Civil War Times December 2021

IF THE CONFEDERATES HAD WON H WORKHORSE MODEL 1816 MUSKET H

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READY TO

FIGHT ROBERT E. LEE’S ARMY WAS A FINELY TUNED WAR MACHINE

December 2021 HISTORYNET.com

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“WE SHOULD RECEIVE THE SAME PAY” BLACK TROOPS WRITE TO LINCOLN HOW STONEWALL RUINED GEN. IRVIN MCDOWELL’S CAREER 9/14/21 10:14 AM

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CIVIL WAR TIMES DECEMBER 2021

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WHITE, FLUFFY UTOPIA A prewar depiction reflects how Southern planters viewed their cotton kingdom. Did the plant have enough pull to create a world power?

ON THE COVER: The Army of Northern Virginia was well-supplied in the spring of 1864.

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CIVIL WAR TIMES DECEMBER 2021

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Features

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The Roads Ahead

By Jeffry D. Wert

Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia was in fine fighting trim as it marched eastward to the dark, shadowy Wilderness.

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Missed Redemption

By Donald Smith

Union General Irvin McDowell eagerly awaited a chance to avenge First Bull Run. “Stonewall” Jackson wouldn’t let that happen.

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‘We Have Labered and Fought’

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By Jonathan W. White

USCT letters to Abraham Lincoln indicate how anxious they were to be free citizens, and how free they were to speak their minds.

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Rebel States to World Power

By Adrian Brettle

Confederates filtered their worldview through cotton gauze, envisioning a Southern postwar power built on that crop.

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Departments 6 8 14 16 18 24 27 60 64 72

Return Fire What is that Guy Holding?

Miscellany History in a Book Bin Details Drummers, Fifers, Fighters Insight See This Movie Rambling Don’t Mess With Crocker Interview The Long Road Home Editorial Memory-making Musket Armament Repurposed Firearm Reviews Friends to Feuding Sold ! Spotsylvania Witness

FROM LEFT: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2); DANA B. SHOAF COLLECTION/PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN; HNA COLLECTION; COVER: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (3)/PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: BRIAN WALKER

DECEMBER 2021 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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Vicksburg – To see for myself the strategic importance of its location and what was at stake.

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

C E L E B R A T I N G 60 Y E A R S

A scene from Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln.

DE CEMBER 2 021

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VOL. 60, NO. 6

Shiloh – Phil Spaugy’s trip there made me jealous.

Mobile Bay – The importance of what happened there often gets overlooked.

Vicksburg – To see the imposing bluffs that nearly defeated Grant.

FALLING STAR

After the First Battle of Bull Run, Irvin McDowell could never find his way back in the favor of the public or the politicians. https://bit.ly/UnpopularMcDowell

LINCOLN’S LEGACY

Gary W. Gallagher’s insights on how Hollywood portrays President Lincoln and his commitment to emancipation. https://bit.ly/HollywoodLincoln

THE WILDERNESS LEGEND

Civil War soldiers who fought in the tangled forest west of Fredericksburg created a hellish mythology. https://bit.ly/NamingTheWilderness

Lookout Mountain – That view!

EDITORIAL DANA B. SHOAF EDITOR CHRIS K. HOWLAND SENIOR EDITOR SARAH RICHARDSON SENIOR EDITOR

What Civil War site would you visit on a busman’s holiday?

STEPHEN KAMIFUJI CREATIVE DIRECTOR BRIAN WALKER GROUP ART DIRECTOR MELISSA A. WINN DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY AUSTIN STAHL ART DIRECTOR SHENANDOAH SANCHEZ PHOTOGRAPHER AT LARGE

ADVISORY BOARD

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

CORPORATE ROB WILKINS DIRECTOR OF PARTNERSHIP MARKETING TOM GRIFFITHS CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT GRAYDON SHEINBERG CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT SHAWN BYERS VP AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT JAMIE ELLIOTT PRODUCTION DIRECTOR

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CIVIL WAR TIMES DECEMBER 2021

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RETURN FIRE

about the August issue that I hope can be addressed: 1. P age 19. Is it possible for you to look at an enlargement of the 20th Connecticut image featured in “Rambling?” The man to the left of Werner appears to be holding a stack of ramrods.

Can this be verified with an enlargement? If that is the case, then I would venture that he picked them up from the field.

Editor’s note: Thanks for the questions! As you can see in this clear enlargement, he is holding a number of individual “sticks” of some sort.

They don’t appear to be ramrods, however.

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2. P age 29. I am pretty sure that the early 62nd Pennsylvania uniforms were gray and not sky blue. The surviving early Pennsylvania uniforms that I have seen are all gray.

Editor’s note: In August 1861, the 62nd Pennsylvania received 247 sky blue trousers and 449 sky blue jackets. They only wore those uniforms for about six months.

3. P age 53. I am also pretty sure that this image is 1861 and not 1863.

Editor’s note: You are correct!

H. Ewing Sterling, Va.

Author Scott Fink replies: According to the regimental quartermaster, Lt. Robert Campbell, the 4th Michigan “fought under three different flags.” Their first one known as the “Defend it” flag was retired in March 1863. Lieutenant Campbell then procured a new one. Their new commander, Colonel Harrison Jeffords, was so enamored with the new flag that he appointed himself as its “special defender and guardian.” His guardianship was tested at Gettysburg, and Jeffords gave his life in defense of that coveted banner.

While even Lieutenant Campbell said that the “flag was lost, said to have been torn to pieces in the general melee,” Cobb’s Legion had actually captured it. Captain Lemon from the 18th Georgia also verified its capture when he wrote, “After the bloodiest struggle, we captured a stand of their colors belonging to a regiment of Michigan troops, whose commander was run through the body with at least 5 or 6 bayonets while attempting to save them.”

Confederate Brig. Gen. William Wofford sent the captured flag to General James Longstreet on August 13, 1863, and Longstreet in turn sent it to General Robert E. Lee in September. After the war it was turned over to the federal government and the War Department took possession of it until 1905 when all captured

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2)

I HAVE THREE questions

I read with great interest Scott Fink’s “Fight for the Colors” article in the August 2021 issue. A sidebar describes the 4th Michigan’s fight for its flag. At the end, it states the banner was returned to the state in 1905. In the early 2000s, however, when our reenactment unit was looking to have a reproduction flag made, none of our researchers were able to determine the whereabouts of the Gettysburg flag or what it looked like. In fact, soldiers’ accounts of what happened to it are not in agreement—some recall it being captured, some believe it was destroyed in the melee. If Mr. Fink has or could direct us to the documentation of the flag’s return, we would be most grateful. Thank you.

Russ Paul Hazel Park, Mich.

CHESHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY/RANDY BIELER COLLECTION

THREE QUESTIONS

4th MICHIGAN FLAG

GEORGIA HERITAGE

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2)

CHESHIRE HISTORICAL SOCIETY/RANDY BIELER COLLECTION

flags, both Union and Confederate, were returned to their respective states. In 1902, Lieutenant Campbell mentioned that after Gettysburg, “I procured another one for the regiment, this time the American eagle surrounded with stars upon a blue field….Our first and third flag may be seen at the military museum in the State capitol at Lansing.”

The 4th’s first and third flags remain in the Michigan state capitol’s collection marked as SC-10-90 and SC-11-90, and both have plaques denoting that the regiment had turned them over to the state when called upon in 1866. Another 4th Michigan flag in the capitol’s collection, marked as SC-12-90, has no such plaque and it also has a conspicuously shortened canton section, as if the flag was torn and the remaining fabric was fashioned into a sleeve to reunite the flag with the staff.

The staff also has an inscription that seems to read “Tarsney’s flag.” Corporal Tarsney was the color bearer at Gettysburg. A member of the regiment, James Houghton stated that Tarsney had dropped the flag after being wounded.

Another member, Henry Seage claimed, “…our color bearer Thos. Tarsney either surrendered or threw down the colors and ran.” As Tarsney had not been reported wounded, it seems though Seage’s comment may be more accurate. The “Tarsney flag” is the one that Colonel Jeffords picked up.

It is not surprising that the regiment would not call attention to the return of this banner as losing it to the enemy, even in dire circumstances, was considered an ignoble disgrace. Because of this stigma, the flag today is not recognized as the one captured at Gettysburg. Hope this information helps.

I was particularly interested in John Banks’ “Rambling” article about the Barton-Stovall History/Heritage Association. My mother’s great-grandfather was in the 41st Georgia Regiment and was killed at the Battle of Perryville, Ky., on October 8, 1862. His son was born one week after his death. My grandmother told me she talked to some of the men on her front porch

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from his regiment who had witnessed his death in the 1920s. How can I contact the historical association to find out more about his regiment?

Michael J. Burton Cave Spring, Ga. Editor’s note: You can learn more at generalbartonandstovall.com

MEXICAN AMERICAN I thoroughly enjoyed John Hoptak’s article on Emerguildo Marquis’ Civil War service. A few years ago, while researching a history of Greene County, Pa., I came across my own story of a Mexican volunteer in the Union Army. Norton S. McGiffin, a private in the Duquesne Greys serving in the Mexican War, found Antonio Morales, about 11 years old, lost in the town of Pueblo. McGiffin brought him home to Washington, Pa. He saw that Morales had two or three years of formal schooling and then apprenticed

him to learn the blacksmithing trade.

After completing his apprenticeship, Morales set up a blacksmith shop of his own in Greene County, just over the border from Washington County.

He was quite successful in his business until war erupted in 1861 when Morales enlisted in the 8th Pennsylvania Reserves Infantry Regiment. He served until May 1864. Morales returned to blacksmithing in Greene County, eventually settling in Taylorstown, Pa. D. Kent Fonner Westlake, Ohio

WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU ! e-mail us at cwtletters@historynet.com or send letters to Civil War Times, 901 North Glebe Rd., 5th Floor, Arlington, VA 22203

DECEMBER 2021 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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MISCELLANY

T

his beat-up, water-damaged book recently turned up in an antique mall in Harrisburg, Pa. Despite missing its title page, the inside cover has been marked by a vendor “Slavery, etc., $6 firm.” It also bears the handwritten inscription: “Harriet A Jacobs from William C Nell, Boston October 30th 1865.” It turns out that the book is Lydia Maria Child’s 1833 work An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans.

Incredibly, African American abolitionist William Cooper Nell gave this book to his dear friend Harriet Jacobs before she left for Georgia to set up schools for freed people. The gift sheds light on their relationship with their mutual friend, Lydia Maria Child, who 8

FRIENDS IN COMMON CAUSE William C. Nell, left, used his writing ability to pen articles for abolitionist newspapers. Harriet Jacobs, right, hid in her grandmother’s attic for seven years to avoid a slaveowner’s sexual advances.

PENNY supported the publication, edited, and introduced Jacobs’ own book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.

Incidents was published in 1861 and recounts Jacobs’ experiences growing up a slave in North Carolina before she escaped to freedom. The book stood out from others in the 19th-century enslaved narrative genre because Jacobs discussed rape and other sexual issues dealt with by enslaved women.

A sharp-eyed student of history found the rare volume while rummaging through a bin of books. He followed the path of Nell and gave the book to his dear friend, a history Ph.D. student who recognized its value and rarity, and is considering how the book should best be preserved.

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TOP: ANDREW LICHTENSTEIN/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES; PHOTO COURTESY OF AL AND CLAUDIA NIEMIEC

EVERY

MATT WHITE; GILBERT STUDIOS; NPS PHOTO

WORTH

LEE REMOVED THE VIRGINIA SUPREME COURT ruled unanimously on September 2, 2021, that the state of Virginia had the authority to remove the 12-ton, six-story equestrian statue erected to honor Robert E. Lee in 1890 on Richmond’s Monument Avenue. The ruling agreed with the state’s position, and stated in one ruling that the restrictive covenants—the 1887 deed on which the two appeals cases were based—are “unenforceable as contrary to public policy and for being unreasonable because their effect is to compel government speech, by forcing the Commonwealth to express, in perpetuity, a message with which it now disagrees.” On September 8, the statue was hoisted from its pedestal and hauled away for storage while a crowd cheered. It was the last of the five Confederate monuments that formerly stood on Monument Avenue. Whether another statue will be installed on the 40-foot granite pedestal is currently undecided. The figure joins the uncertain fate of other ousted Confederate statues. In the case of the statues of Lee and Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson that were removed from Charlottesville, Va., the city has solicited interest from various entities.

According to archpaper.com, 14 organizations have applied to receive the statues. Among them are battlefields but also less conventional sites, such as the Jim Crow Museum in Big Rapids, Mich., and the Controversial Art Trust in Charlotte, N.C.

TOP: ANDREW LICHTENSTEIN/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES; PHOTO COURTESY OF AL AND CLAUDIA NIEMIEC

MATT WHITE; GILBERT STUDIOS; NPS PHOTO

WAR FRA ME WITH HIS NEAT TIE, gold watch chain, and bulky bedroll, it’s obvious this young unidentified Confederate went straight from the mustering field to the photographer’s studio. After a few miles, that heavy fighting knife was probably sent home or even tossed to the roadside. He poses with his arm on the photographer’s headstand, most often used to literally clamp a subject’s head in place so it didn’t move and blur during a long exposure. The sign, “Jeff Davis and the South!,” leaves no doubt to his allegiance. The sign appears in several known images, but the photographer who used the prop has eluded identification after decades of searching, although some collectors speculate he operated in Corinth, Miss.

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MISCELLANY

USCT

USCT AFICIONADO Ed McLaughlin has created a database at usct.org where researchers can search for records of soldiers who trained in USCT regiments at Camp William Penn in La Mott, Pa., site of the oldest and largest USCT training camp (see image, P. 44). Records include the soldier’s military file, and some include a photo, death certificate, gravestone information, and genealogy. In 2017, McLaughlin, an Army veteran and retired satellite designer, noticed that the Philadelphia National Cemetery highlighted the burial of Confederate soldiers in its cemetery but did not mention USCT burials. Since then, he has delved into recognizing USCT service, publishing books about USCT burials in several cemeteries.

Fort Negley, on the outskirts of Nashville, Tenn., also announced that Vanderbilt University has received a $99,000 grant from the American Battlefield Protection Program to create a database of oral histories, original research, and photographs documenting the experience of the 2,500 enslaved workers who built the fort along with the stories of 13,000 USCT soldiers who trained there.

Further online research is available through Ancestry.com, which announced that searches for names in the records of the Freedmen’s Bureau are now free.

Stephen

Oates 10

ON AUGUST 20, 2021, distinguished historian Stephen Oates died in Amherst, Mass., where he taught for nearly three decades. Over his career, Oates penned biographies of Martin Luther King, Nat Turner, Abraham Lincoln, and John Brown. Oates was an adviser on Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary, but his scholarship extended into the lives of Clara Barton and William Faulkner as well. In a more specialized vein, in his early career Oates wrote about the experience of ordinary Confederate soldiers, and his last books, published in 1997 and 1998, were dramatic monologues built from the words of Civil War figures such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Ulysses S. Grant, Jefferson Davis, and Mary Boykin Chesnut.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; CAMP WILLIAM PENN; AP PHOTO

Remembering

IN THE DATABASE Jeremiah Asher served as Chaplain of the 6th USCT, which trained at Camp William Penn near Philadelphia.

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THE SAVE HISTORIC ANTIETAM FOUNDATION; UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY LIBRARIES, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS RESEARCH CENTER

Databases

REGISTER

THE SAVE HISTORIC ANTIETAM FOUNDATION; UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY LIBRARIES, SPECIAL COLLECTIONS RESEARCH CENTER

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; CAMP WILLIAM PENN; AP PHOTO

WHAT A VIEW The new property acquired by SHAF offers a previously unavailable vista of the final attack field. Monuments can be seen along Branch Avenue.

Antietam Parcel Saved The Save Historic Antietam Foundation purchased a half-acre on high ground where Confederate artillerymen from the Washington Artillery of New Orleans held back the advance of troops under General Ambrose Burnside’s command at the Battle of Antietam in Sharpsburg, Md., on September 17, 1862. The $132,000 parcel is the first the foundation has purchased that lies outside the boundaries of the Antietam National Battlefield. The property is about a mile south of Sharpsburg on Harpers Ferry Road; the non-historic house that now sits on the property will be taken down. To contribute to the purchase, visit the SHAF’s website (shaf.org) or Facebook page. A donor has offered to match contributions dollar for dollar up to $15,000.

