America's Civil War January 2021 by HistoryNet

FIRST BATTLEFIELD REUNION

Gettysburg Reckoning James Longstreet arrives to an unlikely welcome— but then, as now, all was far from forgiven

Confederate General James Longstreet’s legacy will always be linked to defeat at Gettysburg.

Plus!

Antietam: New burialls map reveaer even greatl death tol U.S. Grant’s : Compassion ed How he sav suffering refugees

JANUARY 2021 HISTORYNET.COM

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January 2021

Antietam’s Deadly Harvest A recently discovered burial map indicates Antietam’s gruesome death toll was higher than we thought. By David A. Welker

AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

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CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; NPS PHOTO; WESTERN RESERVE HISTORICAL SOCIETY; AMERICAN HERITAGE AUCTIONS, ADAM OCHS FLEISCHER; COVER: “LONGSTREET AT GETTYSBURG” BY MORT KÜNSTLER, COPYRIGHT 1993 MORT KÜNSTLER INC., WWW.MORTKUNSTLER.COM

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Departments 6 LETTERS More on George Pickett and families torn apart by war 8 GRAPESHOT! A blast of Civil War stories...and a quiz! New! 12 THE BLOG ROLL The no-nonsense, humble “Fighting Dick” Richardson 14 HIDDEN HEROES Confederate secret agent Thomas Henry Hines 18 FROM THE CROSSROADS A rookie Union division’s Antietam march 52 TRAILSIDE Virginia’s Dismal Swamp provided hope for freedom seekers 56 5 QUESTIONS S.C. Gwynne on what made Stonewall Jackson unique 59 REVIEWS Has the definitive biography of Sherman just been written? 64 FINAL BIVOUAC The grave of a German prince and Union general New!

20 Hero’s Welcome

James Longstreet was the star of the show at the 1888 Grand Reunion at Gettysburg. By John Banks

Deep Blue in a Reb State Unionists defy secession in an Old Dominion railroad hub. By Jonathan Noyalas

‘Humanity Forbade Them to Starve’ Ulysses S. Grant did not ignore the plight of thousands of distressed refugees, even as he drove to capture Vicksburg. By Judith Wilmot

ON THE COVER: JAMES LONGSTREET RIDES WITH HIS SUBORDINATES AT GETTYSBURG, AS CAPTURED IN A PAINTING BY MORT KUNSTLER. LONGSTREET WAS ROBERT E. LEE’S SECOND IN COMMAND AT THE JULY 1863 BATTLE BUT DISAGREED WITH LEE ON THE CORRECT STRATEGY TO WIN THE FIGHT.

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JANUARY 2021

11/12/20 8:23 AM

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

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

PROFOUND LOSS

The near-fatal wounding of James Longstreet at the Wilderness in May 1864 was a serious setback for Robert E. Lee ‘s Army of Northern Virginia. http://bit.ly/LongstreetUnderFire

FIELD OF CARNAGE

America’s bloodiest day forever stamped a capital letter on David Miller’s Cornfield and made it a national symbol of death and sacrifice. http://bit.ly/CornfieldMaelstrom

HOLIDAY HAVOC

A Christmas Eve stand by the “gallant Twelfth Michigan” during Grant’s 1862 Vicksburg Campaign is unfairly overlooked. http://bit.ly/MiddleburgXmas

Vol. 33, No. 6 January 2021

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

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LETTERS

Family Tragedy

First let me say that I am enjoying my first issue of America’s Civil War. I also get Civil War Times and neither of them disappoint with information and pictures. I learn so much from every issue, which brings me to the real reason that I write. After reading “Cloaked Vengeance” (September 2020), I was utterly amazed and shocked to learn about George Pickett. To my mind, he fits the description of a true sociopath, void of conscience, remorse and, in this case, a mass murderer. The hangings at Kinston, N.C., were a true act of rage and vindictiveness as seen with his correspondence with Major General John J. Peck. Before reading this, I had great sympathy for him for being thrown into an unwinnable situation at Gettysburg. But after reading the article, I found he was truly an inept general as well. Again, thank you for your wonderful magazine. Peg Schweizer Kingsport, Tenn.

More ‘By the Book’ November’s issue was wonderful as always, and the article “By the Book” about the Battle of Shiloh using the modern analysis was excellent. I’d love to see similar articles breaking down other engagements using this technique. Keep up the good work! Mike Emsworth Greenwood Lake, N.Y.

I thoroughly enjoyed Timothy B. Smith’s analysis of Shiloh as judged by modern military standards. The article greatly enhanced my understanding of the art of war. Nice work. I trust that Dr. Smith meant to point out that the Confederate government believed that New Orleans was secondary in the overall scheme of things regarding economy of force, and not that he, the author, would agree. In my humble opinion, it would not be mere Monday morning quarterbacking to criticize the Confederates for taking troops away from the mouth of the Mississippi. Was Jefferson Davis gripped with amnesia after the Battles of Port Royal Sound and New Bern? Unimaginable! Edward Keller Central Islip, N.Y.

No Easy Solution

John Banks’ piece on monuments to African American soldiers (“Not Forgotten,” November 2020) points up several problems with monumentation: 1. Is the proposed monument to “colored troops” in Franklin, Tenn., going to be on as high a pedestal as the Confederate monument? If it is not, it will only emphasize the message that makers of Confederate monuments wanted to send: that whites are superior to blacks. 2. More monuments to try to solve the problem of too many monuments hits other snags. For instance, would a monument to Andre Cailloux commemorate

AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

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VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND CULTURE

Change of Heart

PHOTO BY SHENANDOAH SANCHEZ

I read with interest and sympathy the story in the July issue about Mother Allison’s sacrifice of her four sons to the Union cause during the Civil War. She was not alone. Many years ago, I was exploring a country cemetery in the wooded hills and cornfields of Northwestern Illinois. I found a fairly large stone with much family history inscribed on it. After reading about Mother Allison, I determined to again find this little country cemetery to see if my memory was truly correct. Unfortunately it was. Near the small village of Loran (current population 40—maybe) is the Clay Cemetery. A large stone tells the story of the family of James and Lucretia Parkinson. Their son John, a sergeant in the 3rd Missouri Cavalry, was killed at Palmyra, Mo., and William died near Island No. 10 on the Mississippi River. James Jr. was one of the thousands who fell at Shiloh. He served with Company E, 15th Illinois Volunteers. Then there was Malcolm. Information about his military unit and location of death are no longer discernible upon the weathered marble, but the words ‘killed at’ are still legible, and that tells you all you really need to know. As if that was not already more grief than any family could bear, the Parkinsons buried their 17-year-old daughter Rebecca in 1863. Jack Ottosen Morrison, Ill.

The Price of Freedom The Parkinson family grave stone lists four family members killed in the war.

LETTERS his dying while leading troops against the Confederacy? Or his stint in the 1st Louisiana Native Guards, a Confederate regiment? Omitting either fact would be equivalent to the selective history pushed by Confederate monuments. The fact is, all humans are sinners; consequently, none are worthy of the reverence monuments invite. Moses had it right: the human tendency to worship graven images is strong—and wrong. John Braden Fremont, Mich.

Taken”: Eleven Fateful Days After Gettysburg, July 4-14, 1863, and my thanks to Timothy J. Orr for taking the time to read the book and write a review. I would, however, like to discuss the claim in the review that “the authors essentially repeat an interpretation that has existed for more than a century—that [Maj. Gen. George Gordon] Meade wasted a valuable chance to end the war.” In other words, the reviewer leaves the impression “there’s nothing new here.” Not discussed, however, are the

Relative History

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PHOTO BY SHENANDOAH SANCHEZ

Was James Bulloch, the Confederate agent in Liverpool mentioned in “Lincoln’s Man in Liverpool” (November 2020), related to Theodore Roosevelt’s mother? Some historians have speculated that Roosevelt’s general belligerency and “big stick” came from his shame that his father refused to fight for the Union during the Civil War because his Georgia-born wife had relatives fighting for the Confederacy. Was James Bulloch the relative? K.M. Dawson Englewood, Ohio Editor’s note: Theodore Roosevelt’s mother, Martha, was the half-sister of both James Dunwoody Bulloch and Irvine Stephens Bulloch, an officer on CSS Alabama. Though born in Hartford, Conn., she spent most of her childhood in Georgia and, according to Theodore, did hold Confederate sympathies until her death. Roosevelt’s father, nearly 30 when the war began, did not fight in the Union Army—apparently hiring a substitute when drafted—but was instrumental in a program created to support army families in New York. That Theodore felt shame about his father is not corroborated by his 1913 autobiography, in which he wrote that his father “was the best man I ever knew…[who] combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness.”

Something New

Thank you for publishing a review of my book “Lee Is Trapped and Must Be

Irvine Stephens Bulloch

many options Meade had to impede and damage Robert E. Lee’s army without conducting a frontal attack on Lee’s entrenched position. Meade’s intelligence staff, known as the Bureau of Military Information, reconnoitered Lee’s position and potential routes of escape and informed Meade of multiple methods and opportunities to act aggressively against the Army of Northern Virginia. Briefly stated, “Lee Is Trapped” demonstrates that Meade had a different agenda than his commander in chief, President Abraham Lincoln, and the outcome of the potential confrontation between Meade and Lee in the area of Williamsport, Md.—at least as far as Meade was concerned—was the result of political rather than military decisions. Again, I thank ACW and Dr. Orr for bringing this book to the attention of

your readers, and look forward to any additional comments that may be forthcoming as a result. Thomas J. Ryan Bethany Beach, Del. Dr. Orr responds: I think Mr. Ryan might have misunderstood one paragraph of my review. I did not say that his book, “Lee is Trapped,” did not contain any new material, just that its central argument isn’t new. The authors argue that, despite all the useful intelligence provided by the BMI, Meade “took no aggressive action” to stop Lee’s retreat. Other authors, including Edward J. Stackpole, Michael C.C. Adams, Kenneth P. Williams, T. Harry Williams, Allen Guelzo, and (to a degree) Edwin Coddington have already advanced this basic interpretation. Mr. Ryan also says that his book differs from previous books in that “Lee is Trapped” points out how Meade had other options available to him that did not involve a frontal attack at Williamsport. Due to space limitations, a few sentences from a longer review I had originally submitted had to be cut. In that longer review, I had mentioned the very point Dr. Ryan raises here. Here is what I originally wrote: In some ways, Ryan and Schaus might stand among Meade’s harshest critics. Not only do they question Meade’s decision to postpone the July 13 reconnaissance-in-force, but they also point out that Meade wasted other options available to him, those that did not involve committing to a direct assault. They remind readers that Meade did not attempt to strike at Lee’s line of retreat south of the river, an operation that could have held the Army of Northern Virginia in place at significantly less risk. WRITE TO US Send letters to America’s Civil War, Letters Editor, Historynet, 1919 Gallows Rd., Suite 400, Vienna, VA 22182-4038, or e-mail acwletters@historynet.com. Letters may be edited. JANUARY 2021

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A Blast of Civil War Stories

SUPERNUMERARY

Femme Fatale Although Martinsburg, W.Va., was largely filled with Union supporters during the Civil War (see P. 38), one of its most memorable residents was Confederate spy Belle Boyd. On July 3, 1861, Union soldiers entered Martinsburg after a skirmish at the nearby town of Falling Waters. The next day, a group of soldiers entered the Boyd residence and one of the men got into a confrontation with Boyd’s mother. Boyd later wrote in her memoir, the soldier “addressed my mother and myself in language as offensive as it is possible to conceive. I could stand it no longer.” Boyd shot and killed the man. She was just 17 years old at the time. After the Union commanding officer investigated, he said Boyd had acted properly in the situation, and she suffered no repercussions. Boyd would later supply Stonewall Jackson with information about enemy activities. She was imprisoned twice for espionage before being banished to England. –Melissa A. Winn

Mississippi residents voted overwhelmingly

New Banner Blooms 8

on November 3 to replace their long-controversial state flag, which prominently featured a Confederate battle flag. After flying for 126 years, the banner was retired in June in the midst of nationwide unrest and protests following alleged racially motivated police shootings in Tennessee and Kentucky. Until November, Mississippi had been the last state to include a Confederate emblem on its flag. One stipulation for the new design was that “In God we trust” had to be included. A design by Mississippi-based graphic designer Rocky Vaughan was chosen. “The New Magnolia flag,” Vaughan said, “is anchored in the center field by a clean and modern Magnolia blossom, a symbol longused to represent our state and the hospitality of our citizens.” –Claire Barrett

AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

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OPPOSITE PAGE: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES & HISTORY; THIS PAGE: PHOTO COURTESY OF JAY WERTZ; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

GRAPESHOT!

William W. Averell

QUIZ

Battleground West Virginia 1. This battle in western Virginia led to a patent for improved prosthetics. A. Philippi B. Harpers Ferry C. Romney D. Shepherdstown

Don’t Fiddle Around The Civil War was fought on a much smaller scale west of the Mississippi than in other theaters, although that in no way meant the conflict wasn’t just as determined and deadly. Bushwhacking and partisan skirmishes produced more deaths than the battles and campaigns of the region, and blue and gray supporters needed to on guard at all times. One enterprising Rebel, likely engaged in clandestine and partisan activities, fashioned the novel concealed weapon shown here—a sawed-off Powell 12-gauge double-barreled shotgun contained in a musical instrument case, capable of being pressed into service at a moment’s notice. The shotgun’s handle is carved to resemble a violin scroll. Inside the case flanking the shotgun are a handmade tin powder and shell box shaped like a violin, and a windup music box that plays Dixie. A small Confederate battle flag, sheet music cover, and hand-written slogans adorn the case’s exterior, including a notice that reads: “The last song any Yank will hear ever! I’ll play this fiddle for any Yankee Bastard.” The rare weapon is on display along with other collectibles at the Bryan Museum in historic Galveston, Texas. –Jay Wertz

3. At the September 10, 1861, Battle of Carnifex Ferry, what Virginia governor-turned-general blamed another for failing to aid him? A. Robert S. Garnett B. John B. Floyd C. William W. Loring D. Henry A. Wise 4. Regiments of West Virginians fought each other at this 1864 battle. A. Droop Mountain B. Moorefield C. Cloyd’s Mountain D. Folck’s Mill 5. Which 1864 cavalry clash climaxed a series of three victories for William W. Averell? A. Rutherford’s Farm B. Moorefield C. Flintstone D. Droop Mountain Answers: A, D, B, C, B

OPPOSITE PAGE: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; MISSISSIPPI DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES & HISTORY; THIS PAGE: PHOTO COURTESY OF JAY WERTZ; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

2. Which Confederate general’s hair turned white while he was on campaign in western Virginia? A. William W. Loring B. John B. Floyd C. Robert S. Garnett D. Robert E. Lee

JANUARY 2021

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GRAPESHOT!

Rebel Bird? McCown’s Longspur, a small sparrow-like bird, joins the list of streets, buildings, etc., recently stripped of the names of Confederate generals. Known now as the Thick-Billed Longspur, the bird had been named after U.S. Army officer John Porter McCown, who discovered it in 1851 while serving along the Rio Grande but later joined the Confederate Army and became a major general.

—James Longstreet, July 24, 1885 (one day after Ulysses Grant’s death)

‘Gone the Sun’ Our effort in this issue to begin working with Frank Jastrzembski on his mission to recognize and honor the gravesites of the nation’s Civil War and Mexican War heroes (see P. 64) comes at a time of unthinkable heartbreak, as America’s Civil War must unfortunately play Taps for one of our own. On October 1, we tragically lost our art director, Jennifer M. Vann, at the age of 52, her life cut short by a rare cancer that had been diagnosed only in June. Although she underwent several surgeries and aggressive chemotherapy, the cancer metastasized so rapidly it proved insurmountable. Jennifer had long been a critical part in the success not only of this magazine but also our sister publication, Civil War Times. That both magazines have looked as splendid as they have every issue can be attributed primarily to Jennifer’s extraordinary imagination and inspiration and her exemplary design skills. More important than any of that, however, is that we have lost a caring, generous, fun-loving person and a dear friend in Jennifer. Fortunately, her memory will always be with us. Rest in Peace, Jennifer. –Chris K. Howland, Editor

joining the fray Beginning this issue, America’s Civil War features two new sections offering a vibrant assortment of elements that will inform and entertain our readers: Grapeshot! and Final Bivouac. Grapeshot!—like the ammunition that was fired at enemy targets from larger cannons during land and naval operations (shown above)—delivers a quick blast of Civil War-themed items, ranging from stories about unusual weapons and characters to ones focusing on modern developments that may well alter our understanding and interpretation of the war. This section includes a quiz, with questions related to a particular article in the same issue. Our first such quiz (P. 9) links to Jonathan Noyalas’ article on the Union-leaning Western Virginia town of Martinsburg (see P. 38.) “Supernumerary,” meanwhile, supplies readers with an extra, intriguing factoid or story likewise related to an article—a snapshot of material that perhaps landed on the “cutting room floor” during the editing process. Final Bivouac, our new back page, looks at a generally overlooked aspect of war: the proper honor and recognition of veterans’ graves and burial sites. The department is a partnership between America’s Civil War and the nonprofit group “Shrouded Vets,” founded by Frank Jastrzembski in September 2019 in an effort to rescue or restore neglected graves of Civil War and Mexican War veterans around the world. For more info on Frank’s noble endeavor, visit www.facebook.com/shroudedvetgraves.

NATURE PHOTOGRAPHERS LTD./ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; HNA; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; FRANK JASTRZEMBSKI; STEPHEN VANN

BATTLE RATTLE “The next time we met was at Appomattox, and the first thing that General Grant said to me when we stepped inside, placing his hand in mine, was, ‘Pete, let us have another game of brag, to recall the days that were so pleasant.’ Great God! I thought to myself, how my heart swells out to such magnanimous touch of humanity. Why do men fight who were born to be brothers?”

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HIDDEN THE BLOG HEROES ROLL

Antietam Battlefield Manor General Israel Richardson was taken to the hospital established at the stately Pry House, today preserved by the National Park Service as a medical museum.

