Issue 5 by The Civil War Monitor

PAINTING THE BLOODIEST DAY, p. 36 | WAR & WHISKEY, p. 10 VOL. 2, VOL. 2, NO. 32 NO.

{ A N E W L O O K a t A M E R I C Aâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S G R E A T E S T C O N F L I C T }

Rebel Grit

Outnumbered and outgunned during the siege of Petersburg, Rebel defenders remained supremely confident of victory.

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Sometimes it isn’t how far you travel, but how far back.

A State Born From a NationTorn The war that pitted father against son and brother against brother cost more than 600,000 lives and brought our nation to its knees. In the wake of the American Civil War, a nation was nearly torn in half—but a state actually was. West Virginia is a state born from a nation torn. What would become West Virginia was also the setting for the First Campaign of the Civil War. Although still part of Virginia in 1861, many citizens of the western half of the state were loyal to the Union. By late May of 1861, Union Gen. George B. McClellan, commanding the Department of the Ohio, launched the First Campaign, ordering troops to cross the Ohio River and secure western Virginia for the Union. The resulting battles were fought in West Virginia’s mountains, in what is now Barbour, Taylor, Tucker, Randolph and Pocahontas counties. The Battle of Philippi was fought on June 3, 1861, at Philippi, Va., in what is now Barbour County, W.Va. It was the first organized land action in the war and was part of McClellan’s campaign. McClellan ordered 3,000 troops under Brig. Gen. Thomas A. Morris into western Virginia in a two-pronged advance. The principal advance, of 1,600 men under Brig. Gen. Benjamin F. Kelley, pushed toward Grafton. The other advance, of 1,400 men under Brig. Gen. Ebenezer Dumont, took Webster. When McClellan’s forces occupied Grafton, Confederates retreated 18

miles to Philippi. After firing a few shots at advancing Union troops, the Confederates broke lines and fled south, some still in their bed clothes. As a result, some mockingly refer to the battle as the “Races at Philippi.” By August 1861, Southern forces again threatened. Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee attempted to reclaim western Virginia, but failed miserably, prompting his return to Richmond in October with the unglamorous nickname “Granny” Lee. Troops of both armies remained to guard the mountain passes during that terrible winter. By 1862, conflict shifted east. The first campaign proved to be decisive: The western counties under Union control became the new state of West Virginia in 1863. Today, West Virginia is rich in Civil War heritage. The state’s Civil War-era towns, battlefields, cemeteries and reenactments faithfully retell this chapter of our nation’s past. Experience Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, the site of John Brown’s famous abolitionist uprising and the largest surrender of U.S. forces during the war. The Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike at Rich Mountain saw one of the first engagements of the war; Federal troops attacked and defeated Confederate troops, successfully defending this strategic mountain pass. Visit Parkersburg, an important transportation and medical center during the war, and take in the breathtaking view of the town at Fort Boreman

WILD AND WONDERFUL

Historical Park. Relive history at Carnifex Ferry Battlefield State Park, where Union troops engaged the Confederates and forced them to leave an entrenched position on the Henry Patterson Farm overlooking Carnifex Ferry. The park features a museum, scenic overlooks of the Gauley River, picnic facilities, and more. Discover Cheat Mountain, where Gen. Robert E. Lee’s first offense of the war took place. At the Battle of Scary Creek in Putnam County, Captain George S. Patton, grandfather of the famous George S. Patton of World War II, commanded Confederate troops to defeat Union forces just a few miles from the main Confederate camp. Feel the impact of history at Droop Mountain Battlefield State Park, north of Lewisburg, site of West Virginia’s last significant Civil War battle. See the largest collection of West Virginia Civil War battle flags at Wheeling’s Independence Hall. The “Waving for Liberty and the Union” exhibit features 13 Civil War battle flags dating from 1861-65. Join us as we commemorate West Virginia’s statehood in 2013 with a yearlong birthday celebration. Learn more about West Virginia’s Civil War history at WVTourism.com/CivilWar.

WVTOURISM.COM | 800-225-5982 Explore West Virginia’s Civil War History at WVTourism.com/CivilWar.

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Contents DEPARTMENTS

VOLUME 2, NUMBER 3 / FALL 2012

FEATURES

“Grant, Your Cause Is Ruin”

Salvo

{Facts, Figures & Items of Interest}

PAGE

TRAVELS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Outnumbered and outgunned during the siege of Petersburg, the men of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia were nonetheless supremely confident in their ability to deal Ulysses S. Grant’s opposing army a decisive blow—and perhaps win the war as well.

A Visit to Harpers Ferry

VOICES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 War & Whiskey

FIGURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 The Soldier’s Ration

PRIMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 The (Other) Things They Carried

PRESERVATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Civil War in the Classroom

DISUNION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 White House on the Pamunkey

IN FOCUS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Batter Up!

Antietam BY M. KEITH HARRIS

PAGE

PAINTING THE BLOODIEST DAY

Columns CASUALTIES OF WAR . . . . . . . 22 P.T. Barnum’s Menagerie

PAGE

BATTLEFIELD ECHOES. . . . . . 24 The Mud March

Books & Authors ESSENTIAL READING ON THE MARYLAND CAMPAIGN OF 1862 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 BY BRIAN MATTHEW JORDAN

MUSINGS OF A CIVIL WAR BIBLIOPHILE: THE VARIETIES OF PRIMARY CIVIL WAR EVIDENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 BY ROBERT K. KRICK

In Every Issue EDITORIAL

.....................

James Hope’s Antietam

DISPATCHES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 PARTING SHOT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 A Close Call

36 Professional artist turned Union soldier James Hope’s dramatic portraits of the Battle of Antietam serve as a fitting memorial to what remains the bloodiest single-day battle in American history.

The Lost Boys PAGE

Although they faced serious punishment or being labeled as shirkers (or worse), soldiers on both sides regularly took temporary and unauthorized leaves from their armies—and often for good reason.

WONDER, DELIGHT, ASTONISHMENT & THE ART OF DECEPTION 54 PAGE

From famous names to moonlighting soldiers, practitioners of magic had a (sleight of) hand in lifting civilian and military spirits during the war—particularly in the South. BY EDWARD T. COTHAM JR.

BY KATHRYN SHIVELY MEIER

ON THE COVER: Confident

Confederate soldiers surge forward in this depiction of Rebel resolve at Petersburg. Illustration by Owen Smith

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Editorial VOLUME 2, NUMBER 3 / FALL 2012

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

......

. . . . . . . . Laura June Davis

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

James Hope’s Antietam WHEN JAMES HOPE VOLUNTEERED to serve in the Union army, he likely did not appear to be a natural-born soldier. The Scottish-born immigrant and father of four had been schooled not in the art of war but in the techniques of art; he’d spent the previous two decades earning renown as a painter of portraits and landscapes. But Hope’s prewar life had been far from easy. Orphaned at age 16 upon the death of his father (his mother had passed away when he was barely a toddler), Hope was left to fend for himself. Penniless, he walked some 150 miles from the family home in Canada to Fairhaven, Vermont, where he found work as an apprentice wagon maker. Within a few years he had saved enough to take art classes, then landed a job as an art teacher. His skills and reputation grew from there. As a captain in the 2nd Vermont Infantry, Hope’s devotion to hard work proved valuable. During the war’s first year, he acquitted himself well in several battles, earning particular praise at First Bull Run, where he helped cover the Union retreat. Hope also found use for his skills as an artist. During the Peninsula Campaign, his talent for landscape art earned him an assignment as a topographical engineer. And at the Battle of Antietam, where his regiment was held in reserve, he sketched the engagement as it unfolded, later using his drawings as the basis for a series of remarkable paintings. (We’ve reproduced his landscapes, which tell the story of the epic fight, in this issue, beginning on page 36.) After the war, Hope’s Antietam paintings were displayed in his gallery at Watkins Glen, New York, to much acclaim. But with his death in 1892, the gallery fell into disrepair and closed. A flood in the 1930s severely damaged the neglected panoramas, which were purchased by an art collector and hung in the eaves of a church in upstate New York. In 1979, the National Park Service rescued Hope’s works and began the delicate task of restoring them. Today, visitors to the Antietam National Battlefield Park visitors’ center can view Hope’s paintings, which serve as a fitting tribute to their creator—and to the bloodiest one-day battle in American history.

Terry A. Johnston Jr.

TERRY@civilwarmonitor.com

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Patrick Brennan John Coski Judith Giesberg Allen C. Guelzo Amy Murrell Taylor

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COPY EDITOR .

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Dispatches

| The Bounty Brokers, p. 18 Killing Stonewall Jackson, p. 24 VOL. 2, NO. 1

to dislodge those “damn Yankees” from the town. Keep up the good work y’all.

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KUDOS

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DEMON HOW SHERMAN WON— THEN LOST—THE SOUTH

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THAT DEVIL SHERMAN WHEN I SAW GENERAL Sherman on the cover of your magazine [Vol. 2, No. 1] I just had to buy it. Good thing I am in Afghanistan, because he would not be welcome in my North Carolina home. At all. My wife will only refer to him as “that man.” Jefferson Davis has done his job well. A recent back roads trip we took from Columbia, South Carolina, to Raleigh, North Carolina, was quite pleasant, until my wife spotted the historical roadside markers about Sherman’s March. Then things got quite frosty. My wife is a native of Washington, North Carolina. Civil War cannonballs are still lodged in several houses there. She blames Sherman. Never mind that the balls were more than likely fired by besieging Confederates trying

I JUST RECEIVED MY first print copy of the Monitor, and I just wanted to let you know how impressed I am with everything about it, from the quality of the articles to its overall look and feel. To be honest, when I initially received an offer in the mail about your new publication, I almost tossed it in the trash, thinking that the last thing the Civil War community needed was another magazine. But before doing so I checked the Monitor out online [civilwarmonitor.com], liked what I saw, and have been reading the back digital editions ever since. Let me conclude by saying that I think the Monitor is absolutely superb, from cover to “parting shot.”

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

FOR WHAT IT IS worth, I enjoy the Books & Authors section more than any other part of the magazine. I think my wife likes it least because it makes me go straight online to order titles not already part of my Civil War book collection. Topical reading lists published by Civil War experts are truly invaluable to enthusiasts like me who wish to own the best books on a particular subject. Keep up the good work!

Steven Schwartz

Mark R. Silla Pueblo, Colorado

of the Mississippi

River (includ-

ing New Orleans and Memphis) and eventually put themselves in position to take Vicksburg and advance toward the gateway of the Confederate heartland at Chattanooga. At the same time, they consolidated control over much of eastern Missouri and entered Arkans as. These operations paved the way for the unionist governm ents in Tennes see, Louisiana, FOR ALL THE attentio and eventually n lavished Arkansas, and upon the Civil the emancipaWar in the eastern tion of thousan theater, many scholar ds of slaves. They s believe also brought Ulysses the war was won S. Grant to (and lost) in nationa the West, defined l attention, althoug loosely as the h by year’s end he was region from Georgia fighting to reand the Apmain commander palachian Mounta of the Army of ins west to the the Tennessee. states bordering the Mississippi That army’s baptism River. Several fine works help of fire was in February elucidate the events 1862, when of 1862, the Grant’s army and first full year of Andrew Hull campaigning, Foote’s gunboa when Union forces ts ventured south penetrated to capture a brace the Confederacy. of forts guardThey seized ing the Cumbe control of import rland and Tennes ant segments see rivers. Benjam in Franklin

THE CIVIL WAR MONITOR SUMMER 2012

Dave Caldow Danville, California

Cresskill, New Jersey

Books & Authors

ESSENTIA READING L ON THE WAR IN THE WEST, 186 BROOKS 2 SIMPSOND.

I THOUGHT I’D WRITE a quick note to let you know how much I enjoy your new publication, in particular the quality of the scholarship and the many period photographs used as illustrations, many of which I’ve never seen before. I have taken out a subscription and eagerly await new issues. I only hope that you’ll soon decide to go to a bimonthly instead of quarterly schedule! Congratulations and keep up the good work.

Cooling’s Forts Henry and Donelson: The Key to the Confederate Heartland (1987) remains the most detailed narrati ve of this critical campai gn, which opened Tennessee to invasio n and catapulted “Uncon ditional Surrender” Grant to nationa l prominence. Within weeks, though, he nearly lost his command due to the machinations of his superior, Henry W. Halleck , who seemed more interested in disciplining an unlikely hero’s administrative shortcomings than capitalizing on Union success. Cooling ’s assessments are judicious, and he explains why the battles were overshadowed by subsequent events. One could say that the Battle of Pea Ridge is also overlooked, but a masterful account by William L. Shea and Earl J. Hess, Pea Ridge: Civil War Campaign in the West (1992), does much to rescue it from obscurity by arguing forcefully for its importance in securing Union control of parts of Missou ri and Arkansas. History has not always given the victorious comma nder, Samuel Curtis, his due, but this book commends him and the soldiers on both sides who struggled under less-than-ideal conditions. In contrast, Earl Van Dorn and his fellow Confed erate generals turned in a poor performance. Inevitably Shiloh draws readers’ attention, and it remains the most written about of the 1862 battles in the West. Larry J. Daniel’s Shiloh: The Battle That Changed the Civil War (1997) best places the battle in broader context , arguing that the Confederacy’s failure to destroy Grant’s army proved decisive. Daniel recount s the wrangling between politica l and military leaders in the weeks leading up to the battle, remind ing us not to discount policy and politics in the course of military events. He also explores how various parties interpreted the outcome and impact of the battle, no minor mat-

ter given the interpla y between battlefront and home front as both sides sought to sustain the will for war. Two other volume s focus on the battle itself: O. Edward Cunningham’s Shiloh and the Western Campa ign of 1862 (2007), edited by Gary D. Joiner and Timothy B. Smith, a carefully researched accoun t that challenges standard argume nts, and Wiley Sword’s classic Shiloh: Bloody April (1974; reprint edition, 2001), which offers compel ling descriptions of combat . Although the battle itself was a close call for Grant, he survive d and began forging his relation ship with William T. Sherma n, an alliance that proved invalua ble for Union fortunes. As Grant later observed, for the Confed erates, Shiloh remained a battle of “ifs,” with the initial promis e of success frittered away as both sides mauled each other that spring Sunday. Smith’s own accoun t of the ensuing Corinth campai gn will doubtless prove a welcom e addition to an understudied operation, much as Daniel shed much-needed light on John Pope’s biggest success in Island No. 10: Struggle for the Mississippi Valley (1996). The most comprehensive overview of the fighting from February through May remain s Stephen D. Engle’s Struggl e for the Heartland: The Campa igns from Fort Henry to Corinth (2001), which integrates military , social, and political history; Charles Dufour ’s The Night the War Was Lost (1960) is still the standard study of the capture of New Orleans in April 1862. After the fall of Corinth, the war in the West appeared to slow down for several months : A decision to dispers e the Union forces that had captured that city forfeited much of their momen tum. Confederate counteroffensives in Septem ber and Octobe r threatened to roll back Union gains in norther n Mississippi and Kentucky. In The Darkest Days

of the War: The Battles of Iuka manders, which & Corinth (1997), Cozzens dePeter Cozzens scribes. One may skillfully recount also want to s those two enconsult James gagements, althoug Lee McDonough’s h some may Stones River: Bloody question how he handles the Winter in Tennessee (1983) relationship betwee for a general n Grant and overview. William S. Rosecra ns. Both sides Readers can look missed opportu nities for decielsewhere for additional insight sive blows, althoug into the h the frustracampai tion of Confederate gns of 1862, from hopes to turn biographies of leaders back the wave to examinations of Union success of various armies es proved more (and the Union important. The navy), as well as Confederate thrust broader acinto Kencounts of Civil tucky, best followe War military hisd in James Lee tory, but these McDonough’s War volumes provide in Kentucky: one way to embark From Shiloh to Perryville (1994), upon reading about the war culminated in a in the West in much-overlook 1862. ed battle, but Kennet h W. Noe’s BROOKS D. SIMPSON Perryville: This is ASU FoundaGrand Havoc tion Professor of Battle (2001) of History at Arizona is a model battle State Universi ty and study, weaving the author most an account of how recently of The Civil War in the generals led (or East: Struggle tried to) and how , Stalemate, and soldiers fought. Victory (2011). Noe examines the impact of the clash on both participants and place, and considers the legacy and memory of the battle in a way that other historians would do well to emulate. By year’s end Confed erate forces had turned back Grant’s first effort to take Vicksburg and blocked Sherma n’s attempt to take the bluffs overlooking Chickasaw Bayou. Elsewhere, however, Union forces enjoyed a measure of strateg ic success. William L. Shea’s Fields of Blood: The Prairie Grove Campaign (2009) is a marvelous acIN THE SPRING count of an oft-igno and early summe red campaign r of 1862, Union general that ended in a drawn battle George B. McClellan’s attemp followed by Confed t to capture erate withthe Confederate drawal, thus keeping capital by admuch of vancing up the Missouri in Union Virginia Peninsu hands. Weeks la involved the largest later, as 1862 drew amphibito a close, ous operation of Braxton Bragg’s the war, saw Army of Tenperhaps Robert nessee missed E. Lee’s best a similar opportu chance to destroy nity to smash Rosecr the Army of ans’ newly the Potomac, and christened Army included fronof the Cumbertal assaults that land. In No Better dwarfed the size Place to Die: of Pickett’s Charge The Battle of Stones . Its results River (1990), led to President Peter Cozzens Lincoln’s decidetails the fighting sion to use emanci with his tradem pation as a ark approach to means of saving narrating combat the Union, and . If the battle thus the event promoted Rosecr merits as much ans’ fortunes, attention, if not it continued the more, than such downward slide battles as Shiloh, of Bragg’s career, Antietam, and complete with Gettysburg. While ongoing wrangl es with his comwriters have relatively neglect ed the Peninsu la

ESSENTIAL READING ON THE PENINSULA CAMPAIG GLENN N DAVID BRASHER

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Salvo { 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 }

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IN THIS SECTION Travels

A VISIT TO HARPERS FERRY . . . . . . . . 6 Voices

WAR & WHISKEY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Figures

THE SOLDIER’S RATION . . . . . . . . . . 12 Primer

THE (OTHER) THINGS THEY CARRIED . . 14 Preservation

CIVIL WAR IN THE CLASSROOM . . . . 16 Disunion

WHITE HOUSE ON THE PAMUNKEY . . 18 In Focus

PLAY BALL! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20

In this Currier & Ives lithograph, “View of Harpers Ferry, Va. (from the Potomac Side),” the historic town that would play home to several key events during the country’s sectional crisis and civil war is shown in more peaceful times. FOR MORE ON HARPERS FERRY, TURN THE PAGE.

5 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

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Salvo | Travels

Destination: Harpers Ferry WHILE CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA, is regularly cited as the city that witnessed the Civil War’s opening salvo, a serious case can also be made for Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, situated at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers. Radical abolitionist John Brown and his band of raiders descended on the U.S. Armory there in October 1859 with hopes of capturing weapons to arm a slave rebellion throughout the South. Brown’s raid, while unsuccessful, galvanized both North and South, putting the country more firmly on the path toward open sectional conflict. Harpers Ferry would witness much of the war, too, its strategic location making it the target of both Union and Confederate forces vying for control of the nearby Shenandoah Valley. Before war’s end, the town had changed hands eight times, most notably when Stonewall Jackson’s men captured the town’s federal garrison during the 1862 Maryland Campaign. Interested in visiting Harpers Ferry? To help plan your trip, we’ve enlisted a trio of experts— individuals who live in, work in, or are otherwise intimately familiar with the historic town— to offer their personal suggestions for what to see and do.

BEST SLEEP

| MICHAEL MUSICK | While there are a number of good bed and breakfasts in Harpers Ferry and nearby Bolivar, several in antebellum homes, consider The Carriage Inn in Charles Town, half a dozen miles away. The inn is located in the Rutherford House, a structure owned during the war by a secessionist but which served as Union general Phil Sheridan’s headquarters at the beginning of the 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign. | ETHAN RAFUSE | When visiting Harpers Ferry I usually stay at the Clarion Hotel, about a halfhour away in Shepherdstown,

THE EXPERTS

MICHAEL P. MUSICK,

a Harpers Ferry resident since 1979, spent 35 years as Subject Area Specialist for the U.S. Civil War at the National Archives. He is a founding member of the Harpers Ferry Civil War Round Table.

ETHAN S. RAFUSE

is a professor of military history at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College and the author of Antietam, South Mountain & Harpers Ferry: A Battlefield Guide (2008).

BOB O’CONNOR, the

author of six books on the Civil War era, has lived in the Harpers Ferry area since 2001.

which offers both excellent lodging and dining options. For those with more upscale tastes in food and lodging (and the money to indulge them), the Bavarian Inn in Shepherdstown is highly recommended. | BOB O’CONNOR | The Quality Hotel at Harpers Ferry has it all—great location, indoor pool, really good food, and reasonable prices. BEST FAMILY ACTIVITY

| M.M. | The National Park Bookshop in Lower Town Harpers Ferry has an excellent selection of publications on the Civil War era for children, as well as an impressive array of titles on similar subjects for older readers. | E.R. | If your kids have the energy and interest, take the family for a walk around Lower Town, visiting the various National Park Service exhibits (including the Provost Marshal Office, Frankel’s Clothing Store, and the Industry Museum—a handy map available at the park’s visitor center will help you navigate), as well as the John Brown Wax Museum, which is almost a must-do with kids. For those with a bit more elevated sense of adventure and level of physical fitness, the trail up to the Maryland Heights Overlook offers a good workout and spectacular view of the town to reward you for the effort. | B.O. | The Ariel Forest Adventure Park is an awesome new venue where kids can choose

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY TOM WOLFF

8/21/12 11:32 PM

from a variety of challenges to fit their capabilities and spend a couple of hours thinking they are being chased by Indiana Jones. BEST TIME TO BE HERE

| M.M. | I’d have to pick the fall, as September was the month of the Antietam Campaign and the siege and capture of Harpers Ferry by Stonewall Jackson, and

Clockwise, from above: Rafting and kayaking on the Potomac River; bikers ride along the towpath of the C&O Canal; John Brown’s Fort; and the Bavarian Inn.

