Civil War Times February 2022 by HistoryNet

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ANTIETAM LATEST RESEARCH REVEALS N EW D E TAI L S O F AN ICONIC BATTLEFIELD PHOTO Photographer Alexander Gardner misidentified these dead Union soldiers as members of the Irish Brigade.

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CIVIL WAR TIMES FEBRUARY 2022

CLOSE TO THE END

Thousands of Confederate prisoners lined up to surrender at Appomattox Court House, creating scenes similar to this one near Five Forks, Va., in 1865.

ON THE COVER: To what regiment did these dead U.S. troops on the Antietam battlefield belong? 2

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Features

Forgotten Fighting, Unknown Men

Years of research and a recently discovered burial map bring more closure to a photo of dead Union troops on the Antietam battlefield.

Pathbreaker with a Scalpel

By Michael G. Williams

Alexander T. Augusta triumphed over racism and mobs to become the U.S. Army’s first African American surgeon.

‘I Still Suffer to This Day’

By Jon-Erik Gilot

Grand Army of the Republic “War Sketches” reveal the emotional scars of battle and unique comradeship forged under fire.

Southbound

By Caroline E. Janney

The surrender at Appomattox Court House was just the beginning of uncertain journeys home for the men of Robert E. Lee’s army.

Departments 6 8 14 16 20 26 29 62 64 72

Return Fire Rethinking the War Miscellany Fitting, Proper Memorials Details Staring at the Enemy Insight Two Foundational Books Rambling At the Foot of South Mountain Interview Gettysburg’s New Man Editorial A Swale at Antietam Armament The Multi-Purpose Minié Reviews Slaughter in the Woods Sold ! Memory Trunk

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; THE BUFFALO HISTORY MUSEUM; THE CIVIL WAR IN TENNESSEE COLLECTION (2); OBLATE SISTERS OF PROVIDENCE ARCHIVES, BALTIMORE, MD; COVER: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY/PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: BRIAN WALKER

FEBRUARY 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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

The Confederate “sharpshooter” at Devil’s Den.

FEBRUARY 2022 / VOL. 61, NO. 1

John Bell Hood

How diligent research revealed the identity of the Devil’s Den “sharpshooter.” http://bit.ly/SharpshooterPhoto

A COMPLICATED LEGACY

The surrender at Appomattox Court House has been remembered—and misremembered—from the day the Army of Northern Virginia laid down its arms. https://bit.ly/AppomattoxLegacy

A PLACE OF THEIR OWN

As Civil War veterans struggled to reenter society, some formed their own unique communities out West. https://bit.ly/PlaceOfTheirOwn

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

P.G.T. Beauregard US, John Reynolds; CS, Joseph Johnston

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Robert E. Lee

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LET’S CONNECT

Who was the war’s most overrated general?

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CIVIL WAR TIMES FEBRUARY 2022

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RETURN FIRE

Model 1816

Model 1795

ISSUES

TWO DIFFERENT VIEWS Gary W. Gallagher’s Insight column in the October 2021 issue (“A Lost Moment?”) eloquently stated the uncomfortable truth that the Americans who won the Civil War displayed little real desire or empathy toward racial equality and did not view it as one of the objectives of victory. Sadly, the 6

In reference to the Private Thomas Taylor picture on Page 61, is the negative backward? I have yet to see a Model 1816 percussion musket in a left-hand configuration! Great publication, really enjoy it. Brad Marshall via e-mail Editor’s note: The image of Taylor is a Civil War era-tintype, taken with a camera that captured a reverse image of its subject. Taylor’s musket would have been “right-handed” in reality.

leadership of the South (many of the same elite familial ilk who defended slavery in the antebellum days, drove the region to secession and survived the war) sought to re-establish the prewar status quo as much as possible. Even sadder, the nature of politics in Washington allowed them to establish the framework for disenfranchisement and peonage in

CIVIL WAR TIMES FEBRUARY 2022

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GODDARD ARCHIVE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; PIXHALL/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; PHOTO BY ALYSSA IMLER

ARMAMENT

Editor’s note: Thanks for the catch on the lockplate. We decided late to add the flintlock so the conversion process was more understandable, and I should have been more careful.

PHOTO: HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS

In the December issue’s “Armament,” the picture of the flintlock is not of a Model 1816 but of a Model 1795 musket. The features of the 1795 are a faceted pan, a curl on the end of the frizzen, flat faceted hammer, and a flat and rear “teated” lockplate. The Model 1816 had a slanted rounded brass pan, convex and pointed surface at the rear of the lockplate, a rounded hammer, and a straight terminus to the frizzen sitting on the frizzen spring. Civil War Times is a fantastic magazine passing on important and fascinating data on the conflict, and as a historian I find it a must have for research. This small error does not alter my high opinion of the great research CWT puts out. Dr. Jay R. Newman Bedford, Texas

GODDARD ARCHIVE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; PIXHALL/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; PHOTO BY ALYSSA IMLER

PHOTO: HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS

the 1880s and beyond. Few in the North lifted a finger to cry foul for the reasons Gallagher stated. It is also sad that it took 100-plus years after the end of slavery for true equality for all Americans to really gather momentum. That represents a huge chunk of time that could have been more constructively used to build a framework for equality (contentious as it would have been for some) and accelerate our progress as a nation. Perhaps the poor example of our social structure in the late 1800s and early 1900s made our leaders embrace colonialism beyond the perceived need to support a worldwide naval presence. As a deep-rooted Southerner of European decent with aspirations at one time to teach history, I look at the American Civil War much differently nowadays. It did serve to preserve the union, but it did little to advance our founding ideals. Randy Blackerby Fountain Inn, S.C. Regarding the bilingual Ox Hill Civil War Trails signs mentioned in the “Miscellany” section of the August issue of Civil War Times, consider the following quote from former President Theodore Roosevelt: “There is room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns out people as Americans, of American nationality, and not some random dwellers in a polyglot boarding house….” Lance Terrell Austin, Texas

ONLINE POLL

52.5 0 0

The Results Are In! Our recent Facebook poll asked who had the best tomb, General Robert E. Lee or General Ulysses S. Grant. More than half of respondents thought Lee’s resting place was the more impressive. Our next poll goes online December 16.

Editor’s Note: Alyssa, you were not the first to answer, but we loved your enthusiasm and “Lil’ Lincoln.” Thanks for taking your students to see hallowed ground.

will be good. But staples?! Not good. Raise the price if you have to, but keep the quality of the magazine cover in line with its content. Allen Blackford Russellville, Ark. Editor’s Note: I’m afraid the staples are here to stay. CWT used to be stapled, but was changed to “perfect bound” about 10 years ago or so. Some readers did not like that because the magazine would not lay flat on tables. Now we have gone back to staples. Rest assured, even if the cover is nailed on, the content won’t change.

CABLE KNIT Hello, I know it! I look at these in every issue and never know it—I know this one! It is the collar of the man in the “Return Visit” statue in Gettysburg. I even took a picture in September with my “Lil’ Lincoln” for my middle school students. I included it in the email for you to enjoy. Alyssa Imler Natrona Heights, Pa.

47.5 0 0

A STAPLE MAGAZINE I haven’t even read the latest issue— but I can already tell you the content

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

FEBRUARY 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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MISCELLANY

THREE FOR THE USCT s Civil War scholarship and public interpretation tle of Franklin, but this statue commemorates the approxexpands, a greater importance is being paid to shar- imately 300 Black men from Franklin County, most of ing the story of the African American experience whom were formerly enslaved, who joined the USCT. during the Civil War, including on the home front and the On November 6, a new monument was unveiled in role of Black troops in the U.S. Army. As part of those Culpeper, Va., to commemorate the sacrifice paid by three efforts, three new monuments honoring the contributions USCT captured and executed in the area by 9th Virginia and sacrifice of the USCT have recently been unveiled. Cavalry troopers on May 8, 1864. The granite obelisk On October 23, 2021, Franklin, Tenn., commemorated stands at the Maddensville Historic Site, which also the contributions of the USCT and Black Americans with includes Madden’s Tavern and Ebenezer Baptist the installation of a statue of a USCT soldier in its town Church—both established by a free Black man, Culpeper square. The monument is positioned directly across from a resident Willis Madden. In addition to the monument, Confederate monument. The installation was the culmina- three signs interpreting the location and USCT involvetion of an agreement reached through “A Fuller Story,” a ment were also unveiled. project initiated by Reverends Hewitt “This will be the first site dedicated to Sawyers, Chris Williamson, Kevin Riggs, United States Colored Troops in CulLAND OF THE FREE and historian Eric Jacobson. These four peper County, arguably the most foughtMonuments of varied residents of Franklin—two Black men over county during the entire Civil War,” artistic interpretations and two White men—got together to said Culpeper native Howard Lambert, commemorating the service founder and president of The Freedom address the controversy over Confederate and sacrifices of Black monuments, and the result was an agreeFoundation of Virginia. The historic site troops during the Civil ment to erect a statue of a USCT soldier is the culmination of years of work by the War have recently been and five interpretive markers honoring unveiled in several Southern foundation, Civil War Trails, and the states, including, clockwise both the suffering and resilience of Blacks. Piedmont Environmental Council. from top left: Franklin, Franklin’s mayor and aldermen unani“We don’t know their identities, nor do Tenn., Culpeper, Va., and mously approved the agreement. No we know precisely where they’re buried, Wilmington, N.C. but we know what happened and that USCT troops took part in the 1864 Bat-

CIVIL WAR TIMES FEBRUARY 2022

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PHOTO COURTESY OF MELISSA A. WINN; COURTESY OF THE CAMERON ART MUSEUM

PHOTO BY INETTA GAINES; PHOTO BY BRYAN CHEESEBORO

PHOTO COURTESY OF MELISSA A. WINN; COURTESY OF THE CAMERON ART MUSEUM

PHOTO BY INETTA GAINES; PHOTO BY BRYAN CHEESEBORO

they lay nearby,” Lambert said of the executed USCT soldiers. The three men and hundreds of other Black troops had just crossed the Rappahannock River into Culpeper during the Union’s Overland Campaign. Madden’s Tavern, which included a general store, blacksmith and wheelwright’s shop, was a popular business and rest stop frequented by travelers. During the Civil War, it saw many visits by Union and Confederate soldiers. On November 13, Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, N.C., unveiled “Boundless,” a sculpture honoring the contribution of USCT to the Union victory at the Battle of Forks Road, which won Union control of Wilmington. Created by Stephen Hayes, the work features 11 figures with faces cast from local men, including a descendant of four USCT soldiers, reenactors, Vietnam veterans, and a Marine veteran. Two brigades of USCT troops—about 1,600 soldiers—charged enemy lines at the Battle of Forks Road in Wilmington, where some 8,500 Union troops gathered to wrest the city and its port from Confederates. A new Civil War Trails wayside describes the fighting, which occurred February 2-21, 1865, and traversed the current site of the museum. Earthworks are still faintly discernible at the site.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Artist Stephen Hayes’ monument “Boundless” was built in pieces. Assembled and unveiled November 13, it features 11 Black soldiers.

TARGET PRACTICE

ON SEPTEMBER 28, the North-South CANNON CREW Skirmish Association (N-SSA) held its inauFormer N-SSA gural American Civil War Live Fire Firearms Commander Phil Spaugy, Seminar at Fort Shenandoah in Winchester, behind the cannon, is Va., the N-SSA’s main range. A handful of flanked by attendees of the first Civil War Live participants, including Civil War Times EdiFire Fireams Seminar tor Dana B. Shoaf and Director of Photograat Fort Shenandoah phy Melissa A. Winn, had the opportunity to in Winchester, Va., live fire a variety of firearms from the period, including, from left: including the Smith, Sharps, and Spencer Melissa A. Winn, Keith carbines; a Henry Rifle; an 1861 rifle musket; McGill, Dana B. Shoaf, a Model 1822 smoothbore musket with buck Jody Wilson, and and ball ammunition; and a Remington James Hessler. revolver. The grand finale included a live fire of a 10-pounder Parrot rifle. The event is designed to give participants in the Civil War field some rare hands-on practice with weaponry to expand their knowledge of the varied loading mechanisms and sights, ammunition, and the weight and feel of each gun. In an 1863 letter home describing the Siege of Port Hudson, James Kendall Hosmer of the 52nd Massachusetts Infantry called the whistle of bullets overhead “a nervous sound.” “But you would soon get over that here,” he wrote. “They go with a hundred different sounds through the air, according to the shape, size, and velocity of the projectile.” There is no substitute for experiencing firsthand the smell of gunpowder smoke and the crack and thunder of shot and shell, all of which provides a deeper understanding of a soldier’s experience in battle. The N-SSA event was held in conjunction with its 144th National Competition, October 1-3. The N-SSA was formed in 1950 to commemorate the heroism of the men, of both sides, who fought in the American Civil War. For more information visit www.n-ssa.org. FEBRUARY 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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MISCELLANY

WAR F RA M E SOMEONE, perhaps the subject himself, delicately scratched James L. Baldwin’s name on his photograph. Behind that name lies a story of a man striving for freedom. Before the war, Baldwin was enslaved on a plantation near Port Gibson, Miss. In 1863, he fled bondage and enlisted in St. Louis in the 56th United States Colored Troops in August. Baldwin became a sergeant and was shot in the neck on July 26, 1864, at the Battle of Wallace’s Ferry, Ark. After two months in the hospital, he rejoined the 56th, and was honorably discharged in September 1866. Sometime after his promotion he posed for this handsome image in front of the flag for which he shed his blood. Baldwin stayed in Arkansas after the war and enjoyed the freedom he earned, working for a living and raising a family. The U.S. Army veteran died at the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Danville, Ill., in 1922. He was 82 years old.

LINCOLN

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HNA; PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ADAMS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY; BY MELISSA A. WINN

LINCOLN FORUM SCHOLAR and philanthropist Frank Williams has donated a bronze sculpture depicting the mortally wounded president to the Frank and Virginia Williams Collection of Lincolniana at Mississippi State University Libraries in Starkville. Sculpted by the late Richard Masloski, whose works focused on American history, the 3-foot high tableau titled “Moody, Tearful Night” shows Union soldiers carrying the wounded president after he was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C., on April 15, 1865, by John Wilkes Booth.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

BRONZE

HNA; PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ADAMS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY; BY MELISSA A. WINN

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

The Sphinx is No More In August 2021, the Sphinx, a prominent rock formation in the depression between Big Round Top and Little Round Top at Gettysburg National Military Park, collapsed. In an online note, the Adams County Historical Society compared a William Tipton photo taken around 1900 to a recent photo of the site. Formed when ground around the boulder eroded over millennia, the Sphinx was among many 200-million-year-old boulders that dot the Gettysburg landscape. The distinctive geology of Gettysburg directly influenced the course of the battle: while rock formations provided shelter for Union troops, the bedrock was so close to the surface that entrenchments were impossible. This greater exposure contributed to the heavy casualties at the Battle of Gettysburg.

