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Sgt. William H. Carney received the Medal of Honor for heroism at Fort Wagner.

Exclusive! Firsthand account of the 54th Massachusetts’ epic assault on Fort Wagner After Appomattox The general Plus! Leeremains resolute in his first post-surrender interview

NOVEMBER 2021 HISTORYNET.COM

Home Front Heroes 12 civilians who made their mark in the war

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GovMint.com reserves the right to decline to consummate any sale, within its discretion, including due to pricing errors. Prices, facts, figures and populations deemed accurate as of the date of publication but may change significantly over time. All purchases are expressly conditioned upon your acceptance of GovMint.com’s Terms and Conditions (www.govmint.com/terms-conditions or call 1-800-721-0320); to decline, return your purchase pursuant to GovMint.com’s Return Policy. © 2021 GovMint.com. All rights reserved.

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32

The General in Defeat Just two weeks after his army’s surrender at Appomattox, Robert E. Lee goes on the record for a Northern reporter

By Kevin C. Donovan

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AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (3); SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM; COVER: WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY/PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: BRIAN WALKER

Departments 6 8 12 16 20 54 58 60 64

LETTERS Forrest’s rather extraordinary equine confederation GRAPESHOT! Committed USCT reenactors; Robert E. Lee the artist LIFE & LIMB Clara Barton’s higher mission HIDDEN HEROES Two-war standout who rode with Buford FROM THE CROSSROADS Ewell’s unjust blame for Gettysburg TRAILSIDE Marylanders clash in Front Royal, Va. 5 QUESTIONS Ron White and the ‘Private Abe Lincoln’ REVIEWS A fresh look at what Fredericksburg wrought FINAL BIVOUAC Colombia welcomes a Union hero

22

Previously Unpublished!

True to the Cause Captain John Appleton’s gripping account of the 54th Massachusetts’ historic assault on Fort Wagner in July 1863

By James Robbins Jewell and Eugene S. Van Sickle

Home Front Heroes Our look at 12 notable civilians and the legacies they created RII WKH EDWWOHÀHOG

50 40

Two-Front War Engaged in hostile territory, General Charles Ferguson Smith was nearly undone by his own men

By Allen H. Mesch

ON THE COVER: ALTHOUGH SERIOUSLY WOUNDED, PRIVATE WILLIAM CARNEY WOULD NOT RELINQUISH POSSESSION OF THE 54TH MASSACHUSETTS’ FLAG DURING THE REGIMENT’S DRAMATIC ASSAULT ON FORT WAGNER, PROUDLY DECLARING, “BOYS, THE OLD FLAG NEVER TOUCHED THE GROUND!” CARNEY RECEIVED A MEDAL OF HONOR FOR HIS HEROICS, THE FIRST AFRICAN AMERICAN SOLDIER SO HONORED.

NOVEMBER 2021

3

Michael A. Reinstein Chairman & Publisher David Steinhafel Publisher Alex Neill Editor in Chief

Vol. 34, No. 5 November 2021

AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR ONLINE HISTORYNET.com/ AMERICAS-CIVIL-WAR

GLORY, IN RETROSPECT Twenty years after the movie’s debut, one of its stars remembers fondly the experience of making the film. https://bit.ly/RememberingGlory

PRAYING WITH LEE Exploring the motives behind Lee’s grand postwar gesture at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. https://bit.ly/PrayingWithLee

MONEY OUT OF MISERY Profiteers on both sides of the war lined their own pockets at their countries’ expense. These are 10 of the war’s most notorious. https://bit.ly/TenProfiteers

Chris K. Howland Editor Jerry Morelock Senior Editor Sarah Richardson Senior Editor Nancy Tappan Senior Editor Dana B. Shoaf Consulting Editor Stephen Kamifuji Creative Director Brian Walker Group Art Director Melissa A. Winn Director of Photography Austin Stahl Art Director A DV ISORY BOA RD Gordon Berg, Jim Burgess, Steve Davis, Richard H. Holloway, D. Scott Hartwig, Larry Hewitt, John Hoptak, Robert K. Krick, Ethan S. Rafuse, Ron Soodalter, Tim Rowland CORPOR ATE Rob Wilkins Director of Partnership Marketing Tom Griffiths Corporate Development Graydon Sheinberg Corporate Development Shawn Byers VP Audience Development Jamie Elliott Production Director A DV ERTISING Morton Greenberg SVP Advertising Sales mgreenberg@mco.com Rick Gower Regional Sales Manager rick@rickgower.com Terry Jenkins Regional Sales Manager tjenkins@historynet.com

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AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

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CONFEDERATE HERO GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE 160 years ago — with our nation divided over issues of slavery, states’ rights, and economic survival — the southern states seceded from the Union to form the Confederate States of America.

Like so many Americans caught in the middle, Robert E. Lee, a respected Colonel in the Union Army, was forced to choose between his nation and his state. Driven by duty and guided by honor, Lee declined command of the Union Army and sided with his home state of Virginia. He soon rose to the rank of General and was given command over the Army and Navy of Virginia.

His dazzling military maneuvers brought about many victories for the outmanned Confederate Army before succumbing to Union forces at Appomattox in 1865. Even in defeat, Lee served as a symbol of courage and dignity, embodying the finest elements of a true Southern gentleman. After the war, Lee set aside all animosity and urged the people of the South to work for the restoration of peace and harmony in a united country.

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LETTERS Thunder in the Snow Nathan Bedford Forrest, riding one of his many wartime steeds, leads his men on a raid through a wintry woodland.

John Banks’ fine article on “Majestic Mounts” in the September issue mentions that Nathan Bedford Forrest had some 30 horses shot out from under him. One of them was Highlander, who was shot in the neck while Forrest was pursuing the enemy the day after the Confederate victory at Chickamauga in September 1863. Forrest, as the story goes, plugged his finger into the wound as he galloped along. In dismounting, out came Forrest’s finger and poor Highlander fell dead.

In July 1863, Highlander had been presented as a gift to Forrest from the people of Atlanta to show their gratitude for his guile and success in stopping Streight’s Raid in April-May 1863.

Streight’s Raid had been an attempt by Union Colonel Abel Streight to wreck sections of the Western & Atlantic Railroad in Alabama and northern Georgia.

Forrest was able to outmaneuver Streight with 1,200 fewer troopers and trick the Federal commander into surrendering in shame at Cedar Bluff, Ala. Bill Hendrick Marietta, Ga.

6

AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

‘Schools of Historical Thought’ Ron Soodalter’s “Marketing Lincoln” (May 2021) was thought-provoking and deserves praise for emphasizing the importance of historiography in comprehending history. That is, a particular “school of thought” as to how history is examined, questioned, argued, and written will produce and pass on a very particular pattern for engaging with the past—a point Soodalter makes well.

A few critiques, however, may be made of his arguments. For example, his disparagement of William H. Herndon’s collection of primary evidence and published works about Lincoln as being of little historical value can be disputed. As with slave narratives, the Nat Turner confessions, or any other collection of historical evidence based primarily on memory and documentation of oral history, the Herndon collection and works must be read critically.

Noted Lincoln scholars such as Edward Steers Jr., Gerald J. Prokopowicz, and David Herbert Donald have all observed

WRITE TO US Send letters to America’s Civil War, Letters Editor, Historynet, 901 North Glebe Road, 5th Floor, Arlington, VA 22203, or e-mail acwletters@ historynet.com. Letters may be edited.

TROIANI, DON (B.1949)/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

More on Forrest and his horses

that these sources must be subjected to a critical reflection yet remain a valuable source of information about the president and his impact on others.

Nicolay and Hay did indeed write to depict Lincoln through a particular scope, and their historical arguments certainly had merit. But what they, and Soodalter, diminished from the historical record is that Lincoln himself conceded (if by disagreement) in his First Inaugural Address that the issue of American federalism/states’ rights, diverged from slavery, was an important reason the war occurred, and the president espoused the responsibility of all Americans—in the North as much as the South—for slavery in his Second Inaugural Address.

Lastly, Soodalter’s description of the “Lost Cause” school of thought as a “fabrication” and “myth” is misleading.

As was best examined by Matt Atkinson, the Lost Cause is a historiography and possesses variable merit to at least a fair number of the tenets that compose it, though it also possesses distinct flaws and is limited in how much history it can satisfactorily explain.

Soodalter’s argument would be better to have held that the Lost Cause is highly similar to other schools of historical thought, such as the “Chez Nous” Quebecois history of Henri Bourassa and René Lévesque; the “Irregular” Anti-Treaty I.R.A. historiography of Ernie O’Malley and Gerry Adams; or a Settler Colonialist perspective of Aboriginal/Colonized Peoples’ history according to Patrick Wolfe.

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R

GRAPESHOT! A Blast of Civil War Stories

Honoring the USCT munities, adding that the units adopted the name of the The Hannibal Guards, a living history group “dedicated legendary Carthaginian general Hannibal, who resisted to telling the story of the United States Colored Troops Roman colonization of North Africa and threatened cap(1862-1866) as correctly as possible through the art of histuring Rome during the Second Punic War. torical interpretation,” have been busy in 2021. To comIn the early days of the Civil War, Greer notes, “the memorate Juneteenth, a new federal holiday recognizing Guards were often present at parades, festivals, and simithe day in 1865 that slaves in Texas were informed of their lar events. They promoted civic engagement and Black freedom, the group recently shot six short videos for its military pride in an era when Blacks were primarily barred Facebook page (www.facebook.com/hannibalguards) on from military service. Many veterans of these companies slavery, emancipation, and USCT recruitment (in addition would later enlist in the U.S. Colored Troops.” to the United States, soldiers came from Congo, Cuba, HaFeaturing a core group of about a dozen members, hailwaii, Japan, and the Philippines). The videos, written by ing from North Carolina to New York, the Hannibal Guards Hugh Goffinet and created in collaboration with Marvin promote education on all aspects of the USCT, ranging Greer and First State Heritage Park in Dover, Del., from its strategic significance and soldiers’ heroism in batappeared June 14-19 on Facebook. tle to specifics about USCT uniforms, which can be Formed in 2016, the Guards were an offshoot of the found—along with historic photos—in an album on the Sons and Daughters of Ham, a living history group that group’s Facebook page. “There is something incredibly interprets the lives of Blacks in antebellum America. special about connecting with other According to Greer, they “pay homage Black folks and relating this empowerto the Black citizens who fought slave Sharp-Dressed Men ing history to our fellow siblings of catchers prior to the war and defended L-R: Hannibal Guards Marvin color,” Goffinet says. “However, the freedom when the law did not.” *UHHU +XJK *RIÀQHW -RUGDQ incredible story of the USCT is one that The group, Greer explains, derives Bonardi, Charlie Devine, and people of all backgrounds need to hear its name from two all-Black civilian &DPHURQ %URRNV DW D UHFHQW and will benefit from being aware of!” military companies that were orgaHYHQW LQ 5LYHUGDOH 0G —Sarah Richardson nized for self-defense in Black com-

8

AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

COURTESY OF THE HANNIBAL GUARDS

THE HANNIBAL GUARDS INTERPRET OVERLOOKED HISTORY

Egyptian Army, 1882

QUIZ

A Little Freehand

FORT PULASKI NATIONAL MONUMENT; DEA/BIBLIOTECA AMBROSIANA/GETTY IMAGES

After his graduation from the U.S. Military Academy in June 1829, Bvt. 2nd Lt. Robert E. Lee was sent to Cockspur Island in WKH 6DYDQQDK 5LYHU +LV WDVN ZDV WR KHOS ÀQG D VLWH IRU D IRUW WR be built to protect Savannah, Ga., 12 miles upstream.

It was a dreary and unhealthful place, especially in the summer, and Lee was there until April 1831, fortunate at least that his best friend from West Point, Savannah native Jack Mackay, was stationed nearby and could introduce Lee to the city’s society.

Best of all, perhaps, Jack had three sisters—Margaret, Eliza, and Catherine—and, as biographer Douglas Southall Freeman would write, Lee did have a “fondness for the company of pretty women.”

7KH \RXQJ RIÀFHU KRZHYHU EHFDPH HQJDJHG WR 0DU\ &XVWLV LQ Virginia in the summer of 1830, so his time spent with the Mackay sisters remained innocent enough. One pastime Eliza and Catherine particularly enjoyed was artwork, and Lee, too, began sketching pen-and-ink pictures. The curriculum at West Point had included two years of drawing—a necessary skill for future engineers—and, while studying under Frenchman Thomas Gimbrede, Lee had displayed an adroitness for freehand illustration.

While in Savannah, Lee showed his aptitude by sketching a death mask of Napoleon…and of an alligator and terrapin (populous creatures along the Georgia coast). Lee rendered two sets of these fauna and gave them, we might say, as herpetological displays of affection to Eliza Mackay and her friend, Sarah Minis.

The Minis drawings now repose at Stratford Hall, Lee’s Virginia birthplace. The turtle and gator given to Eliza (seen above) are at Fort Pulaski National Monument. —Stephen Davis

Match the officer with the foreign force in which he also served.

A. B. C. D. E. F. G. H. I. J.

Brig. Gen. Peter J. Osterhaus Lt. Gen. Charles P. Stone Col. Gustave Paul Cluseret Brig. Gen. Julius H. Stahel-Számwald Adolphus Heiman Alexander Schimmelfennig Col. John O’Neill Maj. Gen. Joseph Wheeler Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel Col. Percy Wyndham

1. U.S. Army, 5th Corps, Cavalry 2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

Division, 1898 Fenian Brotherhood, 1866 Baden Revolutionary Forces, 1848 Prussian Army (Revolutionary Faction), 1848 Egyptian Army, 1882 Royal Italian Army, 1860 Hungarian Revolutionary Army, 1849 U.S. Army, 1847 French Army, 1848 Palatine Military Commission, 1848 Answers: A.4, B.5, C.9, D.7, E.8, F.10, G.2, H.1, I.3, J.6.

CONVERSATION PIECE

Civil War Veterans of Other Wars

NOVEMBER 2021

9

GRAPESHOT! Earning a Second Star Ulysses S. Grant (center) observes the ÀJKWLQJ DW )RUW 'RQHOVRQ *UDQW ZDV appointed a major general after the Union victory there in February 1862.

True Tandem As you’ll read in “Two-Front War” (P.50), until the Fort Donelson Campaign of February 1862, Union Brig. Gen. Charles Ferguson Smith’s U.S. Army future hung under a black cloud. The Union capture of Fort Donelson, Tenn., on February 16 was the moment that Smith’s commander, Brig. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, became a household name across the North. But, as Grant would make clear, he could not have done it without Smith.

On February 15, the Confederates launched a surprise attack on the Union right that threatened Grant’s army, positioned outside the fort. Grant turned to Smith, whose 2nd Division was on the left: “General Smith, all has failed on our right. You must take Fort Donelson.” Smith jumped to his feet, brushed his mustache with his right hand, and declared, “I will do it.” Soon, the tide of the battle changed. By the following morning, Donelson’s commander, Brig.

Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, offered Grant surrender terms.

Looking up at Smith upon receiving Buckner’s note, Grant asked, “What answer shall I send to this?” Smith didn’t mince his words, replying: “No terms to the damned rebels.”

BATTLE RATTLE

“Once let the black man get upon his person the brass letters U.S., let him get an eagle on his button, and a musket on his shoulder, and bullets in his pocket, and there is no power on earth or under the earth which can deny that he has earned the right of citizenship in the United States.”

—Frederick Douglass, July 6, 1863

10

AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

PICTURES NOW/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; KEITH LANCE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES

EXTRA ROUND

Grant laughed somewhat self-consciously and asked for writing paper, getting some IURP D ÁXVWHUHG DLGH )RU DERXW WKUHH PLQutes, there was hardly a sound as Grant put pen to paper. Finally, he leaned back in his chair and announced, “This is what I am writing, General Smith,” before reading aloud: “Yours of this date, proposing armistice and appointment of Commissioners to settle terms of capitulation, is just received.

No terms except an unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works.”

Smith let out a short, emphatic, “Hm,” and remarked, “It’s the same thing in smoother words.”

Grant generously acknowledged to Smith “that he owed his success at Donelson emphatically to him.” His report to Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, Department of the Missouri commander, praised Smith for his “most brilliantly executed attack.”

Halleck telegraphed George McClellan: “Brig.-General Charles F. Smith, by his coolness and bravery at Fort Donelson when the battle was against us, turned the tide and carried the enemy’s outworks; make him a Major-General. You can’t get a better one. Honor him for this victory, and the country will applaud.”

The appointment was made and unaniPRXVO\ FRQÀUPHG E\ WKH 6HQDWH 0XQLFLSDO authorities in Philadelphia also voted Smith a Sword of Honor. —Allen H. Mesch

GRAPESHOT!

Well Traveled This unusual-looking seven-shot pinfire revolver crafted

by Hill of London made the journey from Georgia to Virginia twice during the Civil War. It also saw action in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Tennessee. That’s because its owner was Georgia’s Goode Bryan, a commander who led a regiment and rose to brigade command under another Georgian, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, in the Army of Northern Virginia.

Although he struggled in his studies at West Point, Bryan did graduate with his class in 1834. After serving briefly in the Army, he worked as a civil engineer on construction of a

Distinct and Deadly Goode Bryan carried this Hill of London seven-shot revolver for most of the war. His name and rank are inscribed on the handle.

Georgia railroad before becoming a planter and politician in Alabama and Georgia. He remained active in both states’ militias and commanded an Alabama volunteer regiment in the Mexican War. Bryan joined the 16th Georgia Infantry as a captain and became a colonel and the regiment’s commander in February 1862, fighting in the Seven Days and at Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville.

During this period, Bryan acquired this rare pistol, which has “Col. Goode Bryan Ga CSA” engraved on the bottom of the grip. Despite its slender barrel, the revolver fires a .45caliber slug. A small ring on the butt acts as a lanyard loop.

At Gettysburg on Day 2, the 16th Georgia fought in the Wheatfield with William T. Wofford’s Brigade, part of Maj. Gen. Lafayette McLaws’ Division, and its attack crested at the northern base of Little Round Top. Helped by an influential cadre of friends lobbying for his promotion, Bryan landed command of another of McLaws’ brigades after Paul J. Semmes, mortally wounded during the Wheatfield fighting, died on July 10, 1863. Now a brigadier general, Bryan was part of Longstreet’s force sent to Georgia that fall but arrived too late to fight at Chickamauga, but he led Semmes’ former brigade at Knoxville in 1863 and during the 1864 Overland Campaign.

By August 1864, chronic poor health affected Bryan’s ability to command the brigade; his resignation was accepted on September 20. He returned to Georgia, was paroled at Albany on May 19, 1865, and settled with his well-traveled revolver in Augusta until his death in 1885. —Jay Wertz

COURTESY OF THE NAU CIVIL WAR COLLECTION/PHOTO BY JAY WERTZ; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

CIVIL WAR ILLUSTRATED

Widespread fighting in the Eastern Theater waned after First Bull Run in July 1861, and Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan and Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard spent the next six or so months “eyeing” each other’s armies across the Potomac River, as mocked in this 1862 Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper cartoon “Masterly Inactivity.” Note the enemy soldiers’ snowball fight taking place along the bottom.

NOVEMBER 2021

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LIFE & LIMB

She Saw it All “If I were to speak of war,” Clara Barton once said, “it would not be to show you the glories of conquering armies but the mischief and misery they strew in their tracks...the side which history never shows.”

Wings of an Angel CLARA BARTON’S WORK AS A BATTLEFIELD NURSE CHANGED LIVES. HER QUEST TO FIND MISSING SOLDIERS WENT EVEN FURTHER

By John Lustrea

12

AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

notifying the relatives of those who were missing or had died in captivity. Vassall relayed the information to Barton in the hope that she might be able to offer assistance. Barton’s nursing efforts had become less necessary as the Civil War neared its end. This was the perfect way to continue her humanitarian work.

Barton wrote to President Abraham Lincoln in February seeking permission to EHFRPH DQ RIÀFLDO JRYHUQPHQW FRUUHVSRQdent searching for those who had vanished GXULQJ WKH FRQÁLFW 6KH ZURWH KHU OHWWHU LQ exceedingly grandiose script in an effort to capture the attention of a man besieged by correspondence.

To his Excellency Abraham Lincoln President of the United States Sir, I most respectfully solicit your authority and endorsement to allow me

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

7KH QRQSURÀW 10&:0 EDVHG LQ )UHGHULFN 0G H[SORUHV WKH ZRUOG RI PHGLFDO VXUJLFDO DQG QXUVLQJ LQQRYDWLRQ GXULQJ WKH &LYLO :DU 7R OHDUQ PRUH DERXW WKH VWRULHV H[SORUHG LQ WKLV DQG IXWXUH FROXPQV WKH PXVHXP KRVWV ZDONLQJ WRXUV WR WKH FLW\·V &LYLO :DU KRVSLWDO VLWHV RQ 6DWXUGD\V DQG 6XQGD\V DW S P IURP $SULO WR 2FWREHU )RU PRUH YLVLW FLYLOZDUPHG RUJ

“THE PROSPECTS OF A SPEEDY PEACE either in the conquest or the submission of the South has never been so cheering,” The New York Herald triumphantly declared on January 1, 1865. To delay its imminent defeat, the Confederacy reestablished the practice of prisoner exchange in early 1865.

A result of the resumed exchanges was the arrival of thousands of emaciated and desperately ill former Union prisoners from infamous camps like Andersonville and Belle Isle at a designated drop-off point known as Camp Parole, near Annapolis, Md. Clara Barton had returned to Washington to nurse her brother, Stephen, and nephew, Irving Vassall, who had both fallen ill at the beginning of 1865. While Barton was in Washington, Vassall, a government employee, had heard news that exchanged Union prisoners were returning in poor condition and that the government needed help

LIFE & LIMB

VESPASIAN/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

to act temporarily as general correspondent at Annapolis Maryland, having in view the reception and answering of letters from the friends of our prisoners now being exchanged.