October was the month of John Brown’s doomed foray. | E.R. | Fall is my favorite time of year almost anywhere, but in Harpers Ferry it is especially magnificent. I’ve also been there during and just after a snowstorm. The sight of the town and surrounding heights covered in snow is absolutely spectacular. | B.O. | Without question, fall is the best time for Harpers Ferry because of the cool weather and the fabulous color of the leaves. CAN’T MISS

| M.M. | One spot visitors are likely to miss but shouldn’t is The Kennedy Farm, located about six miles from Harpers Ferry, across the Potomac River in Washington County, Maryland. This is the place John Brown and his band rented and

used as their base of operations before descending on the Ferry; Jeb Stuart, at the time a lieutenant in the U.S. Army, led a force there after the raid failed, and seized arms and incriminating documents. | E.R. | Almost everyone sees the John Brown stuff in the Lower Town. Now that the National Park Service has made them more accessible, the sites at the Murphy-Chambers Farm and

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Salvo | Travels

Left: The interior of Frankel’s Clothing Store (above) and Jefferson Rock.

Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Now featuring a Napoleon cannon, it was the spot where Mathew Brady’s operatives photographed many Union soldiers during a stop in Harpers Ferry in the summer of 1862. | E.R. | The entire Harpers Ferry National Historical Park is one big Civil War-related spot! What makes Harpers Ferry such a special place is how the entire town and park does a great job of

HARPERS FERRY NAVIGATOR " PLACES OF INTEREST

National Park Bookshop (723 Shenandoah St.; 304-535-6881) Harpers Ferry National Historical Park Visitor Center (171 Shoreline Dr.; 304-535-6029) John Brown Wax Museum (168 High St.; 304-535-6342) Aerial Forest Adventure Park (408 Alstadts Hill Rd.; 304-535-2663) The Kennedy Farm (2406 Chestnut Grove Rd., Sharpsburg, MD; www.johnbrown.org) Virginia Lodge No. 1 / Armorer’s House (770 Fillmore St.; 304-535-6918) Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park (www.nps.gov/choh/index.htm) Historic Hilltop House Hotel (400 East Ridge St.; www.hilltophousehotel.com) River Riders (408 Alstadts Hill Rd.; 304-535-2663) " LODGING The Carriage Inn (417 East Washington St., Charles Town, WV; 800-867-9830)

Clarion Hotel & Conference Center (233 Lowe Dr., Shepherdstown, WV; 304-876-7000) Bavarian Inn (164 Shepherd Grade Rd., Shepherdstown, WV; 304-876-2551)

Schoolhouse Ridge deserve greater attention. Standing on Schoolhouse Ridge really helps you appreciate the challenges Stonewall Jackson faced in September 1862 as he captured the federal garrison and wrapped up the operation in Harpers Ferry. It stood as the largest surrender of U.S. troops until 1942. | B.O. | The view of Harpers Ferry from the Historic Hilltop House Hotel is remarkable. While the building is now fenced

and closed, the grounds are open for driving or walking around. BEST CIVIL WAR SPOT

| M.M. | The circa 1834 armorer’s house, located on Fillmore Street on Camp Hill, across the street from the building where President Lincoln spent the night after visiting the Army of the Potomac in the wake of the Battle of Antietam. Since 1865 this property has been the home of Virginia Lodge No. 1 of the

Quality Hotel Conference Center (4328 William L. Wilson Fwy.; 304-535-6302) " DINING The Country Cafe Restaurant (1715 W. Washington St., Bolivar; 304-535-2327)

Yellow Brick Bank Restaurant (201 East German St., Shepherdstown; 304-876-2208) The Coffee Mill (101 Potomac Ter.; 304-535-1257) Private Quinn’s Pub (109 Potomac St.; 304-535-2322) The Town’s Inn (179 High St.; 877-489-2447) Secret Six Tavern (186 High St.; 304-535-3044) Mountain View Diner (903 East Washington St.; 304-728-8522) The Anvil Restaurant (1290 West Washington St.; 304-535-2582)

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River from Harpers Ferry, and easily accessible from the Lower Town via a footbridge alongside the railroad bridge. This peaceful scenic byway is an ideal spot to walk or jog amid entrancing surroundings. | E.R. | Hiking to Jefferson Rock, a shale rock formation with a spectacular view of the Shenandoah River. Also, the sites associated with the town’s history as an arsenal and manufacturing center will be of interest to anyone who is student of antebellum America and its development. | B.O. | Any water-related activity (tubing, rafting, or kayaking) in the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers is great at Harpers Ferry. Check out River Riders on Alstadts Hill Road, which offers professional raft tours as well as kayak and tube rentals. BEST BOOK

maintaining its evocative historic atmosphere. You can almost feel yourself absorbing it through your skin. One thing I particularly enjoy is walking under the railroad trestle bridge along the path from John Brown’s Fort to the Point, and then standing at the Point with the confluence of the rivers on one side, the historic town on the other, and the bridge over the Potomac right next to you. | B.O. | The Kennedy Farm, across the river in Maryland, and where John Brown planned his raid, is my favorite. It looks today just like it did in 1859. BEST-KEPT SECRET

| M.M. | The towpath of the C&O Canal, just across the Potomac

Above: Executive Chef Jeff McGee, and his Yellow Brick Bank restaurant.

| M.M. | Dennis E. Frye’s Harpers Ferry Under Fire: A Border Town in the American Civil War (2012). This engaging, wellresearched, and richly illustrated volume is the result of the author’s decades-long immersion in his subject. | E.R. | A good general guide is David T. Gilbert’s A Walker’s Guide to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia (1983). And while there are many good studies of John Brown’s raid and the 1862 Maryland Campaign, Merritt Roe Smith’s Harpers Ferry Armory and the New Technology (1977) merits special mention for its examination of the town before the war. | B.O. | I’d vote for my own book, The Perfect Steel Trap: Harpers Ferry 1859 (2006), which covers every single aspect of the John Brown raid, from its planning to Brown’s capture, trial, and execution, and also includes infor-

mation on the seven raiders who got away. BEST EATS

| M.M. | For a convenient, quick bite any time of day, try the 7-Eleven on Washington Street in Bolivar, near Bolivar Heights. It’s always open, and has a parking lot. It’s where one can grab a sub, yogurt, or ice cream sandwich. For breakfast, the nearby Country Cafe boasts a friendly atmosphere and a menu that covers all the basics and a bit more. (When the King of Jordan and his entourage arrived on motorcycles not long ago, they seemed to like it.) For either lunch or dinner, consider driving to Shepherdstown, to either the Yellow Brick Bank or the Bavarian Inn. These offer a fairly wide selection of good food and drink in a picturesque town whose buildings were transformed into hospitals after the Battle of Antietam. | E.R. | The Coffee Mill is the place I go when looking for a quick lunch. It is conveniently located between Potomac and High streets in Lower Town, has a good selection of sandwiches and ice cream, and offers the choice of inside or patio dining. Private Quinn’s Pub on Potomac Street and The Town’s Inn on High Street are also good choices and conveniently located. | B.O. | Secret Six Tavern on High Street offers a cozy ambiance and quick service, and Mountain View Diner in Charles Town has good service, reasonable prices, high-quality meals, and lots of choices. If you want to lunch where the locals do, try The Country Cafe. For dinner, you can’t beat The Anvil Restaurant on Washington Street—good steaks, good seafood, good atmosphere, and good service.

9 PHOTOGRAPHS BY TOM WOLFF

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Salvo | Voices

War & Whiskey

“No one evil agent so much obstructs this army … as the degrading vice of drunkenness.” —GENERAL GEORGE B. McCLELLAN FEBRUARY 1862

—DANIEL FINN, MUSICIAN IN THE 10TH OHIO INFANTRY’S BAND, APRIL 23, 1862

“They are hearty and rough and about two thirds of them think that GETTING DRUNK is rather commendable than otherwise, but all treat me very kindly and I have become rather attached to the rascals.” —REV. JOSEPH HOPKINS TWICHELL, REGIMENTAL CHAPLAIN OF THE 71ST NEW YORK INFANTRY, ON THE MEN IN HIS UNIT, NOVEMBER 3, 1861

SOURCES: BELL IRVIN WILEY, THE LIFE OF BILLY YANK (BATON ROUGE, 1952); WILLIAM B. STYPLE, ED., WRITING AND FIGHTING THE CIVIL WAR (KEARNY, NJ, 2000); PETER MESSENT AND STEVE COURTNEY, EDS., THE CIVIL WAR LETTERS OF JOSEPH HOPKINS TWICHELL (ATHENS, GA, 2006); CHRISTOPHER L. WILLIAMSON, ED., THE JOURNALS OF DANIEL FINN (N.P., C. 1992); PATRICK H. SLOAN LETTERS, COURTESY JULIA FULTON; WILLIAM KEATING CLARE PAPERS, DUKE UNIVERSITY.

“Sir, I do not remember what I have done. I was exhausted from Liquor. I hope that you will forgive me this time…. I promise that during the remainder of my enlistment that I will keep clear of all trouble.” —JOHN MULLEN, A SOLDIER IN THE 158TH NEW YORK INFANTRY, APOLOGIZING TO HIS LIEUTENANT COLONEL FOR SHOOTING A COMRADE WHILE DRUNK IN NOVEMBER 1863. MULLEN RECEIVED FIVE YEARS IN A PENITENTIARY.

“I am in good health at present and my canteen is full of whiskey and I am going on a tear just as soon as I finish and post this letter. We are not allowed in town but the women carry whiskey out here to us. They have bottles of it concealed in their skirts and they have a basket of apples on their arm as a disguise to the officers.” —ILLINOIS SOLDIER PATRICK H. SLOAN, IN A LETTER TO HIS WIFE, JENNIE, FEBRUARY 4, 1863

“[H]ad it not been that our horses were sober we would not have found the way home— you can draw your own conclusions.” —UNION SOLDIER HENRY P. CLARE, RECOUNTING TO HIS BROTHER HIS RETURN FROM CELEBRATING THE NEW YEAR IN A NEIGHBORING REGIMENT’S CAMP, JANUARY 4, 1863

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

“The night before we moved some of the boys learned that there was a BARREL OF WHISKY in the hospital tent, and early in the evening they contrived to get the steward tied, which was an easy matter, and then manage things their own way, so that by 12 o’clock p.m. their stomachs were grumbling, and their heads were rumbling, and on the ground were tumbling, making the night hideous with their yells.”

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BATTLE of FARMINGTON September 13th - 16th, 2012 FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.battleoffarmington.com

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Salvo | Figures

The Soldier’s Ration

Plus, for each 100 men, a daily issue of:

10 POUNDS OF RICE

“The soldiers’ fare is very rough/The bread is hard, the beef is tough If they can stand it, it will be/Through love of God, a mystery.” THE ANONYMOUS UNION INFANTRYMAN who penned these lines in 1863 for a Nashville newspaper was hardly alone in his disregard for army food. Soldiers on both sides regularly made the best of less-than-savory items in army rations: rancid meat, stone-solid (and often insect-infested) “hardtack” crackers, and coarse, flavorless desiccated (or, as one northern soldier called them, “desecrated”) vegetables. Short or irregular supplies added to the troops’ dietary problems. For significant stretches, they had to forage, buy from sutlers, or depend on packages from home for proper sustenance. As another soldier put it, “Some days we live first rate, and the next we dont have half enough.” Represented on this page is the Union army’s official daily “camp” ration—what each man was supposed to receive when not on active campaign. A “marching” ration contained much less, usually little more than pork, hardtack, and coffee.

8 QUARTS OF BEANS

(TWICE WEEKLY)

150 OUNCES OF DESICCATED POTATOES AND 100 OUNCES OF MIXED VEGETABLES

OR 10 POUNDS OF COFFEE

Union Army’s Daily Camp Ration:

1½ POUNDS OF TEA

15 POUNDS OF SUGAR

V V V V 1¼ POUNDS OF FRESH OR SALT BEEF OR ¾ POUND OF PORK OR BACON

4 QUARTS OF VINEGAR

1 TO 1½ POUNDS OF CANDLES SOAP

SOAP

4 POUNDS OF SOAP

22 OUNCES OF BREAD OR FLOUR OR 1 POUND (9-1O PIECES) OF HARDTACK OR 1¼ POUNDS OF CORNMEAL

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Bell Irvin Wiley, The Life of Billy Yank (Baton Rouge, 1952); John D. Billings, Hard Tack and Coffee (Boston, 1887); Revised Regulations for the Army of the United States, 1861 (Philadelphia, 1861; reprint edition, Harrisburg, PA, 1980).

SOURCES:

S 2 QUARTS OF SALT

M 1 QUART OF MOLASSES

8/22/12 2:47 AM

Chambersburg Civil War Seminars & Tours The years 2011 to 2015 mark the 150th Anniversary of the American Civil War. experience the civil war "sesquicentennial" Chambersburg Civil War Seminars and Tours will commemorate the “Sesquicentennial” with seminars in 2012 that correspond with events of 150 years ago. The years 2011 to 2015 mark the 150th Anniversary of the American Civil War. The years 2011 to 2015 mark the 150th Anniversary of the American Chambersburg Civil War Seminars and Tours will commemorate the “Sesquicentennial” April 2022 Civil War. Chambersburg Civil War with seminars in 2012 that correspond with events of 150 years ago. “Gray Ghosts, Raiders and Bushwhackers: Partisan Warfare 18611865” Seminars and Tours will commemorate Hagerstown Hotel and Convention Center, MD with seminars the "Sesquicentennial" April 2022 in 2013 that correspond with “Gray Ghosts, Raiders and Bushwhackers: Partisan Warfare 18611865” Battlefield guide Ed Bearss, Union cavalry expert Marshall Krolick and many others. events of 150 years ago. Hagerstown Hotel and Convention Center, MD Saturday bus tour of “Mosby’s Confederacy,” visiting sites such as Loudon Heights,

Featuring tours, talks and panels with Mosby authority and author Horace Mewborn, premier

Featuring tours, talks and panels with Mosby authority and author Horace Mewborn, premier Miskell’s Farm, Mt. Zion Church where Mosby organized his command, the site of Battlefield guide Ed Bearss, Union cavalry expert Marshall Krolick and many others. the famous “Greenback Raid” and many other sites associated with the legendary “Gray Ghost.” Saturday bus tour of “Mosby’s Confederacy,” visiting sites such as Loudon Heights, Miskell’s Farm, Mt. Zion Church where Mosby organized his command, the site of the famous “Greenback Raid” and many other sites associated with the legendary “Gray Ghost.” July 2529

“CHANCELLORSVILLE”

MAY 17-19

“Antietam: The Bloodiest Day” featuring battlefield bus tours with Ed Bearss and Robert Krick, and talks by Greg Mertz, Frank Four Points Sheraton, Chambersburg, PA July 2529 O’Reilly

and others. Based in Fredericksburg, Va. Tours, talks, panels, exhibits, and demonstrations “Antietam: The Bloodiest Day” Featuring Ed Bearss, Robert Krick, Ethan Rafuse, Ted Alexander, Four Points Sheraton, Chambersburg, PA Tom Clemens, Richard Sommers, Dennis Frye, Susannah Ural, Tours, talks, panels, exhibits, and demonstrations Steve Recker, John Schildt, Keven Walker and many others. Featuring Ed Bearss, Robert Krick, Ethan Rafuse, Ted Alexander, Tours of Lee’s advance from Leesburg to Frederick, The Army of Tom Clemens, Richard Sommers, Dennis Frye, Susannah Ural, Northern Virginia at Sharpsburg, Rodman’s Advance from Steve Recker, John Schildt, Keven Walker and many others. Snavely’s Ford, Historic Farmsteads of the Battlefield and more… with Ed Bearss, Jeffry Wert, Lance Herdegen, Richard Sommers, J.D. Petruzzi, Tours of Lee’s advance from Leesburg to Frederick, The Army of Dinner in the Historic Mumma Barn Dennis Frye, Scott Mingus, Steve French and others. Seminar includes bus and walking tours of Northern Virginia at Sharpsburg, Rodman’s Advance from “Pickett’s Charge”, The Iron Brigade at Gettysburg, the Texas Brigade, Snavely’s Ford, Historic Farmsteads of the Battlefield and more… Civilian Gettysburg, Off the Beaten Path Sites, Early’s Advance to the Susquehanna, Dinner in the Historic Mumma Barn the Retreat and theSeptember 2830 Battle of Monterey Pass, plus much more.

“GETTYSBURG AND BEYOND”

JULY 23-28

“The Battles of South Mountain: September 14, 1862” Four Points Sheraton, Chambersburg, PA September 2830

Talks, panels and bus tour with Ed Bearss, John Hoptak, Tom Clemens and others. “The Battles of South Mountain: September 14, 1862” Bus tour includes stops on private property not usually open to the general public.

Four Points Sheraton, Chambersburg, PA “THE CAVALRY AT GETTYSBURG”

Talks, panels and bus tour with Ed Bearss, John Hoptak, Tom Clemens and others. A Division of the Greater Chambersburg Chamber of Commerce Bus tour includes stops on private property not usually open to the general public. with Eric Wittenberg, Ed Bearss, Jeffry Wert and others.

OCTOBER 4-6

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9#3):#$;"#$.;;#/<;#=$'.(1+/$.(=$1&01#>&#(;$03.?)(*$ =#1;'&@;)+($+,$;"#$+(34$(+';"#'($;+A($0&'(#=$)($;"#$-):)3$B.'$ C($;"#$1>&.'#$)($=+A(;+A($-"./0#'10&'*$D$EF$

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8/21/12 11:37 PM

Salvo | Primer

The (Other) Things They Carried REFLECTING UPON THE cumbersome load of gear he and his comrades had to lug during their army days, Union veteran John Billings wrote, â&#x20AC;&#x153;A soldier burdened with a musket, from forty to eighty rounds of ammunition, according to circumstances; a haversack stuffed plum as a pillow, but not so soft, with three days rations; a canteen of water, a woolen and rubber blanket, and a half shelter tent, would be likely to take just what more he was obliged to.â&#x20AC;? And yet, as shown here, soldiers on both sides found room to carry a myriad of personal items, some more practical than others. #"Massachusetts officer Aldin B. Underwood carried this cased cup and utensil set for use during mealtime.

#"This rubberized inflatable pillow belonged to Lieutenant Colonel John Wilson of the 43rd New York Infantry. Wilson was mortally wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness on May 6, 1864.

Charles H. Taylor, a soldier in the 16th Connecticut Infantry, could keep an eye on his appearance at any time with this metal folding pocket mirror.

#""Private John S. Cole of Company H, 3rd New Hampshire Infantry, kept his hands warm during winter with these mittens made by his mother.

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#"As the carving on its exterior suggests, this wooden soap dish belonged to L.C. Twitchell of the 148th New York Volunteers.

#"Men on both sides carried sewing kits to mend torn clothing in the field. This “soldier’s housewife,” as they were called, rolled up for easy storage and belonged to a member of the 22nd Connecticut Infantry.

#"Edward N. Whittier, an artillerist in the 5th Maine Battery, kept

his head warm on cold evenings with this red silk nightcap.

This wallet belonged to Second Lieutenant Charles H. Pinkham of the 57th Massachusetts Infantry. Pinkham received the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Battle of Fort Stedman outside Petersburg, Virginia, in March 1865, during which he captured the flag of the 57th North Carolina Infantry.

#"Charles L. Taylor, a soldier in the 16th

Connecticut Infantry, used this tarred, waterproof folding packet to carry his toilet tissue.

15 SOURCE: John D. Billings, Hard Tack and Coffee (Boston, 1887).

Rubberized inflatable pillow image courtesy of the New York State Military Museum. All other images courtesy of the Military & Historical Image Bank (www.historicalimagebank.com).

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Salvo | Preservation

Civil War in the Classroom By O. James Lighthizer, PRESIDENT, CIVIL WAR TRUST THIS SUMMER, the Civil War Trust marked the 25th anniversary of our founding, when a group of individuals passionate about American history came together to preserve the battlefields where that legacy was shaped. A generation later, we continue that work, purchasing hallowed ground for permanent protection, interpretation, and enjoyment. However, for our work to have a continuing impact, we must ensure that future generations know and understand this crucial period in our nation’s history. ¶ To this end, the Trust offers a variety of educational programming. Some efforts, such as our website’s battle maps and historian videos, are well-known and widely used. Others, including some of those with the potential for the greatest long-term impact, are targeted classroom. We take pride in the accessibility of the Teacher Institutes, which are free of charge except for a refundable registration deposit. Highlights from our 2012 National Teacher Institute in Charleston, South Carolina, included a lecture on the causes of the Civil War by noted historian Gordon Rhea, a presentation on 3D photography, and tours of Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie. Each year, in addition to the National Teacher Institute, we host several smaller Regional Teacher Institutes. Not only do

***

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 www.civilwar.org

Attendees at the 2012 National Teacher Institute observe a firing demonstration at Fort Moultrie in Charleston, South Carolina.