Camp Nelson Expands On August 9, 2021, Camp Nelson National Monument near Nicholasville, Ky., about 20 miles south of Lexington, announced the acquisi-

tion of the 85-acre Glass Farm that curved through the heart of the site, bringing the total acreage of the monument to 465 acres. The acreage is about 10 percent of the land that was originally in use during the Civil War, when Camp Nelson sprawled over 4,000 acres and was home to workshops, bakeries, blacksmiths, as well as hospitals, supply depot, and barracks. The National Park Service has produced a 25-minute film about

Camp Nelson that traces the service of the 114th and 116th units in the last 10 months of the war, including the 116th’s participation in the 30-mile forced march to Appomattox Court House. A soldier from North Carolina is quoted as saying the troops “looked like a blue checkerboard, with the white and black soldiers advancing together.” Camp Nelson also served as the state headquarters of the Freedmen’s Bureau after the war.

Camp Nelson, 1864.

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MISCELLANY

WORTH

A

MOVE

REAL ESTATE WITH CIVIL WAR CONNECTIONS

Ruins of the Decker House summer kitchen

Decker House, Fredericksburg, Va.

On May 3, 1863, the thunder of war would have easily been heard at the Decker House, located along River Road, northwest of Fredericksburg, Va. On that day, Union Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick’s 6th Corps was fighting to hold Banks Ford on the nearby Rappahannock River against the attacking troops of the Army of Northern Virginia’s First Corps after the Battle of Salem Church. Sedgwick’s men held the ford, and crossed north of the Rappahannock.

QUIZ

WHERE WOULD you find this nicely dressed tourist? (Well, the sweater could use a wash.) The first person who sends in the correct answer wins a Civil War Times water bottle. Send your answer to dshoaf@ historynet.com, subject heading “Cable Knit.”

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ANSWER TO LAST ISSUE’S

CLOSE UP !

CONGRATULATIONS to Bobby Manning of Ridgeville, Ind., who correctly identified the Union trooper as being one of the background figures in the famous image of General Ulysses S. Grant and his staff at Massaponax Church, Va., May 21, 1864.

COLDWELL BANKER (2); LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN

CLOSE UP!

The house, built in 1838 in the Federal style, saw plenty of other activity during the war. Troops by the score, as well as General Robert E. Lee, often marched along River Road. During the Battle of Fredericksburg, refugees fled the shell-blasted town and took shelter at the Decker House. This beautifully preserved home sits on 1.74 acres in a scenic area by Motts Run Reservoir.

For more information, go to https://bit.ly/DeckerHouse.

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WAR DRUMS ON MAIN STREET

THE HEMPSTEAD RIFLES of Washington, Ark., a company

of the 8th Arkansas Militia Regiment led by Captain John R. Gratiot, had a big day on May 4, 1861. The town presented the troops a flag in a Main Street ceremony, and then they marched away to join Brig. Gen. Benjamin McCulloch’s Western Army. Arkansas’ populace was divided over secession and held two votes on the contentious issue. These soldiers—about 70 men are present in the image, including some civilians—had determined to fight for the Confederacy even before the state formally voted to leave the United States on May 6. After arriving with McCulloch’s force, the Hempstead Rifles became Company B of the 3rd Regiment, Arkansas State Troops. That 550-man regiment fought at Wilson’s Creek on August 10, 1861, enduring 109 casualties.

Shortly after, on September 19, 1861, the 3rd Regiment disbanded. The Hempstead Rifles returned home, and a number of the veterans reenlisted in other Confederate Arkansas regiments. Altogether, about 48,000 men from Arkansas fought for the South. —D.B.S.

1

1. The Hempstead Rifles marched off to war from Washington, Ark., but were named for Hempstead County in the southwest portion of the state.

In 1860, the county had a population of 8,580 whites and 5,308 enslaved.

2. This drum corps would have played music that stirred the souls and

measured the steps of the Hempstead Rifles. The Rolling Stones lyric, “My heart is beating louder than a big bass drum,” comes to mind when looking at this musician’s burden.

3. This man bears a resemblance to Rifles Captain John R. Gratiot, who

was promoted to colonel and led the 3rd Regiment at Wilson’s Creek. In his report of the battle, he praised his old militia company for remaining resolute even though they were hit with both enemy and friendly fire.

4. It’s hard to tell what type of rifles the men carry, but many of them, like this fellow, are also brandishing “Arkansas Toothpicks,” a nickname for long, straight-bladed fighting knives popular among Trans-Mississippi Rebels early in the war. Is this soldier also wearing tinted glasses?

5. Battle shirts, heavyweight overshirts trimmed with decorative tape, give the unit a rough-hewn, but quasi-military appearance. Such shirts were worn by many early war Confederate units in all theaters.

6. The company’s brand-new presentation banner appears to have six stars arranged in two horizontal lines of three stars each, and three broad stripes, likely red and white. As with clothing, Confederate troops went to war under a diverse array of flags.

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by Gary W. Gallagher

CIVIL WAR PHARAOH’S ARMY IS A LITTLE-KNOWN GEM DISCUSSIONS OF CIVIL WAR FILMS often center on block-

busters such as The Birth of a Nation (1915) and Gone With the Wind (1939). The work of prominent directors also receives ample attention, from John Ford’s pre-Centennial The Horse Soldiers (1959) to Steven Spielberg’s sesquicentennial offering Lincoln (2012). Ron Maxwell’s Gettysburg (1993) and Anthony Minghella’s Cold Mountain (2003) benefited from interest created by the novels from which the movies were adapted, while Edward Zwick’s Glory (1989) proved immensely influential because it changed how millions of people understood the role of African Americans during the conflict. Pharaoh’s Army, directed by Robby Henson and 16

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A PRIVATE

released with no fanfare in 1995, possesses none of the attributes that bring cultural significance and generate large profits. Yet it is a finely crafted, wellacted gem that deserves attention from anyone interested in the Civil War. Based on a folklorist’s oral history with a Kentucky mountaineer in 1941, Pharaoh’s Army features no grand mansions or refined slaveholding men and women, no great battles or generals, no debates about national political issues. It pulls viewers close to the ground to grapple with topics of increasing interest to historians—war on the margins, violent internal divisions in border areas, and the dark side of a conflict that shattered notions of “civilized” warfare.

The story unfolds in 1862 on a hardscrabble farm in the Cumberland Mountains. A Union captain named John Abston (Chris Cooper), com-

PHARAOH’S ARMY

SHOOT OR SYMPATHIZE? Captain John Abston, played

by Chris Cooper, finds himself caught between empathy and anger for his enemies in Pharaoh’s Army.

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PHARAOH’S ARMY

manding four other United States soldiers, encounters a woman named Sarah Anders (Patricia Clarkson). Married to a Confederate soldier, Sarah lives on the farm with her son (Will Lucas). Her daughter is dead, and pro-Union sympathizers defiled the young girl’s grave.

Speaking as an old man in a narrative voice-over, the son explains what happened to his sister: “Some Yankee bastards dug her up and tossed her out like a rag doll on account of Pap’s siding with the South.” Neighbor had turned against neighbor in an area evenly divided between Union and Confederate sentiment. “It was rough through here,” intones the narrator.

Once the Federal patrol arrives, Captain Abston’s basic decency stirs feelings of empathy for Sarah. A farmer himself, he watches her struggle on a rocky patch of land. “Ma’am, I apologize for the things this war makes,” he tells her.

Later he helps plow and chops some wood. She tells him Unionists refused to allow her daughter’s body to rest in a graveyard among the loyal dead and vows to dig up the first Yankee grave she finds near her farm. Sarah shows glimmers of softening toward Abston, wiping his hands blistered by the plowing and putting on a nice dress. She even nurses one of Abston’s soldiers named Newt (Huckleberry Fox) who suffers an injury in her barn.

But Sarah’s loathing for Yankees soon trumps the captain’s conciliatory gestures and smothers her impulses toward accommodation. She suggests that Abston’s plowing represents an effort to ease his guilty conscience and exhibits no regret when an old couple are found murdered and thrown into a well. They were Yankees, she observes coldly, who had sent sons into the Union Army.

When Abston reveals that he had lost his wife and farm, Sarah responds that she and the captain must stick to being enemies. Meanwhile, she has sent her son to get help from pro-Confederates in the vicinity.

The film builds to a bloody climax when smoldering resentments flare into violence. One of the Union soldiers is killed by men the boy summoned.

SARAH’S

LOATHING FOR

YANKEES SOON TRUMPS

CAPTAIN’S CONCILIATORY GESTURES

THE

Abston now views Sarah and her son as Rebel enemies. He buries the dead soldier next to Sarah’s daughter before taking everything of value—her mule, cow, and wagon. Expressing outrage at the burial and the theft of her possessions, Sarah asks: “What do you expect us to eat?” “Maybe the boy can shoot squirrels,” Abston replies. After the soldiers depart with the injured Newt in the wagon, Sarah immediately digs up the dead soldier while her son chases the Federals and kills Newt.

Intractable enmity pervades the final confrontation between Abston and Sarah. He returns to the farm with the murdered Newt’s body. Sarah lays all blame on the Yankees, who provoked

the violence by coming to her farm.

Abston draws his pistol—then shoots twice in the air. Shaken by his urge to murder Sarah and the boy, he leaves Newt’s body and expresses a hope that whoever killed him will provide a Christian burial. The narrator ties up the story’s loose ends. Sarah and her son threw the first dead Yankee’s body into a nearby creek, then tossed Newt’s corpse into a sinkhole and covered it with dirt. Sarah’s husband never came back from the Confederate Army. “That war,” concludes the narrator, “was a widow maker.”

During its starkly effective portrayal of a single small encounter between soldiers and civilians, Pharaoh’s Army treats motivation with welcome complexity.

Abston and a foreign-born soldier nicknamed Chicago (Robert Joy) take a few minutes to address the subject.

Chicago joined the army to see new places and because he was tired of making sausage. Abston pronounces those poor reasons to risk death, but Chicago scorns all sense of righteous purpose in the war: “I have heard your big reasons.

To save the Union? This is what the general says. To free the slaves? Nobody that I know wants to get killed to free a bunch of nigs.” “Why did you sign up?” asks Chicago. A minister brought a runaway slave to Abston’s church, had the man show scars on his back, and from the pulpit asked for volunteers. “I stood up,” says Abston with considerable sarcasm, “and here I am, stealing chickens.” At various points, Abston’s men kill all Sarah’s chickens, ransack her cabin, and ridicule their captain for helping plow. One of the soldiers, whose brother was killed by a Rebel, spits on Sarah’s son and calls him “Johnnie [Reb].” Far from planned or methodical, the soldiers’ destructive behavior suggests how the war, in just its second year, had vanquished notions about restraint and order.

Pharaoh’s Army belongs on a short list of worthy films that deal with the Civil War. It casts light on the type of “minor scenes and interiors” Walt Whitman predicted would never get into the books. ✯ DECEMBER 2021 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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RAMBLING with John Banks

A 118TH PA SOLDIER RISKED IT ALL TO SAVE WOUNDED COMRADES

LOOKING LIKE 400 MILES of bad road, I sit at a table outside the

Sweet Shop Bakery in Shepherdstown, exhausted and achy but eager to walk the West Virginia town’s Civil War battlefield. On a Nashville-to-Philadelphia round trip, I have already visited a prison where Al Capone was incarcerated; a tavern on the site of a deadly Civil War munitions factory explosion; a rough neighborhood where the more adventuresome may examine the head of George Meade’s favorite horse; and world-famous Pat’s King of Steaks, where I ordered a sweet pepper-covered, heartburn-inducing steak sandwich.

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PHOTO BY JOHN BANKS; RONN PALM MUSEUM

NO MAN LEFT BEHIND

Then a helmet-clad man on a whirring, humming Segway rolls up, looking like he means business.

“Are you John Banks?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say, visions of Paul Blart in Mall Cop swirling in my head.

“I’m Steve Alemar.”

He’s just the man I want to see.

Alemar, the part-time parking enforcement officer in Shepherdstown (pop. about 1,800), is president of the Shepherdstown Battlefield Preservation Association. He has secured permission for me to visit privately owned battleground on the bluffs above the Potomac River. My aim: Walk in the footsteps of 118th Pennsylvania Lieutenant Lemuel Crocker, whose heroics on September 20, 1862, in the final Maryland Campaign battle should be legendary.

Alemar, a 67-year-old Vietnam veteran and former national park ranger, quickly earns a spot on my “Compelling/Interesting Characters From Civil

PHOTO BY JOHN BANKS

TO SERVE AND PROTECT Steve Alemar safeguards Shepherdstown, W.Va., as a parking enforcement officer and president of the Shepherdstown Battlefield Preservation Association.

PHOTO BY JOHN BANKS; RONN PALM MUSEUM

PHOTO BY JOHN BANKS

War Trips” list—a lengthy roll call that also includes an ex-CIA station chief whose ancestor fought at Antietam; a former Marine/FBI agent who helped save a battlefield; a man who left a job in law enforcement to mow hallowed ground; a woman who has a framed Oreo cookie with frosting shaped like the profile of Abraham Lincoln hanging in her Civil War-era home; and a descendant of Confederate soldiers who seems obsessed with “snake-handling churches.”

In six years on his parking enforcement gig, Alemar has seen a little bit of everything in this quaint, college town along the Potomac River—flashers, drunks, bottle throwers, and other belligerents. A skin cancer survivor (“508 stitches in my face”), he uses the Segway on the job because he has a heart condition and a right knee replacement. I am tempted to ask for a spin on the thing, but there’s a battlefield to see. We agree to meet in 90 minutes on River Road, at battlefield markers near the ruins of a cement mill building that predates the war.

But first I order another cup of Joe in the Sweet Shop Bakery, asking the woman behind the counter if she’s creeped out because the building was used as a Confederate hospital in 1862 in the aftermath of the Battle of Antietam, the war’s bloodiest single day. “My own house is haunted,” she tells me, “so it doesn’t really bother me.”

And then I am off...

I have advanced on Shepherdstown from all directions over the decades—by car from my one-time home in Martinsburg, W.Va., to cover football games at Shepherd University as a newspaperman long ago; by bike from the nearby Antietam battlefield in Maryland; and by wading the Potomac, an exhilarating experience if one knows how to swim and can keep an iPhone from plunging into the river. In the early 1980s, a newspaper pal and I used a cheap metal detector to scour a Shepherdstown hillside for battle relics. Our haul of pull tabs from beer cans was stellar.

Like John Buford at Gettysburg, I

CIVIL WAR BAD ASS Lieutenant Lemuel Crocker, left, persisted in rescuing his fallen comrades despite threats from his superiors and while under fire from enemy troops on the banks of the Potomac, above.

scout the ground along River Road, roughly 15 yards from the Potomac. Oh my, what a treacherous place this was for the rookie 118th Pennsylvania, the “Corn Exchange” regiment from Philadelphia. Atop the bluffs, the Pennsylvanians fought with defective 1853 pattern Enfields, which proved useless.

Then “beaten, dismayed, wild with fright,” Crocker and others hastily retreated under fire across a mill dam to the Maryland side of the Potomac.

In the distance behind me, barely in

view between a stand of trees, are remains of that dam, stretching across the river; to my front are steep, craggy bluffs from which some 118th Pennsylvania soldiers plunged to their deaths as they hastily retreated. Others huddled along the river by Boteler’s Cement Mill kilns, where some were killed by friendly artillery fire from the Maryland side of the Potomac. You can see those ruins, too, if you’re mentally prepared for the copperheads.

Imagine the fright of those soldiers as they lay near the riverside, their own cannon booming in the distance and enemy troops nearby. “A cry of horror went up from our men, heard across the river,” 118th Pennsylvania Captain Frank Donaldson wrote about the awful effects of Union artillery fire on their own troops.

In one of the gutsiest moves of the war, Lemuel Crocker rescued wounded comrades and retrieved bodies of some of the unit’s dead, disobeying orders. In DECEMBER 2021 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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RAMBLING with John Banks

LEMUEL CROCKER

RESCUED

WOUNDED COMRADES RETRIEVED BODIES OF SOME AND

OF THE

HORROR ON THE RIVER BANK Some 118th Pennsylvania Infantry soldiers plunged to their deaths from the bluffs above the Potomac River, top. The ruins of a cement mill, above, where some of the 118th soldiers sought shelter from friendly fire during the Battle of Shepherdstown.

20

the army less than a month, the 118th Pennsylvania lieutenant, “absolutely covered with blood and dirt,” was carrying a soldier to the riverbank when he was approached by an aide for 5th Corps commander Fitz John Porter.

Stop, he told Crocker, or a battery will open fire to persuade you. “Shell and be damned,” replied Crocker, who continued his noble work on the Virginia side of the river. (Remember: This didn’t become West Virginia until June 1863.)

When confronted by a Confederate general and his staff, Crocker—a large, muscular man with a thick beard—told them “humanity and decency demanded” that Union dead and wounded be cared for properly. And so this Civil War bad ass proceeded with his rescue and recovery mission.