‘As He Lived For Others, So Did He Die’ CONFEDERATE SHELL FIRE CUT DOWN REVERED UNION GENERAL ISRAEL RICHARDSON AT THE BATTLE OF ANTIETAM

December 1815, the second of seven children born to Israel Putnam Richardson and Susanna Holmes Richardson. His father, one of Vermont’s more prominent lawyers, served as a state attorney. As a youngster, Israel loved hearing the stories of his famed ancestor, American Revolutionary War General Israel Putnam, and dreamed of achieving his own military fame one day. Those aspirations were realized in 1836, when he was admitted to the U.S. Military Academy. Never a brilliant student, Richardson struggled with mathematics and relied on solid study habits and conduct to pull through. He graduated 38th in West Point’s Class of 1841—a class that would contribute 23 generals to the Civil War, including John F. Reynolds, Zealous Bates Tower, Nathaniel Lyon, and Richard and Robert Garnett. Richardson was commissioned a brevet second lieutenant and fought in the Second Seminole War and then the Mexican War, where he earned the nickname

“Fighting Dick” and won the esteem of Winfield Scott, commanding general of the United States Army. Postwar, Richardson was stationed on frontier posts throughout Texas and New Mexico. In 1850, while in El Paso, Richardson married Rita Stephenson, daughter of a wealthy merchant. She died a year later in childbirth, however. Their son, Theodore Virginius Richardson, survived but would die six months later. Likely overcome with grief, loneliness, and frustration with Army bureaucracy, Richardson resigned his commission in 1855 and moved to Pontiac, Mich., to become a farmer. When the Civil War opened in April 1861, he promptly offered his services. On May 25, shortly after Richardson married Frances (Fannie) Travor, he was given command of the 2nd Michigan Infantry. Known for his humility and tough, no-nonsense method of leadership, Richardson quickly earned his troops’ respect. He was most comfortable mingling with his men and was generally seen around camp

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COURTESY OF PAUL RUSSINOFF

Israel Bush Richardson was born in Fairfax, Vt., in

WILLIAM SILVER/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

By Rachel Moses

COURTESY OF PAUL RUSSINOFF

WILLIAM SILVER/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

THE BLOG ROLL receiving treatment. He was then taken to the Pry wearing “a jacket, an old straw hat, and trousers, [into] House and placed in an upstairs bedroom. Major Genthe side pockets of which his hands are generally eral George McClellan sent Dr. Benjamin Douglas thrust.” Richardson disliked pomp and circumstance, Howard, a member of his staff, and Army of the Potoand he frowned upon superiors who were unable or mac Medical Director Dr. Jonathan Letterman to unwilling to lead by example. examine Richardson. Both men feared shrapnel was Richardson earned quick promotion: brigadier genlodged in his left lung and deemed the wound mortal. eral after the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861 But Dr. J.H. Taylor, the medical director of Richard(August 9 with rank to date from May 17); divisional son’s division and a close personal friend, examined commander on March 13, 1862 (just days before Fannie Richardson and did not think the lung had been damgave birth to Philip Augustus Richardson, whom Israel aged. Taylor refused Letterman’s had to wait two months to see); request to tell Richardson his and major general on July 4, 1862. fate, saying it would “kill Israel if Richardson stood out particularly he did.” The wound was excruciin battles at Yorktown and Seven ating and efforts by doctors to Pines, and during the Seven Days. extract the embedded lead shrapOn September 14, 1862, Richnel ball proved futile. Pneumonia ardson’s 1st Division, in Maj. soon set in, although Richardson Gen. Edwin Sumner’s 2nd Corps, would recover and steadily arrived in Western Maryland just improve under Taylor’s care. as the fighting at South Mountain Upon learning of her husband’s ended. He took a moment to pen a injury, Fannie traveled from letter to Fannie: “Now is the time Alexandria, Va., with one of her to end war if the North turns sisters-in-law to care for him. She out...Now, my dear, take good would write, “Israel is slowly but care of yourself, give my love to steadily improving [but he] has all the family, also to little grown very thin and very weak. P. [Philip] kiss him many times.” He is very much depressed, not at The next night, his division all like himself, and inclined to camped in the vicinity of the Pry look on the dark side, more than House, near Antietam Creek. is good for him.” During the Battle of Antietam, ‘Fighting Dick’ Falls On October 4, Abraham LinRichardson personally led his Of the six generals who fell during the coln visited Richardson at the Pry division’s attack at the Sunken battle, Richardson survived longest— Road, managing to drive the Con- six weeks—but never left the Pry House. House. As related in Jack Mason’s Until Antietam: The Life and Letfederates from their position and ters of Major General Israel B. Richardson, U.S. Army, nearly cutting their line in two. As he was giving orders, Captain Draper—a member of Richardson’s staff who however, a spherical case-shot shell burst and one of its was present—said the president told the general that deadly lead balls struck the trunk of his body. In his if he recovered he would be named McClellan’s succesdiary, Colonel Edward E. Cross of the 5th New Hampsor as Army of the Potomac commander. shire, wrote that his commander had been struck in the By the end of October, Richardson’s wound became “breast,” but Lieutenant Thomas Livermore, also of the infected. Noted Taylor, “[H]is nervous system is much 5th New Hampshire, claimed Richardson “received his shocked. So much so that he makes no effort to rally, mortal wound in his side.” Nevertheless, wounds to the and has himself given up all hopes for recovery.” At trunk of the body were often mortal. 7:50 p.m. on November 3, 1862, Israel Richardson sucThough stunned, Richardson continued to walk cumbed to his injuries and passed away. around for several minutes before succumbing to the On November 11, Richardson was laid to rest at Oak agony. He was carried from the field with the words, Hill Cemetery in Pontiac. As Taylor penned in his “Tell General McClellan I have been doing a Colonel’s eulogy, “He looked at the world through his own unselfwork all day, and I’m now too badly hurt to do a Genish nature, trusted to that integrity in others...As he eral’s.” Tragically, it was James Longstreet, a good lived for others, so did he die.” friend but now a foe, who ordered the cannon fire that caused Richardson’s injury and eventual death. Richardson was evacuated to a field hospital, where This blog, adapted for print, first appeared on the National he waited in extreme agony nearly four hours before Museum of Civil War Medicine’s website, www.civilwarmed.org. JANUARY 2021

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HIDDEN HEROES

FORMER SCHOOLTEACHER FINDS A FITTING HOME AS ONE OF JOHN HUNT MORGAN’S VAUNTED CAVALRY RAIDERS By Ron Soodalter Irregular Fighting Thomas Henry Hines (left) and unidentified fellow raiders (possibly George Eastin and John Hunt Morgan) taught their Union foes some tough lessons with their guerrilla tactics and moxie north of the Mason-Dixon Line.

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NORTH SWIND PICTURE ARCHIVES/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Head of the Class

when he left his Kentucky home to fight for the South. He rose swiftly from lieutenant in a local Kentucky cavalry unit to captain under Confederate raider John Hunt Morgan, the fabled “Thunderbolt of the Confederacy.” He also became a hunted and highly placed special agent, and a major provocateur for President Jefferson Davis. During his service, Hines staged the most sensational prison break of the war and endeavored—in the end, unsuccessfully— to establish a powerful Confederate Second Front in the heart of the Union itself. Hines was a slim, handsome young man, bearing an uncanny resemblance to John Wilkes Booth. To fellow Confederate agent John Headley, he was “modest and unassuming…endowed with varied talents and unflinching courage….His exploits…in Morgan’s Cavalry are too numerous to be recorded here.” Hines’ superior officer, Major John B. Castleman, added that, with but one exception, he had never known “a man so resourceful and so composed in all difficulties.” It was these qualities that made Hines an ideal member of Morgan’s guerrilla band. At the beginning of hostilities, 22-yearold Thomas Hines was earning his living as a schoolteacher. He soon left his position to lead a homegrown volunteer cavalry company calling itself the Buckner Guides, named for Brig. Gen. Simon Bolivar Buckner, a fellow Kentuckian. After the Guides disbanded in May 1862, Hines—having lost his lieutenant’s rank in the nowdefunct unit—enlisted as a private in the 9th Kentucky Cavalry, Morgan’s command. Hines found he was well-suited to Morgan’s Cavalry, which one chronicler described as “the most celebrated and flamboyant detachment in the Confederate Army.” Morgan discovered a kindred spirit in Hines, and he soon commissioned the young man a captain. For months, Hines led guerrilla raids from Tennessee into Kentucky, destroying Union trains and depots, “liberating” livestock, and earning a reputation for boldness and daring. He also acted as secret liaison between Morgan and the state’s Southern sympathizers, keeping clandestine meetings dressed in civilian attire and risking capture and death. By that time, the “High Tide of the Confederacy” was ebbing and the lightning raids of men such as Hines and Morgan not only diverted the Union Army’s attention, they boosted Southern morale. When Hines led his

UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY

Thomas Henry Hines’ war began in 1861,

NORTH SWIND PICTURE ARCHIVES/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY

HIDDEN HEROES men into South Union Depot, Ky., burning the Yankee station and destroying a steamboat full of provisions, the news quickly spread throughout the Confederacy. In June 1863, Morgan sent Hines and 25 men north into Indiana disguised as Union cavalry. His dual mission was to find the best places for Morgan to cross on a planned raid into the North, and to ascertain the presence and number of Southern sympathizers in the area. These pro-Southern citizens were disparagingly known to their fellow Northerners as “Copperheads,” and Hines was to determine their willingness to support Morgan’s forthcoming raid. Hines’ patrol was discovered, however, and after a desperate chase, they escaped capture only by swimming the Ohio River. His appetite whetted for clandestine operations, Hines would soon have an opportunity to play a much more significant role behind enemy lines. Though Morgan’s Raid (June 11–July 26, 1863) advanced farther into the North than any other Confederate unit the entire war, it was ill-advised. Displaying his usual boldness, Morgan led his Raiders across the Ohio River into Indiana and then Ohio. But the raid ended poorly. Morgan took heavy casualties and, ultimately, he and more than a thousand of his men were captured. Most were sent to prisoner-of-war camps, but Morgan and a handful of his officers—including Hines— were incarcerated at the Ohio State Penitentiary. After four months in prison, the resourceful Hines discovered an air chamber under the floor, and, using only two knives, he and his cellmates proceeded to dig a tunnel. After three weeks’ labor, he, Morgan, and six others crawled under the prison, scaled the 25-foot wall, and escaped. Before entering the 18-inch-wide tunnel, Hines, in a rare act of bravado, left a note addressed to the warden, explaining in succinct, respectful detail how he had managed the breakout. Hines had already achieved fame in the Rebel army as a guerrilla raider; now he was a legend. By 1864, the South had had crippling defeats at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, and it was becoming apparent Confederate prospects were on the wane. As Jefferson Davis saw it, drastic action was needed, and he called for a war of attrition that would drag on long enough, and cause the North sufficient anguish, to bring the federal government to the bargaining table. It would entail a three-pronged campaign. One aspect involved what historians have labeled the Confederacy’s “dirty war.” Desperate plots were hatched to set ablaze the North’s major cities, including New York and Chicago, while agents pursued plans to poison New York’s water supply, spread yellow fever and smallpox throughout the North, and assassinate its political leaders. Writes chronicler Jane Singer: “[T]he intent of the plotters was always clear: kill, terrify, and demoralize.”

The second part entailed uniting the Copperheads in the North to form a “fire in the rear.” A significant number of citizens living in the Northwestern states— mainly Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois—were Southern sympathizers and hostile to the Lincoln administration. Many had formed themselves into secret societies such as the Knights of the Columbian Star, Sons of Liberty, Knights of the Golden Circle, and the Order of American Knights. It was the Davis’ goal to arm and unite them as a military force. Finally, it was the Confederate president’s objective to liberate the various prisoner-of-war camps throughout the North and release tens of thousands of Confederate soldiers—presumably to join with the Copperheads—on a southward path of destruction. He was inspired by Hines’ daring escape. As Hines later wrote, referring to himself in the third person, “Captain Hines had escaped with General Morgan from the Ohio penitentiary. Mr. Davis’ attention was attracted to him by this circumstance, which perhaps contributed to suggest the idea of a general release of prisoners.” The

Freebooters Frenzy Citizens of Old Washington, Ohio, scatter as Morgan’s Raiders—so-called Freebooters—swarm through town during Morgan’s devastating raid of June-July 1863. young captain might have been unduly modest; some accounts, in fact, insist that Hines himself brought the idea to Davis, who found the concept “highly feasible.” Davis assigned Jacob Thompson and Clement C. Clay as commissioners to direct the overall implementation of the ambitious plan and allotted $600,000 in gold—a tremendous amount of money at the time—to the project. The Confederate president also took the precaution of establishing a base of operations outside the borders of both the Union and the Confederacy. “I hereby direct you,” Davis wrote Thompson on April 27, 1864, “to proceed at once to Canada, there to carry out such instrucJANUARY 2021

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on an attack on Nashville, Tenn. tions as you have received from me…in such manner as While these numbers might appear fantastic, Hines shall seem most likely to the furtherance of the interest and Thompson had been assured that such a force could of the Confederate States of America….” The reasoning easily be mustered and brought into Confederate serwas sound: Rebel agents and activists could enter the vice. Clement Vallandigham, famed antiwar activist Union on their various missions, and cross back into the and self-appointed prophet of the pro-Southern Sons of safety of neutral Canada. Ontario, or as it was known at Liberty, had assured Hines that some 175,000 memthe time, “Canada West,” swiftly became the gathering bers of the secret society in Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio place for veterans of Morgan’s Raiders, as well as stood ready to rally to the cause. escaped Rebel prisoners, arsonists, chemists, would-be Hines’ elaborate and ambitious scheme depended assassins, adventurers—and Thomas Henry Hines. almost entirely on the willingness of the Copperheads to Jefferson Davis and his secretary of war, James A. put their lives on the line. Ominously, however, the CopSeddon, placed Hines at the helm as director of miliperhead leaders found excuses to push back the launch tary operations, with orders to cause the release of the date three times, into late August. imprisoned soldiers and organize them, Armed and in disguise, Hines travas well as the members of the various Hines’ elaborate eled with 60 men to Chicago for the Copperhead secret organizations, into scheme depended August Democratic convention, confia viable fighting force. He was directed, in part, to “effect any fair and approprialmost entirely on dent they would set the spark of rebelate enterprises of war against our enethe willingness of lion ablaze among the Copperheads. But Hines was a dedicated Southern patriot mies….” Ordered to Canada, he was the Copperheads and combat veteran, whereas the myrresponsible only to Commissioner to put their lives iad Copperhead malcontents had venThompson. on the line. tured nothing beyond voicing their disHines immediately made his way content. As Bruce Catton wrote, north in disguise through the United “Thompson and Hines…made the same mistake; when States and into Ontario, stopping at various locations they looked upon the vast body of supposedly militant to confer secretly with Southern sympathizers. He took Northern Copperheads; they took them seriously.” to his new position with alacrity. In June, Hines sent a When the thousands of promised volunteers failed to coded missive to Secretary Seddon, laying out a portion materialize, Hines begged for 500 men with whom to of his “Plan for a Revolutionary Movement in the West.” free the prisoners from just one camp. No one stepped He recommends that a diversionary “force be thrown forward. With the reality of turning inflammatory rhetinto the state of KY,” while “[t]he Confederates in Canoric into a fight with real bullets, and the possibility of ada, together with two regiments in process of formathe gallows waiting for those who survived, the promtion in Chicago, will be placed under my command to ised Copperhead army did not materialize and Hines move on that place [i.e., Chicago] for the release of the returned to Canada. five thousand prisoners at Camp Douglas. SimultaneAssured anew by Copperhead leaders that they ous with this movement, the Democrats in every county would rise on Election Day in November, the everof Ill. and portions of Ind. and Ohio will rally to arms. A optimistic Hines once again traveled to Chicago. This force of three thousand Democrats…will march upon time, he was determined to free only the prisoners at Rock Island for the release of the seven thousand prisCamp Douglas and required only sufficient Copperoners. At that point, five thousand will move upon Indihead assistance to overcome the camp’s garrison. Howanapolis, where there are six thousand prisoners.” ever, two informers gave up the plot, and more than Hines went on to assure Seddon that “the state gov100 men were seized, along with a large store of guns ernments of Ind. Ohio and Ill. will be seized and their and ammunition. executive heads disposed of. By this means, we hope to Hines escaped with difficulty and made his way to have, in ten days after the Movement has begun[,] a Richmond, where he reported to Seddon on the force of fifty thousand men.” He proposed to hold “attempt, betrayal and failure” of his mission. He Camp Douglas with his force of freed prisoners, and if naively suggested that the plot was still feasible but unable to do so, “to retreat through Ind. to KY.” After acknowledged that the Copperhead societies in general informing Seddon that the Movement would begin “on were not to be relied upon. By now, however, it was too or about the twentieth of July,” Hines assured him late for further action. Hines was ordered back to Canthat “the people were never so ripe for revolution.” ada, where he used the government’s money to help Once he had neutralized the governments of these alleviate the legal difficulties of those fellow conspirastates, replacing their executive officers with Coppertors who had been captured. heads, he would lead thousands of released prisoners

002 IMAGES/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; LEBRECHT MUSIC & ARTS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

HIDDEN HEROES

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002 IMAGES/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; LEBRECHT MUSIC & ARTS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

HIDDEN HEROES

Deeds of Daring Top: Hines’ dazzling November 1863 escape from captivity in Ohio. Above: The Raiders’ foray into St. Albans, Vt., in late 1864 proved mostly a nuisance. The abortive Chicago rising was not the only aspect of the Northwest Conspiracy to fail. An attempt to liberate Johnson’s Island, the prisoner-of-war camp on Lake Erie, came to naught, as did the elaborate plan to set New York City aflame. The two major players in these actions were ultimately captured and hanged. A plan to blow up the White House was discovered and neutralized, as was the scheme to create a yellow fever pandemic through the distribution of infected blankets. Only the plot to rob and burn St. Albans, Vt., a small town near the Canadian border, was moderately suc-

cessful. A uniformed band of former Morgan’s Raiders did, in fact, make off with the local bank’s cash, escaping into Canada, but they failed to burn the town. Ultimately, the Northwest Conspiracy foundered due to a lack of support from the Copperheads, the activities of informers, double agents, and federal spies, and the fatal flaws that inevitably afflict grandiose schemes. With the South’s surrender, some of its most dedicated servants were left stranded in Canada. Given the vengeful mood now permeating the Republican-led federal government, Hines deemed it wise to remain in Canada. He was far from alone; sharing his exile were countless former Confederate agents, generals, and government officials. Hines’ hope, however, was to return home, for both sentimental and practical reasons. Six months after the surrender at Appomattox, he wrote to an influential Kentuckian: “I am very anxious to return immediately to KY.; and besides, if I decided to remain in Canada, my financial condition would not permit it.” In March 1866, having taken the Oath of Loyalty, he crossed the border into the United States for the last time. “We are determined to live among our own people,” he wrote, “and take their fate whatever that may be. Wellcome [sic] any fate if it be shared among my own people.” Ever the “unreconstructed” Rebel, Hines refused to follow the path of other former Confederate officers who chose to pursue military careers in blue uniforms. At the end of his exile, he had written in his diary, “By diligence and labor, I will be able to rise.” And rise he did. He entered law school, became editor of a city newspaper, and went on to sit as a judge and, ultimately, the chief justice of the Kentucky Court of Appeals. He had married his sweetheart during the war, and eventually fathered six children. Long life, though, was not in the cards. A month after his wife died in 1898, Hines—not yet 60 and in increasingly poor health—followed. In retrospect, Thomas Henry Hines was the author of impressive successes and colossal failures. While he cannot be held singly accountable for the ultimate disintegration of the South’s wide-ranging clandestine war, he did, in fact, play a major part, due to both his naivete and his unrealistic expectations. As historian Edward M. Coffman states, “In the last year of the Confederacy, Southern leaders were willing to gamble on illusions which they had long cherished. As their agent, Captain Hines failed…as a master spy. Although few could match his experience in small cavalry operations, Hines’ ability as a subversive agent was open to question.” Ultimately, it was as a dashing officer and guerrilla fighter in Morgan’s Cavalry that Hines achieved his greatest and most dramatic success. Ron Soodalter writes from Cold Spring, N.Y. JANUARY 2021

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FROM THE CROSSROADS Trusted Subordinate Major General Andrew Humphreys (seated) and staff at Army of the Potomac headquarters in Culpeper, Va. When this photo was taken in 1863, Humphreys was serving as the army’s chief of staff.