It will be my object also to obtain and furnish all possible information in regard to those that have GLHG GXULQJ WKHLU FRQÀQHPHQW On March 24, 1865, Barton received the sanction of WKH SUHVLGHQW WR JR WR $QQDSROLV LQ DQ RIÀFLDO FDSDFLW\ Her job would be to list the names of those who died in FDSWLYLW\ DQG QRWLI\ WKHLU IDPLOLHV :RUG TXLFNO\ VSUHDG DURXQG WKH QDWLRQ DERXW %DUton’s appointment to look for missing soldiers through WKH QHZVSDSHUV %DUWRQ KDG GHYHORSHG D UHSXWDWLRQ DV WKH $QJHO RI WKH %DWWOHÀHOG DQG D IULHQG RI WKH VROGLHU E\ WKLV SRLQW LQ WKH ZDU 6KH WUDYHOHG WR PDQ\ EDWWOHÀHOGV DFURVV WKH FRXQWU\ WR KHOS WKH VLFN DQG ZRXQGHG VR ORYHG RQHV DOUHDG\ VHQW KHU OHWWHUV LQTXLULQJ LI VKH KDG VHHQ WKHLU PLVVLQJ UHODWLYHV %DUWRQ·V RIÀFLDO DSSRLQWment meant she received thousands of letters (someWLPHV DV PDQ\ DV D GD\ IURP FRQFHUQHG UHODWLYHV SULPDULO\ ZRPHQ ORRNLQJ IRU ORYHG RQHV 7KH FKDRV DW &DPS 3DUROH ZDV VWDJJHULQJ %DUWRQ witnessed thousands of skeletal former prisoners disembarked from the vessels that carried them to freedom IURP &RQIHGHUDWH SULVRQV $V EDG DV WKH IRUPHU SULVRQers looked, she was concerned about what their families KDG WR JR WKURXJK ZRQGHULQJ LI WKH\ ZHUH GHDG RU DOLYH Barton’s task was made more complicated when she noted that inconsistent record keeping made it almost impossible to know who had been left behind in the SULVRQ JUDYH\DUGV ,Q OLHX RI RIÀFLDO UHSRUWV %DUWRQ turned to the best source of information she had on KDQG WKH VROGLHUV WKHPVHOYHV 6KH LPSORUHG WKH UHWXUQing soldiers to tell her about their comrades who did not PDNH WKH UHWXUQ MRXUQH\ 7KH DVWRQLVKLQJ ÁRRG RI OHWWHUV ZKLFK FDPH LQ RQFH word spread that Barton was looking for missing solGLHUV IRUFHG KHU WR KLUH DVVLVWDQWV ZLWK KHU RZQ PRQH\ H[SHFWLQJ WKDW WKH JRYHUQPHQW ZRXOG HYHQWXDOO\ UHLPEXUVH KHU %DUWRQ DQG KHU VPDOO WHDP ZHUH DEOH WR NHHS up with the overwhelming rate of incoming inquiries ZLWK IRUP OHWWHUV $ IHZ ZHOO SODFHG EODQN OLQHV DOORZHG %DUWRQ WR UHVSRQG PRUH HIÀFLHQWO\ WR WKH PDQ\ FRQFHUQHG ZULWHUV ´<RXU FRPPXQLFDWLRQ RI BBBBBB LV UHFHLYHG DQG WKH QDPH RI BBBBBBB SODFHG XSRQ P\ OLVWV ,W ZLOO EH P\ HDUQHVW HQGHDYRU WR EULQJ WKHVH OLVWV WR WKH QRWLFH RI UHWXUQHG VROGLHUV HYHU\ZKHUH %H DVVXUHG WKDW DV VRRQ DV DQ\ LQIRUPDWLRQ RI LQWHUHVW WR \RX LV JDLQHG LW ZLOO EH SURPSWO\ IRUZDUGHG µ %DUWRQ UHIXVHG WR WDNH PRQH\ IURP WKRVH GHVSHUDWHO\ VHDUFKLQJ IRU ORVW UHODWLYHV 6KH HYHQ UHIXVHG GRQDWLRQV DV OLWWOH DV RQ D PDWWHU RI SULQFLSOH

*UDGXDOO\ VKH FRPSLOHG D PDVWHU OLVW RI VROGLHUV ZKR KDG GLVDSSHDUHG GXULQJ WKH ZDU ,Q -XQH VKH SXEOLVKHG WKH ÀUVW ´5ROO RI 0LVVLQJ 0HQ µ ZKLFK OLVWHG QDPHV %\ WKH FRQFOXVLRQ RI KHU ZRUN LQ ÀYH VHSDUDWH UROOV KDG EHHQ SXEOLVKHG FRQWDLQLQJ QDPHV 7KH OLVWV ZHUH RUJDQL]HG E\ VWDWH DQG FRQWDLQHG LQVWUXFWLRQV IRU DQ\RQH ZLWK NQRZOHGJH RI WKHVH PHQ·V ZKHUHDERXWV WR ZULWH WR KHU 3UHVLGHQW $QGUHZ -RKQVRQ allowed Barton to use the larger government printing

Barton’s Handiwork &ODUD %DUWRQ·V 0LVVLQJ 6ROGLHUV 2IÀFH LQ GRZQWRZQ Washington, D.C. Now a restored museum, it offers a riveting look at her vital work during and after the war.

SUHVV WR SXEOLVK WKH 5ROOV RI 0LVVLQJ 0HQ D WDVN WKDW ZRXOG KDYH EHHQ SURKLELWLYHO\ H[SHQVLYH RWKHUZLVH Barton explained to one concerned writer how she FXUDWHG WKH QDPHV RQ KHU 5ROOV RI 0LVVLQJ 0HQ ´7KH DSSHDUDQFH RI D PDQ·V QDPH XSRQ P\ UROO LV VLPSO\ HYLdence that some friend is asking for him…and the QRQ DSSHDUDQFH VLJQLÀHV WKDW KH KDV QRW EHHQ LQTXLUHG for or there has not been time to get his name upon D UROO µ Barton did not end her search when Camp Parole FORVHG D IHZ PRQWKV DIWHU KHU DUULYDO $ PHHWLQJ ZLWK 'RUHQFH $WZDWHU LQ -XQH SURSHOOHG KHU PLVVLRQ WR QHZ KHLJKWV $WZDWHU NHSW D KLGGHQ DQG GHWDLOHG OLVW RI those who died at the notorious Andersonville Prison

NOVEMBER 2021

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LIFE & LIMB

GXULQJ KLV WLPH LQ FDSWLYLW\ WKHUH $IWHU VHHLQJ WKH ÀUVW Roll of Missing Men, he decided to contact Barton to offer his help. Atwater’s information enabled an expedition, which included Barton, to go to Andersonville, to identify the graves of 13,000 missing soldiers, and then to notify the families. The team eventually established a national cemetery at the location of the prison in August 1865.

7KXV IDU %DUWRQ KDG SOD\HG D VLJQLÀFDQW UROH LQ bringing closure to thousands of families, but she was unsure how much longer she could continue to look for missing men. Her personal funds were beginning to run dry. It was not until early 1866, with the assistance of her friend Francis Dana Barker Gage, that Barton was able to raise money to continue her work. Gage wrote several pleas for Barton in The New York Independent soliciting money for her cause. Gage also helped Barton draft a petition to send to Congress. Congress eventually decided to grant her $15,000 as a reimbursement for her previous efforts and to keep the mission going.

With that boost, Barton was able to continue the work RI WKH 0LVVLQJ 6ROGLHUV 2IÀFH WKURXJK WKH HQG RI ,Q KHU ÀQDO UHSRUW WR &RQJUHVV %DUWRQ SUHVHQWHG some amazing numbers. In four years, the Missing SolGLHUV 2IÀFH ´KDG UHFHLYHG LQTXLULHV ZULWWHQ 41,855 letters, mailed 58,693 printed circulars, distribXWHG FRSLHV RI KHU SULQWHG UROOV DQG LGHQWLÀHG PHQ µ %DUWRQ·V HIIRUWV DW WKH FORVH RI WKH &LYLO War cement her legacy as one of the pioneers of the movement to search for missing soldiers.

14

AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

As someone who had seen and helped to ease so much SK\VLFDO WUDXPD RQ &LYLO :DU EDWWOHÀHOGV %DUWRQ UHFRJQL]HG KRZ LPSRUWDQW WKH ZRUN RI ÀQGLQJ PLVVLQJ PHQ was to soothe the minds of loved ones at home. In a letter to a benefactor, Barton herself tried to describe the inspiration that kept her moving in spite of challenging circumstances: If it has been my privilege to lighten ever so little the heavy burden of grief which has been laid upon the hearts of our suffering people, or throw the feeble weight of my arm on the side of my country in her hour of trial, if I have made one heart stronger, or one war less bitter, I regard it as a blessing forever beyond my power to express. And whatever yet remains to be done, or however weary I may become even in well doing, my soul will always be lifted up, P\ KDQGV VWUHQJWKHQHG P\ VWHS TXLFNHQHG DQG WKH PLOHV VKRUWHQHG E\ WKH UHÁHFWLRQ WKDW WKH KHDUWV of good men and women are with me in my work; that I carry their respect and approval, and that their generous consideration is helping me on to its accomplishment.

Today you can visit Clara Barton’s residence at the 0LVVLQJ 6ROGLHUV 2IÀFH LQ :DVKLQJWRQ ' & DW WKH &ODUD %DUWRQ 0LVVLQJ 6ROGLHUV 2IÀFH 0XVHXP 7KHUH you can see her wartime home where she gathered supplies to take with her to the front lines. After the conÁLFW VKH UDQ WKH 0LVVLQJ 6ROGLHUV 2IÀFH IURP KHU boarding house, which has been restored to its original appearance. Go to clarabartonmuseum.org/visit for the best way to plan your visit.

John Lustrea is Education Coordinator at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine.

DORLING KINDERSLEY LTD./ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; COURTESY OF NMCWM

Higher Mission Barton and Dorence Atwater (above right) would team to identify Union prisoners who died at Andersonville, many now buried in the national cemetery there.

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HIDDEN HEROES

Double Duty IRISHMAN JOSEPH O’KEEFFE SHONE IN BOTH THE PAPAL AND AMERICAN CIVIL WARS

By Jessica A. Weatherbee THE CIVIL WAR was the perfect crucible in which young men from well-respected families could prove themselves as capable and dashLQJ RIÀFHUV 0DQ\ ZKR FRXOG KDYH HQMR\HG FRPIRUWDEOH FLUFXPstances eschewed lives of luxury for the Spartan existence of army FDPSV 2QH VXFK \RXQJ PDQ FRXQWHG ODZ\HUV GLVWLOOHUV WKH FKLHI MXVWLFH RI -DPDLFD DQG D 5RPDQ &DWKROLF ELVKRS DPRQJ KLV NLQ +LV QDPH ZDV -RVHSK 2·.HHIIH³DQ ,ULVKPDQ ZKR GLVWLQJXLVKHG KLPVHOI LQ WZR VHSDUDWH FRQÁLFWV %RUQ LQ 'XEOLQ LQ 2·.HHIIH VSHQW KLV HDUO\ \HDUV LQ &DQDGD ÀUVW LQ SUHVHQW GD\ 6SDUWD 2QWDULR DQG WKHQ 0RQWUHDO +H UHWXUQHG WR ,UHODQG LQ WKH PLG V ZLWK SODQV WR FRPSOHWH KLV HGXFDWLRQ LQ &RUN EXW IDWH GLFWDWHG RWKHUZLVH :LWK WKH RXWEUHDN RI WKH 3DSDO :DU EHWZHHQ ,WDOLDQ 1DWLRQDOLVWV DQG 3RSH 3LXV ,;·V 5RPDQLVWV 2·.HHIIH ´ZLWK D IHZ IULHQGV UDLVHG D UHJLPHQW LQ WKH 3RSH·V VHUYLFH µ 6RPH DFFRXQWV SODFH 2·.HHIIH DW 6SROHWR RWKHUV DW $QFRQD

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where he served as a lieutenant during the EULHI FRQÁLFW DQG VXEVHTXHQWO\ VWD\HG LQ 5RPH DV D PHPEHU RI WKH SRSH·V ERG\JXDUG $V PLOLWDU\ WHQVLRQV FRROHG RQ WKH ,WDOLDQ 3HQLQVXOD KRZHYHU WKH $PHULFDQ &LYLO :DU ZDV KHDWLQJ XS 6HFUHWDU\ RI 6WDWH :LOOLDP 6HZDUG DQG $UFKELVKRS RI 1HZ <RUN -RKQ +XJKHV EHJDQ UHFUXLWLQJ YHWHUDQV RI WKH 3DSDO :DU IRU WKH UDQNV RI WKH 8QLRQ $UP\ $IWHU PHHWLQJ 2·.HHIIH DQG FRPUDGHV 0\OHV .HRJK DQG 'DQLHO .HLO\ LQ )HEUXDU\ +XJKHV ZDV LPSUHVVHG ZULWLQJ WR 6HZDUG ´>7KH\@ DUH JRRG ORRNLQJ LQ SHUVRQ DQG JHQWOH LQ PDQQHUV µ ,Q MXVW D IHZ ZHHNV the three friends found themselves commisVLRQHG RIÀFHUV LQ WKH 8QLRQ $UP\ 2·.HHIIH·V ÀUVW DVVLJQPHQW ZDV RQ %ULJ *HQ -DPHV 6KLHOGV· VWDII 1RZ D FDSWDLQ KH ZDV WDVNHG ZLWK KHDGTXDUWHUV PHVVHQJHU GXW\ 7KDW GLGQ·W NHHS KLP RQ WKH VLGHOLQHV KRZHYHU DV KH UHSRUWHGO\ KDG D KRUVH VKRW RXW IURP XQGHU KLP³RQH RI VHYHUDO PRXQWV KH ZRXOG ORVH LQ WKLV IDVKLRQ GXULQJ WKH ZDU 6KLHOGV· WLPH LQ FRPPDQG GLG QRW ODVW ORQJ DQG LQ ODWH -XO\ 2·.HHIIH ZDV WUDQVIHUUHG WR WKH VWDII RI %ULJ *HQ -RKQ %XIRUG .HRJK DOVR VHUYHG XQGHU %XIRUG DW WKLV WLPH ZLWK WKH WZR ,ULVKPHQ HDUQLQJ WKH VREULTXHW ´%XIRUG·V 7ZLQ $LGHV µ $IWHU WKH 6HFRQG %DWWOH RI %XOO 5XQ %XIRUG

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praised the duo as “dashing, gallant, and daring sol- camps by that evening and would be correct. diers.” During Maj. Gen. George Stoneman’s famed cavO’Keeffe’s career trajectory took an important turn alry raid in April-May 1863, the old dragoon professed in November, when he was appointed as senior major how his staff had “relieved me of much anxiety.” Under of the 2nd New York Cavalry. At the time, the regiment Buford’s leadership, the young captains were proving was in Brevet Maj. Gen. George Custer’s 3rd Cavalry themselves as capable as seasoned Regulars.

Division and would take an active part in the AppomatWith Buford’s approval, O’Keeffe assisted Captain tox Campaign. It was at the Battle of Five Forks on Wesley Merritt of the 2nd U.S. Cavalry at the June 9 April 1, 1865, that O’Keeffe received the wounds that Battle of Brandy Station, with Merritt later referring to terminated his promising career and ultimately his life. his young contemporary as “the gallant O’Keeffe.” The In leading his regiment’s charge against the Confedertwo captains led the regiment in an early charge, in ate breastworks, he was struck in the leg by a canister which O’Keeffe’s horse was shot, falling upon him. ball, which shattered the femoral artery. He was resWhile pinned under the animal, O’Keeffe was shot by a FXHG E\ FRPUDGHV XQGHU ÀUH DQG FDUULHG WR WKH UHDU Confederate and taken prisoner.

2Q 2·.HHIIH·V ÀUVW KRVSLWDO VWD\ DW &LW\ 3RLQW 9D O’Keeffe remained in Rebel custody until late Decemsurgeons closed off the damaged artery. Transferred one EHU FRQÀQHG LQ 5LFKPRQG·V /LEE\ PRQWK ODWHU WR $UPRU\ 6TXDUH +RVSLWDO LQ Prison. While O’Keeffe stagnated behind Washington, D.C., his condition began to the brick walls of that old tobacco wareimprove. Since it was his desire to be placed in the care of the Sisters of Washhouse, his former commander, Buford, earned laurels on the opening day of the ington, he was then transferred to the city’s Battle of Gettysburg, only to die from Providence Roman Catholic Hospital.

Sheridan visited him with a most welW\SKRLG ÀYH PRQWKV ODWHU comed gift: a brevet promotion to lieuFortunately for the young Irishman, he was exchanged just after Christmas tenant colonel on his staff. and sent to Camp Parole in Annapolis.

O’Keeffe’s condition declined, however, According to camp records, as of April and amputation of his right leg in the mid1864, O’Keeffe was on duty and commanddle of the thigh became necessary. The galing the 4th Battalion. Shortly thereafODQW \RXQJ RIÀFHU ZKR KDG KHOG RQ WR OLIH ter, he was back in the saddle for fresh VR ÀUPO\ WKURXJK VR PDQ\ EDWWOHV GLG Papal Honor not survive the operation. He died on action on the staff of a new commander, The Medaglia di Pro Petri Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan.

May 31, 1865, while attended by several Sede, given by Paul IX to In no time, O’Keeffe once again distin- O’Keeffe’s Papal War cohort devastated friends. His funeral was held JXLVKHG KLPVHOI LQ WKH ÀHOG HDUQLQJ in St. Peter’s Church in New York City, Myles Keogh, who was praise from Brig. Gen. Alfred T.A. wearing it when killed with but O’Keeffe’s remains were taken to Custer at Little Bighorn.

Torbert after an engagement near Cold 0RQWUHDO DW WKH UHTXHVW RI RQH RI KLV VLVHarbor in late May: “In one instance the ters. O’Keeffe is most likely interred at Second U.S. Cavalry drove the enemy before them with the sprawling Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery. their pistols after their carbines’ ammunition had given In September 1892, O’Keeffe’s former comrades-inout, and on their line could be seen Captain O’Keeffe, of arms eulogized him at the dedication of the 2nd New the Corps staff, gallantly leading the men into action.”

York Cavalry’s monument at Gettysburg. The oration O’Keeffe’s shining moment came in October 1864 JLYHQ E\ WKH +RQ (XJHQH % 7UDYLV PDGH QRWH RI during Sheridan’s Shenandoah Valley Campaign. The 2·.HHIIH·V VDFULÀFH ´,Q RXU DGPLUDWLRQ DQG YHQHUDWLRQ morning of October 19 began with what would become we shed a silent tear at the mention of the…fall of that known as Sheridan’s Ride. Unable to sleep as cannon gallant Major O’Keefe [sic] at Five Forks.” ÀUH URDUHG LQ WKH GLVWDQFH 6KHULGDQ VDGGOHG XS ZLWK D O’Keeffe had not been one to linger in the limelight.

VPDOO HVFRUW WR LQYHVWLJDWH +LV ÁHHLQJ WURRSV UHYHDOHG As John Y. Foster wrote in New Jersey and the RebelWKDW /W *HQ -XEDO (DUO\·V $UP\ RI WKH 9DOOH\ KDG lion, published in 1868: “This man, so brave, so passionlaunched a surprise attack near Cedar Creek. As feisty ate, yet so gentle, so manly and generous, deserves /LWWOH 3KLO WKXQGHUHG GRZQ WKH URDG IURP KLV KHDGTXDU- more than passing mention, and we gladly name him ters in Winchester to Cedar Creek, O’Keeffe and Major here, because—almost a stranger in our land—there George “Sandy” Forsyth followed, with all three rallying DUH IHZ ZKR NQRZ RI WKH JUHDW VDFULÀFHV KH PDGH IRU WKH the disheartened Federals back into the fray and trans- cause he had espoused.” forming an embarrassing rout into a solid victory. Sheridan promised his troops they would sleep in their old Jessica Weatherbee writes from Elizabethtown, Pa.

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AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

COWAN’S AUCTIONS

HIDDEN HEROES

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FROM THE CROSSROADS

Tainted Legacy CLAIMS THAT EWELL, WRACKED BY INDECISION, COST THE CONFEDERATES AT GETTYSBURG ARE UNFOUNDED

DOUGLAS SOUTHALL FREEMAN titled Chapter Six of the third volume of his widely read study Lee’s Lieutenants, “Ewell Cannot Reach a Decision.” He depicted “Old Bald Head”—Robert E. Lee’s Second Corps commander, Lt. Gen. Richard Ewell—as a vacillating, indecisive, cautious leader who failed to seize the initiative and deprived the Army of Northern Virginia on more than one occasion of seizing opportunities that would have resulted in Confederate victory at Gettysburg.

Among Second Corps veterans Freeman deployed to build his case of Ewell’s “failures” were John B. Gordon, Isaac Trimble, and Henry Kyd Douglas. All sought for various reasons to place Ewell in the worst possible light, and all of their accounts from which Freeman drew were published long after the war and after Ewell’s death in 1872. Ewell suffered further abuse in Michael Shaara’s popular novel The Killer Angels, in which Shaara drew heavily on Trimble’s self-serving account.

Battered by the able pens of two talented writers, and by other popular historians such as Clifford Dowdey,

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the accepted narrative is that Ewell performed poorly at Gettysburg. Shaara, of course, was simply seeking to tell a compelling story and Trimble’s narrative provided useful friction. But Freeman and Dowdey had an ulterior motive: They sought to shield Lee from criticism, and Ewell provided a convenient scapegoat.

Before we move on, let us settle one thing; Richard Ewell was no Marshal Davout, but he was Lee’s most reliable corps commander at Gettysburg and performed far better, and more decisively, than Freeman and others have led us to believe over the years.

On July 1, Ewell was, as ordered, concentrating his corps near Cashtown, Pa., about eight miles west of Gettysburg. He had two divisions, Robert Rodes’ and Jubal Early’s, encamped at Heidlersburg, about 10 miles northeast of Gettysburg, and planned to march them on parallel routes toward Cashtown to avoid road congestion. That morning he received word that A.P. Hill’s Third Corps was conducting a reconnaissance in force to Gettysburg to investigate a report of Union cavalry.

NIDAY PICTURE LIBRARY/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

By D. Scott Hartwig

FROM THE CROSSROADS In Lee’s July 2 offensive, Ewell’s Corps was assigned Ewell promptly diverted both his divisions to Gettysburg— a diversionary role. Upon hearing Longstreet’s guns, on Rodes on the Carlisle Road and the army’s right, opening the main effort, Ewell was to Early on the Old Harrisburg mount a diversion to lock in the Union forces on his Road. If Hill met resistance front and prevent them from reinforcing Longstreet’s west of Gettysburg, Ewell’s front. If he perceived an opportunity, Ewell had the disdivisions would come in behind cretion to expand his diversion into a formal attack.

Ewell’s artillery on Benner’s Hill unleashed an effecthe enemy from the north.

