THE WAR

“ [H]ard-tack is harder and tougher than so much wood…. We soak them in our coffee and in that way get off the outside. It takes a long time to soak one through, but repeated soakings and repeated gnawing finally uses them up….”

UNION SOLDIER LAWRENCE VAN ALSTYNE, AUGUST 1, 1863

“Who dares say it is not hard, should be condemned to eat it for a fortnight.”

COLONEL ALVIN VORIS (LEFT), 67TH OHIO INFANTRY, MARCH 2, 1862

SOURCES: SOLDIERS’ LETTERS, FROM CAMP, BATTLEFIELD AND PRISON (NEW YORK, 1865); DIARY OF AN ENLISTED MAN (1910); THE LIFE OF BILLY YANK: THE COMMON SOLDIER OF THE UNION (1952); WILLIAM C. DAVIS, A TASTE FOR WAR (2003).

“WE FOUND 32 WORMS, MAGGOTS, &C IN ONE CRACKER DAY BEFORE YESTERDAY. WE DO NOT FIND MUCH FAULT, HOWEVER, BUT EAT THEM WITHOUT LOOKING AS A GOOD WAY TO PREVENT TROUBLESOME IDEAS.” UNION SOLDIER CHARLES A. BARKER, IN A LETTER TO HIS MOTHER, AUGUST 2, 1863

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (3)

A SOLDIERS’ GRACE FOR HARDTACK—THE HARD BREAD DISTRIBUTED TO THE TROOPS—AS REPORTED BY UNION SOLDIER WILLIAM GOODHUE IN A LETTER TO HIS PARENTS, JANUARY 10, 1863

14 THE CIVIL WAR MONITOR SPRING 2014

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by o . james lighthizer president, civil war trust

p r e s e r vat i o n

Interpretation: The Other Half of the Battle for more than a quarter-century, the Civil War Trust has been preserving battlefield land, either through purchases of historic properties or conservation easements. However, the organization has never been satisfied with preservation alone.

The Trust is also committed to encouraging the public to visit these hallowed grounds by restoring properties to their wartime appearances and adding interpretation so visitors can better understand their history and context. ¶ The Trust maintains more than 13 miles of walking trails and 90 wayside exhibits at 14 battlefield sites. Many factors—ranging from terrain to the status of other nearby historic resources—contribute to how we tell each battlefield’s story. Our mission to seamlessly incorporate field at Chancellorsville. Located in the history-rich area around Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania, our walking trails and educational signage at these battlefields are designed to complement the materials created by the National Park Service, which owns other significant portions of both. Combined, the sites feature five miles of walking trails and 25 wayside

LOOK FOR REGULAR PRESERVATION NEWS AND UPDATES FROM THE CIVIL WAR TRUST IN FUTURE ISSUES. TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION AND HOW YOU CAN HELP, VISIT CIVILWAR.ORG

A recent Civil War Trust project at the Cedar Mountain battlefield features seven educational signs and an extended walking trail.

CIVIL WAR TRUST

these Trust-preserved sites into the greater narrative of each battle and campaign, as well as the larger war, has been a unique challenge, but we have been very successful thanks to the help of community leaders, local businesses, and partner organizations.

For our most recent project, we partnered with the Friends of Cedar Mountain Battlefield to update visitor amenities at the Cedar Mountain battlefield in Virginia. Our mission there began more than eight years ago, when we installed four educational signs along a .75-mile walking trail. Last September, we continued the process of interpreting and restoring this battlefield by demolishing five vacant, non-period structures, extending the walking trail by more than half a mile, replacing the four older educational signs, and adding three more signs. In the future, we plan to add benches, thin brush, and use the brush remnants as mulch for the walking trails.

Cedar Mountain is an excellent addition to the Trust’s exciting interpretive offerings in Central Virginia, which also include Slaughter Pen Farm at Fredericksburg and the First Day battle-

markers that not only offer onsite interpretation of these previously inaccessible portions of these battlefields, but also highlight the work that resulted in their preservation.

Restoring battlefield land to its wartime appearance is another essential component of our land management efforts. This can range from removing non-historic buildings to re-creating periodappropriate vegetation patterns— planting native trees, opening up overgrown vistas, and more. The closer we can make the landscape resemble what soldiers saw in the 1860s, the more insight visitors will be able to glean from the site. How far apart were key landmarks? How did ☛ } CONT. ON P. 77

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ANCHYLOSIS 30%

NECROSIS 13.5%

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BONES & JOINTS 6,067

figures OTHER 31%

SPINE 25.5% ABSCESS 17%

A Ticket Home not all soldiers who served during the Civil War were able to complete their full terms of enlistment. Some were killed in action or died of disease. Others deserted or were drummed out as a punishment for various offenses. And then there were the many thousands who were declared medically unfit for duty. These graphics, based on data published shortly after the conflict in The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, highlight the many reasons why Union soldiers were granted discharges on a surgeon’s certificate of disability. (The disease categories reflect the knowledge and terminology of the day.) What is not known, of course, is how many of these men recovered from their ailments after returning home.

LO DISE 62

INTEGUMENTARY 1,564

ULCERS 73%

SKIN 9% OTHER 1% INSANITY 9%

NERVOUS SYSTEM 9,317

URINA GENIT 3,03

■ DISCHARGES OF UNION TROOPS ON SURGEON’S CERTIFICATE

OF DISABILITY: MAY 1861–JUNE 1865

● CLASS ● ORDER ● DISEASE DYSENTERY 3.5%

EPILEPSY 42%

OTHER 19%

DIARRHEA 47%

PARALYSIS 30%

OTHER 6.5% ORCHITIS 13%

OTHER 6%

SYPHILIS 75%

ENTHETIC DISEASES 2,300

OTHER 12%

ALCOHOLISM 47%

OTHER 6%

MIASMATIC (ATMOSPHERIC) DISEASES 33,356

DEBILITY 43%

D D RHEUMATISM 79%

SCURVY 47%

DIETIC DISEASES 267

ZYMOTIC (CONTAGIOUS) DISEASES 35,923

CONSUMPTION (TUBERCULOSIS)

95.5%

18 THE CIVIL WAR MONITOR SOURCE: THE MEDICAL AND SURGICAL HISTORY OF THE WAR OF THE SPRING 2014 REBELLION PART I, VOLUME I (1870), TABLES CI AND CXII.

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EAR 1,667

NCHYLOSIS 30%

S)

DEVELOPMENTAL DISEASES 4,761

EYE 4,018

HEART DISEASE 74.5%

ORGANS OF CIRCULATION 14,237

LOCAL DISEASES 62,961

OTHER 11.5%

RESPIRATORY ORGANS 8,533

DEFORMITIES 20%

OTHER 11% OLD AGE 58%

UNDER AGE 11%

BRONCHITIS 43%

ASTHMA 13%

LUNG INFLAMMATION 13%

DIGESTIVE ORGANS 14,524

URINARY/ GENITAL 3,034

PSY %

ON

VARICOSE VEINS 14%

WOUNDS, ACCIDENTS & INJURIES 44,221

OTHER 31%

HERNIA 62%

OTHER 18% PILES 11%

DIATHETIC DISEASES 15,157

UNSPECIFIED WOUNDS 11%

LIVER INFLAMMATION 9%

AMPUTATIONS 12%

CONSTITUTIONAL DISEASES 36,479

GUNSHOT 68% OTHER 9%

DROPSY 15%

TUBERCULAR DISEASES 21,322

PARASITIC DISEASES 8 SCROFULA 4.5%

19 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS THE CIVIL WAR MONITOR SPRING 2014

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disunion

by gregory bond

in the summer of 1862, a 31-year-old slave named Samuel Mathews and his family freed themselves by escaping from their plantation in Franklin County, Alabama. With the army of Union general William Rosecrans nearby, local Confederates had been talking of impressing Mathews into service as a cook. Unwilling to serve the Rebel army, Samuel, his 25-year-old wife, Sarah, their 8-year-old son, Richard, and their 7-year-old daughter, Ellen, snuck away to a Union army camp in nearby Tuscumbia, in the northwest corner of the state. But it was only the first step in their journey to freedom, which would last eight months and finish 700 miles north in the unlikely locale of rural Dodge County, Wisconsin. ¶ Because of political and military decisions early in the war that classified escaped slaves as “contraband” of war, not to be returned to their owners, thousands of enslaved blacks flocked to the relative safety of Union lines; many then made their way north. The 8th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment participated in the occupation of Tuscumbia, which is where the Mathews family may have first heard about the Badger State.

One infantryman took note of the large number of “contrabands” in Tuscumbia and explained to The Janesville Gazette: “The negroes are deserting their masters by hundreds” and “thank God the time has about come when all such folks can claim freedom by just coming into our lines.”

While every former slave had his or her own story of emancipation, the Mathews family saga sheds a light on the often difficult path taken by tens of thousands of people after taking their first steps to freedom—and the changes they brought to the communities where they landed.

In early September, the Union army decamped from Tuscumbia and marched to Mississippi.

The African-American refugees accompanied the Yankees, and a soldier from the 8th Wisconsin

wrote that the scene “will forever live in my memory.” In the front, he explained, “moved the Army of the Union and of Freedom” and “in the rear came the army of contrabands, of all ages, sexes, and shades of complexion.” The soldier concluded: “There was to me something strangely sublime in the spectacle of these thousands of human beings fleeing from bondage to freedom.”

The Mathews family was among this “army of contrabands,” but a Confederate counterattack at Iuka, Mississippi, nearly separated them. Years later, Richard Mathews recalled “his fright and terror when he hid in a hollow tree with his baby sister” during the Battle of Iuka, “wondering if he would ever be united with his parents.” Fortunately, all four family members survived the battle.

By the spring of 1863, the Mathews family had traveled north to a Union army contraband camp in Cairo, Illinois, that was commanded by the Rev. John B. Rogers, a Baptist minister and chaplain to the 14th Wisconsin Infantry Regiment. Writing in his memoir, War Pictures, Rogers praised the refugees’ hard

THIS ARTICLE IS EXCERPTED FROM DISUNION, A NEW YORK TIMES ONLINE SERIES FOLLOWING THE COURSE OF THE CIVIL WAR AS IT UNFOLDED. READ MORE AT WWW.NYTIMES.COM/ DISUNION.

work and desire for religious and educational instruction. “Old and young come together,” he explained in a letter to the Quaker abolitionist Levi P. Coffin. “They are seen all about after school hours, with books in hand, learning their lessons. May we hope, my dear brother, that from this small beginning there may be great and important results growing to bless the colored race.”

While the Mathews family enjoyed their freedom in Cairo, a group of farmers from the southeast Wisconsin town of Trenton struggled with wartime manpower shortages. The area was staunchly Republican, and as a local newspaper explained, a group of “Union and liberty-loving citizens” decided to conduct “an experiment” by importing former slaves to ease their labor problem.

The leaders of the group— Edison P. Cady, a Baptist deacon, Quartus H. Barron, a representative from Dodge County in the Wisconsin Assembly, and Xury Whiting, a substantial landowner—contacted a freedmen’s aid society and were probably soon directly in touch with Reverend Rogers in Cairo. Rogers and the Trenton farmers were all active Baptists, and the year before, Rogers had arranged for the resettlement of 75 freedmen to his hometown of Fond du Lac, 25 miles northeast of Trenton.

Cady traveled to Cairo and found three dozen refugees, including Samuel and Sarah Mathews and their children, eager

20 THE CIVIL WAR MONITOR SPRING 2014

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

The Freedmen of Wisconsin

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

to make a new life in Wisconsin.

Joining the Mathews family were James and Helen Prebbles, who had escaped from their owner in Arkansas, and a number of refugees from Kentucky, including Hayden Netter, 26, and Serisa Jennie Dobner, 20. On April 8, 1863, Cady arrived by train back in Dodge County with 39 African Americans.

Not everybody in Dodge County, however, was happy with the settlers. The Beaver Dam Argus, a Democratic newspaper, blasted the arrival of the “Black Republicans.” “There is an ‘irrepressible conflict’ between free white labor and free black labor,” The Argus declared, and “white laborers may as well prepare to take a ‘back seat.’” The Argus boldly claimed that “these negroes … will undergo more hardships and for less pay than they ever did with their owners in the South.”

Despite such dire predictions, the former slaves and their white

For the thousands of slaves who attempted to secure their own freedom during the Civil War, reaching Union army lines was one step in an arduous process. Above: In this 1862 image, a group of fugitive slaves crossing the Rappahannock River in Virginia is met by Union soldiers.

employers settled into new lives.

The Mathews family worked on the farm of Quartus H. Barron, and when their second son was born a year later, they named him Henry Quartus Mathews to honor their benefactor. The Prebbles family lived and worked on Xury Whiting’s farm, and other farmers in Trenton provided accommodations to the rest of the settlers. Soon after her arrival, Serisa Dobner married George W. Newsom, the son of one of the few free blacks already in the area.

Hayden Netter had little time to enjoy Wisconsin and was drafted seven months after his arrival. In November 1863, he joined Company E of the 1st Wisconsin Infantry Regiment, becoming one of the few African-American soldiers to serve in otherwise white units.

Newlywed George Newsom was drafted a year later and served in the 67th Regiment of the United States Colored Infantry.

Netter remained in the army

for the duration of the war, serving uneventfully in two other white Wisconsin regiments.

George Newsom was not as fortunate and died of “typhoid malarial fever” in Morganza, Louisiana, on April 7, 1865, a week before the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Newsom left behind his 22-year-old widow and 1-yearold son in Wisconsin.

In the summer of 1865, Netter returned to Dodge County to find a thriving black community.

After living on rural farms for three years, many of the immigrants had saved enough money to make it on their own, belying The Beaver Dam Argus’ contention that the Trenton farmers had “used these negroes worse than they were ever used in the South.” In April 1865, Prebbles was the first African American to purchase property in the nearby village of Fox Lake, and six months later, the Mathews family bought the house next door. By 1870, Netter, who ☛ } CONT. ON P. 74

21 PHOTOGRAPH BY TIMOTHY O’SULLIVAN

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in focus

by bob zeller president , center for civil war photography

Brady’s Accidental Exposure by bob zeller president , center for civil war photography

22 THE CIVIL WAR MONITOR SPRING 2014

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PHOTOGRAPH BY MATHEW BRADY

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PHOTOGRAPH CREDIT HERE

THE CENTER FOR CIVIL WAR PHOTOGRAPHY IS A NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION DEVOTED TO COLLECTING, PRESERVING, AND DIGITIZING CIVIL WAR IMAGES FOR THE PUBLIC BENEFIT. TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CCWP AND ITS MISSION, VISIT WWW. CIVILWARPHOTOGRAPHY.ORG

PHOTOGRAPH CREDIT HERE

mathew b. brady’s flair for promoting himself and his work is never more evident than in the images in which we see the famed Civil War photographer himself.

Time and again while in the field, Brady stepped in front of the camera and posed. At Gettysburg, he gazes out across the field of the McPherson farm and sits on the back step of the home of local hero John Burns. At Harpers Ferry, he stands before the ruins of the U.S. Arsenal. In a meticulously posed group photograph on the portico of Robert E. Lee’s Richmond mansion, he stands near a column, wearing a top hat.

But Brady’s appearance may have been an accident in this photograph of Union general Ambrose Burnside (seated at center, with legs crossed) and his staff, taken at Cold Harbor, Virginia, on June 10 or 11, 1864. Fuzzy but clearly identifiable, Brady is donning his distinctive straw hat at the very left edge of the image.

This chance appearance gives us insight into how the famed photographer supervised and managed his photo shoots. It has been claimed that Brady relied on assistants to actually take his Civil War photographs. While he may have only rarely (if ever) personally operated the camera, this image captures how he was clearly in charge, keeping a watchful eye on the process.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES

PHOTOGRAPH CREDIT HERE

PHOTOGRAPH CREDIT HERE

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c a s u a lt i e s o f wa r

Albert Moses Luria

ALBERT MOSES LURIA WHO

Second Lieutenant, 23rd North Carolina Infantry BORN

Charleston, South Carolina, 1843 DIED

May 31, 1862, at the Battle of Seven Pines, Virginia FACTOID

Luria’s father, Raphael Jacob Moses, served as General James Longstreet’s chief commissary officer.

To view this article’s reference notes, turn to our Notes section on page 78.

“ever present” in his mind. It is difficult to square, for instance, his avowal of faithfulness with a series of letters he exchanged with Loudie Lyons that culminated in their trading locks of each other’s hair and daguerreotypes bearing the inscription, “Thine and thine only.”2 “I do not restrict in the slightest degree my intercourse with [women],” Albert admitted. “I mingle freely, endeavor to render myself as agreeable as possible— make many pleasant and interesting acquaintances sometimes, and often very warm friends.”

Stationed in Virginia, Albert even made a warm friend of a Yankee girl living near his outpost who had the reputation for being “as lively as a cricket.” Apparently, the description didn’t do her justice. “Well, it is actually so,” Albert noted after calling on her. “[She is] a young lady, about 16 years old, beautiful … with an alacrity and gaiety about her every word and action that completely baffles description.” So carried away was he by the Yankee girl’s good qualities that he insisted on washing her dishes and milking her cow before he left her company.

“I could not help feeling a little amused,” he wrote, “wonder[ing] what the folks at home would say if they knew what I was doing.”3 Certainly Eliza Moses would have been interested in what he was doing. Though she had conceded to her family’s wishes—

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n 1857, north carolinian Albert Luria fell in love with his cousin Eliza Moses. He was 15; she was younger still. Albert would admit no impediments, however; his feelings were “too irrevocably fixed” on the girl “ever to centre on anyone else,” and so he proposed. Both sets of parents disapproved of the match: The couple was too young, they said, and Albert’s older brother had already married Eliza’s older sister. Cousinly marriages were not uncommon in the Old South and were generally free from stigma, but too much inbreeding could threaten a family’s respectability. (In all fairness to Albert and Eliza, their families were Jewish, and Jews in the South had fewer marital options than their Protestant friends.)

Albert was sent away to school and then to the North to cool off. Eliza dutifully declined his proposal of marriage and agreed not to correspond with him.

