America's Civil War May 2021

“When Sidney Johnston fell, it was the turning-point of our fate; for we had no other hand to take up his work in the West.”

—Confederate President Jefferson Davis

Albert Sidney Johnston

Shiloh Disaster The general’s battlefield death wrecked Confederate Western Theater strategy Plus!

Chancellorsville dishonor for Paul Revere’s grandson Massive floating artillery battery bombards Fort Sumter

MAY 2021

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May 2021

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Floating Fire A massive waterborne battery helped bombard Fort Sumter

By Mark Carlson

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CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; GADO COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES; NEW YORK STATE MILITARY MUSEUM; COVER: NORTH WIND PICTURE ARCHIVES; GADO IMAGES/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO/PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY: BRIAN WALKER

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Departments 6 LETTERS Opposing views on S.G. Elliott’s newfound Antietam map 8 GRAPESHOT! Landscape of horror, honor plus a deadly Fort Sumter cocktail 12 THE BLOG ROLL Ducks out of water 14 HIDDEN HEROES Abe’s tireless image-makers 18 FROM THE CROSSROADS Bravado at the bluffs of Shepherdstown 54 TRAILSIDE Booth’s desperate escape through Southern Maryland 58 5 QUESTIONS New chapters of the Gettysburg story 60 REVIEWS Worthy Lincoln two-pack; Yankee boys out of their element in Louisiana 64 FINAL BIVOUAC Pennsylvania commander’s conspicuous gallantry

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Lasting Void Albert Sidney Johnston had no equals in the Western Theater.

That ultimately cost the Confederate Army the war

By Timothy B. Smith

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Cold Harbor Coda Amid the slaughter of June 3, 1864, an isolated cavalry victory actually made a difference for the Federals

By Eric J. Wittenberg

28 Shattered Reputation Was a prominent Union general’s court-martial for cowardice at Chancellorsville misplaced justice?

By Rick Barram ON THE COVER: CONFEDERATE GENERAL ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON’S MORTAL WOUNDING AT SHILOH WAS AVOIDABLE. THE EXACT IMPACT OF HIS DEATH ON THE WAR’S OUTCOME REMAINS IN CONTENTION.

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MAY 2021

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

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

A SHOT IN THE DARK Once the Rebels took aim at Fort Sumter, there was no turning back—for anyone. http://bit.ly/ShotInDark

KILLING STONEWALL

How one of the Confederacy’s best fighting brigades doomed the South at Chancellorsville. http://bit.ly/KillingJackson

TOO LITTLE, TOO LATE Albert Sidney Johnston’s poor tactical and strategic decisions cost him the victory in the war in the West…and his life. http://bit.ly/JohnstonWar

Vol. 34, No. 2 May 2021

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LETTERS cost, it is no mere “novel curiosity.”

Rather, it is a valuable new tool for historians seeking to better understand America’s bloodiest single day.

Lesser Rank for Lee

David Welker seems to put much more stock in Simon Elliott’s 1864 Antietam map than I do [“Antietam’s Deadly Harvest,” January 2021]. We do not know if Elliott actually visited the battlefield, but assume he did because he published the map. Why did he publish it? We don’t know. Maybe as a novelty, or as an economic venture?

Why is the New York Public Library copy the only one known to exist? How widely was the map circulated in 1864?

We don’t know. Was his burial count accurate? We don’t know. Many of those buried on the field may have been severely wounded who died days after the battle, so were they “killed” or “wounded” as far as reported statistics go? Was it a “propaganda” effort to spur Union morale in 1864 or a publicity stunt? We don’t know. Was he a historian striving for an accurate count of America’s bloodiest single day battle?

There is no evidence of that. Several of the individual grave names and regiments he recorded are incorrect, so why should we rely on his total count?

While I have not undertaken a hand count myself, careful historians I know have arrived at a different total than Mr. Welker, so there seems to be some confusion. Since many of the Confederates were buried in trench graves, and even some Union troops, how did

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Elliott arrive at exact numbers for the trenches? We don’t know. The map is a novel curiosity, but certainly not a verifiable historical source.

Tom Clemens Keedysville, Md. David Welker responds: Simon Elliott’s motives for creating and publishing the recently discovered Antietam burial map are no less relevant to its accuracy than are these questions to his similar, well-known map of Gettysburg’s fallen, which historians have long valued for understanding that battle. The overall accuracy of his Antietam map is supported by several independent sources—period photographs, written accounts, and extant Union burial records—which substantiate key portions and details of the map. That the map contains some minor errors and inconsistencies—which I noted—in my view no more invalidates it than should the many mistakes and inaccuracies contained in the Official Records, a source no historian can ignore in understanding the war. I similarly stand by the numbers used in the article, even as I accept that figures reached by others undertaking their own detailed count analysis may vary slightly from mine.

While Elliott’s map may not be the final word on Antietam’s terrible human

By the Book Smarts

I have just recently received and completed your November 2020 issue. As usual it was one of the highlights of the month.

I particularly enjoyed Timothy Smith’s article “By the Book.” I found it informative and concise. In fact, I would very much like to see it as an ongoing contribution. Perhaps Dr. Smith could apply the analysis to some of the “less familiar” or dissected actions. Ball’s Bluff, Second Manassas, Perryville, Cold Harbor, and First Fort Fisher come to mind.

Thank you for your ongoing great work. It is especially appreciated, as material on the war is becoming less accessible to the public.

W.K. Gaylor Waynesville, N.C.

Thanks

The story “The Ultimate Price” in the March 2021 issue on the James Wadsworth-Patrick McCracken bonding [P.30] was both touching and heartening.

Thank you!

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

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY

Elliott Map disunion

Interesting piece in the March issue on the paperweight souvenir photos of Meade’s and Lee’s respective Gettysburg headquarters (“Grapeshot!”—P.9).

Especially interesting is that the A.C. Bosselman & Co. mistakenly denoted Lee as a Major General there. Perhaps that defect might make it more valuable as a flawed item.

Keep up the great work!

Edward Keller Central Islip, N.Y.

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GRAPESHOT!

A Blast of Civil War Stories

Black Entrepreneur Basil Biggs (second from left, standing in front of his still-extant home on Taneytown Road) was a key figure in Gettysburg’s postwar development.

He is among Black notables finally receiving due credit for their Civil War-era efforts.

Out of the Shadows

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troops is getting recognition at Fort Blakeley, which overlooks the Tensaw River near Mobile, Ala.—a 60-acre parcel recently purchased to protect both its historical and ecological significance. On April 9, 1865, Fort Blakeley was the last of Mobile’s defenses to fall before the city was surrendered on April 12. Some 5,000 African American soldiers fought at the battle, the most in any contest the entire war. Funding for the Blakeley Bluff purchase came from the American Battlefield Protection Program, facilitated by the American Battlefield Trust.

Meanwhile in Pennsylvania, the Adams County Historical Society is partnering with the Gettysburg Black History Museum to display photos, documents, and artifacts from the GBHM collection at the ACHS’s new stateof-the-art facility near Gettysburg, scheduled to open in 2022. Artifacts include family Bibles, photographs, letters, military records, and personal items belonging to Frank Penn, Gettysburg’s first Black battlefield guide, as well as USCT veteran Lloyd Watts, among others. For more information, visit achs-pa.org. —Sarah Richardson

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MCLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: COURTESY OF SCOTT VEZEAU; RICHARD H. HOLLOWAY; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; THE CHARLESTON MUSEUM

A “Road to Freedom” tour highlighting 88 Virginia sites involving the experiences of African Americans during the Civil War is now available as a map guide or app for web, Android, or iOS devices. Prepared by Civil War Trails and the American Battlefield Trust—with ongoing collaboration from the African American Historical Preservation Foundation—the program informs participants about battlefields, schools, churches, cemeteries, and highway markers, as well as birthplaces of notable figures, throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia. Sites range from the city centers of Alexandria and Richmond to those in more remote locations, such as the High Bridge near Farmville, where some 30 free men of color were conscripted to work on its fortifications for the Confederacy, and Camp Davis, a Confederate mustering ground in Lynchburg that became a center for newly freed people. For options on downloading this free app and others, visit battlefields. org/fighting-for-freedom. The map also will be available at visitor centers and select distribution sites.

In Alabama, the contribution of African American

NPS PHOTO

NEW EFFORTS HONORING AFRICAN AMERICANS’ VITAL ROLE IN THE CIVIL WAR CONTINUE TO TAKE ROOT

John F. Reynolds

By the Boots

MCLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: COURTESY OF SCOTT VEZEAU; RICHARD H. HOLLOWAY; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; THE CHARLESTON MUSEUM

assortment of arms while fighting, including a carbine or sometimes a shotgun, a revolver in a belt holster, and a saber. While it was not regulation issue, some troopers also wielded boot pistols, such as the one above. As it was difficult for mounted troopers to reload their guns while in action, the boot pistol was valuable as a last resort. Unlike rugged revolvers capable of firing up to six shots, the pistol’s less-bulky, single-shot design fit easily in a cavalryman’s boot and could be removed with little effort. Boot pistol manufacturers varied greatly. The example shown at top, with an 8-inch barrel, was crafted by Allen & Wheelock. (The manufacturer of the model the unidentified Union officer dons left is unfortunately unknown.)

Among notables who carried boot pistols was Sergeant Boston Corbett of the 16th New York Cavalry, the man who shot Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth at the end of Booth’s 12-day escape from Ford’s Theatre in April 1865 (see P.54).

When attending church, the peculiar, albeit patriotic, Corbett would tell the preacher after the sermon, “The Lord wants me to say a few words.” He then removed a pistol from each boot, placed them on either side of the Bible, and spoke his mind. –Richard H. Holloway

BATTLE RATTLE

“We have humbled the flag of the United States….

It has triumphed for seventy years; but today, on the thirteenth day of April, it has been humbled, and humbled before the glorious little state of South Carolina.”

–South Carolina Governor Francis Pickens, April 13, 1861, Charleston

QUIZ

Killed in Action Albert Sidney Johnston was not the only prominent commander killed in battle (see P.20). Match each general to his site of death.

1. John F. Reynolds 2. A.P. Hill 3. James B. McPherson 4. Nathaniel Lyon 5. William E. Jones 6. John Sedgwick 7. Robert S. Garnett 8. Jesse Reno 9. James Byron Gordon 10. Leonidas Polk A. Corrick’s Ford B. Piedmont C. Fox’s Gap D. Spotsylvania Courthouse E. Meadow Bridge F. Pine Mountain G. Gettysburg H. Atlanta I. Petersburg J. Wilson’s Creek Answers: A7, B5, C8, D6, E9, F4, G1, H3, I2, J4

NPS PHOTO

Cavalrymen in both armies generally carried a standard

MAY 2021

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GRAPESHOT!

Roger Pryor

Fun Facts From Our Features That Didn’t Quite Fit

Path of Horror The above photo of a Shepherdstown, W.Va., landmark was taken during the war from the Maryland side of the Potomac River. As told in “From the Crossroads” on P.18, it was the view two Union officers—Captain Francis P. Donaldson and Lieutenant Lemuel L. Crocker—beheld the morning of September 20, 1862, as they awaited orders to cross the river to determine what direction Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia had retreated after the Battle of Antietam.

The wooden slats that are visible in shallow water were part of a mill dam that was built in 1829 just after construction began on the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. The dam, which allowed water to be diverted to the mill, was also used to transport to Maryland cement that was made from quarried limestone and fired in the kilns at Boteler’s Mill (shown).

Although the dam was burned by Union forces in 1861 to prevent its use by the Confederates, surviving slats remained above water. Those slats—as well as Boteler’s Ford, located 400 yards below the dam—were probably used by retreating Confederate soldiers on the night of September 18 and may also have been used by Confederate artillery in crossing the Potomac.

(Boteler’s Ford was also known as Pack Horse Ford or Blackford’s Ford.)

When men of the 118th Pennsylvania Infantry, Lieutenant Crocker’s regiment, ran into Confederates on the Virginia side of the river on September 20, they desperately attempted to escape back across the dam slats. Many were killed in the process. The next day, Crocker used the dam on a heroic but unauthorized mission to recover some of his regiment’s dead and wounded left behind near Boteler’s Mill.

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Firewater Poisons Fire-Eater: Confederate Army Colonel Roger Pryor, a former South Carolina politician, was reportedly offered the opportunity to fire the first shot at Fort Sumter the morning of April 12, 1861 (see P.46). The Southern “fire-eater” declined, however, saying he “could not fire the first gun of the war.”

When Sumter commander Major Robert Anderson finally surrendered the fort after two days and nights of Confederate bombardment, Pryor served as one of General P.G.T. Beauregard’s surrender negotiators. While seated at a table in Sumter’s hospital as the terms were dictated, Pryor accidentally drank a bottle of Iodine of Potassium, mistaking it for whiskey.

The fort’s U.S. Army surgeon quickly pumped Pryor’s stomach, saving his life. Pryor was promoted to brigadier general on April 16, and his brigade later fought in the Peninsula Campaign and at Second Manassas. At the Battle of Antietam, he assumed command of Maj. Gen. Richard Anderson’s Division, in James Longstreet’s Corps, after Anderson was wounded.

He would resign his commission in 1863. After the war, he again dabbled in politics and notably opened a law firm with former Union Maj. Gen. Benjamin “Spoons” Butler.

Name Game: Not one but three Confederate regiments would be known as the 3rd Arkansas Infantry during the war. The best known of the

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MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY (2); WILSON’S CREEK BATTLEFIELD; COURTESY OF KEN LAWRENCE (2)

EXTRA ROUNDS

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2)

Ruins of the Boteler’s Mill dam

GRAPESHOT!

MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY (2); WILSON’S CREEK BATTLEFIELD; COURTESY OF KEN LAWRENCE (2)

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2)

trio fought in the Eastern Theater as part of John Bell Hood’s famed Texas Brigade, beginning in 1862, but also saw action in western Virginia in September-October 1861 (see P.12).

The other two units remained out west.

After Arkansas seceded in May 1861, its newly created Provisional Army of Arkansas was divided geographically.

The 1st Division comprised men from western Arkansas and the 2nd Division was mustered from eastern counties.

Thomas H. Bradley was the 2nd Division’s first commander, but, as a Unionist, was mistrusted by his officers, including future Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne.

Meanwhile, 1st Division commander Brig. Gen. Nicholas B. Pearce ignored the state nomenclatures and designated units according to their order of arrival at muster points. The 3rd Regiment of the 1st Division was supposed to be a cavalry unit, but the horse soldiers reached the rally point before the infantrymen and thus became the 1st Regiment, Arkansas State Troops. The late-arriving foot soldiers were then designated the 3rd Regiment. In July 1861, at Wilson’s Creek, Mo., the 3rd Arkansas countered a flank attack and helped break the Yankee line during the Confederate victory. [Right: The 3rd Arkansas heads off to battle at Wilson’s Creek.]

In May 1862, Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn stripped Arkansas of all organized CSA units, creating new units called Trans-Mississippi Rifle Regiments. Men of the 26th Arkansas, redesignated as the 3rd Trans-Mississippi, began calling themselves the 3rd Arkansas Infantry.

Family of Patriots: Revolutionary War hero Paul Revere had three grandsons who fought in the Civil War. The most famous was Brig. Gen. Joseph Warren Revere, who had assumed command of the Excelsior Brigade by May 1863 (see P.28). Paul Joseph Revere served as a colonel of the 20th Massachusetts Infantry, along with his brother, Edward Hutchinson Revere, an assistant surgeon. Paul and Edward were both captured at the Battle of Ball’s Bluff but were paroled and returned to service in early 1862. At Antietam, Paul was wounded, and Edward was shot and killed while tending to a wounded comrade. On the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg, Paul was mortally wounded by a shell fragment while in camp behind Cemetery Hill, dying two days later. He was posthumously brevetted brigadier general, U.S. Volunteers (backdated to July 2) for “gallant and meritorious service” during the battle.

‘Until Death Do Us Part’: While on a veteran’s furlough in March 1864, Major Delos R. Northwater of the 6th Ohio Cavalry married his sweetheart, Abbie Proctor. Upon returning to his regiment, he had a solemn premonition, however, telling a fellow officer that he would never see his wife again.

On May 28, 1864, the day he was promoted to major, he was killed in action at Haw’s Shop, Va.—the first of two cavalry engagements at the site over six days during Ulysses S. Grant’s Overland Campaign (for more, see P.38).

Paul Joseph and Edward Revere

Western 3rd Arkansas

Delos and Abbie MAY 2021

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HIDDEN THE BLOG HEROES ROLL

Country Boys THE ROUGH-HEWN 3RD ARKANSAS MADE ITS PRESENCE FELT IN THE EASTERN THEATER

By Dan Masters

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River. The 3rd Arkansas formed the left flank of the defending force and kept Reynolds’ column from establishing a lodgment on the Confederate side of the river.

The small engagement resulted in 100 total casualties.

October 1861 I have not written to you since the organization of our regiment because nothing of interest has occurred since we came to Virginia until within a few days.

We have undertaken since we came here two months ago to surprise the enemy in his stronghold on Cheat Mountain but without success. We marched over almost impassable mountains, waded ice-cold streams,

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OLD STATE HOUSE MUSEUM

Headquarters 3rd Regiment Arkansas Volunteers, Camp Bartow, Pocahontas Co., Virginia

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

THE 3RD ARKANSAS INFANTRY arrived in western Virginia truly ducks out of water. It was the only regiment from Arkansas in the entire Eastern Theater, and the men’s coarse appearance made their Virginia comrades view them as “ignorant country boys.” While the regiment would go on to greater fame as part of John Bell Hood’s Texas Brigade in the Army of Northern Virginia, it spent much of its first year of service in the foreboding mountains of western Virginia, taking part in fighting at Greenbrier and Camp Allegheny.