Altered Facts THE STRANGE ORDEAL OF ANDREW HUMPHREYS AND HIS PENNSYLVANIANS AT ANTIETAM

phreys, Theodore Lyman, a volunteer aide on the staff of Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade, probably put it best: “[H]e is most easy to get on with, for everybody; but, practically, he is just as hard as the Commander [Meade], for he has a tremendous temper, a great idea of military duty, and is very particular. When he does get wrathy, he sets his teeth and lets go a torrent of adjectives that must rather astonish those not used to little outbursts.” Humphreys undoubtedly set his teeth and let colorful adjectives fly when he read a particular sentence in Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s October 15, 1862, report about the Maryland Campaign explaining why he, the Army of the Potomac commander, decided not to renew fighting at Antietam on September 18, 1862: “And Humphreys division of new troops, fatigued with forced marches, were arriving throughout the day, but were not available until near its close.” The Army was Humphreys’ life, and like any profes-

sional soldier the 51-year-old general fiercely guarded his reputation. In addition to being false, the statement by McClellan—16 years Humphreys’ junior—damaged that reputation. In March 1863, Humphreys demanded a court of inquiry to examine his handling of the division during the Maryland Campaign. His division, the general noted in a letter to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, had been in service merely six days when it reached the battlefield on September 18. Its two brigades had been formed from seven rookie Pennsylvania regiments, raised that summer, and one trained regiment, the 91st Pennsylvania—about 7,200 men in all. Humphreys noted that at about noon on September 12 he received orders to take command of a newly formed unit, the 3rd Division in the Army of the Potomac’s 5th Corps. Though surprised, Humphreys promised to “march within an hour” after his division arrived in Washington. En route to his new command, he encountered 5th Corps commander Maj. Gen. Fitz John

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DANA SHOAF COLLECTION

IN DESCRIBING Union Brig. Gen. Andrew A. Hum-

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

By D. Scott Hartwig

DANA SHOAF COLLECTION

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

FROM THE CROSSROADS that a subsequent acquaintance with the circumstances Porter, who informed him that his two new brigades had induced a change of opinion on the part of the Comwould arrive about 3 p.m. Humphreys, Porter mander-in-Chief [sic].” instructed, should see that they be “well supplied with Humphreys finally got his men on the march at dayrations, forage, and ammunition; that all baggage that light September 14. Making good progress, they could be dispensed with should be stored, and that the reached Frederick, Md., on the 16th. Porter instructed command should be kept fresh on the march.” Humphreys to deploy his brigades to defend the Humphreys had no staff officers, however, and his approaches to Frederick from nearby Harpers Ferry, endeavors to obtain any from the various military Va., as General McClellan still feared a Confederate departments in Washington were to no avail. He thus foray into his rear from that direction. Although Maj. improvised a staff that included his son, Henry H. Gen. Darius Couch occupied Maryland Heights oppoHumphreys, as a civilian aide and Lieutenant Carswell site Harpers Ferry, he wanted Humphreys as a backMcClellan of the 32nd New York Infantry. From this stop in Frederick. But on September 17, as the Battle of unpromising start, things only went downhill. Instead Antietam began, Humphreys was of arriving about 3 p.m., troops in ordered to march immediately, first to Humphreys’ command did not begin Boonsboro, Md., east of Sharpsburg, to reach the city until 7 p.m., and the and then to Keedysville, about half1st Brigade did not reach its bivouac way between Boonsboro and the until midnight. Soldiers in the 2nd Antietam battlefield. Brigade continued to straggle in A stream of increasingly urgent between midnight and daylight. orders arrived during the march. At Humphreys soon learned that Brig. 2:30 p.m.: “Come on as soon as possiGen. Erastus Tyler’s 1st Brigade ble, and hurry up with all haste. Do didn’t have enough rations and Colonot render the command unfit for sernel Peter Allabach’s 2nd Brigade was vice, but force your march.” At 5 p.m., without rations and had two regia curt, “Get here before daybreak.” ments equipped with rifles that had Conceding that his men “were unaclocks prone to breaking when their customed to marching, and were foottriggers were pulled. sore,” Humphreys still pushed them Despite Humphreys’ orders to hard through the night, covering 23 resolve the glitches, the situation grew miles while ascending two mountain worse. By the dawn deadline to march, ranges, the Catoctin and South MounTyler’s Brigade had only eight wagons tain. There were a relatively low numto haul supplies and Allabach’s regiber of stragglers—only about 1,000. Green, but Eager ments had no vehicles to haul ammuHumphreys reported to McClellan Private Robert Carothers of nition and no supply train. There was the 134th Pennsylvania, one of at 7 a.m. on September 18, noting also a severe shortage of ambulances, Humphreys’ units, poses with proudly that his division was ready and a number of regiments were withhis Lorenz rifle musket. for action by 10 a.m.—after a brief out tents. Humphreys also discovered rest and some coffee. After all he had that the problem with the unservicegone through, the general inevitably gritted his teeth able firearms was not confined to Allabach’s men, but and let fly profanities when he read McClellan’s statethat they were an issue throughout his division. Both ment claiming his division had not been available until brigades were also laden with excess personal baggage. near the close of the day on the 18th. “This statement Humphreys no doubt got “wrathy” because of these of General McClellan,” he declared, “is irreconcilable issues. He postponed the division’s march time until with the facts.” 9 a.m., then to noon, but the general continued to strugThe obstacles Humphreys overcame to bring his divigle getting his men ready to march. sion to the battlefield were eclipsed by Antietam’s carAt 4 p.m., in the midst of his efforts to replace weapnage. But for the record, and for the memory of Andrew ons and acquire equipment, ammunition, and transporHumphreys and his Pennsylvania Volunteers, he had— tation, Humphreys received a sharp note from General despite every obstacle the army had thrown at him—at in Chief Henry W. Halleck indicating that if he did not least 6,000 men on the Antietam battlefield the mornimmediately join his division in the field he would be ing of September 18 ready to serve. arrested. This probably produced a fresh stream of expletives from Humphreys. “As I was not arrested,” he quipped several months later, “I had reason to conclude Scott Hartwig writes from Gettysburg, Pa. JANUARY 2021

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hero’s welcome at Gettysburg’s 1888 grand reunion, confederate outcast James Longstreet turned man of the hour. but his memory tour was nearly fatal By John Banks

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Come Together Sporting long whiskers but no beard, 67-year-old James Longstreet poses with other Gettysburg veterans at the inaugural Grand Reunion. To Longstreetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s immediate right is Union Maj. Gen. Henry Slocum, flanked by Maj. Gen. Joshua Chamberlain. To his immediate left in the front row are one-legged Union Generals Daniel Sickles and Joseph Bradford Carr. Union Maj. Gen. Daniel Butterfield stands behind Longstreetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s right shoulder.

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y 1888, James Longstreet was more popular with Northerners than with White Southerners. After the war, he aligned himself with the Republicans, the party of Abraham Lincoln, and supported his friend and former military rival, Ulysses S. Grant, as president. “Old Pete” also served in the Republican administration of President Rutherford B. Hayes, another Union veteran. And, of course, his postwar criticism of Lee’s soldiering at Gettysburg was an unforgivable sin for many Confederate devotees. Longstreet, who lived in semi-retirement on his farm in Gainesville, Ga., arrived in Pennsylvania on June 30. On the train ride to Gettysburg, he sat near General Hiram Berdan, whose two regiments of sharpshooters slowed the Confederates’ advance at Devil’s Den and the Peach Orchard on the battle’s second day. The men eagerly discussed the fighting during their journey. The 67-year-old Longstreet, who stood about 6-foot-2 and weighed more than 200 pounds, looked “enfeebled,” according to The New York Times. But another account called the broad-chested general “vigorous” despite his age. In late June and the first days of July 1888, dozens of other trains packed with veterans unloaded at Gettysburg’s lone railroad depot for the Grand Reunion. “Most of the old soldiers went accompanied only by their memories,” according to an account, “but some took their wives and children with the intention of showing them the places in defense of which they fought so bravely.” The few hotels in town were booked, so tents were erected for veterans on East Cemetery Hill and elsewhere. At least 30,000 people—White veterans and civilians alike—attended each day of the three-day event organized by the Society of the Army of the Potomac, a Union vetOverflow Crowd erans’ organization. One newspaper even estiWith no hotel space available, tents for mated attendance as high as 70,000 for a day. attendees were erected “Such crowds,” the New York Evening World on East Cemetery Hill. declared, “have not been seen here since the batThe photo below was tle was fought.” (Black veterans did not officially taken during the 1913 serve in the Army of the Potomac as soldiers in Grand Reunion. 1863, and thus few, if any, African Americans

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For sheer star power, no gathering of Union and Confederate veterans rivaled the Grand Reunion at Gettysburg in 1888. “There are so many Generals and other chieftains here,” a newspaper marveled, “that a catalogue of them would be as long as Homer’s list of ships.” Former Army of the Potomac commanders Daniel Sickles, Fitz John Porter, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Henry Slocum, Abner Doubleday, and Francis C. Barlow, among other Union luminaries, were joined in Pennsylvania by ex-Army of Northern Virginia generals Wade Hampton, Fitzhugh Lee, and John B. Gordon. But the biggest celebrity at the event clearly was the man sporting massive, white whiskers and a cleanly shaven chin: James Longstreet, who commanded the Confederates’ First Corps at Gettysburg on July 1-3, 1863. Nearly everywhere Robert E. Lee’s “Old War Horse” went he drew appreciative, and often awestruck, crowds. “No man now in Gettysburg,” a New York newspaper reported, “is more honored nor more sought than he.” For Longstreet, the visit to Gettysburg—his first since he commanded troops there—stirred a wide range of emotions. And led to the shedding of many tears.

New Plateau Veterans of the 121st Pennsylvania pose on Cemetery Ridge with their families during the dedication of the regiment’s memorial in 1888. The monument was erected on Seminary Ridge in 1886 before being moved.

The town is indeed a poor place for the accommodation of such crowds of visitors as come here. There is not a really good hotel in the village….Carriages are needed to go from point to point, for the battlefield covers an area of twenty-five miles, and the people take full advantage of the crowds and gouge everyone who hires a buggy or a hack. The extortion is worse than that practiced by the St. Louis hotel people during the Democratic Convention. And yet, in spite of all these unpleasant things, the people come, for the sentiment which attracts is more powerful than the feeling of disgust created at the meanness of the people of the place.

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are believed to have attended.) Unsurprisingly, the massive gathering— which included about 300 Confederate veterans—severely taxed resources in Gettysburg, population roughly 3,100. “The want of a head” in town, the Evening World reported, “has seriously interfered with the success of the reunion,” while the New York Sun published a much more scathing Gettysburg critique:

Despite less-than-ideal conditions, veterans—most in their early 50s— eagerly reconnected with former comrades. “The meeting of the survivors of the armies of Meade and Lee on the field of Gettysburg,” a Pennsylvania newspaper proclaimed, “is the greatest occasion of the kind known in

our history, if not in the annals of nations.” Many veterans went souvenir-hunting for battle relics in fields and woodlots. Scores attended the dedication of more than two dozen battlefield monuments. At one of those events, a New Jersey veteran claimed he found in a rock crevice the cartridge box he had hidden during a retreat in July 1863. Two bullets remained in the bent and rusty relic, which he proudly took home. On East Cemetery Hill, where they were part of a desperate attack 25 years earlier, four veterans of the Louisiana Tigers Brigade from New Orleans became the center of attention. Pennsylvania veterans eagerly greeted the men, who wore blue, silk badges adorned with the letters “A.N.V.” for Army of Northern Virginia. “…such a shaking of hands,” The New York Times reported, “was never before seen on East Cemetery Hill.” In town, residents and others hawked everything from lemonade and badges to horse-and-buggy rides, which were available from 50 cents to $2.50 an hour. At the Catholic church in Gettysburg, a special mass was held for members of the Irish Brigade who fell in battle. Bands played “Marching Through Georgia,” “John Brown’s Body,” and “The JANUARY 2021

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ormer enemies mostly were cordial with each other, although a number of Union men groused about Confederate veterans who wore lapel pins adorned with a Rebel flag. “That was the flag of treason and rebellion in 1861,” Union veteran John Gobin said in an impromptu speech at a morning campfire gathering on the battlefield, “and it is the flag of treason and rebellion in 1888.” Gobin, who did not fight at Gettysburg, served as an officer in the 11th and 47th Pennsylvania during the war. In 1888, he was a state senator, a general in the Pennsylvania National Guard and active in the Grand Army of the Republic, a Union veterans organization. He also served as lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania. He and fellow Union veteran John Taylor offered scathing criticism of Confederate veterans who had the audacity to wear badges adorned with a Rebel flag. In his campfire address, Gobin said he was tired of hearing about Pickett’s Charge, the subject of many speeches throughout the

three-day reunion. Why, he scoffed, some of the Confederates simply charged across a field and surrendered weaponless, with their hands up, further fuming that nearly every division in the Army of the Potomac showed more valor at Gettysburg. “I want it distinctly understood now and for all time,” the 51-year-old veteran continued, “that at these reunions it should be remembered and put forth that the men who wore the blue and fought on this field were lastingly and eternally right and the men who wore the gray were lastingly and eternally wrong.” His audience hollered its approval. “The General said that the Grand Army of the Republic and the men who wore the blue were disposed to display all kindly feeling and extend the hand of friendship and of assistance to their late antagonists,” the Reading (Pa.) Times wrote of the reunion, “but this ‘gush’ and glorification of a rebel was not elevating in

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Star-Spangled Banner.” Electric lights mounted on a tall mast lit up Cemetery Hill at night, creating a dazzling scene. Many found time for carousing, too. At Spangler’s Spring, near Culp’s Hill, veterans partied hard after the reunion’s official end, drinking beer in “huge quantities,” the Harrisburg (Pa.) Daily Independent reported.

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Like a Rock Veterans of the 40th New York pose in Devil’s Den. The 40th, known as the “Mozart Regiment,” was part of Daniel Sickles’ 3rd Corps and fought at the base of Little Round Top. The regiment’s monument stands nearby at the intersection of Crawford and Warren Avenues.

its effects on the youths of the country.” Concluded the newspaper about Gobin’s speech: “Right, every time, General. Brave words fitly spoken.” Taylor, who did fight at Gettysburg, also blasted “glorification” of his former enemies. As an officer in the 2nd Pennsylvania Reserves, he was captured at the Wilderness in May 1864 and spent 10 months as a prisoner. In 1888, he was quartermaster general of the Grand Army of the Republic. “I want no part or lot in this intolerable slobber and gush,” the 48-year-old veteran said at the campfire, “and if I did take part in these reunions with men who are wearing rebel badges, I would be untrue to the comrades of my old company who fell on this field and some of whom are now resting in this beautiful cemetery.” Word of the Pennsylvania veterans’ disdain soon filtered south. “Lurid” and “sulphurous,” the Macon (Ga.) Telegraph called Gobin’s oratory. “The people of the South will not be disturbed by these words of bitterness,” the newspaper wrote. “They do not come from men who represent any respectable element at the North. If Gobin and Taylor want to keep up the war feeling they and their little gang can do so.” Nearly eight years later, though, it remained clear how Gobin felt about the vanquished Confederacy. “Lee intended that Gettysburg should be his Austerlitz,” he said in an address in Gettysburg for the dedication of a monument to George Gordon Meade, “but it was his Waterloo, and more than that, the Waterloo of human slavery in the greatest country on earth.”

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lmost from the beginning, James Longstreet’s Gettysburg visit was eventful; often, it was even surreal. When word spread on June 30 that Longstreet was staying at the popular Springs Hotel, about two miles from town, hundreds headed in that direction. But the general was already gone, having departed earlier for the dedication of Wisconsin Iron Brigade monuments in Herbst Woods (Reynolds Woods today). There, “Old Pete” briefly met with Brevet Brig. Gen. Rufus Dawes, the Iron Brigade officer whose soldiers famously captured 200 Confederates nearby in the Unfinished Railroad Cut west of town on July 1, 1863. “General,” Dawes said as he surveyed the area near the Chambers—John Gobin burg Pike, “it looks very different from the scene of 25 years ago.”

“that was the flag of treason and rebellion in 1861, and it is the flag of treason and rebellion in 1888”

Keeping the “War Feeling” John Gobin (above left) and John Taylor (left) were part of a relatively small but vocal group of Reunion attendees: Union veterans not yet ready to forgive their former enemies. “Yes,” Longstreet said, according to a New York Times reporter, “it reminds me of a camp meeting.” Another U.S. Army veteran remarked to Longstreet that the battle might have ended quite differently had the Confederate command listened to his advice. Then he asked the general if he was dead against Pickett’s Charge. “Yes, sah,” he replied. Asked if Confederate Lt. Gen. Jubal Early might attend the Grand Reunion, Longstreet expressed his doubts. The commander who ordered the sacking of nearby Chambersburg, Pa., in 1864 probably would not have been well received. Longstreet, on the other hand, rarely had a free moment at the reunion. Veterans of all stripes were eager to exchange pleasantries and shake the hand of “Old Pete.” Later that day, Longstreet had a private meal at his hotel with 68-year-old Dan Sickles—the first meeting of the former enemies. As commander of the 3rd Corps at Gettysburg, the controversial Sickles lost his right leg to enemy artillery on the battle’s second day. “They were friends in a moment,” according JANUARY 2021

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to an account of their meeting, “and there was very little eaten at that table for 30 minutes as they talked about events a quarter century old.” While the old foes dined, others in the room gawked and “let their dinner go almost untouched.” The pairing of Sickles, a cigar-smoking New Yorker, and Longstreet, a South Carolina-born part-time farmer, was a hit. As a group of New York veterans marched through Gettysburg one morning, the two rode in a carriage behind them. “This was a meeting of blue and gray worth recording,” a Philadelphia newspaper correspondent wrote, “and as they passed along the street that led to Seminary Hill and Seminary Ridge the enthusiasm of the crowd who recognized them was something beyond description.” With Sickles and other former Union bigwigs, Longstreet visited the notable battlefield sites—the Peach Orchard, Wheatfield, Devil’s Den and Little Round Top, the “apple of Longstreet’s eye.” Little had changed, the general observed, since his soldiers had made desperate assaults on the Round Tops on July 2, 1863, and, a day later, at the “Bloody Angle” during Pickett’s Charge. The attack was “a great mistake,” said Longstreet, who discussed battle strategy and tactics with former Union commanders as he toured the field. When the general began a tour on horseback with Generals Hiram Berdan and Daniel Butterfield, among others, a large crowd gave the group three cheers. After they reached the summit of Little Round Top, word quickly traveled of Longstreet’s presence there. Union veterans gathered nearby for a monument dedication rushed toward their former adversary.