BEFORE & AFTER

The Sphinx rock formation was a popular battlefield feature for Gettysburg enthusiasts who knew where to find it on the eastern slope of Big Round Top. Forever preserved in photographs, including by famed photographer William Tipton, it collapsed in August 2021.

Marching Downeast Brandon Bies, friend to Civil War Times and superintendent of Manassas National Battlefield Park since 2017, will be taking a new position as deputy superintendent of Acadia National Park on Mount Desert Island in Maine. The move takes him out of the Civil War arena, where he has spent many years: first working as an archaeologist at Monocacy National Battlefield and then overseeing Great Falls Park and Arlington House before heading up to Manassas. Bies has been a great steward of Manassas, and CWT both wishes him well and will miss his presence.

FEBRUARY 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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MISCELLANY

CLOSE UP! QUIZ

607 Oronoco St., Alexandria, Va.

REAL ESTATE WITH CIVIL WAR CONNECTIONS Interested in living in history-steeped Alexandria, Va., and owning a home with a direct connection to the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia? Then this home is for you. Just bring deep pockets (it’s listed at $5.9 million) to the table. Robert E. Lee lived in this house at 607 Oronoco Street after his father, Henry “Light Horse” Lee, got out of debtor’s prison in the early 19th century. The Lees rented this property, and the future Confederate commander lived here until 1825, when he left for West Point and his military destiny. The Lee family might have thought their rental was a step down from a plantation home, but its grand interior would wow any modern family. During the time Robert E. Lee lived here, his father fled to the Caribbean to distance himself from his debtors, never to return. What were Robert’s thoughts about his father’s exodus as he wandered these rooms? Shortly before press time, the historical marker denoting the residence as Lee’s boyhood home was removed in the middle of the night. A spokesperson for the Virginia Department of Historic Resources said the sign’s “retirement” had been planned for months due to its inaccurate claims that Lee visited the house after Appomattox and that Marquis de Lafayette visited it in 1824. The home is 8,145 square feet and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. For more information, go to McEnearney Associates (McEnearney.com).

WHAT FAMOUS GELDING is

attached to this ear? 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 “Whoa!”

ANSWER TO LAST ISSUE’S

CLOSE UP ! CONGRATULATIONS to Al Walgenbach of Shelby Township, Mich., who correctly identified the “tourist” as being the young man perpetually awed by Lincoln in Gettysburg’s town square.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF MCENEARNEY ASSOCIATES; PHOTO BY SHENANDOAH SANCHEZ; PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN

WORTH A MOVE

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OPPOSING VIEW

WHEN CAPTAIN ANDREW RUSSELL, photographer for the

United States Military Railroad, exposed the wet plate in his camera to take this image shortly after the December 11-13, 1862, Battle of Fredericksburg, he took a rare picture of live Confederates in the field. This photo, one of a series taken by Russell, includes some of Brig. Gen. William Barksdale’s Mississippians on the ruins of the Richmond, Fredericksburg, & Potomac Railroad bridge over the Rappahannock River, destroyed in April 1862 by Confederate troops before U.S. forces first temporarily occupied the town. The image was probably taken on December 17, after the Army of the Potomac had retreated across the river to Falmouth. Barksdale’s 13th, 17th, 18th, and 21st Mississippi fought tenaciously on December 11 contesting the Union advance across the river. About a week after that vicious fighting, the Southern troops basked in the December sun and posed for the enemy’s camera. —D.B.S.

1. Union soldiers also gathered on their side of the ruined railroad bridge to trade food or insults with Confederates. During one exchange, a Union soldier, presumably of German descent, yelled over that his force numbered in the “dousands.” “Oh,” came the sarcastic reply, “bring them along; that’s nothing. We reckoned you had an army!” 2. Approximately 20 Southerners are

visible, including an officer in a doublebreasted frock coat. The men are relaxed despite being a musket shot away from the Union lines. On December 11, the 18th and 21st Mississippi fought just two blocks to the left against Union troops advancing over the Army of the Potomac’s middle pontoon bridge.

3. This handsome cupola sits atop the railroad’s freight depot.

4. Shadowy specters can be seen in this window, two Confederates photo bombing the proceedings. 5. This gambrel-roofed house is of a

style that dates to the 18th century. External chimney stacks were more common in the warmer South compared

to Northern homes that often encompassed the chimney within a house’s framing. A short “meat house” or “smoke house” with a pyramid-shaped roof is also visible. Families smoked and stored meat in such outbuildings. It’s a good guess that soldiers had quickly emptied its contents.

6. Marye’s Heights dominates the horizon. This small outbuilding belonged to the Wallace family, and the roofline of their main house is just over the aforementioned gambrel roof, mostly hidden by trees. During the battle, the Washington Artillery of New Orleans was posted just to the right of the outbuilding, and a gunner recalled, “The little brick house…which was white at the beginning of the battle, was perfectly red with bullet-marks at its close, its paint scaled off.” Both the outbuilding and the main house were destroyed during the Second Battle of Fredericksburg, on May 3, 1863.

7. These two light-colored vertical columns indicate the gate of the Willis Cemetery, which is today included in the Fredericksburg National Cemetery.

Civil War Times would like to thank Eric Mink, historian and Cultural Resources Manager at Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park, for his help with this article.

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by Gary W. Gallagher

LAYING THE FOUNDATION ANYONE INTERESTED IN the military history of the Civil

War owes a debt to William F. Fox and Frederick H. Dyer. Both Union veterans, they engaged in almost unimaginably tedious research, organized a mass of statistical and descriptive information, and compiled their findings in accessible formats. Although more recent publications that draw on manuscript materials unavailable in the late-19th and early-20th centuries have provided a fuller statistical picture of many particular aspects of the war, they have not superseded the pioneering volumes by Fox and Dyer as invaluable referPAGE TURNERS ence works. Both William Fox’s and Fox’s Regimental Losses in the American Frederick Dyer’s research Civil War 1861-1865, an oversize volume of volumes are available nearly 600 pages published in 1889 and digitally, but can easily be reprinted by Morningside Bookshop in 1974, found on used book sites, originated in “the patient and conscientious as well. It’s much more labor of years” marked by “[d]ays and often pleasurable to hold them weeks...spent on the figures of each regiin hand. Each contains a staggering amount of ment.” An officer in the 107th New York information. Infantry during the war, Fox devoted more 16

than half of his text to a long chapter titled “Three Hundred Fighting Regiments—Statistics and Historical Sketch of Each.” This roster featured regiments “which sustained the heaviest losses in battle.” The cutoff was for regiments with 130 killed or mortally wounded for the war, “together with a few whose losses were somewhat smaller, but whose percentage of killed entitles them to a place in the list.” Aware that some veterans might take offense at having their units excluded (his own 107th New York did not qualify), he acknowledged that other regiments undoubtedly “did equally good or, perhaps, better fighting, and their gallant service will be fully recognized by the writers who are conversant with their history.” Each unit’s page offers a table of casualties by company for the war (killed and mortally wounded in action and deaths due to disease and

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accidents), percentage killed during the entire conflict, losses at most important battles, and “Notes” filled with miscellaneous information. Every regiment of the Iron Brigade made the list, headed by the 7th Wisconsin’s 281 killed or mortally wounded in action as the highest total and the 2nd Wisconsin’s 19.7 the highest percentage loss. Nineteen of the 20 regiments with the most combat fatalities served in the Army of the Potomac. Among African American units, Fox included the 79th USCT, which served in the Trans-Mississippi Theater, the 8th USCT, and the famous 54th Massachusetts. The “Notes” sections reward a close perusal. Regarding the largely forgotten 137th New York Infantry, which under Colonel David Ireland anchored the Union right on Culp’s Hill on July 2, 1863, Fox wrote: “This regiment won special honors at Gettysburg, then in Greene’s Brigade, which, alone and unassisted, held Culp’s Hill during a critical period of that battle against a desperate attack of vastly superior force.” Fox also commented about the far more celebrated service of the 20th Maine Infantry at the other end of the Union line: “Chamberlain and his men did much to save the day at Gettysburg, by their prompt and plucky action at Little Round Top. Holding the extreme left on that field, they repulsed a wellnigh successful attempt of the enemy to turn that flank, an episode which forms a conspicuous feature in the history of that battle.” Apart from the 300 fighting regiments, Fox tabulated casualties by regiments in one battle, for the war, and in comparison to losses in European armies. He devoted chapters to Union corps, to “Famous Divisions and Brigades,” and to “The Greatest Battles of the War.” Primarily interested in the U.S. side of the conflict, he also allocated one chapter to Confederate losses and strengths. Dyer’s A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion, a massive tome of nearly 1,800 pages, was published in 1908 and reprinted in three volumes in 1959 (Thomas Yoseloff; introduction by Bell 18

I KEEP COPIES OF

BOTH FOX AND DYER

CLOSE AT HAND IN

MY OWN LIBRARY

I. Wiley) and in two volumes in 1978 (Morningside; introduction by Lee A. Wallace Jr.). Dyer’s service had been in the ranks of the 7th Connecticut Infantry, first as a young drummer boy (he enlisted under the name Frederick H. Metzger) and then as a private. His preface explained why he undertook the project. Pronouncing the 128-volume Official Records “practically impossible to use except by a specialist,” he sought to present “certain statistics and data of great interest and value” in a more usable fashion. Divided into three parts, the Compendium provides detailed information about the organization and commanders of U.S. military forces by

DECADES OF WORK

Frederick Dyer, like modern researchers, found aspects of the Official Records hard to follow. His work, compiled over 30 years, remains one of the easiest ways to follow how units moved from one organization to the other.

department, army, corps, division, brigade, and regiment, followed by a list of more than 10,000 military events arranged by state that includes date, nature (battle, skirmish, siege, action, affair, etc.), location, and troops engaged. A very useful table on “National Cemeteries and Their Locations” provides the number of known (176,397) and unknown (148,833) burials as of the early 20th century, informing readers that the figures included 9,300 Confederates. Brief histories of nearly 2,500 Union regiments and artillery batteries fill the last 750 double-column pages of the Compendium. Arranged by state or territory and varying in length from a few lines (e.g., Ohio’s 2nd Independent Battalion of Cavalry and New York’s 28th Independent Battery Light Artillery) to more than a page and a half (for example, 6th Michigan Cavalry and 47th Illinois Infantry), the entries begin with the date of organization, trace all deployments during the war, and conclude with the date of mustering out. Dyer also provided figures on deaths due to wounds and disease for officers and enlisted men. After more than a century, this last section of the Compendium remains the most convenient place to look for basic information about Union regiments and batteries. One bibliographer noted that Dyer inevitably recorded “a few incorrect dates, a number of incorrect assignments, and omitted some commanders” but insisted that the work remains “among the most comprehensive, important, and useful of this type.” Bell Wiley reached a similar conclusion, pronouncing the Compendium “outstanding from the standpoints of organization, scope, comprehensiveness and richness in detail. It is unquestionably the most valuable Civil War reference work complied by one author.” I keep copies of both Fox and Dyer close at hand in my own library, shelved with other titles I often consult. For anyone whose bookcases lack space for additional large volumes, full texts of Regimental Losses and the Compendium await interested users online. ✯

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MARYLAND HQ

VIEW

AN EARNEST LOCAL PRESERVATION GROUP IS FIGHTING TO SAVE A MARYLAND BATTLEFIELD LANDMARK AS I RACE DOWN Rohrersville Road near Boonsboro, Md., the magnifi-

cent South Mountain range to the left and a sign advertising a local moonshine tasting to the right, three thoughts linger: Will that duct tape hold up on the crumpled left, rear panel of my car? (Curses to you, Cross Keys battlefield cows and bull that made me back into a fence post!) Can I make that tasting before lunch? (Sadly, no.) What would Mrs. Banks say if I suggest a move from our home in Nashville to this 20

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PHOTOS BY JOHN BANKS (2)

MOUNTAIN

gorgeous area? (You don’t want to know.) “There are few places that I have visited or of which I have ever dreamed that have such a hold upon my heart as the picturesque hills and broad valleys of Western Maryland,” battlefield tramper and historian Fred Cross wrote about this area in 1926. This land entrances me, too. My destination is the east side of South Mountain and the “It’s-OK-toleave-your-car-and-house unlocked” village of Burkittsville, population roughly 200 if you count the dogs and cats. You may remember it as the setting for that weird 1999 horror film, The Blair Witch Project. At the Battle of South Mountain on September 14, 1862, three days before the much-bloodier Battle of Antietam nearby, cannon boomed and gunfire crackled from Crampton’s Gap as desperate Army of Northern Virginia soldiers were routed by Maj. Gen. William

PHOTO BY JOHN BANKS

During the September 14, 1862, Battle of Crampton’s Gap, Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin headquartered at this house, just east of Burkittsville.

PHOTOS BY JOHN BANKS (2)

PHOTO BY JOHN BANKS

Franklin’s 6th Corps. Afterward, Burkittsville was overwhelmed with wounded and dead. With heroes, too. Seventy-five-year-old Paul Gilligan hustles to tidy up a circa-1850 house he owns before visitors check in to the Airbnb on Burkittsville’s main drag. (The wartime owner was a physician who cared for soldiers after the battle.) But the no-B.S. Irishman, president of the Burkittsville Preservation Association, takes time out to discuss with me a preservation effort he champions in this Civil War time capsule 60 miles northwest of Washington, D.C. A retired public health service officer, Gilligan lives in a late–18th century stone farmhouse in Burkittsville astride Gapland Road. On the afternoon of the battle, Federal soldiers, their hearts racing, advanced over Gilligan’s property on the way up the steep slopes toward Crampton’s Gap. In 2019, state archaeologists unearthed 600 battle artifacts on his farm. A year earlier, a relic hunter uncovered a sabot from a Blakely shell fired from the gap by a Confederate battery. At the corner of West Main and Burkittsville Road, Gilligan runs PJ Gilligan Dry Goods & Mercantile Co., a general store, from an early–19th century building with a faded yellow façade. Across the road stands the gleaming-white, Greek Revival-style German Reformed Church, U.S. Army Hospital D following the battle. Blood of soldiers once spattered its walls, gruesome evidence of dozens of amputations. Next door stands the red-brick St. Paul’s Lutheran, also a wartime hospital. In all, roughly 60 of the town’s 70 houses date to at least the 19th century. “A freaking museum,” Gilligan calls Burkittsville, where he and his wife, Laurel, settled in 1985. One of the places he and the Burkittsville Preservation Association aim to save is the Martin Shafer farmhouse and outbuildings, Franklin’s Crampton’s Gap headquarters a mile from Gilligan’s store. Gilligan has a serendipitous connection to the five-acre

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Paul Gilligan, below, owns this corner store in Burkittsville. The Maryland village has staved off development and retains its 19th-century profile. Gilligan is president of the Burkittsville Preservation Association.