Two days after the battle, Crocker— whose only punishment for disobeying orders was a reprimand—described his harrowing battle experience in a letter to his parents. “As we got to the river-​ side we had to go near a half a mile to a dam over which our men were attempting to cross; and to make this dam many a man lost his life, as the rebels were stationed on the bluff taking deliberate aim during the whole fight,” the 33-year-old soldier wrote.

“I was cool and collected during my travel by the riverside,” he continued, “but when I reach this dam, I think my cheek blanched, for it seemed to me certain death to cross it, as the rebels had got into a large brick building below the dam, and the main body above on the bluff, picking off our poor fellows.” Ravaged by time, nature, and graffiti, that brick building used by

PHOTO BY JOHN BANKS (2)

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RAMBLING with John Banks

On this muggy afternoon, I’m eager to commune with the spirit of the man, to touch his soul, to conjure visions of this brave soldier. I’m also eager to avoid the bears, coyotes, and snakes that are said to lurk in the woods on my route to the top of the bluff. “Just use your common sense,” Alemar told me in a pre-visit phone call, clearly not knowing whom he was speaking with.

Minutes after examining a sliver of ground along the river saved by the Shepherdstown Battlefield Preservation Association, Alemar arrives on River Road in his black truck. Only a few cars pass by us on this relatively remote stretch of road. In the distance, a deer bounds through the woods. “I 22

‘FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS’ The Jefferson County Historic Landmarks Commission and Shepherdstown Battlefield Preservation Association have helped save approximately 118 acres of the site of the Battle of Shepherdstown. used to love to come here,” he says. “It’s so peaceful.”

Alemar tells me about remains of Confederate artillery emplacements in the woods. We discuss non-Civil War topics, too—his mom was a secretary for FBI director J. Edgar Hoover; his dad was employed by the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA. Alemar, a former U.S. Postal Service employee, also served as a ranger for two years in the 1980s at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, an especially moving experience for a veteran.

Alemar also recounts his own lifealtering war experience.

On October 1, 1972, he was an 18-year-old sailor aboard the USS Newport News off the coast of South Vietnam. About 1 a.m., the 21,000-ton heavy cruiser was firing on enemy targets when an eight-inch shell in the center gun of Turret 2 prematurely exploded, killing 20 and injuring 36 aboard. The battleship became a horror show of fire, thick, green smoke, and burning flesh. “I don’t remember how

long I was in there,” a sailor recalled decades later about the scene at Turret 2, “but I’m guessing 15–20 minutes and then I was relieved. I [spent] 34 years in the fire department, and I don’t recall ever being as scared.”

“We were young that night,” another remembered years later, “but we aged fast.”

Alemar, who was above Turret 2 when the disaster occurred, suffered a crushed ankle and from smoke inhalation. The battered Newport News— “The Gray Ghost of the East Coast”​ —finally made it back to its Norfolk, Va., base on Christmas Eve. The memory of that awful day still day cuts deeply for Alemar: “Those things never go away,” he says.

Armed with a Tennessee walking stick, a new iPhone, and curiosity, I eye my route through the woods to the bluffs above the Potomac. Alemar, who stays behind, offers instructions and insect repellent. There are ticks up there, too.

And so I begin my climb in search of a hero... while leaving another one behind. ✯ For the record, John Banks has never ridden a Segway. Shortly after writing this column, Alemar crashed while aboard his, suffering several injuries and ending his short law enforcement career. He is still recovering.

PHOTOS BY JOHN BANKS

Rebel soldiers still stands.

After Crocker’s death in Buffalo in 1885, apparently from a stroke, no mention appeared in local newspapers of his long-ago heroism. A respected businessman, “he was noted for his liberality, public spirit and kindheartedness,” an obituary noted. “He had many warm friends by whom his sudden taking off will be greatly deplored.” Crocker, buried in Buffalo’s Forest Lawn Cemetery, did not receive a Medal of Honor for his Shepherdstown valor—an egregious oversight someone must rectify.

“The daring of this man,” Donaldson wrote about Crocker’s Shepherdstown heroism, “is without precedent.”

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8/5/21 7:02 AM

with Caroline E. Janney

WHAT COMES NEXT? Artist Richard Norris Brookes’ 1897 Furling the Flag depicts surrendering Confederates. But once the banners were stowed, the hard journey home began.

CWT: How did you get interested in Confederate paroles?

CJ: We have these images, many of them wrapped in myth, of what Confederates looked like going home. We have the Gone With the Wind version: Ashley Wilkes showing up at home dusty and dirty, and we have the flip side of it, Confederate raiders, almost a guerrilla-style warfare as these men made their way home. I was struck by parole records at the National Archives in Washington, D.C., because in all my reading and most of my work on memory I had never seen anything about thousands of Confederate soldiers being paroled at any site beyond the main surrender sites, Appomattox and Durham Station. Paroles were taking place throughout Virginia, West Virginia, and into North Carolina.

CWT: The parole terms become problematic.

CJ: I think Grant was doing the best he could. How do you convince these men to lay down arms and become peaceful civilians of this Union once more? Grant’s 24

initial terms are very basic: If you agree to lay down your arms and abide by the laws that are in place where you live, then you are free to do so. But it becomes evident the next day that there are going to be logistical problems with sending home 28,000 troops—roughly the number to be surrendered at Appomattox. And potentially thousands of more stragglers out there. Are they marching home as units? Are they going to be allowed to take transportation where the railroads are intact? Grant meets with Lee the next day and says I will allow them to pass through Union territory and provide free passage and even rations. This is meant as a gesture of reunion and reconciliation. But the logistical problems are much bigger than anyone imagined.

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COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA PROFESSOR CAROLINE JANNEY has long been interested in the Army of Northern Virginia. When she began exploring the parole of Lee’s men after the surrender at Appomattox, she discovered a surprising complexity concerning the legal status of Confederate soldiers and the conditions of their return to their home states. She has woven eight years of research into her latest book, The Ends of War: The Unfinished Fight of Lee’s Army After Appomattox.

WEST POINT MUSEUM

SLOW FINALE

COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

WEST POINT MUSEUM

CWT: Political problems unfold on several different fronts.

CJ: What do you do with people who rebelled and, in many minds, committed treason? Are they going to be treated as citizens again, protected by all those rights that come with the Constitution? Or are they going to be treated as enemies of the state? Can they continue to be held as prisoners of war? Should individual soldiers be punished? Should their leaders be punished? What is the status of these men, politically—and socially for that matter—in the summer of 1865?

Legally there’s still a state of war, but Johnston’s surrender to Sherman at Durham Station has meant that the fighting is over. What does that mean in a legal sense?

CWT: It becomes a different war.

CJ: I had never considered what happens when a Confederate from a border state goes home. I was familiar with stories in West Virginia, and some of the fighting that went on for years.

But I had never stopped to consider all those men from Maryland, or Kentucky even, who want to go home. I was quite surprised to see the level of vigilante violence or vigilance committees that decided that if the U.S. government is not going to prevent Rebels from coming back into their territory, then they are going to take matters into their own hands. When Grant and Attorney General James Speed say, for example, that loyal states can prevent Rebels from coming back into their states, there is a period—it doesn’t last very long—in which Confederates are run out of their homes. They are killed in a handful of instances. West Virginia becomes an even more problematic case because the Attorney General and Grant both say that Confederates can return to West Virginia, as it was part of a state that passed an ordinance of secession and so wasn’t completely loyal. And loyal citizens of West Virginia are absolutely outraged. They had formed a loyal state and they are being treated as if they are no better than any other Confederate state.

CWT: You also cover the oaths of allegiance and amnesty.

CJ: In late May 1865, President Johnston issues his first proclamation of amnesty and pardon, which conferred amnesty to the vast majority of Confederates who took an oath promising future loyalty to the U.S. This covered most Confederate soldiers, but it excluded 14 classes, including those who had served in the U.S. government or Army before the war; those who owned more than $20,000 in property; all Confederates above the rank of colonel; and those from the loyal border

Caroline Janney

states. This becomes a Catch-22 for many of these men. They need to apply for a pardon, but to do so concedes they committed treason. But most important, Johnson’s proclamation simultaneously afforded a great deal of protection to Confederates protecting them for further prosecution and set in motion a host of new legal questions about the war’s end.

CWT: Throughout the overarching tension is the fear of guerrillas.

CJ: Grant wants the bloodshed to end.

He thinks the best way to do this is to be magnanimous and not to inflame passions. Grant and Sherman fear that if the Confederate army splintered into small guerrilla bands, the war would never end. It is one thing to defeat a legitimate organized army in the field.

It is another to fight a guerrilla war.

CWT: What happens to African Americans?

CJ: We too often assume that Lee’s surrender made emancipation complete. But many of Lee’s soldiers did not. Many refused to acknowledge that the surrender likewise meant the death of slavery. Indeed, there are numerous accounts of soldiers describing so-called faithful slaves who remained loyal to the Confederacy even in defeat—one of the central myths of the Lost Cause that would gain popularity in the years to come. Likewise, we tend to forget that there were thousands of enslaved men who remained with the Army of Northern Virgina at Appomattox. They too wanted to make their way back home to their families. But they had to decide whether they should strike out on their own or travel with their former masters for protection.

And they had reason to fear, evident in the accounts I discovered of paroled Confederates who admitted killing USCT soldiers on their way home.

CWT: How did the war’s uneven ending impact the South?

CJ: For Confederates, because of these terms that were intended to be generous enough to compel them to surrender without bloodshed, there is this sense that they’ve never been thoroughly defeated. We see the beginnings of it with Lee’s farewell address to the Army of Northern Virginia on April 10. He’s telling them it’s through no fault of their own. And he refers to them as his countrymen. The notion of Confederate nationalism is not dead even in the wake of Appomattox.

There is no battle that eliminates the Army of Northern Virginia. They are allowed to march home in regiments and brigades. I think the way the war ended absolutely lays the groundwork for the Lost Cause and for the myths and stories that will be told to justify everything from Jim Crow to States’ Rights going forward. It certainly lays the groundwork for resistance to Reconstruction. ✯ Interview conducted by Sarah Richardson.

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by Dana B. Shoaf

Harry, left, and Frank, outfitted with muskets and forage caps issued at Gettysburg.

FIRING UP

INTEREST COURTESY OF TRENT NIEDERBERGER; HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS

WE OWE A LOT TO A TOY MUSKET WE HAVE PROFILED many Civil War weapons in the pages of this magazine. In this issue alone we discuss the Enfield rifle-musket, P. 33, and the long-lived Model 1816, P. 60. But let’s not forget the impact of another venerable Civil War musket, the cap gun that so many of us coveted and enjoyed. I spent this past Labor Day in the company of good friends at Gettysburg, and one friend bought his two sons the toy musket beloved by generations. As I watched Harry and Frank run about the battlefield shooting imaginary Rebs (they are from Illinois after all), and then shooting each other, I remembered doing the same thing in 1973. I brought that musket home and it served as a tangible link to an amazing trip and it helped keep up my interest in reading about the conflict. I wore out that shoulder arm. The stock splintered when I was assaulting Rebel figments (I am from Pennsylvania after all) behind my parent’s firewood pile and I tripped and faceplanted.

My folks always said don’t let things go to waste, so the barrel became a bottle-rocket launcher. Of course, I had to get a new musket on a subsequent trip. We all should be glad these guns are still being issued out to eager recruits, helping to fire up imaginations and interest in history. ✯ DECEMBER 2021 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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THE

ROADS AHEAD DESPITE TWO YEARS OF GRINDING WAR,

THE ARMY

OF

NORTHERN VIRGINIA

WAS IN FINE FIGHTING TRIM IN SPRING 1864

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B Y J EFFRY D. W ERT

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FIGUREHEAD FOR AN ARMY In a famous incident on May 6, 1864, at the Battle of the Wilderness, soldiers of the Texas Brigade prevent General Robert E. Lee from leading an attack.

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BACK HOME This sketch shows the Army of Northern Virginia crossing the Potomac River to its namesake state after the Battle of Gettysburg. Despite the reverse in Pennsylvania, morale was high in Lee’s army when the Spring 1864 campaign season opened.

30

erals had fallen or been captured, and 150 field officers—colonels, lieutenant colonels, and majors—had been casualties. “Gettysburg was more than a defeat,” contended Jennings Cropper Wise, historian of Lee’s artillery units. “It was a disaster from which no army in fact, no belligerent state, could soon recover.”

Upon the army’s return to Virginia in mid-July 1863, it required time to recover from the six-week campaign and grievous losses. Their foes had followed them back across the Potomac River, and an interlude in major operations ensued, lasting for nearly three months. In mid-October, Lee undertook an offensive movement in the Bristoe Campaign. Six weeks later Union Army commander, Maj. Gen. George G. Meade, assumed the offensive in the Mine Run Campaign. Neither operation proved decisive.

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

W

hen winter settled in, the opponents confronted each other along the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers. Lee established his headquarters on a steep hill two miles east of Orange Court House, south of the Rapidan. According to one of Lee’s staff officers, Lt. Col. Charles S. Venable, the few tents had “the same bare simplicity and absence of military form and display” that customarily marked the commanding general’s headquarters.

Lee was an able administrator, but these winter months tested his capabilities. His steadfast devotion to duty and the burdens of command wore at him physically. A South Carolinian, who rejoined the army after a year’s absence, saw Lee on his return and recalled: “I was struck by the change in General Lee’s complexion. When I saw him the year before, his skin was a healthy pink. Now it was decidedly faded. He had aged a great deal more than a year in the past twelve months.”

From his headquarters, Lee wrestled daily with filling the critical shortages of rations for the troops and of forage for the horses and mules. In January, he admitted to Maj. Gen. Henry Heth, “The question of food for this army gives me more trouble and uneasiness than every thing else combined.” When available, the daily ration for the men consisted of one-eighth

FRANK LESLIE’S ILLUSTRATED

T

he columns of Confederate infantry and artillery stretched for miles, ranks of foot soldiers and strings of cannon filled the roadbeds. It was after midday on Wednesday, May 4, 1864, in central Virginia south of the Rappahannock and Rapidan rivers, and the Army of Northern Virginia was on the march. Reports from signalmen indicated that its old nemesis, the Union Army of the Potomac, was also on the move north of the rivers, heading south and east toward a pair of Rapidan fords.

The resumption of active campaigning had been the subject of rumors and campfire talk by the Confederates for weeks. Although veteran officers and men understood that the renewal of fighting meant further bloodshed in a war steeped in carnage, many of them had welcomed its return. In this, the conflict’s fourth spring, the struggle’s outcome appeared as distant as it had a year before, but the Rebels believed that these roads, the first of many, led possibly to final victory and independence for their nascent country.

The roads’ length, however, would not be measured in miles.

It had been 10 months to the day since General Robert E. Lee’s “glorious army,” in the estimation of a southern civilian, had begun its retreat from Gettysburg, Pa. The three-day engagement had exacted a terrible cost in killed, wounded, and captured or missing of more than 28,000; a casualty rate of 39 percent. Nine gen-

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

FRANK LESLIE’S ILLUSTRATED

to one-fourth pound of meat and one and one-eighth pounds of flour. To meet the forage needs of the cavalry and artillery units, Lee scattered them throughout central Virginia and even into the Shenandoah Valley. At times, regiments were disbanded temporarily and their members allowed to go home.

The shortages persisted for months, stalking the campsites. “Coffee and sugar were priceless luxuries,” wrote a Confederate enlisted man. “Bread and bacon were worth risking life for.” On April 12, Lee informed President Jefferson Davis, “I cannot see how we can operate with our present supplies,” adding that he could not rule out the army’s withdrawal to North Carolina for food and forage.

The hardships in camps and pleas from families in need at home brought an increase in the numbers of deserters. In January, Lee warned the War Department that desertions “are becoming more frequent,” adding that “unless there is a change, I fear the army cannot be kept effective, and probably cannot be kept together.” He instituted a system of furloughs that same month, which helped to slow the drainage of manpower. A new draft law adopted in February resulted in an influx of recruits and conscripts, whom veterans called “new issue.” Returning absentees further bolstered the ranks.

Lee’s grave concern about keeping the army together never reached a critical level. At its veteran core, his was a resilient force, a rank and file devoted to “Marse Robert” and the Confederate cause.

Despite the lack of provisions, morale remained high. They shared a legacy of battlefield success and

A NEW DRAFT LAW ADOPTED IN FEBRUARY RESULTED IN AN

INFLUX

OF

RECRUITS

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arguing that Providence was surely on the Confederacy’s side in this terrible ordeal. A “Great Revival” had swept through Lee’s army during the winter. Prayer meetings had been held in nearly all of the infantry brigades, resulting in perhaps as many as 7,000 converts to the faith. Expressing a common sentiment, a Virginian wrote, “Our cause we believe to be a just one and our God is certainly a just God, then why should we doubt.”