Usually, such a decision would bring an end to the written record, and the couple would dissolve back into the unknowable past. Albert and Eliza both kept diaries, however. Denied the privilege of writing to each other, they wrote frequently of each other, and thus their story can be sketched to its conclusion.1 After his northern tour, Albert Luria returned to the South, where he attended military school in Hillsboro, North Carolina. In 1861, he joined the 23rd North Carolina Infantry, where he hoped to “figure among [the] mounted men and dashing youths” swelling the chorus of the Confederacy. Despite Eliza’s injunction that he should think of her “only as a sister,” Albert held tenaciously to the idea that the Civil War presented an opportunity to win Eliza’s love. “I have now set out in the world,” he wrote ebulliently. “[A] pecuniary independence—a spotless moral character—and an unlimited regard for the views and feelings of Azile are the prime objects ever present to my mind.” (Luria typically wrote Eliza’s name backward in his diary to obscure her identity.) In the heady, holiday atmosphere of the war’s early months, however, Albert was thrown often into society with other compelling and vivacious females, and it seems unlikely that Eliza was

DUKE CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES (HTTP://SITES.DUKE.EDU/DOWNHOME/WE-ARE-SOLDIERS)

A FLIRTATIOUS YOUNG CONFEDERATE, FORBIDDEN TO MARRY, REMAINS FAITHFUL TO TO THE END. BY STEPHEN BERRY

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DUKE CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES (HTTP://SITES.DUKE.EDU/DOWNHOME/WE-ARE-SOLDIERS)

declining Albert’s proposals of courtship and correspondence— she nurtured a secret from them all that finally burst upon the pages of her diary. Writing at night with one of her sisters as lookout, she confessed to her journal that whatever her outward appearance, however contradictory her behavior, she loved Albert Luria desperately. “I would give up the love of all others for him,” she admitted. “The just God in Heaven knows this assertion to be true.”4 The problem, however, was not only the familial objections but her own insecurity. She loved Albert—though she pretended she didn’t. Did Albert love her? Or did he merely pretend that he did? “[W]ould that I could see into the inmost depths of some persons’ souls to find if they do love me,” she wrote her diary helplessly.

“I think there is one; but a doubt sometimes crosses my mind.…

Why should one who has seen so much of the world fix his affections on me?… What merits have I above so many that he has seen?”

Union and Confederate forces clash at the Battle of Seven Pines. Albert Luria was 19 when he fought there.

Selfless and self-effacing, Eliza called upon God to help Albert to forget her and move on. “If God should permit him to return,” she wrote her diary, “I hope that his mind may be changed [and] his affections … fixed upon some one more worthy of them than I ever can be.”5 As the war progressed, however, Albert became not less but more dedicated to Eliza. Though only 18 when the war began, Albert Luria bore witness to events that would mature anyone quickly. “Visiting the Hospital [after Manassas],” he noted, “I saw piles of arms and legs laying about just as you have seen rags and papers laying about a floor where a little child has been playing.” Sobering to the brutal realities of warfare, Albert began to turn his mind not to glory upon the field but to the quiet simplicities of a life humbly lived. On stormy days, he wrote, the rain “acts as a sentinel at the door [and] the image of loved ones will arise—a beloved Mother & sister sitting around a genial fire sewing

some clothes … or a Bro in my room, both of us smoking a ‘Cuba Six’ [and] discussing the merits of some trotting horse.” These are scenes, he admitted, that “I long to enjoy again.” But more than anything or anyone else, his dreams of life after the war centered on Eliza. “For how many of the happiest moments of my life am I indebted to this gentle young being. She little knows how much I prize them or how often in this stern life I recur to them.”6 After the Battle of Seven Pines, Albert’s father traveled to Richmond to tend to a nephew who had been shot. While at the hospital he happened to pass some ladies standing over a cot, one of whom murmured, “What a handsome young man!” “I crossed over to the cot,” Albert’s father wrote, “and my shock was beyond my power of expression when I saw my son Albert lying unconscious with a bullet wound in his head.” Albert Luria died of wounds sustained at Seven Pines at the age of 19. In his last months he had written ☛ } CONT. ON P. 74

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b at t l e f i e l d echoes

The Wilderness, Body Counts, and Fading Hopes he battle of the Wilderness and its aftermath serve as a poignant reminder of the dangers of raised expectations and false hopes. In early May 1864, the heavily wooded area near Chancellorsville, Virginia, saw a bloody and costly three-day battle between the Army of the Potomac under the guidance of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. It was the first in a series of sharp fights between Grant and Lee that would become known as the Overland Campaign. The opposing armies remained in close contact and clashed repeatedly, Grant doggedly trying to get around Lee’s flank and Lee determined to block him. Hopes rose and fell, casualty numbers skyrocketed, and prospects for an end to the war grew murky.

The dense woods—a “tangled labyrinth” of trees and thickets, according to Horace Greeley of the NewYork Tribune—had witnessed the Battle of Chancellorsville almost exactly a year prior.1 As with previous Federal invasions of Virginia, the numbers favored the Union. Grant’s force consisted of over 70,000 men while Lee’s numbered fewer than 40,000. This advantage, however, was negated by the restrictive woods, which kept units from maneuvering effectively or, at times, even knowing who was nearby.

The close-quarters fighting was intense, desperate, and costly—including many tragically killed by the fires that engulfed a good portion of the woods—but yielded little. Lee’s typical aggressiveness combined with Grant’s stubborn resolve resulted in a tactical stalemate and over 17,000 Union casualties, more than double the Confederate losses.2 Grant’s defining moment of the battle came not during the fight, but after it. As his army withdrew, Grant continued south. Previous commanders of Union armies in Virginia—John Pope, Ambrose Burnside, and Joseph Hooker—had all retreated northward, toward the relative safety of Washington, after being whipped by Lee. In continuing his movement toward Richmond, Grant reaffirmed his (and President Abraham Lincoln’s) desire to keep the pressure firmly on the Confederate commander.

“THE OVERLAND CAMPAIGN MARKED A ‘NEW KIND OF RELENTLESS, CEASELESS WARFARE,’ ONE THAT LEFT A ‘PALL OF GLOOM’ COVERING THE NORTH.”

To view this article’s reference notes, turn to our Notes section on page 78.

Even though Lee held the battlefield at the Wilderness, the initial reports to circulate in the North were of a Union victory. The fact that Grant was moving south, and not retreating, was enough to evoke celebrations in Washington, D.C., including a cheering crowd on the White House lawn. The New-York Tribune heralded Grant’s “great victory” for bringing a “religious joy” to the nation.3 At last, it was believed, triumph was at hand. Then came the appalling casualty reports.

Within days, the headlines were much more sober, with the New York Herald predicting “much difficulty” ahead for the Army of the Potomac. Lincoln himself commented on the premature celebrations after the Wilderness, stating that the people “expect too much at once.”4 The following four weeks were plenty difficult for Grant’s army.

He fought Lee at Spotsylvania Courthouse (May 11–12), North Anna (May 23–26), and Cold Harbor (May 31–June 12). The repeated clashes produced heavy casualties but no decisive victory.

At Cold Harbor, the Army of the Potomac lost 7,000 on a single day (June 3) when Grant ordered a frontal assault against Lee’s wellprepared trenchworks.

As the weary opponents pondered their next move, northern sentiment continued to darken.

According to historian James McPherson, the Overland Cam-

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PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR WAR IS INEXTRICABLY TIED TO BATTLEFIELD SUCCESS. BY CLAY MOUNTCASTLE

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paign marked a “new kind of relentless, ceaseless warfare,” one that left a “pall of gloom” covering the North, as stunned communities wondered just how long the massacre would—or could—last.5 This war of attrition now required resolve and patience, both of which grew increasingly scarce with each shocking report from the eastern front.

The bloodletting did end, but not until a full year later. While the costliness of the Overland Campaign did not spell defeat for the Union war effort, it certainly put the outcome of the 1864 presidential election in doubt. The Union was able to recover from what one historian described as “the depths of depression” largely because of General William T. Sherman’s capture of Atlanta in September and General Philip Sheridan’s success in the Shenandoah Valley in October.6 And when northern voters re-elected Lincoln and endorsed continuing the war, the fate of the

A line of Union troops exchanges fire with distant Confederates during the May 1864 Battle of the Wilderness. Soon after early reports of positive results, news of heavy Union losses dampened northern morale.

Confederacy was all but sealed.

The North’s hasty jubilation after the Wilderness, followed by its casualty-induced deflation of spirit, was neither surprising nor uncommon. Fluctuations in the fortunes of war have always been part of the American military experience. During the Revolution, the gloom of Valley Forge was eventually replaced with optimism from American victories in the South. The afterglow of the Allied liberation of France in 1944 was abruptly dimmed by the surprising German offensive during the Battle of the Bulge that winter. These shifts did not prove fatal to the American war effort.

Others, like the Tet Offensive of 1968, did. When the North Vietnamese launched a large, conventional offensive, it came as a frustrating surprise to an American public that had heard reports of the war’s impending end for months. Although the offensive ended as a distinct tactical failure for the North Vietnamese,

the damage done to American support for the war was irreparable. As General Bruce Palmer Jr. later wrote, Tet “ended any hope of a U.S.-imposed solution to the war.”7 The bloodiness of the Overland Campaign did not become Ulysses S. Grant’s version of Tet, but if not for victories by Sherman and Sheridan, it might have.

When public sentiment matters in war, as it does in the United States, the gauge of success on the battlefield is of principal importance. The public wants to hear news of progress—of winning.

Nothing saps the public’s will to support a military conflict faster than the impression that their side is losing. Often that impression comes in the form of casualty statistics, much as it did following the Battle of the Wilderness.

When body counts are high, something must justify them: a decisive victory, a captured city, reports of an enemy in retreat.

Otherwise, mounting casualties seem pointless, ☛ } CONT. ON P. 74

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ANNE S.K. BROWN MILITARY COLLECTION

ANNE S.K. BROWN MILITARY COLLECTION

MAJOR GENERAL PHILIP KEARNY “ A ONEARMED JERSEY SON-OFA-GUN”

AN UNQUENCHABLE THIRST FOR WAR TRANSFORMS A RESTLESS SON OF PRIVILEGE INTO A FEARLESS BUT CONTROVERSIAL COMMANDER

BY STEPHEN W. SEARS

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So boasted Brigadier General Philip Kearny, U.S. Volunteers, on his first Civil War battlefield, at Williamsburg on the Virginia Peninsula. The date was May 5, 1862, and Kearny later described for his wife his unique way of making war: “It is true, that I was fearfully exposed at times, for whilst entire Regiments would be sheltered by the logs, I was the only officer, mounted & quite in view, the only object aimed at by the enemy hardly fifty feet from me. But I could not do otherwise, we had very desperate work before us, & very few to do it.”

Kearny’s idea of desperate work was to gallop right out to the infantry skirmish line, deliberately draw the enemy’s fire (losing two of his staff as he did so), and ride back into his lines shouting, “You see, my boys, where to fire!”1 There was something abnormal about Phil Kearny’s relish for battle.

Had he been a man of introspection, he might have conjured some deeprooted warrior spirit, perhaps epitomized by the long-ago French hero Bayard, le chevalier sans peur et sans reproche (the knight without fear or reproach). Today we might call it a death wish. Whatever it was, it did not originate on that Williamsburg battleground. Phil Kearny had always wanted to be a soldier, always wanted to be a knight-errant. His antebellum career had already marked him an American soldier of fortune like no other. philip kearny was born to wealth and social position in New York City in 1815. His father, Philip, and his maternal grandfather, John Watts, were charter members of the New York Stock Exchange. Phil graduated from Columbia College in 1833 and went abroad to see the world. On his return he pondered his life’s work. His grandfather Watts, who dominated the family purse strings, urged the ministry on him, but in a compromise Phil agreed to read law with Peter August Jay, son of the first Supreme Court chief justice, John Jay. New Yorker George Templeton Strong would later tell his diary, “I remember my father talking thirty

years ago about young Kearny, who was studying law in his office, and about this strange, foolish passion for the military life.”

His passion was realized in 1836, when John Watts died and left his grandson a $1 million bequest, an astonishing sum for that day. Freed of family and convention, Phil sought the influence of his uncle, Colonel Stephen Watts Kearny, and on March 4, 1837, was appointed second lieutenant, 1st United States Dragoons. Colonel Kearny was a pioneer of the army’s cavalry presence on the frontier and a mentor to his eager-to-learn nephew. At Jefferson

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“ I CAN MAKE MEN FOLLOW ME TO HELL!”

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U.S. infantrymen drive Mexican forces back during the Battle of Churubusco on August 20, 1847. It was during this engagement that Philip Kearny, as a captain in the 1st Dragoons, would earn the praise of his commanders and comrades as a fearless warrior—and suffer the wound that would lead to the amputation of his arm.

Barracks near St. Louis, Phil managed his company when not romancing the beautiful Diana Bullitt, belle of local society. In 1839, after two years’ frontier duty, he wrangled a plum assignment: studying in France at the Royal Cavalry School at Saumur.

Always one for practice over theory, in 1840 Kearny gave up his studies at Saumur for a chance to observe the French, especially the French cavalry, in action against Arab insurgents in Algeria. He wrote U.S. Secretary of War Joel Poinsett, “The present spring campaign under Marshal Vallée and the Duc d’Orleans has presented an occasion which I am anx-

ious to improve.” He was attached as an observer to the famous Chasseurs d’Afrique, where, sub rosa, he saw enough action to be offered the Cross of the Legion of Honor—which as a U.S. officer he could not accept. He was also offered a command in the French Foreign Legion, but thought better of it. On returning to America he submitted a report titled, “Applied Cavalry Tactics Illustrated in the French Campaign.”

While on the staff of General-in-Chief Winfield Scott in Washington, Kearny resumed his interrupted romance with Diana Bullitt, and in 1841 they married. Social life and family life—four children in four years—occupied his restless nature only so long. In 1845 he headed off west again for adventures with the 1st Dragoons. Upon his return, at Diana’s insistence, he resigned his commission effective April 6, 1846.

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“IT IS STRANGE THAT HE MAKES HIMSELF SO OBNOXIOUS TO THOSE UNDER HIS COMMAND.” General Samuel Heintzelman, on his disapproval of Philip Kearny’s aggressive leadership and training style, in his diary, October 23, 1861.

Heintzelman would be a recurring critic of Kearny’s during the Civil War.

The fairy-tale romance was soon a very real romance. Kearny carried his beloved back to America and attempted to gain a divorce from Diana. Both she and Kearny’s family were opposed. Defiant, Kearny lived openly with Agnes at Bellegrove, his chateaulike estate in New Jersey. New York’s Victorian society was deliciously scandalized. George Templeton Strong remembered that Kearny “was under a very dark cloud … and was cut by many of his friends.”

Agnes became pregnant and the couple returned to more tolerant Paris. But Kearny was determined on legitimacy. He returned to America in 1858 and negotiated a divorce, making necessary reparations. He and Agnes married and returned to Paris to make a home there.

In 1859 Kearny was off to yet another war, this time on the staff of the cavalry division of Napoleon III’s Imperial Guard as France fought Austria over Italian unification and independence. Kearny saw cavalry action at Magenta. At Solferino he wrote, “I participated in every charge that took place. That day I was mounted from six in the morning until 11 at night scarcely off my horse even for a few minutes.” To wield his saber he clinched the reins in his teeth. In this action he found a place with his favorite corps, the Chasseurs d’Afrique. He also recorded an incident that was a portent for the future: “The night before the battle I had a marvelous escape having been inveigled by false guides into the middle of the Austrian masses.” This time he could accept the Cross of the Legion of Honor.4

to America and the Union cause. He first sought a command in New York, his native state. Generalin-Chief Scott, who in Mexico had called Kearny “the bravest man I ever knew and a perfect soldier,” sent a glowing testimonial to New York governor Edwin D. Morgan: “His long and valuable experience in actual and active military service seems to To view this article’s reference notes, turn to our Notes section on page 78.

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N

EWS OF FORT SUMTER brought Kearny swiftly back

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But on May 13 war was declared on Mexico. On May 15 Philip Kearny had his commission back and (promoted captain) went to war again.2 Dipping into his overflowing purse, Kearny raised and equipped Company F, 1st Dragoons, and headed for the seat of war in Mexico. The New Orleans Picayune recorded Kearny’s command passing through the city, calling it “as fine a company of Cavalry as was ever seen in New Orleans. The horses, ninety in number, are all grays and beautiful in the extreme! The men are picked and noble looking fellows! The trappings of the horses and the accoutrements of the riders are all that the most fastidious commander could want.” Kearny’s highly polished dragoons served as General Scott’s escort when he entered captured Vera Cruz, the first step in Scott’s march on Mexico City.

On August 20, 1847, at Churubusco on the outskirts of the Mexican capital, Kearny led his dragoons in a charge intended to seal the American victory. But Colonel William Harney, on second thought, ordered recall sounded. Kearny, riding at the point of the charge, did not hear, or did not heed, the recall. As one of his officers, future Confederate general Richard S. Ewell, put it, “we were engaged while the rear was retreating.” At a ditch fronting the San Antonio Gate to the city, Kearny and his fellows had to dismount to continue the pursuit. Now it became hand-to-hand combat, with Kearny at the center of it. The outmanned dragoons escaped at great peril, and Kearny took a burst of grapeshot that shattered his left arm. The wound necessitated amputation.

The exploit became the talk of the army. General Scott is supposed to have called it “the boldest charge I ever saw or read of.” One of Kearny’s compatriots in the charge harkened back to Napoleon’s cavalry chief and christened Kearny “the Murat of the American Army.”3 Early in 1848 Kearny was in New York, recuperating and reuniting with Diana and their four young children. The reunion lasted but 18 months. The marriage broken, Diana left with the children. Phil set sail for the West Coast and the 1st Dragoons, where he scrapped with Indians in the Oregon Country and California. But like many another officer in the moribund 1850s army, he saw no future in the service and resigned his commission to see more of the world.

In 1853 he was in Paris, partaking in the social whirl. At a reception for visiting foreigners hosted by Napoleon III at the Tuileries Palace, 38-year-old Philip Kearny was instantly captivated upon meeting 20-year-old Agnes Maxwell, on the Grand Tour with her parents. She (in the fervent prose of Kearny’s grandson and biographer), “Tall, supple ... pure unclouded brow and dreamy eyes of wonder, fragile, exquisite.” He, tall and strikingly handsome in his dragoon uniform with the pinned-up sleeve. As the story goes, Agnes, perhaps overtired, perhaps over-smitten, fell in a swoon. Phil “moves quickly forward, now actually takes her in his arm and bears her to a chaise longue!”