C I V I L WA R T R U S T

toward a single, critically important group: teachers. It is my firm belief that nearly all lovers of history can point to a teacher who inspired and challenged them, who helped them realize how the past and the present are inextricably linked. For this reason, we provide our highquality seminars and materials for classroom educators at little or no cost. Teachers can download a wealth of free lesson plans designed to meet state and national social studies standards from our website. Similarly, educators can obtain a free digital version of our full two-week Civil War Curriculum (elementary, middle, or high school versions), which explores the causes and effects of the Civil War on political, economic, military, and cultural levels and encourages the analysis of primary sources like period documents, photographs, and maps. The Civil War Trust Teacher Institute series—one of our most popular programs—allows educators from across the country to attend lectures, workshops, discussion panels, and battlefield tours, all designed to share proven techniques for bringing the past alive in the

these cut down on travel and accommodation costs, which must be paid by the attendee or their school district, but they allow us to show teachers how to take advantage of local resources, including Civil War field trip options when the battlefields themselves are too remote. We are grateful to our committed members, whose contributions not only make our education programming possible but also provide scholarships to offset expenses for those who attend. Please consider joining us as we continue to provide teachers with the tools that they need to plant the seeds of interest in the Civil War and American history. Learn more about our array of education programs at www. civilwar.org/education. For more information about supporting Trust education initiatives email: teacherinstitute@civilwar.org.

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8/22/12 2:50 AM

Salvo | Disunion

White House on the Pamunkey By Jonathan Horn ON JUNE 28, 1862, in the midst of the Seven Days Battles outside Richmond, smoke billowed in the distance as Confederate cavalrymen advanced toward the Union’s main supply base at a plantation called the White House, located on the Pamunkey River. Robert E. Lee’s daring decision to seize the offensive against his enemy’s right flank had exposed the Union supply lines and forced George McClellan to make a fateful decision of his own: to abandon the White House and burn whatever his troops could not take with them. ¶ The Union retreat was a Confederate victory, but a personal loss for Lee: His wife’s family had owned the White House for generations. In fact, her great-grandmother, Martha, married her second husband—George Washington—either at or near the plantation. The irony of the Union destroying a home so closely associated with its founding president was hardly lost on southern commanders. “The conflagration raged fearfully at the White House during the entire night, while explosions of shells rent the air,” wrote the Confederate cavalry commander Jeb Stuart, who discovered the charred remains the next day. “An opportunity was here offered for observing the deceitfulness of the enemy’s pretended reverence for everything associated with the name of Washington, for the dwellinghouse was burned to the ground, and not a vestige left except what told of desolation and vandalism.” But the episode was more than an opportunity for pointing out alleged Union hypocrisy. It revealed the close and complex relationships among Tidewater families and how those bonds frayed as the country moved from its founding to its near-dissolution during the Civil War—and the central role that the Lees played in that drama. Connections to Washington ran down both sides of the Lees’ family tree. On one side, Robert E. Lee’s father, Henry “Light-

Horse Harry” Lee, served under Washington during the Revolution and later famously eulogized his commander as “first in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen.” On the other side, Lee’s father-inlaw, George Washington Parke Custis, was Washington’s stepgrandson and had grown up under his care at Mount Vernon, the president’s estate along the Potomac River. Not far upriver from Mount Vernon, on the hills across from the nation’s capital, Custis later modeled his own home at Arlington as a temple, complete with pediment and portico, and dedicated it to Washington’s memory. At the start of the war, Lee lived in the mansion with his wife in rooms filled with china and furnishings once belonging to the first president. After Lee cast his fate with the South, Union troops seized Arlington in May 1861. “As to our old home, if not destroyed, it will be difficult ever to be recognized,” Lee wrote his wife. “I fear too books, furniture, & the relics of Mount Vernon will be gone.” Now a refugee, his wife, Mary Custis Lee, mourned for Arling-

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.

ton as she wandered from home to home across Virginia’s countryside. By Christmas, she arrived at the White House plantation, which her second son, the Confederate cavalry officer William Henry Fitzhugh “Rooney” Lee, had inherited. “The farm is lovely, the land lying level near the river & breaking into beautiful hills as you go back inland,” wrote a younger son, who joined for the holiday. But the war followed Mary Custis Lee to this serene setting. As McClellan sailed his army southward for the spring Peninsula Campaign, her husband recognized that the White House occupied a strategic position on the Pamunkey River. Should they select that route, he warned her in early April 1862, “their whole army &c. will land at the White House.” When Mary Custis Lee finally consented to leave, she left a note on the door for the soon-to-be occupiers. “Northern soldiers, who profess to reverence Washington, forbear to desecrate the house of his first married life, the property of his wife, now owned by her descendants,” she wrote, even though a newer house had long ago replaced the original. Nevertheless, the northern soldiers who camped near the White House respected Mary Custis Lee’s wishes. Instead of looting it, officers stationed sentries to protect it. Newspapers including The New York Times carried a story about how one officer scribbled a response below Mary Custis Lee’s note. “Lady: A Northern officer has protected your property in

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

sight of the enemy, and at the request of your overseer,” it read. At the same time, reports of another sort trickled into Washington. While the White House plantation went protected, wounded and sick soldiers allegedly went neglected in nearby tents. According to one rumor, thirsty convalescents had to pay for water by the glass because Union officers would not let them drink from the plantation’s spring. “Very urgent complaints are being made from various quarters respecting the protection afforded to the Rebel General Lee’s property, called the ‘White House,’ instead of using it as a hospital for the care of wounded soldiers,” Secretary of War Edwin Stanton wrote McClellan. The ever-prickly McClellan could not let these “malicious” myths go unchallenged. “The White House of the rebel Gen Lee referred to is a small frame building of six rooms … [that] would not accommodate more than 30 patients,” he wrote Stanton on June 7. “I have given special directions to protect the property

Union soldiers congregate on the porch of the White House on the Pamunkey River in this 1862 painting. Within months of this scene’s creation, the house was torched and burned to the ground.

of the White House from any unnecessary injury or destruction because it was once the property of Gen Washington & I cannot believe that you will regard this a cause for rebuke or censure.” But censure many did. During a June 16 debate in Congress, representatives lambasted McClellan’s decision to protect the house in the name of the former president as just another example of his “cowardly policy of conciliation” toward traitors. Ultimately the controversy over the White House on the Pamunkey reached the White House on the Potomac. During a dramatic meeting, one witness recalled President Abraham Lincoln explaining how Lee’s wife had extracted a promise from McClellan to protect the house. “He doesn’t want to break the promise he has made, and I will break it for him,” Lincoln said as he reversed McClellan’s order. The change of policy came too late to help the wounded. Shortly afterward, evacuations from the White House began. As boats departed down the Pamunkey on

June 28, orders went out to torch public property left behind but not the private house. In the confusion, the distinction was lost. “The White House mansion was burned by an incendiary … not by any order,” wrote a Union officer who witnessed the scene. Mary Custis Lee had lost Arlington, and now the White House, too. “Unfortunately we left all the furniture there, not supposing such an act of vandalism could be committed on a place sacred as having been the early home of Washington in wedded life with my Grandmother,” she wrote a friend. “I trust I may live to see the day of retribution.” That day never came for Mary Custis Lee. But perhaps for a moment, her husband remembered the words that he had penned to a daughter after losing Arlington: “You see what a poor sinner I am, and how unworthy to possess what was given me; for that reason it has been taken away.” was a speechwriter and special assistant for President George W. Bush. He is working on a book about Robert E. Lee. JONATHAN HORN

19 PAINTING BY WILLIAM McILVAINE

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Salvo | In Focus

Batter Up! ALTHOUGH ITS ORIGINS are hazy, early forms of baseball were being played in the United States in the 1830s, and the game was well on its way to becoming the national pastime when the Civil War began. The conflict served to spread and popularize the sport. One contest in 1862 was witnessed by 40,000 Union troops. In a letter home after another game, a Union soldier wrote of losing the centerfielder and the teamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s only ball to a Confederate attack. There are many illustrations and some photos of baseball during the Civil War, none more notable than a series of images taken at Fort Pulaski in Georgia around 1862 by New Hampshire photographer Henry P. Moore. As Moore was busy on the parapet, taking group photographs of the various companies of the 48th New York Infantry, some of the men were playing a game of baseball in the background. At least four images show this activity, including this cracked negative of Company G, which reveals the batter, the pitcher, and other fielders at the ready. Contributed by Bob Zeller, president of the Center for Civil War Photography, 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

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PHOTOGRAPH BY HENRY P. MOORE/ WESTERN RESERVE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

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Casualties of War

P.T. Barnum’s Menagerie

BY STEPHEN BERRY

T 8:45 P.M. ON November 25, 1864, eight operatives of the Confederate Secret Service began setting fires in 21 locations across New York City—19 hotels, one theater, and Barnum’s Museum. Their plan was to so overwhelm the city’s fire department that Manhattan itself would burn to the ground. (Fortunately, this so-called “Confederate Army of Manhattan” failed to realize that their incendiary powder required a great deal of oxygen to achieve full potency and little damage was done.)¹ ¶ The arsonists had chosen their locations primarily for broad geographic coverage and maximum chaos. (Burning crowded hotels and theaters was the 19th-century equivalent of what Osama bin Laden called a “spectacular.”) The operatives had a more personal reason, though, for targeting Barnum’s Museum: Its proprietor was an outspoken proponent of the Union cause. Politically shrewd and financially savvy, Phineas Taylor “P.T.” Barnum served up a variety of Unionist exhibits and theatricals for a war-weary public that preferred its patriotism in light, entertaining doses. In 1864, for instance, his featured speaker was Pauline “Major” Cushman, a New Orleans born actress who had served as a Union intelligence operative until she was discovered, captured, and sentenced to death. After

escaping to the North, she was given an honorary rank of brevet major and a commendation from the president. At the time of the 1864 fires, though, none of Barnum’s antiConfederate exhibits had caused as big a stir as would his 1865 unveiling of the “Belle of Richmond,” a waxwork depiction of Jefferson Davis in drag. When Richmond fell in April, the Rebel president and his cabinet fled south by train. Optimistic if not delusional, Davis believed his government-on-wheels could reassemble farther south and continue the fight. Most of those with him admired his gumption and despaired at his density. The fight then was to save him from hanging. Spurred by a $100,000 bounty (and rumors that he had been involved in the

BARNUM’S MUSEUM FIRE WHEN:

July 1865 WHERE: New York, NY

AMONG THE VICTIMS:

Two beluga whales. LENGTH: 10-12 feet WEIGHT: About a ton each DETAILS: The whales were captured off the coast of Labrador and shipped by Barnum to New York by refrigerator car—the eighth and ninth whales he had brought to the city since 1861. Shortly before the fire, Barnum ran a prescient ad about the whales that read in part, “NOW IS THE TIME to see these wonders as THEIR LIVES ARE UNCERTAIN.”

Lincoln assassination), Union forces quickly caught up with Davis and his entourage on the banks of a little creek outside Irwinville, Georgia, where the Confederate president attempted to slip away under his wife’s cloak. Unable to resist the comic possibilities, the Union posse exaggerated the attire and rumors spread north that Davis had been caught in a dress. Knowing the value of such an article, Barnum offered $20,000 for what he thought was a petticoat. “Barnum would do better with Jeff himself, rigged out in woman’s toggery,” remarked the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, “but [he] will have to fall back upon wax or putty, in order to preserve a counterpart of the whipped hound of Mississippi.”² And this is just what Barnum decided to do, especially after realizing that a simple cloak would dramatically underplay the farce. (Ironically, in accepting his post as the last Confederate secretary of war, John C. Breckinridge had said, “Our first duty, gentlemen, is to the soldiers who have been influenced by our arguments and example…. This has been a magnificent epic. In God’s name, let it not terminate in a farce.” Presumably he never saw the article in the Woonsocket Patriot and Rhode-Island State Register three months later, titled “The Great Drama Closes With a Farce.” “The colossal civil war of the last four years, which has riveted the attention of the world,” the article began, “has presented many sad and gloomy aspects; but it has ended so comically … that every loyal man

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H A R P E R ’ S W E E K LY

and woman in America, and our friends in Europe as well, may give vent to their risibles.” And give vent they did. The image of Jefferson Davis in petticoats became a staple of cartoons and sheet music, and to Rebel sympathizers, Barnum’s “Belle of Richmond” piled humiliation on top of pain.³) In July 1865, less than a year after the coordinated arson attempts, Barnum’s Museum did burn down. It is impossible to know if this second fire was related to the Davis exhibit. Certainly the timing is coincidental, and The New York Times, among others, speculated that one of the many “rebel adventurers” prowling the city had probably exacted a fiery revenge. Regardless, the resulting conflagration was a spectacle the likes of which the city had never seen. Barnum’s Museum was unlike anything on earth, a mashup of the invaluable and the worthless, the priggish and the prurient. At its heart was a large lecture hall that drew the city’s well-starched citizens to plays like “The Drunkard” and “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” Having paid their penance and eased their consciences, patrons could then roam the rest of Barnum’s labyrinthine chambers: an ossuary of shark teeth and whale jaws; a portrait gallery and hall of mirrors; a snake tank and aviary; a vast colonial coin collection; three Egyptian mummies; shell cases and butterfly cases; a glassworks with a working glass steam engine; a reliquary of the Revolution, with priceless mementos from the likes of Washington and Greene, Ad-

Animals in Barnum’s Museum attempt to flee from the flames as the building burns around them. Though this illustration is of the 1868 fire that destroyed Barnum’s rebuilt museum, the 1865 blaze produced similar scenes of chaos.

ams and Burr; a display of the knives and pistols of famous murderers; a vast menagerie that included a kangaroo, a rhinoceros, an elephant, a trained seal named Ned that could play the accordion, and the so-called “Happy Family”—an assortment of “‘sassy’ monkeys, subdued dogs, meek rats, [and] fat cats.” There was also an aquaria with 40 tanks, all encased in marble, iron, and glass, with “fish from every ocean, river, and lake,” including an electric eel, turtles of “infinite variety,” and two whales, imported from Labrador at a cost of $7,000, “whose sportive plunges and animated contests of affection afforded constant amusement to hundreds of spectators.”⁴ And then there were the human curiosities, like the “giantess,” Anna Swan, almost seven and a half feet tall; the “Mammoth Queen,” Rosina Richardson, who topped the scales at

815 pounds; and a Union veteran double-amputee, who blithely showed off his stumps for ogling patrons.⁵ As they watched the blaze, some in the press knew what the city was losing. The New York Times granted that Barnum had often deluded an innocent public and was a master practitioner of the humbug. Still, the paper noted, he had assembled a museum that “deserved an honorable place in the front rank of the rare and curious collections of the world. Beside it, there was none in this country worthy of the name.”⁶ This attitude was strangely rare, however. Most of the thousands who watched Barnum’s burn, including the reporters, were more amused than horrified. To the “hoots and halloos” of the crowd, the New York World reported, Barnum’s “human curiosities appeared at the portal. The giantess $ } CONT. ON P. 66

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Battlefield Echoes

The Mud March and the Tyranny of B Y C L AY M O U N T C A S T L E

HE LAST WEEK OF 1862 was not a good one for the Union’s Army of the Potomac, but it was especially disheartening for the army’s commander, Major General Ambrose Burnside. He had just witnessed his men’s sound defeat in front of the Confederate defenses at Fredericksburg, perhaps the Union’s most devastating battlefield setback yet. More than 1,200 of his soldiers had been killed in the fight and nearly 10,000 were wounded, chilling numbers that fueled the growing sense of Union futility in Virginia. In addition, Burnside’s own officers and Union leaders

THE MUD MARCH DATE:

were freely admitting that they had lost confidence in him. Two commanders from Burnside’s VI Corps, Brigadier Generals John Newton and John Cochrane, had even traveled to Washington to express their concerns to President Abraham Lincoln in person. Hearing of Newton and Cochrane’s escapade to the White House, a miffed Burnside felt betrayed and volunteered to resign his command. While Lincoln pondered the proper future course for the Army of the Potomac and its commander, Burnside set to work during the first days of 1863 planning a winter offensive. He proposed a feint to the southeast of Fredericksburg, near Muddy Creek, followed by a crossing of the Rappahannock River farther to the west, at Banks Ford on the lightly guarded left flank of

General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Word of the plan was met with little enthusiasm when it filtered down to his army’s ranks. Still smarting from the bludgeoning they had received at the foot of Marye’s Heights during the Battle of Fredericksburg and wishing that former army commander George B. McClellan was once again in charge, many Union soldiers openly doubted the wisdom of another offensive.¹ Nevertheless, Burnside’s plan was tentatively approved in Washington, and on January 20, 1863, the army prepared to move the following day. That night, however, the heavens opened up, delivering a driving, icy rain that soaked Burnside’s army. The troops endured a miserably sleepless night, descriptions of which found

January 20-24, 1863 LOCATION: En route to Banks Ford, Virginia

COMMANDER:

Ambrose Burnside (USA) QUOTABLE:

“Whatever the movement was designed to be, it was defeated by plain, simple MUD. It should be spelled in the largest capitals, for it was all-powerful at this time.” —Union officer Frederick Lyman Hitchcock

their way into many personal accounts. According to one Union officer, the soldiers “stood up all night with muskets and cartridge boxes held close to their persons … and just took the pelting, pouring rain.” He added, “Misery loves company and misery must have been satisfied that night.”² The next morning, the entire landscape had been transformed: Troops sank to their knees in the thick, unyielding mud, and wagons, carriages, horses, and mules were useless. The Army of the Potomac could not move. As Union officer Francis Donaldson later wrote, “Heavens! What a scene. The mud was hub deep and wagons and artillery were stuck fast all around.”³ Rather than crossing the Rappahannock as planned, Burnside was faced with getting his men and materiel out of the muck. Within a few hours, frustration and chaos had many in the ranks, including staff officers, calling to abandon the plan. Burnside, however, held fast. He trudged up and down his column, encouraging his men as they attempted in vain to get their artillery and wagons moving. By that afternoon, however, it had become clear that no one would be crossing the Rappahannock at Banks Ford or any other point. As one officer noted, “The elements this time, and not the Rebs, defeated the Army of the Potomac.”⁴ As if to underscore the day’s bad fortune, a drunken mass fistfight broke out between two of Burnside’s regiments, the 188th Pennsylvania and the 22nd Massachusetts. A muddied and downcast Burnside went to bed early that evening.⁵

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ny of Bad Weather

The next day, January 22, Burnside ordered the Army of the Potomac back to its former campsites near Falmouth. Thus began the final act of the infamous “Mud March,” one of the war’s more poignantly demoralizing chapters for the Union. The column struggled along the nearly impassable roads, its morale plunging deeper with each sunken step. “The day was gloomy and the men were discouraged,” wrote army surgeon George Stevens. “They straggled badly. Regiments were not to be distinguished. The whole column became an unorganized crowd, pressing toward the old camps.”⁶ It took three full days for the mud-caked army to make it to camp, at which time Burnside was finally, and somewhat mercifully, relieved of command by Lincoln.

Union soldiers struggle to pull a pontoon wagon through muddy conditions, much like those the Army of the Potomac faced during the infamous “Mud March” of January 1863.

OF COURSE, AMBROSE Burnside was just one of the legions of military commanders throughout history who have found themselves at the mercy of Mother Nature. Every conflict, from the American Revolution to current U.S. operations in Afghanistan, has been shaped in some way by weather. While advancements in technology have perhaps enabled warfighters to better deal with the elements, they have not been able to overcome them altogether. The modern-war era is rife with examples. The plans for the Normandy invasion, considered by many the defining Allied operation of WWII, were completely at the whims of stormy conditions in the Atlantic. For weeks, the Allied staff anxiously watched weather forecasts, hopeful that

a break in the poor conditions would allow the operation’s airborne and amphibious assaults. Military meteorologists saw a slight chance for a small window of calm weather on the morning of June 6, 1944, which indeed became one of the most fabled days in American military history. The U.S. Army of the 21st century, equipped with digital battlefield tracking, smart bomb munitions, and unmanned aerial vehicles, still finds itself restricted by inclement weather. Perhaps no clearer example exists than the Allied ground invasion of Iraq in 2003, when a vicious sandstorm stopped the coalition’s drive to Baghdad for three full days. The greatest fighting force in American history could do nothing but hunker down amid the harsh $ } CONT. ON P. 67

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“Grant, Your Cause is Ruin”

PHOTOGRAPH CREDIT HERE

BY M. KEITH HARRIS

Union soldiers tasked with digging trenches outside Petersburg take a break for the camera. OPPOSITE: Private Luther Hart Clapp of the 37th Virginia Infantry, one of the Confederate regiments that battled Grant’s Federals during the siege.

