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★ PICKETT'S CHARGE INSPIRES MODERN ARTIST ★

Gen. Meade’s quick and scathing temper earned him the nickname ‘Old Snapping Turtle.’

FORGOTTEN HERO

GEORGE GORDON

MEADE

THE LONG FIGHT TO BUILD HIS D.C. MEMORIAL WAR DIARY

BRISTOE STATION CAMPAIGN NEW HOPE CHURCH

HOOD STOPS SHERMAN

TRAILBLAZER

LONGSTREET’S SECOND WIFE April 2018 HistoryNet.com

CIVIL WAR TIMES APRIL 2018

60 REFLECTIVE WATERS Port Royal, S.C., is peaceful now, but it saw plenty of tumult during the war and Reconstruction.

ON THE COVER: General George G. Meade was born in Cรกdiz, Spain, when his family was there for business reasons.

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Features

26 34 42 48 52

Meade in Allegory

By Jennifer M. Murray It took years of effort to place Maj. Gen. George G. Meade’s memorial in Washington, D.C.

No Hope of Success

By Stephen Davis John Bell Hood scored a lopsided victory against William T. Sherman at a small Georgia church.

Longstreet’s Second Wife

By John Banks Remarkable, trailblazing Helen Dortch Longstreet was 42 years younger than her husband.

A New Charge

By Kim O’Connell A current artist reimagines the Gettysburg cyclorama.

‘Campaign of the Two Dogs’

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By Dana B. Shoaf

A Union officer’s diary describes the overlooked Bristoe Station Campaign.

Departments

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6 8 12 14 18 20 25 60 66 72

Letters Love for Colt’s rifle News! Saving a headquarters Details Tennessee Yanks Insight Confederate desertion Materiel Before plastic Interview Great Valley chronicler Editorial Pickett, Meade, and pondering Explore Important Port Royal, S.C. Reviews A classic memoir refined Sold ! Battle honors in bone

APRIL 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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MICHAEL A. REINSTEIN CHAIRMAN & PUBLISHER DAVID STEINHAFEL PUBLISHER DOUG NEIMAN ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER ALEX NEILL EDITOR IN CHIEF

EDITORIAL DANA B. SHOAF EDITOR CHRIS K. HOWLAND SENIOR EDITOR SARAH RICHARDSON SENIOR EDITOR CLAIRE BARRETT ASSOCIATE EDITOR STEPHEN KAMIFUJI CREATIVE DIRECTOR BRIAN WALKER GROUP ART DIRECTOR JENNIFER M. VANN ART DIRECTOR MELISSA WINN SENIOR PHOTO EDITOR/SOCIAL MEDIA COORDINATOR SHENANDOAH SANCHEZ PHOTOGRAPHER AT LARGE

SCAPEGOAT OR CULPRIT?

A resurgence of respect for James Longstreet challenges doubts about his actions at Gettysburg.

‘DEEP DISTRESS’

An unsent letter from President Lincoln has plagued General George Meade’s reputation for more than 150 years.

THE WAR ON CANVAS

New generations of artists continue to produce haunting images of America’s most painful conflict.

Sign up for our FREE monthly e-newsletter at: historynet.com/newsletters

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CIVIL WAR TIMES APRIL 2018

ADVISORY BOARD Edwin C. Bearss, Gabor Boritt, Catherine Clinton, William C. Davis, Gary W. Gallagher, Lesley Gordon, D. Scott Hartwig, John Hennessy, Harold Holzer, Robert K. Krick, Michael McAfee, James M. McPherson, Mark E. Neely Jr., Megan Kate Nelson, Ethan S. Rafuse, Susannah Ural

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Private Oliver Dart of the 14th Connecticut after his horrible Fredericksburg wound.

WAR’S HORROR John Banks’ February 2018 article on Private Oliver Dart’s ghastly facial wound struck me as perhaps the ultimate example of the horror of Civil War combat.

In October 1862, barely two months prior to Private Dart’s wounding at Fredericksburg, Mathew Brady opened the public exhibition of “The Dead of Antietam” in his New York photography gallery. For the first time the American public could view photographic images of the horror of combat.

And while the images increased the public’s awareness of the horrible nature of Civil War combat, the photos still had a certain remoteness about them.

I believe that the very real horror of war would be brought home the next year, when the disfigured casualties of the 1862 battles were released from hospitals and discharged from the service to return home and try to rebuild their lives. It is not hard to imagine the shocked expressions on the faces of those civilians who saw the gallant Private Dart. While they might try to look away, their gaze might fall on another maimed or wounded soldier trying to make his way into a very uncertain future.

So this then is the real horror of war that was brought home to every community, North or South…a constant reminder that the horrific cost of the conflict wouldn’t fade from our nation’s conscience for years.

Phil Spaugy Vandalia, Ohio

FACEBOOK FEEDBACK David A. Powell’s February 2018 article, “Heavy Metal,” about Union Maj. Gen. William S. Rosecrans’ desire to arm troops in the Army of the Cumberland with repeating rifles, inspired a number of Facebook comments.

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The one limitation of the Sharps and Spencer rifles was the amount of ammunition the troops would go through. The army logistics system was not capable of supplying an army completely equipped with repeaters. There were not enough wagons or supply troops, and the dirt roads prevalent dissolved into gumbo in any combination of rain and heavy use....

Regular officers, expecting that the green troops everyone started the war with would not learn fire discipline fast enough, feared that units would be overrun after having burnt through all of their ammo....The 13th Pennsylvania “Bucktails” with Sharps rifles, and Brig. Gen. John Wilder’s “Lightning Brigade” with Spencers, made very effective use of their superior weapons.

Wilder’s Brigade arguably saved the Union Army at Chickamauga.

Dai Chaplin

“The Yankees load on Sunday and fire all week long.” That bitter refrain was heard from the outgunned Confederate soldiers who encountered Union troops armed with repeating rifles and carbines. The Confederates had no means of manufacturing their own repeating arms, and even capturing them was of limited value. That was because they also lacked the ability to manufacture the metallic cartridges. The rebels were in essentially the same predicament as the Plains Indian warriors in that they coveted the advanced firearms, but lacked the technology necessary to make them.

Scott E. Tyson

Photographs with soldiers holding this revolving rifle are extremely rare. That is a great front cover.

John Robella

CIVIL WAR TIMES APRIL 2018

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RESCUE

MARYLAND HQ

The Shafer house was built about 1820 and added on to several times after the Civil War. Its handsome bank barn also still stands.

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CIVIL WAR TIMES APRIL 2018

On September 14, 1862, Maj. Gen. William Buell Franklin’s 6th Corps marched westward through Maryland’s rolling countryside, hoping to relieve Harpers Ferry’s garrison. But Confederate troops blocked Franklin at Crampton’s Gap in South Mountain, and the general established his headquarters east of the gap, near Burkittsville on the Martin Shafer Farm. From there he watched his soldiers attack the mountain cleft during the Battle of Crampton’s Gap, an important prelude to the Battle of Antietam.

The Shafer farmhouse and several outbuildings still stand, and the recently formed Burkittsville Preservation Association (BPA) has made major strides to restore the property after years of neglect and abuse by vandals. The property was donated to BPA in September 2016 by a relative of its last owner. ¶ In October 2017, the National Park Service’s Historic Preservation Training Center, with nearly 60 craftspeople, stabilized the front porch and meat house, repaired brickwork, restacked stone walls, and constructed custom window ventilators. BPA has some grant money through Preservation Maryland to cover the costs of these repairs, as well as future projects, including an effort to stabilize a failing western wall on the house. A local company donated its services to fix an underground well system. BPA and Preservation Maryland have also launched an online campaign to raise funds to repair the house roof. ¶ BPA’s efforts to restore the property will take years, says organization board member Todd Remaley. To learn more or donate, go to burkittsvillepreservationassociation.org.

Resurrection A community group in Athens, Ala., is working to reconstruct Fort Henderson, which was built in 1863 by the 110th U.S. Colored Troops and notable for its 18-foot-deep moat. Nathan Bedford Forrest briefly seized the five-sided earthen fort and its 900-man garrison in September 1864, but Union troops recaptured it after Forrest pressed north. Years after the war, Trinity School was constructed nearby and the fort’s moat was filled in. Reconstruction of Fort Henderson is estimated to cost $200,000, and the Sons of Confederate Veterans have already contributed $2,000. Richard Martin, vice-president of the board of the Athens-Limestone Community Association (ALCA) spearheading the project, would like to list the names of slaves who served in the 110th and the plantations they came from. To donate to ALCA, visit www.gofundme.com/alcatrinityproject or send contributions to P.O. Box 1476, Athens, AL 35612.

The Goose Creek bridge was built as part of the Ashby’s Gap Turnpike.

FANTASTIC BATTLEFIELD SAVED !

ON DECEMBER 6, 2017,

THE FARM OFFICE AT THE CARTER

House in Franklin, Tenn., opened to visitors on November 28, 2017, after a $170,000 restoration. Bullet holes from the November 30, 1864, Battle of Franklin speckle the structure’s walls. Several groups contributed to the restoration work, which was overseen by The Battle of Franklin Trust. The farm was the site of a Confederate assault on Union lines that failed, costing Maj. Gen. John Bell Hood some 7,000 casualties and six mortally wounded generals.

Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe announced the preservation of 19.8 acres of the Upperville Battlefield in northern Virginia along Route 50, a site that includes the stunning four-arch Goose Creek bridge. On June 21, 1863, shellfire thundered over the 220-foot span, dating from 1802, as J.E.B. Stuart’s troopers held off pursuing Federal cavalry and infantry during the Gettysburg Campaign. Jim Lighthizer, president of the Civil War Trust, noted that efforts to protect the site began nearly 60 years ago.

Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources Molly Ward also noted direct environmental benefits: “By preserving the land where these Civil War battles occurred, we are not only protecting Virginia’s unique history, but we are also conserving environmental features….and protecting the vital Chesapeake Bay watershed.”

APRIL 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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THE WAR ON THE NET

w w w . l i b g u i d e s .u s d . e d u / c i v i l w a r d i a r y

In June 1861, a young man traveled to Chatfield, Minn., to volunteer in the U.S. Army, as he put it, “because I feel my duty to my adopted Country calls me.” He enlisted in the 2nd Minnesota Volunteer Infantry on June 26.

He noted in his diary that it was a day that would “never be forgotten.” What has been forgotten, however, is the man’s identity. His diary is available online thanks to the University of South Dakota (USD), and it includes scans and transcriptions of each page. USD archivists contextualized the diary with a link to a digitized history of the 2nd Minnesota and other resources and lesson plans.

The diary covers his enlistment through the summer of 1863, and documents his growing war-weariness.

He discusses discipline problems, “[August] 12 Co F Kicked up a row on account of scarcity of bread One of the

measles and sent to Hospital.”

The journal contains numerous comments about Southern guerrillas. “There was one of Co I shot by secsesh while procuring forage The Secesh (Jackson) is under arrest The Boys are anxious to linch [sic] him for his crime,” the diarist noted in December 1861. Accounts of guerrilla activities increase, including a description of the death of Union General Robert L. McCook, reportedly killed by partisans in August 1862.

The 2nd Minnesota diarist wrote the “country This “Civil War Diary” offers will never forget” the 1862 f ight at Mill Springs. rich reflections on soldier life during the war, and hopefully someone will uncover the identity of sentinels broke his gun round the corthe writer who offers few clues about ner of the house when drunk.” He also his own life but many insights into a soladdresses the threat of disease, “[Jandier’s experience in the Western Theater uary] 23…many taken with measles… of operations.—Susannah J. Ural [February] 21 Several more taken with

On November 18, 2017, at the 22nd Lincoln Forum in Gettysburg, forum chair Frank Williams, left, and vice chair Harold Holzer, right, presented the Richard Nelson Current Award of Achievement to Ron Chernow for his Grant biography.

QUI Z

NAME THIS BATTLEFIELD LANDMARK

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CIVIL WAR TIMES APRIL 2018

Send your answer via e-mail to dshoaf@historynet. com or via regular mail (1919 Gallows Road, Suite 400, Vienna, VA, 22182-4038) marked “Burnt.” The first answer will win a book. Congratulations to February issue winner Dave Adams, who correctly identified the Lockwood House at Harpers Ferry, 1864 headquarters of General Philip Sheridan.

TENNESSEE

BLUE with the exception of South Carolina, contributed white soldiers to the Union cause, to the tune of 100,000 men—enough to make up another army. No Southern state contributed more than Tennessee. Approximately 45,000 men from the Volunteer State served the Union, including these rough riders from Company D of the 2nd Tennessee Cavalry (Union). The regiment formed in 1862, and most of the men came from three contiguous counties in the Union stronghold of East Tennessee. The troopers spent their service in the Western Theater taking part in dozens of remote, forgotten skirmishes named for remote, forgotten places like Rover, Dirt Town, and Dry Valley, but they were also at the major engagements of Stones River, the fights of the Tullahoma Campaign, Chickamauga, and Nashville. By war’s end, the 2nd had incurred 224 total casualties. It’s not clear when and where this image was taken. The stark, naked trees and the thin foliage of winter or early spring make the terrain seem even more lonesome and unforgiving. Are Rebel guerrillas watching the cavalrymen from the shadowy ridge in the distance? The battered hats, worn uniforms, and lean faces of the men indicate, however, that they had been at the business of war for a while and could handle whatever was thrown at them. –D.B.S.

EVERY STATE IN THE CONFEDERACY,

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2

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CIVIL WAR TIMES APRIL 2018

1. Finding guys slugging from a bottle or

5. The large trigger guard identifies a .54-caliber

otherwise acting the fool on the periphery of Civil War images is not uncommon.

2. The officers in the image appear crisp and

breech-loading Burnside carbine, invented by Union Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside just before the war. More than 50,000 Burnsides were issued to Federal horsemen.

uniform compared to the enlisted men. This officer is the only man wearing a forage cap.

6. Someone didn’t get the memo. Every trooper

3. Companies fell in by height. Notice how

in the photograph has his weapon on his right shoulder, except this man, who stands at support arms. There’s always that guy.

everyone is roughly the same size as the others in their file of four—well, with the exception of this short, young soldier.

4. This company of the 2nd Tennessee was armed with a variety of weapons. This trooper is one of several who carried a five-shot, .56-caliber Colt revolving rifle. At 50 inches long, the Colts were unwieldy for mounted troopers to handle. This man is also one of the few to carry a saber.

7. This trooper carries a Merrill carbine, identified by the patch box in the butt as well as the long, thin metal loading lever on the neck of the stock. That loading lever could malfunction, and the .54-caliber breech-loading weapon was never popular.

8. The company commander wears his red sash across his chest, which designates him as the officer of the day in charge of camp duties for 24 hours. Perhaps he is leading these men off to picket duty—or to dig “sinks.”

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APRIL 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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By Gary W. Gallagher

THE WRONG WAY A Confederate officer keeps his wary eye on a soldier heading the opposite direction of his comrades in this Alan Redwood sketch. Is the private attempting to desert?

ABSENT WITHOUT LEAVE WERE CONFEDERATE DESERTERS REALLY LOSING THE WILL TO FIGHT?

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CIVIL WAR TIMES APRIL 2018

HISTORIANS examining Confederate defeat often describe desertion as both a symptom and a cause. As conditions behind the lines worsened, loved ones begged soldiers to return home. Thousands of men did so, a fact that many scholars use to portray eroding morale across the Confederacy.

At least 105,000 out of a total of perhaps 850,000 soldiers eventually deserted, enough to hasten Confederate defeat.

Historians have accorded far more attention to Confederate than to Union desertion, and they often treat it as an indicator of weak national sentiment in the incipient slaveholding republic.

By way of comparison, approximately 210,000 of 2.2 million U.S. soldiers deserted, and another 120,000 evaded conscription. Estimates of the number of Northerners who fled to Canada during the war to escape enrollment officers, dodge the draft, or desert from their units run as high as 85,000–90,000. Thousands more fled to areas such as mountainous central and western Pennsylvania, where they hoped to place themselves beyond the reach of the federal government.

It is important to remember that the presence of Union armies on Confederate soil generated a type of desertion in Rebel forces largely unknown among Federals—one not necessarily indicative of weak will or unhappiness with the Confederacy. A soldier in the Army of Tennessee informed his wife in mid-July 1864 that “a great many Tennesseeans and up[country] Georgians are leaving the army and say they are going back

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home….They know that their families are left behind at the mercy of the Yankees, and it is hard to bear.” If the Confederate army retreated beyond his home county, admitted this man, “I could not say that I would not desert and try to get to you.” Thousands of Confederates left the ranks when they marched close to the areas where their families lived but later returned to their units.