“Genl. Lee’s old army...is now generally considered to be in better spirits & health, also better armed equipped &c, than at any previous time during the war,” declared Lieutenant Robert Tutwiler of the 15th Virginia Cavalry in a letter to his aunt on April 24. At the same time, Captain Charles Mimor Blackford confessed in a letter, “I find my fears giving away to the force of numbers.” Blackford thought that the Yankees could lose four men to every one Rebel. “That process will destroy us at last,” he contented, “by using up our material.” The next three months would be decisive, and “if we succeed, we will have peace in less than twelve months.”

B

lackford served on the staff of Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, commander of the army’s First Corps. Longstreet, with two infantry divisions and an artillery battalion, had returned recently from roughly seven months duty in Tennessee. Detached from Lee’s command to reinforce the Army of Tennessee in September 1863, Longstreet’s veterans helped secure the victory at Chickamauga and later participated in the operations against Union-held Chattanooga. Those fall and winter months, however, were marked with controversies, a doomed assault on Federal defenses at Knoxville, and miserable winter camps. Their rejoining Lee’s army could not have been more welcomed or more timely.

“Old Pete Longstreet is with us and all seems propitious,” asserted Lt. Col. Walter Taylor of Lee’s staff. On Friday, April 29, Longstreet’s units gathered in a broad field outside of Gordonsville for a review by the com-

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS (2); LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND CULTURE

RANK AND FILE Unidentified soldiers, typical of the young men who fought with the Army of Northern Virginia. By war’s end, 200,000 troops served in the army, and 30,000 were killed.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2)

possessed an unconquerable will. They awaited forthcoming operations with confidence, if not optimism, to the outcome.

Speaking for many of his comrades, a North Carolinian asserted, “We are soldiers and we have to stay as long as there is any war.” A Georgian confessed that he was “getting very tyred of this war” but was “willing to stay here for three more years and live off of bread and water before I will submit to an abolition dynasty.”

“The thought of being whipped never crossed my mind,” remembered Captain Samuel D. Buck of the 13th Virginia,” and I felt positive that we would get the best of Grant.” In a letter to his parents on April 22, Lieutenant W. Johnson Webb of the 51st Georgia stated, “My opinion is that before another month rolls off a great battle will be fought in this part of Virginia and I am confident of success.”

This conviction rested in part on their contempt for their foes’ combat prowess and an abiding faith that God still favored the Confederacy. To Lee’s veterans, their superior fighting skill had been validated at Gaines’ Mill, Second Manassas, Antietam, Fredericksburg, and Chancellorsville. Many of them had attributed the bloody defeat at Gettysburg to the Union position on the hills and ridge and their opponents’ defense of it. Now, as spring arrived, camp gossip, fed by rumors, maintained that the Yankees were demoralized, with vast numbers of them deserting from the ranks.

In turn, the Rebels demonized their foes,

manding general. When Lee appeared and halted on a knoll, cannon fired a salute, and he returned it by removing his hat. The soldiers cheered, and color-bearers waved their flags in response.

Then came silence. “Sudden as a wind, a wave of sentiment, such as can only come to large crowds in full sympathy...seemed to sweep the field,” recounted Colonel E. Porter Alexander. “Each man seemed to feel the bond which held us to Lee. There was no speaking, but the effect was that of a military sacrament in which we pledged anew our lives.”

Lee, Longstreet, and staffs rode the length of the line before returning to the knoll. Before them the stalwart fighters of the First Corps—arguably the army’s finest—and batteries passed in review. A chaplain asked Charles Venable, “Does it not make the general proud to see how these men love him?” “Not proud, it awes him,” replied the staff officer.

When the review ended, the officers and men crowded around Lee to shake his hand. “Some said they had Shuck hands with the greatest general in the world,” one of them told his sister. Colonel Clement Evans of the 31st Georgia wrote of Lee, “He is the only man living in whom they would unreservedly trust all power for the preservation of their independence.”

The arrival and review of Longstreet’s command occurred as the Confederates expected at any day an offensive movement of their foes under the overall direction of General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant. Weeks earlier Lee had described the forthcoming confrontation as “the approaching storm,” arguing that “every preparation should be made to meet it.” Lee reasoned,

as he subsequently explained to President Davis: “If we can defeat or drive the armies of the enemy, we shall have peace. All our efforts & energies should be devoted to the object.”

T

he Confederate commander understood, however, that the strategic landscape differed in this spring from the one he had inherited on June 1, 1862, when he replaced General Joseph E. Johnston in temporary command of the army. Then the Federals lay on the outskirts of Richmond, threatening to capture the capital and to end the conflict. Lee reacted by assuming the offensive in the month’s final week in the Seven Days Campaign. When it ended, a critical turning point had been passed.

For the next 22 months, Lee held the strategic or operational initiative in the theater and shaped the contours of campaigns.

Lee recognized also that the conflict was a struggle between two democratic societies. His bold strategy during 1862 and 1863 had been predicated on achieving battlefield victories that

English-made Enfield Rifle-Musket

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS (2); LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND CULTURE

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2)

WELL

EQUIPPED The “Ragged Rebel” myth doesn’t hold as much sway as it used to, but it’s worth repeating that the Army of Northern Virginia was well equipped when the Spring 1864 campaign kicked off. War materiel from Europe, particularly England, was plentiful. In addition to the examples at right, shoes, knapsacks, blankets, hats, and ammunition came through the U.S. Navy blockade. The Union Army also provided resources. The historian of Brig. Gen. Samuel McGowan’s Brigade recalled that after Gettysburg “the men pitched the small ‘Yankee flies’, as we called them, of which everyone, almost, had a piece...the camps were everywhere white with them....” He was referring to the shelter halves, or “dog tents” issued to Union troops, that were captured and reused by Lee’s men.

Imported cloth jacket

McGowan

‘ Yankee Flie’

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would break the will of the Northern populace to sustain the Union war effort. In his judgment, Confederate independence could be attained only through a negotiated political settlement. The Rebels could not win a prolonged conflict against the Federals’ reservoirs of manpower and of natural and man-made resources.

As Lee sat in his headquarters tent outside Orange Court House during these early months of 1864, he wrestled with the changing strategic circumstances before his army. Although he told a subordinate that “our true policy” should be another offensive strike across the Potomac River, he was forced to adopt a defensive strategy. His 66,000 officers and men faced an enemy host of 119,000.

A defensive strategy offered, however, the possibility of defeating Abraham Lincoln in the forthcoming presidential election by intensifying the war-weariness of Northern folks. If the Confederates could stand A NEW BREED defiant in the field against By 1864, the warthis Federal might, perhaps thinned ranks of Northerners would be early volunteers, unwilling to endure further like these men, were the loss of loved ones and being supplemented the sacrifices brought by the by draftees. A South war and elect Lincoln’s Carolinian recalled, “We Democratic opponent. made very little out of Lee had acknowledged to the majority of them.” President Davis that when “the approaching storm” broke across central Virginia, his opponent had the strategic initiative, writing, “We can alarm & embarrass him to some extent & thus prevent his undertaking anything of magnitude against us.” But the combative Lee wanted to do more than “alarm & embarrass” the Yankees. In early April, he had declared to Walter Taylor, “Colo[nel] we have got to whip them, we must whip them and it has already made me better to think of it.”

A month later on May 2, the Confederate commander gathered his senior officers on the crest of Clark’s Mountain. With Lee were Longstreet, Richard Ewell, and A. P. Hill, the latter commanders of the Second and Third Corps, respectively. Lee had reservations about Ewell’s and Hill’s performances since Gettysburg and the operations during the autumn of 1863.

Ewell seemed reluctant about, if not incapable of, making decisions, while Hill suffered from health maladies and appeared frustrated by the responsibilities of corps command. The forthcoming campaign would further test both men.

From Clark’s Mountain the generals saw some of the Union winter campsites north of the Rapidan River. At one point, Lee thought aloud, “I think those people over there are going to make a move soon.” He added that the enemy would likely cross the river downstream at Germanna and Ely’s fords. Before they departed a staff officer asked Longstreet his opinion of Grant. “That man,” replied Longstreet of the Union commander, “will fight us every day and every hour till the end of this war.”

T

he next day couriers delivered orders for the men to cook three days’ rations, “thus putting an end to all suspense,” according to an officer. A Georgian expressed the general mood in camps in a letter to his wife: “I think we are ready for Mr. Yank now when ever he may think proper to come.” Two days earlier on May 1, Lt. Col. Alexander “Sandie” Pendleton, Ewell’s chief of staff, lamented in a letter: “the green shores of the Rapidan River would be stained by the blood of thousands. It is sad to think of it; the soil, in calm reflection, recoils from the contemplation of the ghastly spectacle.”

At 5 a.m. May 4, signalmen on Clark’s Mountain notified army headquarters that the enemy was on the move toward the Rapidan fords.

Unknown to Lee, these Federals were one segment of a broad Union offensive that encompassed hundreds of miles. In Georgia, Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman led three armies south toward Atlanta. Elsewhere in Virginia, Federals headed south up the Shenandoah Valley and started toward Bermuda Hundred between Richmond and Petersburg. The massive Union offensive included more than a quarter of a million officers and men.

FROM CLARK’S MOUNTAIN THE GENERALS SAW SOME of THE UNION WINTER CAMPSITES

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2)

NORTH

of the

RAPIDAN RIVER

Lee reacted to the enemy movement by directing Ewell and Hill to march east toward the river crossings. Ewell led the advance on Orange Turnpike, with Hill following soon after on Orange Plank Road to the south. “A quiet determination pervaded the line,” recalled a marcher.

Another Rebel noted, “Privates, as well as officers, were well aware of what they were doing, and where they were going.”

They were heading toward the Wilderness of Spotsylvania and the opening engagement of the Overland Campaign, which a Yankee soldier afterward called “a funeral procession” because of the staggering casualties. They

WILDERNESS CLASH The Battle of the Wilderness, May 5–7, 1864, was like no other previous fight in the Eastern Theater.

Despite more than 11,000 casualties, Lee’s soldiers headed to Spotsylvania ready to continue the fight. could not have known, however, where the roads ahead would take them. But their stalwart defensive stands during these critical spring and summer weeks perhaps might have changed the outcome of the presidential election in the North, but events elsewhere in Georgia and in the Shenandoah Valley assured Lincoln’s reelection.

As we know today, the roads ahead ended at Appomattox Court House on Palm Sunday, April 9, 1865. When the Army of Northern Virginia stepped forth on May 4, 1864, no one in its ranks could have foreseen that ultimate destination. For 11 months, despite the casualties, the attrition in the officer ranks, the desertions, and the odds against them, Lee’s veterans waged a struggle in the finest tradition of that storied command. History reminds us that inevitability is rarely at the end of a road.

Jeffry D. Wert is a retired Pennsylvania high school history teacher and the author of various works on the Civil War. He has written biographies of James Longstreet, J.E.B. Stuart, and George Custer, and histories of the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia.

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MISSED

REDEMPTION ATTACKED BY THE NORTHERN PRESS STYMIED BY “STONEWALL” JACKSON IN THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY, MAJ. GEN. IRVIN McDOWELL AND

WATCHED HIS CHANCES FOR GLORY FADE



36

BY DO NALD SM I T H



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LOOKING FOR REDEMPTION Major General Irvin McDowell poses with his staff on the steps of Arlington House in an 1862 image.

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FRIENDS, THEN NOT McDowell and Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, right, were initially on cordial terms. “Little Mac,” however, would eventually turn on his comrade.

38

McDOWELL SEEMED TO BE

MISSING IT ALL

east. Both times, Stonewall Jackson derailed those plans. Jackson fought Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley at Kernstown on March 23, and lost, but Abraham Lincoln was alarmed nevertheless. His administration closely examined the numbers and quality of troops McClellan had left near Washington to defend the capital prior to embarking for the Peninsula. Unhappy with what they saw, Lincoln and new Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton prevented McDowell, at that time a corps commander in the Army of the Potomac, from joining McClellan.

Two months after Kernstown, McDowell received the green light to march on Richmond. “Everything,” McDowell said, “was ready to march on Sunday,” May 25. “The wagons—containing five days’ bread, coffee, sugar, and salt—were all loaded up and with beef cattle on the hoof, were distributed to the several brigades.”

Unfortunately for McDowell, two days earlier, Jackson had attacked Union forces under Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks at Front Royal, Va. On May 25, while McDowell’s wagons waited near Fredericksburg, Banks’ wagons—and his whole command—fled to Maryland after Jackson defeated them again at First Winchester. McDowell’s move on Richmond was suspended again, as he was ordered to send troops to the Valley to chase Jackson.

By June 8, though, Jackson had retreated southwest, and was below Harrisonburg, 75 miles from Winchester. With the threat from Jackson now diminished, Lincoln and Stanton gave McDowell a third chance to go south. Washington, northern Virginia, and the Shenandoah Valley would be guarded by two other Union commands. Major General John C. Frémont’s Mountain Department would “take post with his main force near Harrisonburg, to guard against operations of the enemy down the valley of the Shenandoah,” while Banks’ Department of the Shenandoah would “take position in force at or near Front Royal...with an advance at Luray or other points in supporting distance of General Frémont, and [was] also to occupy” positions “on the line of the Manassas Gap Railroad, as far as the Manassas Junction.”

Considering that June 8, 1862, was a Sunday, McDowell might have thought he had received a blessing from the Almighty when he received these instructions from Washington. “The Secretary of War directs that, having first provided adequately for the defense of the city of Washington and for holding the position at Fredericksburg, you operate with the residue

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the beginning of June, Forts Henry, Donelson, and Pulaski had fallen to Union forces, as had Yorktown and New Orleans, and the Federals had fought major battles at Pea Ridge, Shiloh, and Fair Oaks. The exploits of McClellan, Grant, and many other Union generals filled Northern newspapers.

McDowell seemed to be missing it all. For the most part, the troops of his Department of the Rappahannock, which consisted in mid-June of three divisions under Rufus King, James Ricketts, and James Shields, and a cavalry brigade under George Bayard stayed in Virginia in the vicinity of Fredericksburg and Manassas.

That spring, McDowell prepared twice to take his troops south and join McClellan’s Army of the Potomac as it approached Richmond from the

NATIONAL ARCHIVES

rvin McDowell was eager to take the field to erase the stain of his defeat at the First Battle of Bull Run. Even though the Union disaster on July 21, 1861, was only partially his fault, it had followed him like a personal rain cloud. Some of the general’s peers sympathized with him. Engineer Herman Haupt considered McDowell “the most able, but at the same time the most unfortunate” U.S. general in the East. Major General James Garfield thought him to be of “far more than ordinary ability” and “truly patriotic,” an “accomplished soldier…full of energy and zeal.” James Wilson, who served as a staff officer for both George B. McClellan and later Ulysses S. Grant, seemed more transfixed, however, by McDowell’s eating habits. “He was such a Gargantuan feeder….he fairly gobbled the larger part of every dish within reach,” Wilson recalled.

McDowell also hungered for military success, but for the first half of 1862, he had to watch other Union generals fight the Confederates. By

of your force as speedily as possible in the direction of Richmond, to cooperate with Major-General McClellan.” “For the third time I am ordered to join you,” McDowell telegraphed McClellan on June 10, “and this time I hope to get through.”

arching south would, if nothing else, take McDowell farther away from the Northern newspapers that pestered and even pilloried him. Lincoln’s decision on April 4 to detach McDowell’s 1st Corps from the Army of the Potomac soon led to criticism from pro-McClellan advocates in the press. They claimed that McDowell’s absence from the Virginia Peninsula was a major reason for McClellan’s slow progress toward Richmond. McClellan’s “original plan,” wrote Henry Raymond of the New York Times on May 6, “was to send a corps d’armee [McDowell’s 1st Corps] to the rear of Gloucester” Point, on the north bank of the York River, “and then, by combined attack in rear, in front and on the flank from our gunboats, to compel a surrender” of the Confederate garrison at Yorktown.

“This plan he was under the necessity of changing when General McDowell’s corps was withdrawn...because he was then left without a force sufficient to warrant the detachment of so large a body as this [flanking] operation would have required. His only recourse, therefore, was to make the attack in regular form and by a regular siege operation.” The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote on May 3—the day before the Confederates evacuated Yorktown—that if “General McClellan had McDowell’s corps to cooperate with him, he could cut off their retreat and compel the surrender of the

KEITH ROCCO/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

M

NATIONAL ARCHIVES

VALLEY VICTORY Union troops drive Stonewall’s men at the March 23, 1862, Battle of Kernstown. Brig. Gen. James Shields was wounded, but technically still in charge of the rare defeat of Jackson.

whole force.” At the end of May, a New York World reporter wrote that it had been “intended that the operations against Yorktown should be preceded by the taking of Gloucester Point by McDowell. Had this been adhered to, retreat would have been impossible.”