Sergeant Major Frederick Lawrence of the 3rd Arkansas penned the following letter describing the October 3, 1861, Battle of Greenbrier River. A Federal force under Brig. Gen. Joseph Reynolds marched from Cheat Mountain intending to break up the Confederate force stationed at Camp Bartow on the Greenbrier

THE BLOG ROLL stricken and the whole force retreated in disorder preslept in chilling rains on cipitately down the hill and across the river, taking the ground, in short, sufwith them, however, their dead and wounded, leaving fered every hardship only some in the shallow stream which we fished out next to find the enemy too day. They then made an attempt on the right but were strongly fortified to be repulsed by the Georgians and Shoemaker’s battery attacked with any hope of which pitched grape and canister into them in a most success. On the last expefeeling manner, killed them by scores. dition on September 12th All this time, the mountains reverberated with the we skirmished with a conroar of 12 pieces of artillery in constant action, while siderable body, killing four at intervals between claps of thunder in an autumnal and taking nine prisoners with a loss of one on our storm. The attack lasted four hours at the end of which side. The enemy have magnified our loss into 70 killed time the enemy cried out, ‘They are charging us, they and taken prisoner. are charging us, retreat, retreat!’ They broke ranks On the 3rd of October, however, the grand battle of and fled in confusion, leaving some of their dead on the season came off. About daylight our pickets comthe field. They hauled off 20 wagons and ambulances menced firing; at first only dropping shots were heard loaded with dead and wounded for their share of the to which we paid but little attention. But soon we spoils. They came down from the mountain fastnesses heard rapid and continuous discharges of musketry with a large train of wagons, anticipating an easy vicin the direction of the enemy indicating a hot contest tory and an abundance of spoils, between them and our pickets. A but instead of filling their wagons runner came in with a dispatch with the spoils of the Secesh as from the officer commanding they call us, they filled them with the pickets that the enemy was the bloody and mangled bodies of approaching in force with cavtheir miserable dunces of a cruel alry and artillery. Colonel Rust and insensate despot. ordered the long roll to be beaten The loss of the enemy was at and our regiment formed in order least 250 or 300 and ours about of battle. The right of our posi30. The loss of our regiment was tion was defended by the Georgia just nine killed, wounded, and regiment, the center by the Virmissing. I know this number to be ginians, and the left by the 3rd accurate because in the discharge Arkansas and Anderson’s battery. of my duties as sergeant major of The enemy came down in fine the regiment I make a full report style with eight pieces of artillery of the state of the regiment every and 6,000 infantry and cavalry.

Razorback Boys’ Banner morning. We acted solely upon When within range they unlimThe 3rd Arkansas’ battle flag, flown later in the war. By 1863, all Army of the defensive because many of our bered their guns and opened fire, Northern Virginia regimental flags regiments were so weak from the pouring shot and shell from their used this “third bunting” issue design. effects of our terrible campaign in rifled cannon upon us with the the mountains as to be scarcely most remarkable rapidity and able to stand in ranks. Out of a regiment 800 strong we precision. Our batteries opened in reply and under only marched in the field about 350 men. Our whole an arch of shrieking shells and whizzing cannon and force did not exceed 3,000 men, scores of whom arose Minié balls, the gallant 3rd Arkansas marched to take from sickbeds where they had lain for weeks to fight up its position on the left in the woods. the battles of their country. We had no cavalry at all As anticipated, the enemy attempted to turn our left and never could have caught them on foot. But thanks with his infantry, covering their advance with showers to the God of battles, we drove the insolent foe back to of grape and canister. They crossed the river in three his den, taking a magnificent U.S. flag and a large columns some distance below us and throwing out a vanguard, approached us cautiously through the woods quantity of clothing, knapsacks, haversacks, and guns which he abandoned in his inglorious retreat. not knowing exactly where we were. They soon found out, however, for when within 25 steps the left flank of our regiment gave them a morning salute of about 60 This post first appeared on the Dan Masters’ Civil War guns which caused the head of the column to fall back Chronicles on January 24, 2021. For more, visit in confusion upon the main body. This became panic http://dan-masters-civil-war.blogspot.com.

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Hold the Left A.T. McRae of the 1st Georgia Infantry drafted this detailed map of the Greenbrier River clash in western Virginia. The 3rd Arkansas is shown in the map’s upper lefthand corner.

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THE PRESIDENT’S FAITHFUL SECRETARIES LED A CRUSADE TO PRESERVE HIS PLACE IN HISTORY

By Ron Soodalter The “Tycoon” and His “Boys” Nicolay and Hay brought often-needed balance to Lincoln’s White House. Hay (top left) liked to guffaw, while the no-nonsense Nicolay growled, according to one colleague.

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Marketing Lincoln

ONE OF THE RARE THINGS upon which the country’s liberal and conservative factions can agree in these roiling times is the vision of Abraham Lincoln as America’s ideal president. Republicans claim him as their scion—although, granted, the Republican Party is a much different animal today than it was in the 1860s—while the Democrats claim kinship over his more liberal precepts and actions. It is highly unlikely that we would hold our 16th president in such general and unquestioned reverence were it not for the lifelong efforts of two young men who knew Lincoln intimately, and attended to him daily.

John Nicolay and John Hay served throughout Lincoln’s tragically curtailed presidency as his personal secretaries.

Both men were highly intelligent and remarkably capable, fiercely devoted to and protective of their boss. Living in the White House with the Lincoln family, they were, as Joshua Zeitz writes in his 2014 book Lincoln’s Boys: John Hay, John Nicolay and the War for Lincoln’s Image, “both literally and figuratively, closer to the President than anyone outside his immediate family…performing the roles and functions of a modern-day chief of staff, press secretary, political director, and presidential body man.”

In addition to handling the tremendous amount of clerical work their positions generated, Nicolay and Hay also acted as Lincoln’s personal doormen, screening all visitors to the White House. They called Lincoln “the Tycoon,” although never to his face; for his part, Lincoln looked upon the two as surrogate sons, referring to them as “the boys.” Although both shared Lincoln’s confidence and friendship, Nicolay was the closer to the president. When 11-year-old Willie Lincoln died in 1862, it was to Nicolay whom Lincoln first turned for solace.

Born in Bavaria in 1832, John George Nicolay came to Illinois with his family, still a child. While in his early twenties, he worked at, and soon became owner of, the Pittsfield (Ill.) Free Press. It was while working at the paper that he met Hay, who was attending a private academy in Pittsfield. Though Nicolay was six years older, the two immediately became fast friends.

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HIDDEN HEROES ment so rash has ever been made as that of elevating to Nicolay sold the paper in 1856 to take a position as clerk for the Illinois secretary of state in Springfield. the head of affairs a man with so little previous prepaLincoln often visited the office on political business, ration for the task as Mr. Lincoln.”

Horace Greeley, a newspaper editor and 1872 presand the two became acquainted. Impressed with the young man’s intelligence and ability, Lincoln hired idential candidate, agreed, stating that Lincoln failed to take advantage of several opportuNicolay as his personal secretary nities to end the war. Lincoln’s former when he ran for the presidency. law partner, William Herndon, was Nicolay then convinced the candifrequently off the mark in his chardate to take Hay aboard as assisacterization of his late friend. He was tant secretary. merciless in pillorying Mary Todd LinJohn Milton Hay grew up in coln; and when relating “facts” about Warsaw, Ill. After graduating from Lincoln’s life, he often erred, in one Brown University, he returned to instance falsely claiming that Lincoln’s Illinois, entering his uncle’s law mother was a “bastard.” practice. As it turned out, LinMany Northerners felt as Greeley coln’s office was next door—the did, blaming Lincoln for the four years two became acquainted even before of turmoil that killed some three-quarNicolay recommended the young ters of a million Americans. In the law clerk to the future president. defeated South, which had begun busHay and Nicolay could not have ily fabricating the seductive myth of had more disparate personalities. the “Lost Cause” soon after the Hay was clever and outgoing, and surrender, the late president’s enjoyed Washington society and image suffered immeasurably the companionship of others. He worse. Not surprisingly, to the was boyish in appearance and manbitter Southerners, Lincoln was ner, and a journalist at Lincoln’s Getthe devil incarnate, a tyrant cruel tysburg Address referred to him as beyond measure. “handsome as a peach.” Nicolay, on Family aside, Lincoln’s staunchthe other hand, was gaunt, dour, and est defenders were his former perabrupt, and—in the words of William sonal secretaries. Hay, in fact, Stoddard, who joined the White House considered the late president “the staff as an assistant secretary in greatest character since Christ,” 1861—“decidedly German in his manand he and Nicolay set out to ner of telling men what he thought of ensure that Lincoln’s legacy would them.” Still, Nicolay and Hay always shine for coming generations. found common ground. That was key They were fortunate to have had in their ability to bond in shaping, immediate access to Lincoln on a burnishing and preserving their fordaily basis, as well as to the documer chief’s memory after his April ments that crossed his desk. Indeed, 1865 assassination. there were several occasions on which In the years following the Civil Dynamic Duo War, recording their experiences with Nicolay (top) and Hay held other the boys penned the overworked Lincoln’s missives for him, submitting the late president for posterity proved government roles after the war.

Hay, notably, was secretary of them for his signature. a daunting task. While his death state under Presidents McKinley Better still, they had developed a inspired many Americans to canonize and Roosevelt from 1898–1905. strong relationship with Lincoln’s him, there were those who tended to eldest son. Robert Todd Lincoln found see Lincoln in a darker light. Some, would-be biographers’ negative characterizations of his especially those in government, viewed him as a poor leader. Massachusetts Governor John Andrew referred father irksome at best and slanderous at worst. At one point, he wrote in frustration to Lincoln’s executor, to him as “essentially lacking in the quality of leaderSupreme Court Justice David Davis, “Mr. William H. ship,” while Charles Francis Adams, diplomat, editor, Herndon is making an ass of himself.” Robert commisand son and grandson of presidents, eloquently comsioned Hay and Nicolay to write an accurate biography mented, “I must affirm without hesitation that in the history of our government, down to this hour, no experi- of his late father and made Lincoln’s personal papers MAY 2021

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WHICH GROUP DETONATED A BOMB IN THE U.S. CAPITOL BUILDING ON MARCH 1, 1971?

The Black Panthers, the Youth International Party, the Irish Republican Army, or the Weather Underground?

For more, visit WWW.HISTORYNET.COM/ MAGAZINES/QUIZ

HISTORYNET.com ANSWER: THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND. OFTEN CALLED THE WEATHERMEN, IN 1969 THE GROUP DECIDED TO “ENGAGE IN GUERILLA WARFARE AGAINST THE U.S. GOVERNMENT” AND STARTED A BOMBING CAMPAIGN. BY 1976 THE ORGANIZATION HAD ALL BUT DISSOLVED.

HIDDEN HEROES available to the two. No one else would have access to these papers until 1947. As it turned out, the confidence Robert placed in them was more than amply rewarded.

Both Nicolay and Hay were, in the words of one chronicler, “witty and prolific letter writers, observant and incisive diarists,” and their efforts culminated in a massive but highly readable 10-volume biography of their late boss. It took them decades. Simply titled Abraham Lincoln: A History, the biography first appeared

Hay considered the late president “the greatest character since Christ.” in serial form in the Century magazine in 1886, and was not published as a complete set until 1890.

By then, Americans were anxious to put the Civil War behind them. Revisionist histories were voguish at the time, promoting national reconciliation, rather than the representation of historical facts.

This trend caused Nicolay and Hay great consternation; they had no intention of sugar-coating the recent schism. Their biography pulled no punches in placing the causes of, and responsibility for, the war exactly where the authors saw it. They presented their martyred subject against the backdrop of a war that was fought primarily over slavery, and not, as the South would have it, states’ rights only.

It is a truism that there is no such thing as an objective history. The Lincoln whom Hay and Nicolay chronicled and offered to the public represented the man as they saw and knew him. “Theirs,” Zeitz wrote, “was a deliberate project of historic creation.” Abraham Lincoln is arguably the single most written-about personage in American history; yet the Lincoln whom we know—or, believe we know—today, and with whom future generations will become acquainted is a direct result of the efforts of “Lincoln’s boys.”

Ron Soodalter, who writes from Cold Spring, N.Y., is president of the Abraham Lincoln Institute.

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A UNION OFFICER’S HEROISM AT SHEPHERDSTOWN AWED BOTH FRIEND AND FOE

By D. Scott Hartwig He Backed Up His Bravado Officer Lemuel Crocker’s battlefield competency comes through in this wartime photograph.

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‘Daring Beyond Precedent’

AS THE SOLDIERS of the rookie 118th Pennsylvania Infantry waited on the Virginia bank of the Potomac River for orders the morning of September 20, 1862, Captain Francis P. Donaldson spotted Lieutenant Lemuel L. Crocker nearby. The two were from different companies, but Donaldson, a veteran with previous service in the 71st Pennsylvania, had taken a liking to the friendly, powerfully built Crocker, a New Yorker from the Empire State capital of Albany. In 1851, Crocker had moved to Philadelphia, where he worked as a merchant before accepting a commission as a lieutenant in the 118th—known as the “Corn Exchange Regiment.” On September 20, he had served for a mere 34 days.

The position they occupied that morning reminded Donaldson of Ball’s Bluff, Va., with its steep bluffs lining the river, site of a fierce battle in October 1861. Now, three days after the Battle of Antietam, the 118th was part of a reconnaissance in force by the 5th Corps across the Potomac in the direction of Shepherdstown, Va., and points south, to determine the direction the Confederate army had taken after its retreat from Sharpsburg.

Soon, the unit was ordered to join other regiments of its brigade up on the bluffs. By the time they reached the summit, however, the Federals were under attack by the Confederate division of Maj. Gen. A.P. Hill. To its horror, the 118th learned early in the engagement that many of its Enfield 1853 pattern rifles were defective. In some cases, the hammer spring of those weapons was not strong enough for the hammer to break the percussion cap; in others, the nipple, where the percussion cap was placed, would break off when struck by the hammer. Both defects rendered those weapons useless.

Company officers such as Donaldson and Crocker frantically searched along the lines of their companies for functioning weapons that other soldiers had dropped. When Donaldson and Crocker encountered one another, Crocker exclaimed, “God! Captain, was Ball’s Bluff like this?” to which Donaldson replied, “Crocker, we are beaten and you had better look to the rear for a safe retreat for the men.”

Bedlam soon engulfed the regiment, which finally “broke in wild confusion for the river.” Hill’s men swarmed along the bluffs and into an abandoned cement mill near the riverbank, and proceeded to pick off the panicked Pennsylvanians as they attempted to ford the river to safety back in Maryland. Two days later, in a letter to his parents, Crocker recalled, “We retreated amidst such a shower of lead I never want to take the risk again

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FROM THE CROSSROADS of coming out of.” He admitted, “I was cool and collected two captains and a lieutenant down to the river. By the during my travel by the river-side,” but that when he time he carried their bodies to the river, he was “absoreached the mill dam, which many were using to cross lutely covered with blood and dirt.” Word of what he was the river to safety, “I think my cheek blanched, for it doing had made its way to 5th Corps headquarters and Porter dispatched an aide to call for an immediate end seemed to me certain death to cross it.”

Donaldson, who had been nearby, wrote how much to Crocker’s mission of mercy. Spotting the lieutenant of the regiment, “beaten, dismayed, wild with fright, on the riverbank, the aide shouted across that if Crocker all order and discipline gone, were rushing headlong did not return to the Maryland bank at once, they would shell him out with a battery. Crocker was not easily towards the dam.”

What may have saved Crocker’s life and enabled him intimidated. He shouted back, “Shell and be damned,” to cross safely was the arrival of the 1st U.S. Sharpshoot- and went on with his work.

Upon returning to the bluffs, ers, who lined the drained bank he was confronted by a Confedof the nearby C&O Canal and erate general, possibly Fitz Lee, cleared the bluffs of Confederand his staff. They demanded ates. After the fighting subsided to know what he was doing some 20 men of the regiment, and on whose authority he had both wounded and those “whose crossed into Confederate lines. courage had given out,” remained Crocker explained himself and on the Virginia bank, too terrified added, “humanity and decency to attempt the passage over the demanded that they [the dead & river. Crocker and Captain John wounded] be properly cared for.”

B. Isler, commanding the SharpSince no one else was attempting shooters, boldly walked up and to do this, “he had determined to down the riverbank in an effort risk the consequences and disto induce those soldiers to cross charge the duty himself.” but realized they were too terrorFatal Furnace The general asked Crocker stricken to move. Crocker quickly Union troops hid from hostile gunfire in how long he had been in the stripped off his uniform jacket these Boteler’s Cement Mill kilns located along the Potomac River. Friendly Union service. “Twenty days” was the and, covered by the rifles of the artillery fire killed a a number of them. reply. He told Crocker to conSharpshooters and survivors of tinue his work and pointed out a his regiment, forded the Potoboat near the Virginia shore that could be used to transmac, getting each one of the men across safely.

Crocker was furious at the ineptitude that had led port the bodies across, even deploying cavalry pickets to the slaughter in his regiment. Whoever ordered the to protect Crocker from other Confederate troops who reconnaissance “ought to be court-martialed,” he wrote might not know his mission.

After crossing the river with the bodies of the officers his parents. Unknown to Crocker, the carnage had resulted largely because his colonel, Charles M. Prevost, and a wounded private from his company, Crocker was a brave but inexperienced officer, had refused to recog- hauled before General Porter. The commander reprinize an order to retreat because it had not come through manded the lieutenant, acquainting him with the military laws that established flags of truce and how he had proper channels.

Upset to see his regiment’s dead lying strewn along violated those laws.