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A Confederate Blakely shell fragment found on Gilligan’s farm. Both the shell and the cannon that fired it were made in England.

farmstead, transferred to the association in 2016 (for a tax write-off ) by the nephew of its last owner, Mary Shafer Motherway. Decades ago, Gilligan and his father drove past the farmhouse. “I know him,” said Dad, pointing to the mailbox outside. Mary’s husband, Tom, lived in the same duplex where the elder Gilligan grew up in Somerville, Mass. Deftly maneuvering through bureaucratic channels, Gilligan secured a state grant to help preserve the farmhouse. His dream is to house a museum and visitors’ center in the circa-1820 dwelling—a place to interpret the Battle of South Mountain and for the hundreds of relics from his farm to be displayed. But money from the state won’t nearly cover the preservation work required. Eager to visit the Shafer place, I excuse myself. Gilligan doesn’t mind: “I gotta clean the jawnzzz,” says the Massachusetts native. One hundred and fifty-nine years ago, 39-year-old William Franklin, a career soldier and expert engineer, enjoyed a meal and smoked cigars in Martin Shafer’s yard with fellow generals Baldy Smith, Winfield Scott Hancock, and Henry Slocum, among other 6th Corps brass. Encamped near Shafer’s house were thousands of U.S. Army soldiers— including 3rd New Jersey Private Charles Hamilton Bacon, a 32-year-old father of five, and 32nd New York Colonel Roderick Matheson, a 38-year-old Scotsman who got gold fever in 1849 and sailed around Cape Horn for California. A teacher as a civilian, Matheson volunteered soon after the war began. 22

“Netty, my love, what would I do or give if you were by my side, that I could look into your face and get your approving smile for trying to fight and sustain YOUR country and now mine,” Matheson wrote to his wife in the summer of 1861. “Do you not think I may, by and by, rank as an American?” This afternoon, the only human I spot near the corner of Gapland and Catholic Church roads is a man hunting for war relics in the field across the way. So, I deploy a one-man skirmish line and surprise Ron Brown, who slightly darkens this sun-splashed day

A FAVORITE OF FRANKLIN

Colonel Roderick Matheson was shot in the leg at Crampton’s Gap while leading the 32nd New York. He died of the wound on October 2, 1862.

when I discover he’s a New England Patriots fan. The 47-year-old physical security supervisor from nearby Jefferson, Md., has hunted the area for Civil War artifacts since COVID struck. The day before, as a volunteer at the Shafer farmhouse, Brown used his Garrett Ace 400 metal detector inside the home’s billiards room, a postwar addition. “Found a bunch of nails, a padlock, and some hand tools,” he says. In his nearly 2½-hour relic hunt this day, Brown has unearthed one bullet, near Crampton’s Gap, and a chunk of postwar iron. But in other area hunts, he has recovered “Georgia rounds,” pieces of a Federal spur, and Union breast plates. The finds are meaningful for Brown, who has an ancestor who served with the 14th New Hampshire in the Army of the Potomac (Ezekiel Hadley) and another with the 31st Illinois (Thomas Jolly). Confederates inspired Jolly, a merchant as a civilian, to enlist when they confiscated his goods in the South—“it pissed him off,” Brown says. Though shot in the head during the Battle of Atlanta, he survived the war. At the Shafer House, the entire west-facing wall has been carefully removed, exposing a hanging chandelier and a bleak interior. Workers eventually will cover beams and joists with cement cinder blocks as well as bricks salvaged from the house. During a 2017 visit inside, I examined damage done by vandals, time, and nature. Perhaps a target of thieves, an old fireplace mantle was loosened from its moorings. Cracks snaked through interior walls. Covered with dust, a brown bottle of DDT, the long-banned insecticide, stood on a shelf. In the attic, Roman numerals were etched into wooden beams, a common construction practice long ago. In a downstairs room, perhaps the very one where Franklin met with Union commanders in 1862, four old ironing boards rested against a wall. Outside, I examine the rickety, Pennsylvania-style bank barn, recently a victim of a windstorm. That structure, as well as the ancient, stone meat house and well house/machine shop, needs significant repairs. In the front yard,

PHOTO BY JOHN BANKS; HEALDSBURG MUSEUM

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So, why is Gilligan so eager to preserve this special town? “History,” he tells me, “sells.” The stories that still linger here under the preservation bubble, like puffs of smoke from a musket barrel, captivate him, too. More than 100 U.S. Army soldiers sacrificed it all at Crampton’s Gap to save the Union. Charles Hamilton Bacon was one of them. Late on the afternoon of September 14, as the 1st New Jersey Brigade swept across Mountain Church Road or fought at Crampton’s Gap, the private was fatally wounded. “He went into the fight with unusual vigor, his health having greatly improved recently, faltering not until a ball passing through his Testament, which he always carried with him, entered his abdomen and caused his immediate death,” regimental chaplain George Darrow wrote to Bacon’s wife, Ann. A “consistent Christian,” Bacon was buried with eight of his comrades under an elm on Jacob Goodman’s farm, ground astride Mountain Church Road. Perhaps the burial was on the very land 24

preserved by the American Battlefield Trust. Bacon’s final resting place is unknown. After suffering a bullet wound in the right thigh in the same attack, Matheson was evacuated to a field hospital in Burkittsville. The injury was not deemed serious, but he died on October 2 after blood poured from the wound. The U.S. Army lamented the loss of a man Franklin called “one of its best colonels.” After his death, Matheson’s remains took a circuitous route home to California. On October 9, his body lay in state at City Hall in New York. Then a military funeral was held at the Green Street Methodist Church, where he and Netty were married in 1848. Nearly a month

AT THE

SHAFER HOUSE THE

ENTIRE

WEST-FACING WALL HAS BEEN

CAREFULLY

REMOVED

JUST IN TIME

The western wall of Franklin’s headquarters yawns wide open after crews took it down to rebuild it with salvaged bricks. The nearby Germanstyle bank barn had a brush with winddriven death. It too is on the mend.

later, Matheson’s remains arrived by steamer in San Francisco. On November 9, 1862, the Scotsman was buried at Oak Mound Cemetery in Healdsburg. Days later, a California newspaper solicited contributions to pay the $5,000 mortgage on Matheson’s Sonoma County farm, which faced imminent foreclosure. Netty and the couple’s children—Roderick Jr., 13; Nina, 7; and a baby named George—lived there. “[The donations] need not be large,” wrote The Sonoma County Journal, “but they ought to be universal, so that everyone who believes that Colonel Matheson has sacrificed his life in a holy cause may have the privilege of aiding to give independence and comfort to his family.” A fitting tribute, indeed, to a hero of Burkittsville. ✯ John Banks lives in Nashville, Tenn. He thanks the Healdsburg (Calif.) Museum for the use of the Matheson correspondence.

PHOTOS BY MELISSA A. WINN (2)

across from the field where 6th Corps soldiers camped, a homemade sign pleads for volunteers on workdays to help save the property: “Your 2+ Hours.” it reads. “Big Help.”

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11/1/21 5:58 PM

with Wayne Motts

GATHERING PLACE

The Gettysburg Visitor Center is owned and operated by the Gettysburg Foundation. As the new head of the foundation, Wayne Motts aims to attract new visitors, young and old.

of the Gettysburg Foundation, an organization founded in 1989 to help preserve Gettysburg National Military Park. A lifelong aficionado of the Civil War, Motts began his career as a battlefield guide at Gettysburg in 1988. He also served as director of the Adams County Historical Society in Gettysburg and director of the National Museum of the Civil War in Harrisburg, Pa., before assuming his new post. CWT: What is your new position and how did you get there? WM: I’ve been a battlefield guide at Gettysburg National Military Park for 33 years, since 1988. I went to school for military history at Ohio State University and got a master’s degree in American History from Shippensburg University. Then I got museum jobs, and I became a curator. I was executive director for the Adams County Historical Society, which is here in Gettysburg. In 2012, I got a job at the National Museum for Civil War History in Harrisburg, where I was for nine years. In May 2021, I took the position as president and chief executive officer of the Gettysburg Foundation. I went from the second largest Civil War museum in the country to the largest public history venue in the world related to the Civil War, and I can’t tell you how honored I am to be here. As most people know, I was the boy wearing a kepi on the battlefield and now I get to make a difference at Gettysburg. It’s a big honor. I’ve got big shoes to fill all the way around. 26

CWT: Tell us about the Gettysburg Foundation’s mission and how it operates. WM: I think a lot of people don’t know that the main National Park Service Visitor Center—the main visitor center at Gettysburg National Military Park—is maintained, owned, and operated by the Gettysburg Foundation. It’s not owned by the federal government. We are a nonprofit philanthropic organization operating in partnership with the National Park Service to preserve Gettysburg National Military Park and the Eisenhower National Historic Site. CWT: What is the scope of your duties? WM: First of all, I have to be the chief person related to management of staff

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COURTESY OF WAYNE MOTTS

IN MAY 2021, Wayne Motts was named president and chief executive officer

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GETTYSBURG’S BIGGEST FAN

and operations. And then as part of those duties, I would say fundraising is an important part. I need to be the biggest cheerleader and advocate. Those fit hand in hand. You talk about the projects you’re working with the National Park Service to support, saying—hey, we would like you to consider a donation to this. And then, oh by the way, we are advocating for these things. I’ve been excited all my life about these things. I work very closely with Steve Sims, the superintendent of Gettysburg National Military Park. We’ve got a great partnership.

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CWT: What do you see as your biggest challenges? WM: Many people would say COVID would be the immediate challenge. But the longterm challenge is to continue attracting new visitors, attracting younger visitors, attracting a wide range of visitors from all over the country and the world. Probably 3-4 percent of the visitation to Gettysburg is international. We have to think about what stories we can tell. When I worked as a battlefield guide I had to focus on: How do you get people interested in the Civil War? You tell stories. In order for us to attract new, younger, diverse audiences, we need to tell a little different stories than what we’ve been telling. And it doesn’t mean we don’t tell stories we have in the past. CWT: You have a new program oriented toward children, for example. WM: My predecessor, David Malgee, who was a member of the board of directors and was the Gettysburg Foundation’s interim president until I got here in May, just did a wonderful job navigating our organization through some very difficult times. One of the exciting things that was planned even in the COVID time, was a children’s museum, basically K–5th grade, in the John Rupp House. John Rupp, a local tanner, lived on Baltimore Street during the time of the battle and at one point, Union troops were shooting from the front of his home at Confederates behind his home. We put a

children’s museum inside there focusing on younger children during the battle [https://www.gettysburgfoundation.org/exhibits-tours-events/exhibitstours-events/children-of-gettysburg1863]. There is nothing like it in Gettysburg. CWT: Tell me about the Friends of Gettysburg. WM: The Friends of Gettysburg is the membership wing of the organization, so to speak. It began as a separate organization that then merged with the Gettysburg Foundation. We have thousands of members and supporters all over the country. They come to education programs we have. They donate to

Wayne Motts

different causes that we have. We have volunteer work days that they come to. That’s a really important way that people can get involved and get materials about what we’re doing with the park. CWT: What is in the works? WM: A project that we’re hoping will open in spring of 2022 is the Lincoln train station, where Lincoln arrived in Gettysburg on November 18, 1863, the night before delivering the Gettysburg Address. It is owned by the Gettysburg Foundation, and we are working with a corporation in New York to turn that venue into an augmented reality experience. You will walk into the train station, put on a pair of goggles, and you will experience people involved in

the Battle of Gettysburg. One civilian, one nurse, and one African American from the Gettysburg community, and one military service personnel. There is nothing like it in Gettysburg. We’ve also been assisting the National Park Service and raised funds for a multimillion-dollar NPS rehabilitation of Little Round Top, hopefully to start in the spring of 2022. The site will have to be closed for an extended time. CWT: Do you have a wish list for future programming? WM: I have a long personal list. One of the things I’m really excited about is, prior to COVID, we had a series of presentations by authors called Sacred Trust and we have not been able to have that for quite a number of years. We’re going to bring that back in July 2022. We’ll have 18 speakers and authors at that event. These are some of the best scholars in the world related to the Civil War. The National Park Service will be a co-sponsor. I should also mention that the Gettysburg Foundation owns and operates the George Spangler Farm. I think that is the best-preserved Civil War field hospital in the United States. And it was the 11th Army Corps field hospital at Gettysburg, and there were 1,900 wounded soldiers inside that property for about five weeks after the battle. That includes about 100 Confederate soldiers. We have public programs and living history out there during the summer season. People can look at the website [https://www.gettysburgfoundation.org/george-spangler-farm] to learn about it. CWT: Have you had any big surprises so far? WM: I usually go down to the visitor center twice a day if I am in the office to talk to visitors. I’m always surprised at the excitement that everybody has to visit this place. They don’t know who I am, and they say they can’t wait to get back. It is fascinating to understand why people are coming here.✯ Interview conducted by Sarah Richardson. FEBRUARY 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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TODAY IN HISTORY JANUARY 30, 1835 ANDREW JACKSON SURVIVED AN ASSASSINATION ATEMPT WHILE ATTENDING A FUNERAL AT THE U.S. CAPITOL. UNEMPLOYED HOUSE PAINTER RICHARD LAWRENCE TWICE TOOK AIM AT JACKSON, MISFIRING BOTH TIMES. IN RESPONSE JACKSON THRASHED HIM WITH HIS CANE. THE CROWD, WHICH INCLUDED U.S. REPRESENTATIVE DAVID CROCKETT, SUBDUED LAWRENCE. For more, visit WWW.HISTORYNET.COM/ TODAY-IN-HISTORY

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by Dana B. Shoaf

INTO THE

SWALE

PHOTOS BY MELISSA A. WINN

A SOBERING DAY IN THE HEART OF A BATTLEFIELD I RARELY SEE anyone exploring the ground behind the visitor center at Antietam National Battlefield. I know I never, until recently, tramped that ground. There are no monuments or tablets to draw you there and most visitors whisk by in vehicles, eager to turn left and head for the Sunken Road. But that swale was a killing ground and the site of several countercharges. Troops, including the men of Colonel William H. Irwin’s brigade The 20th New York fell back to that location to try to avoid murderous gunfire. In October, Melissa has two monuments at Antietam. The Winn, Tom Clemens, and I went to that forgotten field to investigate a hypothone at left is in the esis I had that a jumble of five to eight dead U.S. soldiers photographed there by National Cemetery, Alexander Gardner could have been from the 20th New York (P.30). It was bright, while the one at sunny, quiet, and sobering to stand where the crumpled leavings of battle had been right is just north of dragged for burial. If I am right—and I think I am—the discovery didn’t bring me the visitor center. a sense of happiness, more so one of sad accomplishment that at least those nameless sacrifices to the Union could be given a regimental identity. If I am wrong, you’ll let me know, but let’s leave those honored dead out of it. This is my fight; theirs was over long ago. ✯

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Forgotten Fighting,

unknown Men SOURCES OLD AND NEW TELL A FRESH STORY OF ANTIETAM AND MEN WHO DIED THERE

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he Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, is often thought of as four separate groups of fighting: The Cornfield, Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick’s West Woods disaster, the fight for the Sunken Road, and then the Union capture of Burnside Bridge and the stunning Confederate counterattack that ended the fight. Often lost within the violent shuffle was hard fighting that took place around noon, just east of the Dunker Church, when an Army of the Potomac 6th Corps brigade led by Colonel William H. Irwin counterattacked Confederate troops who had driven back regiments from the 12th Corps.