“Boys, here’s Longstreet,” shouted the onelegged Sickles as he sat at the foot of a tree, “and he meets us once more on Round Top.” Three rousing cheers from the crowd of about 100 “went surging through the shimmering air to the plain below.” On July 1, Longstreet nearly broke down during a speech before an estimated 10,000 Union 1st Corps veterans in Reynolds Grove, near the monument to Union Maj. Gen. John Reynolds, who was killed on the first day of the battle. As he walked to the massive speakers’ stand, Longstreet was greeted by a Rebel Yell, the Gettysburg Cornet Band played “Dixie” and veterans crowded around the commander. “General,” a one-legged Federal veteran told Longstreet, “I fought against you at Round Top. I lost a wing there, but I am proud to meet you here.” “Yes,” Longstreet replied as he grasped the man’s hand, “those were hot times then. But I’m all right now.” After Longstreet took his place on the stand, a former Federal officer shouted, “Comrades, you see on this platform one of the hardest hit-

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Worth a Second Look The “Granite Tree Monument,” dedicated on Oak Ridge in 1888, is one of three 90th Pennsylvania monuments at Gettysburg.

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Longstreet Finally Captures Little Round Top Gettysburg veterans, including Longstreet, pose on Little Round Top next to the 155th Pennsylvania monument, which had been dedicated in September 1886. A statue of a Zouave soldier was added in 1889, even though 155th soldiers were not dressed in those colorful uniforms during the battle.

Inedible Souvenirs Left: An 1888 reunion ribbon created for 90th Pennsylvania veterans. Above: For nostalgia’s sake—or perhaps as a cruel joke—hardtack was readily available for the veterans.

ters whoever fought against us. I propose we give three times three for General Longstreet, one of the best Union men now in the country!” The crowd erupted, surging toward the wooden stand and “showering God bless you’s” on the teary-eyed general. Moments later, though, the platform collapsed amid shrieks, falling two feet. But no one was seriously hurt. Smiling, Longstreet bowed left and right. Then “Old Pete,” his voice shaking as he began his speech, told the veterans how proud he was to commemorate the battle and, according to a newspaper report, “to mingle with those brave men who know how to appreciate heroism which will give up life for country’s sake.” Longstreet called the third day at Gettysburg the greatest battle ever fought. “But times have changed,” he said, according to the Times. “Twenty-five years have softened the usages of war. Those frowning heights have given over their savage tone, and our meetings for the exchange of blows and broken bones are left for more congenial days, for friendly greetings, and for covenants tranquil repose. “The ladies are here to grace the serene occasion and quicken the sentiment that draws us nearer together,” he continued. “God bless them and help that they may dispel the delusions that come between the people and make the land as blithe as bride at the coming of the bridegroom.” JANUARY 2021

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LONGSTREET FINDS A WAY TO ESCAPE DEATH IN CENTRAL VIRGINIA YET AGAIN

early a quarter-century after he was severely wounded at the May 1864 Battle of the Wilderness, James Longstreet had another brush with death in the heart of Virginia. Early on the morning of July 12, 1888, the former Confederate lieutenant general survived a deadly train accident at a rickety railroad trestle known as “Fat Nancy”—20 miles southwest of the famous Wilderness battleground in Spotsylvania County. Die in a mere train wreck? Fat chance for Robert E. Lee’s “Old War Horse.” En route from the Grand Reunion to his home in Gainesville, Ga., the 67-year-old Longstreet was aboard the southbound Virginia Midland Railroad’s No. 52 train, “The Piedmont Airline.” At least two other Confederate veterans were heading home as well, including New Orleans-bound Louis G. Cortes—a “whole-souled, open-hearted, compassionate man” who, as a 19-year-old private in the 7th Louisiana, lost his left leg at Gettysburg. Fighting for Brig. Gen. Harry T. Hays’ famed “Louisiana Tigers,” he was taken prisoner in Pennsylvania and not exchanged until early 1864. Cortes (spelled Cortez in some accounts) lived in a soldiers’ home in New Orleans. He had saved up for years to attend the reunion in Gettysburg. The train, scheduled to make stops in Augusta, Ga., Atlanta, and New Orleans, typically carried between 150 and 200 passengers. No. 52 consisted of mail, baggage, smoking and ladies’ cars, three sleepers, the locomotive (Engine 694), and a tender. Longstreet was in a sleeper car as the train snaked its way through countryside ravaged by warfare decades earlier. At roughly 2 a.m., “The Piedmont Airline” arrived with sleeping and groggy passengers at Orange Court House. A short time later, the train eased out of the station on the

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Dragged Into the Vortex

Virginia Midland Railroad line. Twenty minutes later, two miles south of Orange Court House, the train slowed to about 5 mph as it approached a 44-foot-high, 487-foot-long wooden trestle spanning rain-swollen Two Runs Creek. To locals, the trestle was known as “Fat Nancy,” after a plus-sized African American named Emily Jackson who lived near its western approach. Jackson liked to wave her green-checkered, gingham apron at railroad workers as she stood near the doorway of her house. Occasionally, the workers tossed her apples and oranges from their lunch baskets. That July 12, the trestle was in the process of being repaired—it would eventually be replaced with a culvert and dirt fill. Apparently, after the locomotive and tender made it across the bridge, the smoking car in the center of the trestle plunged through the wooden beams and into the creek. It dragged four cars, followed by the tender and locomotive, into the vortex. Two sleepers remained on the track above; the other sleeper, which also fell, rested precariously atop the crumpled wreckage. Frightened passengers—adults and children alike—moaned and cried. Steam hissed from the crippled locomotive. All lights on the train were extinguished after it plunged. In the inky blackness, passengers frantically worked to free themselves from the wreckage or aid the injured. Longstreet, a large man, somehow squeezed to safety through the bottom of the sleeper car on the tracks. (Another account said it was a window.) “He afterwards looked at the hole through which he had emerged,” a newspaper reported, “and wondered how he had ever got through it.” The general, apparently unscathed physically, assisted survivors until daylight and then lay down to rest. Dozens were injured—or worse. “The train was piled in such an inextricable mass of debris that it was difficult to discover the outlines of human forms,” the Baltimore Sun reported. “Through the interstices of the wreck arms and legs protruded in every direction.” A woman in her 20s in one of the first-class cars was traveling with at least two bantam chickens, but when there was a complaint about the noisy birds, she moved forward into a smoking car. She would be one of eight passengers who died at the scene, “her head mashed beyond recognition.” Cortes was among the dead. He was initially discovered carrying only $4.. But as he was being prepared for burial in the Confederate Cemetery a mile

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Precarious Perch “The Piedmont Airline” train crashed crossing a wooden trestle like this postwar one used by the Union Pacific Railroad.

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or so away in Orange, Va., a policeman examined the man’s cast-off shoe. In it, he discovered $82 in bank notes. Cortes’ death rocked some of his former enemies. After the reunion, he was invited by Union veterans of the George Meade Grand Army of the Republic Post to be their guest in Philadelphia. When he said goodbye to his new friends at the train station about a week later, “the brave old rebel shed tears of gratitude,” the Boston Globe reported. A month after the death of Cortes, the Louisiana Division of the Army of Northern Virginia passed a resolution in the veteran’s honor. “He sleeps…in the sacred soil of Virginia made precious by the best blood of the south,” it read. “Flowers will bloom upon his grave, the birds make melody above him, and at night the stars will watch as sentinels...” Another New Orleans-bound passenger, an “unknown Italian” who was killed, was found with a railroad ticket, a poker chip, and three cents. Cornelius Cox, a civilian engineer who had been directing repairs on the trestle, also died in the wreck. A severely injured mail agent died in a nearby Charlottesville hospital just before his wife and brother arrived from Prosper, Va. Miraculously, the train’s crew survived. William N. Parrott, a postal clerk in Piedmont, Va., was aboard the mail car. The Confederate veteran lived a charmed life apparently. When he was 6, he survived a blow from a large, fallen tree limb sawed from an oak by workmen, and as a private in the 7th Virginia, he was wounded at Second Manassas, Gettysburg, and Dinwiddie Court House. A passenger from Baltimore said it was a miracle how anyone survived the plunge from the trestle. To free the baggage master, who was found under an iron safe and several trunks, rescuers had to cut away the top of a car. A couple living nearby in the rural area apparently was first to assist. The train’s slightly injured engineer escaped from the wreckage, walked two miles to Orange, and telegraphed for help. At about 7 a.m., physicians from Charlottesville arrived on the scene. Among the first responders was Dr. Elhanon Winchester Row, who had been 14th Virginia Cavalry’s regimental surgeon during the war. A local woman did such a fabulous job aiding and comforting the wounded that the railroad company later awarded her $250. The supremely efficient U.S. Post Office Department sent special agents to collect mail that littered the accident scene. In Charlottesville, anxiety was high. “As the hours went by the excitement grew very intense,” according to a report, “so much so that when a special train from Orange arrived bearing the wounded the depot and platforms were literally packed, and it was as much as the police could do to keep a passageway clear.” A reporter quizzed one of the survivors from the sleeper car about the cause of the accident. “Why, sir,” he said excitedly, “there were rotten timbers in the trestle and the rotten wood bulged out where the timbers broke. I made careful examination of the structure and am willing to make oath as to its condition.” A coroner’s investigation quickly confirmed the obvious: Rotten timbers were indeed the culprit. In the investigation’s aftermath, the Virginia Midland Railroad’s chief engineer was fired. In newspaper accounts, Longstreet—the most prominent passenger on the train—was barely mentioned, if at all. Days later, the general was spotted in Washington, D.C., reportedly seeking a pension for his service in the U.S. Army during the Mexican War. Years after the accident, Longstreet served in another role for the American government: U.S. commissioner of railroads under Presidents William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt from 1897 through 1904. –John Banks

n July 2 at Gettysburg’s National Cemetery, the final resting place for more than 3,500 Federal soldiers, Longstreet shared the speaker’s rostrum with Dan Sickles, John Gordon, Francis Barlow, and others. Nearly 5,000 people crowded onto the hallowed ground where Lincoln had delivered the Gettysburg Address in November 1863. A New York Times reporter was there to capture the most momentous scene of Longstreet’s remarkable visit: The actors were the very men who defended the ridge on whose slopes the cemetery lies against the repeated assaults led by the very men 25 years ago this very day who joined them here now in pledges of friendship, loyalty to a common flag and unity of devotion to a common country. All—place, scene, and the living figures of the men themselves—were inspiring. Shortly after 5 p.m., Sickles delivered a short speech. “As Americans,” said the general, who became instrumental in preserving the battleground, “we may all claim a common share in the glories of this battlefield, memorable for so many brilliant feats of arms.” He later read a telegram from George Pickett’s widow, LaSalle, who offered “God’s blessing” to the throng. When John Gordon, a brigade commander at Gettysburg but now governor of Georgia, appeared, he was greeted by a deafening roar, and his speech was interrupted by shouts of “Hurrah!” and “Good!” Longstreet spoke only a few sentences. “I changed my suit of gray for a suit of blue so many years ago,” he Fashion Rebels Confederate veterans proudly donned these “Southern Cross” lapels—the “flag of treason” to some of their Union counterparts. said, further endearing himself to the Union veterans, “that I have grown myself in my reconstructed suit of blue.” At the 95th Pennsylvania monument dedication that day in the Wheatfield, Longstreet’s actions spoke louder than words. The general held the regiment’s tattered battle flag, which had been pierced by 81 holes in fighting at Gettysburg, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Malvern Hill and elsewhere. Gently, he pressed the flag to his lips…and wept.

Nashville-based John Banks, a regular America’s Civil War contributor, is the author of two Civil War books and the blog john-banks.blogspot.com. JANUARY 2021

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Farms to Graveyards The map by Simon G. Elliott of Antietam battlefield burials provides a sobering look at the human cost of that engagement.

Antietamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s deadly harvest new revelations from a recently discovered map By David A. Welker

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NIGHTFALL ON SEPTEMBER 17, 1862,

ver since Ephraim Brown recorded this number, tallying the Battle of Antietam’s bloody cost has held a morbid fascination for historians and the public alike. That such counts revealed Antietam as America’s deadliest day became clear within weeks of the battle itself, if not long since to those such as Private Brown who were charged with burying the dead. Even so, reaching an exact count of the lives lost in the short, sharp contest around Sharpsburg has remained elusive. Explanations for this enduring uncertainty extend to the war itself. Neither army required reporting specific casualty types post-battle, and unit “returns” accounting for personnel— which enabled general casualty counts—were mainly meant to determine food and equipment

needs rather than to gauge a fight’s cost or to notify families of the fallen. Lee’s hasty, late night retreat on September 18 prevented clerks and others in his army from compiling the records required to accurately create such counts for Confederate casualties. Although Union troops remained on the field for weeks and produced more complete counts, they too fall short. Post-battle confusion, the absence of wounded and missing men who remained away from their regiments for extended periods, leadership confusion caused by the need to replace officers wounded or killed in battle, and other organizational breakdowns large and small frustrated efforts to compile the records needed to generate accurate casualty figures. The report of Union Brig. Gen. Abner Doubleday, commanding the 1st Corps’ 1st Division, reflects these many complications. In late September 1862, he reported 862 killed, wounded, and missing, but later compilations of his unit’s returns changed the total to 812 casualties. The inexact, inconsistent use of terms describing Antietam’s fallen by battle veterans and historians alike also frustrates compiling a definitive count. Although “casualties” usually captures the total num-

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brought to a close the Battle of Antietam, ending America’s bloodiest single day. While this notorious title is not in doubt—it has remained so through wars, natural disasters, and even modern America’s horrific 2001 terrorist attacks—uncertainty still exists regarding the day’s exact death toll. A recently discovered map, however, is helping change that. Sunrise on September 18 brought many tasks to those who had survived Antietam’s firestorm. Generals George B. McClellan and Robert E. Lee faced deciding their two armies’ next steps. Officers of Federal and Confederate units large and small struggled to collect and re-form their commands for whatever those two commanders decided. Surgeons on both sides of Antietam Creek struggled to save lives of the wounded survivors, while the men in their care carried on a new fight to simply survive another day. Many of those in blue and gray who escaped unharmed returned to their mundane roles of guard duty, cooking, cleaning weapons, or similar routine tasks. Others, however, found themselves assigned the unpleasant task of burying the dead who littered the once-peaceful fields of Sharpsburg, Md. Despite having helped repulse Brig. Gen. Howell Cobb’s Brigade’s assault on the Sunken Road the day before, the 64th New York’s Ephraim Brown recorded that he and two comrades early on September 18 were “detailed to look for Our Dead. We took Ephraim Green…off under flag of truce & the Sharp Shooters whizzed 5 bullets at us…we then got Norman Foster[,] William Fuller & John Orr & carried them back down the slope to a house & barn & buried them under a big apple tree…taking a good pine board from the barn & marking E. Green inscription & putting it to his head.” Tough as they were to perform, these acts of kindness for fallen friends paled in comparison to their duty the following day. When Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia slipped away to reenter Virginia, dawn on September 19 revealed that only Confederate dead remained. Private Brown found that “today I was given detaile to burry the Dead Rebels…12 lengths of fence being counted off for my own station & in 10 rods we have piled & buried 264.”

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With Little Ceremony In this vivid drawing by Frank Schell, curious Sharpsburg civilians watch as Union soldiers excavate mass graves on the Roulette Farm and quickly fill them with corpses. ber of men killed, wounded, and missing in a particular action, sometimes this term is used to include just killed and wounded and may even refer in some cases only to those killed. Even the seemingly concrete term “killed” can capture differing numbers, sometimes referring to those immediately killed in battle, but other times including those who died weeks, months, or even years later of wounds sustained in the action. Historians have long used several “good

enough” counts to quantify Antietam’s death toll. Explaining his use of one such compilation, historian Joseph L. Harsh noted, “based on correspondence, personal interviews, newspaper accounts, memoirs, and regimental histories, [these] figures are probably as close to the real numbers as later generations can hope to approach.” The earliest aggregations of Antietam’s dead appeared in General McClellan’s September 29, 1862, report, which cites 2,010 Union killed and approximately 3,500 Confederate dead, the latter figure ascribed to assistant inspector general Major Nelson H. Davis, superintending McClellan’s burial effort. McClellan’s October 15, 1862, report created early complications by stating Confederate dead as 2,700—considerably lower than his earlier number—and the Union total as lower than the Confederates but without providing a figure. On the Southern side, Surgeon Lafayette Guild, Lee’s chief medical director, submitted a report sometime before the war’s close listing the Army of Northern Virginia’s dead for the entire Maryland Campaign as 1,567. Numbers given in the two earliest postwar counts of Antietam’s dead quickly became the standard for generations of historians. Publication JANUARY 2021

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Confederate dead. Stephen Sears’ 1983 Landscape Turned Red, perhaps the best-known modern account of the battle, repeats Carman’s 2,108 Union and 1,546 Confederate dead. John M. Priest’s 1989 Antietam: The Soldiers’ Battle cites the Official Records and Battles and Leaders’ figures and methods to generate 2,157 Union and 1,754 Confederate killed. Joseph Harsh’s 2000 Taken at the Flood, examining Southern actions at Antietam, uses Carman’s 1,546 Confederate dead figure. Regardless of which source historians used, since 1862 it has been accepted that slightly more than 2,000 Union and 1,500 Confederate soldiers died on September 17, 1862—a total of 3,500 lives. Last May, the discovery of a new map upended 158 years of scholarship by offering insights unavailable to all these historians and documentarians. This occurred when Adams County Historical Society researchers Timothy Smith and Andrew Dalton uncovered an 1864 map in the New York Public Library that depicts in detail the burials of those who fell on America’s bloodiest day. It was created by Simon Green Elliott (1828-1897), who before

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of the Official Records in 1887 provided Uphill Fight for the first time a widely available, reliThe Elliott Map locates able source for such numbers, listing more than 700 burials 2,108 Union dead at Antietam and 1,567 near Burnside Bridge Confederates killed in the entire Maryalone, most of which land Campaign. Access to the Official belong to Federal troops. Records enabled backstopping these totals and efforts to generate more detailed figures, which editors of The Century Illustrated Monthly magazine used in 1887 to publish a highly detailed—though still incomplete—list of each unit’s dead in its four-volume Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, reporting 2,108 Union and 1,512 Confederate deaths at Antietam. As the century ended, two additional sources for Antietam’s dead and casualty numbers appeared. In 1900, Thomas L. Livermore published the first volume devoted solely to compiling figures from the war, Numbers and Losses in the Civil War in America, which used the Official Records’ 2,108 Union dead and revived McClellan’s October 1862 figure of 2,700 Confederate killed. Although Livermore’s volume quickly became influential, Antietam veteran and historian Brig. Gen. Ezra A. Carman’s 1894 work on Antietam, The Maryland Campaign (three volumes)—repeating the 2,108 Union dead figure but offering his own total of 1,546 Confederate killed—gained more lasting influence despite not being published until the late 1990s. Recent Antietam histories draw from one or more of these sources. James V. Murfin’s 1965 The Gleam of Bayonets used McClellan’s September 1862 report and Guild’s numbers, offering 2,010 Union and 1,567

the war worked as a railroad engineer in California. Upon returning east, Elliott had famously also mapped the Gettysburg battlefield’s burials, a resource housed today in the Library of Congress. Walking the ground around Sharpsburg, which remained a massive cemetery in 1864, Elliott chronicled the location, Union or Confederate affiliation, and what appears to be a fairly exact number of graves, as reflected in the exacting, differing number of each burial plot. Elliott rediscovered the mass resting place of several regiments, both Union and Confederate, using temporary markers that Union burial details left for later reburial teams. He recorded inscriptions of handhewn grave markers and headstones bearing names of a few of the fallen, created in Antietam’s immediate aftermath by brothers and friends, like those that Ephraim Brown described. The burial sites of fallen horses are also recorded along with the locations of artillery batteries—the latter probably reflecting remaining evidence of their presence or locals’ accounts, because by 1864 these guns were long gone to other battlefields. By 1866, with the opening of the Antietam National Cemetery and other such grounds, most of the burials that Elliott depicted had been moved elsewhere. Despite some minor errors in recording names and unit designations, his record offers us today a glimpse of a moment in time that is no more.