But a reprimand was his only punishment. As the the line of retreat, Crocker the next morning asked his brigade commander, Colonel James Barnes, whether historian of the 118th observed, “there was something Barnes could request 5th Corps commander Maj. Gen. about the whole affair so honest, so earnest, and so true, Fitz John Porter to send a flag of truce across the river that there was a disposition to temporize with the stern so the wounded could be retrieved and the dead bur- demands of discipline.” Porter likely also recognized the ied. Barnes’ inquiry received “a flat, emphatic refusal.” same thing in Crocker that his friend Donaldson had; “The daring of this man Crocker is beyond all preceThere would be no flag of truce.

Crocker, however, couldn’t abide the decision, and “in dent.” The army needed every Crocker it had. positive disregard of instructions” he forded the Potomac alone, dressed in his full officer’s uniform and carrying Scott Hartwig writes from the crossroads of Gettysburg. his sword and pistol. Watching incredulously, Donaldson He thanks Jeffery Stocker, who shared Lemuel Crocker’s declared Crocker’s bravery “beyond my comprehension.” letter to his parents, originally published in the OctoCrocker climbed the bluffs and carried the bodies of ber 2, 1862, issue of the Buffalo (N.Y.) Advocate.

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Lasting VoId The Western Confederate Army never recovered from Albert Sidney Johnston’s April 1862 death at Shiloh

By Timothy B. Smith Veteran Presence Albert Sidney Johnston graduated eighth in the West Point Class of 1826. In addition to the Civil War, Johnston served in the 1832 Blackhawk War, the 1846-48 Mexican War, and the Utah Expedition of 1857-58.

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and his army must “conquer or perish.” The consequences of his death have been debated ever since, and, correctly, most of the debate has centered on its effects on the battle’s outcome. Had Johnston lived, many continue to argue today, Shiloh would have been a Confederate triumph. When he perished, the Confederate cause figuratively perished, too.

Leading that argument was Johnston’s son, William Preston Johnston, who maintained that his father would have continued strikes on Grant’s rattled army and would not have called off the attacks, as did his replacement, General P.G.T. Beauregard. William Johnston was adamant that, in doing so, Beauregard had thrown away his father’s victory and thus allowed Grant to grab the initiative overnight and win the battle on April 7.

Historian Charles P. Roland echoed that argument in his highly regarded biography, Albert Sidney Johnston: Soldier of Three Republics. The majestic United Daughters of the Confederacy monument at the Shiloh National Military Park, which was placed near the famed Hornet’s Nest in 1917, also leans heavily on Lost Cause dogma that Johnston’s death, along with the loss of daylight that first day of the battle, were at the crux of the Confederates’ catastrophic defeat.

More recently, historians have split on

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eneral, are you wounded,” Isham G. No Doubt Harris frantically asked as Albert Johnston meets with Sidney Johnston slumped in his sadwary commanders dle about midday April 6, 1862. At the evening of April dawn, Johnston’s Army of the Mis5, 1862. Though some sissippi had launched a surprise attack on the subordinates advised calling off the Shiloh Union Army of the Tennessee near Pittsburg attack, Johnston was Landing, Tenn., but seemingly little had gone resolute: “Gentlemen, right since. The Confederates took about six we shall attack at hours to completely break through the initial daylight tomorrow.” line of Union camps, defended by less than half of Ulysses S. Grant’s army, before slamming into the bulk of the Federal force—comprising veterans who put up a stiff fight across the battlefield. As Johnston’s army tried to turn the Union left, the storied commander realized the attack had stalled and rode east to give the effort his personal attention. He succeeded in getting the assault moving again, but his aggressiveness would cost him his life. Shot in his right leg, his popliteal artery severed by a Minié ball, Johnston bled to death within an hour.

In response to Harris’ inquiry, Johnston could only mumble, “Yes, and I fear seriously,” before beginning to lose consciousness. Harris, the governor of Tennessee who was serving as Johnston’s aide, and another staff officer led the general’s horse down the hill and out of the line of fire in an attempt to save him. The two laid Johnston at the foot of a tree and began searching for a wound in his torso before discovering the gash on Johnston’s leg. Soon Johnston was unable even to swallow the whiskey administered to him, as it merely gurgled in his throat. At 2:30 p.m., he was gone, the highest-ranking American military officer ever killed in action in U.S. history.

Johnston had considered the Battle of Shiloh the moment at which he

whether Johnston’s death made any real difference in the battle’s outcome, some emphasizing that a “lull” in the battle occurred at the time of the general’s death and others arguing that because Johnston’s army had simply wasted far too much time as darkness approached on April 6, there was little hope it would be able to regain the edge.

“when Sidney Johnston fell, it was the turningpoint of our fate.”

While it is debatable how much of a difference Johnston’s death made on the field of Shiloh itself, it was actually in the future command of the Western Confederacy that Johnston’s absence would ultimately prove most significant. Since the war, there has been extensive debate over how great a commander Johnston would have become had he not been mortally wounded—perhaps even another Robert E. Lee, who conveniently had the luxury of learning from his initial stumbles during the war before he assumed command of the Army of Northern Virginia in June 1862 and, as a result, established his place as one of this country’s greatest military leaders.

Such arguments are, of course, based in “what-if” thinking, but we do know for sure what happened in the Western Theater after Johnston was gone. Perhaps Confederate President Jefferson Davis, a Johnston admirer, said it best when he observed: “[W]hen Sidney Johnston fell, it was the turning-point of our fate; for we had no other hand to take up his work in the West.”

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—Jefferson Davis

Beauregard, Johnston’s second in command. After defeat at Shiloh, the Army of the Mississippi pulled back to its base at the critical railroad town of Corinth, Miss., to await the Federal command’s next move. Facing the likelihood that the Federals would follow its victory by moving on Corinth, it seemed prudent to keep Beauregard in charge of the army, at least until operations around Corinth had been decided one way or the other.

Would Beauregard, who famously led the Confederate victories at Fort Sumter and First Manassas in 1861, be a permanent solution, however? Given the 44-year-old Louisianan’s failing health at the time and the stark differences he had with both Davis and many in Davis’ administration, the answer seemed no.

In the war’s first year, there were five full generals in the Confederate Army, and in the spring of 1862, two could easily be taken out of consideration for command of the Western Army. Although Samuel Cooper was the ranking Confederate general, at nearly 64 years of age he was not a true consideration for field command, likely never to leave his desk assignment at the War Department in Richmond. Because the Confederacy’s second-ranking general had been Albert Sidney Johnston, that left Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, and Beauregard.

The fates of Lee and Joe Johnston were intertwined in the Eastern Theater. As events transpired around Corinth in April–May 1862, Johnston and Union Maj. Gen. George McClellan had locked horns on the Virginia Peninsula. When Johnston, commanding what became known as the Army of Northern Virginia, was seriously wounded by artillery shrapnel at Seven Pines (Fair Oaks) on May 31, Lee assumed

avis’ statement was bold but true— at least in part. Eastern Theater supporters might take umbrage that Johnston’s death sealed the Confederacy’s fate; arguments on the respective importance of the war’s two principal theaters have raged for decades and will undoubtedly continue to do so in the future. There should be no dispute, however, that Davis was correct in his assertion that there was no other general capable of taking Johnston’s place.

Who, though, could fill Johnston’s position in the West? First considered had to be the four remaining full generals in Confederate service at the time, one of whom was

Early War Luminaries Joseph E. Johnston (left) and P.G.T. Beauregard were among the five former U.S. Army officers named full generals in the Confederate Army the first year of the war. Johnston, a Virginia native, and Beauregard, a Louisianan, led the respective Southern armies during the stunning Confederate victory at First Manassas on July 21, 1861.

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rom June 1, 1862, Robert E. Lee would not relinquish command of the Confederacy’s foremost army, making it one of the country’s finest fighting forces ever.

Until the surrender at Appomattox in April 1865, Lee would leave Virginia only twice, on his two ill-fated invasions of the North in September 1862 and the summer of 1863.

With Albert Sidney Johnston dead, Joe Johnston incapacitated, Lee committed elsewhere, and Cooper relegated to desk duty, a reluctant Davis had to count on Beauregard to defend Corinth in the face of a Federal threat after the loss at Shiloh. Beauregard messaged Richmond that “if defeated here, we lose the Mississippi Valley and probably our cause.”

On May 30, however, the Louisianan evacuated Corinth without a fight.

That decision was unquestionably the right one. Although the Federals had moved cautiously against the Corinth defenses and “siege” operations didn’t begin until May 27, the odds were clearly on their side. Having lost hundreds of soldiers to illness, Beaure-

KEITH ROCCO

command the next day, and in the Seven Days Campaign from June 25 to July 1, he notably chased McClellan away from Richmond, saving the Confederate capital.

Earlier in the war, Lee had been underwhelming while holding commands in western Virginia and South Carolina, and during the Peninsula Campaign he was serving as Davis’ adviser. Even before Johnston’s wounding, it was unlikely Davis would assign Lee, a devoted Virginian, to command of the Western Army.

That became a moot point on June 1. Johnston would need a long time to recover from his dreadful Seven Pines wound and was, in fact, still not yet at full strength when Davis finally handed him a command in the Western Theater in December 1862. The wound would continue to bother Johnston during the ensuing Vicksburg Campaign.

It is telling that Davis did not make Johnston an army commander, and Johnston was not allowed an opportunity to be Albert Sidney Johnston’s replacement until much later in the war. Even then, because of his differences with Davis, he would command the Western army for only two brief periods—mere months—during the 1864 Atlanta Campaign and at the end of the war when his presence had no tangible impact on Confederate fortunes.

Corinth Crossroads The Tishomingo Hotel at the critical railroad junction of Corinth, Miss., was used as a hospital after the Battle of Shiloh. The fighting shown here occurred during the Second Battle of Corinth in October 1862.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; THE VALENTINE MUSEUM

KEITH ROCCO

Frenemies “Braxton Bragg,” writes historian Steven Woodworth, “was a fairly competent general, who, though a prewar enemy of Davis, came to possess a moderate degree of [his] confidence.” “Enemies” is perhaps a little strong in describing the pair, who had served together in the antebellum Army, but Davis was clearly no fan of Bragg.

gard’s army was significantly outnumbered.

Nevertheless, losing Corinth in that manner only magnified Davis’ suspicions about Beauregard’s abilities. It did not help Beauregard’s case either when he opted to leave the army without authorization in order to tend to his weak health. On the authority of his surgeon, Beauregard traveled to a springs resort in Alabama, and when Davis learned of the commander’s whereabouts, he exploded in anger, immediately removing him from command. Beauregard would not tactically command another major army the rest of the war.

To find a suitable replacement for the vacancy, Davis now had to resort to the next tier of generals. That created more chaos. The crux of the problem was the needed elevation of one of many equals to the command of former colleagues. In the West, that category included Leonidas Polk, Braxton Bragg, William J. Hardee, and John Breckinridge, all Army of the Mississippi corps commanders at Shiloh. Undoubtedly, these generals inwardly believed they would do better than the others.

Johnston and Beauregard had been full generals, and Polk, Bragg, Hardee, and Breckinridge accepted serving under both, choosing not to buck the army’s traditional chain of command and giving them the necessary respect.

The ranking corps commander, and hence the general of the army’s first numbered corps, was Polk. He outranked the next ranking corps commander at Shiloh, Bragg, by 2½ months. Making the situation even more tense, Bragg outranked the next corps commander in line, Hardee, by a mere 3½ weeks.

Breckinridge, the fourth commander, was still a brigadier general at Shiloh, and despite serving as secretary of war later in the war, he was never really considered as a replacement for Johnston. Because he was also a former U.S. vice president—James Buchanan’s second—he still had plenty of clout.

Davis could also have considered the top two generals in the Trans-Mississippi Theater, Sterling Price and Earl Van Dorn, but the prospects for both were basically the same. Price did not become a major general until March 1862, a month before Shiloh; Van Dorn outranked Hardee, but was behind both Polk and Bragg in seniority. Significantly, and complicating the situation even more, both Van Dorn

and Price had commanded armies in the Trans-Mississippi: Price at Wilson’s Creek, Mo., and Van Dorn at Pea Ridge, Ark. Only Polk among the original Shiloh corps commanders had been an army commander earlier in the war. But the Army of the Mississippi was a much different animal now than those smaller Trans-Mississippi armies, which took Van Dorn and Price out of the picture.

By right of rank, the position as Johnston’s replacement should have gone to Polk. But he didn’t get the call. Neither did Hardee, who had served reputably in the antebellum U.S. Army and was the author of its famed Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics manual. It quickly became evident that the anointed one was Bragg, who actually had been promoted to full general immediately after Shiloh, although he remained under Beauregard’s command.

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olk and Hardee were both promoted to lieutenant general in October 1862—as were Stonewall Jackson and James Longstreet back East—but, considering themselves Bragg’s equal, continued to balk at his promotion above them. That sharp reaction continued to fester throughout Bragg’s tenure as commander of what was now the Army of

The “Fighting Bishop” Leonidas Polk, also an Episcopal bishop, was killed at Pine Mountain, Ga., on June 14, 1864. Appraisal of Polk’s abilities as a general varies, but his men did love him and he was fortunate to have the ear of a friendly Davis.

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each lapsed into acidic relations with the commander and by all historical accounts disobeyed, undermined, and conspired against him.

Initially, despite his political clout, Breckinridge was the one perhaps least concerning to Bragg. Nevertheless, rancor between the two began to develop as early as the Kentucky Campaign and remained a concern until both left the —William J. Hardee army after the fall of Chattanooga in November 1863. In fact, while defending himself and his beloved Kentuckians to the hilt, Breckinridge usually tried to diffuse the situation when he could and apparently never worked against Bragg. That said, his preference for defensive tactics were counter to his commander’s battle philosphies.

Outwardly, Hardee seemed the most agreeable of the trio toward Bragg, preferring to work clandestinely and on occasion conspiring with Polk and others to remove him. Like Breckinridge, Hardee’s troubles with Bragg began during the Kentucky Campaign. At one point, he wrote Polk: “I have been thinking seriously of the condition of affairs with this army….What shall we do? What is best to be done to save this army and its honor? I think we ought to counsel together.” And Bragg was certainly convinced Hardee wanted his spot, writing to a friend of his potential “retirement”: “I must say there is no man here to command an army. The one who aspires to it is a good drill master, but no more, except that he is gallant.”

Polk’s hostility toward Bragg could be traced back to Shiloh and had evolved into open antagonism by the time of the Kentucky Campaign, continuing to balloon from there. Until he left the army at Bragg’s insistence, Polk continually sought to undermine and conspire against the commander. Significantly, much of the conspiring came in letters about Bragg written directly to President Davis, who was Polk’s friend. Writing to a friend after he left the Army of Tennessee, Polk declared: “[T]he poor man who is the author of this trouble is I am informed as much to be pitied or more than the object of his ill-feeling. I certainly feel a lofty contempt for his puny effort to inflict injury upon a man who has dry nursed him for the whole period of his connection with him and has kept him from ruining the cause of the country by the sacrifice of its armies.”

On one occasion, Bragg provided a fairly accurate assessment of Polk, complaining to Davis: “Genl. Polk by education and habit is unfitted for executing the plans of others. He will convince himself his own are better and follow them without reflecting on the consequences.”

Different Backgrounds Albert Sidney Johnston’s other Shiloh corps commanders were William J. Hardee (right) and former U.S. Vice President John Breckinridge. Hardee, author of an Army rifle tactics manual, resigned as colonel of the 1st U.S. Cavalry in January 1861.

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n examining these fights with his subordinates, it can’t be ignored that the majority of the issues usually came about because of Bragg’s disparaging personality and not so much because of instigation by these com-

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“What is best to be done to save this army and its honor.

I think we should counsel together.”

ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Tennessee over the next 18 or so months.

This period is often seen as one of the most critical eras of the Western Confederacy’s existence. Some argue that the war in the West was lost by Shiloh; others argue it came with the fall of Atlanta in the charged geopolitical year of 1864. Still, one would be hard pressed to find a more critical period in the West than Bragg’s tenure from June 1862 to December 1863, which would encompass the Kentucky (Perryville), Stones River, Tullahoma, Chickamauga, and Chattanooga campaigns.

With the fate of the entire Confederacy arguably on the line, the new commander needed all the support he could get from his subordinates. The next 18 months, however, were a disaster for both Bragg and the Confederacy, largely because of the back-biting of Bragg’s former equals-turned-subordinates.

Other anti-Bragg generals emerged—foremost James Longstreet, D.H. Hill, Simon Boliver Buckner, Frank Cheatham, and Nathan Bedford Forrest. Yet it would be difficult to find three more bitter Bragg enemies than Polk, Hardee, and Breckinridge.

Bragg would note that his efforts were “most distasteful to many of my senior generals, and they wince under the blows. Breckinridge, Polk & Hardee especially.” While none stooped to the dishonor of claiming publicly they would be a better choice than Bragg,

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ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND HISTORY; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Mournful Symbolism Erected by the UDC in 1917, this prominent Shiloh memorial features “Lost Cause” themes that both Johnston’s death and nightfall led to the Rebels’ irreversible loss. In the center are figures of the South, Death, and Night, with a somber South handing Death a victory wreath. manders (not that that didn’t occur regularly, as discussed above). Certainly, most of the bitterest quarrels, especially with Breckinridge, resulted from Bragg’s pushing rather than by his subordinates’ conspiring.

Bragg did not help himself either by continually seeking the approval of his subordinates, even going so far to ask whether the army still had confidence in Bragg’s leadership. All three answered with a resounding no. Each plainly let Bragg and others know that they felt Bragg was not capable of commanding the army.

Hardee, for example, wrote a blistering response: “I feel that frankness compels me to say that the general officers, whose judgment you have invoked, are unanimous in the opinion that a change in the command of this army is necessary. In this opinion I concur.”

Of course, such criticism filtered down to subordinate commanders, many of whom also quickly lined up against Bragg. Others cer-

tainly defended Bragg, but the polarization of the Army of Tennessee’s high command was a huge impediment to its efficiency, and the doleful record of the army throughout Bragg’s important tenure (in casualties, missed opportunities, and lost territory) was a firm byproduct.