The 6th Corps had broken camp near Rohrersville about 5:30 a.m. on the 17th, and headed toward the battlefield with Maj. Gen. William Smith’s 2nd Division in the lead. Smith’s troops arrived on the field about midday, and it wasn’t long before Irwin’s brigade comprising the 20th, 33rd, 49th, and 77th New York, and the 7th Maine was clearing the East Woods and guiding down the Smoketown Road into a haze of smoke and gunfire. The Union brigade took it on the chin in this action, enduring more than 300 casualties. According to Colonel Irwin, the 20th New York of his command lost an astounding number of killed and wounded. As he wrote

CROSSING BLOODY GROUND

Artist Thur de Thulstrup’s stirring 1887 print of Union troops charging near the Dunker Church is a classic illustration of the September 17, 1862, fight. Colonel William Irwin’s 6th Corps brigade suffered high casualties attacking Confederates near the church.

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IRWIN’S BRIGADE AT ANTIETAM BY MARTIN PRICHETT olonel William Irwin’s 6th Corps brigade of Maj. Gen. William F. “Baldy” Smith’s 2nd Division was an experienced unit, whose regiments were mustered into service between May 9, 1861, and November 23, 1861. They participated to varying degrees in all combat during the Peninsula Campaign and Seven Days Battles. Pennsylvanian William Howard Irwin was born in 1818 and attended Dickinson College for two years before returning home to study for the bar. He entered the Army in February 1847 and received a commission in the 11th U.S. Infantry. Irwin was seriously wounded at the Battle of El Molino del Rey on September 8, 1847, during the war with Mexico, while leading his company. He received a brevet to major for his bravery and returned to Pennsylvania to practice law until the outbreak of the Civil War when he again donned a uniform. He enlisted as a private after the fall of Fort Sumter but quickly rose to the rank of colonel of the 7th Pennsylvania Volunteers, a 90-day unit that participated in the early advance on the Shenandoah Valley in June–July 1861. After the regiment mustered out, Irwin assisted in raising and organizing several Pennsylvania units. He was appointed colonel of the 49th Pennsylvania in late 1861. Several of his subordinates brought charges against him for drunkenness and “conduct prejudicial to good order and military discipline.” He was acquitted on the first charge but convicted on the second, drawing an inconsequential suspended punishment. He went on to lead the 49th with distinction during the Peninsula Campaign. He was given a brigade in the 2nd Division in the 6th Corps prior to the advance into Maryland. Irwin’s brigade left Camp California, near Alexandria, Va., and eventuCol. William Irwin ally crossed the Potomac River at Long Bridge, camping near George-

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NIDAY PICTURE LIBRARY/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; USAHEC

in his battle report on September 22: “The Twentieth New York Volunteers by its position was exposed to the heaviest fire in line, which it bore with unyielding courage and returned at every opportunity. The firmness of this regiment deserves very great praise. Colonel [Ernst] Von Vegesack was under fire with his men constantly, and his calm courage gave an admirable example to them. Each of their stand of colors is rent by the balls and shells of the enemy, and their killed and wounded is 145. This regiment was under my own eye in going into action and frequently during the battle, and I take pleasure in strongly testifying to its bravery and good conduct.” That fighting, though, has been treated as a footnote or outright ignored in the major histories of the battle. James Murfin’s 1965 The Gleam of Bayonets does not mention it, and it only warrants a paragraph in Stephen Sears’ 1983 Landscape Turned Red. Map studies of Antietam also pay little heed to the sacrifice of Irwin’s brigade. Bradley Gottfried’s The Maps of Antietam does not show details of Irwin’s advance toward the Hagerstown Pike, nor do the maps in the above-mentioned books. Murfin does, though, include the final position of Irwin’s brigade on one map. The maps of the highly regarded Antietam on the Web website do not indicate Irwin’s role in the fight. All of this matters for several reasons. One, it is still a common misconception that Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan kept the entire 6th Corps in reserve and its regiments did not see action or were very lightly engaged. Another assumption is that by late afternoon this fighting on the northern end of the battlefield had died down and had entirely shifted to the Sunken Road. And lastly, as will be discussed on the following pages, it is very possible that one of the iconic images taken of Antietam dead after the battle, and one of the few to show Union corpses, actually shows men of the 20th New York of Irwin’s brigade. That conclusion, as will be seen, is the cumulation of years of research by photo historians and the recent discovery of primary source material, notably the recently discovered Simon G. Elliott map of battlefield burials. The following excellent summary of the fight undertaken by William Irwin’s men is from the just released, Brigades of Antietam: The Union and Confederate Brigades at the Battle of Antietam, edited by Bradley M. Gottfried. Ironically, this fine book also does not include any detailed account of Irwin’s battle movements in its map section. —Dana B. Shoaf

town on September 7. The column subsequently marched through the Maryland Despite the modern towns of Rockville, Barnesville, Darnestown, obscurity of Colonel and Jefferson, toward Catoctin Mountain. On Irwin’s attack, Edwin September 14, the brigade trudged through Forbes completed this sketch in 1886 and Burkittsville to support William T.H. Brooks’ titled it Irwin’s Brigade brigade (also of Smith’s division) at Crampat Antietam. It bears a ton’s Gap. The brigade was subjected to similarity to the print on enemy artillery fire as it hurried through the the previous page. town but sustained no casualties. The men spent the afternoon and evening supporting Captain Romeyn Ayres’ divisional artillery and camped at the gap until Wednesday, September 17, when they began their march toward Antietam Creek. Irwin’s brigade reached its destination at 10 a.m. and crossed Antietam Creek at Pry’s Ford, where it was called into action by Smith to relieve troops from Maj. Gen. George S. Greene’s division of the 12th Corps.

IRWIN GOES IN

rigadier General William French’s division (2nd Corps) launched charge after charge against the Sunken Road during this time. To relieve pressure on D.H. Hill’s two brigades defending the road, wing commander James Longstreet directed a counterattack meant to land on French’s vulnerable right flank. John Cooke of the 27th North Carolina led his regiment and the 3rd Arkansas (Colonel Van Manning’s Brigade in Brig. Gen. John Walker’s Division) out of the West Woods and against French’s flank. The ambitious band assisted in routing the left of Greene’s division holding the Dunker Church and then crossed Hagerstown Pike, setting their sights on the Union soldiers clearing out the Sunken Road. Irwin threw the 33rd and 77th New York out as skirmishers on the right of the brigade along Smoketown Road. The rest of the brigade was oriented south-southwest with its right on the road. The large 20th New York led the advance, the 49th New York followed on its right, and the 7th Maine advanced on its left en echelon. The 20th New York cleared the East Woods with Smith riding behind the regiment. As the three regiments dashed past the southern edge of the East Woods, they encountered retreating elements of Greene’s division. They then moved through Lieutenant Evan Thomas’ 4th U. S. Artillery, Battery A, firing at the enemy in the West Woods. Farther south, Cooke’s Confederate assault force climbed over the fences lining Mumma Lane and entered a cornfield. Before Cooke’s men could attack French, they were hit by John Brooke’s brigade (Israel Richardson’s 1st Division, 2nd Corps) that was rushed toward the Roulette Farm buildings from the east to halt the two enemy regiments. The 7th Maine also rushed forward to add its support from the north. While Brooke’s men fired into the enemy’s front, the 7th Maine fired into the left flank of the 27th North Carolina. The intense fire in their front and flank was more than Cooke’s men could handle and they broke in confusion, followed closely by Irwin’s men. While the 7th Maine was engaged with Cooke, the 20th New York came to a rise in the ground just to the east of the Hagerstown Pike that had sheltered Greene’s men earlier in the day. It was ordered to halt there, but the New Yorkers kept going until they were driven back by small arms fire from Manning’s Brigade and an enemy battery stationed near the West Woods. The New Yorkers quickly retraced their steps to the high ground and lay down behind the hill. They were soon joined by the 49th New York who also took cover. After repulsing Cooke and clearing the Mumma Farm buildings, the 7th Maine also returned to the brigade, lying down behind the hill on the left of the 20th New York. The 33rd and 77th New York, on the skirmish line to the right of the rest of the brigade, had their own share of excitement. As they headed toward the West Woods, with the 33rd New York on the right of the Smoketown Road and the 77th New York on its left, they were closely

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NIDAY PICTURE LIBRARY/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; USAHEC

NORDIC WARRIOR

Colonel Ernst von Vegesack led the 20th New York at Antietam. He was born in Sweden and served as a Swedish army officer before coming to America. He received a Medal of Honor for directing troops under heavy fire at Gaines’ Mill as a volunteer on Brig. Gen. Dan Butterfield’s staff. After the war, he returned to his native country to serve in its military.

watched by the 49th and 35th North Carolina (Robert Ransom’s Brigade in John Walker’s Division). The Tar Heels hopped behind a rail barricade they had previously built just north of the Dunker Church. Irwin explained what happened next: “A severe and unexpected volley from the woods on our right struck full on the Seventy-seventh and Thirty-third New York, which staggered them for a moment, but they closed up and faced by the rear rank, and poured in a close and scorching fire.” Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Corning of the 33rd New York reported his regiment was “in columns at the time, marching by the right flank. This sudden and unexpected attack caused a momentary unsteadiness in the ranks, which was quickly rectified. The battalion faced by the rear rank and returned the fire.” Captain Nathan Babcock of the 77th New York claimed the two lines were so close that “you could see the white of their eyes.” The historian of the 49th New York claimed its two fellow New York regiments were “losing frightfully, and would doubtless have been annihilated had not General Smith seen their predicament and sent an aide to their FEBRUARY 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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CARTWHEELS TO COMBAT

Veterans of the 20th New York color guard with their battleshredded banners, including the state flag presented by the “City of New York.” The 20th was primarily composed of German immigrants from New York City and New Jersey who belonged to Turnverein, or German gymnastic clubs. Members of such clubs were known as Turners, and the regiment was nicknamed the “Turner Regiment.” The sprightly soldiers put on occasional gymnastic shows in camp. The 20th served from May 1861 to June 1863. Aside from Antietam, the regiment’s other major fight came at the May 1863 Battle of Salem Church during the Chancellorsville Campaign.

of the Hagerstown Pike, who appeared to threaten the division’s left flank. Heavy fighting could be heard in the direction of Sharpsburg. The hills blocked most views of troop movements to the left, where the 5th and 9th Corps were in action. Irwin watched the Confederate columns and worried they could be supporting Lee’s right flank, now under attack. Irwin sent word to Smith requesting artillery support, and the division’s chief of artillery, Captain Emery Upton, complied. Captain John Wolcott’s Maryland Light Battery arrived as ordered and dropped trail with its three rifled guns. These guns threw a destructive cannonade against the enemy positions for half an hour before being replaced by Lieutenant Edward Williston’s 2nd U.S. Artillery’s six Napoleons. Enemy sharpshooters from D.H. Hill’s Confederate division began firing at the cannoneers from the Piper Orchard, causing Irwin to look to his best unit available to put an end to the sniping. He again turned to the 7th Maine. Hyde led his men toward the new target, the Piper Farm building complex, about half a mile away, firing while crossing the Sunken Road filled with enemy dead and dying. The beginning of the 7th Maine’s memorable

3RD BRIGADE

Units: 7th Maine, 20th New York, 33rd New York, 49th New York, 77th New York Strength: 2,164 Losses: 342 (64k-247w-31m)

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Colonel William H. Irwin THE BUFFALO HISTORY MUSEUM

rescue, who faced them by the rear rank and placed them behind the ridge, at right angles with the other regiments of the brigade.” The brigade re-formed in the safety of the Mumma swale. The swale sheltered Irwin’s men from the enemy’s small arms fire but not from their artillery and sharpshooters. The brigade also found itself in the uncomfortable position between dueling Union and Confederate artillery, causing considerable uneasiness among the men in the ranks. A Confederate battery fired along the flank and through the line of the 20th New York, which, from the nature of the ground, was compelled to refuse its left, and thus received the fire along its entire front. Sharpshooters from the woods to the right and to the extreme left also opened upon the brigade. Shell, grape, and canister swept from left to right. The enemy fired quickly and accurately, causing Irwin’s losses to accelerate. The historian of the 49th New York recalled, “the whirring shells and screaming shrapnel going both ways over their prostrate forms, reduced the most corpulent of the men to very thin proportions.” Major Thomas Hyde and his 7th Maine found themselves better protected by large boulders along their line and were able to see the Irish Brigade’s (Richardson’s Division, 2nd Corps) notable colors and the Union line finally breaching the Sunken Road, as well as artillery playing along the right of the line from Confederate batteries near the Dunker Church. The Germans of the 20th New York on the right, having only flat ground to lie on for protection, suffered mightily, and a stream of wounded headed for the rear. The regiments occupying protected terrain, such as the 7th Maine, lost but few men. At one point, Hyde suggested to Colonel Ernst von Vegesack of the 20th New York that the Confederates could possibly be sighting in on the 20th’s regimental colors being held high. Most of the brigade remained in this position, subjected to heavy artillery and sharpshooter fire for 24 hours, until relieved by a brigade from Maj. Gen. Darius Couch’s 4th Corps division (attached to the 6th Corps) on September 18. The 7th Maine did not stay inactive, however. The rugged men were dead shots and were deployed as sharpshooters against the Confederate artillery positions. One Maine sharpshooter known by the name of “Knox” drove every man from the guns of one section and knocked an unknown general officer from his horse in the distance. At about 4:30 p.m., Colonel Irwin became concerned about Confederate troops he could see moving across Reel Ridge to the west, on the other side