When Ewell arrived on Oak tive bombardment of both Cemetery Hill and Culp’s Hill, northwest of Gettysburg, Hill, but a determined response by the Federal guns about noon he found Hill engaged with the enemy. Lee ÀQDOO\ IRUFHG D ZLWKGUDZDO :KHQ VNLUPLVKHUV UHSRUWHG had directed Ewell to avoid a general engagement if he however, that enemy troops near Culp’s Hill appeared encountered the enemy in “very heavy force.” Far from to be moving off, Ewell decided to launch a general fretting indecisively how to interpret that order, how- attack. The plan was for Rodes’ and Early’s divisions to ever, Ewell responded aggressively. He realized Lee’s strike Cemetery Hill from two directions, while Edward order was obsolete, later writing, “It was too late to “Allegheny” Johnson’s Division assaulted Culp’s Hill. avoid an engagement without abandoning the position The effort failed to seize either position, but Johnson at already taken up.” He ordered Rodes to attack. Despite least captured the lower summit of Culp’s Hill, giving poor coordination with Hill’s Corps, the Confederates a foothold there. the Confederates had by 3:30 p.m.

During the night, Ewell received smashed the Union 11th Corps, orders to attack again at daylight on July 3, in conjunction with a driven in the right of the 1st Corps, renewed assault by Longstreet captured thousands of prisoners, against the Union left. Believing and swept the enemy through town Culp’s Hill the only point on his to Cemetery Hill. front offering any hope of success, Ewell soon received another of Ewell had Johnson reinforced. As Lee’s discretionary orders—directed directed, the attack began at dayto capture Cemetery Hill if he “could light, but Ewell soon learned that do so to advantage,” or “if practicaLongstreet had been delayed and ble,” but was again warned not to would not attack until 10 a.m. No bring on a general engagement. headway had been made on JohnEwell unfortunately would get no help from Hill’s Corps, but he did son’s front, but Ewell ordered two QRW GLWKHU RU ZDIÁH +H LPPHGLbrigades to renew the attack at the ately began addressing his options appointed time. Both commanders of those brigades protested the for such an attack. order—a rarity in Lee’s army— As he prepared, Ewell received ‘Old Bald Head’ because of the clear futility, but news of a Federal force east of GetThe Gettysburg Campaign would tysburg. The report could not be Ewell did not reverse course. mark Ewell’s return to action after ignored, so he sent two of Early’s It would prove a disastrous ORVLQJ KLV ULJKW OHJ RQ WKH ÀUVW GD\ brigades to investigate and protect assault, but Ewell had done his part RI ÀJKWLQJ DW 6HFRQG 0DQDVVDV his exposed left flank. That left to coordinate his attack with LongEwell with two brigades from Earstreet. The latter, we realize from ly’s and Rodes’ divisions, but Rodes’ men had suffered history, was still not ready to attack by 10 a.m.; howsome 2,000 casualties and were exhausted and disorga- ever, Ewell could not have known that. By 11 a.m., with nized. Although Early’s two brigades were in good con- the guns on Longstreet’s front still silent, Ewell condition and the enemy clearly disorganized, the hill cluded that his men had done enough and that there bristled with Union artillery and Ewell had few posi- was no chance of achieving a breakthrough. He ordered tions he could use to bring his own guns into action. his forces to withdraw from Culp’s Hill.

Nevertheless, for a third time, he did not suffer indeciLike other commanders, Ewell made his share of mission. He concluded it was not practical for his corps takes during the three-day battle, but indecision and alone to carry Cemetery Hill without drawing the rest overcautiousness were not among them. of the army into combat—the sort of general engagement Lee had advised against. No attack was made.

Scott Hartwig writes from the crossroads of Gettysburg.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Terrible Terrain Ewell’s skirmishers confront Federal soldiers from behind boulders and trees at the foot of Culp’s +LOO ZKHUH ÀJKWLQJ occurred on all three days at Gettysburg.

NOVEMBER 2021

21

True to ThE Cause

54th Massachusetts officer’s unpublished account provides a new look at the regiment’s heroic assault on Fort Wagner

By James Robbins Jewell and Eugene S. Van Sickle

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Proving Their Mettle :LWK À[HG ED\RQHWV WK 0DVVDFKXVHWWV VROGLHUV DVFHQG WKH UDPSDUWV DW )RUW :DJQHU ´'RQ·W ÀUH D PXVNHW RQ WKH ZD\ XS EXW JR LQ DQG ED\RQHW WKHP DW WKHLU JXQV µ WKH\ ZHUH LQVWUXFWHG :HOO SRVLWLRQHG DQG ZHOO DUPHG &RQIHGHUDWHV PDGH VXUH PDQ\ RI WKHP QHYHU JRW WKH FKDQFH

ATTACK ON BATTERY WAGNER - 1863, 54TH MASSACHUSETTS INFANTRY REGULARS UNDER COLONEL ROBERT G. SHAW/ TOM LOVELL/COURTESY OF HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS

NOVEMBER 2021

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Dedicated Commander The ill effects of sunstroke forced Appleton, a major at the time, to resign from the 54th in late 1864. While recruiting in Boston, he produced posters such as the one shown below.

Wagner, Captain John W.M. Appleton distracted himself from the anxiety of approaching battle by writing a letter to his wife, Mary. It was not long, however, before his focus shifted from relating recent events to telling her what was about to happen: “We are in the extreme advance against Fort Wagner, shot is singing over us from the Rebel guns. My company & William’s & Pope’s & Grace’s in advance.” Betraying his sense of imminent danger, he wrote one last line before turning his full attention to the Confederate position, telling his wife, “[W]e will meet in heaven if not on Earth, kiss [our two-year-old daughter] Mabel.”

Although the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, one of the Union’s earliest Black regiments, had fought a spirited skirmish two days earlier, many believed leading the assault on Fort Wagner was the true test to answer WKH TXHVWLRQ LI HQOLVWLQJ $IULFDQ $PHULFDQV WR ÀJKW IRU WKHLU IUHHGRP ZRXOG ZRUN $SSOHWRQ KRSHG WKDW KLV VXSHULRUV ZRXOG ´OHW XV ÀJKW RQ until slavery is impossible.” Leading the attack against one of the key earthen ConBroken Promise federate forts protecting Charleston, S.C., The offer of $13-a-month might quiet most of the critics and settle pay on this recruiting poster became a source the issue for good. This was the opportuof contention for Black nity for which the regiment and its commen of the 54th when mander, Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, had the federal government been lobbying for some time now. arbitrarily altered the Like the 54th’s other hand-picked comrate to $10 a month. pany commanders, Appleton came from

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COURTESY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY (2)

As the 54th Massachusetts waited below Fort

Massachusetts. Although he attended Harvard Medical School in the early 1850s, he did not complete his training and was working as a clerk when the war started. Unlike his future commander, Shaw, Appleton had not immediately joined one of the regiments that headed VRXWK WR ÀJKW +LV SUHZDU VHUYLFH ZDV DV D SULvate in the Corps of Cadets, Massachusetts Militia in the months prior to joining the 54th.

Appleton served with the unit performing guard duty in and around Boston before it was federalized in May 1862 and sent to garrison Fort Warren in Boston Harbor. The unit was mustered out two months later, leaving Appleton searching for another command with which to serve. Although there were numerous opportunities, Appleton decided that “if the Government ever allowed the colored man an RSSRUWXQLW\ WR ÀJKW IRU WKHLU OLEHUW\ µ KH SUHferred to serve in such a regiment. The time came in the late fall of 1862, before the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect January 1, 1863. Ten days later, on January 11, Appleton wrote to Colonel Thomas W. Higginson, ZKR KDG EHHQ DSSRLQWHG WKH FRPPDQGLQJ RIÀcer of the 1st South Carolina (Union) Infantry in November 1862 and was in the process of

HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

recruiting his regiment, which was made up of escaped slaves from South Carolina and Georgia. Appleton wrote Higginson, “I am desirous of serving our country in connection with the colored troops now being raised.”

Although the eager Appleton did not get the captain’s commission he sought from Colonel Higginson, his opportunity came three weeks later when Massachusetts Governor John Andrew authorized the formation of a new infantry regiment of African American soldiers, to be named the 54th Massachusetts Infantry. Appleton was initially commissioned D VHFRQG OLHXWHQDQW RQH RI WKH DOO :KLWH RIÀcers in the embryonic regiment, in February 1863 and sent out on recruiting duty.

After three months of training at Camp Meigs, near Boston, the regiment was ordered WR 6RXWK &DUROLQD LQ ODWH 0D\³ÀQDOO\ DV RQH RIÀFHU QRWHG ´HQ URXWH IRU UHEHOOLRXV VRLO µ ,QLtially the 54th was placed under the command of Colonel James Montgomery, who ordered his two regiments to keep busy looking for guerrilla forces while executing total war on the local populace, destroying crops and burning any building he felt could be used for the Confederate cause, including private homes.

Hating the work Montgomery assigned his men and desperate for his regiment to see combat, Colonel Shaw was able to get his command transferred to Brig. Gen. George C. Strong’s brigade. Action would shortly follow, as Union forces continued their efforts to knock out or capture Confederate installations protecting Charleston Harbor, which included masonry forts like Forts Sumter and Moultrie, and earthen installations such as Forts Wagner and Gregg (which the Confederates instead called “batteries”).

2Q -XO\ WKH UHJLPHQW ÀQDOO\ HQJDJHG LQ combat operations, no less to save a White regiment—the 10th Connecticut Infantry—from possibly being cut off during a heavy skirmish at Grimball’s Landing on James Island. The 54th Massachusetts suffered more than 40 casualties in its baptismal combat.

7KH IHURFLW\ RI WKH ÀJKWLQJ DW *ULPEDOO·V Landing was only a precursor for what followed two days later when the 54th led the twilight attack against Fort Wagner. Union troops were pulled off the island for a short rest, without camp equipage or food, the next day. The lack of food and quality sleep did not prevent Strong’s brigade, with the 54th Massachusetts in front, from being ordered to attack Fort Wagner, on Morris Island, on July 18.

7KRXJK VWLOO WLUHG IURP WKH ÀJKWLQJ RQ WKH

Struck Down on Morris Island Union Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and Brig. Gen. George C. Strong, who commanded the lead brigade in Truman Seymour’s 2nd 'LYLVLRQ 6WURQJ ZDV PRUWDOO\ ZRXQGHG E\ VKHOOÀUH G\LQJ -XO\ 16th DQG KXQJU\ WKH PHQ LQ WKH UHJLPHQW XQGHUVWRRG WKH VLJQLÀFDQFH of leading the attack on the fort. The assault, scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m., had to be launched on a narrow front, hemmed in by the Atlantic Ocean on the right and marshes from Vincent’s Creek on the left. The heavy daylight bombardment preceding the attack failed to do much damage to Brig. Gen. William B. Taliaferro’s Confederates waiting inside the fort. Unable to attack across a wider front, and with only one viable approach, Strong’s brigade as a whole—and especially the 54th Massachusetts—had only a forlorn hope. Even if they could breach the fort, it was unlikely the rest of the supporting commands could come to their aid. Still, this was what Shaw had asked for, and what the othHUV OLNH $SSOHWRQ ZDQWHG WKH FKDQFH WR SURYH WKH ÀJKWLQJ FDSDELOLWLHV of their African American soldiers.

As Strong’s brigade assembled for the attack, Shaw organized his regLPHQW LQWR WZR DVVDXOW FROXPQV +H OHG WKH ÀUVW EDWWDOLRQ ZKLOH KLV VHFond in command, Lt. Col. Norwood Hallowell, led the second. As they anxiously awaited the order to attack, 19-year-old Captain Luis Emilio UHPHPEHUHG KRZ ´>R@IÀFHUV KDG VLOHQWO\ JUDVSHG RQH DQRWKHU·V KDQGV brought their revolvers to the front, tightened their sword-belts. The men whispered last injunctions to comrades, and listened” for the comPDQG WR EHJLQ WKH DWWDFN ÀUVW DW TXLFN WLPH WKHQ ZKHQ \DUGV IURP WKH IRUW DW WKH GRXEOH TXLFN &DSWDLQ $SSOHWRQ ZRXOG ÀQDOO\ KDYH WKH chance to “drive my boys hard” in battle, during which he hoped “to climb the exterior slope of a Rebel battery, especially if a white Regiment attacks near us.”

His account below begins as the regiment waited to launch the attack on Fort Wagner. Before it was over, Appleton was among the more than 40 percent of the regiment’s men who became casualties, including 14 RI RIÀFHUV

W

e sat down on the sand to wait our orders, near me Surgeon [Lincoln R.] Stone had some stretchers. As we sat WKHUH ZH WDONHG RI WULÁHV DQG HYHU\ ERG\ VHHPHG SHUIHFWO\ cool and calm. After a while, we were ordered forward and commenced our march up the sandy road, in the middle of the island[.] We passed the light house blown up by the Rebels, NOVEMBER 2021

25

and earthworks taken from them, and after passing the sand hills came out on a more level expanse of sand, near the old Beacon house.

Before us, we could still see Fort Sumter looming up, nearer, on the island were earthworks, and Ft. Wagner. as soon as we were perceived E\ WKH 5HEHOV WKH\ FRPPHQFHG ÀULQJ VROLG VKRW DW XV DSSDUHQWO\ 32-pounders, they struck in front of us and ricocheted over us. We were PDUFKLQJ E\ WKH ÁDQN ULJKW LQ IURQW WKDW LV LQ FROXPQ RI IRXU PHQ abreast, Co. B in front and my Company A behind them. We moved forZDUG XQGHU WKLV KDUPOHVV ÀUH XQWLO ZH UHDFKHG RXU EDWWHULHV ZKLFK were playing on Wagner, and turning to the right passed round them onto the beach. Just as we did so a shell from the enemy exploded at one RI WKH JXQV DQG RYHU WKH VPRNH , VDZ D PDQ·V FDS Á\ KLJK LQ WKH DLU After passing well in front of the batteries, we were formed in line by wing that is, half the regiment in the front line, and the other half in line behind them. Our arms were loaded, but by order no [percussion] caps were put on the guns. We were then ordered to lie down. Before us, the Island narrowed to a strip of sand with the harbor of Charleston on RXU ULJKW DQG DQ LQOHW RQ RXU OHIW 7KH ÀUVW OLQH RU ZLQJ ZDV XQGHU LPPHdiate command of the Colonel, the second one under charge of Major [Edward N. “Ned”] Hallowell.

7KH OLQH RIÀFHUV ZHUH DOO LQ WKHLU SODFHV LQ WKH UHDU RI WKHLU FRPSDnies, mostly lying down with their men. Some however moved about a little and talked in low tones with each other.

We told each other where our letters were in our pockets and asked

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AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

“we have the most magnificent chance to prove the valor of the colored race now” cap and his short stature and fair hair and face beardless, except for a moustache, made him look very boyish. :LONLH -DPHV >/LHXWHQDQW *DUWK :LONLQVRQ James], our adjutant, came up to me and said ´ZH KDYH WKH PRVW PDJQLÀFHQW FKDQFH WR SURYH the valor of the colored race now,” and as he spoke accidentally discharged his revolver.

The colonel looked round on us and Wilkie said, “I would not have had that happen for anything.” Soon the declining day brought the early darkness, and the word came to rise, and

COURTESY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY (4)

Free Men in the Ranks Clockwise from top left: Sergeant Henry Steward, from Michigan, was part of a large portion of free, non-Massachusetts soldiers in the 54th (he survived Wagner but died in September 1863); Sergeant James W. Bush; Private Richard Gomar, Co. H; and Private Charles Smith, Co. C.

that they be sent home in case we did not arise RXW RI WKH ÀJKW *HQ 6WURQJ FDPH LQ IURQW RI the Regiment, and addressed the men, telling them that he was a Massachusetts man and that he knew they would uphold the honor of WKH ROG >%D\@ 6WDWH +H ZDV D QREOH ÀJXUH DQG his words were applauded by the men. I think ZH DOO ORYHG KLP DW ÀUVW VLJKW $V WKH FDQQRQ VKRW ÁHZ RYHU XV KH VDLG> @ ´ER\V GRQ·W PLQG WKHP WKH\ KDYH EHHQ ÀULQJ DW PH DOO GD\ DQG could not hit me.”

He asked who was the color sergeant, and WKHQ DVNHG ZKR ZRXOG SLFN XS WKH ÁDJ DQG carry it on in case he should be hit or fail. Several voices answered “I.” Colonel Shaw who stood near him took his cigar from his lips and VDLG TXLHWO\ ´, ZLOO µ *HQ 6WURQJ VDLG KH ZDV VRUU\ WKDW ZH PXVW JR LQ WR WKH ÀJKW WLUHG DQG hungry, as we were, but the enemy were tired and hungry too, as they had been under heavy ÀUH DOO GD\ ´'RQ·W ÀUH D PXVNHW RQ WKH ZD\ XS but go in and bayonet them at their guns.” Our little Colonel to outward appearance as calm as ever, walked slowly up and down in front of the lines.

I believe he [Shaw] told Ned Hallowell, our Major, that he thought he would not come out RI WKH ÀJKW EXW ZRXOG EH FRQWHQWHG LI KH FRXOG have lived a little longer with his wife. Certain he had married just before we left the State.

No one from his appearance could have told that a single apprehension of danger to himself was in his thoughts. When he came over to our end of the line, he once stood and looked À[HGO\ RQ PH , ZDV WKH RQO\ RIÀFHU VWDQGLQJ up at the time, it seemed as if he was about to speak, but he did not. He wore a round jacket, with silver eagles pinned ‘on his shoulders, a

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SDQ\ SUHVHUYHG LWV DOLJQPHQW DQG WKH WZR FDQQRQDGHV LQ WKH EDVWLRQV RQ WKDW LQVWDQW ZHUH À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ÁDVKHV RI WKHLU JXQV ZH ORRNHG GRZQ LQWR WKH IRUW $SSDUHQWO\ D VHD RI ED\RQHWV VRPH HLJKW RU WHQ IHHW EHORZ XV 7KH &RORQHO SODQWHG WKH FRORUV RQ WKH WUDYHUVH QH[W WKH VHUYLFH PDJD]LQH RQ WKH OHIW RI WKH FXUWDLQ DQG WKH ÀJKWLQJ ZDV QRZ DERXW WKHP ,Q P\ LPPHGLDWH IURQW WKH HQHP\ ZHUH YHU\ EUDYH DQG PHW XV HDJHUO\ %D\RQHWV PXVNHW EXWWV UHYROYHUV DQG VZRUGV DQG PXVNHW VKRWV ZHUH DOO XVHG EXW RXU VPDOO QXPEHU DQG RXU GLVDGYDQWDJH LQ EHLQJ XS

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[move] forward. We moved at quick time, Shaw Falls ZLWK À[HG ED\RQHWV $OO WKLV WLPH WKH JXQV Colonel Robert Gould RI WKH ÁHHW DQG VKRUH EDWWHULHV KDG EHHQ Shaw’s dramatic death WKXQGHULQJ DZD\ ´3URYH \RXUVHOYHV PHQ µ as he raises his sword to VDLG WKH &RORQHO DV ZH VWDUWHG 2XU OLQHV rally his men is captured ZHUH DERXW VL[WHHQ KXQGUHG \DUGV IURP WKH in this painting. The IRUW $V ZH DGYDQFHG ÀUH ZDV RSHQHG XSRQ sword, thought lost, was acquired by the XV WKH VWULS RI ODQG RYHU ZKLFK ZH FKDUJHG Massachusetts Historical ZDV YDU\LQJ LQ ZLGWK QRZ ZH KDG SOHQW\ RI Society in 2017 [see URRP DQG QRZ RXU OLQHV ZHUH FURZGHG bit.ly/ShawsSword].

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against the sky told heavily. The men rapidly turning out around me. I received a sword thrust through my blouse but it fortunately passed between my legs. About this time, I saw our colors fall, rise again and go back through the water of the ditch borne by some one. Finding it impossible to hold the crest of the parapet, we were so near the enemy as to be able almost to touch them, and they were able to use cannon rammers, and hand spikes in the melee. We withdrew our diminished numbers to the outer slope of the parapet, hoping to hold in until our VHFRQG EULJDGH FDPH XS DQG FRQWLQXHG WKH ÀJKW DV EHVW ZH FRXOG 2Q WKH OHIW EDVWLRQ WKH HQHP\ UDOOLHG DQG RSHQHG DQ HQÀODGLQJ ÀUH ZLWK muskets upon us. Not one man stood on the parapet when I left it. All down the exterior slope, as well as on the top, lay the bodies of our men and behind us in the water of the moat, the poor fellows bodies lay like stepping stones. If we cannot take the fort unaided, our duty is to hold what little we have gained until the attack of the Brigade behind us, and WR NHHS LI SRVVLEOH WKH HQHP\ IURP ÀULQJ WKHLU FDQQRQ XSRQ RXU DGYDQFing troops. To that task we bent our energies. Capts. [George] Pope and Jones, and Lieut[ant Edward B.] Emerson, who had just been assigned to my company, and myself with a crowd of our men of all companies SHUKDSV ÀIW\ LQ QXPEHU QRZ FRPPHQFHG ÀULQJ DW HYHU\ UHEHO ZKR showed himself. We picked up the muskets of the fallen but found many LQHIIHFWLYH IURP EHLQJ ÀOOHG ZLWK VDQG 7KH FRROQHVV DQG EUDYHU\ RI WKHVH RIÀFHUV DQG PHQ ZDV YHU\ PDUNHG

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he enemy were particularly troublesome from their bastion on our OHIW 2QH PDQ LQ SDUWLFXODU ZLWK D EURDG EULPPHG KDW KLW VRPH RQH RI RXU PHQ HYHU\ WLPH KH ÀUHG , RUGHUHG D Sergt to pick him off, but he could not, VR &DSW 3RSH DQG , ÀUHG DW KLP DW WKH VDPH time when he next showed himself, and he disappeared, and we saw no more of him. A wounded soldier of my company lay with his back against the fort, his broken arm across his body, he was taking cartridges from his box tearing them and laying them in his wounded arm, for Lieut. Emerson, who was doing good work with a musket. Emerson was but 17 yrs old and as brave as a little OLRQ PRVW RI RXU RIÀFHUV ZHUH very young, Pope but 19, Poor [Lieutenant] Cabot Russel but HWF 2QH RI P\ PHQ FKDÀQJ DW fighting so on the defensive, despite my order to keep still where he was, said he would go up and kill another one and climbed up to the top of WKH SDUDSHW DJDLQ KH ÀUHG DQG LPPHGLately rolled down right over me, a corpse.