Many McClellan supporters also directed their anger at Secretary of War Stanton. “The intrigues of the Secretary of War have left McDowell at Fredericksburg,” wrote the Detroit Free Press on May 7. “The rebel army has escaped only because General McClellan’s plan was interfered with and…upset by the Secretary of War,” said the New York World.

Other journalists, though, took aim at McDowell himself. Some noticed that when McDowell was retained near Washington, he received the Department of the Rappahannock as his own command. The Detroit Free Press, on June 18, said that McDowell “insisted on a separate department, and about forty thousand men to make a fine show.” “McClellan was deprived of a third of his command,” wrote a New York World correspondent, “in order that Frémont, Banks and McDowell might have corps approximate to their independent labors.”

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NOT MUCH HELP The failure of James Shields, left, and Nathaniel Banks to contain Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley had a direct impact on McDowell’s situation.

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that the retention of McDowell’s corps in northern Virginia “has very frequently been assigned to very unworthy motives on the part of General McDowell, who is charged with having desired and sought an independent command. I believe this to be grossly injust and utterly untrue.”

The New York Herald speculated McDowell might want to replace McClellan. “General McDowell has been very generally represented as seeking to rival the General commanding, and to procure his removal, with the hope of himself attaining to his position.” The Department of the Rappahannock’s creation led The New York Times to comment that it “looks very much as if the two Macs have been pitted against each other.” “There is hardly a form of reproach,” McDowell recalled in February 1863, “that was not used toward me” for not joining McClellan.

Prior to McDowell’s planned move south in mid-May, Banks was ordered to send a division commanded by Maj. Gen. James Shields to Fredericksburg, so it could go with McDowell to Richmond. Some journalists claimed this reduced Banks’ strength enough for Jackson to defeat him. The New York Times said it “weakened Banks to his ruin.” The Confederates knew “most assuredly,” claimed the Cincinnati Enquirer, “that Banks had only a small number of men at his command” after he sent Shields to McDowell, and that intelligence was enough “to warrant the bold dash made on our forces.”

Other newspapers said that the reason Banks reinforced McDowell was not an impending assault on Richmond, but because McDowell feared a Confederate attack on his positions around Fredericksburg. The New York World said that McDowell “was completely befooled by the

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NO SUCH THING AS BAD PUBLICITY? Northern papers, eager to find grist for the public’s thirst for war news, eagerly went after McDowell. In more than one instance, newspaper columnists didn’t let facts stand in the way of a good story.

enemy. He was convinced that Jackson was about to attack Fredericksburg and clamored for more troops. The War Department believed him….Hence the blunder and disaster” of Banks’ defeat. The New York Times agreed, saying that McDowell “believed” an attack on Fredericksburg was imminent, “and asked for and got reinforcements.”

Some of the newspaper articles sound more like gossip and slander than journalism. “A great many rumors have been circulating for some days past, to the prejudice of General McDowell” wrote the Philadelphia Inquirer on June 3. The New York World said that McDowell benefited from favoritism, because he “is a nephew of Secretary [of the Treasury Salmon P.] Chase;” a Pennsylvania newspaper claimed he was the brother-in-law of Stanton. Neither was true.

The Buffalo Weekly Express printed a June 8 report from the New York World that “General McDowell and staff are stopping at Willard’s”— a hotel that was a prime gathering spot for D.C.’s elite. “The general seems to have a strong attachment to the capitol.” The Weekly Express added this comment: “This bare announcement, taken in connection with the same oft-repeated tale, for months, tells the whole story. McDowell is a capitol General.” McDowell even attracted the attention of Philadelphia’s theatrical community. That June, the Arch Street Theater staged the play “Bull Run: On The Sacking of Fairfax Court House,” starring Frank Lawler as General McDowell.

“From all quarters, complaints of undue leniency [by Union generals] to the rebels are heard,” wrote The New York Times on June 22. “The question is attracting more general interest than at any time since the war began.” Some of that “interest” focused on McDowell. “It is asserted that,” while near Fredericksburg, McDowell did not guard the city properly, “and the Confederate guerrillas entered that place by night and took off a number of the leading Union citizens.”

PACKING AND UNPACKING A portion of McDowell’s headquarters near Manassas, Va., in July 1862. The general’s supply wagons were ready to roll on a number of occasions, but then he was ordered to stay put.

A New York Tribune correspondent claimed that troops under McDowell in Front Royal were used to guard the locals’ homes and food stores. Union troops “were in great danger of mutiny by reason of starvation. Rebel corn can be procured here in abundance, and also bacon, flour, etc….Yet our orders are that it shall not be touched!” McDowell reportedly let Confederates trade through the lines at Fredericksburg and made Union troops return fence rails they’d collected for firewood. “The Federal Commander Courts the Rebels” was a Chicago Tribune headline on June 20. By the end of June, McDowell had attracted some unfortunate attention, and the Joint Committee of the Conduct of the War began probing McDowell’s alleged leniency toward Confederates. cDowell took all of this very personally. “Every possible way my feelings could be hurt seemed to be taken,” he recalled in early 1863, “not only by those who opposed the Government…but the friends and supporters of the Government as well….The Army seldom saw my name that it was not coupled with some disparaging remark” or “some denunciation or discreditable charge.”

In his telegram to McClellan on June 10 announcing he was finally able to move south, it was obvious that all the criticism weighed heavily on him. “In view of the remarks made” about “my leaving you and my not joining you by your friends, and of something I have heard as coming from you on that subject, I wish to say that I go with the greatest satisfaction.”

In that June 10 telegram, McDowell told McClellan he expected to arrive within 10 days.

The Official Records contain a stream of messages McDowell wrote to his subordinates, telling them to head for Fredericksburg. Most of Rufus

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King’s division was only 30 miles north of Fredericksburg, at Catlett’s Station. The others, though, were spread across northern Virginia and down the Shenandoah Valley, because they had been chasing Stonewall. James Ricketts was near Front Royal, James Shields was south of Luray, and George Bayard was near Harrisonburg. Shields and Bayard were both more than 100 miles from Fredericksburg.

In the days following McDowell’s June 8 order to move south, he endured what he later described as “a constant struggle on my part to get my forces out of the Valley to concentrate them on Fredericksburg.” Stanton wanted Front Royal to be protected by at least two brigades. Ricketts was ordered to keep forces in the town until Banks arrived. But Banks moved slowly.

On June 15, one week after McDowell got his orders for Richmond, Ricketts was still in Front Royal. Banks said that parts of his command

Kernstown

Winchester

Washington

Front Royal Shenandoah River

Port Republic

MARYLAND

VIRGINIA

Potomac River

FREDERICKSBURG

KEEP THE CAPITAL SAFE Fearful of losing Washington, D.C., to a Confederate force, the U.S. high command kept McDowell’s troops in limbo through the spring of 1862.

Richmond

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General McDowell seemed to be always well turned out. In the CDV at left, he looks like a European count in his unique non-regulation officer’s overcoat. He also wore a unique style of forage cap with a high crown and a curved, sharply sloping brim. As the original example and photograph below show, the “McDowell cap” became a minor fashion craze in the Army. Not everyone found it fetching, however. One soldier thought McDowell looked like he was wearing “an esqimaux canoe on his head, wrong side up.”

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FASHION-FORWARD GENERAL

Jackson is no place to meet the enemy. Middletown is a point which commands the opening of the three mountain valleys, and either Middletown or Winchester is the place to meet Jackson. My opinion is that Frémont should fall back to this line.”

That troubled McDowell. His orders specifically said that, before he left for Richmond, he was to “provide adequately for the defense of ” Washington and Fredericksburg. If the Union troops left behind to defend Washington and Fredericksburg were no farther south than Mount Jackson, McDowell feared they couldn’t stop Confederates from moving north through the Luray Valley toward Front Royal, “or over to Western Virginia, and at the same time be advanced sufficiently as a covering force for Washington, to enable the President’s plan concerning my command to be carried into effect.”

To complicate matters more, Banks tried to have one of Ricketts’ brigades at Front Royal, under George Hartsuff, reassigned to him. “So much has been said about my not going to McClellan and his need for reinforcements,” McDowell said in a telegram sent directly to Lincoln on June 15, “that I beg the President will allow me to take every man that can be spared.”

McDowell couldn’t order Frémont and Banks to follow the president’s plan. They were technically his equals, as department commanders.

Banks commanded the Department of the Shenandoah, and Frémont the Mountain Department. Both pled their cases directly to Lincoln and Stanton. Banks even traveled to Washington to consult with the president and Secretary of War. Fortunately for McDowell, Lincoln and Stanton stuck to the original plan.

They allowed Frémont to change his destination from Harrisonburg to Mount Jackson, but Banks didn’t get Hartsuff ’s brigade. Ricketts finally left Front Royal—but not until June 18.

And what of Shields? While Ricketts was cooling his heels in Front Royal, Shields struggled north toward Luray, on the eastern side of the Shenandoah Valley.

Shields’ dispatches make for colorful reading.

His division joined McDowell’s command in late May, to accompany him to Richmond, but when Jackson routed Banks at Front Royal and Winchester, Shields had been sent back into the Valley. His messages from that march are filled with bluster and braggadocio. On May 26, as he approached Manassas, Shields sent this bold message to Stanton: “If Jackson is here we will give him a bloody reception. It will be worse than Winchester, and [we] will avenge Banks.”

The next day, at Catlett’s Station, he wired McDowell: “I think the whole” response to

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: HN COLLECTION; THE HORSE SOLDIER/PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN; JIM RIVEST COLLECTION

couldn’t move until they received blankets, shoes, and other critical supplies.

He also claimed he was having difficulty crossing the South Fork of the Shenandoah River, which separated Front Royal from Banks’ initial positions around Winchester. McDowell sent several frustration-filled telegrams, asking Washington to hurry Banks along. “I should get my command together,” he wired Stanton on June 13, “but I cannot leave the valley…till General Banks assumes the charge. Cannot he be asked to hasten his troops? General [Franz] Sigel, who is near Winchester, is waiting for certain supplies. Cannot he move, as we have done, and have his supplies follow him?”

Banks had another reason to delay his move. He wired Stanton on June 12 that Frémont wasn’t withdrawing to Harrisonburg, but Mount Jackson, a better defensive position 30 miles to the north. Frémont wanted Banks to join him in Mount Jackson. Banks disagreed. “In my opinion Mount

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CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: HN COLLECTION; THE HORSE SOLDIER/PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN; JIM RIVEST COLLECTION

Jackson “is a panic….I want no assistance.

BACK AND FORTH My own division is sufficient for present The pursuit of Jackson emergencies.” throughout the Shenandoah Shields had more to say. “I beg General Valley wore out Shields’ McDowell to tell the President and Secredivision. Here, Federal tary of War that I will clear the valley of the cavalry cross a pontoon Shenandoah of the enemy as far as I advance. bridge over the north fork I regret that panic that has been created in of the Shenandoah River.

Washington—that the force that created it was an insignificant one. Tell him that I hope to return to Fredericksburg as I drive the enemy out of the valley of the Shenandoah.” John Hay, one of Lincoln’s personal secretaries, remarked that Shields was “prone to gasconade.”

By mid-June, Shields’ tone had changed. His men had marched almost 150 miles, from Fredericksburg, through Manassas and Front Royal, and down the Luray Valley to Port Republic, where Jackson defeated part of his division on June 9, in the last major battle of the Shenandoah Valley Campaign. Shields then had to retrace his steps to Front Royal, to rejoin McDowell.

The roads were bad, it rained constantly, and rivers and streams were swollen. The combination of bad weather, days of hard marching, and Stonewall Jackson wrecked Shields’ division. On June 10, he reported “about one third of my command being barefoot and in an exhausted condition.”

He asked to be resupplied, and then pause “two or three days to recover” before continuing to Fredericksburg.” McDowell’s chief of staff told him that the telegram painted “a sorry picture of Shields’ division, but I do not think it overdrawn. [Front Royal] is filled with so-called sick officers and men [from Shields’ command] who, it is said, will never be of use again.”

Bayard’s cavalry brigade, which supported Frémont on the west side of the Valley, was just as worn out. “My brigade is in no condition to move at present,” he wired McDowell’s chief of staff on June 28.

Bayard sent that wire from Manassas. By June 28, Ricketts had reached Manassas, and Shields had made it to Bristoe Station. Only King was at

Fredericksburg—and McDowell had run out of time. By June 28, Stonewall was outside of Richmond, and the Seven Days Battles were under way. McDowell had missed his redemption.

“Could I have disentangled myself from the Shenandoah Valley and commenced to withdraw my forces at the time I ordered—June 8,” McDowell later claimed, “I would have been with [McClellan] by the 20th.”

Although he never fought him, Irwin McDowell was one more Union general that Stonewall Jackson defeated. While only part of McDowell’s command fought Stonewall’s Valley Army on the battlefield (Shields and Bayard, mostly), the pursuit of Jackson after Front Royal and Winchester left the Department of Rappahannock so spread out and worn out that it was unable to aid McClellan. The June 8 order to move south was McDowell’s “third strike” at helping both McClellan and his own public image—and Stonewall struck him out.

Don Smith is a retired Army Reserve officer who teaches Geographic Information Systems (GIS) at the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence School near Tucson, Ariz. He has been published in Military History and World War II magazines. His first book, Steinstuecken: A Little Pocket of Freedom, is available for preorder from Acclaim Press and at steinpocket.com. Smith is an active commenter on the “Emerging Civil War” blog.

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The war in their words

‘We Have Labered and Fought’ USCT soldiers

wrote to

Abraham Lincoln

to express pride, and pain,

that came with serving d

the

United States

BY J O NAT H AN W. W H I T E D

WE ARE COMING, FATHER ABRAHAM Ranks of United States Colored Troops, decked out in white gloves and accompanied by a band at far left, form up on the parade ground of Camp William Penn. The camp near Philadelphia was a major USCT training center.

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TO WORK OR PREACH OR FIGHT

TO PUT DOWN THIS REBELLION”

letters to Lincoln about their struggles and concerns. In the selections that follow, five blank spaces are placed where a period should have appeared in order to assist the reader.

As early as the spring of 1861, African Americans began offering their services in defense of the Union. On April 8, a wealthy Black New Yorker in his mid-fifties named Levin Tilmon sent Lincoln the following short note: In the present crisis, and distracted state of the country, if your Honor wishes colored volunteers, you have only to signify by answering the above note at 70 E. 13 St. N.Y.C., with instructions, and the above will meet with prompt attention, whenever your honor wishes them.

Others also offered their personal services. Upon returning from England, where he lectured in the antislavery cause, Boston minister J. Sella Martin wrote to Lincoln in July 1862, enclosing newspaper clippings that reported on his activities in England. He concluded with this line: And I write this to let your Excellency know, that if I can be of any manner of service here, should your Excellency ever think it best to employ my People, I am ready to work or preach or fight to put down this rebellion.

Once the Lincoln Administration began accepting Black soldiers in late 1862, Black men worked as army recruiters, sometimes by their own initiative. In the following letter, written in August 1864, Greenberry Hodge of the 102nd USCT described his prewar escape from slavery in Tennessee and his efforts to recruit Michigan men for the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Infantry. i was born in Tenesa an rased a slave in Kentucky Livingston County my age is forty nine years old last March. I made my escape in 1844 an every since i resided in Michigan detroit my buisnes was portering an wating on lawyers i belong to a military compny in detroit three years an when the rebelion broke out an they commence recruting Colered men for Masitusits they came to detroit an i was selected there for to recrut an i help rase the 54 an 55 Masitusits an i had 22 men there wating transportation an they came and payed up there board an discharge me an the men to an i hung on to the men rather than they should be lost an i turn in to geting up men for the united states service an i went on so for about two months an i gathered up almost a compny in o[r]der to keep the men esey i would pay up there

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CLASSIC STOCK/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

LETTER WRITERS Minister J. Sella Martin, right, sent newspaper clippings to Lincoln. Private Greenberry (or Greenbury) Hodge proudly told the president about his successful efforts to recruit men for the USCT.

“I AM READY

MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY; HNA

F

rom his office window one Sunday in 1864, Abraham Lincoln watched a regiment of U.S. Colored Troops march by. His secretary, William O. Stoddard, asked, “Well, Mr. President, what do you think of that?” Lincoln pondered for a moment and then replied in a low voice, “It’ll do, it’ll do!”