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Above: Thirteen infantry and cavalry officers stand in front of the unfinished U.S. Capitol in this rendering of early war Union military commanders. At the start of the conflict, Philip Kearny (second from left) boasted more actual battle experience than any general officer in the Army of the Potomac. Below: Kearny’s longtime supporter, General-in-Chief Winfield Scott.

commend him as a useful and valuable Commander and disciplinarian. He is among the bravest of the brave and of the highest spirit and bearing.” But Governor Morgan, casting a disapproving eye on Kearny’s scandalous private life, turned him away.

New Jersey’s governor, Charles S. Olden, was not so prudish. Olden’s New Jersey brigade—1st through 4th regiments—was without a commander. A deal was struck. On July 25, 1861, Philip Kearny was commissioned brigadier general and given command of the 1st New Jersey brigade, Army of the Potomac.

Kearny wrote his home-front patron Cortlandt Parker, “the President rather himself put me in” after he found “me backed by … my kind Jersey friends as their generalissimo.” Writing with hindsight, commanding general George McClellan said had he known more of Kearny’s background he would have assigned him to a command role in the cavalry arm.

With more actual battle experience—on the frontier, in Algeria, in Mexico, in Italy—than any general officer in the Potomac army, Kearny assumed his superiority in every aspect of command. He deter-

mined to make his brigade battle-ready in short order. “I must confess that things are not all ‘couleur de rose,’” he told Parker. “But the material is so noble, & I am so healthfully confident of myself, that I am in no way discouraged. N. Jersey will find that her men will have sufficient confidence in me, as their general head, to over ride certain inequalities & draw backs in their leaders.” He was referring to the failings of volunteer officers.

He cataloged their sins: “The worst of a volunteer command is the unmitigated indifference of the officers to their men. Next to that the ‘shilly-shally’ manner in which the Colonels promulgate the orders sent to them to execute, and not the least … their absolute non comprehension of the simplest of military axioms. Add to this a great desire to shirk duty.” Kearny’s way of educating his lieutenants was to intimidate them with his incandescent personality. “It is strange that he makes himself so obnoxious to those under his command,” fellow general Sam Heintzelman noted in his diary. However Kearny did it, his training was effective, and soon enough he could write, “My Brigade is in fine order, the men in spirits, & greatly improved martially.”5

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“ MEN, I WANT YOU TO DRIVE THOSE BLACKGUARDS TO HELL AT ONCE! WILL YOU DO IT?”

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Brigadier General Philip Kearny, to the men of the 2nd Michigan Infantry during the Battle of Williamsburg, Virginia, on May 5, 1862. Kearny’s disregard for his own safety was on display at Williamsburg—his first Civil War battle—where he personally led a successful counterattack against Confederate forces, as depicted in this sketch by Alfred R. Waud.

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After first refusing General George B. McClellan’s offer of divisional command, Kearny (far left, as he appeared in 1862) said yes when offered a second chance. Kearny joined fellow divisional commanders and good friends Joseph Hooker (center) and Fitz John Porter (right) in the III Corps, making it the Army of the Potomac’s best-officered command.

learned his New Jersey brigade, which he had finally tamed, would not go with him, Kearny balked. “Gen’l McClellan behaved most unhandsomely to me,” he told Agnes. “[H]e did not dare to pass me over, but assigned me to command a Division, but not to take my Brigade with me. I flatly refused. It was a dirty trick.” (In the II Corps, the ultra-Christian soldier Otis Howard, for one, was relieved not to have to serve under Kearny, whom he condemned as “a very corrupt man, profane, a high liver, hard drinker, licentious.”)

K

EARNY SOON REGRETTED his exercise in amour-pro-

pre. During the siege of Yorktown, the opening phase of the Peninsula Campaign, he complained of “gradually being smothered under … unfitting unpractised juniors.” Finally he was reprieved.

A divisional vacancy opened in Sam Heintzelman’s III Corps, and McClellan appointed him to it. Kearny had learned his lesson. “I am about to accept this Division, & not act to my own injury a second time,” he told Agnes. For once he had no complaints. “The other two Division Generals are very distinguished, & intimate friends, Porter & Hooker, & are very superior Generals.” Indeed, Phil Kearny, Fitz John Porter, and Joe Hooker made the III Corps the best-officered command in the Army of the Potomac. Heintzelman, well acquainted with the mercurial Kearny, entered in his diary, “Gen. Kearny relieves Gen. Hamilton. I fear he will be troublesome.”7 He would certainly be troublesome, but not in his first battle, at Williamsburg. The Confederates gave

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The winter of 1861-62 was a time of suspended animation for the Army of the Potomac. General McClellan spent these months preparing, reviewing troops, pursuing details, getting ready, but never advancing the war. Kearny took aim at him: “instead of maintaining our previous simplicity, he has instituted the forms of European despotism, unnecessary large Staffs & suites with high titles, mingled with foreign princes.

The cry of affected exultation at his appearance, mammoth Reviews without meaning.”

To brighten spirits, Kearny threw an elaborate New Year’s Day party for the officers of his New Jersey brigade and generals William Franklin, Sam Heintzelman, William French, and Otis Howard. There were six courses, from soup to nuts, including turkey, chicken, and venison. The wines were well chosen and there was much toasting. Of the guests, only Howard and Robert McAllister, 1st New Jersey, toasted with water glasses. “Gentlemen,” Howard announced, “look at Colonel McAllister and see how healthy he is, showing clearly the values of temperance.” The others lifted their wine glasses in toast to that sentiment. Heartened by this success, Kearny repeated the performance on St. Valentine’s Day. There were 25 officer guests this time, “from the extreme Right & the extreme Left” of the Potomac army line. The party broke up at midnight in great good cheer. “It was really a sumptuous affair,” Kearny wrote proudly.6 In March 1862, as McClellan plotted a spring campaign, the Confederates abruptly evacuated Manassas, outside Washington, where they had camped all winter. Without waiting for orders, Kearny rushed his brigade forward and occupied the abandoned enemy positions. He (wrongly) credited himself with triggering the evacuation, and wrote smugly to his wife, “I met Gen’l McC. & all his Staff, & some 2000 horse, approaching with skirmishers, as if we were secessionists.”

To prepare for what became the Peninsula Campaign, the Army of the Potomac reorganized. McClellan promoted Kearny from brigade command to a divisional command in the II Corps. But when he

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up Yorktown before McClellan’s siege guns could open and on May 5 fought a rear-guard action at Williamsburg. The Union field command was bungled, and Joe Hooker found himself isolated and in danger of being routed. Kearny’s division was called to his support. As Kearny led his men onto the field at the double-quick, he was met by a staff officer who exclaimed, “General Hooker sends to General Kearny for God’s sake to come on!”

After riding out to the skirmish line to draw the enemy’s fire, Kearny continued leading by example.

Encountering a New Jersey company that had lost its officers, he called out, “Well! I am a one-armed Jersey son-of-a-gun, follow me! Three cheers!” He told the 2nd Michigan, “Men, I want you to drive those blackguards to hell at once! Will you do it?” He was answered by a ringing cheer. Kearny took one of his brigade commanders, Charles Jameson, with him to an exposed spot on the battle line to reconnoiter. Jameson was very conscious of the bullets zipping past them, and afterward was asked if he considered the reconnaissance an unjustifiable risk. “I certainly do,” said Jameson. Then why take the risk?

Jameson explained that he dared not flinch or show any impatience. “Why, what would Kearny have thought of me?”

Kearny’s counterattack pushed the Rebels back and restored the line. He seemed to be reprising his old cavalry charges at Churubusco or Solferino. His conduct would have been daring for a company captain; for a general of division it was simply foolhardy.

But at Williamsburg, Kearny’s intolerance of fear and his lust for action added up to a winning formula—on that particular day. He was infuriated that McClellan did not mention him in dispatches.8 Three weeks later McClellan had the Potomac army astride the Chickahominy River and threatening Richmond. A surprise Confederate attack on May 31 at a crossroads called Seven Pines broke the Union line. Once more Kearny was called to the rescue. “I was again sent for to redeem the blunders & short comings of others,” he boasted. On meeting fugitives from the broken line, “I flew at them. Hurrahed at them, waved my cap, & turned them, & led them into the fight again.” He told a battery commander to load

canister and fire into the fleeing men, but when the gunner hesitated, Kearny did not repeat the order. A last line was formed, largely with Kearny’s troops, that halted the enemy offensive.

Seven Pines also saw Phil Kearny go his own contrary way. He twice directed his brigade commander, David Birney, to ignore the orders of corps commander Heintzelman. When Heintzelman charged Birney with disobeying orders, Kearny failed to confess his responsibility for the mix-up. Birney would be acquitted by a court-martial, but bitterness remained. Afterward Heintzelman wrote, “I blame Kearny for all this trouble Birney got in…. He is always finding fault & making exceptions.”

Without peer as a battlefield leader of troops, Kearny’s command arrogance acted as a brake on his accomplishments.

On the second day at Seven Pines the Federals counterattacked and regained the lost ground. In the fighting that day Otis Howard was badly wounded and had his right arm amputated. Phil Kearny came to commiserate. “General, I am sorry for you; but you must not mind it; the ladies will not think the less of you,” Kearny said (speaking from experience). Howard remarked that at least they could buy their gloves together.

“Sure enough!” said Kearny, and they shook on that with the hands left to them.9 Confederate army commander Joe Johnston was wounded at Seven Pines and Robert E. Lee took his place. Seizing the initiative in the Seven Days Battles (June 25-July 1), Lee struck repeatedly at the Potomac army.

McClellan, his spirit broken, delusional that he was outnumbered two to one, gave up his campaign and retreated across the Peninsula to the James River. Kearny hurried along his division as “the rear guard of all God’s creation.” His turn to fight came only on June 30, Day Six, at a crossroads hamlet called Glendale.

Lee intended Glendale to be decisive, to at the least cut the retreating Army of the Potomac in two. McClellan abandoned the army and took refuge on a gunboat in the James, leaving no one in overall command.

“The corps commanders fought their troops entirely according to their own ideas,” Heintzelman testified. Consequently, the Federals’ defensive line at Glendale was an improvised affair, paralleling and defending the Quaker Road that led to the James. In his contrary way (contrary to orders), Kearny posted his division well wide and in advance of the rest. Into the resulting gap went a stray division from the V Corps, under George McCall. This created a divided command for the III Corps’ Heintzelman—Kearny’s division to the right of McCall, Hooker’s to the left of McCall, with no connections between any of them. Lee’s attack struck McCall’s line and punched a large hole in it.

On the right flank of the broken line Kearny faced attackers “in such masses as I had never witnessed,” a notable appraisal from someone of his varied experience. Hooker managed the other flank, so Heintzelman devoted his efforts to Kearny’s position. He borrowed the New

“ WHEN MATTERS ARE DIFFICULT, I AM AT THEIR HEAD, BETWEEN THEM & DANGER—AT LEAST SHOWING THAT I COUNT ON BEING FOLLOWED…. I CANNOT BEAR TO EXPOSE TROOPS, TO GREAT DANGERS, THAT I DO NOT SHARE.” Kearny, in a letter to his wife, Agnes, explaining why he felt it necessary to lead men from the front. His habit of doing so was not universally admired. “He rides about on a white horse, like a perfect lunatic,” noted one of Kearny’s fellow officers.

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“IT IS TIME FOR US TO DEPRIVE THE ENEMY OF THEIR EXTRANEOUS ENGINES OF WAR…. I WOULD USE THEM TO SPARE OUR WHITES NEEDED WITH THEIR COLOURS.” Kearny on his belief that slaves should be seized as contraband of war and put to work by the Union army. In his estimation, doing so would have immediately raised the combat readiness of the Union army by 50,000 men.

Brandy, & whiskey, & Claret, & a basket of Champagne, & dozens of ale, & several boxes of Congress water, besides lemons, & a nice colored man who can get anything for me.”

As regards the stalled war machine, Kearny had fresh thoughts on the subject. He wrote a letter to his home-front confidant Cortlandt Parker that was widely published and discussed. He argued “it is time for us to deprive the enemy of their extraneous engines of war…. As the blacks are the rural military force of the South,” they should be seized as contraband of war. “I would use them to spare our whites needed with their colours.” In place of the usual regimental pioneer unit, “I would select 50 stalwart Blacks, give them the axe, the pick, & the spade…. So too cooks for the companies, Teamsters, even Artillery drivers … organize Engineer Regiments of Blacks for the fortifications, Pontoon Regiments of Blacks, Black hospital Corps of nurses…. As for the women—employ them in hospitals, and in making cartridges, &c.” Kearny believed this would raise the combat readiness of the Union army by 50,000 men, just as a beginning. As to the fate of these contraband units, “It eventually would prepare them for freedom—for surely we do not intend to give them up to their rebel masters.”

In an effort to boost morale in the officer corps, wholesale promotions were handed down. Phil Kearny was made major general. He grudgingly accepted his advancement “or else would have been passed by others.” Still, it was “confounding me with the herd & ignoring my achievements.”

His ego appeared impossible to satisfy.11

A

NEW ARMY WAS PATCHED together from the vari-

ous forces in northern Virginia and guarding Washington, christened the Army of Virginia, and put under John Pope, a general imported from the western theater. Over McClellan’s protests, it was decided to evacuate the Peninsula and combine McClellan’s army with Pope’s. This would take some time (especially with McClellan dragging his feet), and General Lee marched northward to strike at Pope before he was reinforced. The III Corps, with Kearny’s division, reached Pope about

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Jersey brigade, Kearny’s old command, from another corps, and with a shout the Jerseymen went in at the double-quick. Kearny welcomed them, and was quick to appreciate combat leadership. Employing what he called his “personal rashness,” he pressed Colonel Alexander Hays’ 63rd Pennsylvania into repeated counterattacks to save an endangered battery. “Kearny is somewhat hyperbolical in his expressions,” Hays wrote, “but says it was magnificent, glorious, and the only thing that he saw like the pictures made in the papers….”

In the darkening woods Kearny was again personally (and recklessly) scouting the fighting. “I got by accident in among the enemy’s skirmishers…,” he told Agnes, “and was mistaken by a rebel Captain for one of his own Generals—he looked stupid enough & said to me ‘What shall I do next Sir,’ to which I replied, as if he had been one of my own worthless crew, ‘Do, damn you, why do what you have always been told to do,’ & off I went.” He marked it a “funny adventure,” like the one in similar circumstances at the Battle of Solferino in 1859.

The breakthrough at Glendale was finally stemmed, and the retreat to the James resumed. Kearny explained to Agnes (who could hardly have been reassured) why he felt it necessary to lead from the front— so his men would “know that when matters are difficult, I am at their head, between them & danger—at least showing that I count on being followed…. I cannot bear to expose troops, to great dangers, that I do not share.” That a general officer should, literally, lead his troops into battle was a senseless proposition, and he was not always admired for it. A fellow officer wrote of Kearny, “He rides about on a white horse, like a perfect lunatic,” and noted him “having killed off his staff once.”

The next day, July 1, the Federals bloodily repulsed Lee’s assault at Malvern Hill, and the Yankee generals anticipated orders to counterattack the wounded enemy and press ahead on Richmond.

McClellan instead repeated his order to fall back to Harrison’s Landing, his chosen refuge on the James. Kearny was livid.

To fellow officers he declaimed, “I, Philip Kearny, an old soldier, enter my solemn protest against this order to retreat— we ought, instead of retreating, to follow up the enemy and take Richmond…. I say to you all, such an order can only be prompted by cowardice or treason!”10 The failed Peninsula Campaign left the Potomac army stranded at Harrison’s Landing. While McClellan and Washington argued over what to do next, the hot summer weeks grew hard on man and beast. But with his unlimited purse Phil Kearny made very much the best of it. He assured Agnes that he had his marquee pitched in a pleasant grove, “amidst evergreens & bushes, with a little brook in front…. You ought to look in at my tent, & see my nice French camp bedstead, my rich furs, braided cloaks, & showy velvet carpet— Table with a gay cover…. And then as for comforts—I have a store of

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Philip Kearny, mounted with hat raised overhead, is depicted leading Union troops into action on September 1, 1862, at Chantilly, Virginia. The battle—a rearguard action fought in the wake of the Union defeat at Second Bull Run—would be his last.

the same time as Lee did.

The ensuing Second Bull Run battle (August 28-30, on the same ground as the First Bull Run battle of July 1861) furnished Kearny with a new cast of characters and a new challenge. One of Pope’s generals, Carl Schurz, described meeting Kearny: “a strikingly fine, soldierly figure, one-armed, thin face, pointed beard, fiery eyes,” wearing a jauntily tipped cap that gave him the look of a French legionnaire.

Kearny’s disillusion with John Pope was rapid. After a series of orders that sent him marching this way and that, forward and back, without result, he told the newest messenger, “Tell General Pope to go to Hell.

We won’t march before morning.” And they did not.

On August 29, in the (mistaken) belief he had Stonewall Jackson trapped, Pope put in piecemeal attacks on Jackson’s lines. Schurz’s attack was to coordinate with one by Kearny. “On my right, however, where General Kearny had taken position, all remained quiet,” Schurz reported. Corps commander Heintzelman complained of Kearny, “There was so long delay that I sent to him a second order to move at once.” By Joe Hooker’s account, “General Kearny’s Division did not move until several hours

after my division had been driven from the forest….” As had now become habit, Phil Kearny ignored his orders and marched to his own drum.

At Williamsburg, at Seven Pines, at Glendale, Kearny had countered or defended against Rebel assaults. In each case, his mission was clear and immediate. On this day, he was ordered to mount an assault of his own devising, against an unseen enemy in an unknown position. He responded with unaccustomed caution. When he did attack, it was not in conjunction with Hooker (or anyone else) and he was stymied.

On August 30 Lee sprang his trap on witless John Pope, sending James Longstreet’s legions against the unprotected Union flank. Pope had to order retreat, and Kearny directed a stubborn withdrawal of his division. General John Gibbon was posted with the rear guard, waiting for the rest of the army to pass, when Kearny rode up to him. “He was a soldierly looking figure as he sat, straight as an arrow, on his horse, his empty sleeve pinned to his breast,” Gibbon wrote. In what Gibbon termed an extremely bitter tone, Kearny said, “I suppose you appreciate the condition of affairs? It’s another Bull Run, sir, it’s another Bull Run!” Gibbon said he hoped it was not as bad as that. “Perhaps not,” Kearny said. “Reno is keeping up the fight. He is not stampeded. I am not stampeded, you are not stampeded. That is about all, sir, my God that’s about all!”12 Pope’s forces retreated to Centreville, trying to stay between the enemy and Washington, but on September 1 the Rebels were again threatening the army’s flank. Heintzelman’s III Corps ☛ } CONT. ON P. 74

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HARPER’S WEELY ; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

FROM INSPIRING ANTHEMS TO HUMOROUS DITTIES, CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS CRAFTED A VARIETY OF MUSICAL LYRICS TO HELP PASS THE TIME, AIR LAMENTS, AMUSE COMRADES, AND SHARE THEIR STRUGGLES ■ BY CHRISTIAN McWHIRTER

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diers to complain about various aspects of daily life— with humor and melody softening sentiments that would have resulted in harsh punishment if spoken forthrightly.