Leaving Pope, Jones, and Emerson, who are doing manful service, I crawl half way into an embrasure in front of the gun, marked S in the place and with my heavy revolver keep the men IURP ÀULQJ LQ $V WKH\ JHW XS WR SULPH LW WKH\ DUH ZLWKLQ D IHZ IHHW DQG DOO LQ VLJKW ZKHQ , ÀUH WKH\ GLVDSSHDU $IWHU EHLQJ WKHUH IRU VRPH WLPH despite their efforts to dislodge me with bayonet, shot, and clubbed

muskets. I feel somebody tugging at my legs.

6R , FUDZO EDFN DQG ÀQG *HR :LOVRQ RI P\ company, who though shot through both shoulders, will not go the rear without leave. I tell him what I think is the best way to get RXW DQG WKHQ ÀQG WKDW 3RSH KDV IDOOHQ DSSDUHQWO\ GHDG DQG WKHUH DUH EXW WKUHH RIÀFHUV RI the 54th standing and no men. While we hesLWDWH ZH KHDU ÀJKWLQJ JRLQJ RQ LQ WKH EDVWLRQ on our right, and skirting the wall we climb up LQWR LW DQG ÀQG D IHZ RI WKH WK 1>HZ@ <RUN DQG VRPH RWKHU UHJLPHQWV ÀJKWLQJ RYHU D WUDverse, we join them and take part. Just before leaving our old position I found my revolver cylinder would not turn, as it was full of sand.

I took it apart[,] cleaned it on my blouse shirt and reloaded.

Where we now were we had a stubborn lot of PHQ WR FRQWHQG DJDLQVW DQG RWKHUV ZHUH ÀULQJ on us from the bomb proof. When the enemy ODLG WKHLU PXVNHWV RQ WKH WUDYHUVH WR ÀUH RQ XV the muzzles project on our side, and we shoot them hardly an arms length away. I shoot one who catches the sand bags as he falls, thinking he is about to recover, I cock the pistol, and present it again. A grenade bursts and nearly cuts my thumb off, and the pistol twirls around RQ P\ IRUH ÀQJHU -XVW DW WKDW PRPHQW &DSW Jones falls heavily against me and before he can answer my question of ‘sir are you hurt?” a piece of shell strikes me in the right breast a crushing blow, and lays me beside him. For a Command Trio Captain Luis Emilio (center) survived the attack; Ezekiel Tomlinson (left) and Daniel Spear (right) joined the 54th July 19. Wounded at Olustee, Tomlinson resigned May 1864. moment the whole dark scene disappears, and I see my wife’s face apparently close to me, soon I get my scattered senses to JHWKHU DQG ÀQG WKDW P\ UXEEHU coat which I had worn in a roll across my right shoulder has been cut nearly in two, that I have a hole in my blouse IURP ZKLFK WKH EORRG ÁRZV DQG , FDXWLRXVO\ SUREH WKH ZRXQG LQ P\ EDFN ZLWK P\ ÀQJHU thinking the missile had gone into my chest. I ÀQG WKDW WKH ERQHV JUDWH DQG JLYH ZD\ XQGHU the pressure, but that there is no free hole in the chest, and that it is only some broken ribs.

My breath came with great pain but I tried to NOVEMBER 2021

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From the Rebel Forts shells came screaming over the beach. Wounded men crawl or hobble back towards our lines. And many dead lie along the sand. After going some distance down the beach I turn to the right thinking that our troops that had EHHQ ÀULQJ RQ XV PXVW EH QHDU , DP LQ JUHDW SDLQ EXW WKH ÀULQJ RQ XV PXVW EH stopped, and I go across the Island in front RI WKH )RUW WKHUH LV D VWHDG\ ÀUH RI PXVNHWU\ IURP WKH )RUW DQG VKHOOV RI DOO VL]HV DUH EXUVWLQJ DOO DURXQG , JR WR WKH HGJH RI WKH PDUVK EXW ÀQG no troops except here and there a straggler behind a sand heap.

7KHQ JRLQJ EDFN WR WKH EHDFK DQG ORZHU GRZQ , WU\ LW DJDLQ VWLOO , ÀQG QR WURRSV &RPLQJ EDFN WR WKH EHDFK , PHHW D PRXQWHG RIÀFHU ZLWK KLV staff, to him I tell my story that we hold one bastion of the Fort and if reinforced can probably take it and that I will go back with the fresh troops. I am holding by his horses mane while I talk to him. He asks me If I am wounded, and then orders me to report to a surgeon and points me to a dim light over the beach and says he will go up to the fort and see to it. So I start down the beach again, soon I come to [Lieutenant] 7RP $SSOHWRQ DQG WZR PRUH RI RXU RIÀFHUV ZLWK RXU FRORUV DQG SHUKDSV sixty of our men. I speak to them and then go to the surgeon, he examines me and orders me over to a hospital below. Just after I leave him VRPH RQH ÀUHV D PXVNHW DW PH IURP WKH VDQG KLOORFNV RQ P\ ULJKW , JR WRZDUGV KLP EXW FDQQRW ÀQG KLP 7KHQ , ÀQG VRPH ZRXQGHG PHQ KDOWHG RQ WKH EHDFK DQG VHH ÁDVKHV RI JXQV DQG KHDU EXOOHWV ZKLVWOH E\ DQ RIÀcer with a broken arm, and faint with loss of blood, tells me that he has WULHG WR SDVV WKH OLQH EXW WKH\ ÀUH DW KLP 6RPH bodies lie before us of men that they have shot.

We try to pass together and fortunately meet DQ RIÀFHU $VNLQJ ZKDW WKHLU ÀULQJ RQ XV means. They say they are to stop stragglers. I tell him that certainly does not mean wounded men ordered to Hospital. He then passes us and we soon reach hospital tents. I am made to lie down and given a cup of coffee, where I laid down on the sand a body had just been removed. Soon a lot of wounded are brought in and some of us who can walk are picked up and started down the beach to a hospital boat, as I reach the beach an artillery driver with two horses meets me and offers to take me along with him on one of his pair of horses. He helps me on but the motion of the horse hurts my broken ribs so that I beg to get down and he transfers me to a passing ambulance, which takes me to the steamboat. helped up the gang Insurmountable SODQN WKH SDVVHQJHUV LQ WKH DPEXODQFH ÀQG Based on an eyewitness Frank Vizetelly sketch, this engraving— themselves on a crowded boat. I am taken into dated July 19 and published in Illustrated London News—shows WKH FDELQ DQG VKRZQ D SODFH RQ WKH ÁRRU ZKHUH Union dead in the “moat” that lined the main wall the 54th attacked.

I can lie down next to Adjutant [Wilkie] James,

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Steel Companion This ivory- or bonehandled steel knife, with “54th Mass.” and the initals “W.L.” carved on the pommel, belonged to DQ XQLGHQWLÀHG PHPEHU of the regiment.

THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR MUSEUM; CHRONICLE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

shoot with my left hand, but the pain was too great and so I laid down again.

Capt[ain] Jones laid silent with his feet toward our lines. A soldier of the 48th New York wounded, laid across the embrasure and I lay with my head on his leg. Soon bullets began to come from our lines, and fall thickly among us. I asked Emerson, who was still ÀJKWLQJ ZLWK D PXVNHW WR JHW D VDQG EDJ RII the parapet to shelter Jones, he tried but could not and reported “Hornets too thick to do it Captain.” The soldier, whose leg my head rested on, had been groaning a good deal. Now a bullet strikes him, he draws up his limbs and is silent forever.

7KLV ÀULQJ RQ XV IURP WKH UHDU PXVW EH stopped and I order Lieut. Emerson to go to the rear and report our position, and ask for reinforcements. The brave fellow says, “I will go if ordered, but I am the only one unwounded and if I am killed and you get out tell them I went by orders and not because I was afraid.”

Thinking that he was doing good service I concluded to try and go myself, so I tied my sword in the sheath and buttoned my revolver in its place, and crept to the opening in [the] parapet. The face of the work was swept by a hail of bullets, as I slid over to the water spent ones struck me like stones, soon I felt the dead under my feet in the edge of the water and I stumbled along towards the harbor beach and after several efforts managed to get up out of the ditch and out upon the beach.

Finally in Union Hands After an extended siege, Wagner’s garrison, down to DERXW HIIHFWLYHV ÀQDOO\ DEDQGRQHG WKH IRUW RYHUQLJKW September 6-7. Some Black soldiers involved in the July 18 assault were part of the occupying force, as shown here.

and near Capt[ain Samuel] Willard. The seats around the sides of the FDELQ DQG WKH FDUSHWHG ÁRRU DUH FRYHUHG ZLWK ZRXQGHG RIÀFHUV 2XU 0DMRU +DOORZHOO OLHV RQ WKH ÁRRU QHDU WKH VWDLUV WKDW OHDG EHORZ 2XWVLGH WKH FDELQ WKH GHFNV DUH FRYHUHG ZLWK VROGLHUV ZLWK HYHU\ YDULHW\ RI ZRXQGV , GR QRW WKLQN ZH WDONHG PXFK 7KH VXUJHRQV PRYHG URXQG DPRQJ XV GUHVVLQJ ZRXQGV DQG , WKLQN JDYH XV DOO RSLDWHV $W DQ\ UDWH , ZHQW RII LQWR D GHDG VOHHS DQG ZKHQ , ZRNH LW ZDV PRUQLQJ DQG ZH ZHUH RXW WR VHD

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Sometime after he reached a hospital ship late

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Chapter Closed Robert E. Lee returned to Richmond on April 15, three days after the Army of Northern Virginia’s formal “stacking of arms” ceremony at Appomattox. Mathew Brady took this photo of Lee, in uniform, shortly after his arrival.

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The GenEral in dEfeat In his first post-Appomattox interview, Robert E. Lee was frank about the war and what lay ahead for the South

By Kevin C. Donovan

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n April 29, 1865, readers of The New York Herald opened their newspapers to ÀQG D FDSWLYDWLQJ VFRRS³DQ LQ GHSWK LQWHUYLHZ ZLWK &RQIHGHUDWH FRPPDQGHU 5REHUW ( /HH 6SHDNLQJ LQ 5LFKPRQG WZR ZHHNV WR WKH GD\ DIWHU KLV VXUUHQGHU WR 8O\VVHV 6 *UDQW DW $SSRPDWWR[ &RXUW +RXVH 9D WKH VHOI VW\OHG ´SDUROHG SULVRQHUµ RIIHUHG KLV WKRXJKWV RQ LVVXHV IDFLQJ WKH QDWLRQ DV WKH &LYLO :DU JURXQG WRZDUG LWV HQG 7KH \HDU ROG JHQHUDO DWWHPSWHG WR MXVWLI\ KLV GHFLVLRQ WR WDNH XS DUPV DJDLQVW WKH 8QLWHG 6WDWHV DQG RSHQHG XS DERXW VODYHU\ WKH FDXVHV RI WKH ZDU &RQIHGHUDWH 3UHVLGHQW -HIIHUVRQ 'DYLV DQG ZKDW ZRXOG VRRQ FRPH WR EH FDOOHG 5HFRQ VWUXFWLRQ $OWKRXJK QRZ ODUJHO\ IRUJRWWHQ /HH·V Herald LQWHUYLHZ LV D IDVFLQDWLQJ JOLPSVH LQWR WKH PLQGVHW RI D PDQ ZKRP PDQ\ $PHULFDQV³ERWK 1RUWK DQG 6RXWK³UHJDUGHG DV WKH OHDGLQJ VSRNHVPDQ IRU WKH IRUPHU &RQIHGHUDF\

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KRPDV 0 &RRN ZDV WKH Herald UHSRUWHU ZKR SHUVXDGHG /HH WR VSHDN &RRN KDG KDG D EXV\ ZDU $VVLJQHG WR FRYHU FRQWURYHUVLDO 8QLRQ 0DM *HQ 'DQLHO 6LFNOHV WKH IRUPHU &RQJUHVV PDQ ZKR DFKLHYHG DQWHEHOOXP LQIDP\ E\ PXUGHULQJ KLV ZLIH·V ORYHU DQG WKHQ ORVW ERWK D OHJ DQG KLV UG &RUSV DW *HWW\VEXUJ &RRN was present aboard one of Union Rear $GPLUDO 'DYLG )DUUDJXW·V VKLSV DW WKH %DW WOH RI 0RELOH %D\ RQ $XJXVW DQG VXEVHTXHQWO\ DFFRPSDQLHG 0DM *HQ :LO OLDP 7 6KHUPDQ·V 0DUFK WR WKH 6HD ,Q $SULO &RRN ZDV EDVHG LQ 5LFKPRQG ZKHUH /HH KDG DUULYHG RQ $SULO &RRN·V ILUVW DWWHPSW WR VHH /HH ZDV GLUHFW³KH VLPSO\ VKRZHG XS DW WKH JHQHUDO·V

UHQWHG KRXVH RQ )UDQNOLQ 6WUHHW 1RW VXU SULVLQJO\ KH ZDV GHQLHG DGPLVVLRQ 8QGH WHUUHG &RRN SURPSWO\ VHQW /HH D QRWH $VVXULQJ /HH WKDW KLV SHUVRQDO V\PSDWKLHV as well as those of his paper rested with Lee, &RRN DSSHDOHG WR WKH JHQHUDO·V ´VHQVH RI MXV WLFH DQG GHIHUHQFH WR SRSXODU YLHZV DQG WKH WUXWK RI KLVWRU\ µ 7KDW ZDV XQGRXEWHGO\ D ÁRZHU\ ZD\ RI XUJLQJ /HH WR JHW KLV YHUVLRQ RI WKH ´WUXWKµ DERXW WKH ZDU LQ SULQW ÀUVW )XUWKHU &RRN SURPLVHG /HH DEVROXWH FRQWURO RYHU ZKDW ZRXOG EH SXEOLVKHG LQ WKH Herald: ´:KDWHYHU PD\ EH VDLG DW WKDW LQWHUYLHZ RU ZKDWHYHU PD\ WUDQVSLUH , DVVXUH \RX RQ WKH KRQRU RI D JHQWOHPDQ VKDOO EH FRQVLGHUHG ZLWK WKH XWPRVW FRQÀGHQFH DQG RQO\ XVHG SXEOLFO\ ZLWK \RXU IRUH DVVHQW µ

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During the war, Lee had pored over the Herald and other Northern newspapers for useful military information. Now, here was a chance to use a major media outlet to help mold Northern public opinion.

Quickly reversing course, Lee sent for Cook.

The interview took place the same day, April &RRN ÀOHG KLV DUWLFOH WKH QH[W GD\ Cook opened his Herald story with a fawning description of Lee, naming him a representative “of the once famous chivalry, and, I had almost said, nobility RI 9LUJLQLD µ &OHDUO\ D V\PSDWKHWLF VFULEH &RRN SUDLVHG /HH·V ´ÀUP VWHS the clear voice, the bright, beaming countenance, the quick intelligence, the upright form, and…active manner.” ,W VHHPHG HYLGHQW WKDW &RRN ZDV QRW SODQQLQJ WR SUHVV RU FURVV H[DPLQH /HH RQ DQ\ LVVXH RU UHVSRQVH JLYHQ 5DWKHU DV &RRN KDG H[SODLQHG to Lee at the outset, his goal simply was to allow Lee “to lay his political views before the public.” The general initially demurred, saying, “I am a paroled prisoner,” as if wary of violating the terms of his parole. Lee also protested that he was not a politician. Cook reassured Lee that, as a prominent Southern leader, Lee’s views would not only be of great interest to the Northern populace, but also could be “of great importance DQG LQÁXHQFH LQ WKH VHWWOHPHQW RI WKH WURXEOHV DJLWDWLQJ WKH FRXQWU\ µ Lee agreed that he was willing to do anything—“to make any sacriÀFH RU SHUIRUP DQ\ KRQRXUDEOH DFWµ³WKDW ZRXOG WHQG WR WKH ´UHVWRration of peace and tranquillity to the country.” It was a promising start to the interview.

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Important to note is that at the time of Lee’s interview, the Confederacy—though rocked by the fall of Richmond and Lee’s surrender, as well as General Joseph Johnston’s pending surrender to Sherman—had not yet been totally defeated. It still had thousands of WURRSV LQ WKH ÀHOG DQG -HIIHUVRQ 'DYLV ZDV VWLOO DW ODUJH KRSLQJ WR ÀQG D ZD\ WR UDOO\ KLV SHRSOH 7KHUH UHPDLQHG D FKDQFH WKDW ÀQDO peace, though in sight, might come only after months of further bloodshed. As Lee must have NQRZQ KH ZDV LQ D XQLTXH SRVLWLRQ WR LQÁXence events. His words would matter.

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aving surmounted the parole issue, &RRN WRRN XS /HH·V GHFLVLRQ WR ÀJKW IRU the Confederacy. Referring to Lee’s well-known vow upon his resignation from the U.S. Army “never...again to draw my VZRUGµ H[FHSW LQ ´GHIHQVH RI P\ QDWLYH VWDWH µ Cook asked him to elaborate on his thinking.

Lee responded that he had had no choice in the course he pursued, emphasizing that as D ´ÀUP DQG KRQHVW EHOLHYHUµ LQ WKH ´GRFWULQH RI State rights,” his primary allegiance was to Virginia. While personally opposed to secession, Lee “honestly believed” that when Vir-

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Breaking News No surprise that the war, Lincoln’s assassination, and Johnston’s surrender to Sherman dominated the Herald’s front page on April 29, 1865.

Cook’s Lee interview appeared on page 5.

CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES

ginia left the Union, he was carried away with her, as a matter of “duty.” Lee said he simply “had no recourse, in his views of honor and patriotism, but to abide by her [Virginia’s] fortunes.”

Lee added that at the time he resigned he intended to remain “merely a private citizen,” and had no intention of taking up arms for anyone, least of all in combat against the United States. But, he told Cook, once his sovereign Virginia called him to service, he had no alternative but to accept a commission. Further, when Virginia subsequently attached herself to the Confederate States, Lee then became duty-bound to accept service in that new entity, as part of his defense of Virginia.

The picture Lee painted of himself was that of a man whose entire course was predetermined by the constitutional principle of state sovereignty and, more important, by his concepts of duty and honor. Perhaps in accordance with the parameters he had promised for the interview, Cook did not ask Lee’s opinion about other Virginians who had stayed loyal to the 8QLRQ VXFK DV /HH·V PHQWRU /W *HQ :LQÀHOG Scott, or Union Maj. Gen. George Thomas.

Lee’s claims that he intended to become a “private citizen” seem somewhat misleading, KRZHYHU )RUW 6XPWHU KDG EHHQ ÀUHG XSRQ E\ Confederate forces on April 12, 1861, and Union commander Major Robert Anderson had surrendered the fort two days later. On April 15, Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to suppress the rebellion. Virginia’s John Letcher was among the Southern governors to rebut Lincoln’s entreaty, and on the 17th Virginia seceded.

7KH QH[W GD\ DW *HQHUDO :LQÀHOG 6FRWW·V invitation, Lee met with Francis P. Blair, one of President Abraham Lincoln’s top advisers.

Blair offered the colonel command of U.S. military forces, but Lee declined. Afterward Lee met with Scott, informing him of his decision.

Scott in turn suggested that Lee resign from the Army.

Lee wrote his resignation letter the morning of April 20. Two days later, he met with Letcher and accepted command of Virginia’s land and naval forces as a major general. As Cook wrote, “when Virginia attached herself to

Lee portrayed the Southern people as the ones who always had been desirous of peace

Historic Home Lee rented this Greek Revival-style home in Richmond for his family during the war and lived there for two months after Appomattox. The three-story building, known today as the Stewart-Lee House, still stands at 707 E. Franklin Street. the Southern confederacy, the same political impressions impelled him to follow her, and when he accepted service under the rebel government he did so on the principle that he was defending his native State.” Thus, as presented to Cook’s readers, Lee simply was honorably answering the call of his home state, which had a greater right to his loyalty. +DYLQJ MXVWLÀHG KLV SHUVRQDO FRQGXFW LQ KLV RZQ H\HV /HH VWHHUHG WKH conversation to assigning blame for the war’s bloodshed. As explained

by Lee, the answer was “this question of State sovereignty…a legitimate casus belli.”

Cook also quoted Lee as saying “the South was never more than half in earnest in this war.” He got the impression from Lee that “the South was most heartily sick of the war, and anxious to get back into the Union and to peace,” noting that the “General added that they went off after political leaders in a moment of passion and under the excitement of fancied wrongs, honestly believing that they were entering a struggle for an inalienable right and a fundamental principle of their political creed.”

Given the earnest disagreement between North and South on the issue of state versus federal sovereignty, and the sections’ failure to resolve the issue short of taking up arms, Lee declared that “the war raised on this issue cannot be considered treason,” adding, “a man should not be judged harshly for contending for that which he honestly believes to be right.” But he blamed “the exasperated North” for having determined to impose its political creed. As for the “right” of secession, Cook wrote that Lee had said “when the South shall be forced to surrender all its forces, and returns to the Union, it indisputably, by that act, surrenders its favorite doctrine of secession.”

While ignoring the delicate question of who had actually started the shooting, Lee portrayed the Southern people as the ones who always had been desirous of peace. Lee declared that peace had been possible at any time in the past two years, if only the federal government had wanted it. The Southern people, he declared, had always during this time “been ready and anxious for peace”—they were but looking for “some word or NOVEMBER 2021

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end was not yet.” Lee cautioned that “[t]here yet remained a great deal of vitality and strength in the South....There were undeveloped resources, and hitherto unavailable sources of strength which harsh measures on our part would call into action; and that the South could protract WKH VWUXJJOH IRU DQ LQGHÀQLWH SHULRG µ As portrayed by Cook, it was on this issue that Lee in many ways remained his most resolute. Lee was speaking eight days after Lincoln’s assassination at Ford’s Theatre, and it is notable that the surrender terms Grant had offered at Appomattox have long been considered among the most generous ever given a defeated army.

Writing in 2015 at the 150th anniversary of the Appomattox surrender, Harry Rubenstein of Smithsonian Magazine noted: “Healing the country, rather than vengeance, directed Grant’s and the Lincoln administration’s actions. There would be no mass imprisonments or executions, no parading of defeated enemies through Northern streets. Lincoln’s priority—shared by Grant—was ‘to bind up the nation’s wounds’ and unite the country together again as a functioning democracy under the Constitution; extended retribution against the former Confederates would only slow down the process.”

On April 20, Lee had written a letter to Jefferson Davis advising the president on the condition and prospects of remaining Southern forces and the Confederacy as a whole (see P.38). “From what I have seen and learned,” Lee wrote, “I believe an army cannot be organized or supported in Virginia, and as far as I know the condition of affairs, the country east of the Mississippi is morally and physically unable to maintain the contest unaided with any hope of ultimate success. A partisan war may be continued, and hostilities protracted, causing individual suffering and the devastation of the country, but I see no prospect by that means of achieving The Fugitive a separate independence.”