The admiration was mutual. When Lincoln visited City Point, Va., in June 1864, the Black soldiers of the 18th Corps “began to cheer, and the wildest demonstrations of joy was manifested along the lines,” reported one newspaperman. Some shouted, “Hurrah for the Liberator, Hurrah for the President.” Ulysses S. Grant’s aide Horace Porter stated that the scene “defies description.” Lincoln rode on his horse with his hat off and tears welling in his eyes, his voice broken by emotion.

These public demonstrations of affection that Black soldiers had for their commander in chief were a real testament to the ways that African Americans of the Civil War era had come to love Abraham Lincoln, but they obscure some of the difficult realities that Black soldiers and their families faced during the war. Many soldiers and their relatives wrote desperate, heart-wrenching

CLASSIC STOCK/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY; HNA

bord weakly an give them a litle money saterday nights an i had a lot where i drill the men every day i had a fifer an 2 drumers hired.

Colnel [Henry] Barns [of the 102nd USCT] wrote me an oder one day that he was agoing to Waisington an fore me to save the men until he came back an he would pay the bord so he came back from Waishington an i turn the men over to him an Capt [Orson W.] Benet [Bennett] i alwayes in recruting said com boys not go boy for i expected to go with them an they enlisted very fast i am now here on Beaufort iland i had the promice of doing prety much as i pleased i have come here in the regment an i have not asked permision for to recrut this regment is now the 3[rd] that i have help rase an i think if i was at liberty i could help rase more i would like to be detailed out for to recrut as long as you want men. i sold my house an funiture an lot an spent all my bounty for to get up soilders...

Wounded veterans also hoped to be of use as recruiters. Elisha S. Robison of the 102nd USCT was shot in camp in February 1864 and lost his right thumb. While recuperating at home in Michigan that fall, he wrote the following letter to Lincoln.

Pleas allow me to Explain to you my Condition as a soldier I Enlisted oct 20th /63 and Enlisted 30 men for the Company to Which I belong and took my Position as 1st Sergt and had good success In gaining the Affections of Both men and officers. On or about the 10th of February /64 While on Buisness for the Company Was assassinated and shot Destroying my Right thumb. And after

AFTER THE FALL Abraham Lincoln tours Richmond, Va., after its April 1865 capture. Modern scholarship often emphasizes African American self-emancipation, but the president’s policies were vital to ending slavery.

Reporting to the surgeon He simply bound It up and I have been Excused and Kept In Camp a useless soldier. I think It must be verey Expensive to the Government to Keep men thus, useless to themselves and to the Government, I Do not Want to Earn money In that way, I Enlisted to fight for God and my Country Sir Being acquainted With you from Historical facts I apeal to you for advice I Could Do well at Recruiting much Better than Lying Around this way...

When Black men enlisted in the Union Army they expected to be paid $13/month—the same amount as White soldiers. Instead, they received $10/month and had a further $3 deducted from their pay as a clothing allowance. Many Black soldiers refused to take the diminished pay, and some regiments mutinied. In protest, some solDECEMBER 2021 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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As Harris’ letter attests, when soldiers received less pay, or refused their pay entirely until they were paid the full amount owed, it was their families that suffered. As a consequence, soldiers’ wives and parents sometimes wrote to Lincoln asking for their husbands to be paid. In January 1864, Hester Ann Jackson, the wife of a soldier in the 3rd U.S. Colored Infantry, wrote: i now set dwon to rite you a few lins to see what can bee dun for my husband he has bin out for six month and has not got no pay yet and he is sick and i want to know if he cant cum home i have three small childran and no way for to get a long he is in the third united states culurd trups on morislund co k his name is James Jackson

BLACK WARRIORS IN BLUE There were 175 USCT regiments. Some, like the 54th Massachusetts, are well known.

Others, like the 26th USCT, remain more obscure. That regiment served and fought in South Carolina, losing nearly 150 men.

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you will please Pairdon a humble Soldier for at tempting to address you on a subject that is so vitle to him self and thouse that he is assosoated with I now at tempt to s[p]eake to you in a humble maner a few words in the be half of the fifty fourth Ridgment of the Mass. volentures who inlis[t]ed at Read ville mass. . . . it has bin more then forteen mounth sence som of ous have left our hom, to com out to riesk our lives for the cause of freedom and the Preaservasion of our beloved cuntry this we don cherfulley that our cildreun & mite enjoy the blesings of a free cuntry and this at a time when it was consederd all most a crim[e] for a colaird man to be seane with a gun moutch more then be allowed him to fight side by sid with the white soldiers we have had a great meney dificulitis to sir monte that youthers have not had we have labered and fought and a great meney of our noumber have bin slane and youthers have bin mad helplis for Life and our famileas have sufard but not with standing all that we air still com peled to

fight and Laber on, witch we ar willing to do if we cold have our writes that wair Promised ous but i ned tell you the sufering our wifes and childreans air o blidge to under go fur the want of the assistence of thir husbans and fathers we have had no money to help them with we came out heir for the purpos to help to free the Slaves for we saw that god wair a bout to open the prisen hous of boundage and let the oprest go free with thees Concider ration we came out to fight but we mous look to our writs witch god have geaven to all man kind witch we love to[o] may the write tryump and for that we air dhe terment [determined] to labier for with all of our hart, we can not duw lest then stend for the write nor can we consider our selfs contrabands we did not enli[s]t as soutch we want to save our famleas from destresed by our ead [aid] som way outh [or other] we nead our pay to get our childrin out of the pore house and to releav our famaley from want we humboly Preay you to consider our case and great [grant] our our prar in the name of god and humanity that we may be able to as sis [assist] thouse we love...

ALPHA STOCK/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY

diers sent Lincoln letters and petitions protesting the injustice of unequal pay. Sgt. John H. Harris of the 54th Massachusetts Infantry sent Lincoln a letter on April 23, 1864:

Unfortunately, Jackson’s husband would not yet receive his pay for several more months. The paymaster at Hilton Head reported in February 1864, “that James Jackson refused to accept the amount tendered him, and did not sign the rolls, he like many others, claims the same pay as white soldiers & will accept nothing less, viz. 13. per. month.”

“WHEN WE INLISTED IN THE

UNITED STATES SERVICE

THE UNDERSTANDING WAS THAT WE SHOULD

RECIEVE THE SAME PAY AND RATTION

AS THE

WHITE SOLDIERS”

Soldiers hated knowing that their loved ones were suffering. In January 1864, four noncommissioned officers from the 14th Corps d’Afrique wrote to Lincoln from Pensacola, Fla. Like many other Black soldiers, they asked for equal treatment as White soldiers.

Wounded soldiers often felt helpless to provide for their families. In November 1864, William Chandler of the 8th USCT wrote to Lincoln from a hospital, where he was recovering from a gunshot wound he had received at the Battle of Olustee:

NATIONAL ARCHIVES

ALPHA STOCK/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Please Your Honor when we inlisted in the united States Service the understanding was that we Should recieve the Same pay and rattion as the white Soldiers we have the Same felling [feeling] For our Wifes and Chrildrens at home and we Study the wellfare off them as much so as the white Soldiers, the majoyity off the Men in this Regtiment have familys in New orleans and from letters recieved here Thay ar in a Starving condistion thare are Some four or five oderly Sergant that have wife In the North how is Exspecting to derived off ous something to live on we cant seport Them on Seven dollas per a month— Please your Honor all we ask for is Justist Bestowed on ous and thare Shant be one Star on the Glourious banner off liberty that wont Shine out Brightly over all off the patriots Fighting to montaining your most just law Please Your Honor we dont looke for Eney better treatment than the white Soldiers but the Same the cannon and Rifles ball have not a bit off respects off person in action our lives is as Sweet to ous as it is to them that recieves thirteen Dollars per month...

I had the misfortin to loose my left arm at the battle of Olustee, Flarida on the 20 of Feb I was voanded [wounded] Slightly in my hip and Severly in my arm and have had my arm amputated and have been in the hospital every Scince I am home on a furlough I have never received a cent of pay yet Necesity compells me to write to you to see if you can do anything to help me about getting my pay which is due me as a Soldier My family are Suffering for want of it I am a poor man and have no way of supporting my family. . . . if you can do any thing to help a poor Soldier pleas do it Understandably, loved ones back home were always on soldiers’ minds. In

THE COST OF FREEDOM Private Louis Martin of the 29th USCT lost an arm and a foot at the July 30, 1864, Battle of the Crater.

His necklace hearkens to his African heritage.

Martin’s image was found in his pension file. the following petition for pardon, written in October 1864, Sgt. Adam Laws of the 19th USCT placed his request for clemency within the context of his elderly parents’ wellbeing.

I have been arrested, and sent to castle Williams and the case i will state to you.

My Colonel Henry G. Thomas, ordered me to my company one day. When i was buying something to eat i started to go to my company and he followed me and drew his Sword to strike me i turned around and told him not to strike me i went on to the company and he sent a file of men and had me arrested and i have been coartmarchled and my sentense i have never heared i know not What it is But i would ask you for Pardon. i have been a soaldier that has always done my duty i have never so mutch as missed one Roll call, and my Parents look to me for subsistense they are old and grey headed and not able to help one another i am their onley suport they have sinse i have been in Prison they have suffered i would DECEMBER 2021 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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could care for their enslaved families. Kentuckian George Washington of the 123rd USCT wrote to Lincoln in December 1864: I have one reqest to make to you that is I ask you to dis Charge me for I have a wife and she has four Children thay have a hard master one that loves the south hangs with it he dos not giv them a rage [rag] nor havnot for too yars I have found all he says let old Abe Giv them close if I had them I raise them up but I am here and if you will free me and hir and heir Children with me I can take cair of them...

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kine [kind] Dear and Honorable friend to we pore african race Dear Sir i have corse [cause] to Write to you About a pore afflicted boy 19 years of age october 11th 1863 He was persaded off by those Recruiting officers of this Place West chester chester Co PA and taken into the u S service Without my knowlage this Boy have not had the the Proper use of his left Hand for 10 years and togather with other afflection in his head And his thumb on the left Hand is off Down close to the remainder of his hand to which FORGING NEW IDENTITIES He often complians of at times in much pain The idealized recruiting handbill, he also says that he was not examined Before above, shows a clear path from he was taken off into the service and now USCT soldier to educated freeman. kine Sir may it please your Honour to have In reality, the postwar journey him sent Home to West chester again to me for many Black veterans was as i have only three Sons and all of them challenging and difficult. Qualls Warers [warriors] in your Services and Tibbs wore the ID badge at left, an now Dear and kine sir Will you Please to ad hoc identification device in the have him returned Home to me again as He era before issued dog tags. is not able for the service his brothers is able for the Service but he is not His name is richard M Smith his hopes is altogather in your kiness to release sooner serve the Balence of my time for him for he is not able to Stand it but his other brothers is able to half Pay than to see them suffer While i Stand it and kind Sir I humley Beg you to have him sent home... am in Prison. dear sir, if you Please think of my poor old grey headed Parents not for my selfe that i weep but for those who Of course, not all letters sent to Lincoln revealed dire circumstances. cannot help then selves.

Some former slaves wrote to Lincoln to thank him for what he’d done. John Nothing, more at Pressent but I still Proctor of the 34th USCT sent such a letter from Beaufort, S.C., in April remain a heart broken Soldier ready and 1863: willing to take my arms up again and stand in the defense of my country...

I have had the onner of righting to you these fue lines hoping that tha may find you in A most Perfic state of helte as it left me the saim.

Deare Sir I have had the oner of righting to you By the request of Upon reviewing the case in January 1865, Lincapt. [Edward W.] hoopper of genrel [Rufus] Saxten staff and I then coln ordered that Laws be released from prison think that it was the Greatist oner that I cold have had. sir I wold and restored to duty. that I only cold have right Better so that I cold Exspriss my word Other soldiers asked for discharge so that they

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Parents also wrote to Lincoln seeking the discharge of their children. Charles B. Smith, whose son, Richard, had enlisted in the 3rd USCT as a drummer boy in June 1863, tried in vain the following November.

SOCIAL SEA CHANGE This image of Lincoln’s 1865 Second Inaugural crowd documents a social revolution. At lower right, USCT, some likely slaves in 1861, are paid federal employees helping to cordon off a mostly White crowd while holding firearms within sight of the president.

An unprecedented scene in American history.

“I ONLY WISH

THAT

COMING TO BE HOLD YOU. WITH MINE EYES” OF

Better—tho wat little I have got I Stold it when I wEr with my rebble master so that I hav never had the right schooling....I only wish that I only cold have the Pleger of coming to Be hold you. with mine eyes I am verry much longing to see you remember me to all of my Brothers felow cittysons of the united States

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HAVE THE PLEGER

I ONLY COLD

In like manner, Richard Brumbey (possibly Brumbry) described the enthusiasm of a soldier named George W. Jackson the night before the presidential election of 1864, in which Lincoln defeated his Democratic challenger, George B. McClellan: this coulloured man will tell you juste how it is...and will give you all the pure and truthful satisfaction a bout this George W Jackson his captin sayed he went by his tent one munday night and he was

prayin at 2 clock in the night for you to bee Relected for a 3 hours and it wakened all at the Campe wher he was he did not stope the next morning say the Captin George who will bee Elected Masar Abraham Lincon how do you know why Captin god tolde me so why he will bee Elected the nexte four after this four years god bless Mr President....

Jonathan White is a professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University. These letters, and more than 100 others, appear in unabridged form in To Address You As My Friend: African Americans’ Letters to Abraham Lincoln (University of North Carolina Press, 2021).

Discussion of African Americans who met Lincoln can be found in A House Built By Slaves: African American Visitors to the Lincoln White House, which will appear in February 2022.

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REBEL STATES TO WORLD POWER

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Confederates believed intricate European alliances

would secure of their

the

continued prosperity

slave-based nation

d BY A DRI AN BRET T LE D COTTON WILL REMAIN KING Confederates envisioned a postwar nation abundant in raw materials produced by slave labor. The thriving economy would place them center stage in the international marketplace.

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“[The war] divides, separates, despoils and destroys, until it seems as if all old things are passing away and as if the Nations, North & South, and all things in them were becoming new.”

including mining. Davis and his colleagues argued that slavery was the most humane as well as the most efficient means of production; to force white workers to do labor in these conditions would lead to revolutionary upheavals.

Journalists insisted that the world’s leading industrial powers—Britain, France, and the United States—had begun to realize this superiority of slavery and the first two had regretted the emancipation of enslaved people in their West Indies colonies.

So spoke Henry A. Wise, acting major general and former governor of Virginia, in a letter to his wife written at midnight between November 13 and 14, 1863, from his headquarters near Charleston, S.C. U.S. gunboats bombarding Fort Sumter to rubble had disrupted the general’s sleep that night, the previous fortnight, Wise had been busy entertaining Jefferson Davis on his visit (including beating him in a horse race), writing public letters on the administration’s future financial policies, enjoying the active merica’s Civil War would decide social calendar of an officer in General P.G.T. Beauregard’s command, and whether this vision would triumph. doing his part to hold off the Union assault on Charleston. Wise also took The policies of the Republican the time to think about the Confederacy once the conflict was over; a reasParty, including its support for a higher export tariff, offered a glimpse of a different future— surance that somehow the present trials would be the cause of future power and prosperity. one that was also championed by the “revisionist” Many other leading Confederates, including Davis, Alexander H. Stepowers in Europe: the Russian Empire and phens, and Henry S. Foote, and women including Rose O’Neal Greenhow, Prussia. These despotic governments intended to Augusta Jane Evans, and Varina Davis, believed that the Confederacy was increase national power through tariffs, war, and on the threshold of becoming a great world power. That sentiment was also the development of self-sufficient national econexpressed in meetings of wartime commercial conventions, in the Confedomies. Confederates believed these moves threatened their national mission to create a erate Congress, in diplomatic correspondence, newspaper editorials, pamphlets, and even a novel. world safe for slavery. This ambition was possiThose who believed in this Confederate vision considered that it arose ble, as it was the continuation of the trends of the logically from the events and trends from the late 1840s and 1850s. Inter1850s to integrate the South, slavery, and cotton national abolitionism was apparently declining, and even antislavery powers production ever more deeply into the global allegedly considered large scale adoption of indentured servitude as a sececonomy. Therefore, the priority was to increase ond-best alternative to slavery. Then cotton production and export, and to there was the triumph of free trade achieve that by not only developing principles led by Great Britain. This the South—with Texas as the new frontier—but to pursue expansion of new world order would result in trade both slavery and the cultivation of deals lowering export tariffs and cotton (or failing that, other staples import duties. The First Industrial Revolution’s spread from Great Britand mining enterprises) farther south ain to New England, France, and Beland west. gium, as well as into Germany, excited What Confederate policymakers Confederate planters and merchants did not want to do was to pursue ecoabout the opportunities that awaited nomic independence. Safeguarding them after independence. They the future of slavery required expansion and increasing trade with the believed commercial agriculture to be world economy. Moreover, trade was superior to industry, and that their more than a protector of slavery and new country would supply raw proddeliverer of prosperity; it promised a uct to the world. way to generate world peace by Southerners believed only the slavincreasing the interdependence of ery-based plantation economy spreadnational economies. Confederates ing from the South, fueled by African American population growth, would readily adopted the political economic AN UNWISE INVESTMENT provide reliable mass-produced cotton theory of comparative advantage: an After the war, Henry Wise said his chief and other staples to sustain these accelerating process by which national industries and help them expand into consolation was not only that slaves were freed economies would increasingly specialother forms of resource extraction from bondage, but “that I am free from them.” ize and rely on imports to provide 54

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A

SUPPLY AND DEMAND The international exchange of goods in the postwar Confederate vision relied on countries investing in specialized materials and products with which to trade and barter. The Confederacy would dominate the flourishing cotton market.