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COMMENTS FROM SOLDIERS in all Civil War armies and theaters make it clear that at least some in the ranks had had enough of war, and

( D I G G E R S ); L I B R A R Y O F C O N G R E S S

as spring 1864 gave way to summer. Heavy fighting in May and the first half of June had cost Robert E. Lee’s army dearly. Suffering as many as 35,000 casualties, including a significant portion of their command structure, Confederates confronted both a staggering disadvantage in manpower as well as an aggressive Union commander, Ulysses S. Grant, who had vowed to fight to the finish and seemed determined to make good his promise.¹ The Army of the Potomac’s recent movements only intensified an urgent situation. By mid-June, Federals had successfully crossed the James River, moving around the Confederate capital at Richmond to lay siege to Petersburg, a transportation hub and important supply and industrial center on the Appomattox River. And although the Rebel army was well entrenched in a formidable defensive position, a siege would almost certainly not bode well for the Confederacy. The fall of Vicksburg, Mississippi, the year before had served as a sobering lesson. Even Lee sensed the dire situation, reportedly remarking to a subordinate that a siege probably meant that only a “mere question of time” stood between an encircling host of Yankees and Confederate demise.² Lee’s troubling foreshadowing ultimately proved correct. For nearly 10 months, Union forces slowly surrounded and repeatedly attacked the Confederates protecting Petersburg, both sides constructing miles of elaborate trenches that only intensified the stalemate. As the months passed and the trench lines grew longer, Lee’s 50,000 men were increasingly stretched thin under deteriorating conditions, including shortages in supplies, a lack of food and proper sanitation, incessant heat, constant shelling, and ever-present threat of enemy attack. Meanwhile, Grant’s well-supplied army continued to grow stronger, eventually increasing to more than twice the size of his opponent’s force. By the spring of 1865, Lee’s men faced a breaking point. Desperate and exhausted, they made a failed attempt to break Grant’s lock on the city in March at Fort Stedman, then suffered a devastating defeat at Five Forks on April 1, prompting Lee to abandon Petersburg. On April 9, the war would be over for the Army of Northern Virginia, with Lee surrendering his army to Grant at Appomattox Court House. A problematic “road to Appomattox” assumption hangs like an

P R E V I O U S S P R E A D : F R A N C I S M I L L E R , T H E P H O T O G R A P H I C H I S T O R Y O F T H E C I V I L WA R

The men of the Army of Northern Virginia faced troubling odds

ominous cloud over much of the scholarship dedicated to the Confederate war effort. This approach supposes that Confederates steadily lost their will to fight beginning in the summer of 1863, when decisive defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg sapped the nascent country’s spirit. As a rule, historians see despondency and a downward trend in morale from that point on.³ Such a viewpoint figures the Petersburg siege as a futile waiting game for Confederates, with the early months in the trenches initiating a long period of stagnation in the East, punctuated occasionally by fleeting moments of hopefulness. James M. McPherson, in his awardwinning history of the war, Battle Cry of Freedom, follows this analytical tack. He suggests that “in the long run … Lee and the South could not withstand a siege” but notes that early in the siege, “time was on the Confederacy’s side,” arguing that soldiers focused on the war in Georgia and the elections in the North rather than their immediate front. In Virginia, McPherson argues, “the Rebels were holding out for time.”⁴ Yet despite the tremendous odds, diaries and correspondence show that many Rebel soldiers expected that victory over the “Yankee hordes” was imminent. They were eager to reignite the fray to their immediate front and destroy the enemy. Enlisted men and officers alike from numerous points in the Confederacy optimistically looked elsewhere for promising news, but also assumed that victories in Virginia would hasten a successful conclusion to the war. Tracing the letters and diaries of a sampling of officers and men from Virginia, Mississippi, Alabama, and Maryland, as well as a few who divulged neither their rank nor state of origin, one can sense this spirit of optimism in the early siege period. Their writings are enthusiastic and hopeful, suggesting that Confederate victories around the Petersburg line will guarantee Rebel success, with Grant’s offensive posturing merely an act of desperation. Of course, men complained incessantly of the heat, the cramped quarters, the constant shelling, and the inactivity. A few of the most disconcerted even turned their grumblings into forecasts of doom. Typical sentiment, however, illustrated steadfast devotion to cause and country. In fact, optimism and high morale pervaded the Rebel lines in the early summer of 1864. Soldiers in the Army of Northern Virginia, despite a number of skulkers, naysayers, and pessimists within the ranks, believed that victory was not only certain, but close at hand.

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L I B R A R Y O F C O N G R E S S (2)

Above and opposite: Images of the Confederate defenses at Petersburg.

Confederate soldiers sweltering in the “ditches” at Petersburg in the early summer of 1864 were no exception. Selections of testimony reveal clear elements of discontent among those in the trenches, and their complaints of extreme hardships are scattered throughout letters and diaries. John Hampden Chamberlayne, a soldier in the 21st Virginia Infantry, complained often of boredom and discomfort. “The army still lies inactive sweltering in the sun & waiting for something to turn up,” he wrote his mother in mid-July, and “the monotony of this hot & dusty life is irksome to the last degree.” Creed Thomas Davis’ wartime diary

is more pessimistic. While serving as a private in the Richmond Howitzers, Davis saw his world crumbling around him. “Indeed our affairs do look gloomy,” he confessed on June 15 as a siege became apparent. Five days later, he admitted that “if [he] had a mind, [he] might desert” to the encircling Yankees. But by June 25 the news was even more disconcerting: “Genl Grant still entrenches himself before Petersburg, he will no doubt capture the place.” In retrospect, Davis’ discouraging forecast seems prophetic.⁵ Reminded of Vicksburg, troubled Confederate nationalists feared a Yankee siege in the East would drain the lifeblood of their nation. John Herbert Claiborne, a surgeon with the 12th Virginia Infantry, worried gravely over Grant’s next move. “I fear [Grant] has sat down for a summer’s siege & if so – oh how wearisome to us all who

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Strange to say whilst I feel some anxiety, I dont really believe that an army double the size now encamped against us – would prevail – You would be struck with the fortitude, confidence & trust depicted upon the countenances of almost every one you meet in the streets … the news this evening is that Grant is moving towards the James with the view of crossing and if true Lee will be forced to make a corresponding move – I would not be surprised is the big fight takes place on the South side and if we are defeated there will be no chance for the Richmond people to escape. Why do I indulge in ifs? How can I forget for a moment that our cause is a righteous one … we have an invincible army – it has never been defeated.

Ten days into the siege, Holloway wrote again, remarking that “you would be surprised to see how composedly the whole people contemplate it – it has not as yet interfered in the slightest degree with the comfort of anyone. I dont believe Grant can take Richmond …

whenever the enemy strikes a blow he suffers and our army is in as good condition as it was at the onset of the campaign.”⁸ The overwhelming optimism was reminiscent of testimony from earlier months, when the Army of Northern Virginia pummeled the Federals during the Overland Campaign—producing one of the lowest points in Union morale both at home and in the ranks. Illustrating a soaring sense of optimism among Confederates, historian Gary W. Gallagher, in an essay on the Wilderness Campaign, suggests Lee’s soldiers saw their role that spring as crucial, and singles out the many soldiers who believed confidently that success in “this part of Virginia” would lead to independence.⁹ This sentiment did not fade as the Overland Campaign reached its climax. Virginia cavalryman Richard Henry Watkins, anticipating the certainty that Grant would next move on the Confederate capital, wrote his wife on June 1, in the midst of battle at Cold Harbor, that “Genl RE Lee has recd large reinforcements. His army is thoroughly organized well equipped well fed in fine spirits & if Grant enters Richmond [Lee] will certainly display more skill and his troops more courage than I think [Grant’s soldiers] possess.” Later that month, with the Petersburg siege well under way, Watkins continued, “tis amazing to know that Grant has thus far been foiled in all of his plans, and thus is nothing to discourage or to lessen the confidence of the Army in Genl Lee.” Insisting that his fellow Confederates were “well & cheerful,” whether campaigning in the field or reporting on a siege, Watkins’ confidence seemed unshakable. Even rumors early in July that Grant was poised for a major assault on Richmond caused little stir in the Army of Northern Virginia. As Watkins announced on July 4, “This was the day fixed by Grant for his grand entry into Richmond. Hardly think he will get there.”¹⁰ Lee’s leadership was often the centerpiece of Confederate confidence. Colonel William Ransom Johnson “Willy” Pegram, brother of Confederate general John Pegram and a talented young artillerist, wrote his sister late in July, “My confidence in Genl Lee still increases, & I think our cause more than ever, under Providence, dependent on him. He should certainly have control of all of operations

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

wait our destiny in this campaign,” he wrote his wife on June 12. “I begin to think most any thing is better than suspense … we must possess or souls in patience.” Lieutenant Thomas Tileston Greene of the 61st Alabama Infantry expressed similar sentiment in a letter home. “In all probability the siege of [Richmond] will be a second Vicksburg. I hope without its fatal termination. The enemy can take the Rail Roads running South and shut us off from the world completely I hope this may not be so but dread it and have reason to fear it.”⁶ Still, while the probability of a siege grew more likely with each passing day in early June, such sentiments foretelling disaster were rare in Confederate diaries and correspondence. The prospects for victory appeared bright to many. John Chamberlayne, while gripped by monotony and discomfort, did not seem to notice that Confederate prospects for victory were in danger. Writing his mother Confederate in May, Chamberlayne assumed, “Mr. Grant General is a thoroughly whipped man.” The passage Jubal A. Early of time only boosted Chamberlayne’s convictions. After an interview with several Federals captured outside Petersburg, he informed those at home that Yankee conscripts had no stomach for further fighting. “Their presence in the army shows that their services are at last low,” he wrote, concluding, “I believe all the danger is taken out of Grant’s people.” Although an enemy far greater in number hemmed in Confederate defenders, Chamberlayne predicted the end of the northern will to fight—reinforcing the notion that numbers alone mattered little to confident Rebels. Soldiers presumed that they would meet Grant’s army with success, no matter where it moved or what it did. Captain Joseph Banks Lyle, an officer in the 5th South Carolina Infantry, wrote in a similar vein shortly before the Confederate army entrenched outside Petersburg: “Three days ago the enemy withdrew from our front and centre, we do not understand this movement, but are quietly awaiting the development of his plans. All are satisfied that Lee will meet and be ready for him wherever he may show himself.”⁷ Confidence pervaded the ranks throughout the first six weeks of the siege. On the very day that the first movements toward a siege took place, James Montgomery Holloway, a surgeon with the 11th Mississippi Infantry, wrote his wife from the Chimborazo Hospital, near Richmond:

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The charred remains of Main Street in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. News that Jubal Early’s Confederates had burned the town in July 1864 buoyed the spirits of many soldiers in the Rebel trenches at Petersburg.

through out the Confederate States. In fact I should like to see him King or Dictator. He is one of the few great men who ever lived, who could be trusted.”¹¹ Some in the Army of Northern Virginia were so confident in their army’s capabilities that any further Federal attack seemed unlikely. For example, Joseph Lyle issued a nonchalant dismissal of the enemy in early July, noting, “no general assault [is] looked for by us.… I think enemy fears to attempt it.” Roughly two weeks later, Lyle noted, “many believe that [Grant] will not attempt an assault upon our lines here, that he will shift operations to some other field & that he is even

now sending off some of his forces.” Lyle’s testimony suggests some soldiers thought Union offenses in the Virginia theater were faltering in the face of impenetrable Rebel defenses. Confident that Lee’s works would ultimately wear their adversary down, John Chamberlayne acknowledged in late July, “Lee is cutting his mark of Grant now … the lines of Petersburg without a mountain gap will make Lee known as Torres Vedras Wellington.”¹²

REPORTS OF THE “THIRD INVASION” of the North were another reason for optimism in the ever-expanding trenches around the Petersburg-Richmond front. After driving Federals under General David Hunter away from Lynchburg in June, General Jubal A. Early

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THE LONG ARM OF LEE; OR, THE HISTORY OF THE ARTILLERY OF THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA

and his army of 15,000 Rebels advanced down the Shenandoah Valley Richmond – forces can be spared from his army to under orders from General Lee to clear the Valley of the enemy and, go so far off and disperse the enemy.” Richard Watif possible, threaten Washington, D.C. With skill and audacity, Early kins agreed, noting “News reached us last evening proceeded to do just that. By early July he had defeated a small that Genl Early is within a short distance of Baltiforce under Union general Lew Wallace at the Battle of Monocacy, more with Ewell’s corps – Hope he will create such maneuvered Hunter’s troops out of the Valley, and positioned his a diversion as will render it necessary for Grant to army within shelling distance of the U.S. capital. Late in the month, change his base to the other side of the Potomac. I Early made forays into Pennsylvania, where troops under his comdon’t like his shelling Petersburg.”¹⁶ mand torched the town of Chambersburg on July 30. Confederate Willy Pegram expressed a similar concern for soldiers in the trenches in and around Petersburg welcomed news relief but was eager to finish the fight in a pitched of Early’s successes with hope. John Herbert Claiborne expressed battle. “You are all … very much elated, I supgreat joy at the possibility that relief from the worsening condipose, by the news from Early. I regard it as a very tions in Petersburg were near. “It is perhaps – this City – the most brilliant & successful ‘raid’ so far; but hope Early disagreeable human habitation that is left upon this sin stricken may meet with no disaster in getting back, after earth,” Claiborne informed his wife in an intense bout of private having penetrated so far into the enemy’s counprotest. “Yet we are cheerful & determined and you here no word of try. I should have been better satisfied if he had complaint. I hope Early’s advance into Pennsylvania act as a deviadone less, in the way he has done, provided he tion…& the war may soon be carried to their own doors again.”¹³ had drawn Grant away from here. Not that I think Soldiers in the Petersburg trenches followed Early’s advances Richmond or Petersburg in any danger, but I with extreme interest, entering details in their diaries as the drama would like to have this kind of warfare broken up, unfolded, particularly as reported by the northern press. “Great and to get to field fighting once more.”¹⁷ excitement in Yankeedom,” Joseph Lyle professed in his diary Optimism continued to run rampant through while hopefully observing, “some of the enemy’s forces have been the Army of Northern Virginia during Early’s sent away from our front” to assist in the defense of Washington. Shenandoah Valley campaign. Artillerist Peter Between July 9 and 26, Lyle detailed Early’s victories and anticiGuerrant grew excitable in mid-July. “We heard a pated possible attacks on northern cities. “Early defeats the enemy lady say a short two hours ago that she saw a paunder Lew Wallace at Monocacy Bridge, new Frederick,” he noted per of yesterday which said Genl Early had liband cheerfully continued, “our forces are said to be pushing erated the prisoners … at Point Lookout. towards Baltimore & Washington.” He also reported on I hope it may be true.” Rumors spread widespread joy among the citizens of Petersburg. A of even grander accomplishments brief note on July 14 described a “visit [to] the city” in the North. “I heard a gentlewhere he happily concluded, “all exultant – our man who had see an extra say forces within 3 miles of Washington – many believe that Washington had fallen into that Early will endeavor to take the City.”¹⁴ our hands & that Genl Early Others similarly welcomed the glorious news had mounted all of his men & from Maryland. Maryland native Lieutenant Samwas recrossing the Potomac. uel Johnson McCullough of the 2nd Maryland InI do not know whether it was fantry noted in his diary on July 12 that “a Corps or not, I am anxious to see the of Grant’s forces is supposed to have left our front papers.”¹⁸ & more are thought to be going. They all predict Rumors of Early’s exploits another Pennsylvania campaign.” Perhaps expecting far exceeded his actions, however. Colonel William Ransom Johnson “Willy” Pegram to join his fellow Marylanders fighting with General Wishful thinking inspired a stream Early, and certainly hoping for relief from the constant of reports that Early had captured enemy shelling, McCullough shared rosy expectations for Baltimore or Washington. James Hollothe overall war effort. “The news from Early is of the most exciting way learned in mid-July, for example, that “A rucharacter,” he acknowledged, “the ‘Sentinel Extra’ of this afternoon mor is current to day that Baltimore is occupied reporting him to have completely routed the enemy at Manasas by our forces and that a large body of the Rebel bridge with great loss.… Early is reported marching on Baltimore.”¹⁵ sympathizers have organized and give to our asHope that Early’s exploits would offer relief to those under siege sistance.” The dubious report brought out a vinconditions appeared frequently in letters home. James Holloway’s let- dictive strain in Holloway’s writing. Hoping that ter of July 8 to his wife typified this sentiment, announcing, “There is “every [person] in the North could be made to feel exciting news from Grant’s Army to night – it is said that he has left the terror [of war],” he watched the news with the front at Petersburg – where he has gone is not yet known – all great anticipation.¹⁹ agree that he has gone somewhere.” Later he wrote this reassuring The day after describing the terror in the news: “There is a rumor to night that Early – with Ewell’s Corps has North, Holloway envisioned the potential of the whipped the Yankees at Martinsburg… this seems very reliable and invasion. “The most exciting rumor is however, if true is cheering news. It looks rather strange that whilst Grant – that Early is marching in Washington City with according to Northern accounts has Lee hemmed up and starving in Ewell’s Corps & Cavalry. Would it not be a rich

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Union general James B. McPherson (on brown horse) is killed during the fighting for Atlanta. Confederates at Petersburg welcomed rumors of early Rebel successes against William Tecumseh Sherman’s army.

joke if he could slip into the Capital & burn it? The moral effect would be crushing to the prospects of the North – and would – I think, tend to shorten the war.” Others grew equally excited by hearsay reports. On July 15, Samuel McCullough recorded in his diary, “The news from Maryland is of a more exciting character than ever, the Confederates being reported to be in possession of Baltimore. Fifteen thousand men are also said to have surrendered. Grant still remains inactive & everything is quite save the occasional booming of a gun.”²⁰ Other soldiers viewed engagements in the Shenandoah Valley, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and other nearby areas with skepticism, or cautious optimism at best. After learning of Early’s “endeavors to take [Washington] City,” Joseph Lyle reflected that he could not “believe such a thing.” Although he held fast to his “great confidence,” he nevertheless envisioned Early’s rumored attack far too grand to be realistic.²¹ And on July 15, the usually optimistic Richard Watkins confessed to his wife, “All sorts of sensation rumor and extravagant uproar about Genl Early’s Maryland raid. Much is expected from him by some but I very much fear that he will accomplish but little. Genl Early has heretofore been slow & I reckon will continue so to be.” A day later, after relating the excitement of a possible capture of Baltimore, James Holloway admitted, “I dont believe one word of it – Maryland is too well

subdued for any organized demonstration on the part of our friends.” Finally, after his expectations had risen only days before, John Claiborne began to question the good that would come of an invasion of the North. “Early is carrying everything before him and it rejoices us to know that he is meting out to them the same that they measure for us. I confess however that I doubt the wisdom of the diversion ... we have not the men to lose.” Even those fighting with Early in the Valley grew suspect. Writing from Winchester on July 14, Thomas Greene informed his sister, “If all the news we hear in this little village be true the War is over, but I only believe half and think that part slightly exaggerated, though I always hope for the best.” Better judgment informed many soldiers in the trenches around Petersburg. Although many grew optimistic with news of victories, they ultimately understood that the burden of victory lay on the army around Petersburg.²² Coinciding expressions of confidence and skepticism also sprang from battles then raging around Atlanta. Many in the Petersburg trenches looked expectantly to Confederate generals Joseph E. Johnston and John Bell Hood; indeed, some thought the war might very well conclude victoriously in Georgia. Late in July, Holloway revealed his feelings on the battles outside of Atlanta soon after the more aggressive Hood replaced the more defensive-minded Johnston as commander of the Confederate Army of Tennessee and faced off against General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Union force. “The excitement is intense this evening over the news from Hood … the complete success in that direction will go farther to end the war than any thing else…. Now – with Grant in his preset position and Sherman retreating Lincoln’s chance for re-election will be much lessened and his newest call for 800,000 men will remain unanswered.” The same day, John Claiborne similarly directed his hopes

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south of Petersburg. Describing the death of Union general James B. McPherson during the fighting at Atlanta and the “enemy’s retreat in confusion,” he professed, “if Sherman can be smashed out there we shall be relieved here. I await the result with anxiety.”²³ Willy Pegram, on the other hand, saw the struggle for Atlanta as potentially problematic and severely criticized the decisions of Confederate president Jefferson Davis. “The removal of Genl. Johnston has caused great indignation against the President in this army. If he is removed, because he refused holding Atlanta, I am very glad of it. He can certainly be better sacrificed than Atlanta. If he is removed from the influence of Bragg, and prejudice of the President, my confidence in the latter will be entirely lost. I shall not only cease to admire him, but to believe him not a patriot. No man who would sacrifice a General, & thereby the good of the cause, to his prejudice, can be a patriot.” Placing similar emphasis on the fight in Atlanta, Joseph John Hampden Chamberlayne, Lyle claimed, “All looking August 3, 1864 to Ga with great anxiety – complete success there for us, will give us peace – disaster will give us four years more of war.” When writing of Early’s successes, Lyle feared misplaced enthusiasm. “The wrong ox has been gored – fear that Atlanta is doomed.”²⁴ Yet only a few in the Petersburg trenches truly believed the war would end in Georgia. Most believed it would be the Army of Northern Virginia that would deal the final blow against the invading Federals. On August 3, John Chamberlayne wrote home requesting information on the campaign to their south. “I hope you will write me fully of matters. If they will whip Sherman, we will finish the war here – for Grant is at a dead lock.” James Peter Williams, a soldier in the Confederate trenches relating war news to his aunt, seemed thankful that the army had finally settled into position for what he expected to be a decisive battle. Earlier in March, he had confessed, “I wish the war could be carried out without so much moving & marching about,” and by late June he gladly proclaimed, “I think everything is going as well as we could wish & have no doubt that this campaign will wind up this cruel war.”²⁵ The feeling that Grant was simply leading his men to slaughter suggested a sense of confidence among many Confederate soldiers in the trenches. Rebels had repulsed repeated Union assaults throughout June, including a costly series between June 15 and June 18 with over 11,000 Union casualties. Private Joseph D. Stapp, serving with the 41st Alabama Infantry, wrote his mother from Petersburg on July 8 about the futility of further Union attacks. “The yankies are all on the East side of this place, our trenches and theirs, are in sight of each other & the pickets are very near they have charged our works several times but have been repulsed every time.” When Samuel McCullough anticipated heavy action in mid-June, he illustrated great confidence in the Army of Northern Virginia. On June 20 he informed an acquaintance, “Grant’s main army is in our front & we will probably soon have some heavy fighting. Our loss is not over 1000 since the new base of operations, whilst the Yankees have lost at least 4 or 5 times as many. The men are all in good spirits and ready for the fight.”²⁶ It was July 30’s Battle of the Crater that convinced many Confederates—especially those who saw it as an act of Union despera-

“I hope you will write me fully of matters. If they will whip Sherman, we will finish the war here – for Grant is at a dead lock.”