Antietam Death Tolls Over the years, scholars, generals, and veterans have established various totals for Antietam’s gory tally.

SOURCE / DATE REPORTED

UNION CONFEDERATE KILLED KILLED

ELLIOTT MAP 2020 HARSH 2000 PRIEST 1989

2,762 3,281 – 1,546 2,157 1,754

SEARS 1983 MURFIN 1965 LIVERMORE 1900

2,108 1,546 2,010 1,567* 2,108 2,700

2,108 1,546 CARMAN AFTER 1894; 2012 2,108 1,567* OFFICIAL RECORDS 1887 BATTLES AND LEADERS 1887 2,108 1,512 – 1,567* DR. LAFAYETTE GUILD 1862-65 ~2,700 MCCLELLAN 10/15/1862 – 2,010 3,000** MCCLELLAN 09/29/1862 ELLIOTT MAP DETAILS Cornfield/East Woods/West Woods 1,539 2,331 Sunken Road 413 677 Burnside Bridge 715 258 Middle Bridge 28 5 Unassociated burials 67 10 * ENTIRE CAMPAIGN ** PLUS OR MINUS 500

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imon Elliott’s work instantly placed him in the top ranks of those recording counts of Antietam’s dead. Ironically, even with his own unique creation available, Elliott’s map sidebar text repeats McClellan’s report figures, listing 2,010 Union and 3,500 Confederate dead, totaling 5,500 slain. He had missed a golden opportunity. This is because a simple, if time-consuming, count of the burials captured on Elliott’s map reveals a more accurate picture of the number killed on America’s bloodiest day than has previously been available. It shows 2,762 Union dead buried on the battlefield, while a similar count of Confederate burials reveals 3,281 dead. Combining the two figures offers a total of 6,043 deaths on September 17, 1862. These figures captured on the Elliott Map reveal the cost of America’s bloodiest single day to be considerably higher than previously understood, both in the aggregate and by sectional divisions. On the Union side, it shows

Unknown and Known An unburied Confederate soldier lies next to the grave of Lieutenant John Clark of the 7th Michigan Infantry. Clark’s grave is marked with a simple wood board on which his name is inscribed. The lieutenant’s family recovered his body, and he is buried in Monroe, Mich. JANUARY 2021

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654 more dead than reported by the Official Records, the most widely used figure by historians for depicting the Federal cost. Elliott’s revelations about Antietam’s Confederate dead are even more significant and startling, bearing twice the long-accepted number. Showing 1,714 more Southern fallen than the Official Records’ and Guild’s total for the entire campaign, 1,735 more than Carman’s Antietam figure, and 531 more than Livermore’s battle count suggests just how great was the Confederacy’s loss of manpower in this greatest struggle of Lee’s Maryland Campaign. A further irony of the map is that of all numbers given for Antietam’s Confederate dead it is George McClellan—regularly criticized for playing loose with numbers—who provided the figure closest to Elliott’s, only 219 more than shown on the 1864 map. Elliott’s map also allows more accurate, detailed counts of the deaths caused by several actions that comprise the Battle of Antietam, offering new insight into the course and implications of those actions and the battle as a whole. The early morning fighting on the Union right/Confederate left flanks north of Sharpsburg (Miller’s Cornfield, the East Woods, and the West Woods) together generated 1,539 Union dead and 2,331 Confederate killed. That these and several nearby similarly

intertwined actions resulted in more than half of the battle’s killed—3,870 of its 6,043 total—shows just how significant to the battle’s outcome was this morning round of fighting. The cost of fighting in and around the famous “Bloody Lane” is reflected, too, on Elliott’s map, suggesting the scope and impact of this action. The 413 Union burials graphically show just how costly was this action, disconnected from Federal tactical planning, which kept two full divisions from contributing to McClellan’s larger battle objectives. Similarly, the 677 Confederate dead in the nearby fields suggest the high price the South paid for defending this position and the number of men unavailable when Lee unsuccessfully sought to take the offense late on September 17. The Sunken Road fight was a deadly, costly sideshow, indeed. Losses depicted from the midday and late afternoon fighting south of Sharpsburg centered on the picturesque, famous “Burnside [Rohrbach] Bridge” are similarly revealing. The 715 Union burials there show how costly Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside’s uncertain efforts were to cross the bridge and attack the Confederate right flank, particularly when considered against the 258 Confederate lives spent in defending this spot. Further complicating capturing the full cost of this action is that a torn, missing portion on the right edge breaks the depiction of a line of Union graves, probably forever preventing their inclusion. Even the small number of burials along the Middle Bridge and Boonsboro Pike reveal Antietam’s ultimate course. Planned by McClellan to be the location of his main, final push into Lee’s center—weakened by his moving troops to defend his flanks—the burial of only 28 Union and five Confederate dead here reflects an attack that never materialized, of what might have been had Antietam’s fight unfolded differently. In a larger sense, to understand just how great the human cost of America’s bloodiest day was, consider that as horrific as is the sight of

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Their Last Fight A Union soldier ponders the graves of some of the 19 men of the 51st New York Infantry killed during their regiment’s attack against Burnside Bridge, visible in the background.

Elliott’s revelations about Antietam’s Confederate dead are significant and startling, bearing twice the longaccepted number

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Dirty Work A Union burial party poses on the Miller Farm on September 19, 1862, for photographer Alexander Gardner. One soldier dramatically points to the row of bodies that his crew is about to bury.

this massive burying ground and the numbers depicted on Elliott’s map, it still fails to account for all the dead of that day. Including only those killed on September 17, 1862, or shortly thereafter who died and were buried on the fields immediately surrounding Sharpsburg; it does not capture the fates of those among the 17,779 wounded—some 9,075 Union and 8,724 Confederate, according to the Official Records—who later died of their Antietam injuries. Those who died of these wounds at various hospitals—ranging from temporary field aid stations surrounding Sharpsburg for dozens of miles to large, modern hospitals in Philadelphia, Washington, and elsewhere—were buried nearby and so are largely not reflected on Elliott’s map or in most counts of Antietam deaths.

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rivate Henry Clark of the 88th Pennsylvania Infantry is just one of those almost certainly uncounted Antietam deaths. Wounded on September 17, probably during fighting in the East Woods, he survived in an Alexandria, Va., hospital until January 6, 1864. Clark’s cause of death was listed as “pleurisy”—inflammation of the lungs and chest—but he had never recovered from his Antietam wound, which likely caused this condition and his demise. Although Clark’s death was as surely caused by America’s bloodiest day as were those depicted on Elliott’s map, it remains unconnected to the battle by government records and so probably was not counted in any Antietam casualty figures. The Elliott Map’s revelations also suggest that Antietam’s widely used 22,720-man casualty count should increase, too. Adding Elliott’s

6,043 recorded dead to the traditionally accepted 19,070 collective wounded and missing totals results in 25,113 Antietam casualties. Applying this same approach to the sectional totals similarly raises those figures to 13,062 Union and 12,051 Confederate casualties for September 17. As mind-numbing as these figures are, adding cases of overlooked casualties like Henry Clark shows that America’s bloodiest day was in truth more costly than we have long, if imperfectly, understood. Even if such a true, full accounting of the number of Antietam’s dead remains impossible to compile, Simon Elliott’s priceless 1864 map nonetheless has given us a valuable new tool to better understand the devastating human cost demanded by America’s bloodiest day. David A. Welker, a professional historian and military analyst for the federal government who writes from Centreville, Va., is the author of The Cornfield: Antietam’s Bloody Turning Point (Casemate Press, 2020). JANUARY 2021

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Pluck and Courage On July 3, 1864, Mary Miller—”A Martinsburg Heroine,” according to artist James E. Taylor— waves her fist at Maj. Gen. John Breckinridge’s troops, the Stars and Stripes wrapped around her body. Leveled Confederate muskets did not seem to bother Martinsburg’s version of Lady Columbia.

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deep blue IN a reb state Martinsburg’s unionist passion was so unshakable, confederates resorted to calling the key western virginia town ‘little Massachusetts’ By Jonathan A. Noyalas

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Hammond. Both voted against secession on April 4, 1861. Thirteen days later, following the war’s opening salvos at Fort Sumter and Abraham Lincoln’s call for 75,000 volunteers to suppress the rebellion, both Pendleton and Hammond voted against secession, though Hammond later changed his vote and eventually signed the ordinance of secession. Pendleton, who earned the title “Edmond, the Staunch and Steady,” for his support of the Union, never wavered and refused to sign the ordinance. While Unionist sentiment throughout the Valley waned in the wake of Virginia’s secession, Martinsburg and Berkeley County proved Unionism’s bastion. Of all the Valley’s counties, Berkeley was the only one whose majority of eligible voters opposed the secession ordinance, doing so by a vote of 1,226–428. In the weeks leading up to the secession referendum vote on May 23, 1861, Unionists in Martinsburg held large gatherings aimed at

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or Corporal Charles Lynch and his comrades in the 18th Connecticut Infantry, Martinsburg, W.Va., had the feeling of a second home by the time the regiment reached there July 11, 1864. Over the previous two years, the 18th Connecticut had been in Martinsburg on numerous occasions and under various circumstances. In fact, Lynch wrote in his diary on the 11th that the 18th Connecticut regarded Martinsburg as “our home town.” While familiarity with Martinsburg was partially responsible for that feeling, something else added to their comfort: Martinsburg possessed the most substantial Unionist population of any community in the Shenandoah Valley. While Lynch wrote of visiting Unionist “friends” when in Martinsburg, other Union soldiers who spent time in the community noticed the strong Unionist sentiment, too. More than two years earlier, Sheldon Colton, an officer in the 67th Ohio Infantry, wrote his mother that Martinsburg contained “some pretty good Union men and women…[they] are very kind to us, and help us all they can.” As Virginia debated secession in late 1860 and early 1861, support for the Union remained strong throughout the Valley. Fifteen of the 19 delegates who represented the Valley’s communities at the secession convention in Richmond were pro-Unionist, including both from Berkeley County—Edmund (sometimes spelled Edmond) Pendleton and Allen

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Engines of Economy In this 1863 photograph of the B&O Railroad’s Martinsburg roundhouse, taken the year West Virginia became the country’s 35th state, workmen and bystanders pose among an assortment of Camelback locomotives and a train of iron-pot coal cars.

countering secessionist sentiment. For example, a newspaper correspondent reported that a gathering of Unionists at the courthouse in Martinsburg on May 13 was so large that the crowd poured out of the chamber in which the meeting took place into the main hall and to the building’s front door. News of this activity unnerved Confederate officials in the region. Two days before the statewide referendum, Colonel Thomas J. Jackson sent a dispatch to Robert E. Lee, who commanded all Virginia forces, “that in Berkeley things are growing worse…the threats from Union men are calculated to curb the expression of Southern feeling.”

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ith support for the Confederacy increasing throughout the Shenandoah Valley during the spring of 1861, the question remains as to why Unionist sentiment in Martinsburg and Berkeley proved so strong and remained so for the conflict’s duration. While various elements contributed to the cultivation of Unionist loyalties throughout the Valley and the broader South—religion, ethnicity, familial connections to the North, and political beliefs—an additional factor contributed to the staunch Unionist sentiment of those from Martinsburg and surrounding environs: the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. The B&O came to Martinsburg in 1842 and proved critical to the success of the local economy. “The economic effect of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad was very great….The wealth and welfare of the people were much improved and they realized a new era had begun,” one chronicler noted. Throughout the conflict Confederates who passed through Martinsburg believed the railroad the most significant factor that made “most of the people” into “bitter Unionists.” Confederate artillerist John Hampden Chamberlayne believed that the B&O “ruined” Martinsburg and Berkeley County. William S. White, 3rd Richmond Howitzers, concurred. On September 18, 1862, White penned in his diary that Martinsburg “is very different in character” from other locales in the Shenandoah Valley because it was “situated on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.” Unionist sentiment in and around Martinsburg not only proved anomalous due to the number of Unionists there, but also because of how aggressively they supported the Union war effort. While Unionists throughout the Valley did things to undermine the Confederate war effort—such as those in

Rockingham County, who spirited men of military age out of the Valley via a Unionist Underground Railroad to avoid conscription into Confederate service—they usually did so as clandestinely as possible for reasons of self-preservation. In Martinsburg, however, that did not seem to be the case. Less than one month after Virginia’s secession referendum, a contingent of cavalry commanded by Colonel J.E.B. Stuart arrived in Martinsburg to burn the colonnade bridge that carried the B&O over Burke Street. The bridge—a gift to the citizens of Martinsburg from the B&O “as an especial compliment to the city”—was constructed in the early 1840s. About 8 p.m. on June 13, Stuart’s men destroyed the bridge, one of the town’s architectural landmarks. Martinsburg resident John Curtis wrote that the bridge’s destruction “incensed [the] Union men very much.” In addition to giving Southern soldiers “an unexpected lick or knockdown” in the days that followed, railroad workers and their families expressed their disapproval in a more verbose fashion. As a Confederate company, men Curtis believed hailed from Clarke County, Va., drilled in the square in front of the courthouse, the crowd shouted at the soldiers and threw stones. After a stone struck one of the Rebels, they, according to Curtis, “brought their guns to shoulder, ready to shoot.” Perhaps somewhat unbelievably Curtis wrote that at this point the “crowd made a break toward” the soldiers. Not wanting the situation to escalate, the troops retreated into Grantham Hall, a meeting place at Hometown Boy David Hunter Strother began the war as a Union topographer and later served as colonel of the 3rd West Virginia Cavalry.

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Relentless Menace Martinsburg faced a constant threat of Confederate raids. These drawings, dated 1861, show Rebel soldiers riding through town (top) and dismantling captured locomotives (above).

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hile surviving accounts suggest that the Unionists who displayed outrage against Confederates in the war’s opening months were both male and female, evidence suggests that it did not take long for Martinsburg’s male Unionists to assume a more cautious posture when Confederate troops were near. For example, during Union Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks’ retreat north following his defeat at the First Battle of Winchester on May 25, 1862, a number of

Martinsburg’s male Unionists joined Banks’ column as it marched toward Williamsport, Md. David Hunter Strother, a Martinsburg native who served on Banks’ staff, recorded that a “number” of “loyal…male citizens… joined our train of refugees” for Maryland. The move wasn’t permanent, however. Once Union forces regained control of the area around Martinsburg by the first week of June, the Unionist refugees returned. As Colonel Strother rode south toward Martinsburg on June 3, 1862, “to visit some friends in Martinsburg,” he noted that the “road was alive” with returning refugees. Although the decision to flee to Maryland might be viewed as being done out of an overabundance of caution or perhaps even seem cowardly, evidence indicates the decision for White men, especially those of military age, to leave proved wise. Since the war’s outset, Confederate troops who entered Martinsburg adopted various measures to suppress White males who in some way undermined the Confederate war effort. For example, in June 1861, about the time Confederates destroyed the colonnade bridge, troopers from the 1st Virginia Cavalry arrested 25-year-old George Zepp “for advocating the Union cause” and refusing to “join their army.” Zepp’s detainment did not last long. Unclear whether he escaped or was released by his captors, Zepp offered his services to Union Maj. Gen. Robert Patterson after his command entered Martinsburg the first week of July. Despite his arrest and threats of being hanged should he continue to undermine the Confederacy’s cause, Zepp not only offered his service to Patterson, but also to other Union officers during the war, including Generals Banks and Philip Sheridan as a “scout and detective.” John Dalwick, 46 years old at the war’s outset, described by Martinsburg Unionist Ferdinand Gerling “as good a Union man as there was in Berkeley County,” supported the Union war effort in various ways. When Patterson’s Union army occupied Martinsburg in July 1861, Dalwick “collected money to make a Union flag.” On July 12, Dalwick, along with Mary Miller, presented a flag made of wool to the 11th Pennsylvania Infantry. The 11th’s chaplain, William Henry Locke, noted that it was “a beautiful national flag” presented to the regiment “in acknowledgement of our first victory over the rebels at Falling Waters.” Dalwick’s commitment to the Union war effort extended beyond his activities in the summer of 1861. Throughout the war Dalwick

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the southwest corner of King and Queen Streets. The angry Unionists remained outside the hall “for some time” and “hooted and howled.” The ire of Martinsburg Unionists only increased days later when General Joseph E. Johnston, the overall Confederate commander in the Valley, ordered Jackson to proceed to Martinsburg and destroy the B&O Railroad shops to prevent their use by Union troops. Although Jackson disapproved of the order, as he thought the equipment in Martinsburg should be confiscated and used for the Confederacy’s benefit, he carried out the order on June 20. As Jackson’s troops engaged in the work of what one of his men believed “look[ed] like vandalism”—tearing up track, burning the roundhouse and various shops, and destroying 56 locomotives and 305 coal cars—the community’s Unionists looked on in disbelief. Reportedly, one female Unionist, so incensed by what Jackson’s men had done, verbally chastised a contingent of Confederates and told them she hoped Union General Winfield Scott would capture them and execute every Confederate involved in the destruction.