There is no way to know if Albert Sidney Johnston, had he lived, would have performed better than Bragg facing similar campaign scenarios, or if any of the other full generals would have either. Yet the reality is that, for Davis, none was a good option. Davis truly believed, “we had no other hand to take up his work in the West.” Johnston’s loss thus left the Western Confederacy’s primary army in the hands of a general tasked with leading former command equals, and, as discussed above, the situation deteriorated quickly. And it only became worse after Bragg’s tenure, with Davis having to settle out of necessity for Joe Johnston (whom he considered an unacceptable option) and then John Bell Hood (a truly untried and unproven army commander, who quickly showed how untried and unproven he was).

By that time, events in the Confederate West had degenerated too far to make a difference in the Southern Army’s prospects for winning the war. The snowball effect of that started rolling that mild day in April 1862 when Albert Sidney Johnston, and perhaps the Confederacy itself, perished rather than conquered at Shiloh.

Timothy B. Smith, Ph.D., a veteran of the National Park Service, teaches history at the University of Tennessee at Martin. He is the author, editor, or co-editor of 20 books, including award-winners Champion Hill: Decisive Battle for Vicksburg (2004); Shiloh: Conquer or Perish (2014); and The Real Horse Soldiers: Benjamin Grierson’s Epic 1863 Civil War Raid Through Mississippi (2018). A resident of Adamsville, Tenn., he is writing a book on the 1863 Siege of Vicksburg.

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ShatTerEd ReputaTion Union Brig. Gen. Joseph Revere’s controversial command decision impaired his army’s prospects at ChaNcellorsville and ruined his respected military career

By Rick Barram

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n the fading light of May 2, 1863, the Orange Plank Road near Chancellorsville, Va., was a hopeless tangle of soldiers, wagons, horses, and artillery pieces. Two hours earlier, a little after 5 p.m., Confederate Lt. Gen. Stonewall Jackson had launched his Second Corps against the Army of the Potomac’s unwitting right flank. Now the woodplank thoroughfare west of Fredericksburg was packed with terrified and desperate men of the Federal 11th Corps fleeing to safety. Heading west against this flow of humanity was Maj. Gen. Hiram Berry’s 2nd Division in Maj. Gen. Dan Sickles’ 3rd Corps, a contingent of reserve units close enough to be called upon to stem the flood. ¶ Moving at the double-quick toward the oncoming Confederates were the 70th–74th, and 120th New York—the famed Excelsior Brigade, whose soldiers had discarded backpacks and other impedimenta before advancing, as the incitement of Army of the Potomac commander Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker rang in their ears: “Receive ’em on your bayonets, boys! Receive ’em on your bayonets!” ¶ Hooker, it should be pointed out, never specified whether he was asking his men to give the Rebels or the panicked Yankees the cold steel at that critical moment.

Nevertheless, the Excelsior regiments formed a line after less than a mile, deployed at right angles to the road—one on the left, all others to the right. As each regiment arrived, it was “dispersed in the thick woods and undergrowth of the Plank road in a short time, no two regiments joining together,” reported Excelsior Brigade commander Brig. Gen. Joseph W. Revere. Grandson of Revolutionary War hero Paul Revere, Revere found himself at the center of the storm that was Stonewall Jackson’s rout of the 11th Corps. In addition to the serious threat facing the Army of the Potomac, personal disharmony lay ahead for Revere.

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Renaissance Man Prior to the Civil War, Joseph Revere spent 22 years in the U.S. Navy, served during the Mexican War, and even spent two years as an colonel in the Mexican Army. Remarkably, he was knighted in the Order of Isabella the Catholic by Queen Isabella of Spain.

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By early evening, the new Federal line comprised Berry’s 2nd Division along with a few thousand resolute stragglers from the 11th Corps and a single 2nd Corps brigade, which had been in reserve. It was a shaky line but managed to hold on when hit by the leading Confederate elements. Several factors proved fortunate for the Federals: misaligned enemy units, the ransacking of deserted Yankee camps by some soldiers, and the coming nightfall all conspired to drain the Confederates’ offensive energies. At 7:15 p.m., Brig.

Gen. Robert Rodes, commanding a division in Stonewall Jackson’s Corps, ordered a halt to reorganize (although some Southern units stumbled forward until well after 8 p.m.)

Enemy threats lessened with the dark as Revere and his staff worked to restore order to his disjointed regiments. “The whole line was moved several times, and the movement of our own regiment confused by contradictory orders….,” reported Lt. Col. Cornelius D. Westbrook of the 120th New York. “Finally, late in the evening, the connection of lines was perfected.”

The Excelsiors now formed a rough semicircle, their left flank resting on the Plank

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“it was the eleventh army corps flying in every direction… like a lot of sheep”

evere, who had served in the U.S. Navy in his younger days, secured a colonelcy in the 7th New Jersey Infantry when civil war broke out. Having served competently, he was promoted to 2nd Brigade commander on December 24, 1862. Now he shouted commands, struggling to fashion a credible defense that could stop both fleeing bluecoats and charging Confederates—never suspecting that in less than 24 hours he would be relieved of command and face a court-martial.

New York men clambered and shoved through impossibly thick brush, forming small pockets rather than a cohesive line. “We then filed into the woods and formed into line of battle. We had hardly got into the woods and the line formed when we heard the rebs coming on us, we thought, but it was the eleventh army corps flying in every direction… like a lot of sheep,” wrote Private James Dean of the 72nd New York.

Men of the 11th Corps ran toward the lines, with Dean and others trying their best to stop them, using bayonets or sabers as needed.

“They thought to get through our line,” Dean wrote, “but we pricked them with the bayonets and then you would see them run up our lines till they got to the end of it.”

One 11th Corps soldier vowed to stay and fight, but ran at his first chance. “I hollowed for him to come back and I raised my gun on him when our lieutenant [Charles Hydorn] saw him…he made for him and laid his head open with his sword and took his ear off with the second cut.”

Chaos Ensues Darius Couch’s 2nd Corps formed a defensive line during Stonewall Jackson’s Flank Attack but failed to contain the 11th Corps’ frantic retreat. Some ended up-fleeing directly into Lafayette McLaws’ Rebels and were captured.

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Road. About 2 a.m on May 3, the three brigades of the 2nd Division were finally in place.

Revere’s 2nd Brigade comprised the front line, its left on the road, in contact with the 1st Division of 12th Corps. Brigadier General Joseph Carr’s 1st Brigade formed the second line, 150 paces behind Revere. The 3rd Brigade under Brig. Gen. Gershom Mott formed left of the road, behind the 12th Corps units.

It proved an uneasy few hours for the New Yorkers. Blue-clad skirmishers crept forward, anxiously peering into the darkness while remaining companies coaxed simple breastworks out of logs, branches and earth. Frequent alarms drove in the pickets several times. Captured Confederates confirmed to Revere that Brig. Gen. William Dorsey Pender’s North Carolina Brigade of A.P. Hill’s Division stood opposite his line. Confederates too probed the darkness for signs of the enemy.

Stonewall Jackson himself, while scouting the woods opposite the Excelsior Brigade, was mistakenly fired upon by nervous Southern soldiers and mortally wounded. He was carried from the field, leaving the next day’s fighting in the hands of cavalry savant Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart.

Sporadic musket fire had continued throughout the night and strengthened with dawn. “We lay in line of battle all night and as the Sabbath morn came in, the pickets in front of our line commenced firing,” wrote Private Hiram Stoddard of the Excelsior Brigade. By 6 a.m. the expected Confederate attack was underway. As Private Dean recalled: As the last stick was laid on the works, the pickets began firing and I was out cutting down brush when they came, when the bullets came too thick. For when I got over the works the fighting and the musketry was terrific and the cannon, the sound of shell schreching [sic] and bursting was truly magnificent and sublime although some poor fellows was sent to his long home by every shell.

Fighting developed across the front of Berry’s position, but the Federal line seemed to be holding. Earthworks built by the Excelsi-

ors were put to good use by New Yorkers who loaded under cover while exposing themselves only to shoot. While regiments kept up a heavy fire on the Rebels, some men in one 72nd New York company became unnerved and broke for the rear. Intent on maintaining order, Lieutenant Hydorn, the same officer who had stopped fleeing 11th Corps men the day before, chased after the cowards. Catching them and wielding his sword, he cut at least one shirker, thus persuading the rest to return to the line, but then a Rebel ball found the lieutenant.

Falling on his back, Hydorn threw away his pistol, unbuttoned his coat and pants desperately searching for the wound’s location. Pressing his hands upon his stomach, Hydorn died—“as brave an officer as was in the service,” in the words of Private Dean.

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evere’s brigade stood fast for better than 45 minutes until Pender’s Tarheels charged straight at the 3rd Maryland (Union), positioned on the 12th Corps’ extreme right. The 3rd Maryland had seen action before, but some raw recruits were wholly unprepared for the rush of screaming Confederates. Green soldiers broke first, setting off a “premature and precipitate withdrawal,” leaving a gap in the line into which Pender’s men poured.

Federal reinforcements could not plug the line as Confederates swarmed onto the 2nd Division’s left flank and rear. About this time, Berry, directing the fight from the road, had fallen mortally wounded, the victim of a sharpshooter’s bullet. Berry’s chief of staff, Captain John Poland, dispatched a messenger to General Carr “with notice that [2nd Division] command…devolved upon him.” It was Revere’s belief, however, that command rightfully fell to him. He later argued that he was the senior brigadier next in line behind Berry.

As the Confederates flooded through the breach, the Excelsiors found increasing numbers on their flank and rear. “The left of the line gave way, entirely exposing our left flank, which rested near the road, and rendering the position we held untenable,” reported Captain Francis E. Tyler, now commanding the 74th New York. “It was with great reluctance that I then gave the order to fall back.”

Pender’s men swarmed over the brigade’s humble earthworks and the fighting became hand-to-hand. Southern trophy hunters now grabbed

Can You See a Resemblance?

Paul Revere, Joseph Revere’s grandfather, stamped his name in history with his daring ride through the Massachusetts countryside warning of British troops’ approach prior to the Battle of Lexington in April 1775.

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for the Excelsior regiments’ colors, making the swirling fight even more personal. Color-Sergeant Thomas Auldridge of the 72nd New York, a New York City fireman, pulled the Stars and Stripes from its staff, tucked it into his coat and made for the rear, where eventually their beloved flag flew again. Several senior officers were killed in the melee— including the 72nd New York’s venerated colonel, William O. Stevens [see P.37]—leaving regiments in the hands of company level officers.

Outnumbered and outmaneuvered, Union brigades fell back. Revere, supposedly convinced he was divisional commander, claimed that he took matters into his own hands. The fight became a see-saw affair with charges and countercharges by both sides, with the Federals slowly giving ground east toward the Rappahannock River. About 8 a.m., during a lull in the fighting, Revere gathered the 73rd New York and nearly 600 stragglers from the rest of the division and consulted Maj. Gen. William French of the 2nd Corps’ 3rd Division for the best place to position them. French directed Revere to a line of abatis and breastworks, which Revere found stacked with troops. Placing additional men there would be “superfluous,” he reasoned.

Controversy quickly followed. Noticing a steady stream of men straggling to the rear, Revere decided to cut them off, which called for “striking a straight course by compass through the woods from that point toward the [U.S.] ford…” But in doing so, Revere had apparently abandoned any perceived responsibilities to the division he may have held.

Many of the officers and men were perplexed

by Revere’s order to pull back with an enemy force so close—not that there weren’t those

It was Revere’s belief that command rightfully fell to him

Tall Task Revere and other Excelsior Brigade officers were among reserve units called upon to stop desperately fleeing 11th Corps’ soldiers, as depicted in this postwar A.C. Redwood sketch. who welcomed an opportunity for a “rest and a meal.” Three miles to the rear, Revere sent out officers from his regiments to collect stragglers. By noon, he had the services of 1,715 men, drawn from nine regiments.

Because the battle was proceeding poorly for the Federals, Revere’s movements may not have been especially significant. Early in the fight, a Confederate cannonball had shattered a porch pillar beside Hooker, dazing and essentially incapacitating the Army of the Potomac commander. Hooker, however, refused to transfer command to a subordinate.

His corps commanders urged him to counterattack with the army’s unengaged divisions; “Fighting Joe” instead ordered a withdrawal.

In the face of strong pressure from the Confederates, the Federals fell back gradually before finally establishing stable defensive positions. At 2:30 p.m., with the heaviest fighting finished, Revere brought his now 2,000-strong brigade back to the front, but MAY 2021

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Second Brigade and portions of two others…thus subjecting these proud soldiers for the first time to the humiliation of being marched to the rear while their comrades were under fire.”

Sickles believed the Excelsior Brigade that he had personally raised and led early in the war, and whose reputation and his were conjoined, should not be subjected to a stain like this on its honor. Someone would have to pay, and that someone was Joseph W. Revere.

The fighting around Chancellorsville was winding down as May 4 came to a close, and over the next few days the Army of the Potomac limped back across the Rappahannock River. The Excelsior Brigade suffered more than 300 killed, wounded, and missing during the campaign— considerably less than Mott’s or Carr’s brigades, whose losses exceeded 500 each and whose brigades had not been withdrawn by Revere. Safely back in Falmouth, where the 3rd Corps had started the campaign in April, Sickles wasn’t finished with Revere. Not satisfied with simply relieving Revere of command, Sickles instituted court-martial proceedings, charging the brigadier for acting without orders and subjecting the Excelsiors to the “humiliation” of being marched to the rear.

Excelsiors Politicians-turned-generals Daniel Sickles (left), who created the New Yorkbased Excelsior Brigade in 1861, and Hiram Berry of Maine (below left). Berry replaced Sickles as division commander when Sickles took over the 3rd Corps.

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evere felt his actions were justified, and was supported by a few fellow officers. Nevertheless, Sickles was not swayed, concluding: “Brigadier-General Revere, who, heedless of their murmurs, shamefully led to the rear the whole of the

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when he reported to Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickles, his livid corps commander demanded answers. Revere countered that he had withdrawn his command, which had become scattered and disorganized, in order to rebuild its numbers; feed, rest, and rearm his men; and then return to the field a more potent fighting force. Sickles was unsatisfied with the explanation and promptly relieved the wayward brigadier, transferring command to Colonel J. Egbert Farnum of the 70th New York.

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ews of Revere’s impending May 13 court-martial spread through the Falmouth camps. Though soldiers seemed puzzled and unsure of what motivated their brigadier, some were sympathetic, considering Revere “a good and brave officer.” The New York newspapers had other ideas, though. A May 8 New York Herald story extolled Sickles as the only man in the Army of the Potomac capable of leading the army, and on the 10th, The New York Times, which had glowingly covered the Excelsiors’ exploits since their earliest days, ran an article excoriating Revere. The general was denounced as much for his failure on the field as for dishonoring the brigade’s name and reputation.

According to the Times: “Their battle-torn and tattered flags, remnants of what had once been as bright and beautiful as the colors of a rainbow, appeared to them steeped in disgrace…” Portraying Revere’s betrayal of Sickles with Shakespearean gravity, “Gen. Sickles had always been a friend of Revere’s. He had been placed in command of Sickles’ old brigade…but Sickles has no friends on the battle-field who fail to discharge their duties. In the flashing eyes of Sickles, when he relieved Revere, you could have read: ‘Cassio, I love you-But never more be officer of mine.’”

Major General Winfield Scott Hancock, president of the court-martial, summoned the trial to order at 10:30 a.m. on the appointed day.

There were only two charges: “Misbehavior before the enemy,” stemming from Revere marching his command and fragments of other units to the rear without orders, and “Neglect of duty, to the prejudice of good order and military discipline.” The second charge’s specifications dealt with the abandonment of military equipage that fell into enemy hands because of Revere’s actions on May 3. However the charges may have read, the underlying suggestion was crystal clear: Joseph Revere had acted the coward.

Testimony was given by Sickles and a host of lesser officers from throughout the brigade and division. Two days of questioning focused on Revere’s understanding of the 2nd Division’s chain of command,

condition of his brigade and division, the brigade’s engagement in the fight, efforts Revere made to gather straggling soldiers and return to fight, and finally, the disposition of lost equipment (hundreds of muskets, knapsacks, tents, and thousands of rounds of ammunition) and exactly when it came up missing.

The verdict by nine hearing officers was mixed. On the specification of the first charge, Revere was declared guilty that he, when engaged with the enemy, “did march his command an unnecessary distance to the rear to reform it…” Declared not guilty of the original first charge, he was, however, deemed guilty of a modified charge of “conduct to the prejudice and good order and military discipline.”

On the second charge and second specification regarding loss of equipment, the brigadier was declared not guilty.

Revere remained composed as the sentence of dismissal from United States service was read. The court reconvened the next day, the proceedings reread, approved, signed off by Hooker, and forwarded to President Lincoln.

Revere put his affairs in order and headed home, determined to recover his name. On May 20, Colonel Farnum composed a letter to Revere, signed by eight field and staff officers from the brigade, rebuffing the “careless and inconsiderate slanders that have been circulated” by the New York newspapers. The let-

PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN; SUNSHINE PICS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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Sickles believed the Excelsior Brigade he had raised and led early in the war should not be subjected to a stain like this on its honor ter fell short of questioning the court’s verdict but contained Farnum’s personal endorsement of Revere’s reputation as a soldier. “I beg to respectfully state, that so far as your personal courage and soldierly attributes are concerned, I have never heard officer or man question them.”

On August 10, 1863, Lincoln approved the court’s sentence. New England newspapers and then Harper’s Weekly ran articles regarding Revere and his removal, with the verdict and sentence the primary focus. Undeterred, Revere in September published a 50-page pamphlet titled, A Statement of the Case of Brigadier-General Joseph W. Revere, United

The Family Business BRIGADIER GENERAL JOSEPH REVERE’S famous grandfather, Paul Revere, started the Revere Copper Company in 1801, which produced copper sheets that were used to clad the hulls of American warships, among other uses. In the fall of 1861, the company, based in Boston, retooled to produce light 12-pounder guns for the Union Army. It delivered 443 of the bronze cannons, better known as “Napoleons”—more than any other firm contracted by the federal government.