tion—that victory was close at hand. Earlier in the month, Pennsylvania miners under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Pleasants dug an underground shaft toward a salient in the Confederate line occupied by a regiment of South Carolinians. Pleasants packed the shaft with enough explosives to blow a hole in the line, whereby Union forces could exploit the breach and thus render Confederate defenses untenable. The explosion on July 30, while horrifically destructive, did little to forward the Union cause. Last-minute changes in the order of battle—white soldiers replaced a division of United States Colored Troops trained especially for the attack—and poor leadership contributed to a gruesome slaughter. Confederates under the command of William Mahone quickly repulsed attacking Federals and sealed the gap caused by the explosion.²⁷ In reality, both Grant and the nominal commander of the Army of the Potomac, George Gordon Meade, had seen little strategic value in Pleasants’ plan and lost interest during the mine’s construction. Lee’s Confederates, however, saw a last-ditch, futile effort by Grant that resulted in a resounding Confederate victory over a force several times their size. Union casualties in this attack, including killed, wounded, and missing, numbered nearly 3,800; the Confederates lost fewer than half this number. While many soldiers only noted the slaughter of Union troops, others described the scene in vivid detail, including their interpretation of the events as a prelude to imminent Confederate victory. Private Matthew Wood Allen entered into his diary on July 30 a typical, if somewhat lackluster, description of the actions at the Crater. “The Yankees sprung a mine and charged through our works but were driven back with great slaughter. A great many prisoners were captured, among them some Negroes.”²⁸ John Chamberlayne, however, wrote his mother soon after the explosion and expanded: Their whole force was concentrated & that days attempt was doubtless the grand affair. There was a gloomy look out for some two hours after which we clear them out retaking the guns, killing upwards of 700 outright; wounding many more & taking 11 to 1200 prisoners. A brilliant & important victory achieved by 1/3 of our force & with comparatively light loss: a month of mining, his whole force concentrated, & his own time & place selected enabled him only to lose from 4500 to 5000 men & gain nothing – for we hold every foot of ground – & they have not advanced one inch.²⁹

In purely dismissive style, Richard Henry Dulany of Loudoun County, Virginia, an officer in the Laurel Brigade, wrote from General Thomas Lafayette Rosser’s headquarters on August 3, “The yanks made a desperate assault upon Petersburg on Saturday morning … blowing up our advance earthworks. After the explosion the negroes led

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A dead Confederate soldier, killed during the struggle for Petersburg.

the attack crying ‘no quarter, no quarter.’ A gentleman told Genl Lee that the enemy had blown up a battery and had captured our outer works and he did not even get up out of his chair but simply said to one of Beauregard’s staff, go and tell Genl Beauregard to drive those people out of our works. It is not hard to imagine such calmness, and such perfect confidence in troops.”³⁰ Rebels also perceived the use of black troops in the attack as an indication that the Union was desperate. Thomas A. Smith, a soldier corresponding with his sister throughout the Petersburg siege, observed: Such is the character of the enemy with whom we have to deal – bringing our own slaves against us – surely there will be a day of retribution (justice)

for such vandalism when they will own and acknowledge the justice of their punishment. The Yankees are still exercising their digging propensities – a deserter came in yesterday and revealed the secret of other places being mined by the enemy – but little can be made of this mode of operation, as Mr. Grant has found out by his last trial.³¹

Willy Pegram seemingly pitied the black troops but saw their demise as a boon to Confederate soldiers. “It seems cruel to murder them in cold blood, but I think the men who did it had very good cause for doing so…. I have always said that I wished the enemy would bring some negroes against this army. I am convinced, since Saturday’s fight, that it has a splendid effect on the men.” He continues to describe how the victory had boosted Confederate morale. “On the whole, Saturday was, through the merciful kindness of an all & ever merciful God, a very brilliant day to us. The enemy’s loss was, at the lowest figures, three to our one, but the moral $ } CONT. ON P. 68

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COURTESY OF ANTIETAM NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD

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Painting the Bloodiest Day

By the time of the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, professional artist turned Union army captain JAMES HOPE had been in the service for over a year, the veteran of a dozen engagements at the head of the 2nd Vermont Infantry’s Company B. On the field but out of the fight—his regiment was held in reserve—the 43-year-old Scotsman took to his sketchbook as the battle unfolded. After the war, these sketches would be the basis for the five magisterial Antietam paintings pictured here, which capture the epic struggle by packing several hours of combat into each scene.

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Captain James Hope (left) had been ill in the months preceding the fight at Antietam. He contracted malaria during the previous summer’s Peninsula Campaign and suffered from dysentery during the army’s march into Maryland. After Antietam, rheumatism of the knees added to Hope’s afflictions, which forced him to leave the army in December 1862. He returned home to Vermont, determined to paint his war experiences. PREVIOUS PAGES: In this early-morning view, looking north along the

Hagerstown Turnpike, Confederate artillerists from Colonel Stephen D. Lee’s battalion work their guns as lines of Union infantry from Major General John Sedgwick’s division of the Army of the Potomac’s II Corps advance toward the forested area known as the West Woods, the location of the Rebel army’s left flank. (In truth, by the time Sedgwick’s men made their advance, Lee’s gunners had abandoned the position depicted here.) At left is the Dunker Church, the small white structure around which much of the fighting swirled that morning and that would later serve as a temporary aid station for wounded Confederates.

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COURTESY OF ANTIETAM NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD

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This scene, looking east toward the Roulette Farm (center), highlights several key late-morning and early-afternoon events. At far left, the buildings of the nearby Mumma Farm burn, set afire by Confederate troops to prevent their use as cover by Union sharpshooters. In the center left, Union commander George McClellan rides with his staff on his lone visit (around 2:30 p.m.) to the field during the battle. At right, Union soldiers advance over rolling terrain toward an old sunken farm lane located in the center of the Confederate lines and occupied by Rebel troops. The subsequent hours-long struggle for control of the position led to over 5,000 combined casualties and spawned the roadâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new name: Bloody Lane.

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A small force of Georgia troops positioned on the opposite bank’s heights fires upon advancing Union soldiers of Major General Ambrose Burnside’s corps as they attempt to cross one of the stone bridges that spanned Antietam Creek. While Union troops eventually did cross (after repeated attempts) the 12-foot-wide structure, which would later bear their commander’s name, the setback cost them several valuable hours. Burnside (shown here, at center, riding along the creek with members of his staff) then further delayed the advance by allowing his men to rest and replenish their supplies. As a result, Confederate reinforcements were able to reach the field in time to help turn back Burnside’s subsequent attack on the Army of Northern Virginia’s right flank.

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COURTESY OF ANTIETAM NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD

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At about 5 p.m., some four hours after the fighting had ended at Bloody Lane (in the foreground), Major Thomas Hyde of the 7th Maine Infantry received ill-conceived orders to take his men through the cornfield of the Piper Farm and attack the Rebel troops there whose fire was harassing Union gunners to the north. In this scene, waiting Confederate infantry and artillery cut up the outnumbered, outgunned, and unsupported band of Union soldiers as they advance; in less than 30 minutes, more than half of the 7th suffered casualties. After the failed attack, the regiment returned to its original position, where Hyde (who would be awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions) remarked, â&#x20AC;&#x153;We lay down and all were crying like children.â&#x20AC;?

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Bodies litter the ground in and around Bloody Lane. By the time the day’s fighting ended, over 23,000 men—roughly one of every four Union and one of every three Confederate troops engaged—were casualties, earning Antietam its status as the bloodiest single-day battle in American history.

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COURTESY OF THE ARMY ART COLLECTION, U.S. ARMY CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY

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SOURCES: Paul G. Zeller, The Second Vermont Volunteer Infantry

Regiment, 1861-1865 (Jefferson, NC, 2002). With thanks to the Antietam National Battlefieldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Ted Alexander and Keith Snyder, as well as Sarah Forgey, curator of the Army Art Collection at the U.S. Center for Military History, for their assistance.

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In this sketch by Edwin Forbes, a group of recently rounded-up Union stragglers marches under guard to army headquarters.

PHOTOGRAPH CREDIT HERE

The L

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e Lost Boys Although they faced serious punishment or being labeled as shirkers (or worse), soldiers on both sides regularly took temporary and unauthorized leaves from their armiesâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and often for good reason.

PHOTOGRAPH CREDIT HERE

BY KATHRYN SHIVELY MEIER

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vegetables, and medicinal herbs; and they constructed or located shelters to protect against the elements. All of these techniques could prompt straggling from the ranks. Despite the grumbling of top-level commanders over absenteeism, the men who straggled for self-care were in better health and enjoyed higher morale than those who stayed with the ranks. Handerson’s quest eventually led him to a church. “Opening the door carefully and peering within, a novel sight met my eye. Most of the pews were already occupied by soldiers who had fled to the sacred building for shelter, each of them having preempted his own position and spread his blanket upon the seat.” To add to the gathering’s comfort, “A large fire had been started in the stove, upon the surface of which numerous slices of bacon were cooking and diffusing an appetizing odor throughout the building.” Handerson was quick to assure that “in the morning, refreshed and strengthened by a comfortable night’s rest, I returned to my command, where, so far as I know, I had not been missed.”⁴ Only in his memoirs Henry E. Handerson did Handerson admit to his transgression. He omitted the incident from his letters, which speaks to the difficulty in analyzing Civil War straggling. Many soldiers were reticent about the practice for fear of appearing cowardly or incurring embarrassing punishment. And although historians have given more attention to deserters—and often conflated them with stragglers—the two groups often had different motivations.⁵ Locating absenteeism requires a close reading of the most mundane of eyewitness accounts and serious attention to memoirs. This piece focuses on the 1862 Peninsula and Shenandoah Valley campaigns, unusually rich sources of personal accounts. The armies involved experienced some of the most pervasive straggling of the war, likely because they occurred just before two factors that decreased the practice: vast improvements in the medical departments of both the Union and Confederacy, and discipline crackdowns that made it more dangerous.

STRAGGLING WAS DEFINED AS being absent from camp or roll call without leave, as every enlisted

PREVIOUS SPREAD: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

HENRY E. HANDERSON WAS a southerner in spirit if not by birth. Originally from Ohio, he ventured to Tennessee in 1852 to work as a tutor, and then in 1859 to Louisiana, where he tried his hand at a New Orleans medical school until his money soon ran out. When civil war demanded that even the itinerant choose his geographical allegiances, Handerson joined the Stafford Guards, which was shortly incorporated into the 9th Louisiana Infantry, stationed in Virginia. The private quickly found soldiering to be his most challenging occupation yet. In his memoir, he recalled an incident from March 11, 1862: “The rain had fallen almost incessantly during our march, and our camps … were converted into shallow lakes by the standing water, which prevented comfortable rest by night or day. After a week or more of such experience, thoroughly worn out by want of sleep, I determined one rainy evening to slip quietly out of camp and seek some shelter where I might rest comfortably for one night at least.”¹ Though treading lightly in his memoirs for the sake of his readers (his children), Handerson’s euphemism is clear: The private was straggling. He continued, “I felt desperate enough to face almost anything for the chance of securing shelter.”² Handerson knew that if caught, he could face a number of humiliating punishments as a straggler or, worse, be falsely accused of desertion, court-martialed, and executed. But desperation was born of experience. The previous October, he had suffered a prolonged bout of typhoid fever, resulting in weeks at a Charlottesville hospital and subsequent convalescence in a civilian home. By March, he was back with his unit but was serving as his captain’s bookkeeper to preserve his feeble strength. A 19th-century understanding about what causes disease likely prompted Handerson’s risky pursuit of shelter. Conventional belief among Civil War common soldiers was that nature—weather, miasmas, the southern climate, seasonal shifts, flora, and fauna—could instigate everything from fevers to dysentery to homesickness. Before scientific breakthroughs including germ theory and the concept of vector-borne disease became widely accepted in the 1870s and 1880s, disease was poorly understood. Average Americans, many of whom were farmers, tended to rely upon their senses and experiences to inform their opinions on health. They saw illness more often in the hot and humid American South, and especially during summer and fall. Miasma theory, which held that swamp air caused fever and diarrhea, and widespread domestic manuals such as Gunn’s Domestic Medicine reinforced the idea that diseases came from the environment and encouraged herbal, do-ityourself home remedies. These understandings had been popular before the war, but flourished among the men who now camped, marched, and fought solely outdoors in city-sized armies with few support systems.³ To protect themselves, soldiers developed self-care habits that often prevented and sometimes treated ailments. For instance, they sought out clean water for drinking or washing their clothes and bodies; they creatively eradicated insects; they foraged for fruits,

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man who left the ranks needed a officers at the regimental level, responsible for pass from his commander.⁶ Unenforcement, were more often willing to look the like deserters, the straggling solother way.⁸ Early on, potential penalties included dier’s intent was to return to his being forced to “ride a wooden horse, wear a barunit after a temporary absence, rel shirt,” dig latrines, or bury dead horses.⁹ which could range from a few Jackson censured one of his own, Brigadier hours to a night or even weeks. General Charles S. Winder, for relying too heavily During Major General Thomas on the painful practice of bucking and gagging— “Stonewall” Jackson’s Shenanbinding the wrists together and slipping them over doah Valley Campaign, Conthe knees, while gagging the mouth with a bayonet. federate troops made famous And yet Jackson himself had four deserters executthe “French Furlough,” illicit ed on July 18, some of whom argued that they had sojourns at their nearby homes only been straggling.¹⁰ that could last up to four weeks. By December, Confederate General Order Longer stays were risky, as they 137 institutionalized a slew of new punishments smacked of permanence, and for stragglers and deserters, ranging from strapConfederate surgeon general desertion was a capital offense. Samuel P. Moore ping a 12-pound iron to one’s legs, forfeiting a year And yet, straggling was one of of pay, and receiving lashes.¹¹ The United States the most common disciplinary infractions of the order in August was less specific on punishment but required comwar, with absenteeism reaching 20 percent in manders of regiments and companies to march continually in the some of Jackson’s regiments in early 1862. In early rear collecting absentees. There was only one excuse for a laggard: July, locals on the Virginia Peninsula lambasted “written permit from the medical officer of the regiment that they Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia for its are too sick to perform the march, and therefore must ride in ambu“hordes of stragglers.” President Lincoln, meanlances.”¹² The order put the walking sick in considerable peril. while, warned Lee’s opponent, General George B. Despite warnings from the top, men like Handerson continued McClellan, “45,000 of your Army [are] still alive, to risk punishment and humiliation to straggle because the mediand not with it. I believe half, or two thirds of cal establishment gave them little choice. As the U.S. order suggestthem are fit for duty to-day…. How can they be got ed, surgeons were instructed to be skeptical of sickness as potento you? and how can they be prevented from gettial malingering. Likewise, Confederate surgeon general Samuel P. ting away in such numbers for the future?”⁷ Moore warned his surgeons “that the pains of Chronic Rheumatism As 1862 progressed, General Jackson and are easily feigned and that Medical officers should be very careful other Virginia-based commanders became increas- in their examinations of such cases, and approve of the discharge of ingly intolerant of absenteeism. Army regulasuch as show in their person, evident marks of this disease.”¹³ tions stipulated no particular chastisement, and No doubt, some soldiers feigned illness to escape their duties; so officers punished as they saw fit. But volunteer however, many soldiers complained they were turned away from

F R A N C I S M I L L E R , T H E P H O T O G R A P H I C H I S T O R Y O F T H E C I V I L WA R

( M O O R E ); J O H N D . B I L L I N G S , H A R D TAC K A N D C O F F E E .

The Price of Staggling

Soldiers who straggled from the ranks faced a wide range of possible punishments, some more severe than others. Below are three of the more common penalties employed by the armies on both sides to discipline stragglers.

Bucking and gagging

Riding a wooden horse

Wearing the wooden overcoat

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morning sick call without care. Some slow-developing diseases, such as scurvy, which took at least three months to manifest, were marked by a gradual onslaught of debilitating aches and pains in addition to depressed spirits. Men who did receive care often balked at the attention of medical staff. As Confederate surgeon William Taylor explained, “Diagnosis was rapidly made, usually by intuition, and treatment was with such drugs as we chanced to have in the knap-sack and were handiest to obtain.” For instance, one day he had a ball of blue mass (a preparation of mercury and often licorice, flowers, and sugar) in one pocket and a ball of opium in the other. He asked the soldiers how their bowels fared. If they had diarrhea, he would administer the opium; if constipated, the mercury.¹⁴ Soldiers on both sides were well aware of the inadequacies of this haphazard care. When Private Aaron E. Bachman of the 1st Pennsylvania took sick with “swamp fever,” he chided that the surgeon “gave me ten or fifteen grains of quinine and a lump of bluemass as big as a cherry, and required me to take it in his presence.” As a result, “The intense heat, the fever, and the doctor’s ‘dope’ fixed me completely, so I gave my blacksmith’s tools away and was taken to the hospital.” By the time he reached the hospital, he was almost dead from exposure.¹⁵ If Bachman did have malaria,

which is likely given his symptoms, he had actually received one of the only effective treatments then available: quinine. Even so, he mistrusted the surgeon. Sergeant Henry Keiser, also a Pennsylvanian, similarly complained of the quality of treatment. On June 22, 1862, his surgeon gave him “two pills and a dose of vil … which made me very sick all day.”¹⁶ As much as the medicines inspired loathing, soldiers dreaded more being removed from their comrades to the cold, impersonal hospitals. Union chaplain A. M. Stewart explained, “A serious business, usually, it is to be sick at home, where all its unnumbered sympathies unite to comfort, to soothe, and to relieve that member…. A very different matter, however, is it to become sick in camp, and forced to enter [the] hospital.”¹⁷ Lewis Shepard, a musician in the 7th Massachusetts, succumbed to that fate and lay in the hospital for over two weeks, “not getting any better.” Like many in his circumstances, “I have been in hopes that the Authorities would discharge me or send

L I B R A R Y O F C O N G R E S S (2)

Ailing Union soldiers pose for the camera from their beds at Harewood General Hospital in Washington, D.C. Soldiers on both sides, however, were often distrustful of official medical treatment and reluctant to be separated from their comrades. Many routinely opted to care for themselves when ill.

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me home till I got fit for service again. One thing negligence of duty.²⁴ These diminished spirits were considered simis certain I cannot get well here.”¹⁸ Alabama inply poor morale—and morale was seen as vital to army effectiveness. fantryman W. H. Bird explained how he almost The soldiers, therefore, had to analyze and counteract the reaperished at a Danville hospital during a smallsons for declining morale on their own. Many men connected low pox outbreak. The senior surgeon’s order was to spirits to environmental impediments—particularly the weather. “close the doors and not let a one go to the army For instance, New York artillerist George Perkins wrote on June that we have here. Better to let this 80 die than 4, 1862, “Drizzly and rainy all day. Longed very much for home.” On to send them back to camps and the disease they July 3, he explained, “Rained all last night. Felt sad and thought of carry with them, kill, maybe 10,000 others.”¹⁹ home.”²⁵ Lieutenant Colonel David Strother, a Confederate cavalryQuarantining the hospital may have saved lives, man, concurred: “Warm rain. Have suffered all day with dullness but to Bird, the incident served as a cruel remind- and discouragement arising doubtless from physical exhaustion. er that soldiers were mere cogs in a massive, indif- The wet weather and the fact of our retreat to this place seem to ferent medical machine. Chaplain Stewart put it have cowed and irritated everybody.”²⁶ Other men became desuccinctly: “Against entering an hospital, there pressed by their own continual illnesses or their ailing comrades. usually exists in the mind of the soldier a strong Private Jacob Blackington of the 19th Massachusetts Infantry repugnance, even a manifest horror. Nor is this, by grew so weary of losing friends, including his own brother, that he any means, an unnatural feeling.”²⁰ preferred to be captured by the enemy. He lamented to his sister, Another problem with army health care was “Once more your letter found me in good health but in low spirits. I simply the lack of vital medicines, staff, and space. am very lonesome. There is but a few men [left] in the regiment.”²⁷ Private Thomas I. Taylor of the 49th Pennsylvania Without measures in place to protect mental and physical health, Infantry suffered a severe and persistent cough men took advantage of lax army discipline to bolster their own wellfor months and noted feeling “weak & nervous my being. Some soldiers preemptively straggled when conditions became mind troubled about home,” revealing how sicktoo much to endure. Private E. Kendall Jenkins of the 1st Massachuness led to low spirits. When he attempted to get setts Heavy Artillery told of an instance in August when “Hundreds help, he reported: “went to Doctors had no cough ‘fell out’ some died. Glass [thermometer] told 106 in shade.”²⁸ When medicine have to get along Best I can.”²¹ One solthe dust grew intolerable on the road near Malvern Hill, North Carodier bitterly concluded, “all the falt is now in the lina private Kinchen Carpenter wrote, “Many of the soldiers stayed doctors for when we get sick they do not know behind, lay down in the woods and did not get with their command how to take care of us they have no medicine nor until next day and, I, one of them. Under strict military rules this they do not intend to take care of us.”²² While was an offense and no doubt many an officer would have put some the Rebel medical department has rightly been hardship on us for doing so.”²⁹ Private Randolph McKim, a Confeddescribed as lacking crucial medications such as erate from Maryland, agreed that there were certain environmental quinine and possessing limited staff, Major Gencircumstances that necessitated straggling. In March, when weather eral John C. Frémont’s experience in the Shenanwas worst in the Shenandoah Valley, he described, “When we had no doah Valley proved the Union could suffer equally tents and when the weather was so inclement and our exposure so unfrom logistical meltdown. In April and May, usually severe, we would slip off to some private house whenever opFrémont complained that his men were deprived portunity offered and leave could be obtained, and sometimes without of tents and food because of the quartermaster leave. Only in this way, I think, could we have endured the ordeal.”³⁰ department’s “want of funds,” while the sick and Other soldiers fell ill first and then sought comfort or care wounded (“upward of 1,000”) were “brought along away from the ranks. In Confederate soldier William C. McClelmainly in army wagons, owing to lan’s case, it was mud that undid want of ambulances. The hospihis fragile health. “We had 10 “A Rainy Day on Picket” by Edwin Forbes. Inclement weather—and the tals were full, and I was deficient miles to march and a Bad Road. decline in morale it could produce— in the necessary medicines, as We started in a few minutes it often contributed to straggling. well as the requisite number of was so dark. We could not see surgeons to give attendance.”²³ our hands before us and then I This is to say nothing of would fall into a mud hole up to mental health, which both sides my knees.” As a result, “I have did little to address. Union and a very violent cold some fever.” Confederate medical departHe cast off restraint and made ments monitored only the most for the nearest civilian quarsevere mental infirmities—nosters. An industrious southerner talgia (potentially fatal homewelcomed McClellan and fellow sickness), mania, insanity, and absentees into his home for the suicide—but many men suffered price of $1 each, providing “a from frequent homesickness and glorious nights rest” on the cardepression and the accompanypet.³¹ Though still a bit unwell ing behaviors of alcoholism or when he returned to the ranks