Should these men be reckoned deserters who cared nothing about which side prevailed in the war? Many Confederate officers acknowledged different types of deserters. Jubal A. Early, a tough disciplinarian, professed no toleration for desertion during the war “and never failed to sanction and order the execution of sentences for the extreme penalty for that offence…but some palliation was to be found for the conduct of many of those who did desert, in the fact that they did so to go to the aid of their families, who they knew were suffering for the necessaries of life.”

At the least, historians should avoid portraying Confederate desertion as a linear problem of constantly increasing gravity. One careful study of Virginia describes a swell of desertions in 1862

SOFT SPOT Major General Jubal Early was a disciplinarian, but even he drew distinctions about the various reasons that caused Confederate desertion.

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CIVIL WAR TIMES APRIL 2018

CONFEDERATE

OFFICERS ACKNOWLEDGED

DIFFERENT

TYPES OF

DESERTERS that probably represented, at least in part, anger at implementation of the conscription act, which extended the service of thousands of men who originally had signed on for one year. After this initial wave, rates dropped off until the final eight months of the war. This pattern should caution against the use of desertion to demonstrate a deepseated and pervasive absence of identification with the Confederate cause.

Dealing with desertion illuminates the challenge of pinning down statistics and comprehending exactly what they indicate. Surviving Confederate records contain many vexing gaps, a problem compounded by uncertainty in fathoming how best to read surviving documents. For example, one scholar has observed: “Had it not been for the two-thirds of soldiers who were absent

by September 1864, the Confederacy might well have been able to offset the North’s population advantage….” This passage doubtless would leave most readers with an impression of catastrophic desertion by the early autumn of 1864.

Were two-thirds of the men absent in the fall of 1864? Desertion unquestionably grew in severity as the war headed into its final eight months, but a closer look at the critical evidence— inspection returns—muddies the picture. The “consolidated abstract from returns of the Confederate Army on or about December 31, 1864” gives these numbers: Present for Duty, 154,910; Aggregate Present, 196,016; Aggregate Present & Absent, 400,787. These totals might seem to suggest that only 38.7 percent of the men were ready for duty and that the rest must have

gone off somewhere. In fact, the first two categories (roughly one-half of the whole) include those literally present as well as all men detailed for duty elsewhere, under arrest in camp, sick in field hospitals, and in other categories.

In the third category, the absent would include prisoners of war, men on furlough, and those in general hospitals due to illness or battlefield wounds— categories that do not necessarily support a portrait of armies experiencing crises of morale.

The inspection report dated August 19, 1864, for the 10th South Carolina Infantry, a unit in the Army of Tennessee, pinpoints the difficulty of extracting unequivocal numbers from manuscript sources. The report lists 208 men present for duty; 255 as the aggregate present, with 39 of them on special, extra, or daily duty and 8 sick; and 529 as aggregate present and absent, with 14 on detached service, 2 on leave, 156 absent sick, and 7 absent without authority. The sum of 255 + 14 + 2 + 156 + 7 equals only 434—95 short of 529. The report also has a column for prisoners of war listing another 96 men, producing a grand total of 530, one more than the aggregate present and absent (perhaps the clerk was tired or not very good at arithmetic). Some of those on detached service, on leave, or absent sick could have deserted and the regimental officers not yet known it; some of the 96 prisoners also could have taken the oath or joined the U.S. Army to fight Indians on the frontier.

But without doubt most of the 274 or 275 soldiers not among the “present” or “aggregate present” should be considered loyal soldiers.

Confederate military and civilian leaders, newspaper editors, and citizens in their private diaries and letters left ample testimony about the problem of desertion. There is no question it weakened the war effort and, in many cases, reflected an indifference toward the Confederate nation. But a careful look at patterns, numbers, and circumstances reveals that, as is almost always the case with history, the phenomenon was far more complex, and its impact less certain, than often assumed. ✯

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CHEMICALS

BEFORE PLASTIC RULED the consumer market, rendered tree saps and thermoplastic composites were heated, pressed, and pushed into molds that made thousands of items for 19th-century military and home use. Connecticut scientist Charles Goodyear spent years working with the sap of the rubber tree, and finally hit upon a recipe that used chemicals and other ingredients to “vulcanize” the rubber, or harden it so it could be molded and not sticky. Gutta-percha, the rendered sap from Palaquium tree found in Southeast Asia and Australia and its neighboring islands, was also used for numerous products. And thermoplastic, a noxious soup of shellac, sawdust, chemicals, and dye, was frequently poured into elaborate molds for making hinged photo cases.

Many image cases, like this one housing a photo of two Union soldiers, were made of thermoplastic, often confused with gutta-percha because both materials take on a brown hue. Modern collectors value the cases—called “union” cases due to the union of materials used to produce them—for their molded scenes alone. They can sell for hundreds of dollars even if they do not contain images.

Charles Goodyear’s product was used to mold hundreds of items used by Civil War soldiers, including this U.S. Navy button that reads on the back, “Novelty Rubber Co. Goodyear’s Patent, 1861, New York.” No need to worry about salt water tarnish!

Gutta-percha, biologically inert and resistant to bacteria, was often used for handles of medical instruments, like this Civil War surgeon’s Hey saw, named for 18th-century surgeon William Hey. The saw was used to cut through skulls.

You just might be carrying some gutta-percha around with you, as it still is used in dental procedures to fill voids.

18

CIVIL WAR TIMES APRIL 2018

Pennsylvania cavalryman George W. Freas carried this .30-caliber Sharps breechloading pistol with checkered, hard rubber grips. Freas survived the war, likely due to the use of more robust weaponry.

An elaborately molded Federal eagle lends dignity to this hard rubber comb used for the unpleasant task of teasing lice and other tiny parasites from the hair of dirty soldiers living and camping in close quarters.

A fouled anchor, “U.S.N” and the motto “Don’t Give Up The Ship” are molded into the lid of this hard rubber soap dish favored by Navy officers. The lid contained a mirror on the inside, and the brass loop allowed it to be hung on the wall and then replaced and neatly stowed away in a cramped ship’s cabin.

APRIL 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES

19

with Edward L. Ayers

WAR CAME THIS WAY In this stereoscopic image, townsfolk in Chambersburg, Pa., the seat of Franklin County, examine buildings torched

by Confederate cavalry in 1864.

BLURRING BOUNDARIES IN HIS NEW BOOK The Thin

Light of Freedom: Civil War and Emancipation in the Heart of America, Ed Ayers, historian and president emeritus of the University of Richmond, continues the saga he began in his 2003 prize-winning book In the Presence of Mine Enemies, about the wartime experiences of soldiers and their families in Augusta County, Va., and Franklin County, Pa. Drawing on personal stories, he follows the two counties through the Confederate invasion of Gettysburg to Lee’s surrender at Appomattox and the contentious struggles that followed to cross “the boundary between the war and Reconstruction.”

20

CIVIL WAR TIMES APRIL 2018

CWT: How did you choose these two counties as your research focus?

EA: I had the idea that I would look into the Shenandoah Valley, north and south, as a prism to see the war. I looked for a Pennsylvania county and a Virginia county that had newspapers all the way through and that were involved in all the major battles of the Eastern Theater. I came up with Augusta and Franklin. It turned out that the largest collection of letters of USCT troops are from Franklin County, and the diaries of a couple, the Cormanys, go all through the war. And Franklin County voted for Abraham Lincoln in the 1860 election in the same percentage as the North as a whole. I chose Augusta County because it had the same percentage of enslaved people as the South as a whole. I could also pull from sources like the diary of editor, judge, and legislator Joseph Waddell and the letters of Confederate mapmaker Jedediah Hotchkiss. They had never been transcribed. They were hiding in plain sight.

CWT: What happened to Augusta County by the end of the war?

EA: It was decimated. This is a county that voted for Union all the way through the secession convention. What is so amazing is this county, which had resisted secession, had thrown itself so completely into the war and ended up suffering so much. They were able to convert all their

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loyalty and their Christian beliefs intact from the U.S. to the Confederacy—same beliefs, but attached to a different nation. Augusta men were part of the Stonewall Brigade, and they were losing soldiers in major battles from Manassas to Appomattox. The Confederacy was as fully mobilized for war as they could have been.

CWT: What about Franklin County?

EA: Only 44 percent of Franklin men end up fighting, compared to 69 percent of the Augusta men, and Franklin County’s casualty rate is much lower (7 percent vs. 34 percent), even though they are decimated at Chancellorsville and Fredericksburg. I try to take it down to the individual level. I get chills every time I read about Sylvester McElheney, who gets shot at Fort Stedman in 1865 and dies in a Philadelphia hospital. The chaplain writes to his wife and says he’s looking for you. And it happened that she had been nearby at the time.

CWT: Virginia has to make a new constitution at war’s end. What happens?

EA: Reconstruction did not begin until two years after the war. Then Virginia is required to hold a new constitutional convention, to let black men vote and be delegates. On one hand white Virginians deny the legitimacy of that entirely. On the other hand, they want to be able to vote and hold office as former Confederates. The question is: Should former Confederates be disfranchised? And if they’re not, how do the people of the North guarantee that what was just won at enormous cost is not nullified?

CWT: What do the records show?

EA: They have the public meetings in Staunton, and the black men—who have been completely invisible in the court record before—stand up and give eloquent speeches and argue with Confederate generals, making fun and saying “You claim you’re our best friend, what took you so long?”

What you see is how Virginia ends up making the same bargain the whole South makes, which is “OK, we won’t 22

CIVIL WAR TIMES APRIL 2018

resist the legal rights of black men to vote if we can vote, because we know that we have so many different ways to control the election. We’ll threaten our employees; we’ll use violence, fraud, whatever it takes to restore true order of justice, which is white people.”

WE HAVE

DOMESTICATED THE

CIVIL WAR

CWT: Why did the United States have to lose so many lives to end slavery?

EA: We ended slavery much more rapidly than anywhere else, with no compensation for slaveholders, and we did it with greater rights for the formerly enslaved people. But by the end of the war, both sides are just sick of war. They realize they spent more money than it would have cost to have bought every enslaved person, and you’ve lost 800,000 people. If you look at the rest of the Western Hemisphere, no other slave society was as powerful as the South. Everywhere else they were just a subset of a larger population. But here you had a geographically contained area that imagined itself as a new nation that would perpetuate slavery.

CWT: What kind of questions do you get about the book?

EA: I was speaking at the Civil War Roundtable in Atlanta and a woman came up and said, “I’ve been here 20 years and you’re the first person who has ever mentioned Reconstruction.”

What I’m trying to show is that you can’t understand the war without understanding its consequences, and you can’t understand Reconstruction without understanding the war. A large part of this entire project is to see the Civil War more profoundly than we do. And that’s why I go to so much

trouble to give us those brief moments of heartbreak, because we have domesticated the Civil War. CWT: Why is your book different?

EA: It crosses the boundary between the war and Reconstruction, the boundary between North and South, and the boundary between white and black. We’re accustomed to thinking of the Civil War as two sides. But it’s really three. African Americans are trying to navigate their way between white Southerners and white Northerners, and find out how they could make new lives out of this chaos.

CWT: What was Augusta County like for freedpeople just after the war?

EA: One of the things that touched me the most were the 600 couples that go to the Freedmen’s Bureau to declare themselves married in the eyes of the Commonwealth of Virginia, even though they‘ve been married in their own eyes or the eyes of God for decades. All these families line up at the Freedmen’s Bureau to register their names, their number of children, but also to go to the Freedmen’s Bureau to help them find their children, who are scattered from Texas to Florida.

CWT: What is the takeaway?

EA: The book ends with the story of a young black man who was able to take the schooling and some of the political clout during Reconstruction and make a new life in the new South. If we understand that Reconstruction is not just a political story but an opening, however small, for black people to make lives for themselves, then Reconstruction looks different. I’m interested in finding stories and voices that otherwise have not been heard. The Civil War is the time where we have more of those than anything. Without losing sight of military battles and strategy, we can also understand the place of women and of white people and the politics.

This is not a dilution of the military history, this is an expansion of it. ✯ Interview conducted by Senior Editor Sarah Richardson

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AGRICULTURAL ANACHRONISM The European-style haystacks in the original cyclorama were never used in America, but one still makes a cameo in the new reinterpretation of Pickett’s Charge.

PONDERING

PICKETT THE CIVIL WAR STILL INSPIRES THINKERS

I WAS SKEPTICAL WHEN I RECENTLY VISITED THE

Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., to view artist Mark Bradford’s Pickett’s Charge (P. 48). Nothing could take the place of the grand cyclorama painting in Gettysburg, I thought. That opinion has not changed.

Every time I’ve seen Paul Philippoteaux’s masterpiece, it leaves me with a sense of awe and inspiration.

But I must admit Bradford’s reinterpretation offered me more than I believed it would. The “new” Pickett’s Charge is not about battle detail, but it is about how the Civil War still impacts our culture. It’s inspiring in another way to think that Gettysburg and the conflict resonated with Bradford to the point that he wanted to create his own cyclorama. A 10-minute walk from the Hirshhorn will take you to the memorial dedicated to the Union general whose victory at the Battle of Gettysburg prompted the original cyclorama. When it was erected in 1927, George G. Meade’s statue (P. 26) was considered to present a different way to interpret a 19th-century military commander. The general is not mounted on a war steed, but instead stands with allegorical figures. And in another admission, I have walked by the Meade Memorial many times without paying it heed. No more. It never hurts to stop and ponder how history impacts our lives. –D.B.S. APRIL 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES

25

MEADE IN ALLEGORY

The general’s Washington, D.C., memorial took years to complete

BY JENNIFER M. MURRAY

FINAL TOUCHES Philadelphia native and sculptor Charles Grafly works in his studio on the model of the Meade Memorial. Like the general’s contributions to Union victory, the statue on Pennsylvania Avenue can still be overlooked.

26

CIVIL WAR TIMES APRIL 2018

APRIL 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES

27

to assert Gettysburg as the war’s decisive and define the general’s role in the CONSTRUCTION WORKERS STRUGGLED battle victory. “Honor to the memory of Meade,” to disassemble the large, marble statue of the Civil War general, but they declared one orator, “who in the darkest got the job done. The toppled memorial was hauled off to a remote storage hour never despaired, and under whose area where it was largely forgotten, surrounded by weeds. At some point, leadership victory was achieved!”

In 1896 the general was honored with the commander’s nose was broken, and fingers were dislodged from his an equestrian monument at Gettysburg, hand and lost. Due to recent events, one can be forgiven if the assumption but 31 years would pass until Meade took is made that this was the recent removal of a Confederate icon’s memorial, his place in Washington. The occasion culbut this statue celebrated Union Maj. Gen. George G. Meade, and the minated a 16-year effort to bring to fruyear was 1969. ¶ During the current controversies over Civil War memory ition a Pennsylvania resolution to secure and public history, memorials to the men in blue, the commanders who Meade’s place in the nation’s collective defeated the Confederacy, stand silent and largely out of the fray. Yet many Civil War memory.

Tributes to Meade’s contemporaries, monuments to soldiers who defended the Union dot our landscape, and namely Grant, and ironically his Gettheir granite and bronze statues cast shadows in the capital of the nation tysburg adversary, shaped Meade’s comthat they fought to preserve. Ornate tributes to Ulysses S. Grant, William memorative narrative. The unveiling of a T. Sherman, and Philip Sheridan command the landscape of Washington, Lee statue in National Statuary Hall in D.C.—physical testaments to the victorious side of the Civil War. ¶ But 1909 served as a catalyst for a memorial there is also a statue of George Meade in D.C., one that was put up after the to Meade in D.C. The Philadelphia Briother previously mentioned generals had their shrines, and it stands along gade Association, a veterans organization Pennsylvania Avenue, at 3rd Street, N.W. The relatively late date of its composed of men who served in the 69th, 71st, 72nd, and 106th Pennsylvania Infanerection is just another example of how the Army of the Potomac’s longesttry, adopted a resolution on March 1, 1910, serving commander was frequently undervalued during the postwar years. that stated it was “fitting and proper” that Pennsylvania be represented in the capital with a statue to “her most distinguished soldier of the Civil War.” The association mobilized additional supporters and espite taking command of the Army of the Potomac approached the state’s governor, who then recommended just three days before the Battle of Gettysburg in July the matter to the legislature. Supporters linked the appro1863, George Gordon Meade’s leadership at that priateness of the memorial to the general’s Gettysburg succolossal engagement in south-central Pennsylvania cess. Lauding Meade’s “military capacity and technical skill,” brought that beleagured army its first significant victory in the former Pennsylvania governors and Union veterans Samuel war. But Meade soon faced criticism for his inability to crush Pennypacker and James Beaver supported the memorial to the Army of Northern Virginia before it crossed the Potomac River on July 14. Less than 10 months after Gettysburg, Lt. the man who “determined the fate of the Nation and greatly affected the whole future of the world.”

Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, fresh from success in the Western Thus, on June 14, 1911, the Pennsylvania legislature passed Theater, arrived in Virginia to direct the war’s final campaigns.

After Lee’s surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, Act No. 742, declaring it “fitting and proper” for a Meade memorial in Washington. The act provided for the creation Meade found himself further removed from the accolades of of a Pennsylvania Meade Memorial Commission. The men, a grateful nation. But Pennsylvanians, due to the fact Meade unified by determination to honor their native son, worked claimed Philadelphia as his home, were particularly deterin coordination with the Commission of Fine Arts (CFA), a mined to assert the general’s place among the heroes of the federal organization established in 1910 and charged with the Union. The drive to build his memorial, and conflicts over responsibility of overseeing the site selection and erection of how it should look, prove that the soldiers who served under Meade were determined that the “Victor of Gettysburg” memorials and monuments in Washington.

The membership of the commissions was quite diverse. should take his place among the memorials to defenders of Most significant, several of the state’s commissioners were the Union in the nation’s capital.

By the time of his death in November 1872, at age 56, Civil War veterans, while the CFA members had artistic and Meade had devoted nearly 40 years in service to his country. architectural backgrounds. Daniel Chester French, the era’s distinguished sculptor and acclaimed for his Lincoln MemoLocalized commemorative efforts commenced shortly after rial, was among the most renowned CFA members. Frederick his death, and Pennsylvanians unveiled the first of the Meade Law Olmsted Jr., son of the prominent landscape architect, monuments in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park in October was another distinguished CFA commssioner.

1887. Honoring the general also served as an opportunity

D

28

CIVIL WAR TIMES APRIL 2018

TOO QUIET This sculptural pose of a meditative Meade reviewing maps was rejected as too quiet, and not martial enough.

Determining a location for the memorial became the commissions’ first task, as there were already plenty in place or being built. By the time the Meade Memorial was dedicated in October 1927, 17 Civil War related statues complemented Washington’s landscape. These included memorials to Sherman, Sheridan, and, in 1922, at the centennial of his birth, a colossal statue to Grant dominating the area in front of the Capitol’s east side.

Meade’s advocates favored a location near the Capitol along the National Mall and within proximity to the recently authorized memorial to Grant. Thus, on February 5, 1915, commissioners approved a site at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 3rd Street, N.W., on the grounds of the old Botanic Gardens. Plans called for the creation of a “Union Square,” an elegant landscape complete with memorials to “the great military figures of the war,” as well as elaborate fountains and terraces, ultimately rivaling in patriotic expression Paris’ Place de la Concorde.

Conflicting visions for the memorial plagued the commissioners and plans for the memorial stagnated while animosities grew. Pennsylvanians showed unwavering support for Meade, but that also became their most glaring flaw. They championed a grandiose memorial that lauded the general’s military attributes in order to rightfully define his place as a prominent successful commander in the Civil War narrative and in America’s collective historical consciousness. State commissioners perceived the task before them as momentous; it became an opportunity to correct “monstrous wrongs” inflicted upon the general, “wrongs perpetuated all the way from Gettysburg to Appomattox.”

John W. Frazier was arguably the most proactive Pennsylvanian fashioning Meade’s memory. Secretary of the state commission and a veteran of the 71st Pennsylvania, Frazier proved steadfast in his vision for the memorial. Frazier was not interested in producing an opulent classical work of art for the capital’s landscape, but in “performing my duty to Meade.” The aging veteran criticized designs that offered anything less than a militaristic interpretation of his commander. Not surprisingly, Frazier and the artists of the CFA struggled to find common ground. Federal commissioners urged adherence to artistic standards and “the high ideal of the monumental art.” They feared “what these old soldiers want would not prove to be an adornment of Washington.”

A

s the Great War raged in Europe, design of the Meade Memorial occurred in incremental, wearisome steps, pitting the Pennsylvanians’ desire to produce a glorious memorial to their native general against the CFA’s aesthetic vision. How best to portray Meade became a subject of contention. By late 1915, the Pennsylvania commission had selected Charles Grafly, a Philadelphian, as the monument’s sculptor. Grafly offered multiple designs.

One concept portrayed Meade sitting on a rock, legs crossed, reviewing campaign maps. Neither the state nor the federal commission liked this option, believing it represented Meade too casually and lacked requisite dignity.

After three years of reviewing options, commissioners selected Grafly’s allegorical portrayal of Meade. Frazier

CENTRAL FIGURE Meade, shown with his staff during the 1864 Overland Campaign, was the last direct commander of the Army of the Potomac.

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SETTLING IN After years of effort and delay, a crane’s hook swings free after depositing George Meade’s statue on Pennsylvania Avenue in this 1925 image.

task at hand and even dreaded meetings with the old veteran.

A clear understanding that Meade’s legacy in granite, as in life, needed to be subordinate to Grant’s underpinned conversations for the Meade Memorial. “The Meade Memorial therefore should be related to the Grant Memorial,” a committee member noted, “in such a manner that the two will be complementary and not competitive.” Frazier found Grant’s memorial unimpressive, in any case. Derisively referring to it as a “work of art,” he chided the “African lions” and the “replica of a Roman chariot race.” Notwithstanding some objections, in January 1922 the CFA approved a working model of Meade’s allegorical depiction.

Groundbreaking for the Meade Memorial’s landscaping occurred on March 28, 1922. Key figures in attendance included President Warren G. Harding, Pennsylvania Governor William Sproul, and two of Meade’s descendants—his grandson, George Gordon Meade, and his great-grandson, also named George Gordon Meade. Befitting the occasion, these men made use of the same spade that had been used in the groundbreaking of the Lincoln Memorial and the Arlington Memorial.

TURNING DIRT President Warren G. Harding and other dignitaries, including former president William H. Taft at left, at the 1922 groundbreaking for the Meade Memorial.

aggressively objected to the allegorical design, finding himself at odds with the members of the Commission of Fine Arts and Grafly. Commissioners spilled volumes of ink complaining about Frazier. One CFA member described the Pennsylvanian as a “totally unfit person to transact business with” and considered him “obstructive and insulting.” Others still lamented his inability to comprehend the enormity of the 30

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MEADE’S CHAMPION John Wesley Frazier, the active member of the Philadelphia Brigade Association and irascible, tireless leader of the fight for the Meade Memorial, had a relatively short wartime service. Frazier was a 24-year-old carpenter when he enlisted in the 1st California Regiment on April 16, 1861, as a sergeant. The regiment was one of four units composed of Philadelphia-area residents but credited to California and commanded by Oregon Senator Edward Baker in order to have the West Coast represented in what was supposed to be a short war. Frazier’s service record at the National Archives indicates he was honorably discharged at Maryland’s Camp Observation on October 12, 1861, due to “debility resulting from confluent small pox,” so he missed the October 21 Ball’s Bluff debacle in which his brigade participated and Baker was killed.

After that, the 1st California was renamed the 71st Pennsylvania, and the other Keystone State regiments were renumbered as the 69th, 72nd, and 106th regiments.

Collectively, they were referred to as the Philadelphia Brigade.

Frazier rejoined the military on June 17, 1863, when he mustered in to the 20th Pennsylvania Emergency Militia, quickly organized at Harrisburg to help repel the Army of Northern Virginia’s invasion of Pennsylvania. Frazier mustered out August 1, 1863, without seeing battle, but according to his service record, not before he lost his canteen and haversack. The Philadelphian became prominent during the postwar years as a businessman and member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and with his wife, Anna, had six children. On a pension form requesting a list of spouses and any former marriages or divorces, he wrote, “My wife was not married before her marriage to me. We lived too happily together for more than 50 years to even think for a moment of divorce. It gives me pleasure to record it.” Anna Frazier passed away in 1911, and John Frazier died on September 17, 1918, well before the monument to General Meade was erected in Washington. –Melissa A. Winn

A year after the groundbreaking the sculptor company, the Piccirilli Brothers from New York City, began cutting Grafly’s vision into marble. Unfortunately, due to a lack of appropriations from Harrisburg, construction work on the site came to a halt in the winter of 1923. Grafly and the Piccirillis continued working, however, to their own financial detriment.

In the spring of 1925, Governor Gifford Pinchot allocated the final expenditures on the memorial, and after a two-year delay, work resumed. Ultimately the price tag on the Meade Memorial reached $400,000, paid for entirely by state funds.

F

inally, on the afternoon of October 19, 1927, after 16 years of planning, thousands gathered for the unveiling of the Meade Memorial. Cool, rainy weather gripped the nation’s capital on dedication day but did not dampen the spectacle, which had been planned for months. In a twist of historic irony, the executive officer charged with overseeing much of the ceremony’s logistics was none other than Ulysses S. Grant III. The grandson of the Civil War general, Grant III served as director of the Office of Public Buildings and Public Parks of the National Capital, overseeing all public parks in the district, including the Meade Memorial. A host of dignitaries, including Pennsylvania Governor John Fisher, 29 of Meade’s descendants, and several hundred war veterans were among the day’s honored guests.

Two large white sheets covered the memorial and flags reading “Battle of Gettysburg” and “Major General Meade” hung from steel wires that secured the curtains enveloping the memorial. Wreaths with the names of Meade’s corps commanders adorned the posts along the speaker’s platform.

Grant escorted Henrietta Meade, the general’s daughter and only living child, to the front of the memorial. She pulled the cord, releasing the white sheets, and the Meade Memorial emerged into full view. As attendees enjoyed the sight, President Calvin Coolidge accepted the memorial on behalf of the U.S. government and offered a tribute. Though Meade had once been criticized for being too cautious in his pursuit of Lee after Gettysburg, Coolidge lauded the general’s leadership, noting, “He did not engage himself in leading hopeless charges.” The president closed with the acclaim, “through all of this shines his own immortal fame.”

Establishing Meade’s commemorative footprint also served as an opportunity to solidify Gettysburg as the decisive battle of the war. “There was no other battle fought, or victory won during the Civil War from 1861-1865 comparable to the Battle of Gettysburg,” stated one commissioner.

Offered another individual: “It is very fitting that this illustrious general should have a proper memorial erected to his honor for the heroic deeds done at Gettysburg which saved the Union.” Governor Fisher declared Meade the “triumphant commander in one of the decisive conflicts of all time.”

Debates over mentioning Gettysburg on the memorial had surfaced during construction. Pennsylvanians recommended including a quote from Maj. Gen. Andrew Humphreys, a division commander at Gettysburg, that reaffirmed Meade’s decisive leadership during the battle. “Meade at Gettysburg had a more difficult task than Wellington at Waterloo, and performed it equally well,” Humphreys asserted.

Another considered inscription read: “By the CommonAPRIL 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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THE BIG DAY Henrietta Meade, the general’s daughter, admires the first public view of her father’s statue after opening its concealing curtains on October 19, 1927. The statue to Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant (opposite) had been revealed to even more hoopla on April 27, 1922. The statues are about a six-minute walk apart from each other just west of the U.S. Capitol.

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wealth of Pennsylvania to Major General George Gordon Meade who on native soil at Gettysburg in 1863 in mighty battle directed the Union Army that swept back the tide of Confederate invasion and assured the triumph of Human Freedom and National Unity.”

But, believing that “fewer words are the better,” the Commission maintained that because Gettysburg was “so great an event in the history of the Union…., any words of explanation are unnecessary.” Grafly agreed with this assessment.

Simultaneously, adherence to precedence set with the Grant Memorial proved a determining factor, and the views of the Commission of Fine Arts prevailed. Since the Grant Memorial stands with a single word, “Grant,” so too would the Meade Memorial, etched simply with “Meade.”

The Meade Memorial is unique for Civil War commemoration. Most generals are honored with equestrian memorials, as seen in the portrayals of Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan.

But Grafly offers an allegorical interpretation of General Meade, standing, and surrounded by six figures that represent qualities he demonstrated: military courage, energy, fame, loyalty, chivalry and progress, and war. The general stands uniformed, but without his hat. Above Meade’s head is a gold wreath and garland. He is positioned stepping forward from the cloak of battle, ready to embrace the future of peace.

One reporter reflected on the stunning sculpture and its fitting location writing, “Within the Botanic Garden grounds, close to Pennsylvania Avenue, where once his conquering army marched, the graven image of its chief will look for all time o’er the land he helped make indivisible.”

G

eneral Meade held his commemorative place on Pennsylvania Avenue for nearly four decades before being temporarily erased. During the 1960s, as events escalated in southeast Asia and domestic turmoil increased, the Civil War faded into distant memory and public interest in the leaders responsible for Union victory

waned. Meanwhile, in Washington, modernization of the eastern end of the Mall’s landscape, specifically the creation of a large reflecting pool atop the I-395 underpass, forced the removal of the Meade Memorial.

On November 1, 1966, the National Park Service, the organization now responsible for management of the structures on the mall, signed an agreement providing for the removal and storage of the memorial until a “suitable location” could be found for it. The removal of the Meade Memorial, with no apparent plans for its relocation, raised the ire of Dorothy Grafly, daughter of the memorial’s sculptor. She expressed frustration that Pennsylvania officials were not consulted in the decision and noted concern about the structure’s dismantling. By the spring of 1967, the National Capitol Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts had approved Meade’s new location, located slightly west of his original position.

Consequently, with beautification projects underway in 1969 workers disassembled the Meade Memorial. Contractors first cut and removed the wings from “War,” and then proceeded to disassemble the allegorical figures, then the general and the benches. Relocation did not occur immediately, however. The general sat in storage for 15 years. These years proved unkind; one observer noted that Meade sat “among weeds, unprotected, uncrated, and vandalized.” The general’s statue suffered a broken nose and lost fingers. Sometime during the years of storage the five-foot gilded wreath had been removed, or stolen.

Finally, on October 3, 1984, to considerably less fanfare and pageantry, the Meade Memorial was rededicated in a smaller plaza northwest of the original site, without the original wreath, which has not yet been located. Several years later, Walker Hancock, who had assisted Grafly in the original casting of the Meade Memorial, offered his services to cast a replacement wreath.

By the late 1980s, the fully restored memorial had resumed its place along Pennsylvania Avenue, still under Grant’s watchful eye. After a 16-year ordeal George Gordon Meade had again rightfully earned his place in the pantheon of Federal generals in the nation’s capital. Meade stood for the Union when it was “darkened by the smoke of battle, and her preservation as a Union hung upon the chance of conflict.”

That history deserves to be perpetually commemorated.

Jennifer M. Murray is an assistant professor of history at the University of Virginia’s College at Wise, and the author of On A Great Battlefield: The Making, Management, and Memory of Gettysburg National Military Park, 1933-2013. She is currently working on a biography of George Gordon Meade.

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NO HOPE OF

SUCCESS

WASTEFUL FEDERAL ATTACKS AT NEW HOPE CHURCH DURING THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGN RESULTED IN A LOPSIDED CONFEDERATE VICTORY

BY STEPHEN DAVIS

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GOING IN Brigadier General Alpheus Williams’ 20th Corps division surges toward entrenched Confederates at New Hope Church on May 25, 1864. “The steady sheet of flame pouring over the logs scorched and weathered the blue lines...,” remembered a Yankee veteran.

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U

nion Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman achieved a reputation as a deft strategist and flank marcher against his Confederate opponents during the 1864 march to Atlanta. But when he committed his troops to battle in Georgia, it was invariably in frontal assaults that were anything but artful. At New Hope Church, on May 25, he blustered his way to defeat by telling his officers that there weren’t “twenty Rebels out there,” when in fact 4,000 veteran fighters were in place and ready to slug it out with their enemies. It’s not a very flattering story of the Northern war hero, one that is usually swept under the rug. Here’s how it happened.

WAR IS HELL “I regard the death and mangling of a couple thousand men as a small affair, a kind of morning dash...,” Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman wrote to his wife in July 1864.

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In the spring of 1864, Sherman, as head of the Military Division of the Mississippi, commanded 110,000 troops near Chattanooga, Tenn. Three separate armies made up his force: Maj. Gen. George H. Thomas’ Army of the Cumberland, Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson’s Army of the Tennessee, and Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield’s Army of the Ohio, which was actually only two infantry divisions.

Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant ordered Sherman to march into Georgia and defeat the Confederate Army of Tennessee. That army, commanded by General Joseph E. Johnston, numbered 55,000 troops in late April, with two infantry corps commanded by Lt. Gens. William J. Hardee and John B. Hood. Sherman thus enjoyed a 2-to-1 numerical superiority as he got his forces marching on May 6. “Cump” used those numbers to outflank Johnston from his position near Dalton within a week. Then, after the Confederates retreated to Resaca, the two sides launched sorties against each other May 14–15. When Union infantry again flanked Johnston’s left, threatening to cut his supply line, the Western & Atlantic Railroad back to Atlanta, the Southern army kept marching south through Calhoun and Adairsville. Unable to give battle at Cassville, Johnston crossed the Etowah River on May 20.

Johnston halted his retreat at Allatoona Pass, at the 175-foot gap in the Allatoona Mountains through which ran the Western & Atlantic Railroad. There he dug in, hoping Sherman would attack. But Cump knew the formidable terrain from his Army service of the 1840s, and after giving his troops a few days to rest and resupply, for the first time in the campaign he marched away from the Western & Atlantic. Aiming to flank the Rebels off their high ground by a wide sweep to the southwest, he instructed his troops to be ready to set out on May 23, with wagons carrying 20 days’ supplies.

Two weeks into the campaign, Sherman maintained numerical superiority. On the 21st he wired Army chief of staff Henry W. Halleck in Washington that he expected to cross the Etowah River with “80,000 fighting men.” Johnston had suffered his own losses, but these were more than made up for by at least 14,500 reinforcements that included garrison soldiers from Mobile and the Savannah-Charleston area, but most important Lt. Gen. Leonidas Polk’s Army of Mississippi—three infantry divisions that essentially became Johnston’s third corps.

The Union troops got marching early on May 23 and crossed the Etowah at several places that day, slowed where Rebel cavalry had burned bridges. As his objective Sherman staked out Dallas, a country-crossroads some 15 miles southwest of Allatoona. Once his forces got there, he figured the enemy would have to fall back. Northern soldiers were relieved that they would be maneuvering and not attacking. “Allatoona Mountains,” observed one Ohioan, “are not the thing to run squarely against.”

Johnston’s cavalry kept him informed of the Federals’ movement. Deducing the Dallas area to be Sherman’s goal, the Confederate commander ordered Hardee’s and Polk’s corps to start marching west on May 23. Hood stayed behind at Allatoona, watching for possible enemy river crossings.

On May 24 Thomas’ Army of the Cumberland marched in the most direct southward route toward Dallas. Schofield was on his left, McPherson to the right. Brigadier General Edward McCook’s cavalry rode ahead of Thomas’ infantry, tussling with Confederate cavalry. That day Hardee approached Dallas as the left of Johnston’s force. By hard marching, the Southerners beat Sherman’s forces to their objective point.

Cump was forced to realize this when Union cavalrymen covering McPherson’s march brought in prisoners from Hardee’s Corps. There was more disconcerting news on the 24th. A dispatch taken from a captured Rebel courier disclosed that Johnston was shifting his forces toward Dallas.

“This information was immediately forwarded to headquarters,” noted one of Thomas’ staff officers, “thus early, Sherman learned of Johnston’s plans.”

NO SLICE OF HEAVEN A view of the New Hope Church region, known as the “hell hole” by Union troops because of its numerous ridges, thick woods, and well-entrenched Confederates.

Hardee’s arrival at Dallas effectively blocked Sherman’s wide maneuver from the railroad. From Hardee’s position Polk’s corps extended northeast and Hood’s infantry left Allatoona on the 24th, marching toward the new line. That night they halted a few miles from New Hope Church, a little crossroads Methodist meeting house four miles northeast of Dallas. The next morning, May 25, Hood continued his progress toward New Hope. The Confederates reached it around 10 a.m. Hood’s divisions arrayed on a slight ridge from left to right: Maj. Gens. Thomas C. Hindman’s, Peter Stewart’s, in the center at the church, and Carter L. Stevenson’s. Hood’s Corps thus formed the right of the Army of Tennessee with Stevenson’s Division on the far flank. Johnston’s six-mile line was in place by noon.

Sherman had his men marching southeast in a wide front on the 25th. In the middle were the Army of the Cumberland’s three corps, and Thomas’ orders called for his troops to march toward Dallas. Hooker’s 20th Corps was on the road from Burnt Hickory with three divisions. Of them, Brig.

Gen. John W. Geary’s held the center. Geary and his men were up and moving by 7 a.m. As they approached Pumpkinvine Creek, Rebel horsemen were burning the bridge. The Federals put out the fire, saved the bridge, and about 10 a.m. resumed their march. But Geary had taken a wrong road.

Instead of Dallas, he was heading for New Hope Church.

Thomas approved the detour.

REBELS WERE READY THE

That morning, Confederate watchmen on Elsberry Mountain had spotted Yankee dust columns bearing from the north. General Hood sent forward Colonel Bushrod Jones’ 32nd/58th Alabama and a battalion of Louisiana sharpshooters as skirmishers. A mile or so south of the creek, Geary’s front encountered the advance elements. Hood soon ordered out several other regiments to develop the Union strength and to hold them back while he strengthened his line. “A sharp engagement” ensued, Geary later reported, in which he brought up reinforcements to drive off the Rebels. Geary halted and deployed. Generals Thomas and Hooker were with him and Hooker called up Maj. Gen. Daniel Butterfield’s and Brig. Gen. Alpheus Williams’ divisions. Thomas ordered his other corps to push ahead.

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led straight to New Hope Church. Stewart arrayed his four brigades: Brig.

Gens. Alpheus Baker’s Brigade on the right, Henry Clayton’s in the center, Marcellus Stovall’s on the left, and Gibson’s in reserve. Though expecting a battle, General Stewart later wrote that Clayton’s and Baker’s troops only “piled up a few logs.” Stovall’s Georgians, according to Stewart, “were without any defense,” save for the upright headstones in the church graveyard.

To bolster the line three batteries of artillery were brought up and rolled into place. Sometime after mid-afternoon General Johnston rode along the position. “He told us that the enemy were ‘out there’ just three or four hundred yards,” remembered Lt. Bromfield Ridley of Stewart’s staff.

Indeed they were, but it took them time to come up. The country was well wooded, perforated only with “by-paths and mountain roads,” as General Williams described it. Williams led his division on a brisk fivemile march to approach Geary. Butterfield arrived, too, allowing Hooker to plan the attack that General Sherman, it turns out, was now calling for.

EAST TO WEST Both Confederate Lt. Gen. John B. Hood, top, and Union Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, above, had served in the Eastern Theater with various levels of success before they commanded troops in the West. Their fortunes in Georgia changed in July when Hood succeeded General Joe Johnston as the commander of the Army of Tennessee, but Hooker asked to be relieved when he was passed over for army command, and Sherman quickly agreed. issued a general order to his troops. “The lieutenant-general commanding desires to say to the officers and soldiers of his command,” it read, “that in the coming battle their country expects of them victory.”

Once the line was laid out, Hood’s troops fortified somewhat indifferently. Stewart’s Division would probably bear the brunt of an attack, as the road Geary’s column was taking 38

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Sherman had set out on May 23 believing that Johnston, forced from Allatoona, would fall back to Marietta, 15 miles to the south. Instead, he had learned that Johnston’s army now blocked his path at Dallas and that today, May 25, Thomas’ forces were slowing down before enemy resistance.

Lieutenant Colonel Henry Stone, one of Thomas’ staff officers, ran into Sherman, “dismounted, by the roadside, showing great impatience,” as he later recounted. Cump was upset that his troops were not making more progress. When Stone informed him that Williams was on his way to help Geary, the commanding general grabbed an envelope, jotted a few words of instruction for Thomas, and “somewhat testily” told him, “Let Williams go in anywhere as soon as he gets up. I don’t see what they are waiting for in front now. There haven’t been twenty rebels there to-day.”

Thomas sensed that Sherman was in no mood for dithering. He passed on the order to Hooker, who by 5 p.m. finally had his troops in formation: Williams on the right, Butterfield the left, and Geary behind. The infantry arrayed in column of brigades—meaning one behind another. This narrower front gave commanders better control of their troops, especially in wooded terrain. Moreover, assault-in-depth promised quicker exploitation of success if the attack actually broke the enemy line. The narrower front, however, gave defenders advantage as well. Though Hooker’s corps overwhelmingly outnumbered Stewart’s Division—some 16,000 to about 4,500—Williams’ and Butterfield’s two-brigade front was actually shorter than that of Stewart’s, giving the Southerners opportunity for crippling enfilade fire. The main disadvantage of column formation, though, was that, packed behind their comrades, attackers in the rear ranks could not fire.

General Williams ordered the advance around 5 p.m. His troops made contact with the Rebel pickets, driving them back. The Federals pressed through the woods as storm clouds gathered overhead. “The trees gave some protection to the men,” noted one officer, “but it was a severe ordeal for men to pass through.” At one point they descended into a deep ravine— the “hell hole,” as it came to be called—then had to clamber out to continue their advance. Approaching the enemy works on the high ground ahead, they came under heavy fire. Butterfield joined in the fight to the left, and Geary came up to reinforce Williams.

But the Union infantry never got close to their objective. One Federal recalled that his line advanced to 60 yards away, “when we halted; for we had lost so many men, and had become so disorganized in the march through the timber and brush that the impetus of our charge was gone.” Confederate artillery was bloodily effective. Colonel John Coburn, leading one of Butterfield’s brigades, described it this way: “The enemy poured in upon us a tremendous fire of artillery. Shells, grape-shot, canister, railroad spikes, and every deadly missile rained around us.” At least one Northern regiment,

UNION INFANTRY NEVER GOT CLOSE TO THEIR OBJECTIVE THE

according to an officer, “rushed in disorder to the rear.”

Colonel Robert Beckham, Hood’s chief of artillery, personally supervised his guns’ enfilading fire. “They poured into us canister and shrapnel from all directions except the rear,” Williams later lamented. Well afterward, Geary wrote that “canister and shell from the enemy were heavier than in any other battle of the campaign.” Colonel Archibald McDougall of the 123rd New York was one of the casualties. “After a discharge from their battery I heard a cry just back of me,” recorded Sergeant Rice Bull in his diary, “turning, I saw the Colonel stagger and fall.” Borne to the rear, he died a month later of his wounds.

After two hours, Hooker’s assault was over and rain began to fall. Those Federals who could do so retreated to their lines. Some held on to tenuous positions and exchanged rifle fire well into the darkness. Skirmishing continued the next day, but the hard fighting was over.

Hooker totaled his Battle of New Hope Church casualties at 1,664 killed, wounded, and missing. Alpheus Williams’ division bore more than half, with 870; the rest were in the divi-

sions of Geary (376) and Butterfield (418).

Joe Johnston placed his loss on May 25 as “about 450 killed and wounded.” General Stewart reported 300-400 casualties from his repulse of Hooker’s assault. Baker’s lightly engaged brigade lost perhaps 45 men, Gibson’s in reserve, maybe 75. Clayton’s four regiments tallied 172 casualties. General Stovall’s biographer posits 18 killed, 122 wounded. Major John W. Eldridge’s artillery battalion had 43 men killed and wounded. The Confederate losses, around 475—contrasted with the enemy’s 1,664—clearly marks the Battle of New Hope Church as a Confederate victory .

Hooker’s formation had negated his numerical advantage.

Even a Confederate observed that the enemy’s formation meant that “the rear lines were exposed to the same danger as the front lines, but could not fire on account of the front lines being in the way.”

Rough terrain impeded the attackers. A member of the 3rd Wisconsin wrote that “the country was heavily timbered, and underbrush so obscured the view that it was impossible to see in any direction more than a few yards.” More important, Southerners held the high ground, and many were pro-

hooker's ironclads

A veteran's 20th Corps badge.

The Union Army of the Cumberland’s 20th Corps was composed of soldiers who had cut their battle teeth in the Eastern Theater fighting in the 11th and 12th Corps of the Army of the Potomac. Following Gettysburg’s bloodletting, both corps were sent west to help relieve the Siege of Chattanooga, and they would remain thereafter in the West. On April 4, 1864, an order by Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman formally combined the two organizations into the 20th Corps with Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker as the commander. Lieutenant Colonel Charles Morse of the 2nd Massachusetts recalled that when 12th Corps commander Maj. Gen. Henry Slocum issued his farewell order, he tried to address the men, but “was so affected he could hardly speak, the tears running down his cheeks….” Morse stoically wrote, “Well, the old institutions are broken up, and we must bear it as philosophically as possible.” The Union soldiers bore the change well. The Army of Tennessee respected the 20th Corps, and nicknamed its troops “Hooker’s Ironclads” for their fighting ability. Hooker, however, was not destined to remain in command of the corps. The tension between Sherman and Hooker that manifested after the fight at New Hope Church came to a head after the July 22 Battle of Atlanta. When “Fighting Joe” did not get command of one of Sherman’s armies after the death of Maj. Gen. James McPherson in that fight, he resigned and Maj. Gen. Alpheus Williams took command of the 20th Corps. – D.B.S.

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the itch

57th Alabama flag Campaigning in the rough, wooded region of North Georgia was not easy for either army.

During the movements that led to New Hope Church, Quartermaster Sergeant Joel D. Murphree of the 57th Alabama wrote his wife of the travails he faced, and exhibited a sarcastic sense of humor as he did so: “Ursula, there is no chance to keep clean in the army while on the tramp as we have been for the last two weeks.

I am as dirty as a hog and nearly as lousey…I must say something or you might think I had found a wife up here for the present, and have laid you on the shelf. No such good luck however, in fact I have been in no situation for sweetheart hunting. I have been torment equal to Job of old until last week. I have been afflicted with Diarrhea, Itch and Piles and part of the time lousey, but I thank the Lord for His blessing I am now clear of all. After a general and thorough greasing for about a week for the itch I yesterday washed off and put on clean clothes from the skin out.” – D.B.S.

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tected by log earthworks on a site of their choosing. As Stewart observed, “our position was such that the enemy’s fire passed over the line to a great extent.”

Confederate artillery was another factor. One Southerner claimed that their guns fired 1,560 rounds during the two-hour engagement. Dr. H.Z. Gill, surgeon in chief for Williams’ division, later reported, “our men suffered severely, especially from his grape and canister, at short range.”

At one point in the battle, the concerned Johnston had sent a message asking Stewart if he needed help. “My own troops will hold the position,” he answered calmly. They did, pouring murderous musketry against the enemy ahead. A spirit of jocularity even caught on among Stewart’s men as they laid down their volleys. When the division commander rode behind the firing line, his son, Lieutenant Robert C. Stewart, called out, “Now, father, you know you promised mother that you would not expose yourself to-day!” The men in the ranks took up the cry, laughing and repeating it down the line.

The Confederate success was a comparatively small one. But after several weeks of giving up ground, any good news was welcome to the home front. The Yankees’ attacks, the Atlanta Intelligencer beamingly announced, “were met firmly and repulsed with great slaughter.” Those in the ranks could be even more effusive. “Both officers and men never performed their duty better,” reported Captain Rufus Asbury of the 52nd Georgia, “they were determined to teach the invader that they were fighting freemen, who knew their rights and would dare maintain them.”

Johnston’s announcement to Richmond, telegraphed on the 28th, was more reserved: “On the afternoon of the 25th Major General Stewart was attacked by Hooker’s corps, which he repulsed with considerable loss.” Sherman was equally laconic, mentioning to McPherson that night that Hooker “had a pretty hard fight.” In his campaign report, Sherman credited Hooker with having driven back the Confederate skirmishers to New Hope Church. But the Rebels, “having hastily thrown up some parapets,” stood their ground “and a stormy, dark night having set in, General Hooker was unable to drive the enemy from these roads.”

Sherman had no reason for malediction against the 20th Corps commander, but after the battle, he met Hooker and berated him for taking too long to bring up Williams and Butterfield. He believed the delay had given the Confederates time to bring up reinforcements.

After a few days’ more fighting along the Dallas–New Hope lines, Sherman got his forces moving back to the Western & Atlantic Railroad, and during June he again repeatedly outflanked the Rebel army. After Johnston retreated across the Chattahoochee he was relieved of command, but Sherman’s capture of the prize city on September 2 helped President Abraham Lincoln win a second term and thereby helped the North to finally win the war.

William T. Sherman’s historical reputation basks in the capture of Atlanta—overshadowing the tactical errors he committed along the way.

Writing of Hooker’s corps on May 25, he later wrote, “I ordered it to attack violently and secure the position at New Hope Church.” Somewhere in the annals of Sherman’s glorious career must be found an occasional page or two reminding students that even great generals can blunder, ordering their men into frontal attacks that are bound to fail.