The next time you are out battlefield tramping, take a close look at the Napoleons, as you are likely to see “Revere Copper Company” stamped on some muzzles, along with the tube’s weight, date of production, the initials of a federal inspector, and a production number, all of which can be seen on the example above at Manassas National Battlefield Park.

Napoleons were versatile, reliable weapons, able to accurately fire shot and shell, and also douse attacking infantry with shredding canister blasts. While General Revere’s reputation was tarnished at Chancellorsville, the oxidized, blue-green bronze tubes stamped Revere Copper Company help maintain the luster of the Revere family’s contribution to Union victory. —D.B.S.

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Rick Barram, a regular America’s Civil War contributor, is a history teacher based in Red Bluff, Calif. ACW thanks Phil Palen for permission to publish the Hanson Alexander Risley letter from his personal collection [see opposite page].

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States Volunteers, Tried by Court-Martial, and Dismissed from the Service of the United States, August 10, 1863. The publication contained Revere’s interpretation of events at Chancellorsville and pointed out perceived court-martial improprieties, all in an effort to recover public support and his reputation.

Revere considered appealing the verdict, but by August, Sickles had moved on, having to deal with the loss of his leg in combat and questions about his own leadership failures during the Battle of Gettysburg.

Appealing directly to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton also seemed fruitless, given that Stanton and Sickles were friends.

The War Department offered to reinstate Revere on the condition he then promptly resign—a compromise Revere accepted and went into effect in mid-September 1864. Revere petitioned Lincoln for a new trial in November 1864, but Lincoln never acted upon the request.

As time moved on, portrayals of Revere’s actions at Chancellorsville became less nuanced, with the retreat and court-martial usually the only details mentioned.

On April 20, 1880, while on a trip to New York, Joseph Revere took ill and died. Following his death, his children kept up efforts to restore

his name. Histories of the battle at Chancellorsville have been written and rewritten, with less and less ink devoted to the particulars of Revere’s actions.

Stephen W. Sears’ 1996 work Chancellorsville devotes only 1½ paragraphs to the incident.

Only William R. Chemerka’s 2013 biography of Revere gives the most complete explanation of the events on May 3, 1863. In Chemerka’s opinion, Revere was “quite capable of leading a regiment…and he was a satisfactory brigade commander, but the demands which faced him as a division commander at Chancellorsville were seemingly beyond his abilities.”

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Faithful Subordinate Left: The September 1864 order revoking Revere’s court-martial conviction and accepting his resignation from the U.S. Army.

Above: Colonel J. Egbert Farnum of the 70th New York was named Revere’s successor as brigade commander. Following the courtmartial, Farnum wrote a letter defending the general’s reputation, co-signed by eight fellow officers.

Cut Down

An antebellum attorney from Chautauqua County, N.Y., William O. Stevens was one of Revere’s most dependable subordinates, loved by his men. He had risen in rank to colonel of the 72nd New York by that fateful May when his regiment’s position along the Plank Road was attacked. Stevens was among the Excelsior Brigade’s killed during the fierce fighting. Two weeks later, fellow attorney Hanson Alexander Risley, a friend of the colonel’s, sent the letter below to the 72nd’s former chaplain, the Rev. Levi W. Norton. Risley wrote the heart-felt letter from New York City on Erie Railway telegraph paper.

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N.Y. & E.R.R. Office Sunday [c. May 17,] 186[3] To Rev Mr Norton Dear Sir, Mr. Marsh has sent you at this moment a telegraphic message advising you of dear Col Stevens last request that you should officiate at his Funeral. – His body now lies at the Governor Room at City Hall in this City. The family are here, his father, wife, her brother, his son George, & his two Sisters are hourly expected – all will go up to Dunkirk tomorrow evening.

I have just sent a message to Caldwell & Com. of arrangements that the family desire the funeral to take place on Wednesday P.M. 2 oc & that you should officiate at the Col’s request. You will doubtless hear from them by the time this reaches you. – Genl. Taylor will probably go up and attend the funeral. – I will furnish you such particulars as I am able of the Col’s death. I get them directly from the family. – He was shot in the left breast Sunday morning about 8 oc the ball passing down through the lung. – His horse had been previously shot under him & Killed. – His Regiment was on the left & hard pressed by the enemy. They were stationed there to hold a position – The enemy came upon them in large & overpowering force – Stevens drew his revolver, went to the front of the line, gave positive command, that they should not fall back, but hold the position to the last,– the enemy came on & were passing in front of his line with the evident desire of flanking & surrounding him – Stevens turned to his Regiment, in loud clear voice gave the command to change front, by 1st Company (I do not understand the movement quite) but before the word march, he was struck & fell. – Capt Bliss of Westfield & Capt Able of Dunkirk rushed up to him – He told them to send him a private & go to their Company & execute the movement immediately & they did. – The enemy were within 20 feet of them at this time, & the three Col. Stevens, Bliss who was wounded while attempting to rescue Stevens and the private immediately fell into the hands of the enemy. – Col Stevens was taken to a Hospital & a Rebel Col. hearing of his gallantry, sent for him & had him taken to a private home. He suffered a good deal Sunday. Monday was quite comfortable & cheerful & thought he would recover. – Tuesday grew worse, commenced sinking & died in the afternoon. He was well attended by the Surgeon, – had a chaplain with him nearly all the time, was buried with military honors. – His father, wife, son, & brother in law reached Washington

Monday morning last – the Father & Brother in law went down to the front, & with Dr. Irwin got within the enemy lines by courtesy, disinterred his body, talked with officers, Surgeon, & the Chaplain all the circumstances of his death, & I am told the chaplain is to write a letter expected here today, which I will try & get in your hands tomorrow as it gives all the particulars of his last hours & conversation. – I neglected to mention, that after he fell, he unhitched his sword & told Capt Able or the private to convey it to his family.

– His body is not in a condition to be seen. – I regret that I cannot furnish you more & will try & do so during the day. I send this in the Erie R. Way Mail Bag & Mr Marsh encloses a Pass for yourself & family. – Marsh has been very kind – came over from Staten Island this morning to see the family & do all in his power to comfort & aid them. – They are very calm & the Father full of patriotic spirit, – & seems comforted with knowing that William died in the cause of the Country. In relating to me the story, he said, “When could he have died so well?” I fear I shall not be able to go to Dunkirk, as my public duties call me to Winchester Virginia.

Very sincerely yours H A Risley

The Gallant Stevens Stevens, 72nd New York commander at Chancellorsville, was mortally wounded during a May 3 Confederate attack.

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cold harbor CODA The Second Battle of Haw’s Shop gave the Union Army a needed reprieve during the unabated slaughter of June 3, 1864

By Eric J. Wittenberg

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n early June 1864, Brig. Gen. James H. Wilson was a rising star in the Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry Corps—“a brilliant man intellectually, highly educated, and thoroughly companionable,” remembered former Assistant Secretary of War Charles Dana, who nevertheless was quick to concede that Wilson was also “often imperious and outspoken, to the extent that he fully alienated as many people as he attracted.” The brash 26-year-old West Pointer from Illinois had to learn rapidly that spring. When he assumed command of the 3rd Cavalry Division, he had no experience leading large bodies of men in the field. On May 5, his division was at the fore of the Union army’s advance into the Wilderness, opening the Overland Campaign, and—to put it bluntly—he bungled the job, as his troopers were thrashed by a single brigade of Army of Northern Virginia cavalry. Wilson’s setback left his army with no cavalry screen as it advanced into the Wilderness’ snarled, secondgrowth forest and the unprepared Federals ran into Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell’s Corps in Saunders Field—igniting the Battle of the

Wilderness, a three-day conflagration that produced nearly 30,000 total casualties on both sides. Fortunately for the Federals, Wilson’s performance improved noticeably as the Overland Campaign progressed.

When Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant decided in late May to shift the Army of the Potomac’s base of operations away from Ox Ford on the North Anna River, Wilson’s division acted largely as an independent command. Guarding the army’s left flank, isolated and far from the rest of the Cavalry Corps, Wilson’s troopers fought protracted dismounted slugfests with Confederate cavalry at Hanover Courthouse on May 31 and Ashland on June 1, then spent June 2 on the march after learning the army’s main body had moved to Cold Harbor.

Close Quarters The action in this 1865 painting, “Fight for the Standard,” is a fitting representation of the desperate cavalry fighting for much of the Overland Campaign, concluding with the Second Battle of Haw’s Shop.

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captured some of the Confederate earthworks, but the Southern artillery quickly turned those works into bloody traps. Because of the terrain, the men of the 18th Corps were funneled into two ravines, where they were mowed down by the Confederates.

Unable to advance, and in no position to retreat, the Union soldiers did the only thing they could—built earthworks of their own, sometimes using the bodies of dead soldiers as components of their hastily constructed breastworks. Grant finally called off additional attacks after riding the lines and seeing for himself that further assaults would also end with bloodshed. The battle’s management “would have shamed a cadet in his first year at West Point,” lamented a 6th Corps officer.

Grant concurred. “I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made,” he wrote in his memoirs. “No advantage whatever was gained to compensate for the heavy loss we sustained.”

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Wilson was to cross Totopotomoy Creek and make contact with the army’s right flank. He waited for reinforcements before proceeding—a hodgepodge regiment of remounted troopers commanded by Colonel Luigi Palma di Cesnola of the 4th New York Cavalry—but was unsuccessful. “It was nearly daylight June 3,” Wilson reported, “before my command, worn and jaded from its exhausting labors, bivouacked.”

“After so much hard fighting and marching the boys naturally expected a little rest,” complained a member of the 5th New York Cavalry. “Well, they got a little, and a very little rest it was. The time for an abundance of that luxury had not yet come.”

At 10 a.m., Wilson received orders to cross to the west side of the Totopotomoy, drive Maj. Gen. Wade Hampton’s cavalry away from Haw’s Shop, swing to the left again, and recross the creek near its source. Once he did so, he was to attack the left of the Confederate infantry line in conjunction with an assault by the infantrymen of Maj. Gen. Ambrose E. Burnside’s 9th Corps. It took his troopers about two hours to break camp, saddle up, and prepare to move out.

The attack by the 9th Corps was to be part of an all-out assault by the Federals that day. Grant had wanted to attack on June 2, but 18th Corps commander Maj. Gen. William F. “Baldy” Smith refused to obey Well-Tried Troopers the order. In addition, on June 1, After J.E.B. Stuart’s death in Army of the Potomac commander May 1864, Maj. Gen. Wade Maj. Gen. George G. Meade had Hampton III (above) proved an ordered the 2nd Corps, under able replacement leading the Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock, to Army of Northern Virginia’s march the 12 miles to Cold Harbor vaunted Cavalry Corps. Right: A overnight to be in position to sup1st North Carolina cavalryman. port another attack early on June 2. The 2nd Corps, which became lost during its grueling night march, did not arrive until about 6:30 a.m.

Deciding to give Hancock’s exhausted troops a chance to rest, Meade postponed the attack until 5 p.m.; however, concerned that Hancock’s men wouldn’t be ready to attack, Grant suggested that Meade should instead wait until the next morning.

The opportunity was lost. Robert E. Lee took advantage of the Union delay and his army constructed an extensive and intricate set of earthworks to strengthen his position on the heavily wooded and rolling battlefield.

At 4:30 a.m. June 3, the Federal 2nd, 6th, and 18th Corps stepped off through the inky darkness and thick fog. Their assault bogged down in swamps, ravines, and dense woods, causing the corps to lose contact with each other. The alignment of the Confederate earthworks permitted the Southerners to enfilade Meade’s attackers as they approached.

The Army of the Potomac lost several thousand men killed and wounded in the opening moments of the assault, and the severe bloodletting would last the entire morning. Elements of the 2nd Corps briefly AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

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roopers on both sides heard the frightful cataclysm raging at Cold Harbor.

Recounted Sergeant George Neese of Chew’s Battery, a Confederate horse artillery unit: “The way the musketry roared and raged the fire must have been terrific at times, especially during the desperate charges of the enemy, when the Union patriots rush[ed] up against General Lee’s line like maddened sea waves dashing against an adamantine wall, and were slaughtered by the hundreds, yes, thousands.”

“The successive advances and recoils could be numbered by a listener, from the awful roar of musketry and artillery, and then the comparative cessation for short intervals,” declared Edward L. Wells, a private in the 4th South Carolina Cavalry’s Charleston Light Dragoons. Then, the sudden silence that fell over the battlefield signaled the end of the “fruitless butchery of twenty [Federals] to every one Confederate.”

Wilson knew nothing other than that a large battle was raging near Cold Harbor and that he was to coordinate his attack with Burnside’s planned move against the Confederate left as his column advanced toward Haw’s Shop. The tiny settlement was the location of a machine shop used for manufacturing farming and milling machinery, and renowned for the quality of the equipment it produced.

After the Army of the Potomac occupied the area in 1862, John Haw III, the owner of the machine shop, sold his equipment to Tredegar Iron Works in Richmond. By 1864, the area had been largely abandoned and had fallen to ruins, leaving only Salem Presbyterian Church and a few houses standing.

That included the Haw homestead, a quaint two-story house known as Oak Grove. John Haw lived with his wife and their 24-year-old daughter at Oak Grove; his three sons were serving in the Confederate Army. Enon Methodist Church was located half a mile farther west. With stout wooden fences and dense woods lining both sides, the Atlee Station Road passed by Oak Grove. Five roads converged there, including two that led directly to Richmond via Atlee Station.

On May 28, the other two divisions of the Army of the Potomac’s Cavalry Corps had tangled with Hampton’s horsemen at Haw’s Shop—a harsh, grinding, day-long dismounted fight. At the end of the day, the Federals held the battlefield, but Hampton’s troopers had prevented the Union cavalry from locating the Army of Northern Virginia’s position.

Young Star James Wilson first gained notice serving under Ulysses Grant in the West. Later in the war, he scored a rare victory over Nathan Bedford Forrest and led a crushing cavalry raid through the South.

About noon on June 3, Wilson left Cesnola’s men to guard Burnside’s right flank and marched his command from its Old Church camp.

They crossed Totopotomoy Creek and headed northwest toward Haw’s Shop, where they intended to turn south and attack the rear of Maj. Gen. Henry Heth’s Division in Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill’s Corps. Wilson’s division arrived at Haw’s Shop about noon, and his men quickly occupied breastworks that had been erected during the battle six days earlier.

He did not expect an encounter, but deployed pickets on the Atlee Station Road and other roads nearby.

The 46-year-old Hampton, now commanding the Army of Northern Virginia’s Cavalry Corps after the May 12 death of Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, was still learning the art of corps command. He had, after all, no formal military training and was relying on pure talent and on-thejob training. Joined by elements of Maj. Gen. W.H.F. “Rooney” Lee’s cavalry division and Captain James Thomson’s battery of horse artillery, the skilled Chew’s Battery, Wilson’s troopers marched from their camp not far from Atlee Station on the Virginia Central Railroad early that morning. “We made a circuitous march of about eighteen miles in the direction of the Pamunkey,” recounted Sergeant Neese.

As he had done on May 28, Hampton rode east toward Haw’s Shop, unaware he was heading straight for Wilson’s division. Leading the Confederate column were the 2nd and 5th North Carolina Cavalry, part of a brigade temporarily under the command of 3rd North Carolina MAY 2021

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ringer noted, “was executed under the eye of General Hampton, and elicited his special commendation.”

Colonel John A. Baker following the death of the regular brigade commander, Brig. Gen. James B. Gordon, on May 12.

Upon reaching Haw’s Shop, the Tarheels ran into the 8th New York Cavalry, part of Colonel George H. Chapman’s 2nd Brigade. The North Carolina troopers dug in their spurs, drew their sabers, and charged the New Yorkers with “deafening yells”—catching the Empire Staters by surprise. The 2nd and 5th North Carolina led a quick rout, driving the 8th back toward the rest of the Federal brigade.

Rooney Lee ordered the Southern horsemen to dismount and attack. Roberts and his men dismounted, formed a line of battle, and advanced against the Union breastworks, drawing fire from the Federal horse artillery as they proceed.

Lieutenant Colonel Rufus Barringer of the 1st North Carolina Cavalry had a clear view of Roberts’ attack. He watched as the 2nd and 5th North Carolina “charged at once the enemy’s line which was driven rapidly through a thick wood, back into a line of works, which was charged, and carried in a most impetuous style, driving the enemy back upon another line of entrenchments, with heavy support.” Chapman disputed Barringer’s assessment. “[T]he enemy made a spirited attack,” he wrote, “but were repulsed with severe loss, leaving a number of their killed and wounded upon the ground.”

“This spirited and dashing affair,” Bar-

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PHOTO CREDIT

Common Enemies Below: Private Thomas Dennis, Company G of the 2nd New York Cavalry, a familiar foe of the Confederates in the Eastern Theater.

Above: The 2nd’s tattered guidon, now in the New York State Military Museum’s collection.

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s the opening phase of the fighting played out, the four guns of Chew’s Battery unlimbered near Haw’s Shop and opened upon Wilson’s horse artillery. “We had a warm and spirited artillery duel with them of a couple hours’ duration,” noted Sergeant Neese.

Once he could form a coherent line, Chapman ordered a counterattack. “Moving forward under a heavy fire my men drove the rebels from [the first line of works] and they fell back to another line of breastworks,” he recounted. Among the 8th New York troopers involved in the attack, Lt. Col. William H. Benjamin was painfully wounded in the leg; Lieutenant Harmon P. Burroughs suffered a chest wound; one private was killed, one captured, and several wounded.