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the next morning, McClellan was glad to have spent the height of his fever in front of a roaring fire. Other soldiers fell back to regain sanity amid mental despair. Henry Keiser described three separate instances of straggling after environmental hardships on the Peninsula. “At daylight it commended raining and continued most all day. I ‘played out’ and could not keep up with the regiment.”³² It is clear from his diary that “played out” means more than physical exhaustion—it was a common phrase among soldiers for mental fatigue. Lieutenant Charles Haydon of the 2nd Michigan Infantry, an officer on the Peninsula responsible for keeping men like Keiser in the ranks, found it increasingly difficult to justify exhorting the men in their duties. “It is no exaggeration to say that I was many times in the main road in mud to my knees. It required great exertion to urge on the men & keep them in the ranks.”³³ Besides viewing straggling as an opportunity to escape environmental hardships, soldiers also straggled in pursuit of self-care techniques that improved their health and spirits. Much of this care was preventive in nature, and therefore superior to the remedial treatments offered by military medicine. For instance, locating clean water drew men from the ranks. Private Ephraim A. Wood of the 13th Massachusetts Infantry casually mentioned slipping out after inspection for a bath. Wood’s Shenandoah Valley diary records baths every two to four days, far more often than his comrades. As a result, he remained in distinctly high morale, referring to the blazing temperatures as

merely “warm.” Considering weather was the most cited cause of poor health and spirits in the Valley, straggling was vital to Wood’s wellbeing.³⁴ Private William Stilwell, a Georgian, sought fresh water to clean his clothes. Life in the Army of Northern Virginia provided few opportunities for this necessary sanitary measure, as he described to his wife in a letter. “Molly, you would have been surprised to have seen me and Bob McDonald washing out shorts and drawers the other day. We did not have any clothes but what we had on for eight or ten days and we went about half mile from camp, pulled off stark naked and went out to wash like good fellows, dried and put them on again. We are very good hands at the business.”³⁵ Other men wandered off in search of a fresh drink. New York cavalryman David Ashley and companions surreptitiously laid eyes upon some black civilians tending to their cows. “We waited for [them] to milk and all took a good drink and left.”³⁶ Some soldiers hinted that they straggled to forage. Rations were dangerously short, particularly when it came to fruits and vegetables, and scurvy cases climaxed in July of 1862.³⁷ Sergeant Ashley wrote boldly of “Foraging $ } CONT. ON P. 70

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Union soldiers bathing in the North Anna River, Virginia. The allure of fresh water—to drink, to bathe, or to wash clothes—often pulled men from the ranks.

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ENDNOTES 1

Henry E. Handerson, Yankee in Gray: The Civil War Memoirs of Henry E. Handerson with a Selection of his Wartime Letters, ed. Clyde Lottride Cummer (Cleveland, 1962), 39.

Ibid.

Conevery Bolton Valencius, The Health of the Country: How American Settlers Understood Themselves and Their Land (New York, 2002) investigates the connections antebellum Americans made between environment and physical health, while Daniel Drake, “Selected Papers: Medical Topography. From the Natural and Statistical View, or Picture of Cincinnati and the Miami Country” Eclectic Repertory and Analytical Review, Medical and Philosophical 6 (April 1816): 137 provides a contemporary example of the perceived impacts of nature on mental health; John C. Gunn, Gunn’s Domestic Medicine, new revised (1830; reprint, New York, 1860).

Handerson, Yankee in Gray, 39-40.

For examples of historians who have focused more on desertion and often conflated it with straggling, see Mark A. Weitz, More Damning than Slaughter: Desertion in the Confederate Army (Lincoln, 2005) and Ella Lonn, Desertion during the Civil War (1928; reprint, Lincoln, 1998). The few exceptions to this trend are Peter S. Carmichael, “So Far From God and So Close to Stonewall Jackson: The Executions of Three Shenandoah Valley Soldiers,” The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 111 (2003); Keith Bohannon, “Dirty, Ragged, and Ill-Provided For: Confederate Logistical Problems in the 1862 Maryland Campaign and Their Solutions,” in Gary W. Gallagher, ed., The Antietam Campaign (Chapel Hill, 1999); and Joseph Harsh Taken at the Flood: Robert E. Lee and Confederate Strategy in the Maryland Campaign of 1862 (Kent, OH, 1999).

18 Lewis C. Shepard diary, June 4, 1862 entry, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, MA (hereafter cited as MHS). 19 William H. Bird memoir, 4, USAMHI. 20 Stewart, Camp, March and Battle-field, 74. 21 Thomas I. Taylor diary, February 14 and April 12, 1862 entries, HCWRTCollGACColl, USAMHI. 22 Oscar Bailey to mother, August 10, 1861, Bailey Family Letters, 18421866, MHS. 23 OR, Ser. 1, Vol. 12, 1:6, 25. 24 For examples of official military categories of mental unfitness, see the Confederate “Reports of Sick and Wounded,” Hunter Holmes McGuire Collection, Eleanor S. Brockenbrough Library, Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia; and the Union U.S. War Department, The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion 6 vols. (Washington, GPO, 1870-88), vol. 1, pt. 2. 25 George Perkins, Three Years a Soldier: The Diary and Newspaper Correspondence of Private George Perkins, Sixth New York Independent Battery, 1861-1864, ed. Richard N. Griffin (Knoxville, 2006), 48, 50. 26 David Hunter Strother, A Virginia Yankee in the Civil War: The Diaries of David Hunter Strother, ed. Cecil D. Eby Jr. (Chapel Hill, 1961), 35. 27 Jacob Blackington to sister, July 21, 1862, BlackingtonColl, USAMHI. 28 E. Kendall Jenkins diary, August 5, 1862 entry, E. Kendall Jenkins Diaries, 1862-1879, MHS.

John D. Billings, Hardtack and Coffee: The Unwritten Story of Army Life (1887; reprint, Lincoln, 1993), 144.

29 Kinchen J. Carpenter, War Diary of Kinchen Jahu Carpenter: Company I Fiftieth North Carolina Regiment War between the States 1861-5, ed. Julie Carpenter Williams (Rutherford, NC, 1955), 8.

Carmichael, “So Far From God,” 43; Weitz, More Damning than Slaughter, 42; Abraham Lincoln, The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed., Roy P. Basler, 9 vols. (New Brunswick, NJ, 1953), 5:323.

30 Randolph McKim, A Soldier’s Recollections: Leaves from the Diary of a Young Confederate with an Oration on the Motives and Aims of the Soldiers of the South (New York, 1910), 78-9.

For instance, see John O. Casler, Four years in the Stonewall Brigade, 2nd ed. (1906; reprint, Columbia, SC, 2005), 101.

Casler, Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade, 50; Billings, Hardtack and Coffee, 145.

31 William Cowan McClellan, Welcome the Hour of Conflict: William Cowan McClellan and the 9th Alabama, ed. John C. Carter (Tuscloosa, 2007), 156.

10 Carmichael, “So Far From God,” 52, 56. 11 Confederate States of America, General Orders, Confederate States of America, Army of Northern Virginia (Richmond: Confederate States of America, 1862), No. 137, Dec, 28, 1862. 12 U.S. War Department, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 129 vols. (Washington, D.C., 1880-1901), Ser. 1, Vol. 12, 2:52 (hereafter cited as OR). 13 John Hunter Harrison to Surgeon General’s Office, “From your Quarterly Report of Sick and Wounded for Quarter Ending June 30, 1862,” July 28, 1862, Papers of John Hunter Harrison 1842-1888, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA (hereafter cited as UVA). 14 W. H. Taylor, “Some Experiences of a Confederate Surgeon,” in College of Physicians of Philadelphia, Transactions, 28 (1906): 105, 115. 15 Aaron E. Bachman memoir, 10, HCWRTColl, U. S. Army Military Institute, Carlisle, PA (hereafter cited as USAMHI). 16 Henry Keiser, Diary of Henry Keiser of Lykens, Pennsylvania: Company G, 95th and 96th Pennsylvania Volunteers, War of the Rebellion, 1891 to 1865, typescript, 29, USAMHI. 17 Rev. A. M. Stewart, Camp, March and Battle-field; on Three Years and a Half with the Army of the Potomac (Philadelphia, 1865), 74.

32 Keiser, Diary of Henry Keiser, 30, USAMHI. 33 Charles B. Haydon, For Country, Cause & Leader: The Civil War Journal of Charles B. Haydon, ed. Stephen W. Sears (New York, 1993), 231. 34 Ephraim A. Wood diary, July 5, 1862 entry, Journal of Private Ephraim A. Wood, UVA. Temperatures soared into the 90s in July; see Robert K. Krick, Civil War Weather in Virginia (Tuscaloosa, 2007), 65. 35 William R. Stilwell, The Stilwell Letters: A Georgian in Longstreet’s Corps, Army of Northern Virginia, ed. Ronald H. Moseley (Macon, GA, 2002), 10. 36 David C. Ashley to parents, May 31, 1862, Ashley Family - CWMiscColl, USAMHI. 37 For evidence of Union scurvy, see OR, Ser. 1, Vol. 11, 3:228-9, 350; for evidence of Confederate scurvy, see changes in ration ledgers (J. S. Melvin, Capt. and Adjutant Commissary of Subsistence, “The Subsistence Ledger 1862 Sept. 1-1863 July 31,” Confederate States of America, 2nd Virginia, Stonewall Brigade, Boston Athenaeum, Boston, MA). 38 Blackington to sister, June 24, 1862, BlackingtonColl, USAMHI; Ashley to parents, May 31, 1862, Ashley Family - CWMiscColl, USAMHI. 39 Lorenzo N. Pratt to father, April 10, 1862, CWMiscColl, USAMHI. 40 Carmichael, “So Close to God,” 65. 41 Handerson, Yankee in Gray, 40.

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WONDER

ASTONISHMENT &

DE LIGH T

THE ART OF

DECEPTION From famous names to moonlighting soldiers, practitioners of magic had a (sleight of) hand in lifting civilian and military spirits during the war—particularly in the South. BY EDWARD T. COTHAM JR.

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made excellent floating theaters in cities along the country’s many navigable waterways, particularly the vast artery of commerce that was the Mississippi River. Typical of the advertisements for these performers was this one from a June 1859 issue of the Yazoo City Democrat, a Mississippi newspaper:

THE AMERICAN APPETITE FOR magic was already well established by the time Houdini stepped into the world. No doubt many small-time amateurs practiced their craft in towns throughout the country. But arguably the first American-born magician to gain national recognition was Richard Potter. Born in 1783 to a British tax collector and a black servant, Potter became well known first in his native New England and increasingly beyond for his performances, which featured magic, hypnosis, and ventriloquism. Potter performed for audiences up and down the East Coast, as far south as Alabama. In Potter’s time—he died in 1835—it was difficult for a magician to make a living. Cities were small and far apart; the journeys between them were long and arrival times unpredictable. Under these circumstances, no magician, even a talented one like Potter, could develop a commercially viable tour of theatrical venues.¹ But those conditions would soon change—rapidly and for the better. As the Civil War approached, the U.S. population rose dramatically. From 1840 to 1850 the American census recorded a population increase of more than 35 percent, and then another 35 percent from 1850 to 1860. During this same 20-year period, the number of people living in urban areas more than tripled.² Meanwhile, these urban dwellers were becoming increasingly connected by a web of sophisticated transportation that included railroads and steam-powered vessels. This was good news for magicians, who could finally put together a successful tour. Between 1850 and 1874, magical entertainment found a mass American audience. Magicians continued to perform in large cities, including New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Charleston, and New Orleans, but they also found new audiences in the small towns that they could now easily reach. And while a magician might still appear as one act in a variety show, the craft was popular enough for some performers to create and star in their own full evening shows.³ Sometimes transportation itself became the stage. Steamboats

Steamer Banjo, At Yazoo City Three Days! Monday, June 27th, Tuesday, June 28th, Wednesday, June 29th. M. Leo Taylor, The Great Oriental Magician And Ventriloquist, Will appear on board the Steamer Banjo, as above, introducing a great variety of his wonderful experiments such as have been witnessed with wonder, delight and astonishment, by many thousands in the various cities of the Union. In connection with M. Leo Taylor, a Complete Dramatic Company will appear, introducing a variety of Farces, Musical Burlettas, &c., with the appropriate scenery, costumes, &c. Admission to the combined entertainments, 50 cents. Children and servants, 25 cents. Doors open at 2 and 7 o’clock. Curtain rises half hour later.⁴

By 1860, the number of magicians touring the South had increased dramatically, and nearly every town along the Mississippi hosted magicians on a regular basis.

WORD SOON REACHED EUROPE that the New World held enthusiastic magic audiences. Probably the first great European magician to heed the call was “Signor Blitz.” Born in England in 1810 as Antonio Van Zandt, Signor Blitz came to America in 1834 and became well known as a magician and a ventriloquist. In the 1850s he toured extensively through the South, where his practical jokes made him famous. In Vicksburg, Mississippi, for example, Signor Blitz Blitz told a man that his horses had been grumbling about a lack of food and water. When the keeper denied this claim, Blitz threw his voice to make the horses complain directly to the man, who was so convinced by the ventriloquism that he angrily confronted the horses and accused them of lying.⁵ Blitz enjoyed his tour of the South but was greatly troubled by the presence and prevalence of slavery. When the Civil War broke out, Blitz supported the Union cause, giving more than 150 performances to wounded U.S. soldiers in the Philadelphia area. On one occasion in 1863, Blitz performed

PREVIOUS SPREAD: NINETEENTH CENTURY GAMES & SPORTING GOODS-AMERICAN HISTORICAL C ATA L O G C O L L E C T I O N ; F I F T Y Y E A R S I N T H E M AG I C C I R C L E ; H E R M A N N T H E M AG I C I A N

OBERT E. LEE. ULYSSES S. Grant. Stonewall Jackson. William Tecumseh Sherman. During the Civil War, these were household names. So too were Signor Blitz, John Henry Anderson, and Mago Del Mage. Their fame, however, was not won directing soldiers on the field of battle, but in performing illusions on the stage. Most histories of magical performance in America start their narratives in the decades after the Civil War. Events like the birth of Harry Houdini in 1874, the death of famed magician John Henry Anderson in that same year, or the publication, in 1876, of Modern Magic, a particularly influential book on the art, are usually used to mark the beginning of what came to be known as the “Golden Age of American Magic.” Yet the preceding decades were arguably among the most interesting and important for magic in America—not just for the spread of the craft, but for the role magicians played in helping citizens and soldiers alike find a brief escape from the bloody conflict that gripped the nation.

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for a group of children—one of whom turned out to be the son of President Abraham Lincoln. As the festivities concluded, the president reportedly asked, “How many children have you made happy, Signor Blitz?” Blitz acknowledged that the number was probably in the thousands or even tens of thousands. Lincoln shook his head and observed, “While I fear that I have made thousands and tens of thousands unhappy.”⁶ Hearing of Signor Blitz’s success in the American South, several Carl Hermann other European magicians decided to make the voyage and try their luck. Three of them became particularly famous as the war approached. Carl (Compars) Hermann, part of a German family dynasty of successful magicians, arrived in New Orleans in the spring of 1861. The advertisements for Hermann’s shows at the St. Charles Theater were grandiose indeed:

T H E L I B R A R Y C O M PA N Y O F P H I L A D E L P H I A

GRAND PERFORMANCE OF NECROMANCY— The Management respectfully informs the public that he has, at great expense, effected an engagement for Six Nights Only, with PROF. HERMANN, the most wonderful Prestidigitator the world has ever known, performing his extraordinary Feats of Necromancy without any machinery, mechanical assistance or confederates.⁷

Although Hermann enjoyed lucrative performances in New Orleans, he also saw war looming. As the first shots of the war were being fired, Hermann was in the process of moving his show to the North, eventually opening a long and successful run that would include a performance for President Lincoln in 1862.⁸ While Hermann was performing in New Orleans, so too was an English magician named Robert Heller. Heller launched his New Orleans show after a well-received tour of Texas, where he had entertained his audience with sleight of hand, juggling, comedy, and piano music. Heller’s New Orleans show received excellent reviews; local reporters were particularly impressed with his “second sight,” a mentalism demonstration in which Heller pretended to read an audience member’s mind. Like Hermann, Heller did not need second sight to anticipate the effect that war would have on performance opportunities in the South. He too left the region, embarking instead on an extended tour of the North and West.⁹ As Hermann and Heller were moving their shows northward, An 1863 poster another European magician was for a Signor preparing to move his show to Blitz show near the South. John Henry AnderPhiladelphia.

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I had made arrangements to visit every Southern State … and with that view had sent an agent with [hand]bills and all other et ceteras necessary for such a campaign, and he had taken halls and other places for my performances in all towns as far south as New Orleans. So strong was the feeling against the North that bills with my portrait, which were posted all over the city, were blackened and defaced, and I received various notices to the effect that no “Wizards of the North” were wanted in that section of the Union.… Under these circumstances, considering the excited and unsettled state of popular feeling, I found myself compelled to throw up the whole engagements I had made in the Southern States, and as a consequence, to lose all the property in the shape of bills, lithographs and so on, which I had forwarded to every city of the South, and which was represented by a printing bill of 5,000 dollars.¹¹

In early 1861, Anderson’s relocated “Great Wizard of the North” tour opened in New York. Yet his bad luck continued. In 1862, Anderson staged a burlesque show called “The Wizard’s Tempest,” a satire of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. To appeal to the patriotism of his New York audiences, Anderson rewrote the wizard Prospero’s speech to include a prophecy that Union general George B. McClellan would soon take Richmond and hang Confederate president Jefferson Davis. No sooner had the show opened than newspapers reported Robert E. Lee’s army chasing McClellan out of the Virginia Peninsula. The production was a financial disaster and Anderson turned to touring through Canada to try and recover his losses. Eventually, Anderson decided that the war made it impossible to profit from his grand show in North America. In December 1862 the Great Wizard of the

North left his creditors with promissory notes and sailed for England.¹²

NOT ALL MAGICIANS WHO practiced their craft during the Civil War were as well known as Blitz, Hermann, Heller, and Anderson. And, unlike their more prominent counterparts, many travelled extensively through the Confederate states, braving the inherent dangers of war zones to bring entertainment and comfort to southern soldiers and families. The magicians who toured the wartime South recognized that their audiences were looking for something escapist to take their minds off the war. In the spring of 1862, a company of minstrels known as the Campbell Troupe toured Tennessee with the musical assistance of the Conklin Brothers. The conclusion of each show was “The Great Trick Spectacle of the Chinese Magicians.” A Nashville newspaper reported that: The repeatedly well-filled houses, and the irrepressible delight of all who see and hear the Campbells, are triumphs only a little less than a chain of victories in the science of war. The feast of vocal and instrumental music … are infallible remedies for those afflicted with the “melancholies.” In addition to their usual attractions, the Campbells will produce, each night this week, the highly interesting trick spectacle of the “Chinese magician,” which has been adapted to the stage in a very costly manner. It is said to be an admirable extravaganza, abounding in wit, humor, John Henry and striking pantomimic effects. Anderson Go and witness it!¹³

It is understandable that the audiences in Nashville might have the “melancholies.” Their city had been captured by Federal troops several months earlier, making it the first Confederate capital to fall into Union hands. This illustrates an everyday issue for magicians who toured the Confederacy: maneuvering through and between opposing armies to reach an audience. Sometimes, as in Nashville, that meant finding a way through battle lines to get to the next booking. Many of the magicians who plied their trade in the southern states were multi-talented, enhancing their performances with singing, juggling, celebrity imitations, or even bird calls. Professor Van Robinson, who toured Virginia in June 1864 while dodging the Union army, was also a talented singer

COURTESY OF ALLISTER HARDIMAN

son, known as “The Great Wizard of the North” because he had been born in Scotland, arrived in New York in 1860 to find the city gripped in a banking and financial crisis. Despite the difficult economy, Anderson had a successful run in New York, partly because he was a great actor as well as a magician. But as 1860 drew to a close, Anderson and his agent boldly planned an extended tour of the South, one of the few places Anderson had not yet played in his remarkable career.¹⁰ It is hard to imagine bigger mistakes in timing and publicity. During the height of the secession crisis, Anderson blanketed southern towns with promotions proclaiming that “The Great Wizard of the North” was coming with the show that had captivated audiences in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. By the time he arrived at his first stop in Richmond, Virginia, toward the end of 1860, he found that his proposed tour was in shambles—and that continuing would be not only unprofitable but potentially dangerous. As Anderson later noted:

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M AG I C I A N ’ S O W N B O O K

who advertised “a series of As“Magic lantern” shows, such as the tounding Necromantic Tricks one depicted here, and Feats of Magic” as well as captivated audienc“Songs and Ballads.”¹⁴ A Mr. “C. es during the Civil War years. Matthews” arrived in Nashville only a month after the Campbell Troupe’s performance with “Feats of Magic and Ventriloquism.” His production was popular enough that he was called back for an encore performance.¹⁵ Still other magicians performed entire variety shows by themselves. One of the most popular forms of wartime theatrical entertainment was the “magic lantern,”

which projected hand-painted glass slides onto a screen. Considered the precursor to silent movies, magic lantern shows often incorporated moving images, live music, and dramatic narration. As this description of an early 1861 performance in St. Louis by some Texas artists illustrates, the productions could be very elaborate: The lovers of the beautiful were treated to a surfeit well-nigh last evening, at the St. Louis Opera House, as the magic exhibition unfolded the long and surpassingly brilliant display. There is a large curtain with a circle of black around it—the inside white—which is first wet, and then come from the stereoscope and polaroscope by some to us unknown science, a succession of pictures of Kings, Captains, Actors, Actresses, Candidates for President, Temples, Cities, Shipping, a Ship and Houses on fire, the Seasons coming and going, Waterfalls, snow-storms, and all the wonders of a modern dioramic display…. Go, See, Hear and Wonder!¹⁶

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MAGICIANS SPREAD WORD OF their acts through newspaper advertisements and handbills, and some were particularly adept at building anticipation for their shows. “Mago Del Mage,” a magician who traveled extensively in Georgia in 1862 and 1863, billed himself as “the Great Southern Wizard,” playing off the negative publicity that had halted John Henry Anderson’s “Great Wizard of the North” tour. Mago toured the state just as Union forces seized Fort Pulaski and threatened the coastline. He also appeared to eager crowds in the interior as Union forces captured Atlanta and William Tecumseh Sherman launched his infamous March to the Sea. It is hard to imagine how Mago continued performing amid such grand distractions, but one secret to his success was his uncanny gift for marketing. He often dedicated his proceeds to local charities, such as an Augusta three-night run where he promised to devote the first night’s proceeds to benefit sick and wounded Confederate soldiers. Local newspapers dutifully reported the donations and encouraged their readers to support the civic-minded performer and his subsequent (paying) shows.²⁰ Sometimes the charities that Mago supported were unusual, as this April 1862 newspaper account attests: Mago Del Mage, the magician, continues his exhibition nightly to good houses, and whilst putting money in his own pocket he is not unmindful of the country. An exhibition will be given Saturday afternoon specially for the entertainment of children, the proceeds to be turned over to the ladies’ gunboat fund.²¹

Mago’s savvy advertising was notable in two other ways. In addition to his sleight-of-hand performance (which reviewers called

a “grand display of skill and dexterity”), Mago advertised a demonstration of “Mesmerism.” It is difficult from the scanty descriptions of Mago’s act to tell exactly what mesmerism involved, but it was probably what we today would call hypnotism. Named for Austrian physician Franz Anton Mesmer, who practiced in the late 1700s, mesmerism originated in scientific research designed to develop a way to use “animal magnetism” to heal the sick.²² Second, Mago’s advertising listed the full range of his show’s ticket prices. For his evening show of “Magic, Mirth and Mystery” in Savannah in February 1863, Mago advertised three levels of tickets. “Dress Circle and Parquette” was $1 per person. “Family Circle” tickets, slightly farther from the stage, cost 50 cents. “Colored Gallery” tickets cost 25 cents, suggesting that at least for shows produced by Mago Del Mage, the audience included slaves and freedmen.²³

MANY MAGICIANS WHO OPERATED in the midst of the conflict were private citizens, sometimes deftly working their way between the contending armies. But some were soldiers—including Gus Rich, a Confederate soldier who eventually became famous as “The Wizard of the Blue Ridge.” Born William Augustus Reich in 1833, Rich grew up in a Moravian community in Salem, North Carolina. His father trained him as a tinsmith, a profession he continued to practice at least part time the rest of his life. In the 1850s, Rich encountered a magician named Everett at a local hotel and began learning sleight of hand. Before long, the young wizard was performing benefit engagements for charities along with the local brass band.²⁴ When the Civil War broke out and the Confederacy resorted to conscription, Gus Rich joined the 26th North Carolina Infantry, where he served as both resident magician and bass drummer. The 26th’s regimental band became one of the most famous bands in the Confederacy. It was also attached to a solid fighting unit: The 26th was one of the largest regiments in Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, serving with distinction throughout the war, including during the Seven Days Battles, the Overland Campaign, and the siege of Petersburg. At Gettysburg, the regiment earned the unenviable distinction of suffering more casualties than any other regiment engaged, losing some 85 percent of its men during the three-day struggle.²⁵ Between campaigns and battles, Rich and

N I N E T E E N T H C E N T U R Y G A M E S & S P O R T I N G G O O D S - A M E R I C A N H I S T O R I C A L C ATA L O G C O L L E C T I O N

During the conflict, magic lantern performances often became a sort of Civil War newsreel. In April 1862, for example, Monti De Rosecruz (“Monti, the Great Southern Scenic Magician”) toured through Georgia with a program that opened with “Tragic and Battle Scenes” and followed with a portrayal of the great “Naval Victory of the Virginia,” a simulation of the combat between the CSS Virginia and the USS Monitor that had taken place only a month earlier.¹⁷ Despite the extra features they packed into their shows, these men remained magicians first. Mr. C. Matthews’ show included a theatrical production called “The Drunkard—or The Fallen Saved!” For the second night of his performance, Matthews promised the local newspaper that he would amputate a man’s nose. This might sound like a thinly veiled attempt to capitalize on the audience’s fascination with wartime wounds and amputations, but the trick had a long pedigree that preceded the war by centuries.¹⁸ Going even further, a performer called “Simone the Conjuror” boasted to a newspaper in 1864 that he would cut off his own head, “an operation,” the newspaper enthusiastically promised, that “will be peculiarly gratifying to the public.”¹⁹

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C O L L E C T I O N O F T H E WA C H O V I A H I S T O R I C A L S O C I E T Y ; P H O T O G R A P H C O U R T E S Y O F O L D S A L E M M U S E U M S & G A R D E N S

the band toured the surrounding countryside, performing for other military units and war-weary southerners in towns across Virginia and North Carolina. Frequently, these performances took the form of benefit concerts where the proceeds went to wounded soldiers and the hospitals that treated them. “The concerts were a decided success,” noted a local paper after a North Carolina performance. “The music was undoubtedly the best we have ever heard discoursed by this well known band.”²⁶ Although the band provided musical interludes, the star of these shows was Rich. His act, featuring what one advertisement called “Dixie Magic,” amazed and amused the large crowds. One of his most famous tricks was the “Egg Bag,” in which he would pull several eggs from what seemed to be an empty bag, followed by a live chicken. His audiences delighted in the fun. “Gus Rich, the Southern Magician, contributed much to the evening’s entertainment,” noted a reviewer of one of his many performances, “with his ‘quaint, cute and comical’ sayings and doings. He does not deal in ordinary slight of hand tricks, but per-

forms many of the surprising feats which have won a name for Prof. Anderson, Sig. Blitz, Everett and others. Indeed, there is a vein of originality in many of his deceptions, not often met with.”²⁷ Rich was also extremely popular among the officers of the Army of Northern Virginia. Near the end of the war, when it became apparent that it was only a matter of time before Lee army’s would surrender or be captured, one of the generals gave Rich leave to take his trunk of magic props home to keep it out of the enemy’s hands. The effects and props from that trunk survive today in the collection of the Old Salem Museum in North Carolina.²⁸ On the day before the final surrender of Lee’s army, Rich and the surviving members of the 26th North Carolina band were captured by Federal forces and herded into a cattle pen. They feared being shot—but no such fate awaited them. When the “old man” (as the band members affectionately called General Lee) surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, Rich was paroled and allowed to find his way back to Salem, where he had a highly successful career as a performing magician, dying in 1917 at the age of 84.²⁹ During one of his wartime shows, Gus Rich noticed a blind man in the audience. As he performed his standard sleight-of-hand routines he was surprised to observe the blind man’s $ } CONT. ON P. 70 The 26th North Carolina’s regimental band, of which Gus Rich (not pictured) was a member. OPPOSITE: A “nose amputation” demonstrated.

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ESSENTIAL READING ON THE MARYLAND CAMPAIGN OF 1862 BRIAN MATTHEW JORDAN CAMPAIGN AND BATTLE studies remain one of the most productive subfields of Civil War history. Dozens of new titles appear each year, announcing new interpretations of engagements large and small. Until very recently, however, the Maryland Campaign of 1862 was something of a historiographic backwater. Before the 1990s, only one major, synthetic treatment of the campaign appeared in print. This volume, James V. Murfin’s The Gleam of Bayonets: The Battle of Antietam and Robert E. Lee’s

Maryland Campaign of 1862 (1965), remains the essential introduction for aspiring students of Harpers Ferry, South Mountain, and Antietam. Though approaching its semicentennial, Murfin’s scintillating prose effectively conveys strategic aims and tactical details, while simultaneously situating the campaign in its political and diplomatic context. Only the maps in this book could be improved upon, and as such, readers will want to have a copy of expert Civil War cartographer Bradley M. Gottfried’s freshly released The Maps of Antietam: An Atlas of the Antietam (Sharpsburg) Campaign (2012) close at hand. Gottfried’s maps, enhanced with handy battle summaries, track the movements of the opposing armies day by day and hour by hour, often down to the regimental level. After familiarizing themselves with the campaign, readers will want to turn to the study that heralded the revival of Antietam historiography, the late George Mason Univer-

Kurz & Allison’s 1888 depiction of the Battle of Antietam.

sity professor Joseph L. Harsh’s Taken at the Flood: Robert E. Lee and Confederate Strategy in the Maryland Campaign of 1862 (1999). Many scholars rightly consider this 672-page book to be the single most important study of the Maryland Campaign. Harsh concludes that Lee’s northward thrust was a “calculated offensive” designed to capitalize on the Army of Northern Virginia’s impressive string of battlefield victories in the spring of 1862. Working from the conclusions of his earlier study, Confederate Tide Rising: Robert E. Lee and the Making of Southern Strategy, 1861-1862 (1998), the judicious and deeply analytical narrative begins with the September 1, 1862, Battle of Chantilly (Ox Hill), Virginia, and parses Lee’s decision making and grand strategy through the aftermath of Antietam. That the Kent State University Press opted to publish a companion volume, Sounding the Shallows (2000), consisting entirely of Harsh’s source material and research questions, is a testa-

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Books & Authors

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ment to the depth and breadth of the author’s skill as a military historian. Fortunately for the field, Thomas Clemens, who completed his graduate studies under Harsh, has taken up his mentor’s mantle. Clemens has spent the last decade producing the definitive, annotated edition of Ezra Carman’s nearly 2,000-page manuscript history of the Maryland Campaign, which for years waited in the stacks of the Library of Congress for a diligent scholar. Carman, a veteran of Antietam who later worked as a government clerk, was haunted by the events of that day. He passed much of his postwar life researching the battle by corresponding with legions of Union and Confederate veterans who offered up clarifying details. Carman later became the “historical expert” for the Antietam Battlefield Board and was tasked with writing the text for the castiron wayside tablets familiar to any modern Antietam visitor. Thanks to Clemens, the fruits of Carman’s labor are now widely

accessible in a handsome book, The Maryland Campaign of 1862, Volume 1: South Mountain (2011), with the second volume to be published later this year. Like Clemens, historian Kathleen Ernst has also rescued reams of unpublished source material from undeserved obscurity. The result of her work in the lateral files of the Antietam National Battlefield library, Too Afraid To Cry: Maryland Civilians in the Antietam Campaign (1997), is a moving portrait of unassuming civilians caught in the maelstrom of war. While Antietam is routinely cited as the war’s “bloodiest day,” for Ernst’s civilians, the battle at Sharpsburg, which littered their innocent farm lanes with stiffened, bullet-riddled corpses, was just the beginning of the protracted agony of survival. Ernst takes readers into the civilians’ cellars and attics, inside crowded hospitals and amputation stations, and to the rows of fresh graves hollowed out by the burial crews who labored tirelessly in the grisly wake of the fight. The human consequences of the Maryland Campaign also have an expert guide in William A. Frassanito, whose moving narration in Antietam: The

Photographic Legacy of America’s Bloodiest Day (1978) helps readers to understand the numb astonishment that would have met wartime photographer Alexander Gardner’s images, the first ever of dead soldiers on an American battlefield. Readers of this magazine are likely familiar with Frassanito’s work on photographs of the Gettysburg battlefield. The approach here is similar. Frassanito determines the precise location of Gardner’s photographs and juxtaposes modern views. The book, along with Ethan Rafuse’s nifty guide, Antietam, South Mountain & Harpers Ferry (2008), is a must for battlefield stompers. As these titles attest, the past 15 years have been a productive time for historians of the Maryland Campaign of 1862. In addition to these volumes, at least four book-length treatments of the long-neglected battles of South Mountain and Shepherdstown have appeared in as many years. Scholars are also rediscovering various facets of the battle at Antietam. Marion V. Armstrong’s Unfurl Those Colors! McClellan, Sumner, & the Second Army Corps in the Antietam Campaign (2008), for example, provides readers with an “operational” view of the Antietam battlefield, from the perspective of Union major general Edwin Vose Sumner’s II Corps. As historians continue to seek out intersections between the battlefield and home front, turn greater attention to the war’s deadly and destructive character, and remind readers of the significance of emancipation, the Maryland Campaign will provide

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fertile ground for new generations of scholars to till. is the author of Unholy Sabbath: The Battle of South Mountain in History and Memory (2012), which was a selection of the History Book Club. He lives in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where he is finishing his doctoral degree in history and writing a book on the lives of Union veterans. BRIAN MATTHEW JORDAN

MUSINGS OF A CIVIL WAR BIBLIOPHILE: THE VARIETIES OF PRIMARY CIVIL WAR EVIDENCE ROBERT K. KRICK EVERYONE INTERESTED in the American Civil War has grappled with the quandaries inherent in using primary evidence—accounts in the words of actors in that great and awful drama. Eager to learn what happened, what it was like to live the events of 150 years ago, we avidly search for diaries, letters, and memoirs written by participants. Inarguably, eyewitness accounts written near the time of the events that they describe afford the most credibility. The passage of time steadily vitiates power and accuracy. In some instances, late-life writings lose most, or all, of their value.

Official reports and official correspondence constitute the foundation for almost any study of military events. Those documents have been published in gratifying volume. Using them of course requires judicious analysis of individual perspectives and prejudices, but their immediacy and focus makes official sources priceless. This essay does not propose discussing that body of evidence, however; instead, it will contemplate the several varieties of unofficial narratives. Since no one can question the value of early authorship over later musings, the search for the best primary sources on all things to do with the Civil War should be eminently simple. Why not simply embrace the rubric “The earlier the better” as a guiding light? That simple, and apparently efficient, equation does not stand up well because the vast majority of contemporary writing does not talk about what we want to hear, at least not in much volume. Letters written from stillsmoldering battlefields sometimes provide invaluable information on historic events witnessed by their authors. More often—in fact, most of the time—they report on personal survival then switch quickly to quotidian family topics. A common refrain in such correspondence says something on the order of: “You will have read all about the battle in the papers before you receive this.” Eugene Blackford, a smart and literate Virginian who taught school before and after the war, composed long and in-

telligent letters—but he did not always discuss important events around him. In a spring 1862 letter he summarized a sensibility that shaped his correspondence. “I am not fond of writing about military matters,” Blackford wrote. “I wish when writing home to talk & hear solely of home matters.” Richard Henry Brooks marched into Pennsylvania in 1863 with the 51st Georgia Infantry of Paul J. Semmes’ brigade. At Gettysburg, the regiment suffered heavy loss in the maelstrom in The Wheatfield and its environs, and their general went down with a mortal wound. In two letters home during July, running to more than 800 words, Brooks only alluded to the battle by asking his wife “to send me another braid of your hair for I lost the one I had in the fight in Pennsylvania.” Diaries, recorded privately and intended only for an intimate audience, do not suffer from the external orientation of letters, of course. A narrow focus on a single day suggests an ideal forum for important information. Sometimes that works out well for posterity, but far more often diaries succumb to their salient defect: brevity. Lieutenant O.H.P. Hite of the 33rd Virginia fought at the tip of the famous Mule Shoe salient at Spotsylvania on May 12, 1864. A powerful Federal assault loomed out of the fog that morning, virtually destroyed the renowned Stonewall Brigade, and shattered the center of the Confederate army’s lines. “Perry” Hite’s diary entry described one of his unit’s defining moments in a scant two

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dozen words: “Heavy fighting cannonading this morning on our right. Yankees taken our works but we retaken them again, most desperate fight of the war, last 10 oclock P.M.” The terse narrative resonates with bitter exhaustion and anxiety, echoing across the decades—but contains nothing at all not universally known. The one species of unofficial contemporary evidence that almost always proves valuable is what might be called a journal. A 19th-century writer might have used “journal” as synonymous with “diary,” though perhaps suggesting a hint of more size and formality than a tiny pocket diary. For the purposes of this essay, consider a “journal” to be a set of contemporary entries, made only intermittently but within a reasonably short period after the events being described. A soldier who paused occasionally in the aftermath of great events to record what seemed

In this sketch by Alfred R. Waud, Union and Confederate troops vie for control of the part of the Rebel trench line at Spotsylvania known as the Mule Shoe salient. Confederate diarist O.H.P. Hite would characterize the fighting as the “most desperate” of the war.

important, after a bit of retrospection, wrote vastly more significant material than a scribbler who jotted something every day. Most of the latter’s entries will include weather and camp minutiae. The thoughtful summary with a tincture of perspective usually focuses on importance, rather than immediacy. The great majority of Civil War readers pore over neither diaries, nor letters, nor journals, but instead memoirs. By definition, those originated after the fact, often very long after. The time lapse sometimes eroded their merits: Memory blurred; repeated discussion of famous and controversial events with other veterans tinged recollections; politics and individual issues not even imagined in the 1860s leaked into narratives. Despite those drawbacks and in spite of our unmistakable preferences, memoirs often matter more than their antique

cousins. They simply offer more volume and detail. Sitting down to record the important, dramatic, vivid events of the most exciting era of one’s life yields results far more focused than brief daily jottings. The best memoirs expand upon contemporary notes, including diaries and letters, to produce what have come to be recognized as Civil War classics. Bookish essays in this space in future issues will examine more closely each of the four genres of unofficial primary testimony—letters, diaries, journals, and memoirs—citing some classic examples, published and unpublished, and applauding the good ones and damning the bad ones. ROBERT K. KRICK,

chief historian (retired) at the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, has written 20 books on the Civil War, including Stonewall Jackson at Cedar Mountain (2001) and The Smoothbore Volley That Doomed the Confederacy (2004).

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CASUALTIES OF WAR CONTINUED FROM P. 23

came first, scared out of half her growth, and then [still] a giantess, holding aloft her dabbled skirts to the exposure of a foot like one of Drake’s Plantation rocks, and in her tremendous fist clasping a crown of glass diamonds and emeralds. Her huge eyes were almost colorless with terror; she went down Ann Street like one of the chimneys promenading.” That promenading chimney had just lost everything: her possessions, her money, her livelihood.⁷ “The fat woman next appeared,” the reporter continued, “for this time only without appetite. Her figure was not adapted to locomotion, and her dress, bare at the neck, showed a breadth and depth of shoulder upon which the cinders were bound to strike if they fell anywhere…. She took refuge in a newspaper office, where we saw her lamenting the loss of her wardrobe. The loss of one dress must have ruined her; her girth was that of the great California pine.” Exhausted physically and emotionally, Richardson fainted. “Wisely [she] did not fall,” the reporter noted. “Who could have picked her up?” When Richardson came to, she asked for some water. “Bring her a tank!” shouted one of the clerks. Almost breaking through his own callousness, the reporter concluded: “It seemed to us this lady felt not so much abashed as melancholy.”⁸ Given the crowd’s insensitivity to human suffering, it was perhaps inevitable that they would find the misery of the animals actually hilarious. While employees fled the building (and strangers looted it), the “miserable brutes” “tugged at their red-hot chains, or fell upon the floor with fright…. The aquariums melted … and the gold-fish spilled their treasure upon the floor, lapped up the next moment by the revolted fire, while the water around went up to the ceiling in hissing streams.” Some animals made it out. Birds burst through fire-shattered window panes. Ned emerged,

without his accordion. But the “Happy Family” all perished. And, however valuable, as the New York Sun noted, “it’s next to impossible to place an arm around a whale’s waist and expect to make a getaway with it.” Besides, “there wasn’t a fire escape on the outside of the whale’s tank, and even if there had been, it’s dollars to last Sunday’s roast beef that the whale would have lost its head just the same and never would have remembered to climb out upon the fire escape and shin down to safety.”⁹ However amusing the idea of a whale shimmying down a fire escape, some in the building did think to help. Noticing a “pedestal loaded down with a pyramid of cannon shells” near the tank, “some of the firemen were in favor of moving the explosive shells closer … so that when the heat blew [them] up … they’d settle the whole whale question with precision.” Instead, the men smashed the tank so that its occupants could “merely roast

to death instead of undergoing the distress of being poached.” As the water poured out and went up in a whoosh of steam, the “monsters” were left “on the dry floor.” And when the fire reached them, “their floundering was terrific.”¹⁰ Meanwhile, the crowd outside kept up their incessant cries for “‘boiled whale,’ ‘fried snakes,’ ‘broiled monkey,’ and ‘roast elephant.’” Not realizing that Ned had made it out, the call of “‘How are you, learned seal?’ provoked continued laughter.”¹¹ Then, at least according to a writer for the New-York Tribune, “a splendid and emblematic sight” burst through the collapsing building in a “flap of wings and lashing coils”—an eagle and a serpent “wreathed in flight.”¹² They hung poised in mid-air presenting a novel and terrible conflict. It was the earth and the air (or their respective representatives) at war for mastery; the base and the lofty, the groveller and the soarer, were

ENDNOTES 1

One of the arsonists was Robert Cobb Kennedy, a distant relative of former Treasury Secretary Howell Cobb. Kennedy had escaped to Canada, but was caught slipping back into Detroit, then tried and hanged. Kennedy tried to claim that it had all been “simply a reckless joke…. There was no fiendishness about it. The Museum was set on fire by merest accident, after I had been drinking, and just for the fun of a scare.” See Nat Brandt, The Man Who Tried to Burn New York (Syracuse, NY, 1986). The author wishes to thank his student, Ethan Goode, for sparking the idea to write a “Casualties” column on the museum fire.