Stephen Davis is author of several books, including What the Yankees Did to Us: Sherman’s Bombardment and Wrecking of Atlanta. He is currently working on a book about how the Atlanta Intelligencer covered the war.

FOILED ON THE FLANK Sherman had hoped to swing around the left flank of the Army of Tennessee and get a clean, open route to Atlanta. Joe Johnston, however, skillfully withdrew his men and shifted them to the southwest to block the Union troops and set up the Battle of New Hope Church. At that fight, portions of Lt. Gen. John B. Hood's Corps, many protected by earthworks, threw back assaults by the 20th Corps, despite being outnumbered 16,000 to 4,500.

GENERATION GAP Former Confederate general James Longstreet and his second wife, Helen Dortch, were 42 years apart in age.

This image was taken in 1900, four years before the general’s death.

LONGSTREET’S

SECOND LADY THE GENERAL’S REMARKABLE

SECOND WIFE DEFENDED HER

HUSBAND’S REPUTATION, CHAMPIONED BLACK RIGHTS, AND BUILT WORLD WAR II BOMBERS

D

BY JO H N BAN KS

espite being Robert E. Lee’s sturdy lieutenant during the Civil War, James Longstreet was vilified throughout much of the South after the war because of his Republican Party allegiance and service in President Ulysses Grant’s administration. The former Confederate lieutenant general led an almost solitary existence in his mansion set among an extensive vineyard in Gainesville, Ga. His sons had left after their mother Mary Louisa’s death in 1889, and his daughter later married a local schoolteacher, leaving Longstreet in the house with only the company of a servant.

In late July 1897, the 76-year-old Longstreet became smitten with Helen Dortch—his daughter’s friend and 42 years his junior—whom he had met in Lithia Springs, Ga. Soon the press caught wind of rumors that he might take another bride. Longstreet played coy with a persistent New York reporter before he finally confirmed the news.

“The General crossed his legs, looked out over the fields again, and replied: ‘Oh, pshaw! Well, I suppose I might as well give in,’” The New York Times reported. “I am to be married to Miss Dortch at noon on Wednesday in the Governor’s residence in Atlanta.

The honeymoon is to be spent in Porter Springs, where I hope you newspaper men will leave an old man to the happiness he has acquired.”

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On September 8, 1897, Longstreet and Dortch—described as “pretty, piquant and sympathetic,” with blue eyes, blonde hair, and fair skin—exchanged vows in the parlor at the governor’s executive mansion.

Among those in attendance were the Gainesville mayor, a large group of Longstreet’s friends, and the general’s four sons and daughter. “They all warmly congratulated their new stepmother,” an account noted, “which should dispose of the story that there was any friction because of the marriage.”

Dortch picked the wedding date as homage to her husband, who, as an officer 50 years earlier, had heroically led his regiment at Molino Del Rey during the Mexican War. Governor William Atkinson served as best man for Longstreet, who had converted from Episcopalian to Catholic in 1877. “When the officiating priest, after having asked the groom the question of assent, turned to Dortch to know if she would take James as her husband,” a newspaper reported, “it carried the suggestion to the groom’s heart that he was a boy again, paddling in the Savannah River.”

Newspapers were quick to point out the disparity in ages between the former general and the accomplished young woman, characterizing it as a “May and December” union. A Louisiana paper noted that although Longstreet was “a gallant and distinguished Confederate officer during the war...his apostasy since has lost him the respect and esteem of the Southern people.”

Few Southerners forgave Longstreet for becoming a Republican and serving under Grant.

Another publication mentioned the general’s varied interests, and believed that his new bride, “a bright young woman,” could help manage them. In addition to a large hotel in Gainesville, Longstreet owned a vineyard and winery, raised sheep and turkeys, and had authored two books. And President William McKinley, himself a Civil War veteran, had recently called on Longstreet to serve as the U.S Commissioner of Railroads.

From her wedding in 1897 to Longstreet until well after his death at 82 in 1904, Helen would 44

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do much more than help “manage” her husband’s interests. Fiercely protective of James Longstreet, she defended the General’s reputation and memory the rest of her life—especially against critics who argued he failed to do his duty at Gettysburg. And the woman nicknamed “The Fighting Lady” led a remarkable life herself, living well into the 20th century.

B

orn April 20, 1863—less than five months before Longstreet led a Rebel army at Chickamauga—Helen Dortch was a woman years ahead of her time. In an account of her wedding to Longstreet, she was described as “one of the most conspicuous among the progressive women of the new south.”

At 15, she became a newspaper reporter and editor at the weekly Carnesville (Ga.) Tribune—employment that was almost exclusively limited to men at the time. “Her early journalistic experiences were not pleasant,” an account noted, “but she pluckily went forward….” She later became editor and publisher of the Milledgeville (Ga.) Daily Chronicle.

A champion for women’s rights, Dortch led an effort to open the Nor-

SHE CAN DO IT In a 1943 article written during World War II, Life magazine profiled Helen and her work at the Marietta, Ga., plant that built B-29 bombers.

She was 80 years old.

mal Industrial Training School for girls in Georgia. In 1894 she became the first woman to hold office in Georgia when she was appointed assistant state librarian. “I had to get the legislature to change the law before I could assume office,” she said of the so-called “Dortch Bill.” “A hundred thousand women signed a petition that the law be repealed so I could be appointed.”

Shortly after James Longstreet’s death, President Theodore Roosevelt appointed the widow postmaster of Gainesville, a significant position at the time. “It is safe to say,” the Atlanta Constitution reported, “President Roosevelt could have made no appointment that would have proved as universally popular.”

Throughout her life, Dortch was active in environmental and political causes big and small. In 1910, she was founder of a movement to erect a monument to the slaves of the Confederacy—a long-shot effort if there ever was one. In an eloquent speech, she said: “I shall pray that I may live to see a monument at every capital in the south to the slaves of the confederacy. They wrote a story of devotion and loyalty that has no parallel in the history of man. While their masters were engaged in that struggle, the results of which would leave a helpless race free or in shackles, they worked for, guarded and defended the children of the confederacy with a fidelity that should be recorded in letters of gold across the bosom of stars.”

Not surprisingly, the monument was never built.

For years after her husband’s death, Dortch also backed efforts to have a monument placed in her husband’s honor in Gettysburg. That effort would fail, too, during her lifetime.

I

n 1943, at the height of World War II, the widow Longstreet took a job as a riveter at a B-29 aircraft factory in Marietta, Ga. She was 80, described as “frail but vivacious,” yet was determined to contribute as she could. “This is the most horrible war of them all,” she told a reporter. “It makes General Sherman look like a piker. I want to get it over with. I want to build bombers to bomb Hitler.”

Dortch refused to give her age to the reporter, claiming only that she was “older than 50,” and added: “Never mind my age. I can handle that riveting thing as well as anyone. I’m intending to complete in five weeks three courses which normally take three weeks.”

She lived in a trailer camp near the factory and spent long hours in training to learn her craft. “I could not stay out of this war,” she said.

“It’s not the soldiers fighting soldiers like it used to be. It’s a war on helpless civilians, on children

THE FIRST mrs. longstreet It seems preordained that Maria Louisa Garland, seen above with two of her children, would marry a soldier. Born at Fort Snelling in the Minnesota Territory in 1827, she was the daughter of Harriet and John Garland, a career U.S. Army soldier.

On March 8, 1848, Maria Louisa, better known as Louise, married Longstreet, who had graduated 54th in a class of 56 cadets at West Point in 1842. She followed her husband to many of his stops during his long military career. John, the first of the couple’s 10 children, was born in 1848 while James was on assignment at the Carlisle Barracks in Pennsylvania.

Louise and James were rocked by death and tragedy during the Civil War. Three of their children—Augustus, James, and Mary Anne—died of disease in Richmond in the winter of 1862. (Two other children died in infancy: William in 1854 and Harriet Margaret in 1856.)

Forged by war and family tragedy, the Longstreets’ bond was strong. When his wife became seriously ill in the fall of 1889, “Old Pete” was observed sadly walking the streets of Gainesville, Ga., the couple’s home since 1875. When asked about Louise, Longstreet became emotional. “The battle-scarred veteran, who had on hundreds of fields with unblemished cheek and unquailing eye faced death,” a newspaper reported, “became unnerved as a little child as he despairingly pointed in silent grief to the sick chamber of his wife.”

On December 29, 1889, 62-year-old Louise Longstreet died of an undisclosed illness at the Piedmont Hotel in Gainesville.

“A distinguished Georgia lady,” proclaimed the headline in The Atlanta Journal Constitution the next morning. A reporter at her funeral at Alta Vista Cemetery in town observed Longstreet: “Beside the little mound of earth stood the bowed form of her husband, ‘the old war horse of the confederacy.’ Fear though he knew not, yet over the grave of his dead wife his strong frame quivered, and the stern soldier of other days stood unmanned in the presence of death.” –J.B. APRIL 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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HELEN

DEFENDED THE GENERAL’S

REPUTATION MEMORY THE REST OF AND

HER LIFE

NEVER FORGET After Longstreet died in 1904, Helen faithfully protected and promoted the reputation of Lee’s “Old War Horse.” Above, she places a wreath at his Gainesville, Ga., grave in the 1940s.

CAMPAIGN DEFEAT Helen badly lost the Georgia gubernatorial election in 1950 to Herman E. Talmadge, seen here pressing the flesh at a 1948 campaign event.

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BRIDGE TO THE PAST In 1957 Helen and other relatives of her husband gathered at the dedication of the General James Longstreet Memorial Bridge. The 824-foot long span, built by the American Bridge Company, still carries traffic across the Chattahoochee River. and the infirm. They are the ones who suffer.

Lee, my husband, and many another southerner proved that Americans surrender only to Americans, so we are bound to come out victorious.”

Her work was praised by plant officials, but a union, with which she had some difficulty, called her a “very old lady” and accused the company of hiring her as a publicity stunt. Nevertheless, Dortch stuck it out for nearly two years, and a foreman said her work ranked among the best done at the plant.

After the war, Dortch also became a vocal supporter of civil rights for blacks, and in 1950 she ran for governor of Georgia as a write-in candidate. In challenging incumbent Herman Talmadge, the “scrappy widow,” a newspaper reported, vowed to stand up for blacks and “unhood the ruffians” of the Ku Klux Klan.

“I’ll make this state a place where the humblest Negro can go to sleep at night,” she said, “and be assured of waking up in the morning, unless the Almighty calls.”

Running naturally as an independent, the 87-year-old Dortch lost badly. Talmadge won reelection with 98.44 percent of the vote.

I

n the last 10 years of her life, Dortch’s health gradually declined, and by her early 90s she was completely deaf. After a visit to a relative in Georgia in 1956, she took a bus trip back to a health resort in Danville, N.Y., where she often lived. During a stopover in Pottsville, Pa., she told stories of “her husband’s exploits and was given a big hand when she left.” Donning her best hat, she posed for photographers. “I’m just 39, still a young belle,” she said as she departed.

Probably suffering from dementia, however, she was removed from the bus in Elmira, N.Y., after the driver told authorities she had been annoying passengers. Taken in by the Travelers Aid Society, she wandered away and later was taken into custody by police for her own protection. A city health officer said Dortch seemed “irrational and incoherent.” She was hospitalized in New York before being sent back to Atlanta.

Six years later, on May 3, 1962, Helen Dortch Longstreet died in the Milledgeville State Hospital, once the largest insane asylum in the world.

According to doctors there, she seemed “perfectly happy.” The woman who had defied convention and never liked to reveal her age was 99.

John Banks is author of two books on the Civil War, Connecticut Yankees at Antietam and Hidden History of Connecticut Union Soldiers, both

by The History Press. He also is the author of a popular Civil War blog (john-banks.blogspot.com). Banks lives in Avon, Conn.

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TEXTURE The new version of Pickett’s Charge is also displayed in the round and occupies its own floor at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C. Visitors will have until November 12, 2018, to view the artwork.

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A NEW

CHARGE

ARTIST MARK BRADFORD’S

“PICKETT’S CHARGE” REINTERPRETS GETTYSBURG’S

FAMOUS CYCLORAMA

BY KIM O’CONNELL

T

he most trying events of history have often produced stirring and important art, and the Civil War was no exception. Out of that conflict arose French artist Paul Philippoteaux’s monumental cyclorama painting of the Battle of Gettysburg, which took more than a year to complete and was unveiled to wide acclaim in 1883. Re-creating the thirdday assault popularly known as Pickett’s Charge, Philippoteaux came closer to capturing the chaos and intensity of the battle—literally coming from all sides in a 360-degree view—than arguably any other work of art since the war had ended. Veterans reportedly wept upon seeing it.

It remains on view in a purpose-built gallery at Gettysburg National Military Park.

Philippoteaux’s work was and is important in part because it doesn’t romanticize the war.

The painting beautifully depicts the Pennsylvania countryside, bathing it in a warm light, but the people in the painting are all marching, killing, bleeding, and dying. It is a difficult tableau. More than 150 years later, as many of us are still processing that painting, that battle, and that war, Los Angeles artist Mark Bradford has unveiled a provocative new work called “Pickett’s Charge,” on view at the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Gallery in Washington, D.C., through November 2018. Commissioned specifically for the circular gallery, the artwork uses Philippoteaux’s work as the literal and figurative basis for a series of abstract panels—layered collages of paper and cord and glue, scored and ripped and sliced—that reflect our still-divided times.

Sometimes, elements of the original painting can be seen clearly, sometimes not, and that’s the point.

Rather than one continuous circular panel, “Pickett’s Charge” features eight separate panels that tell a story moving nearly 400 feet in a clockwise direction around the gallery. With titles such as “Battle,” “The High-Water Mark,” “The Copse of Trees,” and “Dead Horse,” the pieces are each self-contained takes on some element of the original painting, but they aren’t to be taken literally. Strictly speaking, this is not “Civil War art.” Instead, the pieces invite contemplation of what the war has wrought on modern times, and the enduring nature of conflicts along racial and political dividing lines.

Bradford printed sections of the Philippoteaux painting from the internet, and when blown up, the bits of original painting that

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emerge are often fuzzy and pixelated, emphasizing past and present at once. “Battle” opens the series with a scraped and striated image that is difficult to make sense of—a maelstrom. In “Two Men,” one can make out the image of two soldiers, but the most striking aspect of the image are the evenly scored lines that make the wall resemble that of an old woodframed house. The idea here is that what seems old is not really old; what seems over is not really over. “The High-Water Mark” originally referred to the Battle of Gettysburg itself—the high point of a string of victories for the South, the turning point of the war. Here, Bradford plays on the term with undulating, wave-like shapes and blue tones, emphasizing the fluidity of history, and of winners and losers.

“Dead Horse” is one of the most striking panels in the collection, featuring an image of a dead horse floating above the rest of the piece. Philippoteaux had painted a dead horse in a lane near the section of his painting

THE HIGHWATER MARK

TWO MEN

WITNESS TREE

DEAD HORSE

that depicts General Meade’s headquarters, reflecting a gruesome reality for the civilians of Gettysburg after the fighting stopped, with dead men and dead animals strewn in the heart of their quiet town. Here, the dead horse echoes the old saying about something that is repeated ad nauseam, and to underscore the point, Bradford repeats several sections of the original painting in this panel. We see the same cavalry officer, the same marching soldiers, the same conflict, over and over again. It’s hard not to see current conflicts over race and gender as a repetition of the past as well, Bradford seems to be saying. In this panel, too, Bradford includes one of the largest identifiable images in the whole collection, which is a corn-yellow haystack blown up from the original painting. These stacks weren’t actually on the Gettysburg battlefield, but Philippoteaux clearly liked their shape and bucolic sensibility, and Bradford seems to as well.

In remarks posted on the gallery web site, Bradford says that “politically

and socially, we are at the edge of another precipice. I’m standing in the middle of a question about where we are as a nation.” It’s a question that the Civil War tried to answer, and a question we’re still trying to answer. Thankfully art exists to help us talk about such things.

Based in Arlington, Va., Kim O’Connell writes frequently about history and preservation for a range of publications.

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The war in their words

A PENNSYLVANIAN’S DIARY DESCRIBES THE BRISTOE STATION CAMPAIGN AND THE BATTLE OF RAPPAHANNOCK STATION

BY DANA B. SHOAF Y THE TIME MAJOR JOHN I. NEVIN of the 93rd Pennsylvania took part in the fall 1863 Bristoe Station Campaign in Virginia, his military service would have satisfied most volunteers. Nevin, a native of Sewickly, Pa., near Pittsburgh, enlisted in the 28th Pennsylvania in July 1861, only to be captured by Captain Elijah White’s guerrillas in February 1862 near Harpers Ferry. After serving time in Rebel prisons in Richmond, Va., and Salisbury, N.C., Nevin was paroled in August 1862. He returned home and promptly raised Independent Battery H of the Pennsylvania Light Artillery and made himself the unit's captain. ¶ That did not go well.