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

THE BUFFALO HISTORY MUSEUM

charge began as badly as it ended, with supporting Union guns accidentally firing into Hyde’s men, dropping four. Enemy soldiers in front of, and to the left of, Hyde’s men realized they were in danger of being cut off and ran for safety, clearing out the orchard. Hyde quickly obliqued his men to the left to take cover behind a ridge, on the south rim of the cup, running from behind the Piper barn to Hagerstown Pike. As Hyde rode up the high ground, he quickly took in the danger around him. Lying down in front of his men was a line of enemy troops from George T. Anderson’s Brigade and another body led by D.H. Hill himself, rushing along Piper Lane to his left in an effort to cut off his retreat. With the enemy in front, and closing on his right, Hyde quickly realized it was time to retreat. He ordered the regiment to move by the left flank before Hill’s men saw them, and double-quickened his men past the Piper barn, through a forced opening in the picket fence, and into the orchard. Additional troops, remnants of Cadmus Wilcox’s and Ambrose Wright’s brigades (both of Richard Anderson’s Division), still full of fight, headed for Piper Lane and opened fire just as Hyde’s men passed through the fence. Hyde’s men returned the fire and then Hyde instantly sent his men up the hill in the middle of the orchard, where they again halted to fire into G.T. Anderson’s men and others who were hurrying toward them. Hyde and the remnants of his regiment quickly retraced their steps back across the Sunken Road to the safety of the rest of the brigade hunkered down in the Mumma Farm swale. The 7th Maine won accolades for its actions at the Piper Farm and Hyde received the Medal of Honor, albeit at great cost. Irwin’s brigade occupied the battlefield for 26 hours until relieved at noon on September 18. Irwin summed up his brigade’s actions during the battle: “It was under fire constantly during this time in a most exposed position, lost 311 in killed and wounded, yet neither officers nor men fell back or gave the slightest evidence of any desire to do so. My line was immovable, only anxious to be launched against the enemy. I forbear comment on such conduct. It will commend itself to the heart and mind of every true soldier.” This article is excerpted from: Brigades of Antietam edited by Bradley M. Gottfried. Copyright © 2021 by The Antietam Institute. Published by The Antietam Institute, antietaminstitute.org

QUEST FOR IDENTITY BY DANA B. SHOAF he location of the Antietam battlefield photo above had eluded researchers for years. Who took it and when, however, was well known. Photographers Alexander Gardner and his assistant, James Gibson, both employed by Mathew Brady, took the images on September 19, 1862, two days after the battle. This exposure was one of a series showing dead soldiers and burial parties at work that Brady exhibited in his New York gallery in October 1862. The images shocked viewers, many of whom, far removed from battlefields, still entertained a sanitized view of war. “Mr. Brady has done something to bring home to us the terrible reality and earnestness of war. If he has not brought bodies and laid them in our dooryards and along the streets, he has done something very like it,” a New York Times correspondent would write, noting that a “terrible fascination” brought throngs of people to see them. William Frassanito studied these same images in his 1978 classic, Antietam: The Photographic Legacy of America’s Bloodiest Day. He was able to ascertain the location of most of Gardner’s images, but this one, stereoview #550, eluded him, mostly due to the photographer’s own caption, “Group of Irish Brigade, as they lay on the Battle-field of Antietam, Sept. 19, 1862.” The Irish Brigade served in the 2nd Corps and consisted of the 29th Massachusetts and the 63rd, 69th, and 88th New York Infantry. The storied unit assaulted the Sunken Road on September 17, suffering heavy casualties in the process. But after extensive hunting near the Sunken Road, Frassanito could not pinpoint the image’s location in that vicinity, partially due to the photo’s hazy background. In findings he published in his 2012 book, Shadows of Antietam, author Robert J. Kalasky was able to track down where the unfortunate soldiers were lying, and extensively documents his photo sleuthing. As can be seen in the following comparative images, Gardner’s camera was located behind the modern visitor center, facing toward Red Hill to the southeast and several yards away from the Mumma Farm Lane that is today paved and used for automobile traffic. The Irish Brigade attacked the Sunken Road about 400 yards to the south. The location of the image was thus determined, but a mystery remained. Who were these men? Kalasky speculated that they

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Position of Irwin’s brigade

AF AR

Roulette Farm

Approximate location of bodies in Gardner photo

Modern Visitor Center

Dunker Church

To Red Hill

Trees between Roulette fields

Trees along Roulette lane Sunken Road where Irish Brigade fought

hy would Gardner have labeled these men as “Irish Brigade” dead? There are a couple of possibilities. He might have been told the dead men were from New York, and not knowing exactly where the Irish Brigade attacked, he made his erroneous conclusion. The Elliott Map labels the Mumma Farm Lane as “Rebel

W Alexander Gardner 36

Works.” Today, the “Sunken Road” refers to a specific location, but when the photographers reached the battlefield, the nomenclature would not have been as precise. It’s possible that Gardner did not know exactly where the Sunken Road began and ended. Or he could have labeled the men as casualties from the well-known Irish Brigade as a marketing ploy. Gardner wanted to make money on his images, and wasn’t beyond manipulating the facts to make a buck, as he would prove in 1863 when he dragged a Confederate “sharpshooter” to his Devil’s Den lair at Gettysburg. Over the past decades diligent research has pinpointed the location of this image of Antietam’s grim harvest. And now, by correlating the information on the Elliott Map with the location of the image, I believe that the dead men were members of the 20th New York who had been dragged to a central location for mass burial. While that cannot be stated with 100 percent certainty, the case is certainly strong. The conclusion that the dead men are from the 20th New York rests with Civil War Times, but we would like to thank Chris Vincent and the Antietam Institute, Thomas G. Clemens, and the Center for Civil War Photography for their assistance with this article.

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN

he discovery of new historical primary documents is always exciting. In the spring of 2020, Andrew Dalton and Timothy Smith of Pennsylvania's Adams County Historical Society came across a long-forgotten map at the New York Public Library that marked battlefield burial trenches and individual grave sites of thousands of Union and Confederate soldiers killed at the Battle of Antietam. Drafted in 1864 by cartographer Simon G. Elliott, the detailed map locates 2,644 Union and 3,210 Confederate graves. Dashes on the map indicate Confederate locations, while Federal graves are identified by crosses. Dead horses were marked by figures resembling commas. The Union bodies were exhumed in 1866 and relocated to the Antietam National Cemetery, and the Confederates were eventually reinterred at Rose Hill Cemetery in Hagerstown. The map was a revelation for students of Antietam, and has a direct bearing on the photograph in question. Very close to the spot where Gardner’s “Irish Brigade” photo was taken, Elliott shows a mass grave of 20 soldiers from the 20th New York. Considering the fact that Colonel Irwin’s 6th Corps brigade attacked over this very ground and suffered a staggering 51 killed, it is very plausible to conclude that the dead soldiers pictured belonged to the 20th New York, shot down during their assault.

THEN AND NOW

The Elliott burial map, left, shows a 20th New York mass grave near the location of Gardner’s image. A map in Gleam of Bayonets indicates Irwin’s brigade retreated to the position shown in the modern satellite photo above.

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY; GOOGLE MAPS; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

belonged to Maj. Gen. George S. Greene’s 2nd Division of the 12th Corps, who passed over this ground during their late-morning attack toward the Dunker Church and the Hagerstown Turnpike.

keys in the topography

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN

NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY; GOOGLE MAPS; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

The Gardner image in question shows dead Union troops on the Antietam battlefield. That is uncommon in the Gardner series, which mostly shows the bodies of dead Confederates. Federal troops held the field and naturally buried their comrades first. There are a number of keys in the background of the photograph, indicated by the numbers below, that help locate its position. When the relative location of the Gardner image is juxtaposed with the mass grave of the 20th New York that cartographer Elliott placed in this nearly same location, it is not farfetched to conclude these corpses were men of that regiment. The jumbled forms have been placed on shelter tents and blankets so that burial parties could drag them to this central location for burial, and as they were going about their morose work when Gardner was taking his images, other dead men could have been dragged here. It’s sobering to think that these men who gave their life for their country are a drop in the bloody bucket of Antietam’s 23,000-plus casualties, and that they may now rest in unmarked graves in Antietam’s National Cemetery.

KEY: 1. Roulette house out of sight to the left 2. Portions of South Mountain visible through the haze 3. Mumma Farm lane, the modern park road 4. Trees separating Roulette Farm fields 5. Site of Mumma’s wartime cornfield 6. “Bump” sloping to “notch” in Red Hill 7. Trees along Roulette Farm lane

Lamb’s Knoll on South Mountain can be seen above Red Hill in the modern image, but is lost in the haze in Gardner’s photo.

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NO OVERNIGHT SUCCESS

UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE/UIG/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

This postwar image of Alexander Thomas Augusta was taken about the time he was at Howard University as the first African American professor of medicine, a position he had to fight long and hard to attain.

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PATHBREAKER WITH A

SCALPEL

ALEXANDER AUGUSTA

swam forward against waves of racism to become the United States Army’s FIRST BLACK SURGEON

BY MICHAEL G. WILLIAMS

ust beyond the Old Post Chapel entrance gate at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Va., stands an obelisk headstone bearing a detailed yet spartan inscription:

UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE/UIG/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

Commissioned surgeon of colored volunteers, April 4, 1863, with rank of Major. Commissioned regimental surgeon of the 7, Regiment U.S. Colored Troops, October 2, 1863. Brevetted Lieutenant Colonel U.S. Volunteers, March 13, 1865, “For Faithful and Meritorious Services.”

Beneath these impressive credentials—chiseled in bold letters—is the name AUGUSTA. To know the life, times, and military career of the man buried here is to better understand why Americans fought a civil war. Alexander Thomas Augusta was born in 1825 to so-called “free persons of color” in Norfolk, Va. A naturally intelligent boy, he was curious about the world, hungry for knowledge and improvement, and, most important, driven by an unstoppable spirit. But Augusta lived in an age of slavery and slave uprisings. He was six years old when Nat Turner staged his violent rebellion against slaveowners in nearby Southampton County, killing up to 65 people, 51 of whom were White. From then on, suspicion and distrust reigned over the Black community—free and enslaved.

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in the midst of the booming Gold Rush. By most accounts, Augusta was saving money to finance his next move, which took him and his wife to Toronto, Canada. Shortly after his arrival, Augusta enrolled as a medical student at the University of Toronto’s Trinity College. For the next six years, he endured the rigors of medical school, meanwhile working side jobs as a chemist and pharmacist, selling, as one advertisement announced, “Patent Medicines, Perfumery, Dye Stuffs, etc.,” as well as services such as tooth extraction, the filling of prescriptions, and the application of leeches. Finally, in 1856, Augusta accomplished a feat that many African Americans in his day would never have entertained, let alone successfully completed: He graduated from Trinity College with a bachelor of medicine. According to the college’s president, John McCaul, he was “one of [my] most brilliant students.” Not surprisingly, Augusta enjoyed Toronto, which was known for its racial tolerance. Life there was normal. He could excel without swimming against the currents of racial bigotry. After his graduation, he opened a medical practice and had a fair amount of White patients. He also devoted enormous energy to activism within the local Black community. In addition to his work as a physician, Augusta cultivated a conspicuously public presence as a champion of racial equality. He helped draft petitions against anti-Black candidates for the Canadian parliament, arranged events featuring abolitionist speakers, and served as the president

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GRANGER, NYC; OBLATE SISTERS OF PROVIDENCE ARCHIVES, BALTIMORE, MD

THE PRINTED WORD

Daniel Payne, who would become president of Wilburforce University in Ohio, taught Augusta to read. The future surgeon soon devoured any book he could get his hands on.

TO MAKE ENDS MEET

While pursuing his medical education at Trinity College in Toronto, Canada, Augusta filled his “spare time” pulling teeth, applying leeches, and grinding up medicine. When did he sleep?

THE PROVINCIAL FREEDMAN; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Whites did everything in their power to keep Blacks from organizing, including efforts to hold them back intellectually. To teach a person of color how to read, for example, was a serious offense and, from the slaveholding perspective, an imminent threat to life and property. Augusta, however, vigorously pursued his ambitions; one of them was reading. While in his late teens, he secretly learned to do so with the help of Daniel Payne, who later became both a bishop in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the president of Ohio’s Wilberforce University. Augusta read anything he could find. And although he was omnivorous when it came to subject matter, he nevertheless had a favorite topic—medicine. Increasingly well read, Augusta set out for Baltimore, Md., in 1847. Here, he settled down temporarily, and always with an eye toward doing more than reading. What he had in mind was virtually out of the question for a Black man in mid–19th century America. Shortly after landing in Baltimore, Augusta moved to Philadelphia with hopes of studying medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Sadly, in his attempt at admission, he met with his first taste of the institutionalized prejudice that was quickly becoming a cancer to the Union. According to some sources, the school denied his application because he was “inadequately” prepared for the curriculum. The reality of circumstances, however, skews more in the direction of skin color and the unsavory notion of a Black man transcending the boundaries of his designated position in society. But Augusta would have none of it, and, following a brief stint of tutelage under the guidance of a professor at the university, returned to Baltimore, married, and around 1850, went to California, where he worked as a barber

COSMOPOLITAN

An engraving of Toronto in 1854. The thriving port town on Lake Ontario had been a racial melting pot since the French established a trading post at the location in the 1750s.

AUGUSTA ENROLLED

AS A MEDICAL STUDENT

AT THE

UNIVERSITY

TORONTO’S

TRINITY COLLEGE of the Provincial Association for the Education and Elevation of the Coloured People of Canada. But the safety and prosperity he found in his new home unfortunately didn’t define the world over, and it definitely didn’t match conditions for Blacks in his native land, where the election of President Abraham Lincoln had sent the country spiraling on a path to civil war. ver the next few years, Augusta remained in Toronto reading headlines that dissolved from one seemingly earth-moving event to another: the Rebel bombardment of Fort Sumter; the Battle of Antietam; and, in 1863, President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation. The latter was a turning point for thousands of African Americans, including Augusta, who saw the proclamation as a beacon of hope and a call to action. Enforced as of January 1, 1863, Lincoln’s proclamation freed the slaves and allowed for the enlistment of Black soldiers in the Union Army. As a doctor, Augusta’s knowledge and skills were of great value to the war effort, and he immediately drafted a letter to the president offering his services:

I am now prepared to practice it, and would like to be in a position where I can be of use to my race. Lincoln and Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton forwarded Augusta’s correspondence to the Army Medical Board in Washington, D.C., which summarily rejected him for several reasons—his skin color foremost among them. Still, Augusta had never cowed to prejudice—whether it was encountered in learning how to read,

GRANGER, NYC; OBLATE SISTERS OF PROVIDENCE ARCHIVES, BALTIMORE, MD

THE PROVINCIAL FREEDMAN; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

I beg leave to apply to you for an appointment as surgeon to some of the coloured regiments, or as physician to some of the depots of ‘freedmen.’ I was compelled to leave my native country, and come to this on account of prejudice against colour, for the purpose of obtaining a knowledge of my profession; and having accomplished that object, at one of the principle educational institutions of this province,

EYES ON THE PRIZE

Augusta looks sharp in his U.S. Army surgeon’s uniform. Encouraged by the Emancipation Proclamation, he offered his services to the Union and would not be denied the opportunity.