USIC WAS ALMOST OMNIPRESENT IN CIVIL WAR ARMIES. UNION AND

Confederate soldiers sang to motivate themselves on the march, to break the monotony of camp life, and even to steel themselves in battle.

When not singing, they were playing their own instruments, listening to military bands, or receiving orders transmitted by drum, fife, or bugle. As Union private James R. Murray noted, “Singing is the life of a camp…. There is nothing which so animates soldiers or gives such buoyancy to their spirits as a good lively song.” He continued, “I don’t know what we could do without music. It seems to be the only home privilege … that we were allowed to bring with us to the war.”1 Confederate troops agreed. “Soldiers, as a class, are passionately fond of music,” recalled Sergeant William H. Tunnard of the 3rd Louisiana Infantry.

A Rebel soldier in the famed Orphan Brigade noted how music “exercises a wonderful and inspiring influence over the soldier, making him forget the hardships, trials and dangers to which he is almost constantly exposed, and troops are never happier than when being entertained in this way, unless it be at a full mess table.”2 As these statements attest, music helps soldiers forget the rigors and monotony of military life. But the songs that Civil War soldiers sang, heard, and penned did more than foster escapism. They helped them understand and share ideas about the emotional, ideological, and political issues raised by the war. What’s more, songs became an outlet for sol-

our own in a few key ways. Today, music is often a solitary and passive activity, enjoyed by a sole listener through headphones or speakers. We tend to think of popular songs as having “official” versions by their original composers or performers. (One person thinking about “Jailhouse Rock” by Elvis Presley probably has the same performance in mind as another.) But 150 years ago most people never heard the same renditions of songs by the same performers.

Instead, Americans purchased sheet music (teaching songs to themselves) or learned new tunes through oral transmission (teaching songs to each other). As a result, 19th-century Americans did not consider popular songs as sacrosanct or inflexible as we do. This allowed listeners and performers to take ownership of their music. Musicians, singers, and songwriters (both amateur and professional) frequently altered the music and lyrics of their favorite songs.

As Civil War soldiers sought to amuse, distract, and embolden themselves—and pass copious amounts of free time—it is no wonder that numerous original songs and revisions arose out of the armies.

Some achieved remarkable popularity, none more so than “John Brown’s Body.” Originally adapted from the revival hymn “Say Brothers Will You Meet Us on Canaan’s Happy Shore” by members of the 2nd Massachusetts Battalion in April 1861, the song quickly became the North’s most popular patriotic tune. The most well known verses (beginning with the lines “John Brown’s body lies a’mouldering in the grave”; Music was a large part of life in both Union and Confederate armies. Below: The drum corps of the 30th Pennsylvania Infantry, one of countless military bands formed during the war. Opposite page: The sheet music cover for C.D. Benson’s song based on the comedic “here’s your mule” story popular among Rebel troops.

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; HISTORIC AMERICAN SHEET MUSIC, DAVID M. RUBENSTEIN RARE BOOK & MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY, DUKE UNIVERSITY

NINETEENTH-CENTURY MUSICAL PRACTICES DIFFERED FROM

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; HISTORIC AMERICAN SHEET MUSIC, DAVID M. RUBENSTEIN RARE BOOK & MANUSCRIPT LIBRARY, DUKE UNIVERSITY

“He’s gone to be a soldier in the army of the Lord”; and “John Brown’s knapsack is strapped upon his back”) were intended to mock 2nd Massachusetts Battalion sergeant John Brown for having the same name as the radical abolitionist who had been executed for his raid on Harpers Ferry in 1859. As the song spread through the ranks (almost entirely by word of mouth), the joke was lost and the subject became either the martyred Brown or something unique to the singer. Soldiers also created their own versions.

Some of these new lyrics existed only during the moment of performance, while others endured for days, months, or years.

Some even became standard, such as the familiar line “We’ll hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree.”

Indeed, by war’s end the song had been revised so often it seemed as if it “never finished itself,” in the words of prominent author and lecturer Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.3 Like the original and subsequent versions of “John Brown’s Body,” many camp songs were spontaneous creations. Most reflected the griping and gallows humor often associated with soldiers, while others expressed the emotional toll extracted by wartime service. But unlike “John Brown’s Body,” the vast majority remained popular or familiar only

of

within the units or armies where they were created.

The impulse among soldiers to create songs was widespread. Confederate sergeant Tunnard recalled with some bravado how “the men often indulged their propensity for song-writing, and if their productions did not exhibit splendid poetical talent, the sentiments of these songs manifested the spirit which animated them, their reckless disregard for danger, and their propensity to make mirth out of their sufferings.”4 John Robert Dow, a bugler with the 31st Ohio Infantry, wrote his sister about an “old Yankee” who composed his own songs, performed them for his comrades, and apparently helped Dow write his own pieces. “I will send you one of them in my next letter,” he promised.5 Soldiers in the 44th Massachusetts Infantry went so far as to write an opera, which one of the regiment’s members sent home with a request that it be printed for distribution. “You will not find the music,” this soldier noted. “That was improvised and selected, and very many appropriate airs and witticisms were introduced in places not indicated in the printed text.”6 Soldier-composers were often inspired by inside jokes, funny stories, and other “witticisms”—including one “had to be there” moment in particular. According to Julius A. Leinbach, a bandsman in the 26th North Carolina Infantry, “a distressed citizen” came into camp one day “hunting his mule.” As he wandered from unit to unit in search of his missing livestock, “a wag some distance off called ‘here’s your mule!’”

The farmer followed the voice only to hear someone else, and then someone else, call from distant parts of the camp. This continued for some time, and the event eventually evolved into a folk tale that made “here’s your mule” a Confederate army catchphrase.7 A veritable herd of “here’s your mule” jokes found their way into soldiers’ songs. The phrase became the theme of a quickstep by Leinbach’s band, while several other soldiers incorporated it into their own versions of “Maryland, My Maryland.”8 As this set of lyrics shows, the phrase could be nonsensically placed in any context: Old Stonewall Jackson’s in the field, Here’s your mule, Oh, here’s you mule!

And he had the boys that will not yield, Here’s your mule, Oh, here’s you mule!

And when you hear the old man pray, You may be sure that on next day, The very Devil will be to pay— Here’s your mule, Oh, here’s your mule!9

“Here’s your mule” jokes gained such fame that they even found their way into published music. In 1862, C.D. Benson wrote and published a song based on the original “here’s your mule” story, while in New Orleans a “Here’s Your Mule Schottisch” was printed with the subtitle “Found at Last.” Of course, both featured mules on their covers.10 Some “here’s your mule” songs likely had bawdier connotations; these were soldiers, after all. And while dirty jokes surely made their way into their songs, Union and Confederate composers proved exceptionally adept at hiding their more “blue” or profane tunes from civilian observers and, by extension, modern researchers. Historian Bell Irvin Wiley managed to find one dirty song but deemed it “unprintable.”11 Leander Still-

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In eighteen hundred and sixty-one, So bold! so bold!

In eighteen hundred and sixty-one, So bold! so bold!

In eighteen hundred and sixty-one, The war had then but just begun; And we’ll all drink stone-blind: Johnny, fill up the bowl!

In eighteen hundred and sixty-two, So bold! so bold!

In eighteen hundred and sixty-two, So bold! so bold!

In eighteen hundred and sixty-two, They first began to put us through; And we’ll all drink stone-blind: Johnny, fill up the bowl!

Subsequent verses covered each year of the war, supposedly added as the conflict progressed: “Abe Lincoln set the niggers free” in 1863; “We all went in for three years more” in 1864; and “We’ll all be glad to get home alive” in 1865.17 And these were among the more positive adaptations of the lyrics. Members of the Army of the Potomac improvised

a bitter version lamenting their history of defeats and poor commanders in verses such as “We ran with McDowell, retreated with Banks”; “They gave us John Pope our patience to tax”; and “Next came General Meade, a slow old plug.”18 Similar renditions were pervasive throughout the Union ranks, and soldiers from Virginia to Louisiana crafted lyrics complaining of their ill fortunes.

Given the poor quality of Civil War rations, it is hardly surprising that an entire genre of soldier songs arose from complaints about food. The two most famous, supposedly written by Rebel troops, appeared late in the war and reflected the Confederacy’s dwindling ability to feed its soldiers. “Short Rations” addressed the problem explicitly: “Reduce our rations at all?/It was difficult, yet it was done/ We had one meal a day, it was small/Are we now, oh! ye gods! to have none?” A song titled “Goober Peas” was more oblique—sarcastically praising peanuts as the only ration still readily available.19 Another tune described the desperation felt by many Confederates more overtly: I am lonely in my shanty, And rations are scanty, And thieving is the order of the day; The watch-dog is howling, A hungry Reb is prowling, Around the house the hens to steal away.20

While Union men did not contend with the same privations as their Confederate counterparts, many detested their primary ration, hardtack. Fortunately, one of the most popular songs in America could be easily revised into a lament for this seemingly impenetrable and indigestible cracker. Union soldiers in all theaters were happy to transform Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times Come Again No More” to “Hardtack Come Again No More.” One common verse read: Let us close our game of poker, Take our tin cups in our hand, While we gather round the cook’s tent door, Where dry mummies of hard crackers Are given to each man; O hard crackers, come again no more!21

A member of the 1st Iowa Infantry recalled how, like in other soldier songs, verses were frequently added and subtracted. Having for a time subsisted on “camp mush” rather than their usual ration, the Iowans gave hardtack a renewed, if satirical, endorsement: “It’s the song and the sigh of the hungry/Hard Tack, Hard Tack, come again once more/You were old and very wormy, but you’re pie beside that mush/O Hard Tack, come again once more.”22 While these songs were primarily comic and reflected practical problems of military life, they nevertheless demonstrated the Civil War soldier’s willTo view this article’s reference notes, turn to our Notes section on page 78.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES (TOP); LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

well of the 61st Illinois Infantry recalled “The Happy Land of Canaan” was put to all sorts of uses, some of which were “not adapted for publication.”12 A Confederate soldier remembered one of his comrades singing “very risqué couplets” while marching to take position at Fredericksburg, and a member of the 5th Alabama Infantry recorded that, when on break from digging trenches at Yorktown, the men “amuse them selves by playing poker, singing vulgar songs, cursing and swearing, etc. etc.”13 We also have two possibly apocryphal stories involving dirty tunes.

A reporter traveling with the 36th Illinois Infantry claimed one soldier stopped a bullet with a “rather ribald” songbook he carried in his cap. The newspaperman snidely remarked, “I can only account for the phenomenon by supposing that the verses of the songs were so execrable, that the ball, like any reader of good taste, could not by any possibility, get more than half way through the contents.”14 Another tale came from a member of the 9th Louisiana Infantry who claimed that, while taking shelter from a storm in a church along the Rappahannock, “a vulgar song was sung by some soldier, and received with such laughter that his example seemed on the point of being followed by others.” Before things got carried away, another soldier claiming to be “just as bad as any of you” rose to the pulpit and declared, “I’ll be damned if it’s right to sing any of your smutty songs in here, and it’s got to be stopped.” His comrades apparently took this rebuke to heart and moved on to more acceptable fare.15 Not quite as taboo—and much more likely to survive—were drinking songs. The most enduring was probably “Farewell to Grog,” which protested the U.S. Navy’s cancellation of sailors’ grog rations on September 1, 1862. The lyrics are apparently still sung in some naval circles: “Come, messmates, pass the bottle ‘round/Our time is short, remember/For our grog must stop, our spirits drop/On the first day of September.”16 Another northern drinking tune better illustrates the combination of humor and current events present in many soldier songs: “Johnny Fill Up the Bowl.” Set to the melody of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home,” it had even less lyrical structure than “John Brown’s Body,” thereby allowing soldiers to craft whatever verses they liked, as long as they ended with the two lines: “And we’ll all drink stone blind/ Johnny fill up the bowl.”

Given its subject matter, “Johnny Fill Up the Bowl” naturally lent itself to recounting one’s troubles, then forgetting them through inebriation. Many versions had a narrative structure, detailing the various woes of army life and the struggle against the Confederacy. The lyrics recorded by a member of the 51st Indiana Infantry were typical:

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Above: Members of the 4th Michigan Infantry’s band. Below: Three drummer boys from an unknown Union unit.

A photographer’s note claims that the trio had “been in 9 battles of the rebellion.”

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Above: The band of the 114th Pennsylvania Infantry outside Petersburg, Virginia, in August 1864. Below: The 93rd New York Infantryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s drum corps in August 1863.

Opposite page: A colorful wartime song sheet.

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where we’re inclined to/And we don’t care a——cent.”24 Stories persist of officers banning sentimental tunes, such as “Home, Sweet Home,” fearing they might provoke desertion, but soldiers were perfectly willing to create their own songs expressing the melancholy of separation and fear of death. Sometimes these pieces were darkly comic, but more serious sentiments were also evident.

One imagines nervous laughter accompanying the following lyrics created by Confederate soldiers who worried about falling branches when they took cover under trees during artillery bombardments: “Eat when you’re hungry/Drink when you’re dry/Iffen a tree don’t kill you/ You’ll live ‘til you die.”25 Confederates who suffered through the siege of Vicksburg produced a number of songs describing their privations and the uncertainty of their daily lives. Recast lyrics for the popular sentimental ballad “Do They Miss Me at Home?” attacked the false bravado of war by asking: “Do they miss me in the trench, do they miss me?/When the shells fly so thickly around?/Do they know I’ve run down the hill-side/To look for my hole in the ground?” The song’s cynicism was most evident in its last few lines, as the soldier who shirks duty admits:

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (3)

And when the great battle is o’er I’ll claim my full rations of laurels, As always I’ve done heretofore.

I’ll say that I’ve fought them as bravely As the best of my comrades who fell, And swear most roundly to all others That I never had fears of a shell.26

ingness to express ideas and complaints through music. This practice was also a way to cope with the frustrations of incompetent officers and the seemingly endless war effort. Spoken forthrightly, such complaints would likely have resulted in disciplinary action, but the humor and lightness of music apparently granted the singers some leeway. With “Johnny Fill Up the Bowl” and others, Union soldiers primarily griped about inadequate commanders failing to best their Rebel counterparts. Confederate soldiers, however, focused on class differences in the ranks, in particular their resentment toward the planters who dominated the army’s command structure.

Although its origins are difficult to determine, “The Officers of Dixie” perfectly demonstrates this tendency. Set to the melody of “Dixie,” the author complained in the chorus: “The officers of Dixie, alone, alone!/The honors share, the honors wear/Throughout the land of Dixie!/‘Tis so, ‘tis so, throughout the land of Dixie.” In another verse, he cynically observes, “Solomon in all his splendors/ Was scarce arrayed like these defenders” and later notes that when an officer is killed in battle, “How the martyr is lamented” while for a private “No muffled drum, no wreath of glory/If one dies, proclaims the story.”23 A member of the 1st Georgia Infantry recalled a starkly insubordinate tune. After the men in his company were ordered to transfer to another unit, they spontaneously sang: “We are sons of Aunt Dinah/And we go where we’ve amind to/And we stay

The injustice of brave men dying while cowards won praise surely outraged those holding their posts and made them question their cause.

Similarly, another defender of Vicksburg adapted “Listen to the Mocking Bird” to describe the constant threat of enemy artillery and rifle fire: ‘ Twas at the siege of Vicksburg, Of Vicksburg, of Vicksburg.

‘Twas at the siege of Vicksburg, When the Parrott shells were whistling through the air.

Listen to the Parrott shells, Listen to the Parrott shells: The Parrott shells are whistling through the air.

Oh! well will we remember Remember — remember, Tough mule meat, June sans November, And the Minié balls that whistled through the air.

Listen to the Minié balls, Listen to the Minié balls: The Minié balls are singing in the air.27

A similar tone is evident in a revision of the popular folk song “The Girl I Left Behind Me” that circulated on both sides. One Union soldier recalled his comrades singing these lyrics after the first day’s fighting at Shiloh: “If ever I get through this war/And a Rebel ball don’t find me/I’ll shape my course by the northern star/To the girl I left behind me.”28 A Confederate soldier in the Army of Tennessee who also fought at Shiloh recorded this version: “If ever I get through this war/And Lincoln’s chains don’t bind me/I’ll make my way to Tennessee/To the girl I left behind me.”29 Of a more serious nature was an 1862 Christmas song written by a member of the 126th Illinois Infantry while stationed in Texas. As the song progressed, it encouraged soldiers to live, watch, and pray “on the field of battle” before this final verse: Die on the field of Battle Tis noble thus to die God Smiles on valiant Soldiers His Record is on high Die, die, die, on the Field of Battle die.30

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TWO OTHER GROUPS OF FIGHTING MEN— prisoners of war and black soldiers—also created large bodies of amateur songs, and the processes of improvisation and oral transmission were even more prevalent because of these communities’ exceptional circumstances.

Faced with the privations and boredom of prison life, POWs formed glee clubs, sought means to import sheet music from outside the barricades, and, of course, wrote and performed their own songs. Some expressed the usual sorts of jokes, complaints, and lamentations. For instance, one Confederate held captive in the prison at Johnson’s Island, Ohio, penned “Clap Your Hands for Dixie,” which made light of prison life in such couplets as, “In the morning when you get up/Some rotten coffee you will sup,” “And if you should try to get out/They’ll threaten to blow your brains out,” and the verse “But ‘tis consoling for to know/That if we

suffer through fresh snow/Retaliation will be given/ To the Yanks in Libby Prison.”31 However, most of the surviving Confederate POW tunes expressed perseverance and loyalty to the Confederacy. Prisoners in the “Musical Club” at Fort Lafayette in New York composed an anthem for their fellow captives praising Confederate leaders and condemning Abraham Lincoln, as in the following verse equating defeat with enslavement: “Now’s the day and now’s the hour/See the front of battle lower/See approach of Lincoln’s power/Chains and slavery.”32 A Rebel prisoner at Fort Delaware wrote and sang a long piece with a surprising amount of detail, including the following lines voicing his sense of betrayal when southern surgeons vouched for the conditions

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The band of the 107th U.S. Colored Infantry in 1865. Black soldiers used songs to suggest the hardships of slavery; offer declarations of their freedom, intelligence, and loyalty to the Union; and pronounce their masculinity.