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what its citizens found uneconomic to do themselves. The Civil War was a fight for these values.

Confederates saw the Union blockade as a war crime, a symptom of barbarism and tyranny.

The future would be one of international collaboration and pursuit of mutual advantage. The Confederate system of slavery, sustained staple crop production, and resource extraction would spread across the Western Hemisphere. Slavery’s superiority meant it would prevail against rival promotion of indentured servitude by the British, French, Danish, along with the Lincoln

THE PRIORITY WAS

TO

INCREASE COTTON PRODUCTION AND EXPORT

administration’s own intentions to use freedpeople as colonizers. There would be room for these alternative labor systems in the world as a whole, but not in the western hemisphere and not directly competing in the market for white gold—cotton—that the Confederates would dominate.

T

he new nation would not only be an economic powerhouse and facilitator of world peace, it would also act as a communications highway—from mundane international postal agreements to more exotic steamship lines, canals, a southern transcontinental railroad, with a terminus at the Mexican Pacific Ocean port of Guaymas, and even a transoceanic telegraph cable, again following a southern route. In a similar fashion to the fostering of economic interdependence through free trade, a communications revolution on an international scale would provide security for slavery.

Confederate diplomats and travelers in Europe believed antislavery sentiment there, as well as in the United States, arose from either jealousy and prejudice, or from ignorance and Union propaganda. As more information flowed from publications such as the Index, a state department-funded weekly newspaper published in London, and direct business done with slaveholders, familiarity with slavery would lead to its acceptance. EventuDECEMBER 2021 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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ally naïve aristocrats abroad, such as the Duchess of Sutherland, would see the lies and distortions performed by sentimental propagandists like Harriet Beecher Stowe. Instead foreigners and Northerners would, with improved information, consult their real interests in preserving a labor system that enabled the global standard of living to rise by the provision of cheap commodities.

C

onfederates expected they would need to possess a powerful navy to guard this trading empire and its merchant marine. Again, a shortcut was miraculously available, given that the coming of the screw-propelled ironclad rendered existing wooden fleets obsolete.

Given just a dozen or so ironclads, the Confederacy would immediately become a world class naval power.

What was absent from this vision was anything that would subsequently be a part of the Lost Cause memory of the war such as the mythologizing of the against-the-odds heroics of the army, the nostalgia for a genteel aristocratic way of life. Rather, Confederate planners expected they would rely for security on a strong navy, not on a standing army. Meanwhile their plantation economy, while they considered it 56

more humane than the factory system of the North, was competitive as it was focused on different activities.

Far from destroying this future, the war was either intensifying the trends in this direction or at most a temporary interruption. A thriving exportdriven economy would, for example, be even more vital if a massive debt had to be paid off at the end the war. There would probably be a lapse in time before postwar prosperity would arrive, but planters were confident of their ability to sell a massive and growing cotton stockpile, amounting to millions of bales, that would quickly establish market share, price out competitors in India or Egypt, and present the Confederacy as a creditworthy nation offering big returns for foreign (and northern) investors.

The war’s continuance and intensification necessitated amendments to and rethinking of

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WOULD NEED

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CONFEDERATES EXPECTED THEY

JUST ADD WATER Rebel ironclads, pictured here on the James River, would provide the Confederacy an instant naval force, vital protection for the South’s anticipated new trading empire.

the Confederate national plan. In the Confederate Congress, for example, legislators debated how slavery would be reformed and the plantation economy diversified by means of a homestead act that dispersed ownership of enslaved people. In the State Department, diplomats searched for ways to build alliances and achieve greater economic and military security. The Davis administration primarily concerned itself with revisiting its interactions with its two neighbors: Mexico and—above all—the United States.

The status of Mexico and the Southwest (California, Arizona, and New Mexico) played a large role in Confederate postwar planning, which focused on opportunities in Texas and beyond to the west and to the south.

The control of commerce crossing the Pacific Ocean would be the foundation of the next phase of the growth of the world economy and the focus of geopolitical rivalries. Access to the Pacific would be via Mexico, and the arrival of the French in Mexico did not disturb or change these long-term plans. After all, diplomats and adventurers in Paris, Richmond, and Mexico believed that the mercurial French emperor, Napoleon III, would soon shift his attention elsewhere.

T

he various allies that diplomats sought in Mexico were foundations for a postwar vision for Latin America, one that in some respects was the opposite to that of the United States and the Monroe Doctrine. For the Davis administration, the object was to make Latin America safe for slavery and open to commercial penetration.

The Confederacy conceived a vision of racial hierarchy for Latin America, creoles ruling over mestizos, Native Americans, and African Americans, in that order. Conservative, clerical, perhaps even monarchical regimes with

European support would predominate, for Confederates believed the people of Latin America were not yet ready for republican self-government. Confederates insisted that they, not the French or British, would be guarantors of these regimes. The complexities of a sovereign republic were only for advanced races, and northerners, by succumbing to majority dictatorship, had mismanaged the delicate structure.

The Confederate plan for Mexico and the rest of Latin America involved Texas-style planting of colonies preceding annexation, together with commercial agreements, transcontinental railroads, and other infrastructure projects. The ambition and scope of these specific plans ebbed and flowed with the expected duration of the Civil War. Sometimes—when the going was going especially tough militarily—a vaguer future of free trade imperialism displaced anything concrete. Events such as Brig. Gen. Henry H. Sibley’s expedition to New Mexico also influenced the nature and direction of these policies.

The importance of Mexico and the Southwest was evidenced by how would-be negotiators sought to preserve their right to exploit these lands in any settlement with the United States.

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ESSENTIAL WORKERS The use of slave labor would be expanded across the Southwest and to new nations under the Confederates’ postwar plans.

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CONFEDERATES

BELIEVED

NORTHERN DEMOCRATS COPPERHEADS SEETHED UNDER

AND

REPUBLICAN PARTY

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In the closing months of the war, members of the Davis administration, including both the president and vice president, shifted their hopes for a free hand in Latin America to a joint plan of expansion with the Federals. They believed that the vision of a huge new union extending to Panama and even beyond would, by virtue of its size and racial complexity, dilute the power of the northern majority. In true Madisonian fashion, a diverse republican empire would enable sufficient autonomy at home to retain slavery and resume export of cotton to world markets within the confines of the United States. Davis considered what he took to be a tacit acceptance of this plan to be outcome of his discussions with veteran Missouri Democrat Francis P. Blair in Richmond during January 1865. Accordingly, Stephens repeatedly suggested such a joint expansion plan to Lincoln and Seward at Hampton Roads for the following month.

The Confederate compromise of their Latin American plan, tailored to what they considered

to be Federal vulnerabilities, reveals how it was the future relationship with the United States that mattered most. Confederate officials believed that Federals would assist in the achievements of their objectives. After all, individuals in the Davis administration considered it to be realistic that events in the North would always play a significant role in determining their futures. In parallel with Lincoln’s own fears on the subject, Confederates hoped that the success of their secession would precipitate a further fragmentation of the United States.

They were confident that the citizens of the remaining slave states would eventuEXECUTIVE OFFICE As president of the Confederate ally exercise their sovereign rights in state conventions and decide to join the States of America, Jefferson Confederacy. Meanwhile, agents in Davis largely ignored the Indian Territory reported to Richmond needs of the common citizen that Native Americans preferred the and focused his attentions more benign Confederate rule to that of on the military, economic the supposedly more oppressive intervention, and regulation of Federals. production and trade.

Yet the map of North America would not stop at being redrawn with a 15-state Confederacy plus Indian and New Mexican territories. At least two new nations would probably appear, a Pacific Ocean Confederacy west of the continental divide and, most important, in the short term a Midwest Confederacy based on the secession of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio.

According to their intelligence and interpretation of news, Confederates believed Northern Democrats and Copperheads seethed under Republican Party tyranny. An armed uprising was always imminent or at least a more orderly push for secession probable, especially in the aftermath of an armistice and Democratic Party victory in the 1864 Presidential Elections.

These separate nations would perform many functions. Confederates believed Midwesterners and also New Yorkers chafed under New England

NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

TYRANNY

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NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY

sponsored tariffs. They also opposed the war, being lukewarm on abolition and increased federal government power. They wished the Mississippi Basin would become a free trade area. Commercial pacts offering free navigation of the river would furnish the economic advantages of a union without the political squabbles over slavery and race. Trade would resume natural downriver patterns long distorted by federal government policies such as tariffs and subsidies for internal improvements that gave preference to East-West commerce over North-South commercial channels. Once these older routes of trade reestablished themselves, economic self-interest would join political opposition to Lincoln’s tyranny to guide Midwesterners toward an alliance with the Confederacy. The Confederacy, with access to the Pacific via southern California and/or northwest Mexico, would become first among equals in this new geopolitical map of North America, its security guaranteed by the extension of balance of power diplomacy from Europe.

When Confederate diplomats looked to Europe they regarded their natural allies to be industrialized Britain, France, and Belgium, rather than their fellow slave power Spain, and hoped that the aggressive, centralizing, tyrannical powers of Prussia, Russia, and the United States would be defeated, after a struggle, by the conservative status quo powers of Britain, France, Austria, and the Confederacy. By this time, the armies of the Confederacy, especially that of the Army of Northern Virginia and its commander, became, symbolized by their dogged defensive tactics, powerful icons of the future nation.

Even as the surrender of that army in April 1865 approached, members of the Confederate government insisted that something had gone wrong with republicanism in the United States; that Lincoln’s reelection and continued prosecution of the war signified tyranny of the majority. At the same time, talk of unconditional emancipation and reunion was only a bluff, and that Northerners would settle for something short of both in return for peace.

Finally, even as the members of the government scattered in the wake of the fall of Richmond, they still assumed that the Lincoln Administration would not wish to dictate the terms of peace. Surely the 13th Amendment was just a negotiation ploy to get a better deal? Whatever happened, there would have to be a meeting of equals—two sets of commissioners after an armistice—to hammer out terms. Reunion under the Constitution would not prosper on the basis of coercion. Stephens had remained silent since Lincoln had dismissed mutual expansion and insisted on reunion and emancipation at Hampton Roads.

The only commissioner to go public, Robert M.T. Hunter, declaimed about the expected southward expansion of Southerners of both races at a meeting of 10,000 gathered at the African Methodist Church in snowbound Richmond later that February in 1865. Something would turn up, these eternal optimists insisted. Lee would continue to fight in the hills; meanwhile what they saw as the inherent contradictions of the policies of the Lincoln administration, for both emancipation and colonization of African Americans, for reunion on the basis of conquest, would be revealed as rhetoric and not preconditions.

Hence the shock and disbelief at the news that there would be no negotiation after all. Thus the Civil War had to be fought and won to destroy a would-be world power committed both to the retention and expansion of slavery and to the further break-up of what remained of the United States.

Adrian Brettle is Lecturer in History at Arizona State University. His book, Colossal Ambitions: Confederate Planning for a Post-Civil War World, was published by the University of Virginia Press in 2020.

HEADING WEST General Henry Hopkins Sibley’s 1862 New Mexico Campaign was unsuccessful but provided valuable insight about the region for Confederates hoping to expand the nation there.

TEAM OF RIVALS Confederate Senator Robert M.T. Hunter was an outspoken critic of Jefferson Davis. He was one of three commissioners sent in February 1865 to attempt peace negotiations with Lincoln.

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ARMAMENT

STONE AGE

MORE THAN 800,000 Model 1816 flintlock muskets were made between its model year and 1840, which is the longest production run of any weapon in U.S. history, and many of them were used in the Mexican War. Most of those muskets, .69-caliber smoothbores weighing in at 9-plus pounds and nearly five feet long, were made at the armories at Harpers Ferry, Va., or Springfield, Mass., although New England contractors also made many of the shoulder arms.

The M-1816 originally needed a chunk of stone to fire. A piece of flint was held in the jaws of the hammer, and when it struck a frizzen, sparks were created that set off the priming powder that threw flame from a touchhole into the barrel charge. The advent of the percussion cap in the 1830s made flintlocks obsolete, and, not wanting to waste a vast stock of sound muskets, the U.S. Army and local militias had them converted to percussion.

That could primarily be done one of two ways. The cheapest way to make the conversion was to insert a cone for a percussion cap in the breach. The Hewes and Phillips company of 60

THE EASY WAY The contractor-made Model 1816 musket above has been converted from flintlock in the simplest way possible, a “cone in barrel” conversion— cut off all the parts related to the flintlock, drill a hole in the breech, and insert a cone for a percussion cap.

Make it all work by adding an offset hammer.

DANA B. SHOAF COLLECTION/PHOTOS BY MELISSA A. WINN (2)

MODEL 1816 MUSKETS, CONVERTED FROM FLINTLOCK TO PERCUSSION, SAW LOTS OF WARTIME SERVICE

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FIREPOWER

BRAND NEW BOTTOM You can just make out a faint line (see arrow) on this early Hewes and Phillips conversion that indicates where the old flintlock breech was cut off and replaced with the percussion ignition system.

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DANA B. SHOAF COLLECTION/PHOTOS BY MELISSA A. WINN (2)

A VETERAN The lockplate stamp indicates this M-1816 was originally made at Harpers Ferry nearly 40 years before the Civil War. It has been refitted with a later, more refined version of a Hewes and Phillips conversion.

FULL MARCHING ORDER Private Thomas Taylor of the 8th Louisiana is ready to go to war with his Remington conversion of the M-1816 musket. Taylor was shot and crippled at Antietam, and may well have carried this musket at that fight.

Newark, N.J., came up with a more polished solution in which the M-1816’s breach was literally cut off, and a new breech, or bolster, with an integral percussion-cap cone was screwed in as a replacement. Hewes and Phillips also rifled the barrels and added long range sights to try and improve accuracy.

Between 1861 and 1863, the company converted about 20,000 muskets in this manner under a federal contract.

When the Civil War began, both North and South were desperate for firearms, and thousands of M-1816 conversions were issued out, particularly in the war’s first two years. —D.B.S.

REMINGTON CONVERSION The federal government contracted Remington Arms Company in 1855 to convert 20,000 flintlock M-1816 muskets to percussion. Remington installed a tape primer lock and rifled the barrels to fire a .69-caliber Minié ball. Most of the guns saw service using percussion caps.

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ARMAMENT BEFORE CONVERSION A Model 1816 lock in its flintlock configuration.

When converted, the hammer would be changed; the priming pan, sometimes brass, was cut off. Then the frizzen and its springs were removed, and the screw holes plugged.

AS TALL AS HE IS A Union soldier poses with his M-1816 conversion, its bayonet fixed. Although such muskets were rarely seen in Union ranks after 1862, the weapons armed many U.S. soldiers on the war’s bloody battlefields from Shiloh to Antietam.

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FROM THE BUSINESS END The smoothbore version of the musket could fire .69-caliber buck and ball, seen in cartridge form below, or roundball. Rifled M-1816s fired shoulderthumping .69-caliber Minié balls. The spiraled “wiper”was screwed to threads on the ramrod to clean the barrel or remove an unfired round.

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WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING HOLLYWOOD ACTORS NEVER PORTRAYED WILLIAM F. “BUFFALO BILL” CODY ONSCREEN? Charlton Heston, Paul Newman, Keith Carradine, or Lee J. Cobb?

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

HISTORYNET.com ANSWER: LEE J. COBB. 1953’S PONY EXPRESS FEATURED CHARLTON HESTON AS CODY. IN 1976 PAUL NEWMAN STARRED AS CODY IN ROBERT ALTMAN’S BUFFALO BILL AND THE INDIANS, OR SITTING BULL’S HISTORY LESSON. IN 1995 KEITH CARRADINE PORTRAYED CODY IN WILD BILL, A CAREER LOW POINT FOR LEGENDARY DIRECTOR WALTER HILL.

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THEY DIDN’T SEE EYE TO EYE Wesley Merritt, center, and George Custer, far right, pose with General Phil Sheridan, far left.