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FREE MEN Alexander Augusta served as the chief surgeon at Camp Stanton, a recruiting and training post for African American Union soldiers named for Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton and located south of Washington in Charles County, Md., along the Patuxent River. The camp operated between August 1863 and March 1864. The 7th, Augusta’s original unit, as well as the 9th, 19th, and 30th USCT regiments were organized and or trained there. All the units saw hard fighting around Petersburg and Richmond during the last campaigns of the war.

Armstrong

The Lincoln administration chose this location as a USCT training camp to recruit from the large African American population in southern Maryland and to also suppress pro-Confederate sentiment in the region. The White commander of the 9th USCT, Colonel Samuel Armstrong, described the nearby town of Benedict as a “horrible hole, a rendezvous for blockade runners, deserters, and such trash; good for nothing but oysters….” Camp Stanton’s waterside location proved unhealthy, and dozens of recruits died here of disease, prompting the camp’s closure in March 1864. The camp was burned to the ground, and the dead buried at Camp Stanton were later reinterred at Arlington National Cemetery. 42

IN CONTRAST TO AUGUSTA

Officers of the 7th USCT, Augusta’s first regiment, in an image reportedly taken in Jacksonville, Fla. A young Black refugee hands a pipe to one officer from the doorway of a winter shelter.

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NATIONAL ARCHIVES; HOWARD UNIVERSITY

CAMP FOR

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; FLORIDA MEMORY

TRAINING

going to medical school, or serving his native country in the fight for the Union and emancipation. So, Augusta left Toronto for Washington, where he immediately petitioned the board. “I have come near a thousand miles at great expense and sacrifice,” he told them, “hoping to be of some use to the country and to my race at this eventful period.” This simple statement moved the board to give the 38-year-old physician a chance at the qualifying exams. Augusta passed with flying colors and received both an appointment as the United States Army’s first Black surgeon and a commission as a major, making him the highest ranking African American officer in the U.S. military. Two days later, Augusta created a stir in Washington at a reception celebrating the first anniversary of the freeing of the slaves in the Union capital. As a reporter with the Evening Star observed, “The appearance of a colored man in the room wearing the gold leave epaulettes of a Major, was…the occasion of much applause and gratulation with the assembly.” But not everyone was impressed. Some were disgusted by the sight of a “colored officer.” In May 1863, a crowd of Whites assaulted Augusta as he took his seat on a train at Baltimore’s President Street depot—one of the men cursing him before ripping the epaulettes from his uniform. Furious, Augusta reported the incident to the provost marshal, whose men managed to arrest a handful of the perpetrators. Other similar indignities followed, all of them constant reminders of the country’s systemic racism. Throughout the following year, Augusta encountered numerous instances of discrimination, insubordination from White enlisted men, and even acts of disdain on the part of civilians; perhaps the most humiliating of them occurring in 1864. In February, Augusta was on “detached service” from his original unit, the 7th Regiment of U.S. Colored Troops, working as senior surgeon at Camp Stanton in Maryland. On February 1, he had to be in nearby Washington to give testimony in a court-martial regarding the murder of a Black man. That morning, he left his home in a torrential downpour, and hoping to remain dry, hailed a streetcar. As Augusta later recalled: “[W]hen I attempted to enter, the conductor pulled me back and informed me that I must ride on the front

MAKING STATEMENTS

In his neat handwriting, Augusta records the racism he faced while boarding a Washington City Railway car. The document below lists Augusta as a member of the Howard University faculty and a “Demonstrator of Anatomy.” Dr. Augusta’s fighting spirit against racial prejudice never quailed.

as it was against the rules for colored persons to ride inside. I told him I would not ride on the front, and he said I should not ride at all. He then ejected me from the platform, and at the same time gave orders to the driver to go on. I have therefore been compelled to walk the distance in the mud and rain, and have also been delayed in my attendance upon the court.” The incident garnered widespread attention, especially with abolitionist lawmakers such as Charles Sumner, who addressed the matter during a Senate floor debate. The significance of these events, however, isn’t simply in what they said about Augusta’s strength of character, but also what they revealed about the United States at the close of the war. uccess stories like Augusta’s were largely the result of a perfect storm of human qualities—penetrating intelligence, fearlessness and determination, persistence, and a healthy sense of righteous indignation. Augusta should not have had to fight so hard to achieve what he did, and that spoke volumes about the racial problems that ultimately went unaddressed, even in the wake of a conflict that killed more than 600,000 people. After Augusta mustered out a breveted lieutenant colonel in 1866, he continued to fight for his own betterment and that of thousands of other African Americans. In September 1868, he joined the faculty of Howard University’s Medical School, becoming the first Black professor of medicine in U.S. history. In the coming years, he also continued in private practice, founded the nation’s first African American medical society, and helped lay the foundation for what would eventually become the National Medical Association. He died in December 1890 at age 65, his headstone at Arlington bearing mere traces of the full life he lived.

NATIONAL ARCHIVES; HOWARD UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; FLORIDA MEMORY

Michael Williams is a Maryland-based writer and historian. He is currently working on a book about the untold story of Rebel Baltimore, General Lew Wallace, and a detective who saved the Union. FEBRUARY 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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The war in their words

‘I STILL SUFFER

VETERAN “WAR SKETCHES” OFFER UNIQUE GLIMPSE

BY JON-ERIK GILOT

VETERANS OF MANY FIELDS

Members of the Captain Thomas Espy Post 153 gather to celebrate Memorial Day on May 30, 1904. The G.A.R. was one of the first racially integrated social/fraternal organizations in America.

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SOLD

ER TO THIS DAY’

SOLDIER EXPERIENCE DURING AND AFTER

COURTESY OF THE CAPTAIN THOMAS ESPY POST

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THE

CONFLICT

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A STEP INTO THE PAST

Chartered in 1879, the Thomas Espy Post moved into a room in the Andrew Carnegie Free Library in 1906. When the last member died in 1938, the room was locked and left undisturbed for 50 years, preserving its history and artifacts such as this gavel and block.

veterans were asked to name their most intimate comrades during their service; what each veteran deemed his most important contribution to the war; and if there were any specific events they would like to ‘concisely’ record for posterity. Their answers offer a glimpse into the feelings and memory of these veterans several decades removed from their wartime service. Because their answers were not intended for publication or even to be shared outside the post, the veterans are seemingly candid or frank in their responses. The Captain Thomas Espy Post in Carnegie, Pa., was chartered in 1879 and grew to include more than 200 members, ranging from lawyers and engineers to coal miners and laborers. Veterans of the Espy Post served in organizations from 13 states and included infantry, cavalry, artillery, and navy in both the Eastern and Western theaters. As such, the Espy Post serves as a good litmus test for the composition of average G.A.R. posts across the country. BADGE OF HONOR Located only several miles away from the Espy Post The G.A.R. membership was the Colonel Robert G. Shaw Post, catering exclubadge was the first medal sively to African American veterans of the Civil War. Civil War veterans could Founded in 1881, the Shaw Post met for many years in don to commemorate their service. The brass drop has the thriving African American community of Pittsthe G.A.R. seal at center burgh’s Hill District, and would boast more than 275 with crossed rifles, swords, members, including 13 veterans who had served under cannons, an anchor, and an Shaw in the 54th Massachusetts Infantry. Like their infantry horn in each of the Espy Post comrades, veterans of the Shaw Post reprearms of the star. sented a wide variety of regimental organizations. Despite commonalities in geography and their service to the Union, members of the two posts did have divergent experiences. Many of the Shaw Post veterans were themselves born into slavery across the Southern states. Patriotic motives aside, these veterans were fighting for far more personal reasons. Unlike their White counterparts who faced death on the battlefield, in prison, camp, or the hospital, African American soldiers, if captured, faced re-enslavement or execution. As such, veterans of the Shaw Post were justly proud of their service. At an 1891 meeting of the post, an ornate register for the recording of Personal

PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN; HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS; OPPOSITE PAGE: COURTESY OF THE CAPTAIN THOMAS ESPY POST

ften overlooked among surviving Civil War accounts are the records of the Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.). The largest of all Civil War veterans organizations, from 1866 to 1956 the Grand Army of the Republic counted hundreds of thousands of Union Army veterans among its ranks in more than 10,000 local posts. While voluminous recordkeepers, the G.A.R. did not adhere to a firm policy for records retention upon the closure of a local post. As a result, local post records have become scattered or lost entirely. Among the most fascinating of G.A.R. records are Personal War Sketches. Surfacing just before the turn of the century, these sketches were compiled from pre-printed questionnaires or through oral histories conducted with the local Post Historian, who would then transcribe the dictations into a bound register. These questionnaires would pose veterans with more than two dozen pointed questions relating to their service during the Civil War. Researchers can use any number of resources to verify much of the information these veterans provided. Dates of service, rank, organizations, hospital stays—these can all be checked against service records, many of which have been recently digitized. Most intriguing, though, these Personal War Sketches touch on subjects that don’t always convey on standardized government forms. At the end of each questionnaire or interview, the

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PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN; HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS; OPPOSITE PAGE: COURTESY OF THE CAPTAIN THOMAS ESPY POST

PEN. PAPER. MEMORIES.

The Personal War Sketches kept by the Captain Thomas Espy Post asked veterans to respond to a series of questions, including routine information about rank and service dates, as well as providing more intimate details about close comrades and important events that occurred.

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War Sketches was donated as “a valuable and esteemed testimonial of…true loyalty and patriotism and esteem for the past service of those who dared death for the preservation of this great country.” The post recognized the importance of recording their wartime experiences, and that on the passing of the last veteran, “our children and our children’s children read with interest these lines and cherish the memory of those comrades…when the great cause for which they suffered and died will be known.” Although the Espy Post did not have a dedicated register for its Personal War Sketches, dozens of the printed questionnaires survive, penned by the individual veterans. In comparing these Personal War Sketches from two seemingly disparate G.A.R. posts, several common themes emerge. Comradeship was valued by veterans of both posts. Thomas J. Laurel was a veteran of the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry, the only African American cavalry regiment raised in Massachusetts during the war. Laurel’s service with the regiment would stretch from Petersburg, Va., to far-off Clarksville, Texas. Laurel remarked that “I was as loth [sic] to part from my comrades at discharge as I was to leave home when I enlisted.” One of Laurel’s comrades in

the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry, Matthew Lucas, similarly said, “I was glad the war was over and that I could go home…I was loath to part from my comrades,” demonstrating the bonds that formed with these men who had together experienced battlefields and suffering. In October 1864, William Strother enlisted as a substitute in the 32nd USCT, and within weeks found himself in line of battle at Honey Hill, S.C. Strother would survive numerous other engagements during the winter and spring of 1865, drawing him “very much attached to…the comrades of my regiment & company.” Augustus Baum related that his most intimate comrade was “my own brother, Charles, who died from the effects of the hardships encountered in the service.” Augustus and Charles Baum had enlisted together in the 83rd Pennsylvania in February 1865. Charles died of disease only four months later at Arlington Heights, Va. Baum’s sketch is notable, as well, for his recollection of a distressing incident during his first enlistment with the 37th Ohio during the winter of 1862. “What do you deem the most important events in your service?” the sketch asks, to which he responds:

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2)

FOR POSTERITY

Sketches for the Colonel Robert G. Shaw Post were recorded by the Post historian and dictated by its Black members, some of whom had been enslaved and could not read. Like the Shaw Post members, this unidentified Black veteran hailed from Pittsburgh, Pa.

SOLDIERS & SAILORS MUSEUM & MEMORIAL TRUST, INC. PITTSBURGH PENNSYLVANIA; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Could hardly tell. One was when wading across the icy Loup Creek, W.Va. waste deep about 20 times in a terrible dark wintry night under command of Gen’l Rosecrans and then stand

‘THE HORRORS WE SUFFERED’

The Battle of Malvern Hill, fought July 1, 1862, was part of the Seven Days Campaign. One veteran said he and his comrades were left injured on the battlefield for 15 days following the engagement.

James McGrogan of the 62nd Pennsylvania also described a harrowing experience, his at the Battle of Malvern Hill on July 1, 1862. Severely wounded in the left leg, he was left on the field and captured by Confederate troops, who removed him to a nearby field hospital, where his leg was amputated.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2)

SOLDIERS & SAILORS MUSEUM & MEMORIAL TRUST, INC. PITTSBURGH PENNSYLVANIA; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

picket with the wet icy cloth on till daylight, without being allowed to make the least light or fire, besides being treated at same time with 3 days starvation. The skirmishes and battles after were insignificant compared with the exposure mentioned. To state narrow escapes or other important events experienced sounds to egotistical and does not agree with my sense of good taste, no matter how intense my wish may be to comply with what is desired by the Post.

The first Battle I think was at Orange Court house Va but soon came the memorial [memorable?] 7 Days in which we were all engaged until I was left on the feild at Malvernd hill[.] We sayed there for 15 days never got a cup of tea or coffee or any thing to eat except dough and the maggots running all over us. I could not describe the horrors we sufferd for the 15 Days. hoping I shall never experience the same again. William Snyder of the 193rd Pennsylvania recalled his most memorable event: Going from Camp Copeland to Baltimore I was

standing on top of [train] cars and was struck on the head while passing under a Bridge at York Pa and suffer to this day from the Blow I received at the time. Other veterans also recall broken health from their service that continued to plague them in their later years. David Hartzell of the 22nd Pennsylvania Cavalry related that “my physical health has been greatly broken down from a complication of diseases contracted while in the services of the United States,” including kidney problems, chronic diarrhea, rheumatism, catarrh of the stomach, and general debility. John Trimble, a veteran of the hard fighting 1st Pennsylvania Cavalry, boasted of having had “as good health…as any man in the service,” but contracted “ague, chills and fever near Petersburg VA in summer of 1864 and have never been able to get clear from the effects. And I have it yearly yet.” Most evocative among the Personal War Sketches for the Espy and Shaw posts are the accounts of those soldiers who spent time as prisoners of war. John Chaplin of the 3rd Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery served as a guard over General W.H.F. ‘Rooney’ Lee at Fort Monroe following Lee’s capture at Brandy Station, Va. Lee was later exchanged, and Chaplin was himself wounded and captured at the Battle of Cold Harbor. Was a guard over Genl Lee ( Jr) in Fortress Monroe Va. and prevented him from escaping there. When I was captured I was taken to his tent and he recognized me, but gave me good treatment and my wound was treated better after seeing Gen Lee.