Realizing he faced at least a brigade of cavalry and that he was outnumbered, Roberts pulled back and established a dismounted line of battle in a dense stand of woods southwest of Haw’s Shop. The Tarheels constructed three lines of hastily constructed breastworks and waited for the Federals to attack.

During the pause, Wilson penned a quick update to Army of the Potomac headquarters. “We have developed a considerable force at or near Haw’s Shop, with artillery in position,” he wrote. “I am pushing forward now, the enemy having been repulsed in three or four sharp dashes at our skirmish line.” Ominously, Wilson also reported that he had heard no activity at all along Burnside’s front.

About 1 p.m., supported by horse artillery, the 1st Vermont Cavalry and the 5th and 8th New York Cavalry all dismounted and crashed into the woods toward the Confederate works, prompting Major William Wells of the 1st Vermont to observe that his regiment had been dismounted every day since they had crossed the Rapidan at the outset of the Battle of the Wilderness. The Vermonters took position with one battalion on the right of the road and the other two on the left when they were ordered to go to the left toward the enemy’s flank. Wilson proudly watched as his troopers advanced steadily in open order, “their rapid-fire carbines pouring out volley after volley, capturing prisoners and clearing up the country as they went along.” A Vermonter described the action as “Indian style,” the men fighting from behind trees as they advanced. “We…drove them killing and capturing quite a number of them,” noted a fellow trooper.

During this advance, Lt. Col. Addison W. Preston, the hard-fighting commander of the 1st Vermont, ordered Wells to place his battalion in line on the left, telling the major, “[D]on’t allow your men to fire, for our men [from other regiments] are in your front.”

Drawing heavy fire, the Vermonters dropped and began firing from the ground. While reconnoitering in front of his regiment’s line of battle, Preston was mortally wounded, shot in the back, the bullet passing near his heart. Trooper H.P. Danforth of Company D tried to retrieve Preston’s body.

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Spotting a group of Confederates behind a clump of trees—possibly soldiers who had shot Preston— he stood up to fire at them, only to receive a bullet to his shoulder that whirled him around like a top.

“He was not so much hurt, but that he walked to the rear, and was sent to [a] hospital,” recalled Sergeant Horace K. Ide of the 1st Vermont. “From [the] hospital he went home on furlough and there died.”

As the Vermonters flanked Roberts’ left, Rooney Lee ordered the North Carolinians to withdraw, while the pursuing Yankees simultaneously pressed their right and front. “The cross fire of artillery and musketry just mowed down the rebels,” observed a Northerner. Roberts and his men pulled all the way back to Enon Church, abandoning Haw’s Shop to the Federals.

The 2nd and 5th North Carolina managed to halt the Union counterattack at Enon Church until relieved by the 3rd North Carolina Cavalry. The 3rd held on for about another hour, then withdrew in an orderly fashion, on Hampton’s orders, leaving only a few pickets in the road. Roberts’ command suffered about 20 casualties during the clash.

Weapons of Choice The muzzleloading, rifled 12-pounder Blakely was a favorite weapon of Confederate horse artillery units that supported their saber-wielding comrades. Invented in Britain by Theophilus Alexander Blakely, the gun came in various sizes and calibers.

The 3.5-inch model shown below was commonly used by horse artillery. Other weapons of choice for many Confederate troopers, shown below, were the Kerr revolver and the M-1840 sword, nicknamed the “Old Wristbreaker.” Though cumbersome to wield in action, the M-1840’s size (a 35-inch-long blade) and weight were critical attributes in combat, when one slash might be enough to kill or incapacitate an opponent. Adopted by the U.S. Army before the war, it was standard issue for many Union troopers as well. Like the Blakely, the 5-shot, single-action Kerr revolver was imported from Britain. Just over 12 inches in length, with a 5-inch barrel, it was dependable and easy to care for and fire—a valuable attribute for mounted cavalrymen. –C.K.H.

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t 2:40 p.m., Wilson reported to Meade: “The enemy seems to have withdrawn on the road to Enon Church, but certainly toward the fortifications originally occupied by their infantry. I am now covering with the main body of my force the road to Hanovertown and the Totopotomoy,” he wrote, “and have sent part of a regiment to cross the creek near its head…with instructions to ascertain the position of the enemy’s infantry if possible.”

“I do not think it would be judicious to relinquish this position for a movement with my whole force in the direction toward Bethesda,” Wilson concluded. “I will threaten it.”

Having driven the Confederate cavalry away, Wilson and his division crossed the Totopotomoy, placed a section of horse artillery there, dismounted, and expected to join Burnside’s attack on Heth’s infantry. Unknown to Wilson, however, Burnside had called off his attack when he learned that Grant had canceled an offensive along the entire Army of the Potomac front after the failure of his attacks at Cold Harbor that morning. Burnside’s decision not to move against the Confederate flank left the unaware Wilson and his troopers to contend with the stubborn Confederate infantry on their own.

Chapman, with about 400 troopers of the 2nd New York Cavalry and the 3rd Indiana Cavalry, along with Captain Dunbar Ransom’s 3rd U.S. Artillery, Battery C, forded Totopotomoy Creek and struck the 22nd Virginia Battalion of Brig. Gen. Birkett D. Fry’s Infantry in Heth’s Division, which was in position along the brow of a ridge.

The dismounted troopers attacked while sup-

Rifled Blakely cannons were tough and reliable.

The handsome Kerr revolver.

M-1840 sabers were deadly weapons in the hands of veterans.

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ported by their horse artillery. The Southerners claimed that they “drove them back with ease,” but the Union horsemen disputed that, arguing that they had pulled out on their own.

“The rebels after firing a few shots broke and fled, leaving 10 or 15 prisoners in our hands,” Wilson reported. “Failing to establish communication with the infantry on my left, I withdrew to the [north] side of the Totopotomoy.” To Wilson’s surprise, he could hear no sound of any action from Burnside’s front. The weary Union horse soldiers held the Confederate trenches for about an hour before Wilson decided to break off and withdraw.

By then, it was nearly dark, and Lee, fearing his flank was in danger of being turned, withdrew his left wing from its position fronting the 9th Corps, effectively ending the Battle of Cold Harbor. The 3rd Cavalry Division returned to the junction of the roads leading to Haw’s Shop and Hanover Court House and bivouacked there in order to watch the roads in all directions.

Wilson was justifiably pleased with the performance of his command in bringing about that result. “For its gallant conduct,” he declared proudly, “the division received the congratulations of General Meade. The operations were hazardous, and although entirely successful, cost us the lives of quite a number of brave officers and men.”

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he Second Battle of Haw’s Shop may be remembered as just a small incident during the tragic fighting on June 3, but it nevertheless had strategic implications. Even though Burnside called off his attack on the left flank of the Army of Northern Virginia, once Wilson’s dismounted troopers drove away Hampton’s determined cavalry, the pressure they exerted on Heth’s position on the Confederate left helped persuade Robert E. Lee to pull back that exposed flank. That, in turn, prompted Grant to develop a plan to shift his base of operations across the James River and to move on the critical railroad junction town of Petersburg, 25 miles south of Richmond.

Eric J. Wittenberg, a regular America’s Civil War contributor, is the author of Six Days of Awful Fighting: Cavalry Operations on the Road to Cold Harbor (Fox Run Publishing, 2021), from which this article is adapted.

His article on Wade Hampton and the First Battle of Haw’s Shop appeared in the May 2018 ACW.

‘There lies the best fighting colonel’ Cushman

Preston

While the engagement still raged, Federal troopers attempted to rescue mortally wounded Lt. Col. Addison Preston. “Several times I tried to advance my lines to get [Preston’s] body but was driven back,” wrote Major William Wells of the 1st Vermont, “but the third time I got his body off, he was just alive, not conscious.” Some men threw water on Preston’s face to try to revive him, but it was too late.

The men gently laid Preston’s body on a horse, holding him in place, and took him to the regimental surgeon, who confirmed he was gone. When the troopers attempted to get an ambulance to take Preston’s body to White House Landing, the surgeon in charge asserted bluntly that a live private was worth more than a dead colonel, noting that there were already more wounded than could be carried. Instead, the men made a rude coffin out of bureau drawers, gently laid Preston inside, placed it in a rickety old wagon, and proceeded to division headquarters, three miles away. En route, they passed Brig. Gen. George A. Custer, who, upon learning of Preston’s fate, looked at his corpse and remarked, “There lies the best fighting colonel in the Cavalry Corps.”

Preston’s commission as colonel came through that day, too late for him to enjoy the deserved honor.

Also killed in the fighting was Captain Oliver W. Cushman of the 1st Vermont. The intrepid, popular Cushman had survived a desperate wound to the face (still visible in the photo above) riding alongside Brig. Gen. Elon J. Farnsworth during Farnsworth’s ill-fated cavalry charge at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863. Though left for dead on the field, Cushman would recover and later return to duty.

“Ordinarily quiet, modest, unassuming—in battle the lion aroused within him, and he was the bravest of the brave,” declared one of Cushman’s friends. “[W]e lost one of our choicest and best.”

Cushman’s body was placed into a hastily constructed coffin, similar to the one made for Preston, and both officers’ remains were transported to White House Landing to be sent home. Major Wells assumed command of the regiment. –E.J.W. MAY 2021

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Great Expectations Patterned after a model built in France and used during the Crimean War, the Confederates’ Floating Battery was a daunting and, in theory, potentially ruthless vessel. It even had a compact hospital— complete with operating tables and beds—attached to the rear, which proved an unnecessary “luxury” considering how the contraption was ultimately used.

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Floating fire A monstrous confederate contrivance joined the April 1861 barrage of Fort Sumter

By Mark Carlson

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April 12, 1861, on James Island in Charleston Harbor, Confederate Lieutenant Henry Farley pulled the lanyard of a siege mortar. A solid thump rocked the ground as a huge 10-inch shell roared from the muzzle with a yellow-white flash. The heavy ball soared in an arc toward a dark shape looming a mile out in the calm waters of the harbor, a five-sided U.S. Army stronghold known as Fort Sumter. It burst with a searing red flash over the fort’s ramparts, scattering fragments mostly into the water but also onto Sumter’s parade grounds.

The Civil War had begun.

Over the next day and a half, a glut of shell and shot struck the facility’s stout brick walls and rained upon its bastions and dirt interior. The Confederates would use 47 cannons, howitzers, and mortars during the relentless 34-hour siege, most located within a series of forts and batteries that ringed the harbor. But Sumter’s 85-man Federal garrison also had to keep an eye on a large, peculiar-looking contraption in the water itself—a device that begged for a more spectacular name but instead was known by the Rebels rather informally as the “Floating Battery.”

Equipped with four guns, the battery had been built with grandiose expectations two months earlier. It would, however, become a quickly forgotten player in the drama that began the Civil War.

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fter seceding from the Union on December 20, 1860—the first of 11 states to do so eventually in the wake of Abraham Lincoln’s election—South Carolina had declared itself a republic. Anticipating a U.S. military response to the secession, state officials moved swiftly to establish an armed force that could defend the state’s interests. When South Carolina joined with six other states to form the

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At 4:30 a.m.

Confederate States of America on February 8, 1861, its state forces became part of the Confederate Army.

Construction of the Floating Battery began during the six-week period that followed South Carolina’s secession—completed on a broad slipway in Marsh’s Shipyard near the Cooper River, in full view of Fort Sumter and its commander, Major Robert Anderson. Designed as a barge with a broad flat deck, the craft was 100 feet long and 25 feet wide. Along one long face, a heavy façade of solid straight pine timbers formed a wall with a sloped glacis and angled roof. It looked to Anderson, who watched through his field glasses with interest and mounting trepidation, like “half of a covered bridge.” He also noted that black slaves endeavored alongside white workers in assembling the contraption.

What Anderson was watching was the creation of America’s first floating ironclad artillery battery—modeled after a vessel first produced in France in 1855 and used during the Crimean War. Under the supervision of Captain James (some sources say John) Randolph Hamilton, who had resigned from the Union Navy to join South Carolina’s state forces, the craft was crafted to carry four heavy cannons onto the harbor’s waters, which could be used to inflict damage to Sumter’s walls or serve as a threat to enemy ships. Hamilton was in command of the ambitiously named Navy of South Carolina.

The battery, which the Yankees generally referred to as “The Raft,” had multilayered sides of palmetto logs and pine timbers one foot square, each bolted to the others to form a virtually impenetrable barricade of solid wood.

Anderson fully realized the four square openings he saw were gunports, and as the days passed, he watched an outer shell of six layers of heavy iron boilerplate being bolted onto the wood, then reinforced with railroad iron. The

NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND

In the Bullseye Fort Sumter was built on an artificial island of stone at the heart of Charleston Harbor to defend against seaward attacks. This wartime map illustrates how vulnerable it was to fire from land batteries. A Fort Johnson cannon fired the war’s opening shot.

NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND; NATIONAL ARCHIVES

NAVAL HISTORY AND HERITAGE COMMAND

Side by Side The substantial reliance on slave labor in the construction of the Floating Battery, commented on by Fort Sumter’s Major Robert Anderson (right), is seen in this Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper drawing. The group effort at Marsh’s Shipyard proved productive. Construction was completed in a few weeks. iron encased the entire face, sides, and sloping roof of the casemate.

Under the four gunports, the façade angled backward, giving the illusion of a ship’s hull. This would make a solid hit from a cannonball unlikely. To the rear, the deck timbers contained magazines for the powder. Above these were hundreds of sandbags, which did double duty to shield the highly explosive powder magazines and counterbalance the heavy casemate and cannon. Solid shot was stored in holds directly behind the guns.

Originally Hamilton had hoped to mount boilers and a steam engine that would drive paddlewheels but relented when that proved impractical. The vessel would be towed by steam launches.

Anderson and his officers viewed the creation with mixed feelings.

The consensus was that while the iron could protect it from Fort Sumter’s fire, it would almost certainly capsize or break apart during a battle. Captain John Foster, Anderson’s engineering officer, said with confidence: “I do not think this floating battery will prove very formidable as it can be destroyed by our fire before it can do much damage.”

Anderson, whose experience with artillery was top-drawer, was not as optimistic. He knew what a big gun such as a Dahlgren could do to a fort’s walls, especially when placed—as this new threat undoubtedly

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—Union Captain John Foster

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“I do not think this floating battery will prove very formidable as it can be destroyed by our fire before it can do much damage.”

would be—in close proximity to Sumter. His greatest fear was that it would be aimed at the fort’s vulnerable rear wall containing the wooden gate and sally port.

Unsure of what to do if the battery were moved close enough to be a serious threat, Anderson wrote the War Department in Washington for orders: “What course would it be proper to take, if without a declaration of war, I should see them approaching my fort with that battery? They may attempt placing it within good distance without a declaration of hostile intentions.”

Lame duck President James Buchanan prevaricated, however, issuing orders that were both confusing and contradictory. At a February Cabinet meeting, he blared, “Crack away at them!” He quickly changed his mind, however, in favor of passing the buck, clearly wanting to avoid any impulsive actions and therefore dumping the sizzling powder keg into the incoming president’s lap.

“If you are convinced by sufficient evidence that the raft of which you speak is advancing for the purpose of making an assault upon the fort, then you would be justified on the principle of self defense in not awaiting its actual arrival there, but in repelling force by force on its approach,” Buchanan, according to historian Richard Snow’s 2016 book Iron Dawn, equivocated. “If on the other hand you have reason to believe that it is approaching merely to take up a position at a good distance, should the pending question not be amicably settled, then, unless your safety is so clearly endangered as to render resistance an act of necessary self-defense and protection, you will act with the forbearance that has distinguished you heretofore.”

Buchanan’s response left Anderson with less confidence than before.

In the end, the major determined to wait to see what would happen.

HERITAGE IMAGE PARTNERSHIP/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Ready for Action The Floating Battery was moored near Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island, as shown in this photo taken the evening before the Confederates opened fire on Sumter.

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The men in Company D of the South Carolina Artillery Battalion, known as the Richardson Guards, were convinced that it was a death trap and would be sunk or shattered in battle. They derisively called it the “slaughter pen.”

Opined a reporter for The New York Times: “[I]f the tide should turn around, and present her unprotected side to Major Anderson’s death dealers at only six hundred yards, Captain Hamilton’s boys will find a bloody grave.”

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s Lincoln assumed the presidency on March 4, 1861, he realized that Anderson’s Fort Sumter garrison had only enough food to last until about April 15. Meanwhile, General P.G.T. Beauregard, commander of the Southern forces in Charleston, cabled the new Confederate government in Montgomery, Ala., for instructions.

He was told in no uncertain terms to “issue an order” for the Union forces to evacuate and surrender the fort. But by the evening of April 11, Anderson and his garrison continued to hold out.

That was the final straw. All night, Beauregard’s batteries and troops prepared for the moment of truth. An ultimatum had been delivered to Anderson that he surrender and evacuate the fort. Anderson flatly refused. By 3 a.m. April 12, the die had been cast.

Powder and shells, cartridges and balls, primers and lanyards were readied. Then the fateful order came from Beauregard to open fire at 4:30 a.m. The 21-year-old Farley, noted for being the first cadet to Inside the Behemoth The caption that accompanied this Frank Leslie’s illustration exaggerated the Floating Battery’s role in “silencing [Sumter’s] guns,” while also offering up a far-fetched claim that 15-18 shells had struck the vessel’s iron-plated sides “with no impression.”

ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

HERITAGE IMAGE PARTNERSHIP/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

n a day in late February, shortly after 8 a.m., more than 5,000 Charlestonians were on hand to witness the Floating Battery’s launch. The vessel slid down the shallow ways into the water with a surge of waves until it was brought up short by heavy ropes. To the amazement of some and the relief of others, the huge craft did indeed float. It was then towed by steam launches to a cove at Sullivan’s Island near Fort Moultrie and anchored a mile from Sumter’s northeast wall.