The day of the interview, Jefferson Davis was still In his interview with Cook three days on the run. “Why,” Lee later, Lee was perhaps wary that the new asked Cook, “should he Andrew Johnson administration would not suffer more than others?” be as conciliatory toward the South as Lincoln had evidently been. Notably, he did caution Cook that if the terms imposed on the South were particularly harsh, Southern resistance could continue to bankrupt the nation: We might, it was true, destroy all that remained of the country east of the Mississippi river by a lavish expenditure of men and means; EXW WKHQ ZH ZRXOG EH UHTXLUHG WR ÀJKW RQ WKH RWKHU VLGH RI WKH ULYHU and, after subduing them there, we would be compelled to follow them into Mexico, and thus the struggle would be prolonged until the whole country would be impoverished and ruined…

Surrender at Appomattox This Louis Guillaume painting depicts Grant and Lee’s meeting in Wilmer McLean’s parlor.

Lee donned his best uniform, certain he would be taken prisoner once he surrendered.

To Cook, Lee cautioned that the Southern people would pursue this vindictive course “if H[WHUPLQDWLRQ FRQÀVFDWLRQ DQG JHQHUDO DQQLhilation and destruction are to be [U.S.] policy....for if a people are to be destroyed they will sell their lives as dearly as possible.”

In light of his articulation of his real opinion of the matter—as revealed in the April 20 letter to Davis—Lee arguably was using the Cook interview to present a bold front to the NorthHUQ SXEOLF LQ RUGHU WR LQÁXHQFH WKH XOWLPDWH peace terms imposed on the South.

Cook probed Lee on what peace terms Lee thought should be presented to the South. Lee demurred, Cook reporting, “Here there was, perhaps naturally and properly, more reticence than on any other topic.” To his credit, Cook did seek to draw out Lee on the issue.

Cook suggested to Lee that a general amnesty might be forthcoming, the sole exception being that “the political leaders of the South be held to a strict accountability.” Would such Northern generosity be welcome?

Lee refused to entertain any such compromise. “Would that be just?” Lee retorted, asking Cook: “What has Mr. Davis done more than any other Southerner that he should be punished? It is true that he has occupied a promiNOVEMBER 2021

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Heart of the Matter Robert E. Lee revealed his true feelings about the Confederacy’s prospects in this letter to Jefferson Davis, sent just three days before he would be interviewed for The New York Herald.

Richmond, Virginia April 20, 1865 Mr. President The apprehensions I expressed during the winter, of the moral condition of the Army of Northern Virginia, have been realized. The operations which occurred while the troops were in the entrenchments in front of Richmond and Petersburg were not marked by the boldness and decision which formerly characterized them. Except in particular instances, they were feeble; and a want of confidence seemed to possess officers and men. This condition, I think, was produced by the state of feeling in the country, and the communications received by the men from their homes, urging their return and the abandonment of the field. The movement of the enemy on the 30th March to Dinwiddie Court House was consequently not as strongly met as similar ones had been. Advantages were gained by him which discouraged the troops, so that on the morning of the 2d April, when our lines between the Appomattox and Hatcher’s Run were assaulted, the resistance was not effectual: several points were penetrated and large captures made.

At the commencement of the withdrawal of the army from the lines on the night of the 2d, it began to disintegrate, and straggling from the ranks increased up to the surrender on the 9th. On that day, as previously reported, there were only seven thousand eight hundred and ninety-two (7892) effective infantry. During the night, when the surrender became known, more than ten thousand men came in, as reported to me by the Chief Commissary of the Army. During the succeeding days stragglers continued to give themselves up, so that on the 12th April, according to the rolls of those paroled, twenty-six thousand and eighteen (26,018) officers and men had surrendered.

Men who had left the ranks on the march, and crossed [the] James River, returned and gave themselves up, and many have since come to Richmond and surrendered.

I have given these details that Your Excellency might know the state of feeling which existed in the army, and judge of that in the country. From what I have seen and learned, I believe an army cannot be organized or supported in Virginia, and as far as I know the condition of affairs, the country east of the Mississippi is morally and physically unable to maintain the contest unaided with any hope of ultimate success. A partisan war may be continued, and hostilities protracted, causing individual suffering and the devastation of the country, but I see no prospect by that means of achieving a separate independence. It is for Your Excellency to decide, should you agree with me in opinion, what is proper to be done. To save useless effusion of blood, I would recommend measures be taken for suspension of hostilities and the restoration of peace.

I am with great respect, yr obdt svt R.E. Lee, Genl

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nent position as the agent of a whole people, but that has made him no more nor less a rebel than the rest. His acts were the acts of the whole people, and the acts of the whole people were his acts. He was not accountable for the commencement of the struggle….Why, therefore, should he suffer more than others?”

Cook wrote that in taking his leave he assured Lee “that he was greatly respected by a very large body of good men at the North, and that as a soldier he was universally admired, and that it was earnestly hoped that he would yet lead an army of United States’ troops in the enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine”—referring to the continuing French incursion in Mexico occurring as the Civil War reached its conclusion.

Among other topics addressed in the interview were Lee’s reaction to Lincoln’s assassination (“the General considered this event itself one of the most deplorable that could have occurred”); the prospect Southern young men would now leave for other countries (“the country needs these young men….wisdom demands that no effort be spared to keep them in the country and pacify them”); and the fate of the Custis family slaves at Arlington (Lee saying he did right by them in setting them free when required by his father-in-law’s will).

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lthough Cook had gotten his scoop, it proved unfortunate that he had not delved deeply into many of the statements Lee made, leaving them both unchallenged and without any explanation that could have illuminated Lee’s thinking.

Perhaps Cook was concerned (as he intimated in his article) that he risked overstaying his welcome with the eminent Confederate. Possibly Cook was just in awe of the opportunity he had been given and hesitant to challenge Lee, whom he clearly admired. Or perhaps Cook just wanted to give Lee the stage to say what he wanted. In that respect Cook succeeded, DQG KLV UHDGHUV WR WKDW H[WHQW SURÀWHG Now little remembered, Lee’s New York Herald interview said perhaps as much about the interviewer as the interviewee.

Kevin C. Donovan, a recently retired lawyer, is author of “How the Civil War Continues to Affect the Law,” published in Litigation: The Journal of the Section of Litigation; “The Court-Martial of Fitz-John Porter,” in Columbiad; and “From Walnuts To Appomattox: The Opinions of The Confederate States Attorneys General,” in North & South.

PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN; HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

House of Cards

ARLINGTON HOUSE, The Robert E. Lee Memorial, at Arlington National Cemetery reopened to the public in June for the first time since 2018, following a $12 million rehabilitation and reinterpretation that includes an increased emphasis on those who were enslaved there.

The stately Greek Revival-style mansion was built between 1808 and 1818 by George Washington’s step-grandson, George Washington Parke Custis, as a home and a place to display his large collection of George Washington heirlooms and memorabilia. The estate, which included 1,100 acres of land, was a working plantation, and the mansion was built by enslaved African Americans.

Robert E. Lee and his wife, the Custis’ only child, Mary Anna Randolph Custis, inherited it in 1857, including the 196 enslaved persons who lived and worked there. On May 24, 1861, Union troops occupied the Arlington estate and Lee and his family, all who had fled the home by then, would never reside in it again.

Located on strategic high ground across from the nation’s capital, the estate was used as a camp and headquarters. When Mrs. Lee failed to pay taxes in person, as was then required by law, the federal government confiscated the land and Arlington House, purchasing it on January 11, 1864, “for Government use, for war, military, charitable, and educational purposes.”

When the war’s mounting human toll overwhelmed the capacity of Washington, D.C.-area cemeteries, Brig. Gen. Montgomery C. Meigs, quartermaster general of the U.S. Army, authorized military burials on the land and on June 15, 1864, the Army formally designated 200 acres of the property as a military cemetery.

Situated at the heart of Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington House, The Robert E. Lee Memorial, now includes the

mansion, a museum, reconstructed slave quarters, and gardens.

The recent rehabilitation of the site includes restorations of the home and grounds, and new exhibits that interpret the stories of all who lived there: the Custis and Lee families and the slaves who labored on the plantation.

National Park Service curators conserved and restored more than 1,000 historic objects and acquired 1,300 antiques or reproductions, including several artifacts associated with African American history that will be displayed for the first time.

“Our goal is to create a place of dialogue and learning,” Charles Cuvelier, George Washington Memorial Parkway superintendent, said upon its reopening. “We invite visitors to be curious, to connect with the stories, and to be open to hard questions.”

Arlington House is open daily from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Throughout the war, the Arlington estate also supported thousands of African Americans fleeing slavery in the South.

On December 4, 1863, the federal government dedicated Freedman’s Village, a planned community for freed slaves on the southern portion of the property. Freedman’s Village grew to a community of 1,500, with a hospital, two churches, schools, and a home for the elderly. Freed African Americans lived and farmed there until 1900, when the government closed the village and incorporated the land into Arlington National Cemetery. —Melissa A. Winn

Freedman’s Village NOVEMBER 2021

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Home FRont HErOes 12 extraordinary civilians who impacted the Civil War

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Cream of the Crop Four years of civil war devastated communities in all theaters. Fortunately, as seen on the following pages, the inhabitants of these cities, towns, and villages comprised a remarkable class of civilians eager to do their part in noncombatant roles throughout the war.

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THE PICTURE ART COLLECTION/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Charles Francis Adams (1807–1886) Charles Francis Adams came from distinguished roots as the son of America’s sixth president, John Quincy Adams, and grandson of the second, John Adams. In May 1861, he became ambassadorial U.S. Minister to Great Britain, his tenure lasting until 1868. He fought for the Union on the diplomatic front, using words, persuasion, information, and personal charm in battles against the Confederates.

Adams made two particularly critical contributions to the Union cause.

The first came in the fall of 1861 when U.S. sailors boarded a British ship and seized two Confederate envoys headed to Europe, what became known as the Trent Affair. This invasion of British sovereignty brought the United States and Britain close to war. Adams was a key communication conduit between London and Washington, D.C., in brokering a solution to the crisis involving the release of the Confederates.

Adams also made London the focal point of tracking and countering Confederate commerce raiders in European waters. The Confederate Navy built and bought many ships using front companies in Britain, servicing them in neutral ports. Adams documented these transactions and forcefully argued that they were neutrality violations, creating as many roadblocks to Confederate efforts as possible. In 1865, he persuaded Britain to seize several Confederate ships under construction and took control of CSS Shenandoah when it turned up in Liverpool in November 1865.

As Confederate ships plied the waters around Britain and Western Europe, Adams created a network among the U.S. consular officials to track their movements and communicate that intelligence to captains of Federal warships. In June 1864, this network alerted Captain John Winslow of USS Kearsarge to CSS Alabama’s arrival in Cherbourg, resulting in Alabama’s sinking.

These efforts proved important to Union victory. Adams is an insufficiently heralded civilian hero of the Civil War. —Christopher L. Kolakowski

Loose Lips Sink Ships Charles Adams’ “spy” network helped USS Kearsarge sink CSS Alabama on June 19, 1864 (top)—a critical break for the North, as Alabama had terrorized and sunk Union ships around the world for months.

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Henry Whitney Bellows (1814–1882)

Mr. Clean Below: A diagram delineating the various aid channels formed by the U.S. Sanitary Commission. Above: Four young girls pose at a Sanitary Commission fair. The props make it clear: This is all being done for the soldiers.

Henry Whitney Bellows was instrumental in creating the U.S. Sanitary Commission during the Civil War and became the organization’s president. Born in Boston on June 11, 1814, he and his twin brother, Edward, were raised in a Unitarian household. When the twins were 2, their mother died; they were raised by an aunt until their father remarried. Bellows attended Harvard and upon graduation taught in New York and Louisiana. While in the South, he confronted the slave system and soon embraced abolitionism. Bellows returned to Harvard to attend divinity school and upon graduation preached at a Unitarian Church in Mobile, Ala. He refused an offer to remain there permanently and returned home—ostensibly because of slavery.

Bellows preached at a Unitarian Church in New York City and sermonized that the institution of slavery was evil but that individual slaveholders were not. He advocated a constitutional end to slavery. A dynamic speaker, Bellows often addressed health-related issues in lectures. On April 25, 1861, he met with the New York Infirmary for Women. Days later, he helped create the Women’s Central Organization of Relief. Its goal was to provide medical care for infirmed soldiers.

Military camps were rife with disease. The Army refused to accept aid from a civilian organization, however, and Bellows traveled to Washington to appeal for official recognition. His efforts succeeded, and in June 1861 the U.S. government designated Bellows president of the newly chartered Sanitary Commission. He expanded the mission to include aid to the wounded and in tending to bodies of the dead.

The organization raised millions of dollars and sent thousands of volunteers to field hospitals to treat both Union and Confederate soldiers. It also sought humane treatment for prisoners, which in the future influenced the Geneva Convention. With the U.S. Sanitary Commission, Bellows provided the template for other future humanitarian groups, such as the Red Cross. —Jeffery S. Prushankin

In a far corner of the Confederacy, a doctor-scientist went to work and found ways to give Louisiana much-needed medicines. Dr. Bartholomew Egan remains one of the least known medical professionals of the war. All his life, he spoke with an Irish accent gained at his birthplace in Killarney and education at Dublin’s Trinity College. The learned scholar emigrated to America in 1818 and studied medicine at the University of Virginia. The promise of greater opportunities westward drew him to northern Louisiana. He continued medical SUDFWLFH DQG ZRUNHG DV RQH RI WKH ÀUVW SURIHVVRUV DW WKH %DSWLVW GHQRPLQDWLRQ·V 0RXQW /HEDnon University. In 1864, Louisiana Governor Henry Watkins Allen appointed him superintendent of a new state laboratory. His accomplishments among a long-suffering population, while cut off from the rest of the South by blockade and occupation, proved extraordinary.

With generous support from Governor Allen, Egan transformed the college into a manuIDFWXULQJ ODERUDWRU\ ,Q VKRUW RUGHU KH HPSOR\HG D VWDII RI ÀYH DVVLVWDQWV HQVODYHG PHQ and a druggist at the university 40 miles east of Shreveport. Administrative duties

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SMITHSONIAN AMERICAN ART MUSEUM; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY; HN ARCHIVES

Bartholomew Egan (1795–1879)

Samuel Griswold (1790–1867)

COURTESY OF LAURA NELLE O’CALLAGHAN/NEW GEORGIA ENCYCLOPEDIA; HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS (2); THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR MUSEUM

Northern-born Samuel Griswold was one of the Confederacy’s leading weapon manufacturers. Born in Burlington, Conn., on December 27, 1790, he moved to the newly opened Indian lands in the southeastern United States in 1815. On his arrival in Georgia, he and his family settled in Clinton, about 20 miles west of the state capital of Milledgeville, where he made his fortune producing cotton gins. He quickly became the largest gin manufacturer in the nation and founded an industrial town, Griswoldville, 10 miles south of Clinton.

When the Civil War began, he answered Governor Joseph E. Brown’s request for pikes, believing that such weapons would be useful for soldiers who did not have muskets. The theory was that infantry could take down cavalry with the spear-like weapons. In 1862, Griswold sent more than 800 to the armory in the state capital, where they earned the nickname “Joe Brown’s Pikes.”

In April 1862, Griswold contracted with the Confederate government to produce pistols and his factory planned to turn out 50–60 pistols per week at a price of $40 each. It was a six-shooter percussion-cap pistol patterned after the .36-caliber Colt Navy revolver.

The weapon was known as a Griswold & Gunnison revolver since Griswold’s co-owner was New Hampshire native Arvin Nye Gunnison.

The small town and factory were burned by enemy cavalry on November 20, 1864. Two days later, it was hit again in a chance encounter between Confederate cavalry and Union soldiers. The Battle of Griswoldville on November 22 was the first battle during Sherman’s March to the Sea. Because Griswoldville was a factory town and Samuel Griswold was in feeble health, he chose not to rebuild and the village that carried his name disappeared after his death on September 14, 1867.

The total number of pistols his factory produced would be nearly 3,700, more than any other manufacturer in the South and nearly as many as all other manufacturers combined. —Anne Bailey

Weapons of War Sam Griswold’s armory in the heart of Georgia helped equip Confederate armies. Among weapons he produced were the revolver above and what became known as a “Joe Brown Pike.”

included scrounging for distilling Cherished Relief apparatus and gathering native Countless Southern soldiers plants, roots, and bark—all for EHQHÀWHG IURP PHGLFDO VXSSOLHV pharmaceutical ingredients. manufactured at the laboratory Egan made the facility a model run by Bartholomew Egan.

RI HIÀFLHQF\ ZLWK LWV SURGXFWLRQ RI WXUSHQWLQH DOFRKRO RSLXP SXUH ZKLVNH\ FDVWRU RLO DQG FDUERQDWH VRGD³ substances that provided relief for soldiers and civilians alike. In addition, the laboratory manufactured musket cartridges for the entire district.

(JDQ HYHQ GHOLYHUHG EDUUHOV RI WKH VWDWH·V ÀQHVW ZKLVNH\ WR PLOLWDU\ DQG FLYLOLDQ DXWKRULWLHV +LV RQO\ UHJUHW ZDV WKDW GXH WR WKH ZDU WKH JLIWV FRXOG QRW EH SURSHUO\ DJHG 7KH ÀJKWLQJ HQGHG LQ DQG (JDQ·V LQQRvative techniques have been forgotten. He had made the most of challenging circumstances and proved that civilian innovation could improve ZDUWLPH FRQGLWLRQV —Henry Robertson NOVEMBER 2021

43

Emilie Todd Helm (1836–1930)

Alexander Henry (1823–1883) Despite serving as mayor of Philadelphia throughout the war, Alexander Henry remains fairly unknown. He, however, played a critical role in maintaining order in a municipality almost as divided politically as was the nation as a whole. After graduating from Princeton in 1840, Henry opened a successful law practice before moving into Philadelphia politics.

After serving on the City Council, he was elected mayor in 1858 on the People’s Party ticket, which though aligned with the Republican Party played down its antislavery ideology in order to appeal to the city’s more conservative voters. In the mayoral election of 1860, Henry would actually lose, but through Republican chicanery he would be reelected—a providential outcome, as events would show. +HQU\ HVWDEOLVKHG D UHSXWDWLRQ DV DQ HIÀFLHQW DGPLQLVWUDWRU DQG D strict upholder of law and order. Although the predominant prewar mood of the city was in support of Southern states’ rights over the issue of VHFHVVLRQ WKDW FKDQJHG RQFH )RUW 6XPWHU ZDV ÀUHG XSRQ E\ &RQIHGHUDWH batteries on April 12, 1861. Thereafter, Philadelphians voiced opposition

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KENTUCKY DIGITAL ARCHIVE (2); DANA B. SHOAF COLLECTION/PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN; LIBRARY OF PHILADELPHIA

Family Feud Emilie Helm and her husband, Brig. Gen. Benjamin Hardin Helm, killed at Chickamauga.

Below: A Minié ball. Helm scolded her brother-in-law, Lincoln, “your Minnie bullets have made us what we are.”

Few civilians represent the divisiveness of the Civil War as much as Emilie Todd Helm, the half-sister of Mary Todd Lincoln.

Although some of Emilie’s siblings were Unionists and her brother-inlaw, President Abraham Lincoln, was the Union commander-in-chief, multiple members of the Todd family supported the Confederacy. This included Emilie’s husband, Confederate Brig. Gen. Benjamin Hardin Helm.

The family also suffered great tragedy. Two of the Todd brothers were killed fighting for the Confederacy, and another was severely wounded at Vicksburg. Emilie’s husband was also mortally wounded at the Battle of Chickamauga. Lincoln wept when he heard the news.

A mourning Emilie traveled to the White House, where she had a heartbreaking reunion with her sister, Mary. “We could only embrace each other in silence and tears,” Emilie wrote. President Lincoln later said to her, “I hope you do not feel any bitterness or that I am in any way to blame for all this sorrow.”

Emilie eventually returned to Kentucky, but family resentment was unavoidable. Frustrated by financial difficulties and hoping to travel south to sell cotton that she owned, Emilie told the president “that your Minnie bullets have made us what we are.” The notion that Lincoln was ultimately responsible for the deaths of their family members ended Emilie’s relationship with the Lincolns. The president’s assassination in April 1865 only widened that familial gap.

After the war, Emilie embraced reconciliation. She represented the family at events commemorating the fallen president, including statue unveilings and the 1909 cornerstone dedication for the monument at his birthplace in Hodgenville, Ky. In 1930, the 93-year-old Emilie burned her diary, citing that “there’s too much bitterness in it.” Her war was over, and she was determined to bury her family’s divisive past. —Stuart W. Sanders

Elizabeth KecklEy (1818–1907)

COURTESY OF THE MOORLAND-SPINGARN RESEARCH CENTER, HOWARD UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES HOWARD UNIVERSITY, WASHINGTON, D.C.; SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY; READING ROOM 2020/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Born into slavery, subjected to humiliation, whippings, family separations, and rape, Elizabeth Keckley emerged from years of oppression (“the savage efforts to subdue my pride”) a woman of dignity, talent, ambition, and charity. After purchasing her own freedom, Keckley (spelled Keckly in some resources) became a dressmaker to elite White women. She styled herself a modisté—a skilled artisan of custom-made gowns, what we might today call designer fashion. In this capacity, she became not only the dressmaker to Mary Todd Lincoln, but also her close friend, traveling companion, and confidante from 1861 to 1868. Her 1868 memoir, Behind the Scenes, Or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House, the first tell-all book about life inside the Executive Mansion, became a valuable source for historians and biographers.

Her revelations included Mary’s political views, tensions in her marriage, and the Lincolns’ heartbreaking reaction to the death of son Willie in 1862.