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shape white perceptions of black life. The introduction of African Americans into the Union army during the Civil War further pushed music to the forefront of the black public image. Black soldiers performed songs for all the same reasons as white soldiers, but always with an understanding that they were being watched and evaluated by white observers inside and outside of the ranks. Thus, black soldiers paired their own compositions with songs familiar to whites, but almost always indulged in the spontaneous lyrical and musical revision common in black music at the time.

One of the more political appropriations of white music by black soldiers was their revision of Septimus Winner’s “Hoist up the Flag.”

A staunch supporter of General George McClellan, Winner wrote the original piece as a firm statement of conservative Democratic principles, best exemplified in the couplet “We’ll fight for the Union, but just as it was/Nor care was secesh, or Abe-o-lition does.”34 Recognizing the song for what it was, members of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry shrewdly adopted it as a marching song, re-crafting the lyrics to demonstrate their more expansive view of the North’s war aims: Fremont told them when the war it first begun, How to save the Union, and the way it should be done; But Kentucky swore so hard, and old Abe he had his fears Till every hope was lost but the colored volunteers; Chorus O, give us a flag, all free without a slave; We’ll fight to defend it as our fathers did so brave; The gallant Comp’ny “A” will make the Rebels dance, And we’ll stand by the Union if we only have a chance.35

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Black soldiers used songs to suggest the hardships of slavery; offer declarations of their freedom, intelligence, and loyalty to the Union; and pronounce their masculinity. A famous incident demonstrating this latter trend occurred among a group of black soldiers assigned to lead the assault on the Confederate lines at Petersburg, Virginia, in what would become known as the Battle of the Crater. The night before the attack, they gathered and sang: “We-e looks li-ike me-en a-a-marchin’ on/We looks li-ke men-er-war.”36 Members of the 1st United States Colored Troops (usct) similarly expressed their status as soldiers but also their belief that they were fighting on the side of God: “We are the gallant first/Who slightly have been tried/Who ordered to a battle/Take Jesus for our guide.”37 Aside from these statements of masculinity and bravery, uscts were also eager to leave no doubt that they reveled in their freedom and deserved it. One black veteran recalled singing the following lyrics in which he preferred death to slavery:

of Federal prisons: “‘The suck are well treated,’ as Southern surgeons say/‘And the losses by death are scarcely four per day’/It’s diarrhoea mixture for scurvey and small-pox/And every other disease of Pandora’s box!”33 Among northern POWs, one of the more noteworthy songs was Iowa officer Samuel Hawkins Marshall Byers’ “Sherman’s March to the Sea,” which briefly rivaled “Marching through Georgia” as the primary anthem of the men who accompanied General William T. Sherman during his infamous campaign, and was supposedly preferred by the eponymous general himself.

The relationship between black soldiers and music is much more complicated. African Americans had long used music to share ideas with each other and

Rasalin Jacob, don’t weep Weepin’ Mary, don’t weep.

Before I’d be a slave I’d be buried in my grave, Go home to my father and be saved.38

WHETHER THEY WERE GRIPING, JOKING, OR SHAPING IDEAS, CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS

had a remarkable willingness to express themselves through music.

There has always been an association between military life and music, but the sheer amount of singing and songwriting by Billy Yank and Johnny Reb sets the Civil War years apart. These men came from a culture in which singing was part of daily life, and the lyrics and tunes they left behind give us a valuable glimpse into their wartime experiences and beliefs—one that is often neglected by historians.

CHRISTIAN McWHIRTER, AN ASSISTANT EDITOR WITH THE PAPERS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, IS THE AUTHOR OF BATTLE HYMNS: THE POWER AND POPULARITY OF MUSIC IN THE CIVIL WAR (2012).

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RIVERS, ROADS & R E

T H E 1 8 6 4 O V E R L A N D C A M PA I G N I N P I C T U R E S / / B Y G A R R Y A D E MAY-JUNE 1864

IN MAY AND JUNE 1864, General Ulysses S. Grant and the Army

of the Potomac pushed doggedly toward the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, in the Civil War’s bloodiest military movement: the Overland Campaign. From the Rapidan River to the James and numerous waterways in between, General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia blocked, blunted, or parried every move Grant made.

With intense public interest in the spring movement of the armies, Union photographers and sketch artists set out to document what many expected just might be the Civil War’s last campaign. Although this was not to be, these men created a thorough documentary record of Union movements, actions, and incidents. Confederate photos of this campaign are all but absent—the blockading of southern ports had cut off access to most photographic chemicals and materials.

Extant Confederate sketches and drawings are scarce as well.

It wasn’t until the war ended that photographers could access some of the battlefields, graveyards, and farmsteads that had remained between the lines or under Confederate control.

While the documentary record is not complete, the work of these photographers and artists allows us to take a graphical journey in the footsteps of Grant and Lee in 1864.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY TIMOTHY O’SULLIVAN

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R EGIMENTS

RRY ADELMAN

M AY 4 , 18 6 4

1

GERMANNA FORD A GRAND MOVEMENT BEGINS

On May 4, 1864, the grand campaign began. Grant aimed to force Lee to abandon his strong Rapidan River defenses by crossing the river beyond the Confederate right flank. Grant’s hope was to then fight Lee on open ground. Photographer Timothy O’Sullivan was there to capture soldiers, beasts, and all the trappings of war as they crossed the Rapidan on two pontoon bridges at Germanna Ford (left).

The blurred motion shows a mass of men from the Army of the Potomac, either the V or VI Corps, about to experience a whole new level of warfare.

RICHMOND

“ [Y]OU MUST TELL MOTHER NOT TO BE UNDULY CONCERNED ABOUT ME.” MASSACHUSETTS INFANTRYMAN WARREN FREEMAN TO HIS FATHER, MAY 2, 1864

GARRY ADELMAN IS DIRECTOR OF HISTORY AND EDUCATION AT THE CIVIL WAR TRUST AND VICE PRESIDENT OF THE CENTER FOR CIVIL WAR PHOTOGRAPHY. FOR READERS INTERESTED IN LEARNING MORE ABOUT OVERLAND CAMPAIGN AND PETERSBURG PHOTOGRAPHY, HE RECOMMENDS GRANT AND LEE: THE VIRGINIA CAMPAIGNS, 1864-1865 (1983)

BY WILLIAM A. FRASSANITO. PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN DOE

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2

A DREADFUL START TO A TERRIBLE CAMPAIGN

MAY 5-7, 1864

Grant’s attempt to maneuver Lee out into the open was unsuccessful. Lee moved from his Rapidan defenses with such speed that Grant was drawn into a horrific battle in the dense second-growth timber known as the Wilderness. Here, movements were difficult, visibility poor, and communications unreliable.

The few clearings limited artillery use and helped Lee effectively overcome his numerical disadvantage.

THE OVERLAND CAMPAIGN

BY THE NUMBERS TOTAL STRENGTH (OUTSET)

650+350= 118,700

64,000

TOTAL CASUALTIES

620+380= 55,000

33,600

The two days of fighting at the Wilderness produced one of the costliest battles of the Civil War. In some areas, the cries of the wounded grew increasingly desperate as fires roared through the thick timber. The lucky ones got out; some burned to death. This sketch by Alfred Waud depicts Union troops carrying injured comrades from the battlefield—a dramatic scene of motion that a camera of the day could not have captured.

THE WILDERNESS / CASUALTIES

2,246

12,037 3,383

15= 55= 56=

TOTAL TOTAL

27= 134= 23=

17,666 11,033

AREA OF OPERATIONS

The Overland Campaign was fought on or near much of the same ground contested by the armies in previous years, including the 1862 battles of Fredericksburg and Gaines’ Mill and the 1863 battle of Chancellorsville.

RICHMOND

1,477 7,866 1,690

KILLED WOUNDED CAPTURED/ KILLED WOUNDED CAPTURED/ MISSING MISSING

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MAY 7, 1864

3

“ THIS IS THE …

MOST AWFUL CARNAGE THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN….

I BELIEVE THERE WILL BE NO END UNTIL THE REBELLION IS ANNIHILATED OR WE ARE.” UNION SOLDIER CHARLES DE MOTT, IN A LETTER TO HIS WIFE WRITTEN “ON THE BATTLE-FIELD” OF THE WILDERNESS, MAY 1864

Todd’s Tavern CROSSROADS CAVALRY FIGHT

Despite being rebuffed in the Wilderness, the Union army continued on toward Richmond, a triumph of will that distinguished Grant from his predecessors who battled Lee in Virginia. When Grant sent General Philip Sheridan’s cavalry to gain control of the roads leading to Spotsylvania Court House, they ran into Confederate cavalry under General Fitzhugh Lee. A furious fight erupted at Todd’s Tavern, shown here just after the war. Although Lee was pushed back, Rebel infantry arrived in time to preserve the Confederate route to Spotsylvania. The tavern itself served as a Union headquarters during the fighting.

“ WE ARE BOTH ON A RACE FOR RICHMOND, AND I WONDER WHICH WILL GET THE INSIDE TRACK…. GRANT SEEMS DETERMINED TO KEEP ON FIGHTING, AND EITHER WIN OR LOSE.”

SHERIDAN

LEE

UNION SURGEON JOHN GARDNER PERRY, MAY 8, 1864

53 PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN DOE

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4

Spotsylvania ANEAR GRAPHIC, HUMAN TOLL VIRGINIA FREDERICKSBURG,

MAY 8-21, 1864

The fighting at Spotsylvania lasted for days and left tens of thousands of casualties in its wake.

In 17 days, Grant’s campaign had already produced two of the five bloodiest Civil War battles. The dead and wounded lay everywhere, including this unidentified Confederate soldier killed on May 19 near Harris Farm. This photograph by Timothy O’Sullivan is one of six he took at Harris Farm on the day after the battle fought there; they are the only photos showing dead bodies on the field in the deadliest of all Civil War campaigns.

The massive armies moved to the next major crossroads: Spotsylvania Court House, where Lee’s men built sophisticated fortifications to help blunt any possible enemy assault. The grandest in a series of Union attacks came on May 12 at the center of the Confederate line upon the salient known as the Mule Shoe, resulting in one of the most savage clashes of the war. Even when photographer G.O. Brown toured the battlefield after the war, the Confederate defenses were still impressive.

THE OVERLAND CAMPAIGN SPOTSYLVANIA / CASUALTIES

18,399 12,687

2,725

13,416 2,258

15= 55= 56=

TOTAL TOTAL

27= 134= 23=

1,515 5,414 5,758

KILLED WOUNDED CAPTURED/ KILLED WOUNDED CAPTURED/ MISSING MISSING

“Trenches were dug in the light soil … and the dead were laid side by side with no winding sheets but overcoats or blankets, though occasionally an empty box which had contained Springfield rifles did duty as a coffin.”

UNION OFFICER AUGUSTUS BROWN, IN HIS DIARY, MAY 20, 1864

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MAY 23-26, 1864

5

A DANGEROUS OBSTACLE

THE UNION HIGH COMMAND On May 21, O’Sullivan lugged his bulky camera up to the second floor of Massaponax Church, where Grant and others had stopped as the army moved southward toward the North Anna River. O’Sullivan captured three photos of history in the making.

Above, Grant (standing, lower left) is leaning over the right shoulder of General George Gordon Meade, commander of the largest force under Grant’s command—the Army of the Potomac. The two highestranking Union men in the Overland Campaign examine a map while the army moves past at top.

By predicting Union movements and preserving his lines to Richmond, Lee forced the pursuing Grant into seemingly endless tribulations—longer marches, bridgeless river crossings, dreadful roads, and rugged terrain. After Spotsylvania, Lee took position behind the North Anna River between two crossings, hoping to attack Grant if he split his army in pursuit.

Here, some of Grant’s horsemen cross the Chesterfield Bridge over the North Anna.

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6 Jericho Mill A COUNTRY MILL BECOMES A SCENE OF WAR

MAY 23, 1864

The Union V Corps under General Gouverneur Warren crossed the North Anna on a quickly laid pontoon bridge at Jericho Mill. In this photo, most of the troops (as well as the photographer) have already crossed, and ammunition wagons are preparing to navigate the bridge. Grant had fallen into Lee’s trap, but Lee was ill and his planned attack never took place. Nonetheless, other fighting flared and more than 4,000 men were added to the casualty rolls along the North Anna.

MEADE

WARREN

“ EVERY ONE IS BEING KILLED THAT I KNOW. WE ARE WHIPPING THE REBELS WELL, ALTHOUGH IT IS A WORK OF TIME.” MASSACHUSETTS OFFICER STEPHEN MINOT WELD, MAY 25, 1864

57 PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN DOE

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7

Cold Harbor AN IMPREGNABLE POSITION

JUNE 1864– APRIL 1865

8

MAY 31-JUNE 12, 1864

THE BEGINNING

Grant’s decision to cross the James River and move southward toward Petersburg—a key rail center 20 miles south of Richmond— effectively ended the Overland Campaign. Lee was still unsure of Grant’s intentions even as Union engineers accomplished the incredible feat of constructing a 2,000-foot pontoon bridge over the wide waterway. Here, the bridge is crammed with Union soldiers marching toward an unknown fate.

As he had done for the entire campaign, Grant continued to move by the left flank, which brought the armies back to the 1862 battlefield at Gaines’ Mill, near Cold Harbor.

Fighting quickly erupted and climaxed with costly Union attacks on June 3.

Here, a Waud sketch depicts heavy artillerymen of the Union II Corps during the bloody fight. The assaults at Cold Harbor gained Grant nothing.

THE OVERLAND CAMPAIGN C O L D H A R B O R / CAS UA LT I ES

12,737 5,287

1,844

9,077 1,816

8= 34= 11=

TOTAL TOTAL

18= 91= 18=

At Cold Harbor, Confederates dug deep trenches and also felled trees, piled fence rails, and used anything else they could find to make their position impregnable. Days of withering rifle and artillery fire proved the quality of their work. By June 12, Grant’s only options were to launch likely futile attacks, retrograde toward Washington, or move by the left flank once again to cross the James River. The Overland Campaign had already cost the armies more than 80,000 casualties. Something needed to change.

788 3,376 1,123

KILLED WOUNDED CAPTURED/ KILLED WOUNDED CAPTURED/ MISSING MISSING

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OF TH

NING

OF THE END

s ove rs20 d— vers ntenie uctn ter-

Grant’s troops had stolen a march on Robert E. Lee. For three days, they enjoyed overwhelming numerical superiority over a small Confederate force under General P.G.T. Beauregard. The Confederates were well entrenched, however, in the works shown here, and gave ground slowly under large but overly cautious Union advances. By June 18, it was too late; Lee’s army had arrived and manned dozens of miles of fortifications protecting Richmond and Petersburg.

rd

The Overland Campaign transitioned into the nearly 10-month siege of Petersburg—a result that neither side wanted. Soldiers on both sides constructed and lived in dozens of miles of fortifications like those seen here. Grant lamented having not captured Petersburg immediately after he crossed the James. But Lee had known well that if Grant forced him into a siege, Union victory would be “a mere question of time.” Confederates did indeed finally abandon Petersburg on April 2, 1865, and Lee surrendered his army just one week later.

SOURCES: LETTERS FROM TWO BROTHERS SERVING IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION … (1871); SOLDERS’ LETTERS, FROM CAMP, BATTLE-FIELD AND PRISON (1865); LETTERS FROM A SURGEON OF THE CIVIL WAR (1906); THE DIARY OF A LINE OFFICER (1906); WAR DIARY AND LETTERS OF STEPHEN MINOT WELD, 1861-1865 (1912).

ALL IMAGES COURTESY LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN DOE

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BASED ON A PHOTOGRAPH IN WILLIAM E. ROSCOE, HISTORY OF SCHOHARIE COUNTY, NEW YORK, … (1882)

BASED ON A PHOTOGRAPH IN WILLIAM E. ROSCOE, HISTORY OF SCHOHARIE COUNTY, NEW YORK, … (1882)

The Ubiquitous Mr. Tanner

Grievously wounded during the conflict, Union soldier James Tanner went on to achieve both fame and infamy during his remarkable postwar life.

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Union army veteran James Tanner died in 1927, during the era rather lovingly spoofed in Allen’s movie. Although he died in relative anonymity, in a Zelig-like way, there was very little that happened in the last 40 years of the 19th century that did not involve Tanner. Yet Tanner refused to lurk in the background. He rubbed shoulders and shared stages with generals and senators, lectured before thousands of people, was given credit for Republican electoral victories in important swing states, and was sought out by reporters for quotes on the issues of the day. In 1890 a newspaper advertising a lecture in Minnesota called Tanner “one of the best-known men in the United States to-day.”1 Like long-lived members of any generation, Tanner saw extraordinary changes. He grew up on a farm west of Albany, where people walked between the tiny villages and life crawled along in traditional ways. He didn’t see a train until he boarded one to go to the army in 1861, yet his wife was killed in an automobile accident in 1906. And in 1924 one of his speeches was broadcast on the radio, an achievement he couldn’t have dreamed of as a young man. But his immersion in the events of his time went far deeper than these brushes with technology.

Like most northern men his age, he had fought for the Union. His regiment, the 87th New York, marched down Brooklyn’s main thoroughfare, he was posted in the invigorating miasma of Washington, and he witnessed the Union army’s great movement on Richmond in 1862 and its catastrophe at Second Manassas a few months later.

There, while he was an 18-year-old corporal, a shell fragment sliced through the bones and tendons just below both knees; he lost the lower third of both legs. For the rest of his life, he would require canes and often a helping hand simply to walk. Within months of his wounding he began building a new life by taking a stenography course at a Syracuse business school. After the war he read

THE AMERICAN RED CROSS MAGAZINE (OCTOBER 1916)

woody allen’s 1983 film Zelig imagined a “human chameleon” who inserted himself into archetypal scenes of the 1920s and ’30s.