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Birth of the Mountain State Flag of the 11th Pennsylvania, which fought at the July 2, 1861, Battle of Hoke’s Run. After two bloody years of war, West Virginia finally attained statehood on June 20, 1863. loaned Union soldiers money and he, along with his wife Catherine, nursed wounded and sick Union soldiers at various points during the conflict. Perhaps most significantly Dalwick secreted Union soldiers separated from their commands during various retreats through Martinsburg and then guided them to Union lines. While male Unionists such as Dalwick and Zepp supported the Union war effort in civilian, non-combatant capacities, others enlisted in the Union Army. Nearly 200 men from Martinsburg and Berkeley County enlisted in one of two companies organized: 133 enlisted in Company C, 3rd West Virginia Cavalry, while

another 66 enlisted in Company B, 1st Virginia (U.S.) Infantry. There is evidence that others Unionists from Martinsburg and its vicinity ventured into Maryland and enlisted in the 1st Maryland Infantry (U.S.) or enlisted in companies organized in Williamsport by Ward Hill Lamon, a Winchester native who worked in various capacities in the Lincoln administration. Although there are not precise numbers for the total who enlisted in units beyond the two from Berkeley County, juxtaposing those estimated enlistment figures against the number of men from the county to serve in one of the five Confederate companies provides perspective on the strength of Unionist sentiment in the area: 381 individuals from Martinsburg and Berkeley County served the Confederate war effort, meaning that, at a minimum, approximately 35 percent of those serving in Martinsburg/Berkeley County military units during the conflict did so in Union blue. As Martinsburg’s male Unionists supported the Union war effort in some manner, so too did the women whose sympathies leaned North. Throughout the conflict, these women offered care and comfort to wounded Union soldiers or those separated from their commands. Among those in the community who lent such critical support were Amanda and Ann Hafner, seamstresses in their late 20s who, according to artist-correspondent James E. Taylor, cared “for sick and wounded Federals” and supplied “refreshments and coffee to hungry and thirsty stragglers seeking their commands.” Irish immigrant Bridget Delaney, 51 years old at the start of the war, contributed admirably as well. After Taylor interviewed Delaney in 1864, he recorded that she “had done more for the Boys in Blue than anyone in Martinsburg.” Throughout the conflict, Union soldiers such as Captain George A. Sexton, 3rd West Virginia Cavalry, also testified to Delaney’s tireless effort to support the Union. Sexton, recalling a conversation he had with Taylor in 1864, stated that Delaney “the good soul is always on the go and never seems to have a moment to spare for rest.” JANUARY 2021

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everal weeks later during the Confederate retreat following defeat at the Battle of Gettysburg, Martinsburg’s Unionists offered food and water to Union prisoners of war being escorted south. While Unionists, male and female as well as young and old, offered foodstuffs, Union prisoners made particular note of the courage Martinsburg’s female Unionists showed. Captain R.K. Beecham of the 2nd Wisconsin Infantry, captured on the first day of fighting at Gettysburg, wrote that the “ladies especially were persistent.” As Unionists threw “loaves of homemade bread, biscuits, crackers, [and] cakes of all kinds” into the lines of Union prisoners, Confederate guards took measures to stop it. Beecham recalled one episode when an unidentified Rebel officer threatened a group of women with his sword, noting that the threat had little impact. With “cheeks glowing with the fire of indignation,” Beecham recalled that one unidentifiable woman approached the officer and “in contempt of his authority…with the fire of indignation and her eyes flashing defiance” told the Confederate, “‘Oh, you needn’t think you can scare us.’” Slightly more than one year later, during the first week of July 1864, when Confederate troops commanded by Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge entered Martinsburg to carry out an order by Lt. Gen. Jubal Early to “seize all other goods in the stores” in the community and burn all the bridges in the area, Mary Miller seized the opportunity to show her disdain. As Breckinridge’s troops passed in front of Miller’s home on Union Hill, a place named so by Martinsburg’s Confederate sympathizers due to the large number of Unionists who lived in that area, she snatched the Stars and Stripes that she had presented the 11th Pennsylvania in 1861, wrapped it around herself, stood in the middle of the street and reportedly chastised Breckinridge’s troops as “shame-faced traitors in fighting against the flag of their country.” Weeks after the episode James Taylor spoke with Miller noted that “unintimidated by [the Rebels’] threat of bullet and bayonet….Miller was terribly in earnest…an example of reckless courage and grit.” Perhaps one of the most daring acts the community’s female Unionists performed came on October 1, 1862, when 700 Union cavalry commanded by Brig. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton made a reconnaissance to Martinsburg. At the time, Confederate Brig. Gen. Wade Hampton’s cavalry brigade was positioned “in the center of the town.” Pleasonton arrived on the town’s outskirts about 2 p.m. and drove away Hampton.

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Not What You Would Call a Fan Alexander Tedford “Ted” Barclay of the 4th Virginia called Martinsburg “the meanest Abolition hole on the face of the earth.” A collection of his wartime letters is available at the Washington & Lee University Library.

Union prisoners made particular note of the courage Martinsburg’s female Unionists displayed

following Rebel victory at the Battle of Martinsburg on June 14, 1863, portions of Confederate Maj. Gen. Robert Rodes’ Division met with stiff resistance from the community’s female Unionists after Rodes’ men entered town in the wake of a retreat by Brig. Gen. Daniel Tyler’s Federal forces. A female Unionist, identified by one North Carolinian as “a Dutch woman of strong Union brawn,” accosted Captain John Gorman, 2nd North Carolina, with “a paddling stick.” Unable to shake the woman, Lieutenant Frank Harney of the 14th North Carolina intervened and informed the woman that if she did not cease immediately “he would pull every hair out of her head.”

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Delaney, despite the praise heaped upon her by Taylor, Sexton, and others, did not believe she deserved any of it and insisted there were considerably more women in Martinsburg who did more. “There are plenty of my sex here who do much more for the boys, God bless them, that I do,” Delaney informed Taylor somewhat “deprecatingly.” Nevertheless, Union soldiers cared for by Delaney appreciated her help so much that they ventured back to Martinsburg in the decades after the conflict to visit and pay their respects. Among those who visited Delaney after the war was Sergeant George W. Toms, 5th New York Cavalry. After traveling to Martinsburg in 1891, Toms wrote an article for the National Tribune that not only praised Delaney as someone “who did so much for the Union,” but also urged comrades who now enjoyed financial “prosperity” to be charitable to Delaney, now 81 years old “and unable to do anything.” Delaney died two years later. While the work of the Hafner sisters and Delaney was typical of the ways women supported the Union war effort, that devotion manifested itself in other ways. Sometimes commitment to the Union prompted open defiance against Confederate troops. For instance,

WESTERN RESERVE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY

None of what he achieved, however, would have been possible if the female Unionists had not hastily repaired a bridge over Tuscarora Creek that had been made impassable by Hampton’s troops. According to David Hunter Strother, as soon as these women spied “the Union banners…advancing over the hill” they rushed from their “houses and replaced the flooring of the bridge” so that Pleasonton’s “column was enabled to pass over it without a halt.” This act proved a nice surprise to Pleasonton who acknowledged he was aware Hampton’s troopers had destroyed “two bridges between my forces and theirs.” When Pleasonton learned that “the ladies of the place had turned out and built them up for my men to cross,” he remarked it was a telling example of the “exhibition of the loyalty and devotion in the present great struggle for national existence.” The varied acts of support for the Union war effort among area Unionists created a sense of dread for many Confederates whenever they approached Martinsburg. Although Martinsburg and Berkeley County had Southern sympathizers, the number and boldness of Unionists was without parallel in the Shenandoah Valley. In June 1861, Alexander Tedford Barclay of the 4th Virginia Infantry called the town “the meanest Abolition hole on the face of the earth.” More than one year later, Confederate artillerist William White referred to Martinsburg as a “detestable place.” Some Confederates feared area Unionists so much that officers prohibited troops from drinking out of wells, as one soldier explained, “for fear the wells are poisoned.” Some Confederates believed Unionist sentiment so strong that they branded Martinsburg “Little Massachusetts”—a nomme de guerre the locals proudly accepted, as one Unionist made note, as a “compliment to their spirit, their patriotism, and their civilization.” Although it is difficult to fully quantify the impact Martinsburg’s Unionists had on the Civil War’s course in the Shenandoah Valley, their myriad efforts—military service, scouting, secreting Federal soldiers separated from their commands, caring for wounded troops, and providing foodstuffs and supplies—proved critical to Union success. Although in the decades following the Civil War, various Union soldiers reflected fondly about Martinsburg’s Unionist sympathizers in regimental histories, reminiscences, and articles in the National Tribune, perhaps it was Orwin H. Balch of the 147th New York—who had passed through

Needed: A Woman’s Touch Union soldiers relax outside a friendly home in Martinsburg, enjoying refreshments provided by local seamstresses Amanda and Ann Hafner. The support of the town’s female population, such as Bridget Delaney (inset), helped keep Martinsburg a Union stronghold. Martinsburg in July 1863 as a prisoner of war—who best explained the strength of that sentiment. After watching Confederate soldiers threaten and arrest a male Unionist for “feeding starving” Union soldiers, Balch believed this individual the epitome of “a true and brave man” in a place unlike any other community he had experienced south of the Potomac River. Decades after the war, Balch wrote of the uniqueness of Martinsburg’s Unionists, stating simply, “I must say that the strongest sentiment was manifested in this place that I been through during the time that I have been in service.” Jonathan A. Noyalas is director of Shenandoah University’s McCormick Civil War Institute and the author or editor of 13 books on various aspects of Civil War–era Shenandoah Valley history. JANUARY 2021

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‘HUMANITY FORBADE THEM TO STARVE’ as grant focused on taking Vicksburg, he found compassion to combat a contraband crisis By Judith Wilmot Memphis Landmark Artist Henri Lovie titled this sketch, The Camp of the Contrabands on the Mississippi, Fort Pickering, Memphis, Tenn, 1862. Fort Pickering was not a refugee camp but a captured Rebel bastion Grant’s army used as a staging area where former slaves found work. DeSoto Park stands on the site today.

AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

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In October 1862, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant took command of the Union Department of the Tennessee, establishing his headquarters in the village of La Grange, Tenn. Most of his 31,000 troops were stationed two miles away in the small railroad town of Grand Junction, about 45 miles south of Memphis and a few miles north of the Mississippi state line. As Grant made plans to move farther south into the heart of plantation country, his principal focus was on the capture of Vicksburg, Miss., which would give the Union control of the Mississippi River— a major goal of the Lincoln administration since the beginning of the war. Grant, however, also faced the tormenting question of how to care for tens of thousands of former slaves who had begun steadily arriving within Union lines that fall. The U.S. government referred to these refugees as “contrabands of war,” or simply “contrabands,” essentially considering them captured enemy property. “The arrival among us of these hordes was the oncoming of cities,” wrote the Rev. John Eaton, chaplain of the 27th Ohio Infantry. “There was no plan to this exodus, no Moses to lead it.…Their condition was

THE AMERICAN ANTIQUARIAN SOCIETY

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appalling. There were men, women, and children in every stage of disease or decrepitude, often nearly naked, with flesh torn by the terrible experiences of their escapes.” Readily accepting that these contrabands needed immediate help as well as a means to embark on their lives as new citizens, Grant on November 11 ordered Eaton to “take charge of the contrabands that come into camp in the vicinity of the post.” Eaton read Grant’s directive with dismay, however, and rode from Grand Junction to Grant’s headquarters in Hancock Hall—a large home, still standing, in La Grange—to plead for release from the order. “Mr. Eaton,” Grant countered, “I have ordered you to report to me in person, and I will take care of you.” Grant would prove true to that.

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Grant and Eaton resolved to put all available assets toward the refugees’ care. They commandeered deserted houses in the area to provide them shelter. And at abandoned plantations, where fields of ripe corn and cotton remained standing, Eaton employed men, women, and children older than 10 to harvest crops that, when sold, would generate funds for their own care. It was Grant’s hope that the contrabands, who would become known formally as “freedmen” after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued on January 1, 1863, might eventually win full citizenship. In his long-term vision, male contrabands could become soldiers and, if they fought well, it might lead to voting privileges. It was a significant first step when Adj. Gen. Lorenzo Thomas was assigned to recruit freedmen from the contraband camps for Union service and 70,000 joined from the Mississippi Valley alone.

rant’s experience as a regimental quartermaster during the Mexican War would serve him well at this stage of the Civil War, helping him mentor Eaton in creating a military-linked organization for the refugees. Eaton rode almost daily to meet with Grant at his Hancock Hall headquarters. The two worked on establishing a system that would create soldiers and wage laborers from former slaves. They set wages

AMERICAN HERITAGE AUCTIONS, ADAM OCHS FLEISCHER

aton was named Superintendent of Contrabands and, as instructed, established a camp at Grand Junction. Tracks for the Mississippi Central Railroad and the Memphis–Charleston Railroad ran through the town, with a three-story railroad depot that was turned into a hospital. The camp was intended to shelter women, children, and men classified as “feeble,” but Army regulations prevented Grant from supplying food to these refugees, as rations were to be provided only for able-bodied male workers. In 1885, Grant penned in his Personal Memoirs: “Humanity forbade allowing them to starve. With such an army of them, of all ages and both sexes, as had congregated about Grand Junction, amounting to many thousands; it was impossible to advance.” Among others who witnessed the swarm of Mississippi Valley refugees was a La Grange townsman and plantation owner, who commented in his diary on November 10, 1862: “[M]assing of contrabands. God only know when the Negros will stop.” And William Faulkner, who had heard stories from people who had lived through that period, described the scene in his 1938 novel The Unvanquished: “We couldn’t count them; men and women carrying children who couldn’t walk and carrying old men and women who should have been at home waiting to die. They were walking along the road singing, not even looking to right or left. The dust didn’t even settle for two days, because all that night they still passed.” Grant would later acknowledge that he was greatly concerned about protecting his troops against the diseases and demoralization that might result from contact with the refugees. Nevertheless, he was not about to disregard the hardship in store for this helpless lot as winter approached. Initially, Eaton was overwhelmed by the contrabands’ want and destitution, limited as he was at first to a staff of one soldier per thousand refugees. The chaplain was uncertain how to protect, feed, clothe, and house the legions already at the camp, not to mention those still arriving each day. AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

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HARPER’S WEEKLY; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; GRANT, LINCOLN ND THE FREEDMAN

The Look of Uncertain Freedom A refugee child whose life was forever altered by the war poses with two Union officers.

for those who worked in the fields, either for the government or for planters, and a price for the cotton they harvested. According to Grant’s order:

Rough Haven Grand Junction, Tenn., traversed by the Memphis–Charleston and the Mississippi Central railroads, became a massive U.S. government camp for thousands of refugees.

HARPER’S WEEKLY; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; GRANT, LINCOLN ND THE FREEDMAN

AMERICAN HERITAGE AUCTIONS, ADAM OCHS FLEISCHER

Commanding officers of troops will send all fugitives that come with the lines, together with teams, cooking utensils, and other baggage as they may bring with them, to Chaplain J. Eaton Jr. at Grand Junction, Tenn. One Regiment of Infantry from Brigadier-General [John] McArthur’s Division will be temporarily detailed as guard, in charge of such contrabands, and the Surgeons of Said Regiment will be charged with the care of the sick…

Grant instructed the department’s chief quartermaster to issue Eaton tools, materials for baling cotton, and clothing for men, women, and children. Grant and Eaton later joked about what might have happened if Army officials had held them accountable for the expense. “I had often enough had cause to wonder if he had ever realized this,” Eaton would write, “but my responsibilities were slight compared with those assumed by him.” As Grant prepared to move against Vicksburg in late 1862, he moved his headquarters first to Holly Springs, Miss., site of a large Union supply depot, and then to Oxford, Miss. Eaton remained in command of the camp at Grand Junction, allowing squads of refugees under the protection of soldiers to leave each morning to gather crops of corn and cotton. Funds collected were sent to the U.S. treasurer, though Eaton found it difficult to get plantation owners to pay wages to their former slaves. Eaton depended on Grant’s more intimate knowledge of local conditions and continued to confer with his commander in person as often as possible. They were actually together on December 20 when an early morning telegram revealed that Confederate cavalry, led by Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn, had overwhelmed the garrison at Holly Springs and destroyed $3 million in supplies. On top of the Holly Springs raid, Grant had to deal in December and January with Brig. Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest’s cavalry raids into West Tennessee, which cut off Grant’s supplies and destroyed railroad tracks. Van Dorn’s and Forrest’s depredations delayed Grant’s Vicksburg Campaign for months and forced his army to pull back out of northern Mississippi to Tennessee, first to La Grange and Grand Junc-

tion and then to Memphis. He was compelled to use the Mississippi River essentially as his lone supply chain. A key consideration for Grant during the process was the security of the contrabands at the camps in La Grange and Grand Junction. He realized that leaving the refugees behind at those camps made them easy targets of Forrest’s cavalry. The threat that Forrest’s raiders would either kill or re-enslave them was terrifying. Grant and Eaton knew those too had to be transported to Memphis. Once the railroad tracks were repaired, troop trains were organized and the army began moving north. Each train also carried crowds of contrabands. “[I]t was impossible to control or organize,” wrote Eaton, whom Grant had promoted to general superintendent of contrabands. “Their terror of being left behind made them swarm over the passenger and freight cars, clinging

Social Warriors Department of the Tennessee commander Ulysses Grant and the Rev. John Eaton, who was named a brevet brigadier general after the war. Eaton spent his postwar career mostly in education, holding positions at points in Alaska, Salt Lake City, and Puerto Rico. JANUARY 2021

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PICTORIAL PRESS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

AMERICAâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S CIVIL WAR

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to every available space and even crouching on the roofs. The trains were moved very slowly and with the utmost caution, but even so the exposure of these people—men, women, and children was indescribable.” In his orders promoting Eaton, Grant stressed, “In no case will Negroes be forced into the service of the Government, or be enticed away from their homes except when it becomes a military necessity.” Within months, however, the arduous nature of the campaign began to change the general’s attitude. So did the determination of the freedmen, who volunteered in the thousands to join the Union Army.

ana (African Descent), 11th Louisiana (African Descent), and 1st Mississippi (African Descent) regiments. Most of the Black soldiers had enlisted so recently they hadn’t been trained to load their firearms and had to fight with bayonets and use their rifles as clubs. On June 8, Admiral David Dixon Porter had USS Choctaw join the fray. Artillery fire from Choctaw helped end the Confederate threat. In his memoir, Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen, Eaton wrote that the two-day battle was thrilling and noteworthy, opining, “there is little danger of [it] being forgotten by later generations.” He praised the Black soldiers who had “the humbler duty of safeguarding the planta-

n February 1863, a contraband camp returned to Grand Junction, where a captain in Battery F, 1st Illinois Light Artillery described the town as “mud, mud, mud. Our tent is christened Floating Palace.” Eaton received a dismal report about the living conditions of the freedmen in April tions from assaults which were often vindictive 1863. According to the report, the former Changing Attitudes and particularly cruel, and were…no less brave slaves still lived in deserted houses and USCT soldiers hold off in their loyalty to the cause that freed them.” tents and were vulnerable when left charging Confederates Charles A. Dana, a War Department unguarded “to robbery and all manner of during the attack on the observer, wrote: “The bravery of the blacks at violence dictated by the passions of the Union supply base at Milliken’s Bend. Milliken’s Bend completely revolutionized the abandoned among the soldiery.” Guerrilla sentiments of the army with regard to the raids increased, one of which resulting in employment of Negro troops.” the death of one of Eaton’s assistants. In On a late June visit to Grant, Eaton found the general “had found response, Eaton continued to leverage funds time and inclination to make plans for the Negro population in and from private aid societies and expanded “life around Vicksburg.” He noted that Grant’s “willingness to lend himself skills” training. Couples denied marriage and his energies to a work in one sense far removed from the great under slavery laws were eager to be wed and issues he was facing was nothing less than marvelous.” many hundreds had their unions legalized. Levi Coffin, a friend of Eaton’s, paid a visit to La Grange, where Chaplain Joel Grant of here is little on Grand Junction’s landscape to mark its place in the 12th Illinois Infantry oversaw two camps the demise of slavery. Railroad tracks still cross downtown and and an open-air school. Coffin witnessed more the southeast part of town near the Pleasant Grove Missionary arrivals, mostly women and children. There Baptist Church. Unfortunately, a recent archaeological study was no shelter, yet Levin said no one comdetermined that the contraband camp’s exact site remains unknown. plained: “Their hearts were full of praise for Grant’s and Eaton’s memories were still fresh when they met a final their deliverance from slavery.” time in New York in 1885, as the former president lay dying of throat Coffin remarked on the freed people’s cancer. No longer able to talk, Grant beckoned Eaton near and wrote on extraordinary faith, quoting an older woman a tablet, “I am very glad to see you, and wish I could have some converwho arrived protected by a company of cavalry sation with you.” He had hoped Eaton could “say something of our use of scouts: “This is the work of the Lord. I has and utilizing the Negroes down about Grand Junction....In writing on been praying many years that He would send that subject for my book I had to rely on memory.” Eaton noted in his deliverance to us poor slaves, and my faith memoir that Grant recalled “the essentials of our enterprise, and never failed me that he would hear my prayer, reported them with surprising accuracy and completeness.” and that I would live to be free.” In May 1863, Grant laid siege to Vicksburg. Judith Wilmot is a member of the St. Augustine (Fla.) Historical SociOn June 7, the Confederates attacked the ety, with maternal family roots in the La Grange/Grand Junction Union supply base at Milliken’s Bend about 15 region and ancestors who served during the war under Ulysses S. miles outside Vicksburg, which was guarded Grant. A freelance writer, Wilmot has had articles recently published by the 23rd Iowa Infantry and the 9th Louisionline and in Cowboys & Indians Magazine.