While his battery was training outside Washington, Nevin ran afoul of Brig. Gen. William F. Barry. The Regular Army brigadier had Nevin arrested in February 1863—for what exactly, existing records do not indicate—and the captain resigned on February 13 in order to avoid a court-martial. ¶ But Nevin gave it one more shot, and returned to the front as the major of the 93rd Pennsylvania of the Army of the Potomac in May 1863. That regiment had a dysfunctional high command with no lieutenant colonel and a colonel, James M. McCarter, who was often drunk. So essentially Nevin led the regiment, raised in eastern Pennsylvania, through the Gettysburg Campaign. McCarter was forced to resign in August 1863, setting the stage for Nevin to have unfettered command of the 93rd during the Bristoe Station Campaign. ¶ That October 1863 campaign was mostly a war of maneuver and comparatively small fights between two armies still recovering from Gettysburg trauma. When the campaign began, Maj. Gen. George G. Meade’s army was in Virginia west of the Rappahannock River, but General Robert E. Lee attempted to turn the Army of the Potomac’s right flank, and Meade retreated to the east along his Orange & Alexandria Railroad supply line. The Union commander moved quickly to avoid being brought to battle on ground not of his choosing.

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EXPERIENCED VET Major John I. Nevin as he appeared during his 93rd Pennsylvania service. Nevin first led the regiment at Gettysburg, and he wrote that the battlefield was covered with "dead 'strown in various forms of horror."

ajor John Nevin’s diary entries chronicling the campaign begin on October 13. The 93rd Pennsylvania, part of Brig. Gen. Frank Wheaton’s 3rd Brigade, of Brig. Gen. Henry Terry’s 3rd Division, of Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick’s 6th Corps, had left the vicinity of Culpeper, Va., on the 12th, and by the 13th had crossed the Rappahannock and was trudging eastward along the O&A line with most of the Army of the Potomac. Nevin was an educator and newspaper reporter in civilian life, and the entries in his diary, held at the Senator John Heinz Regional History Center in Pittsburgh, are entertaining and journalistic. Some punctuation, paragraph breaks, and capitalization are added for clarity. Misspelled words have been corrected when they cause confusion. Otherwise the entries are reprinted as written. In this first entry, Major Nevin describes the retreat and hearing fighting known as the Battle of Auburn, when Confederate cavalry clashed with the 2nd Corps to the north of the railroad.

Octobev 13

Last night we were twice aroused and formed into line on account of firing of the pickets. About three A.M. two or three distinct volleys were heard in the direction of Bealtons station where the wagon train of the whole army lay.

Suddenly there “arose so wild a yell” “As all the fiends from heaven that fell had pealed the banner cry of hell.” That describes the noise that arose in the wagon park. We were too distant to hear the distinct elements of those ominous sounds of a stampeded wagon train, but the curses (rendered faint of distance) and yells of the frightened teamsters and the varied shrieks and brays of the excited mules, the rattling of the wagons, all mingles and contributed to produce one of the most awe inspiring noises I ever listened to. But Stuart had not got amongst them after all. At seven oclock we received notice to fall in to our place in brigade as it should march by, for the Army of the Potomac was once again about to perform its accustomed brilliant maneuver of changing its base.

Marched pretty steadily all day tho’ slowly, as the trains moved in front for fear of the enemy. At Bristoes Station we saw pretty much the entire wagon train of the army, the open country for miles around was almost literally packed with the wagons; two huge parks of commissary wagons were evidently arranged to be burned if they could not be got away; from most of the other parks the trains were beginning to project into the space toward Washington looking for all the world like so many white jointed snakes slowly pushing forward their heads from their massive coils.

We apparently getting tired waiting, push forward our long blue column thro’ the wheeled labyrinth and by it, in the depth of the wood in front.

A dreadful night march ensued. Very cold too, and tedious in the extreme. The wagon train, still in front from some unaccountable reason went forward at a snails pace over what seems to us an excellent road. Such marches 54

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A 93rd Pennsylvania soldier's canteen.

are demoralizing. Every bodies patience becomes completely exhausted and a column of solid cursing, mental and expressed, from the Brigadier General foaming at the van, with his horses nose pressed against the tail board of the last wagon down, by grade, to the private soldier who after standing in ranks twenty minutes, moves forward some ten paces, only to be brought up in a halt again, against his file leaders knapsack, for another twenty minute stand, rolls up to heaven, as a testimony that the Army of the Potomac is oblivious to the incapacity that has sometimes guided it, and paralized its gigantic strength. As to the good accomplished by the operation the best commentary on it was the continuous line of fires on either side of the road indicating the enormous number of stragglers who were going to the right and left, by file into line, into independent bivouacs there to rest and cook coffee, sleep, and in the morning jog on a couple of miles and merrily fall into the ranks of the weary sleepless ones who have been toiling forward, all night, in their places. Five miles in eights hours we made last night.

There I’ve had my grumble.

Yesterday we marched abreast of a wagon train, a wagoner dropped his whip, stopped his wagon jumped off and got it–then moved on. I saw that momentary stoppage travel back, along the long line behind, like a wave on the sea, or a shake in the clothes lines, and clear to the end of the train,

BACK AND FORTH The Bristoe Station Campaign and the Battle of Rappahannock Station are frequently overlooked, as they occurred between the bloodbaths of Gettysburg and the spring 1864 Overland Campaign. But the fall 1863 events proved telling. The damaged Army of Northern Virginia couldn't move quickly enough to catch its foe, and in turn Meade's failure to destroy Lee's main army further cost him President Abraham Lincoln's confidence.

miles back that little delay comes back and the following soldier stops and wonders what it means. Bivouaced at 4 A.M. Oct 14th

The Battle of Bristoe Station occurred on October 14 when Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill’s Corps attacked portions of the Union 2nd Corps sheltering in a railroad cut of the O&A near the station. The ill-advised assaults cost the Confederates 1,400 casualties and five cannons to the Federals' 540 casualties, and ended Lee’s offensive. The 6th Corps did not participate in the fight, but Nevin could hear the battle.

Octobev 14

General sounded at 5.30 A.M. and the weary soldiers prepare again to march. No rest they say until we reach Centreville, for they say it is a race between Lee and Meade, which shall get there first. Devil take the hindmost. I am detailed for officer of rear guard to-day to keep up the stragglers.

Usually that is a detestable duty, but to-day there is little difficulty for a powerful rearguard is booming still farther in the rear, that stragglers usually heed. The bull dogs of the light artillery are barking quite briskly. At evening, Centreville, from Licking Run twenty seven miles. We bivouacked on the Northern slope of that natural fortress and from its’ ramparts we gazed during the “hours of the setting day,” long and anxiously towards Bristoes Station, whence came increasing sounds of the conflict. The 2nd Corps are said to be our rear-guard and it would seem that they are playing quite earnestly the old war-music of the cannon and the musket. As the twilight deepened the flashes of lightening could be seen that accompany the thunders….

The tables turned after Bristoe Station, and the Army of the Potomac pursued the Army of Northern Virginia as it withdrew back to the Rappahannock. Nevin’s 6th Corps protected Meade’s right flank, starting the countermarch from the vicinity of Chantilly, and the major mentions crossing the old Bull Run battlefields and seeing detritus from the “Buckland Races,” fought on October 19 when Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart’s troopers turned on and drove back Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick’s Union horsemen near New Baltimore and Gainesville. He also describes an encounter with an escaped slave, and uses the coarse vernacular of the time to describe the interaction.

Octobev 16

An hour before Sunrise We fall into line, and stand silently to arms, until the sun has risen….Many a time when thus silently awaiting the expected attack of the wily foe, watching the red sun after gradually tingeing the gates of the east, at length rise solemnly above the surrounding hills, strange thoughts of life, and death and eternity would occupy my mind. ….Presently the “hunky boy” as the little sharp newspaper boy [is known] makes his appearance in the very front.

How venture some they are! I remember it was July 3rd at Gettysburg amid shot and shell the hunky boy comes up with the Baltimore papers. I paid him ten cents, for one in spite of the ordinance, for his energy….

Octobev 18

Begin to think the Rebs have left. Heavy firing tho’ yesterday evening on the extreme left. Got a negro servant—he came within our lines, last evening our regiment being on picket—he had run away from his master—master had found he was stealing his tobacco, set a steel trap for him— Nig. discovered the trick set the trap for his master at the corn crib, and when master reached for the corn, lo! The trap caught him, So the servant “hired for life” deserted. And that is Wash’s history. Virginia niggers exercise ludicrous freedom in names. I’ve seen a swarm of them at a cabin and asked their names. “I’m Buck, he’s Jim and she’s Dinah.” “Yes, Buck but I want to know your last name, you’re all brothers and sisters ain’t you?” “yas mass’r. Jim’s last name is Johnson, mine’s Jones, Dinah her’s Williams.” etc.

Octobev 19 WORN OUT The frequent halts and slow marching pace of the Bristoe Station Campaign exhausted infantrymen. This sleeping soldier was sketched in June 1864, but Nevin witnessed similar scenes as he slogged along.

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On the march again striking tents in a violent shower. We marched off in the mud in the direction of the old Bull Run battle field. Presently we began to tread its classic ground….

As we passed over the battlefield and the morning sun, shone out from amongst the clouds smiling on us as we passed thro’ those solemn hills and dales as if to assure us, we should have “no more Bull Runs,” our eyes would turn to the

BURNT AND BENT Both sides damaged the Orange & Alexandria Railroad during the campaign.

Confederate troops caused this destruction during their retreat to Warrenton.

right and left to see the head boards of the shallow buried combatants….

Shallow–buried! Yes, yonder an arm protrudes from the “other clay,” and covered with its tattered habiliments of blue, gesticulates wildly, on the autumn wind, as if to bear witness that not yet has the martyrdom of its owner then been avenged. How long! Further on, close, almost beneath the feet of the marching column, grins a white skeleton face, with perfect teeth, out of his grave to heaven.

We halt at Gainesville from Chantilly 10 miles. As we led the Corps today we frequently had opportunity while crossing the higher grounds, to look back and catch grand views of the advancing columns, far as the eye could reach back wards, until we could not see the men but only the bayonets glisten….We met the returning masses of the Cavalry just coming in from the front. They report us “just in time.”

We ford a deep stream, every body getting their feet wet, and then lie down on our arms in the still October night.

Good hardening or softening regimen! Officers without blankets or overcoats too, as the pack mules are forbidden to come to the front in the present perilous emergency! Well!

I have my overcoat behind my saddle, and a gumblanket before so I shall court Morpheus if possible anyhow! For

tomorrow we will either have a big fight or a long march— most probably the latter, as the impression gains ground that Lee is far away, and that Stuarts cavalry which have today whipped Kilpatrick (Kill-Cavalry his men call him) until they felt the advance of our infantry, will be many miles toward the Rapidan tomorrow.

Octobev 20

From Gainesville to Warrenton, 11 miles. Near New Baltimore we saw the “signs” of the Cavalry fight of yesterday, dead men by the road side, one wounded man over on the hill, the red flag of a hospital, over a neighboring barn…..

The boys spoil my horse. They’ve got him very fond of crackers, by letting him nibble at them as we march along, and they got him crabbed by tantalizing him too, by with holding the titbits, they have taught him to open their haversacks and help himself which trick he avails himself of very frequently in the dark. He is a great favorite of Company B behind which is his place and which he knows as well as any-one. And if taken away from the column, will gallop back and fall in, as if afraid of being lost! We camp or rather lay down at midnight by the roadside.

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Octobev 22

At noon, fall in to march “in the direction of our old camp West of Warrentown,” So after making a narrow ellipse we are going back to one of our homes!....Some one irreverently says “the campaign of the two dogs” “Bow wow” say dog 1.

Dog Two runs, dog 1 following nipping him by the tail, dog two turns round. “Bow wow,” dog one runs with dog two nipping his tail and so on.

A two-week interregnum followed with Lee’s army near Culpeper Court House and Meade east of the Rappahannock, pondering his options. Lee had left a fortified bridgehead on the east bank at Rappahannock Station on the O&A, and Meade ordered the 6th Corps and a portion of the 5th Corps to attack that location on November 7. The Battle of Rappahannock Station was a decisive Union victory. Nevin’s brigade was held in reserve, but he still saw a good deal of the fight, and also interacted with prisoners from Colonel Archibald Godwin’s North Carolina brigade. The next day, November 8, the 93rd marched downstream approximately 6 miles to Kelly’s Ford to help Union troops from the 3rd Corps mop up from their successful attack there on the 7th.

Novembev 7

So after a rest of a couple of weeks—after building huts again and chimneys, again with a sigh we have to pack up to

FIERY CROSSING At the beginning of the campaign, Union troops destroyed the Rappahannock River bridge of the Orange & Alexandria Railroad on October 13. Alfred Waud sketched the dramatic blaze.

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the tune of the “General,” sip our shivering cup of coffee by the light of the “chaste stars” and the “sickle” moon and the glow of the rosy east, all at 4:30 a.m. A glorious morning, but exceedingly cold! Capt. R has a presentiment that this time, he’ll be shot. ….Slowly we marched along the railroad toward Rhappahanock [sic] Station, never dreaming of meeting any enemy this side of the river. Suddenly as we emerged from the edge of a belt of woods, we see our outmost pickets within a couple of hundred yards and right beyond, the opposing pickets of the “Johnnies.” Lines of battle rapidly forming on all sides of us and presently our column too is unrolled into line. Our skirmishers commence to advance— supports quickly follow—batteries trot out to different positions, and thus suddenly are we rushed into the midst of a battle. Now the skirmishers clash, and rattle goes the old familiar musketry—great guns belched forth, shells burst in mid-air, and the evening sun becomes dim in the thickening smoke. Suddenly our brigade bugle sounds “attention.”

Genl Terry deploys us into masses, and in two lines of battalions in mass we move into the “sulphurous canopy.”

Cooly as on parade our brave boys move forward keeping an excellent alignment, shells burst in their very faces scattering their deadly spray right into the masses but none wavered– there was no confusion, except that caused by the falling of the stricken. “Short and decisive” was the battle….A brilliant little battle for the Sixth Corps. The fruits were 1,300 prisoners, 100 killed and wounded, 7 pieces of artillery, loss of about 500 killed and wounded.

We slept on our arms. No fires. The heaviest fighting was right thro’ our comfortable old camp that we left so regret-

FORGOTTEN MAN 93rd Pennsylvania veterans dedicate one of their regiment's Gettysburg monuments. Despite Nevin's long 93rd tenure, he is barely mentioned in the regimental history, perhaps because he was considered an outsider from across the state. fully some weeks ago. The Rebs, made our soldier-palaces their homes, and some of them their graves. Poor fellows!

I read some of their letters taken from their bodies. Home letters and love-letters with their simple incidents of domestic life and domestic love brings home to ones mind the horrible nature of the struggle we are waging. Verily there be mothers and wives in the south as well as in the north that wish this cruel war were over.

The prisoners taken are mostly North Carolinians. Their letters show disaffection to the Confederacy. They are bitter toward the other Southern States thinking that they are imposed upon. In conversation with a big North Carolina Sergeant, I asked why we didn’t meet more Virginians in battle. “Oh” he said “they are scattered thro’ the South doing provost guard duty and such like.” Distance march is 16 miles.

Novembev 8

Again away by starlight on the Falmouth road but just as the scenery began to liken itself to the old Falmouth type of pine woods…we struck off to Kelly’s Ford, and after winding somewhat unaccountably jostling with several different wagon trains, we finally brought up in a confused heap in the graveyard of Mount Holly Baptist church. We remained here long enough to go into the church—(now a temporary hospital as quite a battle was fought here yesterday by the 3rd Corps) and see a couple of amputations and other agreeable sights—also the burial of a North Carolina captain and private—with their martial cloaks [English overcoats] around them. A hospital steward of the 63rd Pa was busily engaged lettering head boards not only for the dead but for those soon to die.

“There Jim” says he coolly “that’ll do for he Captain get a couple of fellows to carry him out I’ll go right to work on

one for that big Georgia Sergeant with both legs shot off, he’ll not survive amputation more than ten minutes longer, I must hurry up, too, for you Carolina boy with the ball in his bowels will be ready for me next.” “You see” said he to me as I admired his fine lettering, “I want to show these fellows, that we can bury them better than they bury us.” “Yes bury his boots with him, Bill and that fine overcoat too; it’s their trick to strip the dead, tho’ I don’t blame the shivering devils much either.”