Gen. ‘Rooney’ Lee Mathew Nesbit, a former slave, served briefly as a servant in the 8th Iowa Cavalry before enlisting in Company E, 44th U.S. Colored Troops. At Dalton, Ga., on October 13, 1864, Nesbit and more than 700 of his comrades were captured in what would be the FEBRUARY 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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single largest surrender of African American troops during the Civil War. Though wounded from a clubbed musket, Nesbit was determined to avoid a fate outlined nearly two years before by Confederate President Jefferson Davis—that he and his comrades be returned to a state of slavery, or even face execution. In his sketch he reveals his story: Mathew Nesbit first inlisted the 14th day of June 1864 at Chattanooga Tenn as Private in Company E 44 regiment of collar volleters for a period of 3 year and as following in Tennsee, Georgia, Misspia, Alabama. On ore about September 1864 was taken prisner of war at Dalton Georga and was wonde in the sholders with the stroke of a mustket and brok prison near Carent Miss and was recaptured near sumervill Alabama. Brok prison near Gunters Vill Allabama on the march from Chattanooga Tenn July 1864. Was sick from the mesals but marched the hol way without medson or atenton to Rome Georga. The mesals went in on me deurn time of my imprison. I suffer with the afect. About Ap 1864 I went in the 8th Iowa Calvry Company H. That was captin Mat Woldon’s Co and at the Batel Actworthe the, the Batel of Big Shan all times at first of Batt of Kennesaw Mouten. This was befor I inlisted in the 44 Reg of infray. I was a slave and was ond by William Nesbit of Gorden County Georga. At the clos of the war I was muster out of sirvis at Nashville Tenn in Apr 30 1866.

CAPTIVE AUDIENCE

Many Civil War veterans felt it was a duty to hand down their personal battlefield stories and experiences to following generations.

Another Shaw Post veteran, Edward Logan of the 55th Massachusetts, relates being captured with two of his comrades at North Edisto, S.C. in November 1863. Logan “thought that we was done for sure, as Jefferson, the Confederate President, had issued orders to hang all of the n___r soldiers that was captured fighting with the Yankees.” Instead, Logan and his comrades were sent to a series of prison camps, and after 15 months Logan was the only one of the three to survive the ordeal. “I don’t know how I did live to come out,” he marveled, confessing, “I was no good as a soldier afterwards.” In closing, he shared a sentiment likely felt by many prisoners of war, “I did not see much of the war, but I was in a much worse place than the battlefield.” Charles McDonald, a veteran of Battery I, 2nd Illinois Light Artillery, was captured by soldiers of the 45th Alabama at Big Shanty, Ga., on June 7, 1864, and would eventually be sent to five different prison camps. An incident at Camp Sorghum in Columbia, S.C., stuck with him in particular. On October 13, 1864, Lieutenant Edward B. Parker of Battery B, 1st Vermont Heavy Artillery, died of injuries received from bloodhounds while trying to escape from the prison. In his Personal War Sketch, McDonald

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DRESS CODE

The G.A.R. was organized with “Departments” at the state level and “Posts” at the community level. Members wore military-style uniforms, such as this kepi.

Organized in 1866 in Illinois, the Grand Army of the Republic was a fraternal organization of veterans of the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marines who served during the Civil War. First formed to provide for fellowship, it soon became a powerful political advocacy group (one of the first of its kind), supporting voting rights for Black veterans, helping to make Memorial Day a national holiday, and lobbying for regular veterans’ pensions. At its peak, in the 1890s, it included hundreds of local community units called “posts” all over the country and boasted 410,000 members. It was dissolved in 1956 after the death of its last member, Albert Woolson of Duluth, Minn.

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‘FRATERNITY, CHARITY, AND LOYALTY’

wrote about an equally grisly incident in December 1864 related to Parker’s death:

BATTLE SCARS

G.A.R. members, such as William Glenn, below, said they were grateful to be among the war’s survivors, despite suffering debilitating wounds like this Massachusetts vet.

From February 14th 1865 I was held prisoner at Charlotte N.C. a few days from thence to Raliegh N.C. from there to Goldsboro N.C. where on March 11th taken for exchange or rather parole. In connection with my prison life there is one incident which occured Dec 8th 1864 at Camp Sorghum Columbia that was dangerous and exciting. I with my own hand killed two blood hounds that was kept there for the especial purpose of running down and tearing to death prisoners who escaped. The death of one Lieut Parker being most beastly and inhumane I was anxious to avange which I did.

Four days later, McDonald was transferred from Camp Sorghum and was released from confinement in March 1865. Many veterans expressed a sense of patriotism and satisfaction in having served their country. William Chambers, who spent two years with the 88th Ohio guarding Confederate prisoners at Camp Chase, said he enlisted “to save our country.” Reese Evans of the 110th Pennsylvania was proud that “I offered my services to my country.” Isham Lafayette of the 2nd USCT Cavalry deemed “the most important events of my service was to be always able and willing to do my duty.”

I WAS IN IT AND LIVED TO SEE

THE END OF IT, AND THE GLORY NOW OF BEING ONE THAT HELPED

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TO END A REBELLION At least one veteran, Daniel H. Rice of the 102nd Pennsylvania, remained defiant after the passage of several decades. While Rice’s service records indicate he was drafted and mustered into service in July 1863, Rice claims in his Personal War Sketch that he had actually entered the service with the regiment in March 1862. He claims that while on the way to meet the regiment, he and 25 men were attacked by a party of guerrillas, during which the officer in charge lost his satchel, containing the correct enlistment papers. As such Rice asserts that his descriptive records were incorrect because “they filed up papers in Washington to suit themselves to hold us in the army.” Finally, even several decades removed from the conflict, many of the veterans were simply thankful to have survived. Espy veteran John Trimble remarked with pride, “I was in it and lived to see the end of it, and the glory now of being one that helped to end a rebellion.” George D. Grouse, a veteran of the 8th USCT who suffered a painful leg wound at the Battle of Olustee, Fla., in February 1864, noted that “the most interesting event of my soldier life was that I was not killed in some of the battles that I was engaged in.” Enoch Holland of the 9th Pennsylvania Reserves recalled his most important event during his service was “being shot at and trying to keep from being hit,” while Captain William J. Glenn of the 61st Pennsylvania, wounded at Charlestown, W.Va., in August 1864, noted that “I simply, reverently, thank God that I am a survivor.” A simple Google search finds that several libraries and archives have digitized various Personal War Sketches from their collections, including the sketches of the Espy Post veterans, available at www.carnegiecarnegie.org. The Personal War Sketches of the Shaw Post are part of a collection of

more than 2,000 sketches held at Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall in Pittsburgh. These accounts offer a terrific resource for evaluating the experiences and memory of the common soldier in his own words.

Jon-Erik Gilot is a contributing historian at Emerging Civil War. He works as an archivist and public historian in Wheeling, W.Va., and since early 2021 has served as Curator at the Captain Thomas Espy Grand Army of the Republic Post in Carnegie, Pa. FEBRUARY 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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SOUTHBOUND AFTER APPOMATTOX, GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE’S TROOPS BEGAN THEIR

JOURNEYS HOME BY CAR O LI N E E. JAN N EY

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hortly after the Army of Northern Virginia laid down its arms on April 12, 1865, thousands of Confederate veterans began heading back to their homes. Throughout the Carolinas and into Georgia and beyond, they clambered onto railroad cars. Railroad travel proved sporadic and unpredictable at best. Men might catch a freight train in Greensboro or Salisbury only to find that they must disembark where the tracks had been destroyed and hoof it to the next station. Even among those who rode the rails for a portion of the trip, a substantial amount of time was spent walking. A significant number of soldiers from the Deep South had first gone to City Point and Fort Monroe, Va., hoping to sail south. After traveling by train from Burkeville to Fort Monroe, 450 parolees from several Alabama and Georgia regiments climbed aboard the Admiral Dupont. The 200-foot side-wheel steamer had begun the war as a Confederate blockade runner, but now it sailed south to Savannah filled with prisoners of war. On the evening of April 19, the men disembarked from the great iron ship before marching to the Camp of Distribution near the Central Railroad grounds to await the trains. Several days later, a guard of 22 men from the 3rd Pennsylvania Artillery accompanied more than 500 paroled rebels aboard the steamer Kingfisher into Savannah’s harbor. But this homecoming was marked by an additional sorrow. During the trip, 22-year-old Private Richard Cribb of the 10th Georgia Battalion succumbed to illness. So close to

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his Dooley County home, he died at sea, his comrades committing his body to a watery grave. Although the brigades and regiments splintered more as they moved south, men continued to travel in small groups rather than alone. Sergeant Major Lewis H. Andrews of the 8th Georgia had been among the approximately 250 men of Anderson’s Brigade who had marched away from Appomattox. Yet within a few days, Andrews and five others had struck out on their own. Even with their smaller party, finding food remained almost as challenging as securing transportation. At Salisbury, Andrews and his

THEIR WAR IS OVER

These captured Army of Northern Virginia soldiers were photographed at White House Landing, Va., in early June 1864. Similar scenes would have played out in April 1865 at Appomattox Court House as General Robert E. Lee’s men began their uncertain journeys home.

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WEST POINT MUSEUM

ut the homeward-bound trip could prove perilous beyond the quest for food and transportation. Having made their way well into North Carolina, Gus Dean and 14 of his comrades of the 2nd South Carolina Rifles rejoiced when they stumbled upon an unoccupied shed after a long day’s march. But the good fortune proved shortlived. During a particularly heavy downpour, the shed collapsed on the sleeping men. Large logs came crashing down on William McClinton, crushing his head and chest, killing him instantly. A piece of scantling landed on Dean’s head and hip, pinning him under the debris for more than an hour before his companions managed to pull him out. BEATEN Others encountered unexpected detenGray-clad men furl their tions by Union forces. Lewis Andrews and battle flags under gray his traveling companions arrived in Greensskies at Appomattox boro on April 19. But that evening, as Joe Court House. Most of Johnston and William T. Sherman awaited the roughly 28,000 approval of their proposed surrender terms, Confederates there laid Union troops forced Andrews and his comdown their arms during rades into a parole camp. In a town rife with a ceremony on April 12, 1865. Others simply rumors—that President Lincoln had been walked away. killed, that Secretary of State William

Seward had been wounded, that Jefferson Davis had been captured, and that an armistice of 10 days was in effect—the parole camp offered the safest respite for the night. In Montgomery, Ala., the Federal provost marshal assigned members of John Bell Hood’s Texas Brigade to quarters near the city’s artesian well. For a week, the men bivouacked in the twostory building as more of the brigade drifted into the town and their commanders, Captain W.T. Hill and Major W.H. “Howdy” Martin, attempted to secure passage to Mobile. As a reminder that they were prisoners of war passing through Union lines, the provost marshal ordered the men to have their paroles countersigned before boarding a steamer bound for Mobile. Reaching New Orleans several days later, the Texans again found themselves assigned to quarters in a large cotton shed—this time under guard—while they waited more than nine days to make the next leg of their journey. Those still on the road sought out Confederate-sympathizing civilians willing to provide food and lodging. Most were individuals or families, such as the Stileses near Asheboro, N.C., who prepared a “big mess of chicken for the crowd” of soldiers passing their home on April 21. Indicative of what had changed as much as what had not, in countless instances paroled men found themselves waited on by men and women who remained in bondage despite Lee’s surrender. Each day, soldiers filled the backyard and kitchen of Eliza Andrews’ Georgia home. To accommodate the hundreds, perhaps thousands,

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

comrades waited hours at a Union post for “eatables,” only to learn that none would be forthcoming. They left in disgust, marching another nine miles before finding a pile of straw in which to sleep. The train that arrived the next morning proved equally packed, “on top and everywhere else,” so the men designated as foragers set out to find something— anything—to eat, but returned with only two canteens of milk. After another restless night in the straw, they began marching again before sunrise. Marching toward Charlotte, their luck improved when a civilian supplied them with a lunch of bread, butter, pie, and milk. A few days later, still ravenous, two of the men literally ate crow. When they pronounced the meal “fine,” Andrews quipped he was willing to take their word for it.

HARD ROADS TO TRAVEL

Years of war had left a large portion of the former Confederacy’s infrastructure in ruins. Railroads had been particularly hard hit, as this image of an Orange & Alexandria Railroad section near Bristoe Station, Va., attests.

of men, her mother had kept two enslaved women “hard at work, cooking for them.” In other instances, entire communities worked to assist the soldiers, such as the ladies of Augusta, Ga., who organized a food and clothing drive for soldiers passing through the city, or the town of Edgefield, S.C., which held a “grand barbecue” of mutton, shoat, hams, turkeys, chickens, cakes, and custards to show their gratitude for the “toilsome and dangerous service these brave men have rendered.” Looking more like the homecoming of a triumphant army rather than a defeated one, the “gray coats and brass buttons and tinsel braidery...and brave, manly, young hearts were in full force.”

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WEST POINT MUSEUM

hether opening up their homes to small groups of men or hosting the remnants of entire brigades on their lawns, many of the civilians who aided the men on their journey home expressed a deep and continuing devotion to the Confederacy—and its soldiers. Such sentiments allowed them to forgive some returning soldiers for their transgressions. Eliza Andrews watched as soldiers seized horses in broad daylight in a Georgia town. When one veteran caught her staring at him as he led a mule away from its owner, the soldier called out, “A man that’s going to Texas must have a mule to ride, don’t you think so, lady?” Although she offered no reply, Andrews conceded in her diary that the Texan had so far to go that the temptation for him to take another man’s mule was great. On May 1, in a scene reminiscent of those that had taken place at Danville, Va., and Greensboro, a mob of Confederate soldiers ransacked Augusta, looting government stores and pillaging a tobacco shop. Yet the city paper tried to rationalize their actions. Using the same logic as that applied by Confederate officers who believed the men were due government goods as compensation for their service, the paper observed that “the sacking of government stores would have been proper enough had there been anything like fairness in the plunder of the property.” Instead, it proved “an unequal distribution...and the parties engaged have done great injury to their fellow soldiers who have not yet arrived.”

The paper declared the pillage of the tobacco shop “the most heinous part of the affair” because it affected private individuals. But, the editors insisted, “we do not believe that many of those implicated were of Lee’s or Johnston’s armies, if so, they were instigated by shameless parties.” Echoing Lee’s farewell address at Appomattox in which he had praised the loyalty, valor, and “unsurpassed courage and fortitude” of “the brave survivors of so many hard-fought battles,” newspapers and civilians alike reasoned that Confederate soldiers had fought valiantly and bravely only to be overwhelmed by superior Northern resources. Of course, they should not engage in looting and plundering. But many Confederate sympathizers believed it could be forgiven as part of the social contract that implied soldiers, especially those who had given their all, were entitled to be fed.