PICTORIAL PRESS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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TRAILSIDE

Chesapeake, Va.

Waterways to Freedom

them have their final resting place there. Many more residents of Chesapeake enlisted and fought with USCT regiments and visitors to the area will find Civil War Trails markers interpreting their stories and those of other African Americans throughout the region. You can also pay homage at the Unknown and Known AfroUnion Civil War Soldiers Memorial, where Sergeant Miles James, a Medal of Honor recipient, is memorialized. According to his medal citation, on September 29, 1864, James distinguished himself at the Battle of Chaffin’s Farm. Members of the Chesapeake-based United States Colored Troops Descendants collected donations and placed the marker there. E. Curtis Alexander, officer-in-charge of the 139-member group, said at its dedication, “I know this is Confederate territory, but we’re all Americans.” –Melissa A. Winn

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CHESAPEAKE PARKS, RECREATION & TOURISM; PHOTOS BY MELISSA A. WINN (2)

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.

Chesapeake, Va., is located just across the border from North Carolina. The town is steeped in the Confederate history so predominant in the South, but the area’s waterways made it a pivotal route on the Underground Railroad, providing safe travel and haven to escaped slaves whose stories also infuse Chesapeake’s history with a rally cry to freedom’s resolve. The Dismal Swamp’s dense, tangled thorns, muddy terrain, and enormous size enabled hundreds, maybe thousands, of escaped slaves to live here undetected. The Dismal Swamp Canal alternatively offered refugees passage to freer lands. Free African Americans settled several towns in the area, including Cuffeytown, whose origins can be traced as far back as the 1700s. African Americans who fought in the United States Colored Troops during the Civil War later founded a church in Cuffeytown and 13 of

JOEL ZATZ/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

AFRICAN AMERICANS FOUND A NEW LIFE IN AND AROUND THIS CONFEDERATE STRONGHOLD

TRAILSIDE

Dismal Swamp Canal 1246 Dismal Swamp Canal Trail The Dismal Swamp Canal, hand dug by hired enslaved labor, opened to navigation in 1805. The 22-mile-long canal allowed trade between the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia and the Albemarle Sound in North Carolina. It also offered passage to escaped slaves and was used by Confederates to ferry supplies. Union troops fought to gain control of it on several occasions, but their grip on it was always tenuous. The adjacent 8.3-mile Dismal Swamp Canal Trail today offers bikers, runners, and hikers a scenic respite.

Superintendent’s House 3500 Dismal Swamp Canal Trail

Honor Roll

1001 Bells Mill Rd.

CHESAPEAKE PARKS, RECREATION & TOURISM; PHOTOS BY MELISSA A. WINN (2)

JOEL ZATZ/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

The Unknown and Known Afro-Union Civil War Soldiers Memorial pays tribute to colored troops from the Chesapeake area who fought during the Civil War. Thirteen marble and granite grave markers include full names, dates of birth and death, rank, and company, including a marker for Sergeant Miles James, a Medal of Honor recipient. The marker for Sergeant Littleton Owens identifies his years of service in the Virginia House of Delegates. A flag on-site carries the names of the Virginia battles where those memorialized fought, including Wilson’s Wharf, Suffolk, Petersburg, and Chaffin’s Farm. The memorial is on the site of the Sergeant March Corprew Family Memorial Cemetery, which includes a marker and burial headstone for Corprew, who served as a member of Company I, 2nd USCT Cavalry.

Historic Cemetery

At the 5-mile mark along the Dismal Swamp Canal Trail sits the Superintendent’s House. It’s the only structure still standing on land once owned by the Dismal Swamp Canal Company. The structure is a 19th-century version of prefabricated housing. First constructed elsewhere, pieces of the building had Roman numerals making it easier to put back together. They were placed on a barge that floated on the canal.

Seven Patriot Heroes

3405 Relay Rd.

Near this spot were the homes of three USCT veterans. Sergeant March Corprew, Co. I, 2nd USCT Cavalry, and his brother Private Daniel Corprew, Co. D, 1st USCT Cavalry, lived on a plantation here before enlisting. Private Samuel Hopper, Co. C, 38th USCT Infantry, also lived nearby. He was killed in action on September 29, 1864, at New Market Heights during the Battle of Chaffin’s Farm, just east of Richmond. Three other USCT veterans are buried in the nearby Northwest Bethel Baptist Church cemetery: Cook Wilson Nixon, Co. G, 155th New York Infantry, Cook Pati Creekman, Co. D, 81st New York Infantry, and Private Lewis Deford, Co. E, 10th USCT. Private Adda Smith, Co. I, 10th USCT, is buried about five miles south of here in a cemetery at the intersection of St. Bride’s Road and Battlefield Boulevard.

2216 Long Ridge Rd.

Thirteen African American veterans of the Civil War are interred in the Cuffeytown Historic Cemetery. They served in the 5th, 10th, and 36th USCT infantry regiments organized in 1863 and 1864. The 5th USCT, organized in Ohio in August 1863, fought in North Carolina as well as in the Virginia battles of the Crater at Petersburg, Chaffin’s Farm, and Fair Oaks. The 10th USCT was organized in Virginia in November 1863 and fought in 1864 at the Battle of Wilson’s Wharf. The 36th USCT, organized from the 2nd North Carolina Colored Infantry in February 1864, fought at the Battle of Chaffin’s Farm, the Appomattox Campaign, and in North Carolina. The 5th USCT was demobilized in North Carolina in September 1865, while the 10th and 36th USCT were ordered to Texas after the war and mustered out there in 1866. JANUARY 2021

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4 6 7

Chesapeake, Va. 5

1. Dismal Swamp Canal Trail 2. Honor Roll 3. Great Bridge Museum 4. Cuffeytown Historic Cemetery 5. Seven Patriot Heroes 6. Cornland School 7. Superintendent’s House

Cornland School

2309 Benefit Rd.

This one-room schoolhouse was built in 1902 as one of the earliest efforts in Virginia to formally educate African American children after the Civil War. The school operated until 1952, and today the Cornland School Foundation is working to preserve and interpret the building and its stories. While the present building dates to 1902, an earlier school building built by freed slaves to educate their children is believed to have stood here or on land nearby as early as 1871. By 1885, official documents begin recording the names of the teachers in the school.

A Great Little Battle 1775 Historic Way

PHOTO PHOTOS CREDIT BY MELISSA A. WINN (4)

Visitors to the newly opened Great Bridge Battlefield & Waterways Museum can explore three miles worth of trails in the outdoor area of Great Bridge Battlefield Park to learn the story of African American soldiers who fought on both sides during this December 1775 battle. There are a dozen interpretive signs on the trail and a half dozen galleries in this inventive museum explaining this small battle with a big impact. The area’s waterways are also explored, including the importance of the Dismal Swamp for escaped slaves and its future standing during the Civil War.

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Pickett’s Notorious Hangings Soldier Voten Gives Lincol the Edge in 1864

Bloody Maryland Morning

Antietam Gen. George Greene’s Gritty Stand at the Dunker Church

HISTORYNET.COM SEPTEMBER 2020

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Into the

Wilderness Virginia’s notorious forest bedeviled commanders and chilled soldiers’ hearts

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The N-SSA is America’s oldest and largest Civil War shooting sports organization. Competitors shoot original or approved reproduction muskets, carbines and revolvers at breakable targets in a timed match. Some units even compete with cannons and mortars. Each team represents a Civil War regiment or unit and wears the uniform they wore over 150 years ago. Dedicated to preserving our history, period firearms competition and the camaraderie of team sports with friends and family, the N-SSA may be just right for you.

For more information visit us online at www.n-ssa.org.

1/22/20 4:06 PM

THE LAST JAPANESE HOW MANY TIMES SOLDIER HAS THEFROM DESIGN WORLD OF THE WAR U.S.IIFLAG SURRENDERED CHANGED? IN THIS YEAR 27, 31, 36 or 40?

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PHOTO PHOTOS CREDIT BY MELISSA A. WINN (4)

Riding with the Gray Ghost

Mosby’s Men The Rangers who made Yankees tremble

JULY 2020

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WWW.HISTORYNET.COM/ at HistoryNet.com. MAGAZINES/QUIZ HistoryNet.com

Plus! Ohio Gunners at Gettysburg

Eyewitness: Race to the Top of Missionary Ridge

- 1945 - 1947 - 1950 1 - 1974 For more,search visitDAILY QUIZ For more,

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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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The critical and financial success of his 2010 book Empire of the Summer Moon allowed Sam (S.C.) Gwynne a golden opportunity to expand his literary horizons and to take a few risks with any subsequent endeavors. A transplanted Yankee now living in Austin, where he worked as executive editor at Texas Monthly magazine, Gwynne began searching for a Civil War topic he could explore, finally deciding to take on Confederate Lt. Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. Gwynne had been intrigued by the Civil War since he was a young adult but had not yet written to any extent about America’s seminal struggle. Not only was Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson, published in 2014, another bestseller for Gwynne—and a finalist for both the National Book Critics Circle Award and the PEN Literary Award for Biography—it gave him a new appreciation of the war and of one of its most luminous yet controversial commanders. Gwynne’s next book in 2016 covered another of his favorite topics, football, but he returned to the war in 2019 for the critically acclaimed Hymns of the Republic: The Story of the Final Year of the American Civil War, released in a paperback edition this past October. Gwynne, 67, talked to America’s Civil War during a Zoom Q&A session at the annual Boerne (Texas) Book and Arts Festival on October 3, 2020.

Tell us about the title of your book? It’s a play on “Battle Hymn of the Republic.” At some point in my research, I became aware of something that was known as the “Black Battle Hymn of the Republic.” It was sung by slaves and Black Americans. The idea just suggested to me that there were other hymns, that there were hymns of different constituencies and people. What I mean by that is by looking at this last year of the war, which is what the book is about, it was meant to be a look at different pieces of that war and not, say, just the Union Army.

Your opening chapter sets the book up nicely. We’re introduced to Clara Barton, to Black soldiers, to the great Confederate strategists who bedeviled the North, and so forth. These first feel like individual portraits, but they start meshing to collaboratively tell the story of that final year. I set it up by talking about the social whirl that’s going on inside Washington, D.C. in Spring 1864, the presidential receptions and levees and all these huge parties. There is finally some hope for the North in the war. This hope is about to be dashed, but for the moment everyone is obsessed with the arrival in Washington of Ulysses S. Grant, the great victor of the West. The leading Union generals in the first part of the war were a disaster, one incompetent after

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PHOTO BY KENNY BRAUN

Closing the Great Divide

Answering the Call The presence of African American soldiers in Ulysses Grant’s Union Army was particularly prominent during the Siege of Petersburg.

PICTORIAL PRESS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

5 QUESTIONS

Interview conducted by Steven L. Davis

5 QUESTIONS

another who gave away the Northern advantages of troops It is fascinating to read about the Black soldiers and men and material and everything else—George McClelwho fought for the Union and the South’s belated lan probably the most famous. Grant was different....He had attempt to recruit slaves to do the same. won at Forts Henry and Donelson, at Shiloh, Vicksburg, and I spend a lot of time on Black soldiers in the book. Chattanooga. He fought hard and didn’t back off and didn’t The big picture is that 180,000 Black soldiers fought in the lose. So, finally he’s arriving. That’s the moment I choose. Union Army, mostly in the final year of the war. That’s 10 It’s a great story because it tells you how different the percent of the army, which still kind of shocks me. I knew a world was. Grant arrives at Union Station with his son Fred, few things about the Civil War growing up, but I knew nothwho was 13, and his assistant—that’s it. No glorious entouing about that side of it. When Lincoln issued the Emanciparage, as McClellan once had. Grant is coming to Washington tion Proclamation in January of 1863, he included a parato accept a commission that only two genergraph that changed American history: Black als before, George Washington and Winfield soldiers could be combatants in the war. And Scott, had ever been given: lieutenant gennot only that, but it was going to be encoureral. Grant gets off the train and is standing aged. In Lincoln’s mind, the driver of real in Union Station looking around, but beemancipation was going to be enlistment. cause of a logistical error no one has come to Enlistment was going to be the way it was meet him. So he takes a cab to the War Degoing to happen, not only for escaped slaves partment, where his boss Henry Halleck is. but for all African American men in the But Halleck’s not there, so then he takes anNorth. Suddenly someone crosses through a other cab to Halleck’s home; Halleck’s not Union army line and comes out on the other there either. So, having tried three times now side a man with a uniform and a salary. to find somebody who would welcome him, Now, these African American soldiers Grant goes to the Willard Hotel, but walks were not treated very well. They were secin unrecognized. ond-class citizens in the Army, treated and Nobody knows what he looks like—interpaid as such. But the fact was, as Frederick esting because Grant by then is as famous as Douglass said, you put a gun in his hand, you Both Sides Now Lincoln and much more popular. He’s had milgive him money, you put a uniform on him, he’s New England native lions of words and ink expended on him. He’s fighting for the United States, he’s no longer a S.C. Gwynne spent got a full-length painting of him hanging in no-account slave—he is a soldier and citizen. In the early part of Congress. But he walks into the Willard unrecthe last year of the war, this is when it really his career at Time ognized. He and Fred go upstairs. When they comes to bear, this enormous weight of Black magazine before come down for dinner, he seats himself unrecsoldiers. And, remember, it was not easy for heading to Texas. ognized. Now remember the level of fame we’re these guys; they were not treated well by Northtalking about here; it’s as if Barack Obama and Lady Gaga ern officers. They weren’t paid fairly, they were abused—in walked through the lobby of the Willard unrecognized. some cases, they were treated like slaves by those officers. Eventually the people in the dining room begin to realize who he is and eventually the place goes completely crazy, They acquitted themselves so well again and but nowhere near as crazy as the White House does an hour again. The story of the African American soldiers later when he shows up at Lincoln’s reception. The scene arriving first in Richmond when the Confederate quickly turns into a sort of genteel riot, with ladies trying to capital falls is remarkable. touch him, and dresses being torn, and at one point William It’s April 1865. Richmond has fallen, it’s burning—everybody Seward, the secretary of state, has to take Grant up onto a in the government has fled. As the Union soldiers approach, sofa to avoid being crushed by the crowd. they’re expecting to see what they usually see, which is The reason for all this is because Grant was coming to trenches bristling with guns. But they realize there’s no one save the Union. Nothing less. That is what people in the there and just walk right through these enormous defensive North thought. The Confederates’ indomitable genius of the positions, now empty. The first ones through are the black East [Lee] was going to meet the great Union genius of the 25th Corps. They end up stopping about three miles east of the West in single combat, if you will, in Northern Virginia. The capital, at which point the mayor of Richmond officially surfighting was going to be definitive and the war was going to renders, and the slaves come out and they can’t believe their be over. People on both sides believed that. eyes. They didn’t even know there was such a thing as a Black My opening chapter tries to capture this moment when soldier. From there a single road leads into Capital Square, the the future of the war and that nation—and specifically the center of Richmond. And it’s very clear, and they all underfate of Abraham Lincoln—seemed to hang in the balance. stand that the first infantry into the fallen, burning capital of Everything was indeed in the balance. the South is going to be doing something that will go down in

PHOTO BY KENNY BRAUN

PICTORIAL PRESS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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5 QUESTIONS happened. Therefore, they have to either be sequestered history. The men who did it would be telling stories to their somewhere or they have to be taken down. I had a really great-grandchildren. Everybody knew what that meant. interesting conversation last summer with Stonewall JackAt this point, the all-White 24th Corps of the Union son’s great-grandson, who wrote a column in the Richmond Army of the James shows up, and now a decision has to be paper advocating that the Jackson statue there be taken made. Who is going first? And, of course, that seems a down. I mean, even Jackson’s heirs want that to happen. no-brainer in the context of the Union Army in 1865: The But I also have a Yankee perspective on it, and it’s a very White guys are going first. And so the men of the 24th take slippery slope. If our standard is everyone who owned off down the road, visions of glory in their eyes. But the slaves or fought for the South has to be erased from history Black soldiers just won’t accept this. So they take off or put in some dark and shameful corner, then you have a through field and farm and over stone walls and fences, real problem on your hands. Fifteen U.S. presidents owned and they’re so motivated that they get into the city core slaves, ten while they were in office. Ulysses S. before the White soldiers do. Now the White soldiers are very upset “The question Grant owned slaves; Abraham Lincoln’s wife about this, and in fact a campaign is started of how to treat was from a wealthy, slave-owning family. My native land, the seemingly pure and pristine at that moment to discredit the Black soldiers slavery and and morally wonderful Connecticut and Masand to revise the history so that it’s the White history is never sachusetts, was responsible for most of the soldiers who got there first. But history has favored the Black soldiers. One reason is that as clear or clean American slave trade. Newport, R.I., alone launched a thousand a Black correspondent for the Philadelphia as you would voyages to the Middle Passage, and the slave Press, Thomas Morris Chester, happened to like it to be.” trade from the Middle Passage was way more be there. He was the only Black corresponheinous than what 98 percent of any Confederates ever did. dent at a major Northern newspaper and he has positioned Bolting people into 4-foot high decks for the passage across himself so he can see who the first soldiers in were. He the ocean, this is what my people did. The biggest slave marrepairs to the Confederate House of Representatives to ket in the country was in New York City. To pick out, say, write and is seated in the House Speaker’s chair when a Lafayette McLaws or some other Confederate general and Confederate officer who had been paroled approaches and say, “Well, that statue has to come down.” I’m not going to tells him to leave. Chester looks up, says nothing, and condisagree with it, but there’s a certain sanctimoniousness, partinues writing. The officer charges him, whereupon Chesticularly among people who are from where I’m from, that ter, who’s a pretty big guy, stands up and decks him. Now alleges and somehow believes that we weren’t responsible. furious, the Rebel officer turns to a nearby Union officer The most brilliant speech ever given was Lincoln’s Second and says, something to the effect, give me your sword so Inaugural Address. He said what no one at the time was saythat I may thrash this man. The Union soldier declines but ing, that slavery is a sin of which we are all guilty. Everybody offers to clear the floor so the two can fight. The Confederwas pointing fingers back then, right? North, South, you’re ate officer declines the invitation. guilty, you’re to blame, you’re the slaveowners. Lincoln says, Chester later explains why he sat in that chair, an action “No, we are all guilty, this is something wound around the that might have been punishable by death the day before. core of our nation’s history.” And that’s the way he interprets “Well, I thought about it,” he says, “and I thought I would the Civil War. Essentially he’s interpreting it as blood atoneexercise my rights as a belligerent.” That was one of my fament for the sin of slavery—the national sin of slavery. vorite stories, and there were so many of them in the war. I guess I advocate perspective when it comes to this. The question of how to treat slavery and history is never as clear What is your take on the Confederate or clean as you would like it to be. If you looked at Stonemonuments controversy? wall Jackson as a slaveowner, which he was, you can’t igIt’s an interesting question. I mean, I’m a Yankee. nore that he was so much more enlightened than Thomas And when I first came to Austin and saw that statJefferson. Three of Jackson’s slaves, as I write about in my ue on the south lawn of the capitol—basically a statue of book, he rescued; people begged him to buy them in order the Confederacy saying, “These boys died for states’ rights” to save them. Another one he gave his freedom to and then and the old “Lost Cause” BS about how the war wasn’t when that man got sick, he financed his treatment and reabout slavery—I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe there covery, which hardly anyone did….Any way you might was a statue like that on the lawn of the capitol. Of course, want to measure, he was an enlightened slaveowner, cerI was a naïve Yankee and didn’t yet understand. tainly compared to a lot of U.S. presidents. I’ve come to the conclusion that you cannot defend these statues. I came to it reluctantly initially because the histori» To read the complete interview with S.C. Gwynne, go to an in me opposed the idea of expunging people and events bit.ly/HymnsoftheRepublicInterview. from history so that no one would ever know what had