The Generals Aid finally extricated us regiment by regiment from the mass, and assigned us our camping grounds for the night. “So” thought I “nothing more tonight!” So we heaped up a great big fire, cooked our meat and coffee, spread our blankets for the night….

Major Nevin was not quite done with marching and fighting that fall, and it was not until after the Mine Run Campaign in November that the Army of the Potomac went into winter quarters at Brandy Station. The next spring, Nevin was wounded during the fighting in the Wilderness on May 5, 1864. He convalesced and remained in the Union Army until he mustered out that October 27. Nevin spent most of his postwar years in Sewickly as a newspaper reporter and eventually became the president of the Pittsburgh Evening Journal. He married and had four children, but he died young, at the age of 46 in 1884. His obituary stated he had never fully recovered from the “effects of his confinement in the military prisons, Libby and Salisbury.”

Dana B. Shoaf is the editor of Civil War Times magazine.

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A LOT TO LIKE Natural beauty and layers of history both abound in the Port Royal region of South Carolina.

SEA ISLAND

CHARM HISTORY AND

SEA ISLANDS DOT DEEP-WATER PORT ROYAL SOUND,

South Carolina, where on November 7, 1861, Rear Admiral Samuel DuPont’s fleet of 17 warships blazed past Confederate Forts Walker and Beauregard, sailing in a clever elliptical formation to deliver constant fire on the bastions. Landing nearby, a 12,000-men force eventually took control of neighboring sea islands, including Port Royal Island, where wealthy planters had abandoned their fashionable homes in Beaufort. Union forces would hold the Sound throughout the war, blocking Confederate commerce, and homes in Beaufort would serve as headquarters for the Union Army and the South Atlantic Blockading Squadron. A lovely town of 2,000 in normal times, Beaufort became a hub for recovering Federal wounded. The Union occupation of the nearby Sea Islands would witness an early experiment in emancipation. Northern forces, aided by the arrival of abolitionists, set up schools for the formerly enslaved and supervised agriculture on the vast plantations. The occupation would last the duration of the war, and sites related to that early experiment form the Reconstruction National Monument, designated in 2017 and still in development. Today Beaufort and the islands of Port Royal, St. Helena, and Parris retain a remote and unpretentious P O RT RO YA L charm. Grand oak trees dripping with Spanish moss reach into the sky, and the distinctive sulfurish “pluff mud� from tidal flats and salt marshes scents the air. –Sarah Richardson 60

CIVIL WAR TIMES APRIL 2018

THE BATTLE OF

PORT

ROYAL

HOME GUARDS

Completed in 1798 for the Beaufort Volunteer Artillery, the Beaufort Arsenal building was rebuilt and enlarged in the 1850s, and was also the site of a polling place for newly enfranchised freedmen just after the Civil War. The distinctive complex is now home to a visitors center and the Beaufort Museum. beauforthistorymuseum.wildapricot.org

On November 7, 1861, Union ships attacked and defeated Fort Walker and Fort Beauregard, the bastions guarding Port Royal sound.

The Federal victory planted Northern land troops in the heart of Secessia.

Camp Saxton

FOR BLUE AND GRAY

EMANCIPATION

Abraham Lincoln established Beaufort National Cemetery, and 7,500 Union soldiers and 117 Confederate soldiers are buried here. Section 56 contains graves of USCT of the 55th Massachusetts and 1st North Carolina Infantry, whose remains were recovered on Folly Island in 1987 and reinterred here with full military honors in 1989. Visit www.cem.va.gov and search Beaufort.

Camp Saxton in Port Royal is now part of the Reconstruction National Monument, designated in 2017. General Rufus Saxton read the Emancipation Proclamation here on New Year’s Day 1863. The site is on the grounds of a U.S. Naval Hospital and accessible weekdays only—following a quick background check by base personnel. Visit www.nationalregister. sc.gov and search Beaufort.

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“We are now in complete possession of the finest harbor in the South, where the largest ships can enter and ride at anchor in safety.”

Captain Rufus Saxton, Nov. 9, 1861, Port Royal, S.C.

REMARKABLE MAN

The grounds of Tabernacle Baptist Church are home to the grave and a bust of Robert S. Smalls.

He escaped from slavery by brazenly piloting a Confederate boat to Union blockading ships. Smalls then served in the Federal Navy and became a legislator after the war. 907 Craven St. 62

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St. Helena Episcopal Church

The North was thrilled with its early war victory at Port Royal, as it was located halfway between Charleston, S.C., and Savannah, Ga. Blockading Federal warships soon churned the waters off of the beautiful coastline.

Verdier House

IT’S PINK! This Verdier House is the only home from antebellum Beaufort that is open for tours. Built in 1804, the home served as a headquarters during the Union occupation. historicbeaufort.org

LOCAL COLOR The Cracked Egg in Port Royal at 1638 Paris Avenue offers breakfast and burgers in a casual, village setting.

VENERABLE Beaufort’s oldest church, St. Helena Episcopal Church, dates to 1724 and functioned as one of 16 military hospitals in Beaufort. A beautiful wooden altar, carved by Union veterans, was delivered to the church in 1878 as an act of reconciliation.

The graveyard has remains of two Confederate generals, Richard Anderson and Stephen Elliott. sthelenas1712.org

SEASIDE PARK White sands, a carpet of rust-colored pine needles, and towering palms create a gorgeous setting in Hunting Island State Park, which includes a lighthouse that was destroyed by the Confederates, then rebuilt after the war. There are 167 steps to the top. southcarolinaparks.com APRIL 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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HERITAGE TRAVEL & LIFESTYLE SHOWCASE Explore Maryland with once-in-alifetime commemorations—all at one destination. Create your family history by exploring ours. Go to visitmaryland. org to plan your trip today.

There’s no other place that embodies the heart and soul of the True South in all its rich and varied expressions— Mississippi. Find Your True South.

To discover more about Tennessee and to order your free official Tennessee Vacation Guide, visit: TNVACATION.COM or call 1-800-GO2-TENN

Known for sublime natural beauty, captivating history and heritage and warm hospitality, West Virginia really is the great escape. Start planning your getaway today.

Walk where Civil War soldiers fought and died. A short trip from Nashville and a long journey into America’s history!

Call (800) 716-7560.

ReadySetRutherford.com

Join us for our Civil War Anniversary Commemoration including attractions and tours, exhibitions, memorials and a selection of artifacts from Fort Fisher.

Lebanon, KY is home to the Lebanon National Cemetery, its own Civil War Park, and it’s part of the John Hunt Morgan Trail.

VisitLebanonKY.com today.

History lives in Tupelo, Mississippi.

Visit Brice’s Crossroads National Battlefield, Natchez Trace Parkway, Tupelo National Battlefield, Mississippi Hills Exhibit Center and more.

“Part of the One and Only Bluegrass!”

Visit National Historic Landmark, National Civil War Trust tour, historic ferry, and the third largest planetarium of its kind in the world!

North Little Rock, Arkansas, is one of only two places to have two vessels that bookend World War II: tugboat USS Hoga and submarine USS Razorback. www.AIMMuseum.org

A vacation in Georgia means great family experiences that can only be described as pretty sweet.

Explore Georgia’s Magnolia Midlands.

Experience the Civil War in Jacksonville at the Museum of Military History.

Relive one of Arkansas’ first stands at the Reed’s Bridge Battlefield. jacksonvillesoars.com/museum.php

Explore the past in Baltimore during two commemorative events: the War of 1812 Bicentennial and Civil War 150.

Plan your trip at Baltimore.org.

Are you a history and culture buff?

There are many museums and attractions, Civil War, and Civil Rights sites just for you in Jackson, Mississippi.

Experience living history for The Battles of Marietta Georgia, featuring reenactments, tours and a recreation of 1864 Marietta. www.mariettacivilwar.com

Experience the Old West in action with a trip through Southwest Montana.

For more information on our 15 ghost towns, visit southwestmt.com or call 800-879-1159, ext 1501.

The Mississippi Hills National Heritage Area highlights the historic, cultural, natural, scenic and recreational treasures of this distinctive region. www.mississippihills.org

Once Georgia’s last frontier outpost, now its third largest city, Columbus is a true destination of choice. History, theater, arts and sports—Columbus has it all.

Over 650 grand historic homes in three National Register Historic Districts.

Birthplace of America’s greatest playwright, Tennessee Williams. The ultimate Southern destination—Columbus, MS.

Six major battles took place in Winchester and Frederick County, and the town changed hands approximately 72 times— more than any other town in the country! www.visitwinchesterva.com

Home to more than 400 sites, the Civil War’s impact on Georgia was greater than any other event in the state’s history. Visit www.gacivilwar.org to learn more.

Greeneville, TN Founded in 1783, Greeneville has a rich historical background as the home for such important figures as Davy Crockett and President Andrew Johnson.

Plan your visit now!

Richmond, Kentucky

H I S T O R I C

Roswell, Georgia

Tishomingo County, MS Fayetteville/Cumberland County, North Carolina is steeped in history and patriotic traditions. Take a tour highlighting our military ties, status as a transportation hub, and our Civil War story.

Whether you love history, culture, the peacefulness of the great outdoors, or the excitement of entertainment, Roswell offers a wide selection of attractions and tours. www.visitroswellga.com

With a variety of historic attractions and outdoor adventures, Tishomingo County is a perfect destination for lovers of history and nature alike.

History surrounds Cartersville, GA, including Allatoona Pass, where a fierce battle took place, and Cooper’s Furnace, the only remnant of the bustling industrial town of Etowah.

Relive history in Hopkinsville, Kentucky and explore Jefferson Davis’ birthplace, the Trail of Tears Commemorative Park and the vigilante rebellion of the Black Patch Tobacco War.

Seven museums, an 1890 railroad, a British fort and an ancient trade path can be found on the Furs to Factories Trail in the Tennessee Overhill, located in the corner of Southeast Tennessee.

Through personal stories, interactive exhibits and a 360° movie, the Civil War Museum focuses on the war from the perspective of the Upper Middle West. www.thecivilwarmuseum.org

There’s a place where a leisurely stroll might lead to an extraordinary historic home, a beautiful monastery or a lush peach orchard. That place is Georgia.

ExploreGeorgia.org/HistoricHeartland

Harrodsburg, KY—The Coolest Place in History! Explore 3000 acres of discovery at Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill and 1774 at Old Fort Harrod State Park. www.HarrodsburgKy.com

Williamson County, Tennessee, is rich in Civil War history. Here, you can visit the Lotz House, Carnton Plantation, Carter House, Fort Granger and Winstead Hill Park, among other historic locations.

Explore the Natchez Trace. Discover America. Journey along this 444-mile National Scenic Byway stretching from the Mississippi River in Natchez through Alabama and then Tennessee.

Come to Helena, Arkansas and see the Civil War like you’ve never seen it before. Plan your trip today! www.CivilWarHelena.com www.VisitHelenaAR.com

Join us as we commemorate the 150th anniversary of Knoxville’s Civil War forts. Plan your trip today! www.knoxcivilwar.org

Charismatic Union General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick had legions of admirers during the war. He just wasn’t much of a general, as his men often learned with their lives.

Sandy Springs, Georgia, is the perfect hub for exploring Metro Atlanta’s Civil War sites. Conveniently located near major highways, you’ll see everything from Sandy Springs!

Treat yourself to Southern Kentucky hospitality in London and Laurel County! Attractions include the Levi Jackson Wilderness Road State Park and Camp Wildcat Civil War Battlefield.

Hip and historic Frederick County, Maryland is home to the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, unique shopping, dining covered bridges and outdoor recreation. www.visitfrederick.org

Just 15 miles south of downtown Atlanta lies the heart of the true South: Clayton County, Georgia, where heritage comes alive!

St. Mary’s County, Maryland. Visit Point Lookout, site of the war’s largest prison camp, plus Confederate and USCT monuments. A short drive from the nation’s capital.

Cleveland, TN

Near Chattanooga, find glorious mountain scenery and heart-pounding white-water rafting. Walk in the footsteps of the Cherokee and discover a charming historic downtown.

Alabama’s Gulf Coast

If you’re looking for an easy stroll through a century of fine architecture or a trek down dusty roads along the Blues Trail, you’ve come to the right place. www. visitgreenwood.com

Southern hospitality at its finest, the Classic South, Georgia, offers visitors a combination of history and charm mixed with excursion options for everyone from outdoorsmen to museum-goers.

Relive the rich history of the Alabama Gulf Coast at Fort Morgan, Fort Gaines, the USS Alabama Battleship, and the area’s many museums.

Fort-Morgan.org • 888-666-9252

CIVIL WAR MUSEUM of the Western Theater

Vicksburg, Mississippi is a great place to bring your family to learn American history, enjoy educational museums and check out the mighty Mississippi River.

Follow the Civil War Trail in Meridian, Mississippi, where you’ll experience history first-hand, including Merrehope Mansion, Marion Confederate Cemetery and more. www.visitmeridian.com.

Fitzgerald, Georgia...100 years of bringing people together. Learn more about our story and the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War’s conclusion at www.fitzgeraldga.org.

Hundreds of authentic artifacts.

Voted fourth finest in U.S. by North & South Magazine. Located in historic Bardstown, Kentucky. www.civil-war-museum.org

Come to Cleveland, Mississippi—the birthplace of the blues. Here, you’ll find such legendary destinations as Dockery Farms and Po’ Monkey’s Juke Joint. www.visitclevelandms.com

Historic Bardstown, Kentucky

Destination

Jessamine, KY Prestonsburg, KY - Civil War & history attractions, and reenactment dates at PrestonsburgKY.org. Home to Jenny Wiley State Park, country music entertainment & Dewey Lake.

Search over 10,000 images and primary documents relating to the Civil War Battle of Hampton Roads, now available in The Mariners’ Museum Library Online Catalog! www.marinersmuseum.org/catalogs

History, bourbon, shopping, sightseeing and relaxing—whatever you enjoy, you’re sure to find it in beautiful Bardstown, KY. Plan your visit today. www.visitbardstown.com

London, KY–The reenactment of the Battle of Camp Wildcat, Camp Wildcat Historic Site, Wilderness Road Trail & Boones Trace Trail, & antique and flea market shopping. www.LaurelKyTourism.com

STEP BACK IN TIME at Camp Nelson Civil War Heritage Park, a Union Army supply depot and African American refugee camp. Museum, Civil War Library, Interpretive Trails and more.

A CLASSIC

REFINED REVIEWED BY ETHAN S. RAFUSE

F

EW AUTHORS have been as successful in achieving what they set out to do as Ulysses S. Grant. When he began work on his memoirs, Grant had to repair his family’s finances, tattered by ill-advised investments. In addition, Grant understood that he had won the admiration of the American people not simply because he won the Civil War, but also because of the style with which he conducted himself and his image as a simple soldier. He also understood that his image needed repair because of his presidency’s association with Gilded Age tawdriness. Moreover, by the 1880s Southern writers who sought to promulgate a myth of the Civil War that emphasized the Confederacy’s martial and moral superiority had been all too successful in their efforts. Their considerable success in tarnishing Grant’s military reputation had to be countered.

What Grant produced—with throat cancer having placed him at death’s door—was a work that, while assuredly worthy of the sort of scrutiny that all such works merit, deservedly won enduring recognition as a truly great work of American literature. Now a team of editors led by John F. Marszelak, executive director of the U.S. Grant Presidential Library, succeed admirably in their own important work—namely, the most thoroughly annotated edition of The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant ever to appear.

To say this book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Grant’s life through the end of the Civil War would of course be trite. This, after all, would be the case with nearly any edition of the Memoirs that has appeared since 1885, as its enduring importance can hardly be overstated. Yet the editors here do more than simply provide a welcome excuse to read this great work. Readers will appreciate and be impressed 66

CIVIL WAR TIMES APRIL 2018

The Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant: The Complete Annotated Edition Edited by John F. Marszalek, with David S. Nolen and Louie P. Gallo The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2017, $39.95

by the extensive amount of information and commentary the editors provide in the footnotes on the various figures and events mentioned in the Memoirs. They will also appreciate the well-constructed introduction that briefly chronicles how the Memoirs came into being.

Although he achieved at best a mixed success in his effort to counter the emerging Southern myth of the Lost Cause, Grant succeeded spectacularly in achieving his other goals.