 YOUNG GUNS  REVIEWED BY STEPHEN DAVIS

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

By Adolfo Ovies Savas Beatie, 2021, $34.95

kicked out on demerits). Custer loved flamboyance and sought publicity; Merritt quietly did his duty. More than this, they liked to fight differently. Custer was a traditional cavalryman who loved wild saber charges; Merritt favored using horses to get to the battlefield, then dismount and go at it with carbines.

In other words, as the author pithily puts it, Custer was the hussar and Merritt the dragoon.

Unfortunately, one learns at the end of this study that Ovies wrote it as the first part of a trilogy, and that the dramatic tale of “the hussar and the dragoon” will be found in a future work. This one ends at the Battle of Gettysburg, both men having been promoted to brigadier and given brigade command, and with the author observing “as of yet, no open friction can be discerned in their relationship.”

It’s well known that George Custer liked to put some dash into his appearance.

Fellow cavalry officer Maj. Gen. James Wilson recalled that Custer was known at West Point and “always afterward by his familiars as ‘Cinnamon,’ because he was partial to cinnamon hair oil.”

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

D

ual biographies can feature various themes. Think of enemies in like roles: Davis and Lincoln, or Grant and Lee. Then there is the recent work about two friends on different sides, Winfield Scott Hancock and Lewis Armistead.

The Boy Generals is something different: a study of two Federal officers, George Custer and Wesley Merritt, serving in the same arm (cavalry) and in the same army (Potomac).

In his preface, Adolfo Ovies sets the stage for the dramatic story of how Custer and Merritt, at first friends, became bitter rivals, even enemies. Their relationship, he writes, would “degenerate into open rancor, bitterness, and eventually, on Custer’s part, outright insubordination.”

Personality played a role. At West Point, Merritt was a martinet, Custer a hellion (nearly

CIVIL WAR TIMES DECEMBER 2021

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FOLLOW THE SHERITTA BITIKOFER REGULAR FIRST MONDAY WATCHER, BLOGGER AT BELLE ON THE BATTLEFIELD, AND EMERGING CIVIL WAR CONTRIBUTOR

What Are You

Reading?

I recently began reading When the Devil Came Down to Dixie: Ben Butler in the Civil War by Chester G. Hearn for a research project. So far, it’s an engaging read. Butler is one of those generals whom everyone loves to hate, and Hearn is not shy about explaining why. During the war, Butler was driven by the insatiable need for prestige, making numerous enemies along the way. Hearn sums it up in his opening sentence of Chapter Four, “Anybody who paused to take notice might wonder why Butler—no matter where he was or what he did—attracted trouble.” I’m barely halfway through, but it’s interesting to learn how Butler had laid the foundation for his unsavory role in the postwar narrative regarding his treatment of New Orleans.

Some good does come out of Butler’s occupation of the Crescent City, with his focus on welfare for the poor at the expense of the elite.

I look forward to seeing if Hearn balances his analysis of the “Beast Butler” with some of the more redeeming aspects of the general as I progress through the book.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

When the Devil Came Down to Dixie: Ben Butler in the Civil War

By Chester G. Hearn Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 1997

GENERAL

REVIEWED BY HARRY SMELTZER very so often a book comes along that you realize will become a staple. In the tradition of Frederick Dyer’s Compendium, Mark Boatner III’s Civil War Dictionary, or even more similarly the Longs’ Civil War Day by Day and Earl Schenck Miers’ Lincoln Day by Day, Charles R. Knight’s From Arlington to Appomattox: Robert E. Lee’s Civil War Day by Day, 1861-1865 is destined to be around for a long, long, dogeared time. Beginning on April 17, 1861, with Lee receiving invitations from General Winfield Scott and Francis P. Blair to call on them in Washington the next day, and ending on April 15, 1865, with his return to Richmond, intervening events from the mundane to the momentous are laid out in clear and concise prose.

Each day’s present-tense entry begins with a parenthetical summary of precisely where Lee began and ended each day and where he spent the time between. Each month’s calendar is introduced in brief summary by the author, keeping the reader informed of the “big picture” for context.

The results of extensive and From Arlington to meticulous research are on display Appomattox: Robert E. in the detailed footnotes at the Lee’s Civil War, Day by bottom of each page. The author Day, 1861-1865 mined archives and manuscript

By Charles R. Knight sources from coast to coast and Savas Beatie, 2021, dozens of points in between, as $30.61 well as newspapers, published materials, and unpublished theses.

The bibliography runs 18 pages; the index 36. The text is 504 two-column pages including an epilogue, and as a bonus the photographs chosen for inclusion are gems—that is, not the usual people and places you find in books on Lee. A gallery of eight maps helps track the events.

If you’re an academic or public historian, a serious independent researcher, or a hobbyist, you want this book; you need this book.

E

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Hancock directs troops on Gettysburg’s Cemetery Hill.

FRIENDS AND FOES

I

REVIEWED BY ETHAN S. RAFUSE

n March 1861, Abraham Lincoln hoped, “Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” For a century or so after Appomattox, the notion that Lincoln was correct to believe the bonds between the sections were stronger than their differences enjoyed considerable popularity. While North and South fought a brutal war, their ability to reconcile in the decades afterward, it was argued, demonstrated powerful “bonds of affection” between the two sections were still there to be touched.

One of the best-known stories in the “brothers’ divided” tradition is that of Winfield Scott Hancock and Lewis A. Armistead. Forged in the course of service together in the prewar Army, the warm friendship between the two Armistead and men came to a tragic end on July 3, 1863. That Hancock: Behind the Gettysburg Legend afternoon, the two friends fell seriously wounded of Two Friends at the only a short distance from each other—ArmiTurning Point of the stead mortally—in the fight for Cemetery Ridge Civil War that is widely (though by no means universally) By Tom McMillan considered the great moment of the great battle Stackpole Books, 2021 of the war. $29.95 In light of the rough beating the “reconciliationist” narrative has taken in recent years—and 66

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the eagerness with which historians usually seek out opportunities to debunk popular human interest stories from the war—it is surprising that until now no one has seen fit to undertake a book-length reconsideration of the evidence to determine whether the story of Hancock and Armistead is in fact true.

In Armistead and Hancock, Tom McMillan takes up the task and concludes the answer is yes…mostly. The two men certainly served with each other before the war, and McMillan finds no evidence to suggest that the notion that they developed a warm friendship was anything other than a fact. At the same time, he effectively chronicles the ways Michael Shaara and Ron Maxwell, not surprisingly, exercised artistic license in their depictions of how central the relationship was to the thinking of the two men in July 1863. While maps to help readers follow the narrative of military operations would have been welcome, the skill with which McMillan addresses these matters and the fact that he provides a good, efficient recounting of Armistead’s and Hancock’s lives make this an interesting addition to scholarship on the war, Gettysburg, and these two men.

TROIANI, DON (B.1949)/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES



CIVIL WAR TIMES DECEMBER 2021

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From Gregory Lalire, the editor of

MAGAZINE

MAN FROM MONTANA

by Gregory J. Lalire

JACKET DESIGN BY KATHY HEMING

This historical novel follows adventurer Woodie Hart to the violent goldfields of what would become Montana Territory.

Woodie discovers the boomtowns of Virginia City, Bannack and Hell Gate and faces the twin terrors of road agents looking to get rich quick and vigilantes intent on dishing out cruel justice.

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PRICE: $25.95 / 370 PAGES HARDCOVER (5.5 X 8.5) / ISBN13: 9781432871178 TIFFANY.SCHOFIELD@CENGAGE.COM FACEBOOK & TWITTER: @FIVESTARCENGAGE

6/21/21 7:09 PM

PIVOTAL

WESTERN

SUMMER REVIEWED BY ETHAN S. RAFUSE

T

he summer of 1863 has been viewed as the great turning point of the American Civil War. On July 1-3 in Pennsylvania, Union forces commanded by Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade won the Battle of Gettysburg and forced Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia to its namesake state—an event that continues to attract greater interest from students of history than any other battle of the war. Meanwhile, out West, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant conducted one of the truly great campaigns in American military history to capture the Confederate bastion at Vicksburg, Miss., which enabled the Mississippi River to make its way, in Abraham Lincoln’s famous wording, “unvexed to the sea.” Then, of course, in Tennessee, the Union Army of the Cumberland conducted an impressive campaign of maneuver that compelled Confederate forces to retreat all the way to the Tennessee River.

Here, Chris Mackowski, Dan Welch, and a team of writers look to contribute to literature on the latter two campaigns by offering 40 short essays, 30 of which are on Vicksburg, while 10 are on Tullahoma. Enthusiasts of the Army of the Cumberland and Army of Tennessee might grumble at this. Yet, given the fact that the Vicksburg Campaign was much longer, took place over a much larger geographic area, and was a critical event in Grant’s rise to become commanding general of the U.S. Army, the North’s foremost military hero, and, eventually, president, it is difficult to find too much fault with this. All readers, though, will appreciate the generous number of illustrations and well-crafted maps that accompany the text.

Still, readers will not find here the sort of thoroughly researched, detailed contributions to scholarship that have characterized volumes in, for example, the University of North Carolina Press’ series of essay collections on the great campaigns of the Eastern Theater and the Southern Illinois University Press’ series of essay anthologies on campaigns in the Western Theater. The shortness of the essays in The Summer of ’63, many of which originated as posts on a blog (a medium with limitations and issues with which this reviewer is quite familiar), often leave the reader wishing for more depth, both in research and treatment of topics. Take, for instance, Angelo Riotto’s essay on Grierson’s Raid, conducted by dynamic Union Colonel Benjamin Henry Grierson. The raid is an important and interesting subject, and Riotto is an able historian. Moreover, in her essay she offers the possibility of a significant contribution to 68

The Summer of ’63 Vicksburg & Tullahoma: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War Edited by Chris Mackowski and Dan Welch Savas Beatie, 2021, $29.95

scholarship by connecting Grierson’s operations to the larger evolution of Union “hard war” policy in 1863, while the citation of a master’s thesis she wrote indicates she has done the research necessary to produce a worthy study that really does offer “fresh perspectives.” Unfortunately, the four pages she is given here simply are not enough for her to provide the sort of treatment of her subject in sufficient depth, breadth, or context to make the contribution to scholarship she could have.

That being said, the shortness of the essays and clear writing of the contributors do have the effect of making this a book that is fairly easy to read and digest. Moreover, it has a very wallet-friendly cover price, and there is enough to make this a useful work for new students of Vicksburg and Tullahoma, especially those who find daunting the in-depth studies of these campaigns and the armies that fought them written by the likes of Timothy B. Smith, Larry Daniel, Michael Ballard, or Peter Cozzens.

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TODAY IN HISTORY OCTOBER 13, 1792 CWT-211200-001 Cape Girardeau.indd 1

THE CORNERSTONE OF THE WHITE HOUSE WAS LAID. INITIALLY REFERRED TO AS THE “PRESIDENT’S HOUSE” AND THE “EXECUTIVE MANSION,” THE STRUCTURE WAS CALLED THE WHITE HOUSE AS EARLY AS 1812.

PRESIDENT THEODORE ROOSEVELT OFFICIALLY ADOPTED THE TERM “WHITE HOUSE” IN 1901.

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For more, visit WWW.HISTORYNET.COM/ TODAY-IN-HISTORY

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LIFETIME OF

SERVICE 

REVIEWED BY THOMAS ZACHARIS



FIRST H MONDAYS AN ORIGINAL VIDEO SERIES

Editor Dana B. Shoaf and Director of Photography Melissa A. Winn explore off-the-beaten path and human interest stories about the war, and interview fellow scholars of the conflict.

Live broadcasts begin at noon on the first Monday of each month.

FACEBOOK.COM/CIVILWARTIMES

PB

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9/10/21 11:06 AM

arwood P. Hinton spent 50 years of research on the life of John Ellis Wool, the Civil War’s oldest general. When Hinton died, his work was continued and finally edited by fellow historian Jerry Thompson. “Courage above all things is the first quality for a soldier,” wrote military theorist Carl von Clausewitz, and the authors regard Wool as precisely that type of soldier. He also embodied the profession of arms in a career that began with distinguished U.S. Army service in the War of 1812 and at the Battle of Buena Vista in the Mexican War. In addition, Wool was in charge of the transportation of the Cherokee from Kentucky and Courage Above All Things: Tennessee to Indian Territory and John Ellis Wool and the U.S. Military, 1812-1863 participated in the conflicts against

By Harwood P. Hinton and Indians in Oregon. When the Civil Jerry Thompson War broke out, Wool, still energetic at University of Oklahoma 77 years of age—two years older than Press, 2020, $45 Commander-in-Chief of the Army Winfield Scott—secured Fort Monroe and in May 1862, under the eyes of President Abraham Lincoln, occupied the Norfolk navy yard, thereby giving the Union control of the Chesapeake Bay at Norfolk and earning himself a major general’s stars.

This new biography sheds new light on the New York Draft Riots of July 13-17, 1863, which ended only when Wool imposed martial law on the city.

He was 85 when he died on November 10, 1869, in Troy, N.Y., where he had spent his childhood as an orphan. Wool’s life has been the stuff of previous books that were more fiction than fact, but Courage Above All Things is a meticulously researched biography that stands up on its factual merits.

Enthusiasts of the formative years of American military power should find it extremely interesting.

9/16/21 8:40 AM

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

‘Let us fight on until slavery is impossible’ Exclusive! Firsthand account of the 54th Massachusetts’ epic assault on Fort Wagner

After Appomattox The general Plus! Leeremains resolute in his first post-surrender interview

NOVEMBER 2021 HISTORYNET.COM

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

It’s Here!

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The new America’s Civil War features an exclusive firsthand account of the 54th Massachusetts’ assault on Fort Wagner, Lee speaks in defeat, civilians to the rescue, and more!

Now available at

SHOP.HISTORYNET.COM and your local newsstand

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BANNER

ON MAY 10, 1864, Colonel Emory Upton led his brigade and other regiments in a hand-picked force of 5,000 men against the Confederates’ Mule Shoe salient at Spotsylvania Court House, Va. The U.S. troops did not stop to fire as in previous attacks, but rushed like a battering ram at a select point in the defensive works. They broke through but were unsupported and had to fall back. Two days later, a larger Union force successfully used the innovative tactic, and Upton was promoted to brigadier general. This wool pennant for Upton’s brigade, sold by Heritage Auctions, flew over that gory Virginia battlefield. It represents the 5th Maine, 121st New York, and the 95th and 96th Pennsylvania Infantries of Upton’s brigade. The red Greek cross indicates the 1st Division of the 6th Corps, and the blue band along the staff edge denotes the 2nd Brigade. Upton, a West Pointer considered a military innovator, fought his own battle with severe headaches that caused him to take his own life in 1881 at the age of 41. -D.B.S.

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“A visceral, immediate, emotional depiction of Lee’s men as they navigated the stages of their forced reintegration as loyal citizens of the United States. Janney helps modern readers comprehend the enormous costs of the war and the extraordinary difficulties forging peace.”

—Joan Waugh, author of U.S. Grant: American Hero, American Myth 352 pages $30.00

“A work of high critical energy and well-honed insights, Cushman’s book will excite readers and add to their understanding of Civil War generals, their memoirs, and the intellectual ties of history and imagination.”

—Steven M. Stowe, author of Keep the Days 240 pages $24.95 paper

“With compelling storytelling and insightful analysis, this book reminds readers about the importance of Indigenous sovereignty and reshapes our understanding of the Civil War’s western theater.”

—Gregory D. Smithers, author of The Cherokee Diaspora 288 pages $32.95

“White’s extraordinary scholarship has unearthed a world of Black experience in the Civil War, of Black Americans finding their voices and gaining their agency—and establishing a relationship with the first president they believed cared about their conditions and concerns.”

—Sidney Blumenthal, author of All the Powers of Earth 304 pages $29.95

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“In meshing ideas about Union, civilization, the morality of warfare, and military decision-making, Foote’s important book is the first of its kind, shedding new light on debates about the nature and conduct of the American Civil War.” —Andrew S. Bledsoe, Lee University 304 pages $22.95 paper

“It is hard for a book review to do this book justice. Readers will not study or look at the battles of any war [again] without wanting to know more about the environmental impacts. The book is exceptionally well written.”

—Military Review 280 pages $30.00

“A comprehensive narrative account of the fighting, one that assesses the full breadth of command decisions and vividly records battlefield experiences of all ranks on both sides.”

—Civil War Books and Authors 400 pages $40.00

“A fascinating and illuminating account that sheds important new light on America’s greatest crisis.”

—Eric Foner, author of The Second Founding

Winner of the • Tom Watson Brown Book Award, Society of Civil War Historians

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