Keckley intended the book as a defense of Mary’s reputation following the “Old Clothes Scandal,” but miscalculated; Mary reacted with outrage to what she viewed as an invasion of her privacy. What has been ignored in the focus on the book as a source of understanding the Lincolns’ A Keckley Creation Keckley made this elaborate inner life are Keckley’s own wartime sacrifice (her soldier son gown for Mary Todd Lincoln—just one of many died at Wilson’s Creek) and her she designed for the First founding in 1862 of the Contra/DG\ LQ KDSSLHU WLPHV band Relief Association, devoted under her leadership to helping some 40,000 former slaves who fled captivity and were living destitute in feculent refugee camps around Washington, D.C. Her activism included the establishment of a dressmaking school for freedwomen. Keckley’s unsung heroism lies in this: She was a resilient woman who, in the now unfashionable tradition of Booker T. Washington, struggled upward, crafted her own narrative, and refused to let racism and resentment define her self-image. —Frank J. Wetta

to Confederate aggression Call to Arms and attacks on pro-Southern A sketch depicting newspapers and sympathiza rally recruiting ers began. Henry continued Union soldiers outside to maintain order by effecHenry’s Philadelphia tively using the city’s police RIÀFH 'HVSLWH KLV FLW\·V force to keep pro-Union and Northern location, pro-Confederate groups from Henry had his hands rioting as they had in other quite full with pro&RQIHGHUDWH UHVLGHQWV cities in the North. He led efforts to recruit troops and WR EXLOG XS WKH IRUWLÀFDWLRQV RI WKH FLW\ GXULQJ WKH $QWLHtam and Gettysburg campaigns despite an indifferent response from the citizenry.

Elected to a third term in 1863, Henry continued to serve the city honorably to the end of the war. He declined to run a fourth time but served the city in other public functions until his death in 1883. —Theodore J. Zeman NOVEMBER 2021

45

Andrew D. Lytle (1834–1917)

The War in Pictures Lytle stayed busy taking photos for both sides. This early one shows boats anchored at Baton Rouge’s dock.

Born April 4, 1834, photographer Andrew D. Lytle became proficient in the daguerreotype process in the mid-1850s while at William Southgate Porter’s Art Palace in Cincinnati. The Ohio native later traveled through the South before establishing a permanent studio in Baton Rouge, La., in 1857. At the outset of the Civil War, Lytle began creating portraits of Confederate soldiers in the Louisiana capital. “Lytle’s gallery is crowded every day with ‘our boys,’ getting their pictures before leaving home for the wars,” proclaimed Baton Rouge’s Daily Advocate.

When Federal forces occupied Baton Rouge in May 1862, Lytle—a true entrepreneur—began working professionally with the Union Army and Navy, taking photographs of military encampments that had been set up on the northern edge of town, among other locations. For Rear Admiral David Farrugut’s fleet, now patrolling the Mississippi River along the capital city, Lytle would move his equipment to the waterfront to take photos. He was even given an opportunity to do his work aboard some of Farragut’s vessels.

Taking advantage of a special pact with the U.S. military, Lytle acquired supplies and chemicals from the New York firm of E.&H.T. Anthony. There was speculation, however, that Lytle was working clandestinely as a Confederate spy, something Union authorities apparently didn’t suspect. In 1911, Lytle’s son, Howard, told a publisher that his father “used to signal with flag and lantern from the observation tower on the top of the ruins of the Baton Rouge capitol to Scott’s Bluff [farther up the river], whence the messages were relayed to the Confederates near New Orleans; but he found this provided such a tempting target for the Federal sharpshooters that he discontinued the practice.”

Still in his adopted hometown, Lytle died in June 1917 at the age of 83 . Thankfully, today his rich photographs provide such an indispensable visual look at Civil War Baton Rouge. —Ron Field

(1805–1878)

A line of men wound up the path to Justice Richmond M. Pearson’s North Carolina home, there to plead their cases for exemption from conscription into the Confederate Army. Pearson usually accommodated them, initiating a showdown with Confederate leadership. Without a Confederate Supreme Court, the government had little redress. A graduate of the University of North Carolina and Justice Leonard Henderson’s law school, Pearson had been on the bench since 1836, and since 1849 on the state supreme court. A decade later, he was nominated chief justice.

All the while, Pearson ran a law school from his home, Richmond Hill. Among his students were North Carolina Governor John Ellis, General Rufus Barringer, U.S. Congressman John Kerr Jr., and Confederate Congressman George W. Logan. Eventually three governors, 12 U.S. congressmen, and seven justices—along with seemingly countless state representatives—passed through his classroom.

'HVSLWH KLV LQÁXHQFH VSDQQLQJ GHFDGHV 3HDUVRQ·V KRVWLOLW\ WR FRQVFULSWLRQ LPSHG ed the Confederate armies. Pearson believed the law passed in 1862 allowed exemptions for certain men and gave all men the option of providing substitutes. In 1864,

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COURTESY OF LSU LIBRARIES SPECIAL COLLECTIONS (2); NORTH CAROLINA HISTORY COLLECTION

Justice Richmond M. Pearson

Abram Joseph Ryan (1838–1886) In Margaret Mitchell’s fictionalized account of wartime Atlanta, Gone With the Wind, Father Abram Ryan was a frequent visitor at the home of Melanie Wilkes. “He charmed gatherings there with his wit,” Mitchell wrote, “and seldom needed much urging to recite his ‘Sword of Lee’ or his deathless ‘Conquered Banner,’ which never failed to make the ladies cry.”

The real-life Abram Joseph Ryan, known as the Poet Laureate of the Confederacy, was a Catholic priest and later a leading voice of Lost Cause ideology.

A Way With Words Born February 5, 1838, in Hagerstown, Md., Ryan rarely masked his feelings. ”Furl that banner! softly, slowly Matthew Abraham Ryan soon moved with his – Treat it gently, it is holy...” he family to St. Louis. In 1855, after graduating wrote in The Conquered Banner. from the College of St. Mary’s of the Barrens, near Perryville, Mo., he entered the Vincentian order and was sent to the Seminary of Our Lady of the Angels near Niagara Falls, N.Y., where on September 12, 1860, he was ordained into the priesthood.

Ryan, nevertheless, identified so strongly with the South that when Lincoln was inaugurated he changed his first name from Abraham to Abram. Feeling alienated in New York, Ryan asked his superiors to return him to St. Mary’s. Once criticized for not conducting services at the burial of a Union soldier, Ryan is said to have responded, “On the contrary, I would like to bury them all.”

By April 1862, unable to express his support for the Confederacy, Ryan asked to be released from his oath and left his order to become a chaplain in the Army of Tennessee.

His most famous poem, “The Conquered Banner,” was published in the New York Freeman’s Journal in June 1865. Its theme was the heroic martyrdom of the Confederate soldier, which came to define Lost Cause ideology and made its author the most popular poet in the South. —Thomas W. Cutrer

FATHER RYAN’S POEMS; NEW YORK FREEMAN’S JOURNAL; HARPER’S WEEKLY

Dissenting Opinions Right: Confederate deserters. Richmond Pearson (opposite page) opposed Confederate conscription laws, frustrating Southern politicians and generals. when the Confederacy suspended the writ of habeas corpus, Pearson refused to enforce the suspension and continued discharging those who applied for relief. Many generals, such as D.H. Hill and William Dorsey Pender, complained of Pearson’s actions, leading to dissension in other states.

The chief justice survived the war, was elected when the state constitution changed in 1868, presided over the impeachment of Governor W.W. Holden in 1870, and was almost impeached himself. Yet he was well-loved by his former students in the General Assembly. Pearson’s role as both educator and jurist is often overlooked, but his impact on the war is undeniable. —Michael C. Hardy NOVEMBER 2021

47

John H. Steele (1807–1871)

Anne J. Bailey is a retired professor of hisWRU\ LQ WKH 8QLYHUVLW\ RI

Thomas W. Cutrer SURIHVVRU HPHULWXV RI KLVWRU\ DW $UL]RQD 6WDWH 8QLYHUVLW\ LV D IDFXOW\ DVVRFLDWH DW 7H[DV $ 0 8QLYHUVLW\²7H[DUNDQD +H LV DXWKRU RI Theater of a Separate War: The Civil War West of the Mississippi River, 1861–1865

Contributors *HRUJLD V\VWHP DQG WKH DXWKRU HGLWRU RI HLJKW ERRNV RQ WKH ZDU LQFOXGLQJ Invisible Southerners: Ethnicity in the Civil War

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AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

Stephen Davis is a PHPEHU RI America’s Civil War·V HGLWRULDO DGYLVRU\ ERDUG DQG D IUHTXHQW FRQWULEXWRU WR WKH PDJD]LQH +H ZULWHV IURP &XPPLQJ *D

Witness: The Civil War Through Photography and Its Photographers and Bluejackets: Uniforms of the United States Navy in the Civil War Period, 1852–1865

Ron Field LV D PLOLWDU\ KLVWRULDQ EDVHG LQ WKH 8QLWHG .LQJGRP DQG DXWKRU RI PRUH WKDQ ERRNV LQFOXGLQJ Silent

Michael C. Hardy is WKH DXWKRU RI QXPHURXV ERRNV DERXW WKH &LYLO :DU LQFOXGLQJ General Lee’s Immortals—A

History of the BranchLane Brigade +H YROXQWHHUV DW 1RUWK &DUROLQD·V +LVWRULF 5LFKPRQG +LOO /DZ 6FKRRO Richard H. Holloway LV D PHPEHU RI America’s Civil War’s HGLWRULDO DGYLVRU\ ERDUG DQG D IUHTXHQW FRQWULEXWRU +H KDV ZULWWHQ HVVD\V LQ Confederate

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; COURTESY OF STEPHEN DAVIS

Atlanta Landmarks Top: George Barnard took this photo of the Intelligencer·V RIÀFH DIWHU 6KHUPDQ FDSWXUHG $WODQWD LQ 6HSWHPEHU $ERYH +HDGVWRQH RI 6WHHOH DQG KLV ZLIH LQ $WODQWD·V 2DNODQG &HPHWHU\

Edward Pollard of the Richmond Examiner, John Forsyth of the Mobile Advertiser, and a few others have long been regarded as the most distinguished editors of Confederate newspapers. John H. Steele of the Atlanta Daily Intelligencer must be included in that estimable echelon.

Steele joined the paper in April 1862 and edited it from March 1863 until his death in 1871. During the war, he trumpeted Confederate patriotism, consoled his readers in dark times, and opined learnedly on political matters. During his tenure, the Intelligencer scolded President Jefferson Davis so soundly that Davis, in a speech at Macon, termed the editorialist “a scoundrel.” (Steele didn’t write the column, however—it was the Intelligencer’s associate editor. Nevertheless, Davis’ remark has made the history books.)

During his wartime stint, Steele wrote both as editor and news commentator. He celebrated such Confederate victories as Chancellorsville and mourned the death of Stonewall Jackson. He put the best spin he could on Vicksburg. (“Let us never forget that our cause is in the hands of a just God, who will defend the right.”) He tried to encourage his readers as Joe Johnston retreated through northern Georgia in 1864.

Steele also decided what stories went into his pages. Within the confines of Victorian morality, the Intelligencer reported the rape by Northern soldiers of a 17-year-old girl and described “the maniac gaze” of the troubled victim.

He contended with slow mail service that brought him other papers (“exchanges,” a major source of news). He complained about ink and paper shortages that drove the Intelligencer to raise prices eight times during the war. And, of course, he excoriated the Yankees—“the fellows with cerulean abdomens or azure corporations.” —Stephen Davis

Peter Tait (1828–1890)

COURTESY OF RICHARD HOLLOWAY; HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS

A native Scotsman, Peter Tait moved to Limerick, Ireland, at a young age and married a local lass. Unsuccessful as a department store employee, he embarked on an entrepreneurial career that would bring him much business during war. He began selling shirts from a basket on his arm and by 1862 parlayed his success into advertising for 500 employees to help him run the business. Using the newly available Singer sewing machines, Tait developed a lucrative venture fulfilling military contracts for the British Army during the Crimean War, making more than 120,000 uniforms.

In December 1863, Tait signed a contract with the Confederate government for 50,000 caps, greatcoats, jackets, trousers, shirts, blankets, boots, stockings, and haversacks. Tait also entered into a separate agreement to supply similar items to the state of Alabama a few months later. All these contracts had a particular hindrance to delivering the finished goods—the U.S. Navy had a very effective blockade of Southern ports. While Great Britain maintained its neutrality, a brisk sale of goods by its companies did make its way to the Southern states. To circumvent the blockade, Tait enlisted blockade runners such as Evelyn to transport his completed inventory to the Confederacy. After five successful runs, Evelyn departed in October 1864 and did not return until a year later. Another hired vessel, Condor, ran aground off North Carolina, but the supplies were recovered safely. Notably, famed spy Rose O’Neal Greenhow was on the same ship and drowned.

Thousands of Tait’s items were worn throughout the South. His jackets were easily identifiable by the eight-button front equipped with brass buttons marked “P. Tait & Co., Limerick” on the back. Because of Tait’s dedication to quality workmanship and earnest efforts to have his uniforms delivered, the Confederate Army had some of the best-clothed soldiers on the field of battle. —Richard H. Holloway

Generals in the TransMississippi, Vol. 3 and Vicksburg Besieged.

Christopher L. Kolakowski is director of the Wisconsin Veterans Museum in Madison. He has written and spoken on many aspects of military history from 1775 to the present and is the author of four

books on the Civil War and World War II.

the Army of the Trans-Mississippi.

Jeffery S. Prushankin is Visiting Professor of Civil War Era Studies at Pennsylvania’s Millersville University. He is author of A Crisis in Confederate Command: Edmund Kirby Smith, Richard Taylor, and

Henry Robertson, a South Carolina native, is the Hogan Family Professor of History at Louisiana College.

Stuart W. Sanders, former executive director of the Perryville BatWOHÀHOG 3UHVHUYDWLRQ

Superior Quality Above left: Peter Tait as postwar mayor of Limerick, Ireland. Above: An eight-button artillery jacket and two brass buttons from one of Tait’s Confederate uniforms.

Association, is author of the e-book Lincoln’s Confederate Little Sister: Emilie Todd Helm.

Frank J. Wetta, author of The Louisiana Scalawags, is former Leverhulme British Commonwealth/United States Visiting Scholar, Keele University, United Kingdom.

Theodore J. Zeman received his Ph.D. from Temple University in 2000 under the direction of the late Russell F. Weigley.

He currently teaches history at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia and at Penn State University–Abington in Montgomery County, Pa. NOVEMBER 2021

49

TwO-Front War General Charles Smith’s distinguished military career nearly unraveled in Paducah, Ky.— the “victim of a base conspiracy”

By Allen H. Mesch

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rom his early days at the U.S. Military Academy, Ulysses S. Grant placed Charles Ferguson Smith in elite company. “I UHJDUGHG *HQHUDO >:LQÀHOG@ 6FRWW DQG &DSWDLQ & ) 6PLWK«DV the two men most to be envied in the nation,” Grant would write in his Personal Memoirs. “I retained a high regard for both up to the day of their death.”

Grant graduated in West Point’s Class of 1843, the same year Smith— 15 years his senior—completed his term as the academy’s commandant of cadets. The two served together during the Mexican War, but their military careers soon headed in abruptly different directions. By the outbreak of the Civil War, Smith had become one of the U.S. Army’s most FHOHEUDWHG RIÀFHUV *UDQW PHDQZKLOH KDYLQJ OHIW WKH VHUYLFH LQ GLVJUDFH in July 1854, was working at his father’s tanning business in Galena, Ill. Although the Civil War provided the two a welcome reunion in the Western Theater, it would prove brief and painful. Smith died in April 1862 due to complications from a freak injury suffered while he was jumping into a boat in Savannah, Tenn. Grant, of course, eventually EHFDPH WKH 8QLRQ $UP\·V WRS JHQHUDO DQG ÀQDOO\ HQJLQHHUHG 1RUWKHUQ victory in 1865. How different the outcome would have been had Smith survived his wound is one of the war’s many intriguing unknowns.

COURTESY OF WESTERN KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY

I

n the late summer of 1861, Grant and Smith were both serving in the Department of the West—Grant, a brigadier general, as commander of the District of Southeastern Missouri; Smith, a brevet brigadier, the District of Western Kentucky. Based in Cairo, Ill., Grant learned on September 6 that a Confederate force under Brig. Gen. Gideon Pillow had occupied Columbus, Ky., and was preparing to attack nearby Paducah. Grant informed Department of the West commander Maj. Gen. John C. Frémont of Pillow’s invasion and announced he “was taking steps to secure” Paducah. Without Frémont’s approval, however, he headed downriver with a force of two gunboats, three steamboats, two regiments under Brig. Gen. Eleazer Paine and Colonel John McArthur, and four light artillery pieces.

Paducah would fall without a struggle when the small defending force under Brig.

Occupiers *HQ /OR\G 7LOJKPDQ ÁHG UDWKHU WKDQ FRQUnion troops front Grant. To the alarmed residents, assemble at the Grant promptly read a proclamation of northern terminus of the peace and also instructed his men “to take Mobile & Ohio Railroad during the September special care and precaution that no harm is 1861 occupation of done to inoffensive citizens.”

Paducah, Ky., in Placing the city under Paine’s command, a sketch published Grant returned to Cairo. Paine, however, in Frank Leslie’s disregarded Grant’s orders. Considering ,OOXVWUDWHG 1HZVSDSHU Paducah a conquered town, he treated the pro-Confederate locals harshly, arresting several citizens and allowing his undisciplined volunteer troops to commit robbery and vandalism. Some residents resorted to sabotage, even poisoning wells used by soldiers and cutting telegraph lines.

7UDQVIHUUHG IURP KLV FRPPDQG DW )RUW &ROXPEXV 1 < LQ $XJXVW Smith was soon given command of the District of Western Kentucky and replaced Paine at Paducah. The new commander relented that the locals were in “hot secession,” but he would be treated in a better light by them by his decision to treat them fairly. That at least put an end to the rampant pillaging and stealing.

6PLWK·V ÀUVW IHZ GD\V DW 3DGXFDK ZHUH PDUNHG E\ D ÁXUU\ RI DFWLYLW\ DV KH RUJDQL]HG his command and prepared for a potential attack by Pillow’s Confederates. Everyone was “exhorted to learn and discharge their duties” and, soldiers were ordered to “sleep on their arms.” Smith conceded that his men did not look “much like soldiers, but he thought they might prove to be excellent.” Still, he comSODLQHG WKDW KH KDG RQO\ WZR RIÀFHUV IURP whom he could expect any assistance: Paine and Major Joseph D. Webster.

3OHDVHG ZLWK 6PLWK·V SRVWLQJ *UDQW ÀQDOO\ had the opportunity to meet his former mentor at Paducah on September 30. Ironically, by virtue of his earlier appointment, Grant was 6PLWK·V VXSHULRU RIÀFHU ZKLFK PDGH IRU D potentially awkward situation. A nervous Grant later admitted to shrinking “like a modest schoolboy” in anticipation of the meeting.

Even though he outranked Smith, Grant said, “It does not seem quite right for me to JLYH >KLP@ RUGHUV µ 7R 6PLWK·V FUHGLW WKH UHYHUsal in position never bothered him. He expressed pride in his former pupil.

At their meeting, Smith and Grant discussed plans for both “defense or attack,” and when it KDG ÀQLVKHG *UDQW UHYHDOHG WKDW KLV DGPLUDtion and esteem of Smith was even greater because “there was not the slightest trace of MHDORXV\ RU GLVDSSRLQWPHQW LQ >KLV@ PDQQHU µ Their “private and personal conferences” would only increase their friendship, he noted.

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mith’s brand of discipline did impact his rough-hewn volunteers, but after two months of training many realized the general was teaching them valuable combat skills. A colonel admitted to Smith: ´7KH ER\V GLGQ·W OLNH >\RX@ PXFK DW ILUVW thought you were too damned strict; but they think it all right now and say you are just the person they want to make them soldiers.”

1HYHUWKHOHVV QHZHU UHFUXLWV ZHUH TXLFN WR challenge Smith’s authority, leading to what ZRXOG EH WKH PRVW GLIÀFXOW SHULRG RI KLV PLOLtary career. The adversity was spurred by a Paducah resident’s decision to express his political sentiments, which blossomed into a near-mutiny among one of Smith’s regiments.

As reported in The St. Louis Democrat, a secessionist known only as Woolfolk had hung D 5HEHO ÁDJ RXW D ZLQGRZ DQG KDG ´KXUUDKHG for Jeff Davis” as Union troops passed his house. When reported to Smith, he elected not NOVEMBER 2021

51

Growing Fame Ulysses Grant began the war as colonel of the 21st Illinois, and in July 1861 was promoted to brigadier general, as shown here.

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Civic Unrest The source of controversy for General Smith was this house in Paducah, still standing, where a local secessionist named Woolfolk hung a &RQIHGHUDWH ÁDJ RXW D window and harassed Union troops as they passed in the street.

move past the incident as quickly as possible in order to prepare his men IRU SRWHQWLDO ÀJKWLQJ 'HVLULQJ WR WUHDW WKH RIÀFHUV DQG VROGLHUV RI WKH 11th Indiana in a “kindly spirit,” he decided to use the event as a teaching opportunity. Smith denounced “the transaction as a great violation of good order and military discipline,” believing that after consideration, the guilty parties would recognize the violation’s seriousness.

“In this spirit the Commanding General appeals to the intelligence of RIÀFHUV DQG VROGLHUV WR NQRZ WKDW KH LV VHQW KHUH E\ WKH *RYHUQPHQW DV the protector of a loyal State, which, though occupied by rebel armies, is not an enemy’s country,” Smith said, “and that success requires him by the patient exercise of moderation, obedience, and charity to earn that character from both friends and foes.”

Smith asked the soldiers to demonstrate “by their conduct in the future, their gentleness to friends, and their moderation towards XQDUPHG HQHPLHV OLYLQJ XQGHU WKH VKDGRZ RI RXU ÁDJ µ WKH ´QHFHVVLW\ of order and are willing to enforce it.”

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PLWK KRZHYHU ZDV QRZ ÀJKWLQJ RQ WZR IURQWV LQWHUQDO DWWDFNV RQ KLV OR\DOW\ E\ IHOORZ RIÀFHUV DQG SROLWLFLDQV DQG H[WHUQDO threats to his command by Confederate forces. In late November, U.S. Rep. Lucian Anderson (Ky.) and a colleague presented a list of complaints “relative to the management and control of the Army of WKH 8 6 DW WKLV SODFHµ WR 0DM *HQ +HQU\ : +DOOHFN 'HSDUWPHQW RI the Missouri commander. They cited four examples of Smith’s mismanagement: 1) failure to send U.S. troops to rescue a Union man who was ODWHU NLOOHG E\ D ´EDQG RI PXUGHUHUVµ GHOD\ LQ FRQÀVFDWLQJ ZKHDW DQG hogs that were being sent to Confederate troops in Columbus; 3) refusal WR FRQÀVFDWH KRJV EHLQJ SXUFKDVHG E\ &RQIHGHUDWH DJHQWV DQG DFWLRQV DVVRFLDWHG ZLWK UHPRYDO RI WKH &RQIHGHUDWH ÁDJ IURP :RROIRON·V KRXVH “Unless some changes are made here,” Anderson warned, “bad results ZLOO FHUWDLQO\ ÁRZ IRU WKH VROGLHUV DUH DOPRVW SUHSDUHG WR ULVH DJDLQVW the policy which has thus far been pursued.”