“Letter From New York,” San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, June 10, 1865.

Breckinridge quoted in William C. Davis, The Orphan Brigade: The Kentucky Confederates Who Couldn’t Go Home (Garden City, 1980); “The Great Drama Closes With a Farce,” Woonsocket Patriot and RhodeIsland State Register, May 19, 1865.

“Disastrous Fire,” The New York Times, July 14, 1865.

Ibid.

New York World, July 14, 1865, reprinted in “Destruction of Barnum’s Museum,” Daily Cleveland Herald, July 15, 1865.

Ibid.

Ibid.; “Marty Keese Describes Being a Volunteer Firemen,” New York Sun, September 1, 1907.

10 Ibid. 11 New York Herald, July 14, 1865, reprinted in “Burning a Museum,” Boston Daily Advertiser, July 15, 1865. 12 “Great Conflagration,” New-York Tribune, July 14, 1865. There are reasons to doubt aspects of the Tribune’s account. The reporter claimed that he had been able to see inside Barnum’s menagerie as it was burning and watched, for instance, the lion and tiger attack each other in their rage and terror. As one paper noted typically: “There is no end of the jokes and parodies elicited by the New York Tribune reporter’s fanciful account of the scenes at the burning of Barnum’s Museum.” (Wisconsin State Register, July 29, 1865.) The scene of the eagle and serpent seems clearly intended as an allegory of the Union and Confederacy and was a common iconographic trope in the period. 13 Ibid. 14 The scene was attributed to the witness W. B. Harrison, The New York Times, July 14, 1865.

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engaged in deadly battle. At length the flat head of the serpent sank; his writhing, sinuous form grew still; and wafted upward by cheers of the gazing multitude, the eagle with a scream of triumph, and bearing his prey in his iron talons, soared towards the sun.¹³

The “Belle of Richmond” survived the fire. A looter, hoping to make off with it, “fought vigorously to preserve the worthless thing, as though it were a gem of rare value.” But on reaching the balcony, the man perceived “that either the inanimate Jeff. or himself must go by the board,” and so he “hurled the scarecrow to the iconoclasts in the street.” The “flight of dummy Jeff,” noted a witness, was

BATTLEFIELD ECHOES

the “cause of great merriment among the multitude, who saluted the queerlooking thing with cheers and uncontrollable laughter.” Then the effigy was seized and “bundled off to a lamppost in Fulton Street” to be “formally hanged, the actors in this mock tragedy shouting the threadbare refrain” that they’d “hang ol’ Jeff Davis / from a sour apple tree.”¹⁴ is Amanda and Greg Gregory Professor of Civil War Era Studies 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). STEPHEN BERRY

ENDNOTES

CONTINUED FROM P. 25

wind and blinding clouds of red dust and wait for Mother Nature to cooperate.⁷ It would be hard to argue that Ambrose Burnside’s command of the Army of the Potomac was a success. However, the unfortunate and embarrassing Mud March, the exclamation mark at the end of Burnside’s failed tenure, was not entirely his fault. Neither Burnside nor any general before him or since could manage the forces of nature. Forecasting the weather is one thing, but stopping it from limiting military operations is quite another—and something that may very well remain impossible. 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).

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A. Wilson Greene, “Morale, Maneuver and Mud: The Army of the Potomac, December 16, 1862-January 26, 1863” in The Fredericksburg Campaign: Decision on the Rappahannock, Gary Gallagher, ed. (Chapel Hill, 1995), 197.

Francis A. Donaldson, Inside the Army of the Potomac: The Civil War Experience of Captain Francis Adams Donaldson, J. Gregory Acken, ed. (Mechanicsburg, PA, 1998), 206.

Donaldson, Inside the Army of the Potomac, 208.

Ibid., 208.

Greene, “Morale, Maneuver and Mud,” 201-202.

George T. Stevens, Three Years in the Sixth Corps: A Concise Narrative of Events in the Army of the Potomac (Albany, NY, 1866), 177.

Rick Atkinson, In the Company of Soldiers: A Chronicle of Combat (New York, 2004), 162-172.

By Drama Critics Circle Award-Winning Actor and Playwright Tom Dugan A one-man play taking a look at America’s past during the 150th Civil War Anniversary. To book performances of ‘Shades of Gray’, contact Dow Artists at (641) 203-4100, (818) 481-5377 or shantel@dowartists.com www.TomDuganPlays.com

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PETERSBURG CONTINUED FROM P. 35

effect to our arms was very great, for it shows that he cannot blow us out of our works; or, at least, that he cannot hold a breach after making it.”³² On July 31, the day following the unsuccessful Yankee attack, Joseph Lyle predicted that the Union cause was on its last legs: Several companys of these regts were blown up & lost entirely. [The enemy] entered the breach in our works – attempted to make progress but were driven from our lines with great slaughter … our loss about 1000 – that of the enemy from four to five times that number – enemy makes no further efforts – so three divisions of our army (all that were south of the Appomattox) beat back Grant’s whole army, sappers, miners, negroes, powder & all – Grant, your cause is ruin – you go the way of your predecessor.³³

LYLE AND HIS CONFEDERATE comrades had no way of knowing then that the siege would last until April 1865, when the evacuations of Petersburg and Richmond would lead to a quick succession of events that finally closed the books on the Confederate States of America. Under intense conditions such as constant shelling, extreme heat, filth, and boredom, they were looking hopefully for some relief to victories beyond the Petersburg theater. But enthusiasm generated by such reports did not surpass the optimism with which Confederate soldiers on the Petersburg line anticipated the concluding battles against the armies of the United States—and their own role in a presumed victory. M. KEITH HARRIS

received his Ph.D in history from the University of Virginia. His first book, Across the Bloody Chasm: Reconciliation in the Wake of Civil War, is under review with the University of North Carolina Press. He also hosts a Civil War multimedia network called Cosmic America (cosmicamerica.com).

THE CIVIL WAR SPECIALIZING IN CIVIL WAR AUTOGRAPHS, LETTERS, DIARIES & DOCUMENTS

Cheers resounded throughout the United States when U.S. Grant vowed to “fight 7 it out on this line if it took all summer.” By mid-June, the transition from active campaigning to a siege had taken place. The “line” thus became the vast trench works extending before Petersburg and Richmond. Although the war now wearied many in the North, who saw little progress 8 in Grant’s actions, he had no intentions of withdrawing from the Petersburg-Richmond front. See, James M. McPherson Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (New York, 1988), 734; Ulysses S. Grant, Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant (reprint, 9 New York, 1982), 454-60.

Papers, VHS. John Hampden Chamberlayne to “My Dear Mother,” June 23, 1864, Chamberlayne Family Papers, VHS; Joseph Banks Lyle to Medora Caroline McArthur, June 9, 1864, section 1, Joseph Banks Lyle Papers, Mss1L9881a1-110, VHS. James Montgomery Holloway to Annie Wilcox Holloway, June 12-13, 1864, folder 7, section 1, Mss1H7286a111-127, Holloway papers, VHS; James Montgomery Holloway to Annie Wilcox Holloway, June 23, 1864, Holloway papers, VHS. Gary W. Gallagher, “Our Heart Are Full of Hope: The Army of Northern Virginia in the Spring of 1864,” in Gary W. Gallagher, ed. The Wilderness Campaign (Chapel Hill, 1997), 42.

Douglas Southall Freeman, perhaps the most famous of Lee’s many biographers, notes that this remark to Jubal A. Early on the eve of the Petersburg siege was the 10 Richard Henry Watkins to Mary Purnell first time Lee had ever hinted at such an Watkins June 1, 22, 28, and July 4,1864, outcome. See Douglas Southall Freeman folder 6, section 1, Watkins papers, MsR.E. Lee: A Biography 4 vols. (New York, s1W3272a291-349, VHS. 1934), 3: 397-98. Conveying a sense of “Lee as a powerless god,” one scholar hy- 11 W.(illiam) (Ransom) J.(ohnson) Pegram to Mary Evans (Pegram) Anderson, perbolically suggests Lee “already sensed July 21, 1864, Pegram, Johnson, Mcthe outcome” and experienced a “frisson Intosh papers, folder 2, section 1, Mss of terror.” See Robert Hendrickson, The P3496a16-30, VHS. Road to Appomattox (New York, 1998), 45. 12 Joseph Banks Lyle to Medora Caroline McArthur, July 2, 1864, Joseph Banks Richard E. Beringer, Herman Hattaway, Lyle Papers, VHS; Joseph Banks Lyle to Archer Jones, and William N. Still Jr., Medora Caroline McArthur, July 15, 1864, Why the South Lost the Civil War (Athens, Joseph Banks Lyle Papers, VHS; John 1986), 424-25, 300, 425; Bell Irvin WiHampden Chamberlayne to “My Dear ley, The Road to Appomattox (Memphis, Mother,” July 28, 1864, Chamberlayne 1956), 34, 70-71. Family Papers, VHS. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom, 743. 13 John Herbert Claiborne to “My Dear On widespread Confederate despair and Wife,” July 11, 1864, Letters of John the frustrations on the Petersburg-RichHerbert Claiborne, UVA. For a day-bymond front throughout 1864, see J. Tracy day account of Early’s advance down the Power, Lee’s Miserables: Life in the Army Valley, see Joseph Judge, Season of Fire: of Northern Virginia from the Wilderness The Confederate Strike on Washington to Appomattox (Chapel Hill, 1998), 286, (Berryville, VA, 1994). For a brief postwar 288, 302-03. account of Early’s actions in the Valley and a critique of his generalship, see John John Hampden Chamberlayne to “My B. Gordon, Reminiscences of the Civil War Dear Mother,” July 11, 1864, section (reprint, Baton Rouge, 1998), 317-18. 4, Chamberlayne Family Papers, Mss1C3552b49-109, Virginia Historical 14 Diary of Joseph Banks Lyle, section 2, JoSociety, Richmond, Virginia (repository seph Banks Lyle Papers, Mss1L9881a111, hereafter cited as VHS); Diary of Creed VHS. Thomas Davis, Mss5:1D2914:1, VHS. 15 Diary of Lieutenant Samuel Thomas McJohn Herbert Claiborne to “My Dear Cullough, Jed Hotchkiss Papers, MSS 2907, UVA. Wife,” June 12, 1864, Letters of John Herbert Claiborne, MSS 3633, Albert and 16 James Montgomery Holloway to Annie Shirley Small Special Collections Library, Wilcox Holloway, July 5-8, 1864, HolloUniversity of Virginia, Charlottesville, way papers, VHS; Richard Henry Watkins Virginia (repository hereafter cited as to Mary Purnell Watkins, July 7, 1864, UVA); Thomas Tileston Greene to Elise Watkins papers, VHS. Glenn Skinner, May 23, 1864, folder 1, section 17, MssG8368a62-141, Greene Family 17 W.(illiam) (Ransom) J.(ohnson) Pegram

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Letter from General “Stonewall” Jackson pertaining to death of valued officer of Battle of Kernstown.

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18 Diary of Peter Guerrant, 1864 July 1 – August 15, Mss1G9375a330, VHS. 19 James Montgomery Holloway to Annie Wilcox Holloway, July 14-18, 1864, Holloway papers, VHS. 20 James Montgomery Holloway to Annie Wilcox Holloway, June 16, 1864, Holloway papers, VHS; Diary of Samuel Thomas McCullough, Lieutenant Samuel Thomas McCullough papers, UVA. 21 Diary of Joseph Banks Lyle, Joseph Banks Lyle Papers, VHS. 22 Richard Henry Watkins to Mary Purnell Watkins, July 15, 1864, Watkins papers, VHS; James Montgomery Holloway to Annie Wilcox Holloway, July 14-18, 1864, VHS; John Herbert Claiborne to “My Dear Wife,” Letters of John Herbert Claiborne, UVA; Thomas Tileston Greene to Elise Glenn Skinner, July 14, 1864, Greene Family Papers, VHS. 23 James Montgomery Holloway to Annie Wilcox Holloway, July 23, 1864, VHS; John Herbert Claiborne to “My Dear Wife,” July 23, 1864, Letters of John Herbert Claiborne, UVA.

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24 W.(illiam) (Ransom) J.(ohnson) Pegram to Mary Evans (Pegram) Anderson, July 21, 1864, Pegram, Johnson, McIntosh papers, VHS; Diary of Joseph Banks Lyle, Joseph Banks Lyle Papers, VHS. 25 John Hampden Chamberlayne to “My Dear Mother,” August 3, 1864, Chamberlayne Family Papers, VHS; James Peter Williams to “Dear Aunt Mary,” March 22, 1864, Papers of James Peter Williams, Folder 1861-1865, Box 3, MSS 490, UVA; James Peter Williams to “Dear Aunt Mary,” June 28, 1864, Papers

of James Peter Williams, UVA. 26 Joseph D. Stapp to “Dear Mother,” July 8, 1864, folder 1, Joseph D. Stapp papers, Mss2St275b, VHS; Samuel Thomas McCollough to “Dear Sam,” June 20, 1864, Papers of Lieutenant Samuel Thomas McCollough, UVA. 27 Grant did not take a personal interest in overseeing the construction of the mineshaft, leaving the work to Colonel Pleasants and his Pennsylvanians, under the supervision of General Ambrose E. Burnside, commander of the Union XII Corps. However, he did, in retrospect, “approve heartily” of the plan of attack. See Grant, Personal Memoirs, 462-66. On the failures of Union leadership at the Crater, see Alan Axelrod, The Horrid Pit: The Battle of the Crater, the Civil War’s Cruelest Mission (New York, 2007). On the Battle of the Crater and Civil War memory, see Kevin M. Levin, Remembering the Battle of the Crater: War as Murder (Lexington, 2012).

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30 Richard Henry Dulany to Mary Ann (DeButts) Whiting, August 3, 1864, Section 13, DeButts Family papers, MssD3545a476510, VHS. 31 Thomas A. Smith to “dear Lizzie,” August 2, 1864, Folder 1862-1864, Thomas A. Smith letters to his family, MSS 6846-ct, UVA. 32 W.(illiam) (Ransom) J.(ohnson) Pegram to Virginia Johnson (Pegram) McIntosh, August 1, 1864, Pegram, Johnson, McIntosh papers, VHS. 33 Diary of Joseph Banks Lyle, Joseph Banks Lyle Papers, VHS.

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positive reaction. “What astonished me was that he seemed to enjoy the show. I asked him afterwards how he liked it. He said it was the best thing he ever saw in his life.”³⁰ No doubt many southerners felt the same way about the magic tricks that entertained and dis-

EDWARD T. COTHAM JR.

is the author of four books on the Civil War. A former president of the Houston Civil War Round Table, he is also an active member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians and Society of American Magicians.

ENDNOTES 1

David Price, Magic: A Pictorial History of Conjurers in the Theater (New York, 1985), 52-54.

Historical Statistics of the United States: 1789-1945 (Bureau of the Census, 1949), 25 (chart B 1-12). Charles J. Precor, The Magician on the American Stage: 1752-1874 (Washington, D.C., 1977), 285.

Yazoo Democrat [Mississippi], June 18, 1859. The author is indebted to Vicki Betts of the University of Texas at Tyler, whose transcription of many Civil War era newspapers on her wonderful website (http:// www.uttyler.edu/vbetts/) has greatly assisted in this project.

History of Conjurers in the Theater, 83. 9

Precor, The Magician on the American Stage, 227; Daily Picayune (New Orleans), April 3, 1861.

10 Constance Pole Bayer, The Great Wizard of the North (Watertown, MA, 1990), 116-17. 11 Bayer, The Great Wizard of the North, 119-120. 12 Ibid., 123-27. 13 Nashville Dispatch, April 14-15, 1862. 14 Richmond [Virginia] Whig, June 23, 1864. 15 Ibid., May 9-10, 1862. 16 Indianola [Texas] Courier, January 5, 1861.

Price, Magic: A Pictorial History of Conjurers in the Theater, 48-49; Signor Blitz, Fifty Years in the Magic Circle: An Account of the Author’s Professional Life; His Wonderful Tricks and Feats; with Laughable Incidents, and Adventures as a Magician, Necromancer, and Ventriloquist (Hartford, 1872), 208.

17 Daily Constitutionalist (Augusta, Georgia), April 25, 1862.

Price, Magic: A Pictorial History of Conjurers in the Theater, 48-49; Blitz, Fifty Years in the Magic Circle, 420.

18 Ricky Jay, Jay’s Journals of Anomalies (New York, 2001), 75-82. 19 The New York Times, May 9, 1864. 20 Daily Constitutionalist (Augusta, GA), April 29, 1862.

Precor, The Magician on the American Stage, 260, quoting Daily Picayune (New Orleans), April 1, 1861.

21 Ibid., April 29, 1862. The ladies’ gunboat fund raised money to support the construction of an ironclad gunboat to protect the state of Georgia from Federal forces. The resulting ship, CSS Georgia, was used as a floating battery near Savannah.

Price, Magic: A Pictorial

22 Savannah Republican,

January 31, 1863. 23 Ibid., February 6, 1863. 24 The biographical material on Gus Rich is a summary of information contained in an excellent work on this individual. Gary Hunt, “The Eye Deceived, the Ear Amused, and the Mind Astonished!”: The Scrapbook of Professor Gus Rich, “The Wizard of the Blue Ridge” (Durham, NC, 1997). 25 Hunt, The Eye Deceived, 6; W.L. Smith Jr., For the Good of the Old North State: A Statistical Study of North Carolina and Army of Northern Virginia Casualties at The Battle of Gettysburg (2005), 4; Supplement to the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Wilmington, NC, 1997), 61:3-25.

THE LOST BOYS CONTINUED FROM P. 52

for my own benefit, and patroling for my own satisfaction, my duties in camp are finished about 11 O’Clock then I am at liberty to stroll; within 4 days I have picked upwards of 20 quarts of beautiful Blackberries which will make a good relish.”³⁸ Most foraging was meant to feed a man, but the rare soldier also sought medicinal roots and herbs. Private Lorenzo N. Pratt of the 1st New York Light Artillery explained to his father that when sick in the New Market area, he “got hold of some of that spice root and sasafraz root and I chawed it and it made me well.”³⁹ During the campaigns that raged from spring to summer in 1862 Virginia, commanders grew increasingly frustrated at soldiers such as Pratt who sought solace outside of the ranks. Environmental hardships, widespread sickness and demoralization, and inexperienced volunteer officers, who often sympathized with their men, critically inflated absenteeism, leading both war departments to enact more strident regulations. Evidence suggests that the new orders, in addition to increased direct action by army commanders, did somewhat decrease straggling by the end of the year. For example, Stonewall Jackson’s public execution of alleged deserters appeared to improve

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

CONTINUED FROM P. 61

26 Undated newspaper clippings in the Julius A. Lineback diary, Julius A. Lineback Papers (Collection #04547), Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 27 Ibid. 28 Hunt, The Eye Deceived, 1314, 16; People’s Press (Salem, NC), January 4, 1861; Weekly Standard (Raleigh, NC), May 6, 1863. 29 Hunt, The Eye Deceived, 15. 30 Ibid., 10.

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THE ART OF DECEPTION

tracted them in the midst of a brutal conflict. The magicians who traveled the South would not receive medals and they would certainly not become wealthy for their risky efforts. The applause of appreciative audiences was their reward and their legacy.

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his armyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cohesion in the Second Manassas Campaign in late August 1862.â ´â ° All the while, generals disparaged stragglers as shirkers, malingerers, and cowards, failing to acknowledge alternative (and, from the soldiersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; points of view, legitimate) motivations for their absence. The fact remains that the men who straggled because of environmental or health reasons were in better shape and spirits than other soldiers, presenting a paradox for army discipline. Henry Handerson, the private who admitted to straggling only in his memoir, left us with perhaps the most succinct rationale for the offense. He wrote, â&#x20AC;&#x153;We have the testimony of Horace that Vacuus viator cantabit coram latrine.â&#x20AC;? He likely intended â&#x20AC;&#x153;cantabit vacuus coram latrone viator,â&#x20AC;? a Latin phrase meaning â&#x20AC;&#x153;the penniless traveler will sing in the presence of the highwayman.â&#x20AC;? In short, the man who has nothing has nothing to lose. Deprived of resources and exposed to the onslaughts of nature, soldiers believed that straggling was worth the risk.â ´Âš

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Union stragglers crossing the Rappahannock River in Virginia.

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ON JUNE 25, 1863, First Sergeant John M. Mitchell of the 79th Illinois Infantry narrowly escaped a devastating wound during the battle at Liberty Gap, Tennessee. A Confederate bullet ripped through the crown of his hat (pictured here), passing within a hair’s breadth of his scalp. Mitchell, who stood 5 feet, 8 ¼ inches tall, would survive both the battle and the war, no doubt giving thanks in later days that he was not a taller man.

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