The Memoirs generated for his wife, Julia Dent Grant, what was then the largest royalty check in history ($450,000, equivalent to $11 million today). They also effectively resurrected Grant’s image as the plain-spoken, modest soldier who not only saved the Union, but also reaffirmed the faith of the American people that common men drawn from among them were capable of uncommon accomplishment.

CREEKSIDE

SLUGFEST The Battle of Peach Tree Creek: Hood’s First Effort to Save Atlanta

By Earl J. Hess University of North Carolina Press, 2017, $37.50

REVIEWED BY GORDON BERG n his groundbreaking study of military sociology, John Baynes concluded, “The maintenance of morale is recognized in military circles as the most important single factor in war….High morale is the most important quality of a soldier.” Analyzing one of the critical battles of the 1864 Atlanta Campaign, Earl Hess found “Morale loomed large as an element in the story of Peach Tree Creek. The Confederates suffered depressed spirits to a significant degree.” The battle, Hess argues, “represented the beginning of a trend in the...campaign, resulting in uneven battle spirit within Confederate ranks.”

Morale, however, was only one of the factors that led to the Confederate defeat; effective countermeasures by the Union’s Army of the Cumberland played a critical role. As he does in all his battle narratives, Hess carefully evaluates all the factors that separated victory from defeat. His many books on a variety of Civil War topics have given Hess the perspective necessary to discern “how the battle of July 20 affected the events in Georgia…and the 46,000 men directly engaged in combat.”

Major General William T. Sherman gained command of all the Union armies in the west after the battles for Chattanooga. He then began a deadly serious red dirt waltz with his familiar battlefield partner, Confederate General Joseph E.

I

Johnston. Hess comments favorably both on Sherman’s offensive strategy of using his manpower advantage to flank his opponent rather than frontally attacking him and Johnston’s defensive countermeasures designed to slow the Union juggernaut in the hope that war-weariness in the North could stop Sherman when he could not. But Johnston’s delaying tactics so irked Confederate President Jefferson Davis that he decided to relieve the general and turn the Army of Tennessee over to young, often reckless, Maj. Gen. John Bell Hood just as the blue tidal wave crested the Chattahoochee River.

Two days after assuming command, Hood decided to give battle under a searing midday sun on the south bank of Peach Tree Creek, the first of several unsuccessful attempts Hood initiated trying to keep Atlanta gray.

Battle narratives often devolve into a litany of regiments advancing here and other regiments countering there. Names and numbers can numb the mind of even the keenest reader. Hess avoids this pitfall by interspersing explanations of troop movements with insightful descriptions of terrain, pertinent primary source documentation, and shrewd analyses of conflicting contemporary accounts of the action. UNC Press has augmented Hess’ sturdy, straightforward prose with appropriate photographs, illustrations, and simple but illuminating maps.

The battle is easily summarized.

Brigades of Lt. Gen. William J. Hardee’s Corps fell upon unsuspecting elements of Brig. Gen. John Newcomb’s 4th Division resting in the bottomlands of Peach Tree Creek.

But they did not exploit their rarely achieved numerical edge. Supporting troops of Lt. Gen. Alexander P. Stewart on Hardee’s left failed to capitalize on two yawning gaps in Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker’s 20th Corps lines. Hess adroitly seizes on the battle’s critical movements in four superbly written chapters. A spirited recovery by Union troops capably led by a veteran officer ultimately won the day for the Federals.

Fortunately, Hess carries his story beyond the day’s fighting. His penultimate chapter vividly conveys the detritus, material and human, that littered the battlefield after the fighting ended. “Burying the dead was a comparatively quick task,” Hess observes, “but taking care of the Union and Confederate wounded seemed never ending….Many Federals walked across the battlefield on July 21 and saw sights that stunned them.” Sherman’s bluecoats would see many more such sights before they secured Atlanta on September 2, 1864.

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REVIEWED BY GORDON BERG

CONFUSED NORTH W CAROLINA FINALE

We Ride a Whirlwind: Sherman and Johnston at Bennett Place

By Eric J. Wittenberg Fox Run Publishing, 2017, $19.95

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hen opening an Eric Wittenberg book, one can easily imagine the faint echo of “Boots and Saddles” emerging from the pages. But the preeminent chronicler of Union cavalry actions has now chosen to ride down a different road to the hardscrabble farmstead of James T. Bennett near Durham’s Station, N.C. There Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston met Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman between April 17-26, 1865, to negotiate the surrender of his army.

Why it took more than a week to come to terms lies at the heart of the story.

Wittenberg analyzes what transpired between the two battlefield foes from the perspectives of many contemporary witnesses and seeks to substantiate his claim that “what happened at Bennett Place is more remarkable, and more important, than what happened at Appomattox Court House.” He carefully focuses on “the three meetings between Sherman and Johnston in great detail, followed by a study of the political machinations—both Northern and Southern—that jeopardized the generals’ work.” Remarkably, Wittenberg concludes that had the generals’ original agreement been accepted, the war and the years of Reconstruction that followed might have been concluded more easily and with less social upheaval.

At the first meeting between the generals Sherman prepared to offer Johnston the same terms Grant gave Lee a week earlier even though Uncle Billy was negotiating with the knowledge that President Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated three days earlier. Johnston was aghast when told the news, and seized the political initiative to propose that the two generals negotiate to end the war, not just surrender an army.

That’s when things began to go seriously sideways. Johnston agreed to surrender on conditions of “the preservation and continuance of the State governments” and “the preservation to the people of all the political rights of person and property secured to them by the Constitution of the United States and of their several States.” Wittenberg rightly concludes that “if Sherman had accepted these proposed terms, every Confederate from Davis down to the lowliest private, would receive full amnesty.” Sherman probably realized that those conditions were the purview of civilian authorities and not something a military officer could lawfully accept. Nevertheless, he agreed to sleep on it and meet again the next day.

At the second meeting on April 18, Johnston stated he had the authority to surrender all Confederate armies and Sherman drafted a surrender document based largely on the previous day’s discussions and sent it off to Washington.

When he read the document, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton went ballistic.

He publicly accused Sherman of usurping civilian authority, ordered hostilities to resume, and sent Grant to arrest Sherman. Grant calmed the waters and told Sherman only the Appomattox terms would be acceptable. The two generals met for the third time on April 26 and a chastised Sherman dutifully dictated surrender terms only for those forces under Johnston’s direct control.

Wittenberg’s four appendices are critical to his argument and should be read in detail. But his argument that “Had Lincoln not been assassinated, Sherman’s political solution might have been accepted” seems farfetched. No matter Lincoln’s feelings about ending the war, his clarity about civilian control over policy and the relationship of the military to elected officials was crystal clear. It enabled the Union to prosecute a vicious civil war with its democratic constitution and principles largely intact. Lincoln might have been sympathetic to the sincere efforts of the two old warhorses but he probably would have said he would determine when the war was over.

Three Brothers: Death and Love in the Civil War

By Thomas Peter Lowry Idle Winter Press 2017, $11.99

REVIEWED BY JON GUTTMAN As any Civil War scholar with forebears involved in it knows, the passage of more than 150 years makes the conflict no less personal. In Three Brothers,Thomas P. Lowry examines letters left behind by his great-grandfather, Emanuel Lowry, Emanuel’s brother Michael and his half-brother John Suhre. The book is of some interest for the insights he gleaned from them.

Of possibly greater interest is the process of supplemental research by which he extrapolated those insights. That was not always easy, as when he tackled an 1861 letter from Emanuel to his fiancée, Phebe Colburn: “Emanuel is ...seemingly unable to write concise narrative prose, trapped in an ooze of indirection, analogy, simile, metaphor, and innuendo.” Still, his methods may prove useful for colleagues investigating Civil War correspondences of their own.

Michael Lowry and John Suhre both served in Pennsylvania infantry units and died of wounds sustained at Fredericksburg. Lowry discovered that nurse Louisa May Alcott attended John. Over all else, one is reminded of the differences to keep in mind between current perceptions of the war and its causes and those set down on paper by people like Emanuel Lowry, two months before hostilities broke out.

Discover

A Missing Piece of Civil War History 135TH USCT LIVING HISTORY WEEKEND: THE LOST TROOP

APRIL 6–8, 2018 GOLDSBORO, NC

A lost piece of Civil War history has been found and highlights the existence of a forgotten U.S. Colored Troop based in NC—the 135th U.S. Colored Troop (USCT).

To learn more, plan to attend the 135th USCT Living History Weekend.

A pop up museum, exhibits, guest speakers, period music, and encampment will be free and open to the public. A special banquet will be held and tickets can be purchased ahead of time.

For details & special packages, visit visitgoldsboronc.com/shop or call 919.734.2213.

WHAT WAS ULYSSES S. GRANT’S BIRTH NAME?

- Hiram Ulysses Grant - Samuel Ulysses Grant - Simpson U. Grant - Jesse Grant, Jr. For more, search DAILY QUIZ at HistoryNet.com.

HistoryNet.com

ANSWER: HIRAM ULYSSES GRANT. GRANT’S NAME CHANGE WAS INADVERTENT. THE CONGRESSMAN NOMINATING HIM TO WEST POINT MISTAKENLY NAMED HIM “ULYSSES S. GRANT.” YOUNG GRANT WAS TOO SHY TO CORRECT THE ERROR AND USED THE NAME THE REST OF HIS LIFE.

REINFORCEMENTS

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From Cedar Mountain to 2nd Manassas Join tour historians Scott Patchan and Michael Block as we follow Stonewall Jackson’s route: • Gordonsville, Virginia • Travel a portion of the original roads Jackson took on his advance to Culpeper • Orange Courthouse train station and the little known fight at Orange • Crooked Run Ford • Cedar Mountain Battlefield • Jeffersonton, where Jackson and Longstreet planned Jackson’s flank march • Thoroughfare Gap Battlefield • Manassas Battlefield • Brawner Farm, Jackson’s Defense of the Railroad Cut • Robert E. Lee’s headquarters • The struggle for Chinn Ridge Saturday night lodging will be the Holiday Inn Manassas – Battlefield

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Friday presentations by: • Scott Patchan: “Controversy and Confusion: Interpreting US attacks against Stonewall Jackson on August 29, 1862 at Second Manassas” • Michael Block: “I’m Not Making Much Progress: Stonewall Jackson’s Approach to Cedar Mountain” • Dr. John H. Matsui: “Its Time that the Government took off its Gloves: The Army of Virginia as a Revolutionary Force”

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REVIEWED BY LOUIS P. MASUR n Making of an Antislavery Nation, Graham A. Peck uses Illinois as a case study to understand how antislavery politics developed. Only in 1824 did Illinois voters conclusively reject slavery by opposing a call by slaveholders to hold a constitutional Making an convention to legalize slavery. The Antislavery Nation: antislavery party won with 57 perLincoln, Douglas, cent of the vote. and the Battle The murder of the abolitionOver Freedome ist publisher Elijah P. Lovejoy by

By Graham A. Peck a proslavery mob in Alton, Ill., in University of Illinois 1837 was a seminal event in makPress, 2017, $34.95 ing an antislavery North. Lincoln alluded to the crime in his 1838 Lyceum Address. Democrats, however, felt that opposition to slavery and its expansion denied the principles of manifest destiny and popular sovereignty. The Free Soil Party did not carry Illinois in 1848, but increasingly residents saw the opposition to abolitionism as an attack on their own freedoms of speech and assembly.

Stephen Douglas did not help. The passage of the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act, which he shepherded, helped further weaken the Democratic Party in Illinois. In Congressional races that year, opponents of Kansas-Nebraska won control of the state’s House of Representatives. When he opposed Kansas’s Lecompton Constitution and the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott Decision, Douglas lost the support of Southern Democrats and many Illinois Democrats as well.

Douglas’ victory over Lincoln in 1858 was pyrrhic.

Already Lincoln, roused by the repeal of the 1820 Missouri Compromise, was fashioning a “northern understanding of freedom into national policy [that] spearheaded the Republican Party’s rise to power in Illinois, the North, and the nation.” The Illinoisan would come east and make antislavery into abolition, and abolition into equal opportunity and rights. The seeds of a nation without slavery would indeed germinate from the Illinois soil.

I

REVIEWED BY LAWRENCE LEE HEWITT n Silent Witness, author Ron Field’s thoughtful image selections help tell the story of photographers and their work in studios, military camps, and ravaged cities, or on battlefields strewn with corpses. Field opts for uncommon images, and his introduction includes a history and explanation of the various types of photographs that were made during the war.

He details the photography industry in America on the eve of the conflict and the changes that resulted from it.

Silent Witness mostly focuses on soldiers and sailors of lesser rank along with civilians and the men behind the cameras.

Lookout Mountain was the most photographed site during the Civil War, and Field reproduces images taken there by the Linn brothers and describes how they gouged customers at triple the going rate for a photograph.

There are some issues with the book. Take, for example, the captions accompanying William D. McPherson’s photographs of Port Hudson. In heavily illustrated volumes, it is not uncommon for editors to write, or rewrite, caption material and shift text to another page at the last minute to conform to the aesthetics of art directors. The result can be erroneous captions, which is Silent Witness: the case with both images attributed The Civil to McPherson. The cannon in the War Through naval battery at Port Hudson faced Photography and southwest and the photographers Its Photographers west, neither looked “north-northBy Ron Field west,” (p. 202).

Osprey Publishing, Escaped slave “Whipped Peter” 2017, $35 may “have fought bravely” at Port Hudson, but not in the 2nd Louisiana Native Guard, as it wasn’t there, (p. 204). In addition to indexed items occasionally being off by a page, the publisher deleted some altogether to save on paper (p. 328). Those omissions included Port Hudson (pp. 202204), where McPherson worked. Nevertheless, Silent Witness is an excellent single volume on Civil War photography.

I

CREDITS Cover: Fotosearch/Getty Images: Photo Illustration by Brian Walker; P. 2: Shenandoah Sanchez; P. 3: From Top: Harper’s Weekly; Heritage Auctions, Dallas; P. 4: North Wind Picture Archives/Alamy Stock Photo; P. 6: Photo courtesy Alan Crane; P. 8: Melissa A. Winn (2); P. 9: Left: Courtesy Battle of Franklin Trust; Right: Melissa A. Winn; P. 10: Clockwise From Top: Courtesy The Minnesota Historical Society; Google Earth; Photo by Henry Ballone; P. 12: Courtesy Tennessee State Library and Archives; P. 14: Battles and Leaders of the Civil War; P. 16: Fotosearch/Getty Images; P. 18: Heritage Auctions, Dallas (3); P. 19: From Top: Heritage Auctions, Dallas; ©Don Troiani/Bridgeman Images (2); P. 20: Library of Congress; P. 25: David Monette/Alamy Stock Photo; P. 26: Wichita State University Libraries, Special Collections; P. 29: From Top: Wichita State University Libraries, Special Collections; Library of Congress; P. 30: Library of Congress (2); P. 31: Well Known Philadelphians; P. 32: Library of Congress; P. 33: Library of Congress; P. 34-35: Harper’s Weekly, July 2, 1863; P. 36: Library of Congress; P. 37: Library of Congress; P. 38: Library of Congress (2); P. 39: Heritage Auctions, Dallas; P. 40: Courtesy Alabama Department of Archives and History; P. 42: Courtesy Dan Paterson, descendant of James Longstreet; P. 44: Photo by Ed Clark/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images; P. 45: Courtesy Dan Paterson, descendant of James Longstreet; P. 46: From Top: Courtesy, Georgia Archives, Vanishing Georgia Collection, hal158; Photo by Francis Miller/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images; P. 47: Courtesy Dan Paterson, descendant of James Longstreet; P. 48-51: Melissa A. Winn (5); P. 53: Heinz History Center; P. 54: Heritage Auctions, Dallas; P. 55-57: Library of Congress (3); P. 58: Red: White: And Blue Badge, Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. A History of the 93rd Regiment, Known as the “Lebanon Infantry” and “One of the 300 fighting regiments” from September 12th, 1861, to June 27th, 1865 (1911); P. 60-63: Shenandoah Sanchez (9); P. 72: Heritage Auctions, Dallas.

SOLDIER INTERRUPTED $861 72

CIVIL WAR TIMES APRIL 2018

WHILE SOME veterans chronicled their service with pen and paper, Private John Rikard of the 13th South Carolina proudly chip-carved his unit identification in a piece of animal bone, recently sold by Skinner Auctions, and dyed the words with red ink. On the back he listed the battles he fought in, from Mechanicsville in 1862 to Gettysburg in 1863. The bullet that found and killed Rikard on May 12, 1864, at Spotsylvania Court House, put an end to the calcium catalog.-D.B.S.

Lives Remembered are never Lost

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