Halleck forwarded Anderson’s accusations to Smith. The general barely had time to respond when new condemnations appeared in the papers. Reported The Chicago Tribune: “General Charles F. Smith, in command of the Federal forces at Paducah, has been making an ass of himself, which is stating the case mildly.” The Tribune claimed under Smith’s weak rule, Union troops had “been subjected to gross insults IURP GLVOR\DO UHVLGHQWV ZLWK QR FKDQFH JLYHQ WR WKHP WR ÀJKW EDFN µ ,Q DQ HDUO\ 'HFHPEHU HGLWLRQ WKH Tribune added that Smith was ´H[FHHGLQJO\ XQSRSXODU ERWK ZLWK WKH RIÀFHUV DQG PHQ µ DQG DFFXVHG him “of sympathizing with the rebels and refusing to aid Union men who have been driven from their homes, and whose property has been plundered by the secesh.” An editorial in the Cincinnati Commercial

NYYTEND; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

to interfere. According to the paper, Smith’s failure to stop this demonstration “caused great indignation among the troops, and doubts of his loyalty were freely expressed...”

When Woolfolk’s actions were reported to Brig. Gen. Lew Wallace, one of Smith’s subordinates, Wallace sent his aide-de-camp and a squad of soldiers to order Woolfolk to take GRZQ WKH ´WUDLWRURXV ÁDJµ DQG ´HUHFW WKH 6WDUV and Stripes over his house.” Woolfolk refused, and appealed to Smith for assistance. After Wallace’s aide did as instructed, one of Smith’s PHQ DUULYHG DQG RUGHUHG WKH 8QLRQ ÁDJ WDNHQ down. The order was refused, Wallace telling 6PLWK WKH ÁDJ VKRXOG QRW EH ORZHUHG ´ZKLOH there was a live man in his brigade.”

Worse for Smith, Paine supported Wallace’s actions and leaped on the opportunity to embarrass his commander. As the Democrat concluded: “The affair has created intense excitement among the soldiers, and Wallace’s insubordination is enthusiastically approved.”

The flagrant noncompliance dismayed 6PLWK 1RW RQO\ KDG WKH RIÀFHUV EHORQJLQJ WR the 11th Indiana, refused to obey his orders, they had also violated Grant’s directive not to harm “inoffensive citizens.” In Smith’s view, :DOODFH ZDV JXLOW\ RI IDLOLQJ WR FRQWURO KLV RIÀcers and soldiers and enforce Grant’s orders.

Although the behavior of the Indianans bordered on mutiny, Smith realized he needed to

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

likewise blamed Smith for failing to capture Columbus during the Battle of Belmont on November 7, 1861, claiming, “in all the action of that General he favors Secession.”

Smith labeled the attacks “scurrilous and malignant articles.”

Some of his friends—“the true soldiers of the camp”—began a vigorous writing campaign to the newspapers on his behalf.

The accusations and innuendo had their intended effect, WKRXJK 6PLWK·V FRQÀUPDWLRQ DV EULJDGLHU JHQHUDO ZDV GHOD\HG in the Senate, and Halleck was forced to investigate. Major GenHUDO *HRUJH 0F&OHOODQ WKH 8QLRQ $UP\·V JHQHUDO LQ FKLHI JDYH +DOOHFN WKH DXWKRULW\ WR UHPRYH 6PLWK IURP FRPPDQG LI GHHPHG QHFHVVDU\ %HIRUH DFWLQJ +DOOHFN VHQW D GHOHJDWLRQ RI RIÀFHUV WR Paducah to inspect Smith’s post and assess its condition.

7KH RIÀFHUV UHSRUWHG EDFN WKDW 6PLWK·V ZKROH FRPPDQG ZDV in excellent condition and that his forces were “in the best disciSOLQH RUGHU RI DQ\ RQH LQ WKH GHSDUWPHQW µ VD\LQJ WKH SUREOHPV EHWZHHQ 6PLWK DQG KLV VXERUGLQDWHV ZHUH FDXVHG E\ RWKHUV DQG not Smith. Convinced there were “no real grounds of complaint” DJDLQVW 6PLWK³FHUWDLQO\ QRQH ´VXIÀFLHQW WR MXVWLI\ KLV ZLWKdrawal”—Halleck told McClellan that Smith was “the victim of D EDVH FRQVSLUDF\ DPRQJ KLV RZQ VXERUGLQDWHV µ Smith was relieved when Grant’s command was redesignated the District of Cairo and Paine was given command of Union forces at Bird’s Point, Mo. “What a howling on one side, what a rejoicing on the other,” Smith noted with glee. “There never was a more crestfallen man in the world than when he [Paine] received the order to leave here and go to the Bird’s Point…[a] YHU\ KHOO KROH µ 7KH JHQHUDO QRWHG KLV SOHDVXUH WKDW ZKLOH 3DLQH Far West Command DQG KLV ´FRPSDQLRQV LQ LQLTXLW\µ ZHUH HQMR\LQJ WKH SURVSHFW RI After serving in Albert Sidney Johnston’s Utah Paine replacing him at Paducah, a “shell fell in their midst.”

Expedition in 1857, C.F. Smith commanded the 6WLOO SODJXHG WKRXJK E\ UXPRUV DQG DFFXVDWLRQV 6PLWK RQ Department of Utah until the outset of the Civil War. 'HFHPEHU UHVSRQGHG IRUPDOO\ WR HDFK RI WKH FKDUJHV RI FRPPDQG PLVPDQDJHPHQW DJDLQVW KLP 7KH ÀUVW KDG FLWHG KLV ´IDLOure” to send troops to rescue from civilian authorities an imprisoned VROGLHUV VKRXOG JHQHUDOO\ FRQGXFW WKHPVHOYHV 8QLRQ PDQ LQ QHDUE\ 0D\ÀHOG ODWHU NLOOHG E\ D ´EDQG RI PXUGHUHUV µ Colonel George W. Cullum, Halleck’s chief engineer and aide-de-camp, reassured the &DOOLQJ LW D ´SULYDWH EURLOµ DQG QRWLQJ WKDW WKH ´8QLRQµ PDQ ZDV MXVWLÀDEO\ LQ D ORFDO MDLO IRU PXUGHULQJ D MXGJH 6PLWK VDLG KH FKRVH QRW WR VHQG EHOHDJXHUHG 6PLWK KH HQMR\HG +DOOHFN·V FRQÀD IRUFH EDVHG PHUHO\ RQ D VXSSRVLWLRQ +H DOVR QRWHG WKDW QHLWKHU 3DLQH GHQFH DQG VXSSRUW RI ´\RXU ROG DUP\ IULHQGV nor Wallace “importuned me to send out” a force, and fumed at claims here.” The general, Cullum reported, “defended he preferred to protect secessionists and not unionists, declaring, “This \RXU UHSXWDWLRQ DQG SURWHFWHG \RX DJDLQVW WKH LPSXWDWLRQ RQ P\ OR\DOW\ LV DQ XQPLWLJDWHG FDOXPQ\ DQG IDOVHKRRG SROLWLFDO FDEDO LQ .HQWXFN\ DQG :DVKLQJWRQ µ According to the second charge, Smith had refused to act on Paine’s Complaining, “I have long known that a base request to remove supplies intended for Rebel forces at Columbus until FRQVSLUDF\ ZDV RQ IRRW WR UHPRYH >PH@ IURP he could “get some proper grounds for action.” In response, Smith command and place General Paine in charge,” FKDUJHG 3DLQH ZLWK VSHQGLQJ WRR PXFK WLPH LQYHVWLJDWLQJ WKH OR\DOWLHV 6PLWK EUDQGHG DQ\RQH ZKR TXHVWLRQHG KLV OR\RI SHRSOH LQ 3DGXFDK WR WKH ´QHJOHFW RI KLV PLOLWDU\ GXWLHV µ 0DQ\ RI WKH DOW\ ´DQ XQPLWLJDWHG OLDU DQG VFRXQGUHO µ arrests based on Paine’s assertions were discharged, he noted. Smith The accusations were the low points of his DOVR FLWHG 3DLQH·V IDLOXUH WR REH\ RUGHUV WR GHVWUR\ D PLOO DQG EULQJ LWV PLOLWDU\ FDUHHU 6PLWK LQ IDFW FRQWLQXHG WR ÁRXU DQG JUDLQ WR 3DGXFDK function under a black cloud until his success To the third charge—that he “failed to send and seize all the hogs in in battle propelled Grant’s capture of Fort 8QLRQ FRXQW\ .HQWXFN\µ³6PLWK QRWHG KH GLG QRW KDYH HQRXJK FDYDOU\ 'RQHOVRQ LQ )HEUXDU\ $QG WKHQ MXVW WZR to authorize such an expedition or to send a large enough force of infanmonths later, he was gone.

WU\ WR VHFXUH WKH DQLPDOV DV LW ZRXOG ZHDNHQ KLV GHIHQVHV DW 3DGXFDK 7KH ÀQDO FKDUJH FRQFHUQHG 6PLWK·V LQYROYHPHQW LQ WKH WK ,QGLDQD·V Allen H. Mesch writes from Plano, Texas. He ÁDJ UDLVLQJ LQFLGHQW DW WKH VHFHVVLRQLVW :RROIRON·V KRXVH 6PLWK FDOOHG is the author of Teacher of Civil War GenerLW D VDG DIIDLU PHDQW ´PHUHO\ WR DQQR\ WKH IDPLO\ µ +H HQFORVHG KLV als: Major General Charles Ferguson Smith, Soldier and West Point Commandant (2015). order commenting on the 11th Indiana’s behavior and explaining how NOVEMBER 2021

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Front Royal, Va.

Kith & Kin

Trailside is produced in partnership with Civil War Trails Inc., which connects visitors to lesser-known sites and allows them to follow in the footsteps of the great campaigns. Civil War Trails has to date 1,552 VLWHV DFURVV ÀYH VWDWHV and produces more than a dozen maps. Visit civilwartrails.org and check in at your favorite sign #civilwartrails.

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AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

In the spring of 1862, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s 48-day Shenandoah Valley Campaign sought to retain control of the heart of the Confederacy. “If the Valley is lost, Virginia is lost,” he claimed, and many in the South believed if Virginia was lost, the Confederacy was doomed. Following a Confederate victory at McDowell on May 8, the second battle of the campaign, Union Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks, in control of the Northern Valley, sent 1,000 men under the command of Colonel John R. Kenly, mostly 1st Maryland Infantry USA, to Front Royal to cover his left flank.

On the morning of May 23, Jackson rode ahead of his 17,000-man army to scout a concealed route to Front Royal. With an insider tip from a Warren County native in his ranks, Jackson ordered the 1st Maryland Infantry CSA to lead his army into town on a lesser-known road. After successfully sneaking past Federal pickets on the outskirts of town, men from both armies confronted each other at the Court House. It’s

the only time in U.S. military history that two regiments of the same numerical designation and from the same state have engaged one another in battle. The fight was literally brother against brother, when Captain William Goldsborough of the 1st Maryland Infantry CSA captured his brother Charles Goldsborough of the 1st Maryland Infantry USA and took him prisoner.

Fighting continued through the streets until nearly 700 Federal troops surrendered after a failed last stand on the edge of town, which also left Kenly wounded.

Visitors can follow a driving path tour of nearly a dozen Civil War Trails signs through town and around, with detailed action and accounts of the fighting that took place here. Majestic views of the Shenandoah will captivate you, and charming historic homes and buildings make it easy to imagine the shocking impact on the townspeople here when thousands of troops literally brought the war to their doorsteps. —Melissa A. Winn

PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN

UNION AND CONFEDERATE 1ST MARYLANDERS BATTLED HERE WITH CONTROL OF THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY AT STAKE

TRAILSIDE

Court House

1 E. Main St.

As Colonel Bradley Johnson’s 1st Maryland Infantry CSA confronted Colonel John Kenly’s 1st Maryland Infantry USA, the street fighting grew especially hot here, between the Warren County Court House and the Confederate military hospital just across the street. When Federal troops delivered “hot musketry fire” from the windows of one of the hospital buildings, General Richard Ewell asked Johnson, “Can you take that building?” He replied, “Yes, sir, in five minutes.” The building was secured in less than three minutes. The tide of battle then flowed from the courthouse area north.

House-to-house fighting ensued as the Federals retreated to Richardson’s Hill.

Asbury Chapel

123 Windy Meadows Ct.

Asbury Chapel (now Asbury United Methodist Church) was built in 1848.

On May 23, at 8 a.m., the Confederate advance halted here before Maj. Gen. Stonewall Jackson ordered them into town via a concealed road, today’s Rocky Lane. The church was used as a field hospital after the Battle of Front Royal. In 1916, when the building was dismantled, floorboards stained with blood were discovered. The church’s congregation completed the present structure in 1917, using mostly original materials.

Bel Air

Prospect Hill Cemetery

PHOTOS BY MELISSA A. WINN (3)

200 E. Prospect St. When Confederate artillery reached this high point, they could see the whole field of battle and local legend says Stonewall Jackson watched part of the battle from here.

The monument here to Mosby’s Rangers was erected in 1899 by the survivors of Mosby’s command as a memorial to the seven Rangers executed by Union cavalry in Front Royal in September 1864. The monument is flanked by two 30-pounder Parrott Rifles.

5597 Bel Air Ave.

Built in 1795, the Buck family mansion was about a quarter of a mile outside Front Royal, and witness to the battle there. Lucy Buck, an avid diarist, lived in the mansion with her family. Her journal documented the impact of the war on civilians, including on her own family. A number of slaves also lived here, and many of them selfemancipated during the war. In the summer of 1863, Lucy wrote: “Ma told me that the [household slaves] had all left in the night and carried our three horses with them. Laura and I went to milk the cows while Ma, Grandma, and Nellie cleaned the house, got the breakfast, and dressed the children.”

Richardson’s Hill

Royal and 15th Streets

Atop this “cherty” ridge, as Stonewall Jackson called it, Colonel John Kenly posted the two-cannon section of Knap’s Battery E, Pennsylvania Light Artillery. The 10-pounder Parrott rifles pinned down the Confederates on the plain below while Kenly’s infantry gathered here to support the guns.

“I prepared to hold the position as long as possible,” Kenly later wrote.

Surrounded by Confederates not long after taking their stand, however, Kenly ordered a retreat north across the forks of the Shenandoah River.

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5 4 9 2 3

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Guard Hill

1. Asbury Chapel 2. Court House 3. Prospect Hill Cemetery 4. Bel Air 5. Richardson’s Hill 6. The Bridges 7. Guard Hill 8. Fairview 9. Belle Boyd Cottage and the Laura Virginia Hale Archives

The Bridges

Royal Avenue

Flanked out of his position on Richardson’s Hill, Kenly hurried his men north to the bridges spanning the forks of the Shenandoah River. The Front Royal Turnpike Bridge stood at this spot on the South Fork; with the Manassas Gap Railroad bridge just east. As the Federals crossed, the 1st Maryland Infantry CSA pressed their rear while Louisiana troops attacked the flanks. Kenly ordered the bridges burned to thwart pursuit, but the Louisianans charged in to beat out the flames. The old bridge embankments that stood during the war can still be seen.

Riverton Landing

Pursued by the 8th Louisiana Infantry, Kenly’s rear guard occupied Guard Hill just west of here. The prominence of Guard Hill offered him a good position to slow down the Southern advance. Lieutenant Charles Atwell’s guns held off the Rebels for nearly an hour, despite being shelled by Captain John A. Lusk’s battery from Atwell’s former position on Richardson’s Hill. When Kenly rode forward to check the progress of his bridge-burning orders, he found “the river below...alive with horsemen [i.e., the 6th Virginia Cavalry] crossing” at two points. Kenly ordered a retreat. The site of Guard Hill is today a park and picnic area.

Fairview

7181 Winchester Rd.

Located along Winchester Highway, “Fairview” was the wartime home of Thomas McKay. Here, Kenly rallied his 1st Maryland for a futile last stand. General Stonewall Jackson had ordered Colonel Thomas S. Flournoy’s 6th Virginia Cavalry in pursuit as Kenly’s troops retreated from Guard Hill. As Kenly tried to deploy his men, they were overrun by Flournoy’s troopers, unable to fix bayonets or form a front.

Kenly ordered the 5th New York Cavalry to countercharge, but it was too late. The 6th Virginia’s charge, which Jackson later said was the most gallant and effective he had seen, overwhelmed Kenly’s force, which soon surrendered. Kenly would be wounded and captured. The Battle of Front Royal was over.

The famed Confederate spy Belle Boyd lived in this house with her aunt and uncle early in the Civil War. In May 1982 the Warren Heritage Society moved the structure to this site from its original location behind 317 East Main Street. Belle’s information on Union troop dispositions helped General Stonewall Jackson win the Battle of Front Royal.

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PHOTOS BY MELISSA A. WINN (4)

Belle Boyd Cottage and the Laura Virginia Hale Archives 101 Chester Street

TODAY IN HISTORY AUGUST 8, 1974 PRESIDENT RICHARD M. NIXON ANNOUNCED HIS RESIGNATION. UNDER SUBPOENA THE NIXON WHITE HOUSE RELEASED TAPES OF PHONE CONVERSATIONS TO THE HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE ON AUGUST 5, 1974.

THE MOST DAMNING PIECE OF EVIDENCE OBTAINED WAS THE INFAMOUS “SMOKING GUN” TAPE, WHICH DOCUMENTED THE EARLY STAGES OF THE WATERGATE COVERUP. NIXON ACCEPTED BLAME FOR HIS ROLE IN THE COVERUP, CITING A MEMORY LAPSE REGARDING WHITE HOUSE INVOLVEMENT. For more, visit WWW.HISTORYNET.COM/ TODAY-IN-HISTORY

Interview by Nancy Tappan

5 QUESTIONS

Lincoln never lost his sense of curiosity and philosophical approach to life, even at the war’s darkest moments.

no eye for the magnificence and grandeur of the scene—for the rapids, the mist, the angry waters and the roar of the whirlpool.” According to Herndon, Lincoln was “heedless of beauty or awe.” Obviously, Herndon didn’t know him so well, because the whole point of the fragment is to show Lincoln’s understanding of beauty and awe. That’s why I argue that there was a private Lincoln behind the public Lincoln we meet in the traditional biographies.

A New Side of Lincoln Abraham Lincoln is, justifiably, considered the greatest orator among all American presidents. But while his speeches are well-known, Lincoln’s lifelong habit of scribbling notes for his eyes only is less celebrated. Although many of these private notes were believed lost, several were found after Lincoln’s death by his secretaries John Nicolay and John Hay, who included them in their 10-volume Abraham Lincoln: A History. In Lincoln in Private: What His Most Personal Reflections Tell Us About Our Greatest President (Penguin Random House, 2021), Ronald C. White Jr. examines these surviving notes and invites readers to draw their own conclusions on how Lincoln felt about the great issues of his day and how he found the courage to ask his fellow countrymen to accept a new America.

1

Among the surviving note fragments is one from 1848, during Lincoln’s lone term in Congress, about a visit to Niagara Falls.

Talk about how this panegyric to America’s first tourist attraction illuminates his private character and thought processes.

One of the book’s purposes is to show the wider range of Lincoln’s thinking and writing. We think of him as very logical and rational, which he was, but his visit to Niagara Falls prompted him to write about it in terms that I would call lyrical or poetic. It almost sounds like Henry David Thoreau. Lincoln scholars know about this passage because of a comment made by Lincoln’s longtime law partner in Springfield, Ill., William Herndon, who claimed, “I know Lincoln better than anyone.”

Lincoln’s commentary about the Falls left Herndon unmoved. “He had

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3

Lincoln rarely let his emotions show in public, but the notes occasionally reveal his true feelings.

While debating Stephen Douglas, he purchases “Slavery Ordained by God,” a book

by Alabama minister Frederick Augustus Ross, compiling the biblical arguments being used to justify slavery. Lincoln never mentions the book during the debate, but in a note to himself about it, you can feel his anger rising. “As a

KEAN COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE BOOKS

2

Another note you highlight, offering practical advice for new lawyers, is a window into Lincoln’s ambitions.

You differ with biographers about when it was written. What was his intention?

Remember that Lincoln spent 24 years as a lawyer, only 12 as a politician. He returned from Congress in 1849 and was a fulltime lawyer for the next five years, spending much of his time traveling in Illinois’ 8th Judicial Circuit—an area twice the size of Connecticut.

Many aspiring lawyers wanted to study with Lincoln, but as he was out on the circuit 175 or 185 days a year, I think he concluded he didn’t have time to tutor law students. This fragment tells us how Lincoln defines himself. It begins: “I am not an accomplished lawyer. I find quite as much material for a lecture in those points where I have failed as in those where I have been moderately successful.” This tells us a great deal about Lincoln’s character. He was an accomplished lawyer. Can you imagine a present-day leader, a CEO, a college president, saying, “I find quite as much material in points where I have failed?” He’s willing to say, “I learned from my own failures.” This is why Lincoln, although fully a 19th-century person, still speaks to us today.

5 QUESTIONS good thing slavery is peculiar. It is the only good thing which no man seeks the good of for himself. Nonsense!

Wolves devouring lambs not because it is good for their own greedy maws but because it is good for the lambs!!!”

4

COURTESY OF PENGUIN RANDOM HOUSE BOOKS

After getting elected, Lincoln continued his practice of writing down his thoughts. One fragment that survives from the period between November 1860 and his inauguration in March 1861 refers to correspondence with future Confederate Vice President Alexander Stephens. Lincoln hoped to convince Stephens to oppose secession. How? Lincoln and Stephens were friends in Congress. Learning Stephens had spoken against secession, he thought, ‘Well, here is a moderate Southerner he could persuade to join his Cabinet.’ So he writes Stephens: “Do the people of the South really entertain fears that a Republican administration would directly, or indirectly, interfere with their slaves, or with them, about their slaves? If they do, I wish to assure you, as once a friend, and still, I hope, not an enemy, that there is no cause for such fears....You think slavery is right and ought to be extended; while we think it is wrong and ought to be restricted. That I suppose is the rub. It certainly is the only substantial difference between us.”