Leonard Zelig, portrayed by Allen as the patient and then lover of an ambitious young psychiatrist played by Mia Farrow, changes his appearance—including his body type and even his race—to blend into his surroundings, embodying a high-toned socialite, a servant, a jazz musician, a pilot, an opera singer, and even a Chinese opium eater. He is completely without personality or ego, but becomes a Jazz Age celebrity. F. Scott Fitzgerald writes about him; he takes the field with Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth; he squeezes onto the stage behind Adolf Hitler during a Nazi rally. The movie, styled as a documentary filmed decades later, shows Zelig less as an actor than as an observer, less a person than a sponge— under hypnosis, he says simply that “I want to be liked”—but cultural commentators and historians still refer to men and women who participated in an unusual variety or number of important events of the 20th century as “Zelig-like.”

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THE AMERICAN RED CROSS MAGAZINE (OCTOBER 1916)

James Tanner spent the hours after Abraham Lincoln was shot recording testimony from witnesses who had been in Ford’s Theatre. He also claimed he was standing among the distinguished politicians and generals in the room when Lincoln died, although he does not appear in any sketches or paintings of the scene, including this 1865 lithograph. Opposite page: Tanner as a 17-year-old Union soldier in 1861.

law, worked in the U.S. Customs office in New York City (where he moved in 1869), and, for more than a decade, served as tax collector for the city of Brooklyn. There he was part of the Gilded Age’s fast-paced economic transformation of America, symbolized by the building of the magnificent Brooklyn Bridge, which linked Manhattan with Brooklyn and led to the bustling new suburban neighborhood of Prospect Park, where Tanner and other up-and-coming men moved their families into spacious, expensive brownstones. Tanner saw the period’s machine politics up close, and by the 1880s had become a Republican Party insider, briefly occupying the office of Commissioner of Pensions in Washington. As a major player in one of the country’s first single-issue lobbying efforts (for veterans’ pensions), he soon became a bona fide celebrity, hiring an agent and traveling the country to give his signature speech: “Soldier Life: the Grave and the Gay.” He used the latest massmarketing techniques to earn a comfortable living as an agent for veterans applying for pensions.

But there were three particular ways in which

this New York farm boy intersected with the history of his times, each of which shows the immense influence of the Civil War on James Tanner. He was irreparably damaged by the war, of course, but its effect went far beyond the painful prosthetics, insomnia, and occasional surgeries that he endured throughout his adult life. The war shaped his interests, informed his politics, and prioritized his values. And it made him famous—at least during his lifetime.

A Terrible Moment: Recording History the assassination of president Abraham Lincoln interrupted more performances than Our American Cousin, the play performed at Ford’s Theatre on the evening of April 14, 1865. Tanner was in another part of town at a gala presentation of Aladdin, or the Wonderful Lamp, which also featured a patriotic tribute to celebrate the end of the war.

He had moved to Washington in 1864, taking a job as a clerk in the War Department, where he could put his new skill at shorthand to good use.2 The play ended suddenly when a manager announced that the president had been shot. Tanner and a companion hurried to the Willard Ho-

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tel, where they hoped to learn something from the officers and politicians who normally crowded the bar.

Hearing nothing, they took a horse-drawn car to Ford’s Theatre, across the street from Tanner’s second-floor flat on Tenth Street, between Avenues E and F. Unbeknownst to him, the president had been carried into the house next door to Tanner’s. The street was crowded with civilians and soldiers whom Tanner described as “very quiet” but “very much excited.” Tanner hobbled through the crowd and up the stairs to his room.

From his balcony overlooking the street, he watched generals and politicians come and go and heard grim updates about Lincoln’s condition. Inside the Petersen House next door, Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton had already taken charge of the investigation, calling witnesses from the audience and the stage. It was slow going, mainly because the testimony had to be taken down in longhand. Someone who recognized Tanner and knew that the crippled veteran worked as a stenographer happened to be in the room, and soon the young corporal was called to the scene.

He sat at a small table in the middle room of the three-room apartment, virtually elbow to elbow with most of the president’s cabinet, several generals, and the chief justices of the U.S. Supreme Court and of the District of Columbia. “Never in my life was I surrounded by half so impressive circumstances,” he wrote to a friend a few days later. Stanton sat across the table from him; next to Tanner a judge questioned a stream of witnesses, including the play’s star, As evidenced by Harry Hawk. Although at first this 1889 Puck nerves made him a bit shaky, magazine cover, Tanner’s tenure as Tanner soon settled down and Commissioner wrote steadily for more than four of Pensions was not without its hours. Tanner was struck by the critics. fact that, despite the entering and exiting of officials and family members, “a terrible silence pervaded the whole throng; it was a terrible moment.” From time to time Tanner heard Mrs. Lincoln sobbing in the next room and at one point she moaned, “O, my God, and have I given my husband to die?”

The crowd thinned as night turned to dawn.

After Tanner finished his work he slipped into the next room, joining army chief of staff Henry Halleck, U.S. Senator Charles Sumner, Secretary Stanton, Lincoln’s son Robert, Rev. Phineas Gurley, and a handful of others. Although he does not appear in any of the sketches or paintings of the scene, he claimed to have stood near Stanton. A few quietly sobbed as Lincoln’s breathing slowed and he finally died. Reverend Gurley “offered up a very impressive prayer.” In future years, Tanner’s recollection To view this article’s reference notes, turn to our Notes section on page 78.

of Stanton’s benediction for the evening—“Now he belongs to the ages”—would become part of the official memory of the event.3 Tanner’s sense of history kicked in when Stanton ordered him to “take charge” of the testimony. The young man immediately went to his room and made a copy, keeping the original. He wrote to his friend, “[These documents] will ever be cherished monuments to me of the awful night and the circumstances with which I found myself so unexpectedly surrounded, and which will not soon be forgotten.”

Tanner’s small role in the tragedy would become fairly well-known as his own reputation grew, with newspapers over the years referring to Tanner as one of the last surviving witnesses to the president’s death.

In 1917 he donated his notes—those “cherished monuments,” now in a bound volume—to the Union League Club of Philadelphia. Eventually an expensive bound, illustrated copy was published by the ULC.4

Tannerism: Making History a quarter-century after he recorded history, Tanner had a chance to make it. Newly elected President Benjamin Harrison appointed him Commissioner of Pensions in March 1889. In many ways, Tanner was a natural choice: He was a disabled veteran who had collected a pension since 1863 and a well-known pension advocate who had testified before Congress on behalf of the Grand Army of the Republic, the country’s largest and most powerful Union veterans organization. After working his way up the ranks of the New York Republican Party he had become known as someone who could deliver the “soldiers’ vote” in state and national elections. As the country prepared for the 1888 election season, Tanner saw a chance to get a major pension revision through Congress by sweeping from office the gar’s archenemy, President Grover Cleveland, a Democrat who had vetoed previous efforts. “Now, having the ammunition in our hands to go before congress, let us do it,” he told fellow members of the gar. “[D]o not dampen the powder; keep our cartridges in good condition…. We are the representatives of 375,000 men, and with an election pending next year both parties won’t slap us in the face.”5 Money, power, and prestige were all at stake in the pension issue.

By 1889, the Pension Bureau had moved into a brand new, $900 million building on F Street between Fourth and Fifth streets—the largest brick structure in the world. The exterior featured a Greek Parthenoninspired frieze of Civil War soldiers and sailors—cavalrymen, artillerists, drummer boys, and sutlers, some fiercely determined, others weary and wounded, and still others anxious and fearful—marching to their next battle. Inside was a great hall the size of a modern football field. Massive white columns stretched 150 feet to the ceiling, past mezzanines lined with offices and a system of tracks and brackets that clicked and whirred with wheeled baskets carrying paperwork to and fro (each basket could carry as much as a ton of forms, affidavits, and correspondence a day).6 The responsibilities of the office were immense. Tanner supervised more than 1,500 clerks, agents, and secretaries, as well as several thousand medical examiners, agents, and clerks in field offices around the country. He was responsible for a payroll and operating budget of over $2.4 million. During the fiscal year in which Tanner served as head of the bureau, the government distributed $88,275,113.28 in pensions to 489,725 veterans and widows, children, or parents of deceased veterans. This outlay represented a third of the entire federal budget.7 In short, Tanner’s ascension to the commissionership vaulted

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Old soldiers continued to approve of Tanner’s performance, but virtually everything Tanner did as commissioner sparked criticism from others. Early on, Tanner supposedly declared to an audience of veterans, “Boys, I am with you. My legs are shaky, but if my good right arm”—the one he used to sign pension certificates—holds up, “God help the surplus!” In other words, he planned to make sure veterans got their share of the burgeoning surplus in the federal treasury (maintained largely through high Gilded Age tariffs). That was opposed by the Democratic Party in general and critics of the pension system in particular.9 It was in his role as commissioner that Tanner intersected with one of the notable features of the era’s popular culture: the proliferation of national humor magazines, a relatively new genre of massproduced entertainment. Puck magazine, which objected to pensions and the veterans organizations that constantly campaigned for bigger payouts, made the new commissioner a special target.

One cartoon on Puck’s cover showed a toga-clad Tanner grinning devilishly and standing before the U.S. Treasury building. He held a horn of plenty with a long tail labeled “Pension Bureau” that reached all the way back to the Treasury. Coins, paper currency, and bags of money spilled from the horn into the reaching hands of grasping pensioners.10 Another compared the shady business of patent medicine—this cartoon featured the “elixir of life,” a cure for male impotence that featured injections of “testicular extracts” from animals—to soldiers faking injuries and illness to get pensions. Tanner was shown injecting gold coins into the pockets of decrepit veterans who became visibly younger and danced away, throwing aside their canes and crutches.11 The humor and news magazine Life had once suggested that Tanner was “to be adopted bodily as one of the planks of the next Republican platform,” in reference to his popular plans to lower standards for obtaining and increasing pensions. After Tanner had been forced out of office, the magazine reported that “one of Corporal Tanner’s subordinates decided for his superior’s guidance that a dishonorable discharge was no bar to a pension. President Harrison thereupon decided that Corporal Tanner’s pension should be no bar

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Since your induction your construction seems to be without a flaw, In your ruling without fooling of complicated pension law.

Without assuming or presuming we are watching every hour All the pledges and alleges our party now in power.

To keep moving it’s behooving that the pledges you have taken Be a token bravely spoken, shall never be forsaken.

Keep revealing kindred feeling, for you’ve felt the shock of war….

Do your duty without booty, and we’ll bless you, one and all.8

to his dishonorable discharge.” Another Life cartoon highlighted Tanner’s tendency to speak first and think later in a parody of the story of Jonah and the whale. President Harrison and his beleaguered cabinet, crammed into a tiny boat named “Administration,” were shown tossing Tanner, labeled “Jonah,” into the stormy sea, as did the terrified crew in the biblical story who feared that God’s wrath against Jonah would sink their little boat. The text that followed showed a genial oyster saying to Tanner, “If you and I had only known how to keep our mouths shut we wouldn’t have been in this fix.”12 Tanner would never again serve in such a high office, although for much of the rest of his life he partly supported himself with a sinecure as Register of Wills for the District of Columbia. But he remained very much in the public eye. A critical satire featuring GAR pension lobbying, political machinations, exaggerated war records, and other unsavory aspects of the 400,000-member organization named the fictional post at the center of the story after Tanner. (gar posts were all named after soldiers, statesmen, and other prominent contributors or martyrs from the war. In fact, a tiny town in southwestern Nebraska actually did name their post after the corporal.)13 One measure of Tanner’s celebrity—for good or ill—was the company he kept in newspaper headlines, which failed to reflect his continuing popularity among veterans and a large segment of the Republican Party. Two years after leaving the commissioner’s office, he was one of the public figures featured in a tiny Montana newspaper article ridiculing the exploits of famous people who had grabbed headlines over the last year, usually for embarrassing mistakes or unabashed publicity seeking. “It’s a hot race between Prince Russell and Dis De Bar, [and] George Francis Train, Corporal Tanner, Senator Blair, and the rest of the big field are hopelessly behind.” “Prince Russell” was Russell B. Harrison, the president’s son, who took part in shady investment schemes in Montana and elsewhere; Ann O’Della Dis De Bar was a swindler and fake spiritualist; Train was an eccentric businessman and adventurer who circled the world in 67 days; and New Hampshire Senator Henry W. Blair was so inept that his own party had refused to renominate him, after which he had caused a minor international incident with callous comments about the Chinese even as he was being considered for the ambassadorship to the emperor’s court.14 For several years the press was more likely to mention Tanner alongside people like this than the more respectable military and political celebrities with whom he associated. The New York Times even coined the term “Tannerism,” for the “vicious” the-

ROLL OF THE 40TH ENCAMPMENT OF THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC (1906)

him into one of the most powerful government positions, at a level with cabinet officers and with a budget bigger than most federal agencies. It gave Tanner the chance to witness—to shape, in fact—the earliest instance of expanding government bureaucracies and social welfare programs. Yet he only lasted a few months in the position. In his commitment to serving veterans’ interests, he overstepped the boundaries of his office, became a subject of ridicule in newspapers, and was forced to resign in September 1889.

Old soldiers had received the news of his appointment with enthusiasm. One published a poem called “To Corp’l Tanner” in the National Tribune, a leading veterans newspaper. “We like the manner, the feeling you express,” it began. “It is teeming full of meaning to your comrades in distress.” Believing soldiers had a “friend in you,” the poet applauded Tanner’s work and urged him to continue:

ory that “whatever surplus exists in the Treasury belongs to the war veterans as a right, and that the people of this country have been niggardly in their treatment of Union soldiers.” In time, though, the ridicule began to subside.15

Battling to the Limit: Reliving History LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

ROLL OF THE 40TH ENCAMPMENT OF THE GRAND ARMY OF THE REPUBLIC (1906)

Above: Veterans of the Civil War march through the streets of Washington, D.C., during the Grand Army of the Republic’s 36th National Encampment in 1902. James Tanner, who was elected to lead the national organization in 1906, was a regular presence at such events. Opposite page: Tanner’s official portrait as GAR commander in chief.

tanner’s fame continued past his ill-fated stint as Commissioner of Pensions, mainly because observers—even his enemies—realized that his sudden dismissal had been more about politics than corruption or even incompetence. And old soldiers continued to love him. He finally achieved a lifelong

dream by being elected commander in chief of the national Grand Army of the Republic in 1906. In that same year he took on another responsibility that cast him in the company of some of the most powerful men and women in America when he accepted an appointment to the Executive Committee of the American Red Cross. Tanner’s wife, Mero, had worked with the Red Cross during the Spanish American War; Tanner took her place after her death and remained involved in the organization for more than a decade. When the modern Red Cross was rechartered and reorganized in 1909, he was joined on the board by three dozen politicians and celebrities (including former commanders in chief of the army, cabinet members, congressmen, senators, and, of course, founder Clara Barton).16 Tanner made his greatest contribution to the Red Cross by publishing the most complete version of his gruesome experiences as a wounded soldier in a two-part article that appeared in the American Red Cross Magazine in the autumn of 1916. The editor’s introduction declared, “Few living men have suffered from the combined effects of grievous wounds and unpardonable neglect” as Tanner ☛ } CONT. ON P. 75

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SIU Press Books

on the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln

Union Heartland: The Midwestern Home Front during the Civil War Edited by Ginette Aley and J. L. Anderson

The Prairie Boys Go to War: The Fifth Illinois Cavalry, 1861–1865 Rhonda M. Kohl

The Long Shadow of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address Jared Peatman

New in the Concise Lincoln Library:

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Abraham Lincoln, Philosopher Statesman Joseph R. Fornieri

The Vicksburg Campaign: March 29-May 18, 1863 Edited by Steven E. Woodworth and Charles D. Grear

We Called Him Rabbi Abraham: Lincoln and American Jewry, A Documentary History edited by Gary Phillip Zola

From Southern Illinois University Press, publisher of the Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, The Concise Lincoln Library, and Civil War Campaigns in the Heartland series Order at www.siupress.com or by calling 1-800-621-2736 Also available at major retail, independent, and online bookstores.

Lincoln and the Union Governors William C. Harris

Lincoln and the U.S. Colored Troops John David Smith

Also Available in the Concise Lincoln Library: Lincoln and Religion Lincoln’s Campaign Biographies Abraham Lincoln and Horace Greeley Lincoln and the Civil War Lincoln and the Constitution Lincoln and the Election of 1860 Lincoln and Reconstruction Lincoln and Medicine Lincoln and Race Lincoln as Hero Abraham and Mary Lincoln

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Supported by a grant from the Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation

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BOOKS & AUTHORS

Voices from the Army of the Potomac, Part 2

BY GARY W. GALLAGHER

in the first installment of this series, I discussed the diary of Charles S. Wainwright and sets of letters by Theodore Lyman and Alpheus S. Williams. My focus now shifts to George B. McClellan, George Gordon Meade, and Ulysses S. Grant—the three most important generals associated with the army. ¶ McClellan did more to shape the Army of the Potomac than any other person. A gifted but

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Ensconced at Harrison’s Landing and seemingly oblivious to the magnitude of the opportunity he had squandered following the Union victory at Malvern Hill, he invited his soldiers to celebrate the fact that the army had “reached this new base, complete in organization and unimpaired in spirit. The enemy may at any moment attack you. We are prepared to receive them.” Drained of all offensive energy, he seemed content to relish his escape from a less numerous foe (he, of course, pretended Robert E. Lee had an advantage in numbers).

McClellan’s famous Harrison’s Landing Letter to Lincoln, dated July 7, 1862, betrayed the general’s refusal to accept that political decisions lay outside his realm of authority. In it, he lectured Lincoln on constitutional law and General George B. McClellan

urged his commander in chief to leave emancipation off the table.

Often used to portray McClellan as hopelessly out of step with the emerging radicalism of the conflict, this letter does help explain why he remained so popular in the army and among Democrats in the United States. He surely spoke for a majority of loyal white citizens when he insisted, toward the beginning of the letter, that “Our cause must never be abandoned; it is the cause of free institutions and self government. The Constitution and the Union must be preserved, whatever may be the cost in time, treasure and blood.”

George G. Meade led the Army of the Potomac longer than anyone else and won the Battle of Gettysburg, yet it is difficult to imagine he could orchestrate campaigns that would destroy the Confederacy.

Once Grant arrived on the scene in the spring of 1864, Meade’s position became progressively difficult because most people believed the army really belonged to the general-in-chief. Meade soldiered on, often airing angry frustration in letters to his wife. The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, MajorGeneral United States Army (1913), compiled by his son George and

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supremely self-absorbed officer, he built a formidable military instrument from the wreckage of the Union force humiliated at First Bull Run and led it through the Richmond and Maryland campaigns in 1862 before being removed by President Abraham Lincoln just after the November elections that year. Although he never commanded the army thereafter, McClellan’s imprint remained almost to the very end, most obviously in a culture of caution within an officer corps that seemed more intent on avoiding defeat than on achieving victory.