The battery’s armament, which was mounted after the launch, consisted of two 32-pounder and two 42-pounder naval smoothbores—primarily anti-ship weapons. Unlike rifled guns, they weren’t reliable enough for siege operations against a stone-and-brick fort, lacking the needed penetration power.

Anderson was relieved to learn that the Confederates had not mounted at least one Dahlgren, as he had feared.

Another incongruity was the decision to attach a floating hospital to the battery’s stern, fitted with several beds and two operating tables—to be towed along in case of need in battle.

Although the vessel was an immediate sensation in the city, attracting crowds of interested residents and tourists, those assigned to sail and fight it were less than sanguine.

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Downsized This photo of remains from the Floating Battery was taken in Charleston Harbor after the vessel was devastated during a storm in 1863. Fort Sumter was in Union hands by then.

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resign from the U.S. Military Academy after his native South Carolina seceded, was given the honor of firing the first shot. That would be the signal for the other guns around the harbor to begin firing on Sumter.

Wanting to conserve his ammunition, Beauregard had ordered that the batteries fire in a predetermined sequence, going counterclockwise around the harbor, firing only every two minutes. But soon the gunners were firing at will, keeping up a steady cannonade.

Anderson kept his garrison in protected casemates until full daylight. Most accounts of the Federals’ response to the barrage report that the commander that morning ordered his guns to open fire on the enemy batteries that presented the greatest threat, but chose not to use the cannons on the upper parapet since they were exposed to enemy fire.

In reality, the Federals fired only six shots throughout the siege, according to Civil War historian Craig Swain. What finally forced Anderson to agree to surrender the citadel after 34 hours was the Confederate use of “hot shot,” which caused fires in the fort—fires that threatened Anderson’s plentiful gunpowder supplies. Despite the extent of Confederate artillery fire, photographs taken of the fort after the engagement show little damage to the side facing Sullivan’s Island and the Floating Battery. The only significant damage was to the other side of the fort—the gorge wall— by the batteries at Cummings Point on Morris Island—and even that was not substantial.

By the time Anderson surrendered and lowered the scorched, torn U.S. flag, Beauregard’s gunners had loosed more than 3,000 shells and shot at the fort. Hamilton and the Floating Battery remained engaged throughout.

No official tally, however, was ever given The Show for the number of shots it fired, with Locals gather in the counts ranging from as low as 100 to as Charleston Battery to many as 490. watch Union siege operaThe Charleston Mercury labeled the tions against Sumter on siege a “splendid pyrotechnics exhibition, February 7, 1863. That [and] many of the guns on the parapet had day, the Floating Battery been dismounted and part of the parapet reportedly fired in vain at enemy ironclads. swept away.” It also stated proudly that the creators of the Floating Battery “have fully vindicated the correctness of their conception. Shot after shot fell upon them and glanced harmlessly away. [From] their favorable position their shots fell with effect upon Fort Sumter.”

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hether the Floating Battery ever fired another shot in anger after the siege of Fort Sumter is unsubstantiated. There is evidence it was placed just off Fort Johnson on James Island.

Fort Johnson, the site where Farley fired the first shot in April 1861, was considered “Middle Ground” in the harbor, and it is likely, though unverified, that the Floating Battery fired on Federal ironclads on April 7, 1863. Those intended targets were well out of range, however.

The Confederates were compelled to abandon Fort Sumter in the summer of 1863, the same year the Floating Battery was reportedly damaged in a storm and its guns and the iron sheathing were removed.

The structure soon came apart, and by 1865 only part of its casemate remained above the ever-shifting sandy waters off Sullivan’s Island.

Anderson was eerily prescient commenting on the battery to the U.S. War Department after returning to Washington: “If someone conceived the idea, and it wouldn’t take much imagination on the part of these new enemies, of mounting a steam engine inside the battery, the results could be dire for the wooden warships that make up the entirety of the U.S. Navy.”

An avid student of Civil War, naval, and military history, Mark Carlson also spent eight years as a reenactor. He is a member of the Military Writers Society of America, has contributed material to more than 20 national magazines, and is the author of The Marines’ Lost Squadron—The Odyssey of VMF-422. He lives in San Marcos, Calif.

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Booth’s Getaway Route

Assassin’s Escape

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On April 26, surrounded by Union soldiers in a barn near Bowling Green, Va., Herold surrendered. Booth, however, refused, saying, “I prefer to come out and fight.” The Federals set the barn ablaze to force the issue and Sergeant Boston Corbett shot Booth in the neck. Booth would die three hours later. The manhunt was over.

Today, much of the countryside on Booth’s escape route is unchanged, and several of his more famous stopovers, including the Surratt Tavern and the farm of Dr. Samuel Mudd, are preserved as historic sites and museums. The 90-mile route can be explored in a single day. Civil War Trails Inc. offers a tour map of the route and its signs inform the narrative along the way. In tracing the path from Booth’s fateful first act at Ford’s Theatre to his epilogue at that tobacco barn in Virginia, travelers will delight in the oftenbucolic landscape and the scintillating history it hosts. —Melissa A. Winn

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

“Sic semper tyrannis.” The words roared over the heads of the hushed crowd at Ford’s Theatre. It was April 14, 1865, and Abraham Lincoln had just been shot. Envisioning himself a hero and a martyr for the Booth Southern cause, actor John Wilkes Booth bellowed those words—Latin for “Thus always to tyrants”—after leaping onto the stage from the theater’s presidential box, where he had fatally wounded the beloved president with a .44-caliber Derringer pistol. Booth escaped through a stage door, mounted a horse waiting for him in the back alley, and bolted away.

Accompanied by David Herold, a fellow conspirator, Booth would be aided by a host of knowing or unwitting accomplices as he fled Washington, D.C. The two men spent the next 12 days trekking through southern Maryland, across the Potomac River, and finally into the countryside of northern Virginia, all the while being hunted by Federal troops.

SEAN PAVONE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

FOLLOW IN THE TRACKS OF JOHN WILKES BOOTH’S DESPERATE FLEE FOR FREEDOM FOR A CAPTIVATING ADVENTURE

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Ford’s Theatre 511 10th St NW, Washington, D.C. On the morning of April 14, Booth learned that Abraham Lincoln and his wife, Mary Todd, would attend a performance of “Our American Cousin” that night at Ford’s Theatre—a theater at which Booth had frequently performed. About 10:15 p.m., when the production reached a particularly amusing scene often met with audience laughter, Booth entered the presidential box and shot Lincoln in the back of the head, mortally wounding him. When Major Henry Rathbone, a guest of the Lincolns, lunged at Booth, he stabbed Rathbone, then jumped to the stage from the presidential box. His flight to freedom had just begun. Ford’s Theatre has been restored to its historic appearance and still holds productions, tours, and houses a museum on the bottom floor. www.fords.org

Mudd House Museum 3725 Dr. Samuel Mudd Rd., Waldorf, Md. At 4 a.m. on April 15, as Lincoln lay dying at the Petersen House across the street from Ford’s Theatre, Booth and Herold arrived at the home of Dr. Samuel Mudd. Booth asked Mudd to set his leg, which he broke during his escape from Washington. As Booth and Herold rested in an upstairs room, Mudd traveled into nearby Bryantown to run errands. When he returned, the two had fled. Today, the house serves as a museum. Behind it, you can walk the footpath through the 200-acre farmstead that Booth and Herold took into the Zekiah Swamp as they headed toward the Potomac River. www.drmudd.org

St. Mary’s Church 13715 Notre Dame Pl., Bryantown, Md.

Surratt House Museum

PHOTOS BY MELISSA A. WINN (3)

SEAN PAVONE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

9118 Brandywine Rd., Clinton, Md. At midnight on April 14, Booth and Herold arrived at the Surratt Tavern, owned and operated by Confederate sympathizers Mary Surratt and her son, John Surratt Jr., a friend of John Wilkes Booth. Herold and Booth retrieved weapons and supplies stashed here and quickly set off on their way. Mary Surratt’s tenant gave damning testimony that sent her to the gallows on July 7, 1865, as one of Booth’s co-conspirators in the assassination plot. She was the first woman executed by the federal government. Her son was tried but ultimately acquitted. The tavern has been preserved as a museum and historic site. www.surrattmuseum.org

The plot to assassinate President Lincoln began in the same places where the manhunt for Booth would take place. Here at St. Mary’s Church, Dr. Mudd first met Booth in 1864. Booth had come to Bryantown to recruit men to help him kidnap the president. Booth and Mudd met several more times before the doctor set his broken leg at Mudd’s home on April 15, 1865.

The Mudds are buried in the church cemetery.

Rich Hill

9140 Bel Alton Newtown Rd., Bel Alton, Md.

After leaving Dr. Mudd’s house, Booth and Herold received help from a local guide, who helped them travel east around Bryantown to Rich Hill, the home of Samuel Cox, where they arrived around midnight on April 16.

According to some reports, Cox allowed the pair to rest inside for a few hours, although he later denied that. He did, however, hide the pair in a nearby pine thicket as the Confederate “underground” coordinated their escape into Virginia. The house is currently being restored by the Friends of Rich Hill. www.richhillfriends.org

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9695 Bel Alton Newtown Rd., Bel Alton, Md.

While the manhunt for Booth and Herold grew close, the pair hid in this pine thicket waiting for a chance to safely cross over to Virginia. Locals brought them food, drink, and newspapers, which revealed to the disgruntled Booth that he was not being hailed as the hero he had hoped, but instead as a monstrous villain. Booth lamented in his pocket diary, “Our country owed all her troubles to him, and God simply made me the instrument of his punishment.”

On April 20, their local guides led them down to the Potomac River to cross into Virginia.

Crossing the Potomac 11495 Popes Creek Rd., Newburg, Md.

Quesenberry House

Garrett Farm Site

On April 23, Booth and Herold landed near the widow Elizabeth Quesenberry’s cottage. Her son, Nicholas, asked her to provide them with food but warned his unsuspecting mother not to sell them any horses. Mrs. Quesenberry filled an old carpet bag with food, which Nicholas delivered to them. Although Booth would later try to conceal the evidence by throwing it into the fire at Garrett’s Farm, it survived and linked Mrs. Quesenberry to the plot. Some historians say her cottage was a frequent stop for Confederate agents.

John Wilkes Booth’s flight from justice ended at the Richard Garrett Farm, south of Port Royal, on April 26, 1865.

The 16th New York Cavalry, acting on a tip, found Booth and Herold hidden in a tobacco barn there. Herold surrendered, but Booth refused, even after the troopers set the barn afire to flush him out. Booth was shot in the neck by Sergeant Thomas P. “Boston” Corbett.

He was then dragged out of the burning barn, dying at the farmhouse three hours later. The Garrett Farm buildings are long gone, and the site, part of Fort A.P. Hill, is not accessible to the public.

17088 Ferry Dock Rd., King George, Va.

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PHOTO BY MALCOLM LOGAN; PHOTOS BY MELISSA A. WINN (2)

On the night of April 20, Booth and Herold stood here with Confederate signal agent Thomas Jones, who had secured them a rowboat to cross the river. Before pushing the fugitives off into the darkness, Jones recommended they cross the river to Mathias Point and then downstream to Machodoc Creek and the home of Elizabeth Quesenberry. Disoriented, the pair did not reach Virginia that night.

Instead, they rowed into Nanjemoy Creek, Md., spent the next day resting, and set off for Virginia again.

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USMC Ret. Master Gunnery Sergeant Bob Verell takes a moment to honor those commemorated on the replica Vietnam Memorial Wall. Photo by Thomas Wells

9 Crucial Decisions

Chaos at Shiloh What Grant, Johnston did right...and wrong

ACWP-210500-01 Tupelo.indd 1 The Union’s critical

Plus! Russian connection

27, 31, 36 or 40?

Tony HorwitZ’s final thoughts on ‘Confederates in the Attic’ NOVEMBER 2020 HISTORYNET.COM

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PHOTO BY MALCOLM LOGAN; PHOTOS BY MELISSA A. WINN (2)

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THE LAST JAPANESE HOW MANY TIMES SOLDIER HAS THEFROM DESIGN WORLD OF THE WAR U.S.IIFLAG SURRENDERED CHANGED? IN THIS YEAR

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- 1945 - 1947 - 1950 - 1974 For more,search visitDAILY QUIZ For more, WWW.HISTORYNET.COM/ at HistoryNet.com.

MAGAZINES/QUIZ HistoryNet.com

ANSWER: 1974. PRIVATE TERUO NAKAMURA, A TAIWANESE NATIONAL,27.

ENLISTED IN THE JAPANESE ARMY IN 1943.

ANSWER: THE CURRENT DESIGN HAS BEEN IN HE HELD OUT ON 1960 MORTAI IN INDONESIA HE WAS CAPTURED PLACE SINCE WHEN THE FLAGUNTIL WAS MODIFIED IN DECEMBER 1974. EARLIER THAT YEAR, HIRO ONODA, WHO TO INCLUDE HAWAII, THE 50th STATE. HELD OUT IN THE PHILLIPINES, FINALLY SURRENDERED.

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5 QUESTIONS

Interview by Melissa A. Winn

Gettysburg Evolution

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Can you tell us what the Culp’s Hill project will entail?

In a lot of ways it’s an extension and continuation of the larger battlefield rehabilitation program that’s been going on at Gettysburg since the late 1990s and early 2000s, where we’re trying to take the battlefield as it exists today and as much as we can rehabilitate it to how it would have appeared in 1863. We use rehabilitate very specifically—it’s not a reconstruction. I’m sure your readers are familiar with some of the work we have done removing nonhistoric vegetation, adding fence lines, adding orchards where there would

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With so many opportunities and plans for rehabilitation and reinterpretation, how does the park choose which projects to prioritize?

Well, collectively as a park, we look at our projects, we create an annual work plan, we create a larger strategic plan, and back in the 1990s, the park created a general management plan which we have been using as kind of a blueprint for

PHOTO BY NOEL KLINE

As the tumult of 2020 faded into the new year, Gettysburg National Military Park announced an exciting new project to rehabilitate the Culp’s Hill area of the battlefield. During the post-battle years, the remnants of Union breastworks and visibly bullet-shattered trees made the spot a popular stop for veterans and visitors seeking a glimpse of understanding about the fierce battle that raged here in July 1863. Natural intrusions drastically changed the landscape and claimed much of the evidence of battle, and by the turn of the 20th century it had become one of the least-visited areas on the battlefield. The park intends to change that.

Christopher Gwinn, Gettysburg’s Chief of Interpretation and Education, said it’s one of many rehabilitation projects the park is undergoing as the battlefield continues to advance its interpretation of the events that happened here in July 1863, their role in the larger context of the Civil War, and the evolving understanding of the conflict’s place in the history of America.

have been orchards in 1863.

Now, working with our nonprofit partner, the Gettysburg Foundation, along with a very generous donor, we will take 18 acres of the hill and try to remove manually a lot of the underbrush so hopefully what you’ll get is a woodlot that is a lot more reminiscent of the 1863 landscape. Then you can stand on the Union line on the summit of the hill and get a sense of what they would have seen on July 2.

Another aspect is creating a trail down to the famous rock outcropping that is depicted in the illustrations by Edwin Forbes, who worked for Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, along with three new interpretive signs that will hopefully do a better job of telling the Culp’s Hill story.

We’ve already begun the Culp’s Hill project and we’re hoping to have a ribbon cutting on July 2 of this year, to signify the end of the first phase of the project. Then it will be our job to see how the landscape is responding to the changes we have made, how visitors are interacting with the new signage and new trails. That will provide us with a lot of information about how we will proceed.

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Battlefield Touchstone Trees and brush are being cleared around Forbes Rock on Culp’s Hill.

A new trail will lead visitors to the site, popularized in depictions of it by Edwin Forbes and Mathew Brady.

5 QUESTIONS years. But it’s a little bit of alchemy to be honest. What can we get funding for? What do we have the staffing to manage? What’s going to be sustainable, too. That’s a big part of it. That’s one of the challenges with the rehabilitation project. We can go and make a forest into a field, but the field still wants to be a forest. Working at Gettysburg, there is sort of an embarrassment of riches, in terms of all these things that are worthy projects that in and of themselves have the potential to change how visitors experience the battle and battlefield. The Warfield House is a great example of that. It’s a project that’s been in the works for years. Same thing with the larger wayside project.

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ment is and it will introduce visitors to this idea of Confederate monuments. There will be some pretty fundamental questions addressed. How did these get here? Who placed them here? What is this all about? And the hope is that it prepares visitors for what they’re going to see, and helps them contextualize it. I’m proud of that one.

There’s one down at Devil’s Den that talks about how the geologic forces that created the battlefield played a role in how the battle was fought. One of the things I want people to understand is, when you come to a battlefield like Gettysburg, there are different layers of history here, from the very recent and all the way to the Jurassic era of pre-human history. We touch upon that now. And there’s a sign on Powers Hill that delves into aspects of the battle—in this case, friendly fire—that will hopefully get visitors to think differently about Civil War combat.

Can you tell us about the larger wayside project?

It has its origins in the years when the National Park Service took over the battlefield in the 1930s. At that point, the Park Service was relatively As we continue to study the Civil new to managing historic sites. The battle War, there’s a lot of talk about how was also going from a living memory of the war is never really over. How the veterans who fought there to being an do you think that new ideas event that was not. We were losing a prireshape the interpretation of the mary way in which people could learn battlefield? about the battle: from the participants who I think a lot of visitors to the battlefield and a lot In Context fought in it. of Americans in general have a very static view Gettysburg’s Chris So, the Park Service developed a wayside of history. History is history. The battlefield is Gwinn says waysides project at Gettysburg where they went out the battlefield. It’s preserved and unchanging. will offer important and marked significant locations, allowing Period. And, of course, that’s not the case. It’s new interpretation visitors new means in which to understand always evolving. I think every generation has about challenging the battle. The last time they were really an opportunity and an obligation to reexamine subject matter. updated was in the late 1980s, early 1990s. its past and to reinterpret it. Especially as we Since that time, the park has changed geographically. We learn more and expand our knowledge and our underhave hundreds of acres we didn’t have before, and new standing of not just the past, but who we are as Americans. trails. I’d like to think interpretively that we’ve expanded That’s going to impact itself on places like Gettysburg, the the story that we tell. So we have an opportunity to reinNational Mall, Valley Forge, and such. What visitors are vent those panels and offer something I think is graphically seeing as we add new signs, add new trails, rehabilitate the much improved.