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REVIEWS

Sherman in the Balance

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Civil war–era biographies that can double as doorstops seem to be in vogue again. Frederick Douglass, Ulysses S. Grant, and now William T. Sherman, the Union’s second most famous general and, arguably, its first modern one. More than 90 years ago, an English military historian, Sir B.H. Liddell Hart, portrayed Sherman as the dominant military genius of the Civil War. Brian Holden Reid, now England’s foremost expert on the Americans’ great internal conflict, generally agrees with Liddell The Scourge of War: Hart’s assessment. But Reid’s concluThe Life of William sion that “the subject of Sherman’s miliTecumseh Sherman tary career is far from closed in terms of By Brian Holden Reid scholarly or public scrutiny” will no lonOxford University Press, ger be true. His deeply researched and 2020, $34.95 deftly argued investigation will likely prove to be the definitive one for the foreseeable future. While Reid’s biography takes the formal chronological approach, he approaches Sherman’s generalship the way a military analyst would. Reid’s analysis rests on three military arts. First, he seeks to

High Command Union Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman is in rare company. He handled key responsibilities throughout the war, including as the mastermind of the Atlanta Campaign.

explain Sherman’s reaction to forces over which he had little or no control, showcasing Sherman’s ability to pivot and adapt to changing conditions on the battlefield or on the home front. Second, he assesses Sherman’s ability to learn and grow from experience, a trait in which President Abraham Lincoln, for example, excelled. Finally, Reid evaluates Sherman’s strategic, tactical, and logistical abilities as exhibited on the battlefield during various stages of his career. How Sherman evolved in these three areas determined his success as a military practitioner in both subordinate and command positions. In the early years of the war, Sherman was most comfortable in the role of subordinate commander, especially under the tutelage of Ulysses S. Grant, whom Sherman admired and trusted both as a man and a soldier. But when Grant was tapped as commander of all the Union armies and headed east in March 1864, he turned comJANUARY 2021

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REVIEWS mand of the Western Theater over to Sherman. Reid scrutinizes Sherman’s campaign from Chattanooga to Atlanta with the attention to detail that both Grant and Sherman would have appreciated. “The year 1864,” Reid maintains, “allowed Sherman to step forward and mount the steps of the podium of greatness.” Exercising command at the operational level, Sherman entered, according to Reid, “a very small and select group of military individuals who succeeded both as commanders in the field and as thinkers, who combined talents wielding both the sword and the pen.” Reid carefully connects Sherman’s personality traits to his military strengths and weaknesses. Throughout, Reid maintains, “Sherman’s personality remained nothing less than very strong, vibrant, quirky, strikingly individualistic, and sometimes defiant of authority or prevalent opinions.” Nevertheless, Reid is confident that “these mercurial and effervescent attributes aided his leadership abilities.” Equally important for Reid, “Men followed Sherman readily and willingly.” Presciently, Reid concludes that these traits coalesced in a “private and confidential” memorandum Sherman wrote to Commanding General of the Army Henry W. Halleck after the Vicksburg Campaign. Its subject was nothing less than the eventual reconstruction of the South. In typical Sherman fashion, he bluntly maintained that “[t]he South must be ruled or will rule. We must conquer them or ourselves be conquered. There is no middle course.” No middle course lay at the heart of all things for William T. Sherman. Fittingly, Reid’s concluding chapter is subtitled “Weighed in the Balance and Not Found Wanting.” At his funeral in February 1891, former President Rutherford B. Hayes opined that Sherman was, quite simply, “the most interesting and original character in the world.” Sherman would have smiled at that. –Gordon Berg

THE TITLE BEFITS AN AGATHA CHRISTIE MYSTERY. The story has the requisite cast of characters. There’s the innocent clerk found murdered, the mysterious assassin who is later brutally murdered himself, lurid headlines in newspapers across the country, the cool-headed steamboat captain, the famous actress, a crew of riverine roughnecks, and an angry mob of passengers that included middle class merchants, scions of society, slave traders, and an assortment of gamblers, thieves, and con artists. We soon learn, however, that the Ohio Belle is no ship of fools and that Stuart Sanders is not spinning an antebellum whodunit. Rather, he has produced a carefully crafted microhistory of a riverboat and life on the Western rivers that reveals the tensions and realities of America on the eve of civil war. He handsomely succeeds in fulfilling his intention to show how “a forgotten murder on a 19th-century steamboat can illuminate a more important broader narrative about our past.” The 1856 murder around which Sanders’ story pivots is expertly interwoven into his deeper investigation of riverine culture along the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, volatile borderlands between slave states and free that seethed with the tension between Eastern and Western values. Sanders unearths examples of “honor killings,” vigilantism, class prejudice, unequal justice influenced by wealth and social status, and inflammatory journalism Murder on rampant in 19th-century America. Add to that the Ohio Belle mob vengeance, brutalization of African By Stuart W. Sanders American human cargo, the odd steamboat University Press of disaster, and depredations inflicted by shoreKentucky, 2020, $24.95 line guerrillas during the early days of the Civil War and Sanders has brewed a roiling pot of cultural tension, some of which carries over into the present. Readers should be warned that there isn’t a historical tangent that Sanders isn’t eager to follow. Finding the culprit or culprits who disposed of clerk Hiram Stevens’ killer by drowning him tied to a chair later found bobbing near a Mississippi River sandbar, is only a means to allow Sanders to examine other topics. There’s the importance of the rivers in the economies of the states along their banks and the risks of early steamboat travel; the prevalence of “honor culture” in Southern manhood; the role class prejudice and “yellow” journalism played in the dispensing of justice; the unsavory relationship between boats owned by Northern companies and the profits made in the slave trade in the years leading up to the Civil War; and the wartime service of Ohio Belle and its intrepid captain, John Sebastian. Sanders has crafted a complex story full of plot twists that, again, Agatha Christie and other mystery writers of her ilk would have greatly admired. Mystery fans and historians may well agree with the story carried in the Shepherdstown Register that promised: “The details are truly awful and well calculated to cause a thrill of horror.” –Gordon Berg

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REVIEWS If a good Civil War book stirs controversy, Steven Stotelmyer’s Too Useful to Sacrifice is a humdinger. He argues that Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s performance in the 1862 Maryland Campaign is not nearly so incompetent or censurable as historians have traditionally claimed, and lines up arguments defending Little Mac against those claims. Over the years, a lot of historians have formed a much different judgment about that. Stotelmyer, an Antietam Battlefield Guide, studied under the reputable Joseph L. Harsh and often cites his professor’s writing. He argues against the characterization of McClellan as “George the Timid” (Harsh’s phraseology). At Antietam, for instance, McClellan attacked Robert E. Lee’s presumably larger force on “high ground”—a bold move, he writes. Overlooked is that McClellan waited a day, September 16, with his lines drawn up before launching his attack, which allowed Lee precious time to strengthen his position. Worse, as Stephen Sears puts it, he “telegraphed his punch” to Lee in his deployment of Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker’s 1st Corps around the Cornfield and the East Woods. Stotelmyer dismisses the importance of Lee’s Special Orders No. 191 as containing “little new information” of which McClellan was not already aware, further arguing that its tactical impact is overstated. Although James

Bosom Friends: The Intimate World of James Buchanan and William Rufus King By Thomas J. Balcerski Oxford University Press, 2019, $34.95

McPherson wrote that the Federals’ discovery of the order “was a remarkable example of the contingencies that change the course of history,” Stotelmyer dismisses that as “exaggerated prose.” He labors to prove that “the ‘slow McClellan’ is a myth,” as in the general’s allegedly slothful pursuit of Lee after the battle. A. Wilson Greene is only one scholar accepting the math done by Henry Halleck, who figured out that Little Mac’s march from Rockville, Md., to South Mountain on September 8–14 averaged six miles a day. (“Halleck was Too Useful to Sacrifice: a biased source when it came to McClelReconsidering lan,” Stotelmyer sniffs.) George B. McClellan’s Among the unusual turns of Too Useful Generalship in the to Sacrifice is its insistence that the BatMaryland Campaign tle of South Mountain was “the turning From South Mountain point of the campaign,” and that the to Antietam fighting at Sharpsburg three days later By Steven R. Stotelmyer was a “sequel.” Historians emphasize the Savas Beatie, 2019, $32.95 bloody battle of the 17th because of its momentous casualties, Stotelmyer claims. But most would probably also point out that Antietam led to Lincoln’s Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and that it probably quashed Confederate hopes for recognition by European countries such as Britain and France. The lingering value of a work such as this is to show all of us that in Civil War historiography, the battle’s not really over. Figuratively speaking, the Texas Brigade hasn’t even charged the Cornfield. –Steve Davis

IN THEIR OWN TIME, Alabama representative, senator and vice president William Rufus DeVane King and Pennsylvania-born senator and President James Buchanan displayed a lifelong friendship so simpatico that historical 20th- and 21st-century hindsight has frequently felt inclined to suggest something sexual about it. Thomas J. Balcerski, a history professor at Eastern Connecticut State University, is the latest to do so in Bosom Friends, whose title comes from a common term for close friendships as well as close political stances of the time. His detailed narrative follows the parallel careers of the two lifelong bachelors as they literally ate and boarded together as “messmates” in Washington throughout the 1830s and ’40s, going on to devote their political lives to preserving unity in their own Democratic Party as well as the nation. It might be wrong to anticipate the author’s conclusion on just how intimate their relationship was, but he does remind the reader that such intimacy was not that rare at the time—and that there were differences between antebellum mores and those of the 20th- and 21st-century observers who might apply their own to the times. Also less rare than posterity might think is the devotion of a Northerner and a Southerner to preventing a rending of the United States at a time when abolitionists were regarded as the fanatics who threatened national unity—and all too many strove to ignore or avoid that slavery issue. Such was the agenda and mutually held convictions that drove both King and Buchanan toward their ultimate political actions. And in retrospect, there did prove to be something wrong with that. –Jon Guttman

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REVIEWS olics viewed the South as the most CathoCatholic Confederates is the second entry lic part of America in sharp contrast to in Kent State University’s The Civil War the godless materialistic society of the in the South series. It has a select bibliogNorth. The book focuses on nine Catholic raphy, extensive endnotes, and an appenmen: Bishops William Elder of Natchez, dix of biographical sketches. Also included Patrick Lynch of Charleston, and August are contemporary illustrations and photoVerot of Savannah; chaplains John Bangraphs of notable Catholic Confederates. non, James Sheeran, and Lewis HopolytGracjan Kraszewski’s thesis chronicles Gache; and laymen John Dooley, Felix what he calls ‘Confederatization,’ a proPoche, and the Henri Garidel. cess that highlights the Catholic CommitCatholic Confederates includes an ment to the Confederacy. He argues that excellent chapter on diplomacy with the while this phenomenon replaced other Vatican. However, too many other notable ethnic identities with a Confederate one, Catholic Confederates: Catholic Confederates are overlooked, in it was also successful in not alienating Faith and Duty in particular Secretary of the Navy Stephen soldiers’ Catholic faith. This conflicts with the Civil War South Mallory, General P.G.T. Beauregard, the widely accepted concept of AmericanBy Gracjan Kraszewski Admiral Raphael Semmes, and Father ization within Catholic historiography in which Catholics remained outsiders who Kent State University Press, Abram J. Ryan, the so-called “Poet of the 2020, $37.99 Confederacy.” While there is a brief chapcould not assimilate into American sociter on nursing sisters, there are no biographies of indiety until after both world wars and the election of John vidual women. Plus, there is no mention at all of any F. Kennedy as president in 1960. Southern Catholic laywomen. In addition, there is Kraszewski believes the importance of the Civil War nothing on the Catholicity of the Lincoln Conspirators, South is underestimated when exploring the story of especially Mary Surratt. Despite these limitations, Catholics in America. While Catholics equaled only Catholic Confederates is an excellent study and should about 10 percent of the Confederacy’s population, the be read in conjunction with related offerings such as merging of this Southern conservatism and Catholic Excommunicated From the Union: How the Civil War traditionalism was significant, as both stood against Created a Separate Catholic America (2016) and Solprogressive causes and enjoyed celebrating their past diers of the Cross, the Authoritative Text: The Heroism glories. Southerners viewed their new nation as the of Catholic Chaplains. –William John Shepherd true heir to the constitutional principles of 1776. Cath-

The Making of a Civilian Soldier in the Civil War: The First Diary of Private William J. McLean Along the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal and the Affair at Edwards Ferry Edited by Dennis D. Urban New Academia Publishing, 2019, $22

IN THE SPRING OF 1861, 21-year-old William J. McLean left his home in Fairfield, N.Y., to volunteer his services to the Union Army and chronicled his first months in uniform with the 34th New York in a diary that Dennis D. Urban brings to print. After a few weeks at Albany, McLean and his comrades traveled to the seat of war in Washington, D.C., in early July, but missed the First Bull Run Campaign. Shortly thereafter, they marched to where Seneca Creek flowed into the Potomac River upstream from the capital. There, McLean and his fellow New Yorkers became part of Brig. Gen. Charles P. Stone’s command and spent several weeks watching the river, looking around the section of Maryland fate had assigned them, and further acclimating to soldier life. Shortly after the diary ends in early October, the 34th New York crossed the river at Edwards Ferry during the fight at Ball’s Bluff, but saw no significant combat. Though McLean did not participate in any major engagements during the period he chronicles, this is a fine book. Readers interested in the experiences of a new soldier and the places McLean saw will enjoy it and appreciate its selection of reproduced maps (though an index would have been nice). It should be noted that the diary itself accounts for only about 70 of the book’s 170 pages. The rest provide information about McLean, his regiment and family (including the father and brother who served in Ohio regiments), their experiences before, during, and after the war, a chronicle of Urban’s detective work to track down McLean’s identity, and a description of how being a diarist helped McLean in postwar disputes over his pension. –Ethan S. Rafuse

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STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION (required by Act of August 12, 1970: Section 3685, Title 39, United States Code). 1. Americaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Civil War 2. (ISSN: 1046-2899) 3. Filing date: 10/1/20. 4. Issue frequency: Bi Monthly. 5. Number of issues published annually: 6. 6. The annual subscription price is $39.95. 7. Complete mailing address of known office of publication: HistoryNet, 1919 Gallows Rd. Suite 400, Vienna, VA 22182. Contact person: Kolin Rankin. 8. Complete mailing address of headquarters or general business office of publisher: HistoryNet, 1919 Gallows Rd. Suite 400, Vienna, VA 22182. 9. Full names and complete mailing addresses of publisher, editor, and managing editor. Publisher, Michael A. Reinstein, HistoryNet, 1919 Gallows Rd. Suite 400, Vienna, VA 22182, Editor, Chris K. Howland, HistoryNet, 1919 Gallows Rd. Suite 400, Vienna, VA 22182 , Editor in Chief, Alex Neill, HistoryNet, 1919 Gallows Rd. Suite 400, Vienna, VA 22182. 10. 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FINAL BIVOUAC

BREVET BRIGADIER GENERAL

1862. Through her influence, the Buried in a crypt reserved for royprince, who could hardly speak a alty in the town of Isselburg, Gerword of English, was named colonel many, rests Felix Salm-Salm, a of the 8th New York Infantry in prince who had earned the praise of October 1862 and colonel of the two Union major generals, Joseph 68th New York in June 1864. What Hooker and James B. Steedman, for he desired most, however, was to his leadership during the Civil War. see action, having failed to do so After the war, the colorful Union thus far. His chance came in Decemgeneral continued to catch the ber 1864 at the Battle of Nashville. attention of American newspapers, After joining the staff of Steedwho in 1870 shared news of his man, one of Maj. Gen. George death during the Franco-Prussian Thomas’ subordinates, Salm-Salm War. “There went down beneath fought at Nashville and took part in the hail of the needle gun and chasthe pursuit of Lt. Gen. John Bell sepot on the field of Gravelotte an Hood’s Army of Tennessee as it Austrian prince,” The Fremont retreated into Alabama. Salm(Ohio) Weekly Journal reported, Salm’s wife was pleased with his “whose story is as romantic and change in demeanor when he adventurous as that of any knight returned. “[He] was beaming with in Arthur’s storied days.” happiness...,” Agnes recalled, Born December 25, 1828, Salm“because he at last had had fighting Salm was the youngest son of to his heart’s content, and an opporWilhelm Florentin Salm-Salm, the tunity of distinguishing himself.” 4th prince of Salm-Salm—a Steedman recommended Salmroyal line dating back to the Salm for a promotion and gave him Holy Roman Empire, with descencommand of a brigade. In February dants still residing in Anholt Cas1865, Hooker wrote to Washington tle. He fought in the First praising the prince’s skill as an Schleswig-Holstein War, distinadministrator and disciplinarian. guishing himself at the Battle of Salm-Salm was brevetted brigadier Aarhus. In 1854 he became a junior general on April 13, 1865. officer in the 1st Uhlan Regiment in While serving after the war with the Austro-Hungarian Army. Maximillian I in Mexico, Salm-Salm Salm-Salm had racked up extenwas captured and sentenced to sive debts from his extravagant lifeRoyal Rest death—granted clemency only after style and excessive gambling. To The crypt holding Felix Salm-Salm’s intervention by his wife and the escape his creditors, he left for remains stands at historic Anholt Castle in Isselburg, Germany, a few U.S. government. He soon returned America when civil war broke out in miles from the Dutch border. to Europe and was mortally 1861 and offered his military serwounded at the 1870 Battle of Gravvices to the Union Army. While elotte. Salm-Salm had asked Agnes, if he were killed in serving on Brig. Gen. Louis Blenker’s staff, Salm-Salm battle, to have him buried beside his father and mother met Agnes Leclerq Joy, a spirited girl 16 years his at Anholt. She kept her word. –Frank Jastrzembski junior. The two married in New York City in August 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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Felix Salm-Salm

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