McClellan’s personality emerges clearly in The Civil War Papers of George B. McClellan: Selected Correspondence, 1860-1865 (1989), edited by Stephen W. Sears. The general’s tendency to gauge everything by how it affected him stands out, as on August 24, 1862, when he wrote to his wife about General John Pope’s maneuvering against Confederates in north-central Virginia. Pushed out of the limelight after the Seven Days Battles, McClellan nonetheless imagined that political and military superiors kept him in the forefront of their deliberations. “I have not one word yet from Washn & am quietly waiting here for something to turn up,” he observed. “I presume they are discussing me now—to see whether they can get along without me…. They will suffer a terrible defeat if the present state of affairs continues.” Having predicted disaster unless he returned to the helm of the army, McClellan closed with a burst of unalloyed egotism: “I know that with God’s help I can save them.”

McClellan’s penchant for playing it safe shines through the congratulatory order he issued in the wake of the Seven Days.

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“ No theory of my own will ever stand in the way of my executing, in good faith, any order I may receive from those in authority over me.”

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

ULYSSES S. GRANT (RIGHT), IN A LETTER TO SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY SALMON P. CHASE, JULY 1863

published in two volumes by his grandson George Gordon, rises above imperfect editing to open a splendid window into Meade’s life and career.

Never the kind of backstabbing conniver so common in the history of the Army of the Potomac, Meade nonetheless possessed ambition. In the wake of Chancellorsville, he informed his wife, “I think these last operations have shaken the confidence of the army in Hooker’s judgment, particularly among the superior officers. I have been much gratified at the frequent expression of opinion that I ought to be placed in command.” Meade avoided McClellan’s open political posturing, perhaps because, as his letters show, he grasped how deeply many powerful Republicans distrusted Democratic generals such as himself.

The Overland Campaign and siege of Petersburg brought humiliating episodes for Meade, who stood well outside Grant’s circle of favorites (Meade developed a profound loathing for Philip H. Sheridan, whom he considered one of Grant’s pets). Yet he remained a diligent, hardworking commander who, unlike McClellan, could divorce his personal feelings from a determination that the good of the nation come first. Unfortunate circumstances denied him a place in Wilmer McLean’s parlor at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, but he urged his wife the next day to ignore the lack of public appreciation for all he had done. “I don’t believe the truth ever will be known,” he wrote, “and I have a great contempt for History.

Only let the war be finished, and I returned to you and the dear children,

and I will be satisfied.”

In sharp contrast to Meade, U.S. Grant received the adoration of the nation, which his unexampled service richly merited. Volumes 10-14 of John Y. Simon’s magisterial The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant (Southern Illinois University Press, 1982-1985), which cover the Virginia campaigns of 1864-1865, demonstrate why Grant became the pre-eminent Union hero and are indispensable for any examination of the Army of the Potomac’s final operations.

Readers intimidated by the size of the comprehensive edition can turn to The Library of America’s Grant: Memoirs and Selected Letters (1990), edited by Mary Drake McFeely and William S. McFeely, which includes more than 200 pages of letters drawn from Simon’s larger project.

The Grant who inhabits these volumes might best be described as the anti-McClellan. His aggressiveness, utter unflappability, determination to achieve complete victory, and clear understanding that civilians forged national policy and generals carried it out mark him as the kind of man Lincoln needed to oversee the mighty Union military effort. “No theory of my own,” Grant assured Sec-

retary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase in late July 1863, “will ever stand in the way of my executing, in good faith, any order I may receive from those in authority over me.”

And imagine the reaction of the president, who had grown accustomed to generals complaining about the government’s failure to support them adequately, when he received a brief letter from Grant on the eve of the Overland Campaign. The general—displaying his typically infelicitous spelling— commented that he had “never had cause of complaint … against the Administration … for throwing any embarassment in the way of my vigorously prossecuting what appeared to me my duty.”

“Should my success be less than I desire, and expect,” Grant added in words that would be impossible to imagine in a letter from McClellan, “the least I can say is, the fault is not with you.”

Filled with biographical detail and observations about military planning, battles, political events, brother officers, and the Confederate enemy, these titles are essential to any collection of books about the Army of the Potomac.

GARY W. GALLAGHER IS THE JOHN L. NAU III PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA. HIS MOST RECENT BOOKS ARE THE UNION WAR (2011) AND BECOMING CONFEDERATES: PATHS TO A NEW NATIONAL LOYALTY (2013).

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BY ROBERT K. KRICK the accounts of eyewitness participants obviously afford the best window available to students of the Civil War, 150 years later.

Previous columns in this space have examined the several genres in which that testimony appears: letters, diaries, and memoirs—the latter being most useful, despite their inherent defects.

One other category provides the best testimony of all, but exists in such scant numbers as to be obscure. Soldiers often called the book in which they scribbled briefly every day a “journal.” By stricter definition, a journal might be described as a contemporary record made intermittently, with more concentration and thought and retrospection than a simple daily diary. Such a record includes less quotidian rambling, much greater bulk, and far more thorough and significant narrative.

A handful of journals have reached print. Most of them are first-rate sources. E.D. Patterson, a 19-year-old Ohioan teaching school in Alabama when the war began, joined the 9th Alabama eagerly. The Yankee youngster described his disgust with “the tyranny of ... Northern fanaticism” in Yankee Rebel: The Civil War Journal of Edmund DeWitt Patterson (Chapel Hill, 1966).

Patterson’s vivid descriptions

of the Seven Days Campaign, especially Frayser’s Farm, where he was badly wounded, are among the best surviving personal reports on violent battle experiences. “Into the jaws of death, we pressed,” he wrote. The Alabama regiment “poured a volley at a distance of not more than ten paces....

Under foot the blood stood in pools.... The first ball that struck me was so close that the musket’s breath was hot on my face.”

A personal narrative that powerful, written 30 years after the event, would have an impact, but be susceptible to uncertainty about the colorings imposed by the years. The “journal” aspect of what Patterson wrote, though, shows through the heading of the Seven Days account. On August 30, 1862, he noted: “I wrote last on

Jedediah Hotchkiss, civilian mapmaker for Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson, as he appeared after the war. In addition to his invaluable published diary, Hotchkiss kept a journal in 1863 and 1864 that he filled with observations about Jackson.

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PHOTOGRAPH CREDIT HERE

Civil War Personal Journals: Invaluable Firsthand Accounts

PHOTOGRAPH CREDIT HERE

{ musings of a civil war bibliophile }

the 29th day of June. Ah, I didn’t know what was coming or I would not have been so gay....”

A published northern journal, better known than Patterson’s, is A Diary of Battle: The Personal Journals of Colonel Charles S. Wainwright (New York, 1962).

Despite the “diary” label in the title, Wainwright’s entries betray the intermittent aspects of a journal, and the resultant perspective.

His memorable sallies include contemporary descriptions of Abraham Lincoln and Edwin Stanton. The president, Wainwright declared, “is infinitely uglier than any of his pictures ... and grinned like a great baboon. I was ashamed to think that such a gawk was President.” The secretary of war was “a long-haired, fat, oily, politician-looking man.”

One of the most important analyses of General Gouverneur K. Warren appears in the Wainwright journal: “these awful fits of passion are a disease with Warren, and a species of insanity, over which he has no control....” Wainwright might well have written something of the sort about all three of those subjects in a daily diary, but surely without the extent and care resulting from a journal format.

Two manuscript journals kept

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

B&A

“ I wrote last on the 29th day of June.

Ah, I didn’t know what was coming or I would not have been so gay....”

E.D. PATTERSON, 9TH ALABAMA INFANTRY, IN HIS JOURNAL, TWO MONTHS AFTER BEING BADLY WOUNDED AT FRAYSER’S FARM ON JUNE 30, 1862

PHOTOGRAPH CREDIT HERE

PHOTOGRAPH CREDIT HERE

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

by Confederate staff officers, almost unknown and never cited, are among the finest sources on the Army of Northern Virginia. Young William McWillie (he turned 18 in 1860) of General Dick Anderson’s staff wrote in two small notebooks about what he saw and heard around the campfires of the army’s high command. The contemporary nature of his entries shows through steadily: “General Lee came to our quarters....

Genl. Anderson says.... Genl. Lee is....”

Dozens of priceless insights on leaders and their views appear in McWillie’s faint pencil on blue paper: D.H. Hill declaring that dead Yankees “smell sweet”; a senator’s description of Braxton Bragg too savage to print here; Dick Anderson’s opinion that the ugliest women on earth were in Utah, and that rattlesnake tasted as good as chicken; a ribald story, unusual in written Victorian-era material; the troops’ scorn for William Nelson Pendleton.

In an entry on May 28, 1864, McWillie reported a significant detail about the state of Robert E. Lee’s health, known to be uneven at that point. A few days before McWillie had asked the army’s chief surgeon, LaFayette Guild, about the army commander. Lee “was as cross as an old bear,” the doctor replied, and “had growled at his ambulance driver all day....” The reason, Guild said, was that “all though sick [Lee] had not from the 5th to the 25th had two hours con-

secutive sleep.”

Jedediah Hotchkiss, civilian mapmaker for Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson and his successors, surely ranks among the most famous Confederate diarists. In addition to his invaluable published diary, he kept in 1863 and 1864 a journal devoted to accumulating information about his dead chief. The trigger for his effort must have been a letter he received from John Esten Cooke, dated August 19, 1863. Cooke had told his publisher to send to Hotchkiss “a copy of the first printed” of his biography of Jackson.

Hotchkiss decided to write his own better biography—although, unfortunately, that never came to fruition. He tipped the Cooke letter into a prewar publication, and then covered the blank pages of that book with penned notes about Jackson, extracted from dozens of contemporaries: “Maj. Howard says.... Gen. Jones told me.... Capt. Jas. P. Smith says…. Maj. Harman says....”

The fruits of Hotchkiss’ diligent and pointed inquires shed light on a wide range of Jackson topics, among them his late-life rapprochement with A.P. Hill; Joseph E. Johnston’s disdain for Jackson; Stonewall’s analysis of Lee’s Mexican War achievements; and plans for the abortive Romney expedition of 1862. Hotchkiss’ journal also contains a striking original drawing of Jackson by the general’s confidant and sometime staff officer, congressman A.R. Boteler.

Civil War diaries and letters and memoirs shed illumination on the great events and fascinating figures of that era. None of those sources serves as well as the recurrent, measured, focused writing in journals. It is unfortunate, but inevitable, that few of the war’s participants had time and opportunity to produce such accounts.

Abraham

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had married the widowed Serisa Dobner Newsom, and two other black families also owned property in Fox Lake.

The black and white residents of the village seemed to get along well. The African-American men cast their ballots once the Wisconsin Supreme Court re-affirmed black suffrage in 1866, and black children attended school with their white neighbors. Prebbles served as the Fox Lake streets commissioner in the late 1870s, and Prebbles and Samuel Mathews often worked for the village. The Fox Lake Representative captured the local progressive political attitude with its masthead: “Equal Rights for All Men and Women—White or Black.”

The community reached its peak about 20 years after the Civil War. The 1880 census recorded 66 African Americans in Fox Lake (out of a total population of 956) and 10 more nearby black residents, or 6.9 percent of the village’s population, one of the highest shares in the state. In that same census, Madison, with a population 10 times greater, counted only 63 African Americans.

The vibrant community supported one of Wisconsin’s earliest congregations of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, when Sarah Mathews and James Prebbles received a charter in 1872.

As the 19th century came to a close, however, the community splintered.

Rising white resistance to social contact between the races and the mechanization of farm work encouraged many members of the second generation of Fox Lake’s “Negro Colony” to move away for better opportunities in places like Milwaukee and Chicago.

The black population dwindled. In 1884, the Netter family moved away; in 1896, Samuel Mathews died, and three years later James Prebbles died.

Sarah Mathews’ death in 1914 marked the passing of the original generation of adult settlers. In about 1898, the remaining community members closed the A.M.E. Zion Church.

Although the memory of the local

GREGORY BOND, WHO RECEIVED HIS DOCTORATE IN AMERICAN HISTORY FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON, IS CURRENTLY RESEARCHING THE HISTORY OF THE FOX LAKE NEGRO COLONY.

CASUALTIES OF WAR CONTINUED FROM P. 25

of Eliza: “The heart I gave her more than three years ago is hers now and shall be hers until life has passed away and I shall be no more.” Months after Albert’s death, Eliza wrote, “My life is all a blank to me now. It makes but little difference … where I am or what I do.”7 STEPHEN BERRY IS AMANDA AND GREG GREGORY PROFESSOR OF THE CIVIL WAR ERA AT THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA. HE IS THE AUTHOR OR EDITOR OF FOUR BOOKS ON AMERICA IN THE CIVIL WAR ERA, INCLUDING HOUSE OF ABRAHAM: LINCOLN AND THE TODDS, A FAMILY DIVIDED BY WAR (HOUGHTON MIFFLIN HARCOURT, 2007).

BATTLEFIELD ECHOES CONTINUED FROM P. 27

and questions and doubts grow. The ongoing U.S. experience in Afghanistan offers plenty of examples.

Following the Battle of the Wilderness, the Army of the Potomac might not have been in danger of imminent collapse, but the will of the northern people was. The question then was as it is now—not whether the American military can win the war, but whether the American public is willing to bear the cost, and for how long.

CLAY MOUNTCASTLE, A LIEUTENANT COLONEL IN THE U.S. ARMY, CURRENTLY SERVES AS THE PROFESSOR OF MILITARY SCIENCE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON IN SEATTLE. HE HOLDS A PH.D. IN HISTORY FROM DUKE UNIVERSITY AND IS THE AUTHOR OF PUNITIVE WAR: CONFEDERATE GUERRILLAS AND UNION REPRISALS (UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KANSAS, 2009).

GENERAL PHILIP KEARNY CONTINUED FROM P. 39

was sent to block the enemy column, and Isaac I. Stevens’ IX Corps was sent to intercept it. At a plantation called Chantilly, Stevens brought Stonewall Jackson to battle and sent back for reinforcements. The first troops his messenger found were Phil Kearny’s.

Kearny turned his division with all speed toward the fighting—here again, as at Williamsburg, as at Seven Pines, as at Glendale, he was being called upon to save the day.

When Kearny reached the scene, he found General Stevens killed and the fighters struggling in a rainstorm. He pitched his troops into the battle line.

Soon some of the IX Corps men began falling back, out of ammunition or with their powder damp. Kearny cursed the men of the 21st Massachusetts and threatened to turn a battery on them if they did not return to the fight. “Under his sneers, threats, and curses we again moved forward,” wrote Captain Charles Walcott. When Kearny refused to believe there were any Rebels to their front, Walcott showed him two prisoners, from the 49th Georgia, they had just taken. “God damn you and your prisoners!” Kearny shouted, and in an apparently uncontrollable rage he spurred his horse ahead. As always (and as senselessly as always), Phil Kearny trusted no one but himself to seek out the enemy.

It was nearly dark when he came on a line of men at the edge of a woods and called out in his stern officer’s voice, “What troops are these?” The answer came back, “49th Georgia.” At Glendale in the same situation Kearny had bluffed his way to safety, but these Georgians had sharper eyes. One of them yelled, “That’s a Yankee officer!” and Kearny spurred away, crouched low in the saddle. There was a barrage of shots, and a bullet struck him at the base of the spine and coursed through his body, killing him instantly.

Kearny was widely known from the old army, and Confederate general A.P. Hill recognized the body when they brought it in and said with regret, “Poor Kearny! He deserved a better death than

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PHOTOGRAPH CREDIT HERE

DISUNION

black community faded as the descendants of the original immigrants left town, settlements like the Fox Lake Negro Colony remain an important part of the Civil War’s legacy. In countless neighborhoods, towns, and cities, sympathetic whites worked together with former slaves to make sense of their new world and to adapt to the reality of African-American freedom and citizenship.

this.” The next day Lee sent the body through the lines with a note: “I send it forward under a flag of truce, thinking the possession of the remains may be a consolation to his family.” Funeral services were at Trinity Church in New York, with burial in the family plot there.

In 1912 the body was removed for interment at Arlington National Cemetery.

Philip Kearny had lived for war. “I don’t know whether he understood strategy,” wrote diarist George Templeton Strong, “but he was a dashing, fearless sabreur who had fought in Mexico, Algeria, and Lombardy, and loved war from his youth up.” Kearny proved to be limited as a commander by inflexible arrogance, and his prospects were stunted by irresponsible recklessness, yet the Union army never boasted a more spirited fighting general. “A stormy end to a stormy life,” one of his men mourned. “I have to confess that in spite of pride the news quite unmanned me. The bravest man in the Army of the Potomac has fallen.”13 STEPHEN W. SEARS IS THE AUTHOR OR EDITOR OF A BAKER’S DOZEN OF CIVIL WAR BOOKS, THE MOST RECENT BEING THE CIVIL WAR: THE SECOND YEAR TOLD BY THOSE WHO LIVED IT (THE LIBRARY OF AMERICA, 2012).

THE UBIQUITOUS MR. TANNER CONTINUED FROM P. 67

(“the ‘Corporal’ … is as much a part of his name today as the ‘Stonewall’ in Stonewall Jackson’s name”), who had been “pushed to the very brink of death by a miserably lax and meager war relief system.” Tanner hoped to bring “to larger attention the horrible experience [he] underwent” and to “accentuate … the need of a Red Cross organization, scientifically and adequately ‘equipped’ for the handling of such tragedies” to anyone contemplating sending American soldiers into combat without first preparing to provide for their medical needs.

Tanner’s account is painful to read.

After the hurried amputation of the lower third of both legs, he languished for 10 days as a prisoner of the Confederates, lying on a rubber blanket, surrounded by maimed and dying men, attended by a drunken surgeon. Flies were everywhere, food was scarce, and no one looked at his wounds, let alone changed his bandages. After his exchange, he spent about two months in a Union army

hospital in Virginia, where he nearly died from a bed sore infection that had eaten down to his spine. His life was saved only when a doctor cauterized the wound with hydrochloric acid—the most painful experience of Tanner’s pain-filled life.

Tens of thousands of wounded Civil War soldiers could tell similar tales.

The pain that Tanner survived and the fear that his wounds inspired—and which he hoped young soldiers in other wars would not have to endure—is obvious from the passage describing his reaction to the news that his life depended on the acid treatment. “I thought I had some realization of what this meant and the agony it would involve, but I had deliberately made up my mind to battle to the limit and do my part in every way, shape, and manner I could to produce a favorable result.” He went on to recall that “experience in the orthodox hell would have no terrors for me after the siege I went through there.”