Stephens warns Lincoln that using military force to hold the Union together would be “nothing short of a consolidated despotism.” He implores the president-elect to “do what you want to save our common country.” Stephens quotes Proverbs: “A word fitly spoken by you would be like ‘apples of gold in pictures of silver.’”

Lincoln does not reply, but in a fragment about preserving the Union, he writes about Stephens’ use of the metaphor. Lincoln muses that the reference could be used in an analogy about the Republic’s founding principles. Considered the more valuable metal, gold refers to the Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal.

Lincoln sees the reference to silver, secondary in value, as related to the Constitution. He concludes that the central principle of the American system is the Declaration’s demand for “liberty for all.” This he saw as a rebuke to slavery and led him to a final split with Stephens.

5

Although the date it was written is debated, one of the most notable fragments from Lincoln’s presidency was apparently composed at a time of great crisis, possibly early September 1862. Can you explain the significance of the note, known now as the “Meditation on the Divine Will”?

In every aspect of Lincoln’s life, he’s on a journey. Scholars, however, have not delved deeply into his journey toward faith. In his youth, he rejected the evangelical fervor of the

Baptist Church his parents attended. But his attitude toward religion changed as a result of life experiences, including his grief over the death of his second son, Eddie, in 1850 and the death of his third son, Willie, in 1862.

He was also deeply affected by the crucible of the Civil War. Lincoln began to ask himself about the meaning of God in the midst of this horrible bloodshed. He begins more frequently to walk through Lafayette Park to New York Avenue Presbyterian Church for worship services. The minister, Phineas Densmore Gurley, I think is the missing person in the Lincoln story in Washington. After the Union defeat at the Second Battle of Bull Run, Lincoln convenes an emergency Cabinet meeting. Three of those present kept diaries, and one of them, Attorney General Edward Bates, wrote that Lincoln told the gathering that “he was struck with so much anguish he felt almost like hanging himself.” I think the president took the afternoon of September 2, 1862, and sat down to write this remarkable document.

One lingering question about Lincoln concerns his religion. In his Second Inaugural, he mentions God 14 times, quotes the Bible four times, and invokes prayer three times in 701 words. Some scholars have argued that this was not really Lincoln but a shrewd politician using the language of an audience he knew was religiously oriented. So how do we answer that question? I think the answer is contained in what Hay called the “Meditation on the Divine Will.” At the outset of this fragment, we hear the logical Lincoln: “In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present Civil War it is quite possible that God’s purpose is something different from the purposes of either party….I am almost ready White to say that this is probably true—that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet.”

At the end of the fragment, Lincoln writes these remarkable words: “He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest…and having begun, He could give the final victory to either side on any day.” Do we understand why he never made this public? Lincoln is suggesting that God could give the final victory as easily to the Confederates as to the Union. I think this fragment is a remarkable signpost on Lincoln’s faith journey.

On the date of the Second Inaugural, no one is aware this document exists. In Chapter 10, I compare the major arguments of the Meditation and those of the Second Inaugural.

You see how absolutely parallel they are to one another. It’s one of the most significant fragments in helping us understand the private Lincoln behind the public Lincoln.

To read the full interview, go to bit.ly/PrivateLincoln NOVEMBER 2021

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REVIEWS Early Morning Bloodshed Army of the Potomac troops try to cross the Rappahannock River into Fredericksburg under ÀUH WKH PRUQLQJ RI 'HFHPEHU

Transformed Lives the far-reaching impact of a single battle. “More concerned with the personal than the political,” author John Matteson eschews history on the grand scale for a view shaped by the experiences of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., John Pelham, Walt Whitman, Arthur Fuller, and Louisa May Alcott.

0DWWHVRQ IROORZV WKH ÀYH IURP $QWLHWDP WKURXJK WKH 8QLRQ GHEDFOH at Fredericksburg three months later, arguing that we “would now inhabit a different nation” had each of these individuals not been transformed by their witness to the war’s slaughter. Today Holmes, Alcott, and Whitman are familiar names; Pelham and Fuller, neither of whom survived the war, less so.

John Pelham commanded J.E.B. Stuart’s “horse” artillery and SOD\HG D NH\ UROH LQ WKH &RQIHGHUDWH UHSXOVH RI WKH 8QLRQ DVVDXOWV RQ Marye’s Heights at Fredericksburg. Christened the “perfect lion” by a biographer, Pelham met an early death, at 25, at Kelly’s Ford in March 1863 and in Matteson’s telling became “a unique icon” reminding Southerners then (and now) that “the war had not been horrible, but courtly and glorious.”

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AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

A Worse Place Than Hell: How the Civil War Battle of Fredericksburg Changed a Nation

By John Matteson W.W. Norton & Company, 2021, $35

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

A Worse Place Than Hell is a cogent, elegantly written examination of

REVIEWS Arthur Fuller, younger brother of the Transcendentalist luminary Margaret, was a chaplain for the 16th Massachusetts at Fredericksburg. About to be sent home due to his failing health, he chose instead to join Union troops crossing the Rappahannock and was killed by a Rebel sniper. “Much less an icon than an emblem,” Matteson argues, Fuller “believed the war could be fought on ethical terms,” despite growing evidence to the contrary.

Whitman was drawn to the Virginia battlefield in search of his wounded brother, George. After witnessing the battle’s human costs, the poet traveled to Washington to spend the remainder of the war caring for wounded Union soldiers.

His experience, suggests the author, restored his vision of America and, by the poet’s own admission, had a greater impact on him than any other of his life.

Alcott’s direct contact with the war was limited to six weeks in Washington, working as a nurse in a Union hospital beginning in December 1862. While there she treated many of the Fredericksburg casualties before contracting typhoid and being forced to return home. Matteson maintains that Alcott’s brief experience at the hospital lent an air of reality to Little Women that was largely absent from other contemporary children’s literature.

The thrice-wounded Holmes was at )UHGHULFNVEXUJ EXW XQDEOH WR ÀJKW +LV service, writes Matteson, taught Holmes that people “live amid largely random forces.” How the law could and should respond to this uncertainty would become the question animating his jurisprudence. $OO ÀYH 0DWWHVRQ FRQFOXGHV ´WULHG WR ÀQG D FRUH RI YLUWXH WKDW FRXOG EDODQFH DQG justify the evil….The war drove a thinking person in one of two directions.” For Whitman and Alcott, their time in Union hospitals “led them toward a redoubled insistence on the necessity of community and compassion.” Holmes, on the other hand, “came to see all of life in terms of power and struggle.”

Matteson’s excellent book offers a fresh approach to Civil War studies. May it inspire other scholars to follow his path.

—Rick Beard

UNIT HISTORIES The eagerness of African Americans to contribute to the effort to preserve the Union enabled the U.S. government to tap a rich and invaluable source of manpower for its armies. Upon receiving authorization from the War Department to do so in early 1863, Massachusetts Governor John Andrew wasted little time raising a regiment of African American soldiers that would win fame as the 54th Massachusetts Infantry. Although not yet 20, in March 1863 Luis F. Emilio joined the regiment’s all-white RIÀFHU FRUSV DV D VHFRQG OLHXWHQDQW %RWK KLV DQG WKH WK 0DVsachusetts’ most famous moment came a few months later, with Emilio temporarily ascending to command of the regiment during the July 1863 assault on Fort Wagner that would proYLGH WKH FOLPDFWLF VFHQH LQ WKH ÀOP Glory. $IWHU SXEOLVKLQJ DQ DFFRXQW RI WKH ÀJKW DW )RUW :DJQHU LQ 1887, Emilio decided to write a full history of the 54th Massachusetts. In the time since its publicaWLRQ WKH ÀUVW HGLWLRQ FDPH RXW LQ three years later an expanded and revised edition appeared), Emilio’s study has been recognized as a work of value and importance by students of the war. Glory may have ended with Fort Wagner and the death of Robert Gould Shaw, but Emilio shows there was much more to the regiment’s story. After chronicling its organization, he describes its trip to South Carolina and initial operations. He then offers a full account of the assault on A Brave Black Fort Wagner and siege operations on Regiment: Morris Island that followed before The History of the 54th Massachusetts, describing how the regiment traveled WR )ORULGD LQ HDUO\ WR ÀJKW DW 1863-1865 Olustee and afterward returned to

By Luis F. Emilio South Carolina to participate in operBoston Book Company, ations highlighted by actions at Honey 1894 [CreateSpace Independent Publishing, +LOO DQG %R\NLQ·V 0LOOV 2017, $7.99] Emilio’s extensive research and keen eye for detail enabled him to provide compelling accounts not just of operations, but the controversy over pay and ordeals members of the unit endured as prisoners of war as well. Still, this remains very much a tradiWLRQDO PLOLWDU\ KLVWRU\ WROG PRUH IURP WKH SHUVSHFWLYH RI DQ RIÀcer than the men in the ranks and leaves the modern reader wanting to know more about the latter—their motivations, perspectives, prewar and postwar experiences, and what these tell us about them and their times. For all the undeniable merits of Emilio’s book, Glory, and Russell Duncan’s scholarship on Shaw, there remains much more to be said about this “brave black regiment.” —Ethan S. Rafuse

NOVEMBER 2021

61

REVIEWS It’s uncertain whether Horace Greeley actually ever said, “Go West

From Arlington to Appomattox: Robert E. Lee’s Civil War Day by Day, 1861-1865

By Charles R. Knight Savas Beatie, 2021, $39.95

IT’S BEEN A HALF-CENTURY since Earl Schenck Miers’ Lincoln Day by Day was published, but finally Robert E. Lee has been accorded the same scholarly attention. Richmond native Charles Knight focuses here on General Lee’s activities from April 17, 1861, to April 15, 1865, earning a nod from the inestimable Robert K. Krick, who rightly calls this “a gigantic piece of research.”

Thanks to Savas Beatie’s happy practice of printing footnotes, one quickly sees evidence of Knight’s prodigious sleuthing. He draws on the Official Records, of course, but also hundreds of published works, as well as manuscripts at three dozen repositories across the land. Obviously, some entries are longer than others (e.g., Dec. 13, 1862—Fredericksburg, including a couple of dangerous shell blasts). Each daily account notes the general’s whereabouts. Often Knight even offers info on the weather that day.

And what do we learn about Marse Robert? A lot of things, big and small. On September 19, 1864, for example, Lee wrote President Jefferson Davis, suggesting that General P.G.T. Beauregard should replace Hood as commander of the Army of Tennessee. (Davis did not reply.) On Christmas Day 1862, when E. Porter Alexander called upon headquarters, Lee gave Alexander’s teenage servant $1 as a gift. Even a casual perusal of such entries puts one in the famous general’s company. Benet called Lee “the marble man”; Knight effectively de-lapidifies him.

The Robert E. Lee bookshelf boasts the works of D.S. Freeman, Emory Thomas, Margaret Sanborn, and plenty of others.

From Arlington to Appomattox now joins that laudable library. —Stephen Davis 62

AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

young man.” What’s not uncertain, according to Kevin Waite, is that a coalition of powerful Southern nationalists and plantation grandees harbored dreams of a slavery-based empire stretching to the 3DFLÀF LQ WKH GHFDGHV SUHFHGLQJ WKH &LYLO :DU :DLWH SUHVHQWV D cogently argued, carefully organized, and deftly written history of their transcontinental vision, which contained much of the Manifest Destiny ideology that fueled America’s march to becoming a world SRZHU LQ WKH GHFDGHV DIWHU WKH ZDU 2QO\ ZLWK WKH GHIHDW RI WKH &RQfederacy in 1865, Waite maintains, would slaveholders’ dreams of a WUDQVFRQWLQHQWDO HPSLUH ÀQDOO\ GLH After the Mexican War, the United States acquired vast territories west of the Mississippi. Powerful Southern nationalists quickly realL]HG WKDW D ODQG URXWH WR &DOLIRUQLD IURP 7H[DV WKURXJK WKH 1HZ Mexico, Arizona, and southern Utah territories, could open vast $VLDQ PDUNHWV SDUWLFXODUO\ &KLQD WR plantation cotton and other similarly produced products.

Historians have long focused primarily RQ &XED &HQWUDO $PHULFD DQG WKH &DULEEHDQ LVODQGV DV SRWHQWLDO DUHDV where Southern nationalists sought to introduce a slavery-based economy under their control. By understanding that slavery’s proponents had carefully FUDIWHG GHVLJQV RQ ODQGV LQ WKH &RQWLQHQtal West, Waite “presents new ways of understanding America’s slaveholders, WKH FRQÁLFWV WKH\ XQOHDVKHG DQG WKH West of Slavery: world they made.”

The Southern Dream Waite sets an ambitious agenda in the of a Transcontinental book’s three sections. First, “how southEmpire ern powerbrokers imagined the far end

By Kevin Waite of the continent” by employing various transportation schemes to bring the UNC Press, 2021, $29.95 region into their political and economic RUELW VHFRQG ´KRZ UHVLGHQWV RI &DOLIRUQLD 1HZ 0H[LFR $UL]RQD and southern Utah embraced key parts of the proslavery agenda”; DQG WKLUG ´KRZ WKH ORJLF RI ZHVWZDUG H[SDQVLRQ VKDSHG &RQIHGHUate grand strategy during the war and ultimately sowed the seeds RI VODYHU\·V GHPLVH µ 7KURXJKRXW :DLWH VKRZV WKDW PDQ\ SODQWDWLRQ owners were not mere reactionary grandees seeking to preserve an antiquated way of life, but, rather, a proactive coalition of politically savvy, economically astute entrepreneurs, envisioning new ways to access global markets with their most exportable commodity, namely cotton.

By 1860, Waite concludes, “slaveholding prospects in the Far West KDG QHYHU DSSHDUHG EULJKWHU µ ,QGHHG WKH &RQIHGHUDF\·V ÀUVW )DU West incursion occurred the same day as First Bull Run in Virginia ZKHQ &RORQHO -RKQ %D\ORU DQG 7H[DQV HQWHUHG WKH WHUULWRU\ RI 1HZ 0H[LFR %XW E\ 0DUFK ZKHQ -HIIHUVRQ 'DYLV DXWKRUL]HG %D\ORU WR DJDLQ LQYDGH 1HZ 0H[LFR WKH VXUUHQGHU RI 5REHUW ( /HH PLOHV DZD\ ÀQDOO\ VTXHOFKHG WKH 6RXWK·V GUHDP RI D WUDQVFRQWLQHQWDO &RQIHGHUDF\ ³Gordon Berg

REVIEWS

The Boy Generals: George Custer, Wesley Merritt, and the Cavalry of the Army of the Potomac

By Adolfo Ovies Savas Beatie, 2021, $34.95

THIS IS NOT YOUR USUAL Civil War book and well worth reading—a powerful, balanced, dual biography of George Custer and Wesley Merritt, two of the nation’s greatest cavalry generals. It examines their time together—and their differences—at West Point, during the Civil War, and postwar fighting in the West. Both achieved their share of glory. Custer famously met a horrific death in Montana on June 25, 1876; Merritt commanded the expedition that captured Manila in the Philippines during the Spanish-American War and ended his service as the Army’s second ranking officer, living well into old age.

The generals’ once-cordial relationship eventually deteriorated to the point of open warfare, particularly when Merritt ascended to command of the Army of the Potomac’s 1st Cavalry Division after Maj. Gen. John Buford’s death in December 1863. According to Ovies, Custer was openly insubordinate to his former friend, now commander. Even after Custer’s death, Merritt’s association with his rival remained controversial, as shown in Merritt’s ruling during the 1879 Court of Inquiry into Marcus Reno’s alleged “cowardice” during the Battle of Little Bighorn as well as his role in the placement and configuration of a statue of Custer at West Point.

Ovies’ comprehensive study, organized into 13 chapters, includes fascinating stories about the two luminaries and looks at how Custer gained from his relationship with George McClellan and Alfred Pleasonton. Ovies articulates, meanwhile, that it was Merritt’s fighting prowess against the Confederates that led to his promotion. —David R. Marshall

Studies of the post-Civil War diaspora of Confederates typically focus on Canada, Mexico, England, and even Cuba. Brazil? Not so much. But, as geographer Alan P. Marcus reveals, Confederados—as these migrants were called—“were the largest organized group of white Americans to ever voluntarily emigrate out of the United States.” Furthermore, he concludes, it was “the result of a carefully thought out and calculated move, driven by a combination of push and pull factors.”

Who were these Confederados? What factors attracted them to Brazil?

How many of them were there, where did they settle, and how did they IDUH" 0DUFXV ÀQGV PDQ\ ZHUH &RQIHGHUDWH YHWHUDQV LQFOXGLQJ GRFWRUV dentists, educators, and agriculturalists. They belonged “not to the poorHVW RU PRVW DIÁXHQW IDPLOLHV LQ WKH 8 6 6RXWK but families somewhere in between (albeit certainly privileged).” These were not exclusively members of the plantation hierarchy seeking to re-create their antebellum success in a country where slavery remained legal, but those who would bring a “combination of urban-and ruralbased occupations and mentalities.”

The typical Confederado left behind a shattered economic, social, and agricultural structure to seek a new life in Brazil because Brazil and its leader, Emperor Dom Pedro II, actively Confederate sought immigrants, particularly White immi- Exodus: Social and grants. One, Dr. James McFadden Gaston, Environmental explains the lure of the new land: “To our SouthForces in the ern people the empire of Brazil embodies the Migration of U.S. character and sentiment among the better class Southerners of citizens, very much in keeping with our stanto Brazil dard of taste and politeness.”

By Alan P. Marcus Citing an 1865 New York Herald report, Mar- University of Nebraska cus notes: “The Brazilians are aware that AmerPress, 2021, $60

icans are the best emigrants for this country, because they bring with them intelligence and energy to introduce agricultural implements which are needed to take the place of the decreasing power —slavery.”

In Marcus’ estimate, there were between 4,000 and 10,000 Confederados. Interestingly, both Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee “urged Southerners not to leave for Brazil” and Richmond’s Daily Dispatch advised “our countrymen to think twice before they make the experiment...”

According to Marcus, Baltimore became D SLYRWDO SOD\HU EHQHÀWLQJ IURP WKH UHFLSURFDO WUDGH RI ZKHDW ÁRXU WR %UD]LO DQG importation of coffee through Baltimore: “Every ship leaving the United States for Brazilian ports...between 1868 and 1869 carried immigrants,” he contends. In addition, Protestant leaders who lived in and traveled to Brazil were among those encouraging migration, and immigration agents in both the U.S. and Brazil helped SURPRWH DQG ÀQDQFH WKH SURFHVV 1HZ VFLHQWLÀF WKLQNLQJ DOVR LQÁXHQFHG %UD]LOLDQ elites to favor bringing immigrants of European stock to Brazil. The Brazilian government offered various inducements to immigrants and also provided them favorable political, agricultural, and economic conditions. —Gordon Berg

NOVEMBER 2021

63

FINAL BIVOUAC

BRIGADIER GENERAL

Edward Augustus Wild mand of what was known as “Wild’s here are resting the bones of an African Brigade” in North Carolina, a American hero,” Charles Patrick unit composed mostly of escaped Decker wrote from Medellín, Colomslaves. Wild joined the Army of the bia, on December 25, 1909, to the James in the spring of 1864. headquarters of the Massachusetts Unable to practice medicine with his disability, Wild entered the minG.A.R. “Today, while visiting the ceming business postwar. In July 1891, etery, I saw an ill-kept and neglected grave. At one time a wooden fence he left for South America to help surformed a sort of tomb, but it has rotvey a route for a railroad from the ted away, a discolored wooden cross, Magdalena River to Medellín. He died once white, but now weather-beaten on August 28, at the age of 65, after and dry-rotted, bears the legend: suffering for days from persistent ‘Wild, Brigadier General U.S. VolunGLDUUKHD RU SRVVLEO\ PDODULD +LV ÀQDO teers, born in Brookline, Mass., and words, according to his friend and died in Medellin, 1891’.…Here he lies, traveling companion Anthony Jones, unhonored, unsung and unwept. I were “Good,” after a doctor placed an placed a bouquet of roses on the cross, ice cube in his mouth. and as long as I live here I shall place Colombian customs called for the funeral to take place 12–15 hours a bouquet on each Decoration day and D VPDOO ÁDJ LI , FDQ JHW WKHP µ after Wild’s death. Jones oversaw the The son of a doctor and Harvard arrangements and paid for a plot at graduate, Edward Augustus Wild was the Cementerio de San Pedro. A comborn on November 25, 1825. He would pany of Colombian soldiers escorted his remains to the cemetery and the graduate from his father’s alma mater funeral was attended by the city’s in 1844, and in 1847 opened a medical JRYHUQRU DQG JRYHUQPHQWDO RIÀFHUV practice in Brookline. When the Jones had a wood cross made and Crimean War began in 1853, he joined the Ottoman Army as a surgeon. placed at the gravesite. Frances Ellen Wild was appointed a captain in Wild sent a Kodak No. 4 to Jones, the 1st Massachusetts Infantry on likely the camera used to snap the May 22, 1861. At Seven Pines (Fair only known photo of her husband’s Oaks) on May 31–June 1, 1862, he grave. She never visited it herself. was severely wounded in the right Israel H. De Wolf, Massachusetts hand. Returning home, he was G.A.R. department commander, Lost in Colombia appointed colonel of the 35th Massaintended to return Wild’s remains in Edward Wild’s gravesite in chusetts Infantry in August. The folD PHWDOOLF FRIÀQ WR WKH 8QLWHG 6WDWHV Medellín, as photographed in the late 19th century. All remnants of lowing month, while leading the and buried with full military honthe site are long gone. regiment at South Mountain, an ors—possibly at Arlington National Cemetery. Wild’s widow halted the exploding shell shattered his left arm.

“I told the surgeons if they found it necessary to ampueffort, reasoning her husband always avoided notoriety WDWH WKH DUP QRW WR OHW PH ZDNH DQG ÀQG LW RQ µ KH ODWHU and wouldn’t have wished his remains to be disturbed. declared. The surgeons obliged.

The original wooden cross is gone, and the exact location In May 1863, Wild, now a brigadier general, took comof Wild’s remains unknown. –Frank Jastrzembski Final Bivouac LV SXEOLVKHG LQ SDUWQHUVKLS ZLWK ´6KURXGHG 9HWHUDQV µ D QRQSURÀW PLVVLRQ UXQ E\ )UDQN -DVWU]HPEVNL WR LGHQWLI\ RU UHSDLU WKH JUDYHV RI 0H[LFDQ :DU DQG &LYLO :DU YHWHUDQV IDFHERRN FRP VKURXGHGYHWJUDYHV

64

AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

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