James Warfield House, is just the next evolution of the GetAlso, textually we touch on a lot of themes that we didn’t tysburg story. And it’s going to continue evolving long after touch on 30 or 40 years ago. There were previously 64 difI’m gone, as it was evolving decades before I arrived. I ferent waysides out on the battlefield. We’ve designed 95. think we’re at a kind of a pivot point, though, as to how we We’re replacing all of the ones that were previously on the present the Gettysburg story. It’s getting much more comlandscape, but we’re adding new ones, too. It’s been five plex. We’re taking Gettysburg out of that silo, and connectyears in the works now and it’s just starting to make its aping it to all these other things. pearance out on the landscape.

As Americans continue to have debates about how we remember the Confederacy, as we continue to debate the issues of race in America and citizenship—the Gettysburg If you had to choose one sign to tell people to story can be a big part of that. Hopefully we’re creating a make sure to check out, what would it be? battlefield where visitors can go to experience the 1863 That’s tough. I don’t have any one. There are some story, to walk in the footsteps of the men who fought here that I am very proud of because of the subject mat150 or so years ago, but we’re also offering them a place to ter. So I’ll give you a few and I would choose them for diftalk about these big issues and reflect on who we are and ferent reasons. There is one on West Confederate Avenue where we’re going. that will be placed about where the North Carolina monu-

4 NPS PHOTO

PHOTO BY NOEL KLINE

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REVIEWS

National Stage Abraham Lincoln speaks before an attentive audience at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., during his famed series of debates with Illinois Senator Stephen Douglas in 1858.

Both Summoned to Glory and Abe are worthy recent additions to a catalog of more than 10,000 books that have sought to unravel the mysteries of Abraham Lincoln.

Richard Striner’s Summoned to Glory is the work of a writer who has authored two previous books on America’s 16th president, race, and slavery and obviously admires his subject. For Striner, Lincoln is a man who “will stand for all time as an exemplar of human life fulfilled….[a man who] redeemed the American promise, made it real as no other man has.”

The author tackles Lincoln’s life chronologically, devoting most of his attention to the president’s public life while quickly dispatching topics that have sometimes preoccupied other biographers. He concurs with those who believe Lincoln loved Ann Rutledge and was devastated by her death, and acknowledges the speculation surrounding Lincoln’s sexuality while dismissing the likelihood that he was homosexual.

When considering Lincoln’s marriage and domestic life, Striner has no definitive answer as to the nature of his relationship with Mary Todd other than its many challenging features. His 60

insight that history might never have heard of Abraham Lincoln had he married Ann Rutledge instead suggests the important role that Mary played in her husband’s success and the significance of shared ambition to their marriage.

Lincoln found “his life’s work,” Striner contends, during the Kansas-Nebraska crisis of the 1850s, and he places at the core of his book Lincoln’s attitudes toward race and slavery. According to Striner, those attitudes were not clearly formed until Lincoln was in his 40s, and there is no reason to assume he automatically adopted those of many of his neighbors.

The Declaration of Independence’s signers, Lincoln argued, “did not intend to declare all men equal in all respects…[but rather] to “declare the right to equality so that the

KEAN COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES

Lincoln (continued)

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REVIEWS hatred of slavery with public moderation. He consisenforcement of it might follow as fast as circumstances tently eschewed the harsh rhetoric of the abolitionists, should permit.” Equality was a standard that “even avoiding the demonization of slaveholders and positionthough never perfectly attained, [was] constantly ing the issue as a conflict “between statute…and natuapproximated.” On the eve of the Civil War, Lincoln ral law.” would say, “All I ask for the Negro is that if you do not To be successful politically, Lincoln could not be as like him, let him alone.” progressive in public as he was in private, and by the Lincoln, Striner argues, was a “holistic thinker” poslate 1850s, Reynolds maintains, he was adept at “using sessing great strategic abilities hidden behind humor a conservative cover to appeal to moderates while delivand self-deprecation. “The reputation of ‘Honest Abe,’” ering a fundamentally radical message.” In the words he writes, “would blind so many to the depth of his of a contemporary, “Lincoln was a radical—fanatically shrewdness and cunning.” His analysis that Lincoln’s so—& yet he never went beyond the People. Kept his intent was from the beginning “to put slavery on a path views & thoughts to himself…he never told all he felt.” to ultimate extinction” concurs with the recent interLikewise, Lincoln “was secretive about pretation by James Oakes and others. his own religion, but innovative and Lincoln would save the Union his way, insistent on the uses of religion in Amerand by 1863 he had made ending slavery ican public life.” He believed in a powerthe central Federal war aim. His Unionful, unknowable God, moral standards, ism, Striner insists, “must be seen in the and the Bible. Reynolds concurs with context of what the Union would stand Striner in acknowledging Mary Todd for….Final victory depended on the Lincoln’s central role in her husband’s presence of a mind…that could visualize political success and credits her as a power and direct it. Lincoln possessed smart and nuanced woman who was that sort of a mind.” His assassination at nonetheless a difficult marriage partner: the hands of John Wilkes Booth, the “Her behavior, varied at best and chaotic author concludes, stole “an extraordiat worst, provided him with home pracnary future…from America. tice in the kinds of issues that he conAbe, on the other hand, embraces a fronted publicly.” different approach to its subject. MagisSummoned to Glory: Reynolds ultimately acknowledges terial in scope (and length), it is the The Audacious Life of Lincoln’s caution, shrewdness, honesty, work of an accomplished cultural biograAbraham Lincoln humility, and winning humor as the pher and historian of the 19th century.

By Richard Striner ingredients necessary to his success and While his book proceeds chronologically, his continued hold on the American pubDavid Reynolds lards each chapter with Rowman & Littlefield, 2020, 533 pages, $35 lic’s imagination. “His principled vision frequent references to Lincoln’s contemand his disarming modesty,” he writes, poraries; the literature, music, theater, “remain an inspiration to everyday and popular culture of the day; and the Americans and political leaders alike.” manner in which these people and exterSummoned to Greatness is the more nal factors shaped Lincoln both persontraditional biography of the two, offerally and politically. ing a deep dive into the details of an To Reynolds, Lincoln was a man in, essential American life. Abe is both but not necessarily of, his time. He was something more and something less, as by nature “a fatalist, but not a pessimisits readers may learn less about the tic one,” someone prepared to take “a political twistings and turnings or the middling course.” The author likens him personal dramas that colored Lincoln’s to Charles Blondin, a famed tightrope life. For those stories, there are Striner walker of the era. “He could take his and many other first-class biographers. place securely in the center because he But readers will come away from Reynhad a genuine understanding of antiolds’ book with a deeper understanding slavery and proslavery extremists that Abe: Abraham Lincoln of what made the nation’s 16th presiled him to see that radical militancy in His Times dent (with apologies to the late James could…destroy the Union.”

By David S. Reynolds Flexner), “the indispensable man.” PerIn analyzing Lincoln’s antislavery Penguin Press, 2020, haps reading both is to be recommended. views and activities, Reynolds empha1,088 pages, $45 –Rick Beard sizes the ways in which he cloaked his MAY 2021

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Bay State Boys’ Louisiana Lament sions in black regiments.

THE FIRST HISTORIES of Civil War regiments were Disillusionment and disease took a steady toll as the written before the guns had fallen silent; those written regiment first occupied Baton Rouge and later joined by participants for the rest of the 19th century and in the Port Hudson Campaign. Lowenthal is occasioninto the early 20th have given way to those written by ally defensive in assessing the regiment’s performance, buffs and historians. Some regimental histories appeal especially when dealing with the May 27, 1863, assault, to a very narrow audience; others such as John J. Puland it is too bad that documentation about the 31st at len’s classic, The Twentieth Maine, aim for a much Port Hudson is relatively thin. Fortunately, Lowenthal wider readership. Of course, the quality of any regican offer a more detailed account of the June 13 attack, mental account much depends on the available including information on the casualties. As if the regisources, and Larry Lowenthal was blessed with a treament had not faced enough challenges already, it was sure trove of material found at the Wood Museum of at one point converted into a cavalry outfit and later Springfield History. As a consequence, his history of into a mounted infantry regiment. the 31st Massachusetts Infantry gives voice to a wide In many ways, A Yankee Regiment in variety of officers and enlisted men.

Confederate Louisiana is a common The 31st Massachusetts was a hardsoldier narrative about the trials of luck regiment—born in political conflict military life for junior officers and between the state’s governor, John A. enlisted men. Lowenthal, for example, Andrew, and the inimitable Benjamin F. follows patients into hospitals; he Butler. The regiment’s history proved shows a good eye for arresting and almost as tumultuous as its maiden sometimes poignant detail. He offers journey to Ship Island in the Gulf of several striking vignettes: a group of Mexico. Even as preparations were soldiers near Kennerville enjoying a made to attack the forts below New meal with an impoverished and Orleans, stifling, overcrowded quarters remarkably kind family; women being and unpalatable rations gave the new smuggled into Fort Pike by a sutler; a recruits a taste of what would become all A Yankee Regiment July 4 “game” that involved humiliating too common in southern Louisiana. in Confederate former slaves by having them stick As would be true for the duration of Louisiana: The their heads in a tub of flour to find a their service, enervating heat, pesky 31st Massachusetts quarter dollar; the collapse of a sink insects, and chronic disease greatly Volunteer Infantry in house that sent several poor fellows affected the men’s morale and often the Gulf South tumbling into the Mississippi River. dominated their memories of military

By Larry Lowenthal In terms of traditional military hislife. By August 1862, the regiment had LSU Press, 2019, $48 tory, Lowenthal pays closest attention become separated with some companies to the disastrous Red River Campaign during which stationed at Fort Jackson and others at Fort Pike, but, both the regiment’s commander and major proved more important, the political divisions between offidrunkenly derelict in their duty. There is much inforcers allied with Governor Andrew and those tied to mation on Banks and his critics, but the story of the General Butler persisted. Lowenthal delineates the 31st gets lost in the detailed account of recrimination officers’ strengths and weaknesses as well as the conand investigation. In the war’s final months, the regiflicts that kept flaring up. By the end of 1862, Butler ment had to deal with guerrillas in southern Louisiana was gone, morale had sagged, and the new comand participated in the campaign against Mobile. mander, Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks, never won The author concludes the book with a suitably sommany plaudits from these New England boys. ber paragraph for a regiment whose story involves As had Butler, Banks had to deal with the complications arising out of the steady erosion of slavery. In the more routine suffering than high drama. Endurance more than glory might well be its epitaph, and Lowen31st Massachusetts, reactions to emancipation and the thal offers a well-written account that gives the 31st use of African American troops were decidedly mixed, Massachusetts its due. –George C. Rable although some volunteers did leave to take commis62

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REVIEWS The American Civil War attracted observers from many European nations, curious to see the latest developments in weaponry, strategy and tactics and, especially, what lessons they might apply to the benefit of their respective armies or navies. The largest contingent came from Britain, then the world’s most globegirdling power with a long-standing and still complex relationship with the former colonies.

Although authorized only to travel alongside the Union Army, at various points in the war a number of Britishers slipped through the lines to learn a thing or two from Confederate commanders who had achieved international celebrity, such as Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and J.E.B. Stuart.

What the British learned from these frontline visits has been the subject of analysis and debate ever since, with a widespread school of thought suggesting that they did not learn enough to prevent the bloody stalemate of World War I. In Bull Run to Boer War, however, English historian Michael Somerville looks at the visiting officers’ Civil War experience without the 20-20 hindsight with which

modern historians tend to view it.

Instead, he researches the reports and records of the time to examine both the war and what lessons the British learned in the context of the 19th century. His conclusion is that, in their careful, methodical way, they derived a greater amount that would be applied to the geographically wider variety of conflicts they faced in the next several decades than previously thought. At the same time, he notes, in that century the British were not forced to deal with a technologically comparable adversary Bull Run to Boer War: until the Anglo-Boer War of 1898-1902, How the American during which they would indeed bring Civil War Changed some of what they had learned from the the British Army Civil War into play.

By Michael Somerville After introducing the reader to the Helion and Company most prominent visitors, the author folPublishers, 2019, $44.45 lows their journey through such changing military subgenres as infantry, cavalry, siege warfare, railroads, strategy, tactics and even balloon operations. Civil War enthusiasts from both nations should find much of interest in this fresh survey of the conflict and its legacy through outsiders’ eyes. –Jon Guttman

THE EFFORT TO SUSTAIN armies in the field and its impact on the planning and conduct of operations merits more attention from students of the Civil War. After all, more soldiers historically have been taken out of action by empty bellies, inadequately covered bodies, and insufficient equipment than by enemy action in battle. There also is little doubt that there are few, if any, scholars than Earl J. Hess with a keener understanding of how Civil War armies operated necessary to do justice to this subject.

The keys to Civil War logistics at the operational level of war were, of course, railroads and rivers. Hess provides a thorough and compelling account of how those were used and how Federal managerial proficiency enabled the North to overcome the significant challenges its armies faced as they projected power into the Confederacy. The contrast he describes between the efforts of Federal logisticians and those of their Confederate counterparts also underlines the wide gulf in managerial skill between the two sections and the folly of Southerners pursuing independence when they

did not have the North’s ability to competently run a modern war machine.

Union logisticians built on the decades of experience the antebellum Army had in projecting power across the continent. In addition, they brought to their work experience working where more-modern economies offered extensive opportunities to wrestle with the challenges of transportation. Union operational planners both drew on this Civil War Supply experience and, as Hess chronicles, demonand Strategy: strated an impressive ability to adapt their Feeding Men and methods as the challenges presented by Moving Armies Confederate geography evolved. This was

By Earl J. Hess evident especially in how they shifted from a LSU Press, 2020, $50 strategy of occupation and infrastructure maintenance in the Upper South to one of destructive raids when they moved into the Deep South. It was also evident in the differences Hess describes between how logisticians dealt with the Eastern Theater and operations elsewhere.

Hess draws from his usual impressive research to provide an important work that is rich in detail, offers truly fresh insights, and places its findings in the context of the evolution of supply and strategy in the history of warfare. –Ethan S. Rafuse MAY 2021

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FINAL BIVOUAC

BREVET BRIGADIER GENERAL

palm of his left hand close to the In May 1863, the Rev. John A. thumb, lodging in his arm near the McKean departed Pennsylvania elbow joint. A surgeon amputated with a grim task. He had to retrieve his damaged finger after the battle. the remains of Major Isaac C.M. The bullet eventually worked its Bassett of the 82nd Pennsylvania way down toward the opening of his Infantry, who reportedly had been wound and was then extracted. The killed during the Second Battle of subsequent surgery left him unable Fredericksburg. One can only guess ever to clasp his left hand again. the reverend’s reaction when he On December 12, 1864, Bassett discovered that the major was actuwas brevetted brigadier general, ally alive and well. In the process of although the brevet was not constorming Marye’s Heights, the firmed until February 14, 1865. He 82nd’s color-bearer was shot down. was later recognized “for distinBassett picked up the regiment’s guished services in the assault on colors and cried to his men, “Follow the enemy’s lines near Petersburg, me,” then rushed and personally April 2, 1865, and for conspicuous planted the colors on the enemy gallantry at the battle at Little Sailposition. Newspapers falsely listed or’s Creek, Va., April 6, 1865.” With his name among the other senior stars adorning his shoulders, won officers of his brigade who had for his capable leadership and bravbeen killed or wounded during the ery during the war, Bassett led the assault on the entrenched heights. battle-hardened veterans of the On December 15, 1846, the 1782nd with their bullet-riddled year-old Bassett had volunteered colors, draped with crape to honor for the Mexican War as a private in President Abraham Lincoln, during the 1st Pennsylvania Infantry, only the Grand Review in Washington, to be discharged nearly a month D.C., in 1865. The regiment was later after his superiors discovered mustered out on July 13, 1865. he was a minor. In the interwar Bassett outlived the war barely years, he lived in Philadelphia and four years. Just 40, he died of acute worked as a coal merchant. peritonitis in Philadelphia on OctoBassett was commissioned a capber 2, 1869. The Philadelphia tain in the 82nd Pennsylvania on Inquirer declared that “his sudden August 24, 1861. He was promoted death will be deplored by a large cirto major on February 7, 1863, and Coal Merchant to Combat Vet cle of friends and acquittances.” to colonel on May 3, 1863, just in Bassett, a two-war veteran, was only time to take command of the regi- 40 when he died. “Shrouded Veterans” He was originally buried at Philaled the effort to place a headstone on delphia’s now-gone Odd Fellows ment and lead it at Gettysburg that his unmarked grave in Pennsylvania.

Cemetery, but his remains were summer. During the bloodletting at reinterred at Lawnview Cemetery Cold Harbor in June 1864, the 82nd in Rockledge, Pa., during the 1950s. Barrett’s grave suffered 173 casualties, half of its effective strength. remained unmarked until a veteran headstone was Bassett was among the casualties. His left index finger placed there in 2020. –Frank Jastrzembski was mangled by an enemy shell and a bullet pierced the Final Bivouac is published in partnership with “Shrouded Veterans,” a nonprofit mission run by Frank Jastrzembski to identify or repair the graves of Mexican War and Civil War veterans (facebook.com/shroudedvetgraves).

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U.S. SENATE COLLECTION; COURTESY OF FRANK JASTRZEMBSKI

Isaac C.M. Bassett

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