Once the United States entered World War I, Tanner helped Red Cross officials cut through War Department red tape and became an outspoken supporter of the war and a regular speaker at Liberty Bond events. By the time the war ended, he ☛ } CONT. ON P. 76

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BEHIND THE LINES

THE UBIQUITOUS MR. TANNER CONTINUED FROM P. 75

was in his mid-70s and the public phase of his life was virtually over.17

T H E A M E R I CA N C I V I L WA R C O M M U N I T Y

PRESENTED BY

WATCH NOW AT: CIVILWARMONITOR.COM/BEHIND-THE-LINES

these three key phases of Tanner’s encounters with history and the men and women who made it just hint at his prominence. His work with the gar made him a beloved figure among the hundreds of thousands of surviving Civil War soldiers—in 1904, the Niagara Falls Gazette called Tanner “the most celebrated g.a.r. man in the world.” Other Americans came to know him through his lectures and his incessant political campaigning.18 Indeed, Tanner had become a nationally known advocate, speaker, and politician, making up to $100 per lecture. Despite his lowly rank and short time in the army, in 1896 he was part of the famous “generals train” that campaigned on behalf of Republican presidential candidate William McKinley. The old heroes traveled in a luxurious private car that boasted its own chef. When Tanner’s wife died, President Theodore Roosevelt not only sent flowers, but intervened so she could be buried in Arlington National Cemetery—even though regulations required veterans to be buried before their wives.19 Tanner remained relatively active—attending every national encampment of the gar until the mid-1920s and continuing to work as Register of Wills—until his death on October 2, 1927.

“Corporal Tanner has not figured much in the news latterly,” one newspaper noted, “but his death recalled in mind one of the picturesque characters who rose to fame in the aftermath of the Civil War.” A New York paper published a wistful commentary on how most of the “restless and rather self-satisfied younger generation never heard of this man, whose name was once a ‘household word,’” but who had “long outlived his fame.”20 woody allen’s fictional Zelig also faded from view; the movie purports to “rediscover” the pop culture phenomenon who dominated 1920s headlines and inspired a dance craze.

Zelig marries his doctor and lives a normal life, blending into American society and fading out of Americans’ memories.

This seems appropriate for the movie. But Tanner’s disappearance from our historical consciousness is more disappointing—yet easily explained. By the time of his death, shortly after the GAR had been eclipsed by the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, the creation of the Veterans Administration and the Social Security Administration had eliminated the divisive veterans groups that had animated Tanner’s political activities, and aside from a few short and easily overlooked memoirs, he left few permanent records of his existence (no repository of Tanner papers exists).

Yet by participating in many of the country’s most important events, movements, and controversies between 1860 and 1920, Tanner embodied many of the values and experiences of this crucial period in U.S. history. Indeed, his long but ultimately ephemeral fame provides another representative experience

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CIVIL WAR TRUST

A N E W V I D E O I N T E R V I E W S E R I E S F E AT U R I N G C O N V E R SAT I O N S W I T H P R O M I N E N T M E M B E R S O F

CIVIL WAR TRUST

of the generation who had fought for the Union. Many rose to prominence during the Gilded Age for one reason or another, but few had reputations that survived their deaths. For most modern Americans—even during the current sesquicentennial—they are no more real than the tarnished statues on Civil War monuments that still stand in town squares and lonely cemeteries.

JAMES MARTEN IS PROFESSOR AND CHAIR OF THE HISTORY DEPARTMENT AT MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY AND PAST PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY OF CIVIL WAR HISTORIANS. HE HAS WRITTEN OR EDITED MORE THAN A DOZEN BOOKS, INCLUDING THE CHILDREN’S CIVIL WAR (1998) AND SING NOT WAR: THE LIVES OF UNION AND CONFEDERATE VETERANS IN GILDED AGE AMERICA (2011). THIS ARTICLE IS BASED ON HIS FORTHCOMING BOOK, AMERICA’S CORPORAL: JAMES TANNER IN WAR AND PEACE, AVAILABLE FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA PRESS IN SPRING 2014.

PRESERVATION CONTINUED FROM P. 16

the terrain impact a commander’s decisions? Were units aware of the combat occurring on other parts of the field?

All these questions and others can be answered with greater ease and accuracy on a preserved and restored battlefield.

While we are very proud of the work we’ve done, our efforts will not stop here. As the total land saved by the Trust ticks past the 38,500-acre mark, we continue striving to interpret as many battlefield sites as possible. In the works are plans to expand current interpretation at the Brandy Station

A portion of the Cedar Mountain battlefield in Culpeper County, Virginia.

and Cedar Mountain battlefields and to break ground on new projects at the Breakthrough battlefield in Petersburg and possibly Hatcher’s Run. For more information on the Trust and our interpretive efforts, visit www.civilwar.org/ land-preservation.

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wounded, and missing.

3 Harry J. Maihafer, The General and the Journalists: Ulysses S. Grant, Horace Greeley, and Charles Dana (Washington, 2001), 194, 196.

4 Ibid, 197; James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York, 1988) 731.

5 McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 732, 733-734.

6 Michael C.C. Adams, Our Masters the Rebels: A Speculation on Union Military Failure in the East, 1861-1865 (Cambridge, 1978), 161.

SOURCES & CITATIONS FROM THIS ISSUE’S ARTICLES

7 Bruce Palmer Jr., The 25 Year War: America’s Military Role in Vietnam (Lexington, 1984), 103.

Civil War Journal of Charles B. Haydon, Stephen W. Sears, ed. (New York, 1993), 234-35; James M. Martin et al., History of the Fiftyseventh Regiment, Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteer Infantry (Meadville, PA, 1904), 28-29.

9 Kearny to wife, June 1, 1862, NJHS; Walter O. Bartlett to sister, June 21, Bartlett Family Papers, University of Rochester; Birney report, in United States War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records 129 vols. (Washington, 18801901), 11.1:852-54 (hereafter OR); Heintzelman diary, March 10, 1863, June 11, 1862; O.O. Howard, Autobiography of Oliver Otis Howard, Major General, United States Army (New York, 1907), 1:246-57, 251.

10 June 29, 1862, Haydon, For Country, Cause & Leader, 258; Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War (Washington, 1863), 1:358-59; Kearny report, OR, 11.2:162; Hays to John B. McFadden, July 7, John Thornton Fleming, ed., Life and Letters of Alexander Hays (Pittsburgh, 1919), 241; Kearny to wife, July 5, 10, 15, NJHS; Ellen S. Auchmuty, ed., Letters of Richard Tylden Auchmuty (1895), 78; Marks, The Peninsula Campaign, 294.

11 Kearny to wife, July 10, 28, August 12, to Parker, July 31, 1862, NJHS.

MAJOR GENERAL PHILIP KEARNY (Pages 28-39, 74-75)

CASUALTIES OF WAR (Pages 24-25, 74) 1

Stanford E. Moses Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (hereafter Moses Papers).

2 Moses Papers, 9, 16, 47-8.

1

John W. De Peyster, Personal and Military History of Philip Kearny, Major-General, United States Volunteers (New York, 1869), 291; Kearny to wife, May 15, 1862, Kearny Papers, New Jersey Historical Society (hereafter NJHS); J.J. Marks, The Peninsula Campaign in Virginia (Philadelphia, 1864), 158.

6 Moses Papers, 30, 32-3.

2 George Templeton Strong, The Diary of George Templeton Strong: The Civil War, 1860-1865, eds. Allan Nevins and Milton H. Thomas (New York, 1952), 252; Thomas Kearny, General Philip Kearny: Battle Soldier of Five Wars (New York, 1937), 54, 66. This volume by Kearny’s grandson generally traces Kearny’s antebellum life.

7 Moses Papers, 25, 70.

3 T. Kearny, General Philip Kearny, 77, 103-4, 108.

3 Moses Papers, 54, 55.

4 Moses Papers, 30, 32-3.

5 Moses Papers, 25, 70.

4 T. Kearny, General Philip Kearny, 154-55, 161; Strong, Diary, 252.

12 Carl Schurz, The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (New York, 1907), 2:365; John J. Hennessy, Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas (New York, 1993), 195; Schurz report, OR, 12.2:298; Heintzelman to Townsend, April 19, 1879, Heintzelman Papers, Library of Congress; Hooker report, OR Supplement, 2:742-44; John Gibbon, Personal Recollections of the Civil War (New York, 1928), 66.

13 Charles F. Walcott, “The Battle of Chantilly,” Theodore F. Dwight, ed., The Virginia Campaign of 1862 Under General Pope (1895), 15760; William B. Styple, Letters from the Peninsula: The Civil War Letters of General Philip Kearny (Kearny, NJ, 1988), 175; Allen C. Redwood, “Jackson’s ‘Foot Cavalry’ at the Second Bull Run,” Battles and Leaders of the Civil War (1888), 2:537-38n; September 4, 1862, Strong, Diary, 252; September 1, Haydon, For Country, Cause & Leader, 282.

5 Scott to Morgan, May 14, 1861, T. Kearny, General Philip Kearny, 169; Kearny to Parker, July 30, August 14, 29, October 1, NJHS; McClellan’s Own Story manuscript, McClellan Papers, Library of Congress; Heintzelman diary, October 23, Library of Congress.

6 Kearny to Parker, December 3, 1861, February 15, 1862, NJHS; McAllister to wife, January 1, 1862, Robert McAllister, The Civil War Letters of General Robert McAllister, James I. Robertson, Jr., ed. (New Brunswick, NJ, 1965), 110-11.

BATTLEFIELD ECHOES (Pages 26-27) 1

Horace Greeley, The American Conflict, 2 vols.

(Hartford, 1864), I:169.

2 Russell F. Weigley, A Great Civil War: A Military and Political History, 1861-1865 (Bloomington, 2000), 330. Reports of Confederate losses range between 7,250 and 7,800 killed,

7 Kearny to wife, March 12, 17, May 1, 3, 1862, NJHS; Howard to wife, March 16, O.O. Howard Papers, Bowdoin College Library; Heintzelman diary, May 2.

8 John S. Godfrey to brother, May 8, 1862, New Hampshire Historical Society; James E. Smith, A Famous Battery and Its Campaigns, 1861-’64 (Washington, 1892), 64; May 7, 1862, Charles B. Haydon, For Country, Cause & Leader: The

FIGHT SONGS (Pages 40-49)

1 Song Messenger of the Northwest 1 (November 1863): 126.

2 W. H. Tunnard, A Southern Record: The History of the Third Regiment Louisiana Infantry (Baton Rouge, 1866), 43; Lot D. Young, Remi-

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niscences of the Soldiers of the Orphan Brigade (Louisville, 1918), 77.

with the Oglethorpe’s, of Augusta, Georgia (Augusta, 1900), 79.

3 Oliver Wendell Holmes, Lecture - 1865 (1865).

25 “Interview with Lafayette Price,” Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writer’s Project, 1936-1938, Texas Narratives, Volume XVI, Part 3, 203, available at: http://memory. loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snhome.html

4 Tunnard, Southern Record, 293.

5 John Robert Dow to his sister, March 8, 1863, Dow Family Papers, folder 3, Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky.

26 Tunnard, Southern Record, 295.

6 Zenas T. Haines, Letters from the Forty-Fourth Regiment, M.V.M.: A Record of the Experience of a Nine Months’ Regiment in the Department of North Carolina in 1862-3 (Boston, 1869), 83-84.

27 Mary Ann Webster Loughborough, My Cave in Vicksburg: With Letters of Trial and Travel (New York, 1864), 118-119.

7 “The 26th Regimental Band,” 279, Julia A. Lineback Papers, Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina.

29 Ridley, Battles and Sketches, 637.

8 Ibid., 279-280.

9 Bromfield Lewis Ridley, Battles and Sketches of the Army of Tennessee (Mexico, MO, 1906), 462-463.

10 C. D. Benson, “Here’s Your Mule” (Nashville, 1862); E. Heinemann, “Here’s Your Mule Schottisch” (New Orleans, 1862).

11 Bell I. Wiley, The Life of Johnny Reb: The Common Soldier of the Confederacy (Baton Rouge, 1943), 380 (n. 11).

12 Leander Stillwell, The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 (Erie, PA, 1917), 18.

13 James Cooper Nisbet, Four Years on the Firing Line (Chattanooga, 1914), 118; Entry for April 20, 1862, John S. Tucker, Diary of John S. Tucker, 5th Alabama Infantry, Richmond National Battlefield Park, Bound Vol. 17.

14 Julius Henri Browne, Four Years in Secessia: Adventures within and beyond the Union Lines… (Washington, 1900), 39.

15 Henry E. Handerson, Yankees in Gray: The Civil War Memoirs of Henry E. Handerson (Cleveland, 1962), 40.

16 Irwin Silber, ed., Songs of the Civil War (New York, 1960), 169, 191-192.

17 William R. Hartpence, History of the Fifty-First Indiana Volunteer Infantry (Harrison, OH, 1894), 251-252.

28 Stillwell, Story of a Common Soldier, 62-63.

30 “The Christian Hero and the Union,” Manuscripts Division, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield, Illinois.

31 “Clap Your Hands for Dixie,” Moncure Songbook, 55-59, Civil War Collection, Eleanor S. Brockenbrough Library, Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia.

32 “Fort-La-Fayette Life” 1863-64: In Extracts from the “Right Flanker,” a Manuscript Sheet Circulating Among the Southern Prisoners in Fort-La-Fayette, in 1863-64 (London, 1865), 81-82.

33 Mary Ann Harris Gay, Life in Dixie during the War (Atlanta, 1901), 73-76.

34 Septimus Winner and Billy Holmes, “Hoist up the Flag” (Philadelphia, 1863).

35 Frank Moore, ed., Songs of the Soldiers (New York, 1864), 234-235.

36 Henry Goddard Thomas, “The Colored Troops at Petersburg” in Battles and Leaders of the Civil War: Being for the most part Contributions by Union and Confederate Officers (New York, 1884-1888), 4: 563-564.

37 “A Soldier’s Interesting Letter,” Christian Recorder, April 16, 1864.

38 “Interview with Tom Windham,” Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writer’s Project, 1936-1938, Arkansas Narratives, Volume II, Part 7, 211, available at: http:// memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/snhome.html

18 John Davis Billings, Hardtack and Coffee; or, the Unwritten Story of Army Life (Boston, 1887), 71-72.

President Lincoln, 1865,” American Historical Review 29 (April 1924): 514-517.

3 Thomas F. Schwartz, “Darwin, Lincoln, Stanton and Apes, Angels, and Ages,” For the People: Newsletter of the Abraham Lincoln Association 11 (Fall 2009): 5-6.

4 http://www.unionleague.org/files/TheAbrahamLincolnFoundationTheTannerManuscript. pdf, accessed November 7, 2013; While Lincoln Lay Dying: A Facsimile Reproduction of the First Testimony Taken in Connection with the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln as Recorded by Corporal James Tanner (Philadelphia, 1968).

5 [New Orleans] Times-Picayune, October 10, 1887.

6 Linda Brody Lyons, A Handbook to the Pension Building: Home of the National Building Museum (Washington, D.C., 1989); Laura Burd Schiavo, National Building Museum (London, 2007).

7 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Pensions to the Secretary of the Interior for the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1901 (Washington, D.C., 1901), 142; Report of the Secretary of the Interior for the Fiscal Year Ending June 30, 1889, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C., 1890), 411; Keller, Affairs of State, 311.

8 National Tribune, May 9, 1889.

9 “The Pension Investigation,” Illustrated American 10 (March 19, 1892): 216.

10 Puck, May 29, 1889.

11 Puck, August 28 and September 25, 1889; Bert Hansen, “New Images of a New Medicine: Visual Evidence for the Widespread Popularity of Therapeutic Discoveries in America after 1885,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 73 (1999): 652-653.

12 Life, September 19, October 3, and November 14, 1889.

13 Eugene Field, “Peace Hath Its Victories,” Pocket Magazine 1 (February 1896): 57-74.

14 Anaconda [Montana] Standard, September 15, 1891.

15 The New York Times, September 27, 1889.

16 The New York Times, December 5, 1906; William M. McKinney, ed., Federal Statutes, Annotated Supplement, 1909 (Northport, NY, 1909), 57; “A Stellar Red Cross Meeting,” American Red Cross Magazine 11 (January 1916): 15.

17 Corporal James Tanner, “Before Red Cross Days; or, Second Bull Run and the End of the War for Me,” American Red Cross Magazine 11 (September 1916): 307.

19 Ye Tragic and Ye Comic, “Short Rations” (Augusta, 1864); A. Pindar and P. Nutt, “Goober Peas” (New Orleans, 1866).

20 J. C. Goolsby, “Crenshaw Battery, Pegram’s Battalion, Confederate States Artillery” in Southern Historical Society Papers 28 (1900): 367.

18 Niagara Falls Gazette, June 17, 1904.

19 Kansas City Daily Journal, October 6, 1896.

21 Billings, Hardtack and Coffee, 118-119.

22 Eugene Fitch Ware, The Lyon Campaign in Missouri, Being a History of the First Iowa Infantry (Topeka, 1907), 218-219.

THE UBIQUITOUS MR. TANNER

23 The New Confederate Flag Song Book, No. 1 (Mobile, 1864), 49.

1 St. Paul Daily Globe, November 12, 1890.

24 Walter Augustus Clark, Under the Stars and Bars, or, Memories of Four Years Service

2 The account of Tanner’s experiences in this and subsequent paragraphs comes from James Tanner, “The Assassination of

20 Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, October 6, 1927; Niagara Falls Gazette, October 7, 1927.

(Pages 60-67, 75-77)

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Take Me Out to the … Battlefield walking the debris - strewn battlefield of Shiloh—where Union and Confederate forces had clashed on April 6 and

7, 1862, in a bloody struggle that resulted in over 23,000 casualties—Giles F. Hellem happened upon what must have seemed an odd sight: a baseball. The ball (pictured here) is an example of the “lemon peel” style popular at the time. Softer than balls in use today, it is hand-stitched in a figure-eight pattern and measures eight inches in circumference. ¶ Little is known about Hellem, a black man who later in the war would enlist in the 69th U.S. Colored Infantry, or the circumstances or timing of his presence at Shiloh. But his unusual discovery—now possessed

by The National Pastime Museum—serves as a clear reminder of baseball’s Civil War-era popularity.

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