A MOB OF

CONFEDERATE SOLDIERS RANSACKED AUGUSTA, GA., LOOTING GOVERNMENT STORES AND PILLAGING A TOBACCO SHOP Although the vast majority of the White Southern population had supported the Confederate war effort, as the Army of Northern Virginia dispersed across the countryside, soldiers encountered both devoted Unionists and folks who had grown weary of Confederate impressment agents and refused to give any more for a cause that was certainly lost. Near Thomasville, N.C., a soaked and exhausted John Dooley and his comrades could find no place to dry their clothes or no morsel to eat. “The people in this vicinity seem rather unfavorable towards Confederate soldiers and are very distant and inhospitable,” he complained. “Most of them are of that persuasion call[ed] ‘Dunkers’ or ‘Friends’ who find their religion very convenient when war arises.” FEBRUARY 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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5 11 15

16 8

3 9

6 7 2

LAND-BASED CONFEDERATE SURRENDERS, 1865

Watie

9. Jefferson Davis Captured Irwinville, Ga., May 10

2. Brig. Gen. St. John Liddell Fort Blakeley, Ala., April 9

10. Department of Florida and South Georgia Tallahassee, Fla., May 10

3. Maj. Gen. Howell Cobb Columbus, Ga., April 16

11. Northern Sub-District of Arkansas Wittsburg, Ark., May 11

4. Lt. Col. John Mosby’s Rangers disband Loudoun County, Va., April 21

12. Brig. Gen. William Wofford’s command Kingston, Ga., May 12

5. Army of Tennessee Bennett Place, N.C., April 26

13. Palmito Ranch Brownsville, Texas, May 13

6. Dept. of Ala., Miss., and East Louisiana Citronelle, Ala., May 4

14. Trans-Mississippi Department Shreveport, La., May 26

7. District of the Gulf Citronelle, Ala., May 4

15. Native American Council Indian Territory, May 26

8. Nathan B. Forrest’s command Gainesville, Ala., May 9

16. Brig. Gen. Stand Watie’s command Fort Towson, Indian Territory, June 23

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Lee

1. Army of Northern Virginia Appomattox, Va., April 9

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2); WILSON’S CREEK NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD

When Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia surrendered at Appomattox Court House, it began a series of pivotal capitulations that brought the war to its close. The surrenders sent thousands of former Confederates on the move back to their homes. Some only had minutes to travel, but most faced journeys of hundreds of miles.

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Harry Townsend and his small band of Richmond Howitzers were warned to be careful upon crossing the border from Virginia into Stokes County, N.C. “The people are Tories or Union men in sentiment and are much greater lovers of the Yankees than of the Confederates,” Townsend observed. “They often attack Confederate soldiers who may be passing through this country and strip them of their valuables.” But the Unionist threat failed to materialize. In the pro-Union mountains of eastern Tennessee, Captain William Harder and his large group of paroled men were not so fortunate. Arriving in Sullivan County on April 23, the men were in desperate straits, “all nearly starved...naked and befuddled.” The locals refused to feed the Confederates, but they did offer a warning. “We were told that every Confederate that went through or attempted to go through eastern Tennessee were killed and that we would meet the same fate,” Harder explained. Still, the men pressed on to Greeneville, the home of President Andrew Johnson. With the U.S. troops either unwilling or unable to provide rations, the paroled men traded Confederate scrip to Federals for crackers and meat. Yet even in regions sympathetic to the Confederacy, the refusal or inability of civilians to provide food led some soldiers to resort to violence and plundering—just as Union and Confederate authorities had feared. Lieutenant David Champion, a Georgian, and his traveling companions became outraged when an older man in the Carolinas refused to accept Confederate money for corn and bacon. “Seeing it was useless to try to trade with him,” Champion explained, “I ordered the boys to go to his corn crib and

CAPTIVE AUDIENCE

Winslow Homer’s painting, Prisoners From the Front, was completed in 1866. The three Confederate prisoners represented a young yeoman, an aged man pressed into service, and a long-haired firebrand eager for the war.

smoke-house and get the corn and bacon we needed. We carried the corn to a mill nearby on the creek and ground it and borrowed his washpot to cook the meat in.” Not only did they take enough to satiate themselves in the moment, but they filled their haversacks before departing. When Lee’s men reached Charlotte—as in Danville and Greensboro—a mob of Confederate soldiers raided Confederate warehouses. Frank Mixson and Jim Diamond, who had already enjoyed their share of loot in Danville,

HOOFING IT

A Confederate soldier wore this pair of brogans, a type imported from England. Most surrendered Confederates had to walk home, a trip that for many would take days.

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FOOD FOR THE ROAD

Some Confederate troops headed home with dinged canteens and haversacks filled with Union rations like the piece of hardtack above. Others were not so lucky, and growling stomachs could cause “foraging” from locals or even riots at food warehouses. 58

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encountered a large crowd of Lee’s paroled men taking whatever they could shove into their pockets and makeshift haversacks. “But as we had plenty to eat we didn’t take much hand in it,” Mixson maintained. The two did, however, abscond with “a bolt of real good jeans.” As Charlotte erupted in chaos, John Dooley, a paroled prisoner from Johnson’s Island who had headed south along with many of Lee’s men vowing to continue the fight, now contemplated his options. Charlotte was rapidly filling with stragglers, officers, and government officials, including Jefferson Davis and his Cabinet, all of whom remained determined to push into the Trans-Mississippi. Each hour, hundreds more arrived along the railroad from Salisbury. But with no resources and no place to stay, should

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SAFETY IN NUMBERS

Except for a picket, muskets against the tree, and the romantic air about the scene, Gilbert Gaul’s painting, Nearing the End, gives an idea of how Confederates broke into small groups to make their way home.

Dooley return to Virginia? While he waited, others continued on their southward journeys into South Carolina. Crossing the border to the west of Charlotte, a surgeon of the 16th Georgia and his small mounted party found themselves in Union-controlled territory where their parole passes proved useful. At the Catawba River, they met troopers from the 12th Ohio Cavalry who escorted them through the lines before stopping in Yorkville (present-day York), where they again showed their passes to obtain U.S. rations. If the Yankees proved willing to assist the paroled Confederates, locals did not. Close to the Georgia border, the surgeon complained that the South Carolinians had proved especially inhospitable, refusing them at all but two houses along the way. “Would to compare S.C. with either N.C. or Virginia t’would be odious,” he scribbled in his diary. “There is no comparison both states being so far ahead of ‘little’ S.C. in generosity and hospitality.” As they continued their trek, in scenes repeated from Virginia to Texas and every place in between, Lee’s men began to reach their homes. The first priority for many of these soldiers hoping to resume their civilian lives was a bath or even a haircut. For men who had endured filth a good portion of their soldiering careers, cleaning themselves up offered one more step in the process of becoming a civilian. After walking more than 200 miles, on April 20 Robert Crumpler and his comrades from the 30th

TERMS of AGREEMENT FINAL DETAILS

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After Generals Grant and Lee met near Appomattox a second time, the Federal commander ordered passes, below, produced to ensure safe passage for the surrendered Confederates.

At the April 9, 1865, surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House, General Ulysses S. Grant’s terms had promised that General Robert E. Lee’s men would be allowed to return to their homes immediately. But Lee and Grant had failed to discuss the specifics of this process. After his meeting with Grant on April 9, Lee began to worry about the logistics of getting his men home. Early on the morning of April 10, he drafted a letter to the Union general-in-chief asking for guidance. Before departing for Washington, D.C., that morning, Grant decided that he should meet with Lee once more. Halting on a slope just northeast of the courthouse, the two generals sat astride their horses for nearly half an hour discussing a few more details while their principal officers held back, out of earshot. Lee turned to the concerns that had plagued him the previous evening: Unlike the surrender at Vicksburg, where Confederates headed back into their own territory, his men now would be forced to move through Union lines to return home. How could he be sure that their paroles would be honored and that they would not be arrested or treated as deserters? Calling Maj. Gen. John Gibbon to them, Grant explained that Lee was “desirous that his officers and men should have on their persons some evidence that they are paroled prisoners.” Lee concurred, observing that he wanted to do all in his power to

protect his men. Gibbon informed them his corps had a small printing press from which blank forms could be struck off. After the passes had been filled out and signed by their officers, they could be distributed to each officer and man within Lee’s army. Before heading toward Burkeville Junction around noon, Grant offered the surrendering Confederates one more provision. Special Field Orders No. 73 stated that “all officers and men of the Confederate service paroled at Appomattox Court House who to reach their homes, are compelled to pass through the lines of the Union armies, will be allowed to do so, and to pass free on all Government transports and military railroads.” The order was as practical as it was generous. By sending the paroled prisoners to their homes as quickly and efficiently as possible, Grant hoped the war’s end would come more swiftly. —C.E.J. FEBRUARY 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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North Carolina halted to wash and shave in the hopes of making themselves “as presentable as possible” before venturing on to their Sampson County homes. Others had been unable to wash their clothing, shave, or bathe before arriving home and therefore divested themselves of their filthy, tattered uniforms and cleaned themselves as quickly upon arrival as they could. Surgeon Spencer Welch of the 13th South Carolina had spooned with four of his companions each night and ridden astride his small mule for more than three weeks. Upon reaching his father’s home in Newberry, Welch shed his dirty, vermin-infested rags for “clean, whole clothes” and crawled into a real bed. These simple acts did more than anything to restore him. “I feel greatly refreshed,” he wrote his wife. And though the teenage Frank Mixson was overjoyed to see his loved ones, his arrival home prompted an immediate trip to the outhouse, where his family instructed him to wash and change into fresh clothing. His tattered and reeking Confederate uniform, however, was to be buried.

hether settled back at their homes or still on the road, Confederates moving across the South after Appomattox witnessed a world far removed from the slaveholding society they had pledged to defend in 1861. So did African Americans. On farms and plantations, cities and towns, enslaved men and women bore witness to the change the war had wrought. “I seen our ’Federates go off laughin’ an’ gay,” remembered an ex-slave from Alabama. They had departed for war singing “Dixie,” certain they were going to win, but now they returned skin and bones, their eyes hollow and their clothes ragged. At least some enslaved men who had been attached to Lee’s army returned alongside their former masters, anxious to be reunited with their own free families. Edwin Bogan of North Carolina was one such man who traveled home along with his former owner to his wife and young son. But newly freed men and women also joined the Rebel soldiers on the roads crisscrossing the region, underscoring all that had been done and undone during four years of war. Nowhere was the new order more apparent than in Confederate soldiers’ encounters with U.S. Colored Troops. On April 26, the Wilmington steamed into the Savannah port with 690 paroled Rebels, including David L. Geer and other members of Finegan’s Florida Brigade, who claimed to have killed two USCT soldiers back in Virginia. In Georgia, their deadly retaliation continued. While awaiting a ship to Jacksonville, a Black sentinel had reportedly stomped out the Floridians’ campfire. Enraged, they plotted his execution: Using a surgeon’s knife, they slashed the Black soldier’s throat, then tossed him and all evidence of the crime in the river. When White officers grew suspicious about the missing sentinel and threatened to send the Confederates to prison on the Dry Tortugas, Geer and 63 other Florida soldiers still awaiting steamers fled in the middle of the night, traveling overland rather than risk further inquiries. For a third time since leaving Appomattox, they had killed Black soldiers—and gotten away with it. Other interactions with Black soldiers proved less deadly but no less revealing of how much the social order had changed. At Selma, Ala., U.S. officers ordered members of Hood’s Texas Brigade to disembark from a train so that a USCT regiment might travel to Mobile. “We protested, of course, and bitterly, against what some of our men denounced as a regular ‘Yankee trick,’” wrote Captain W.T. Hill of the 5th Texas, “but our protest was unheeded, and we had to wait at Selma until the next day.”

THEY HAD KILLED

BLACK SOLDIERS—

Several days later at New Orleans, the Texans found themselves guarded by a USCT company—a slight that Hill believed to be intentionally demeaning. The presence of Black men in uniforms, perhaps more than the surrender itself, represented the death of the Confederacy and a new racial order. Yet some Confederates remained unwilling to acquiesce to such a reality. From Greensboro on April 25, Gordon McCabe wrote his future wife, Jane. He had arrived in the city on the 17th, and since then had received no word from Virginia. “Everybody here asked eagerly, ‘What is Virginia going to do?’” Fight, he told them. A handful of young Virginians had made their way to the railroad town hoping to join Joe Johnston’s forces.

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MORRIS ART MUSEUM

A NEW WORLD

Encountering African American troops during the journey home was a new experience for many defeated Confederates. Such interactions did not sit well with those who had fought to maintain the prewar status quo.

GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT

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AND

WAR’S HARD HAND

MORRIS ART MUSEUM

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A grieving Southern soldier stands before his ruined family home in this 1868 painting by Henry Mosler.

Both Ham Chamberlayne and David McIntosh had continued southward toward South Carolina, he told her. But others remained in North Carolina weighing their options. “There are a great many Va. officers here, who are forming themselves into a Battalion—a sort of Corps d’Elite,” he explained. “Where we are going, of course, I do not know; to Trans-Miss., I suppose, if we can elude Sherman.” But a thread of realism ran through him. “If God spares my life, and this Army should be surrendered,” he continued, “I propose to return to Virginia before going abroad, unless France and the United States get to fighting, when we may probably get something to do in the service of H.S.H. Napoleon III.” He would go to Mexico and fight for the French. But he would not—could not—live under Yankee rule. During the last week of April, Harry Townsend and his fellow artillerists finally reached their destination of Lincolnton, N.C. Perched on a high bluff above the South Fork of the Catawba River, the town had been the rallying point for those who had escaped Appomattox and hoped to continue the struggle. Here they found residents handing out provisions at the courthouse for both paroled and unparoled soldiers as well as offering beds in several local hotels and residences. But they found very little news. “We had expected to gain some definite information at this point which could guide our future course, but found no orders awaiting us, nor any officer in command,” Townsend recorded in his diary. Instead, they spoke with a paroled lieutenant who informed them that Secretary of War John Breckinridge had refused the service of officers and men from Lee’s army and had bid them to return to their homes, as no Confederate government now existed east of the Mississippi River. Sympathetic to their aims, however, the lieutenant advised them to go to Charlotte, where they might learn something more definitive.

Townsend and his comrades headed for the Queen City. For McCabe, Pendleton, Townsend, and others who remained committed to the cause, the Army of Northern Virginia had not yet been thoroughly vanquished. For Confederates determined to return home to loyal Union states, the story would prove much different.

Caroline E. Janney is the John L. Nau III professor in the History of the American Civil War and Director of the John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History at the University of Virginia. This article is excerpted from: Ends of War: The Unfinished Fight of Lee’s Army After Appomattox by Caroline E. Janney. Copyright © 2021 by Caroline E. Janney. Published by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. www.uncpress.org FEBRUARY 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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ARMAMENT

EXPRESS YOURSELF

Some bullets were simply whittled into a point, or even lead pencils. Others, like these, became miniature masterpieces. Several of them have a Confederate twist. Across the top, from left, is a Texas star, corpse in a coffin, and a “Yank” tombstone. Another corpse leers from this Minié ball grave, and “XXX” on a bottle reflects a craving for a good stiff drink. Classical motifs adorn the slug at left.

THE MALLEABLE

AMERICANS CALL IT the Minié ball after French Captain Claude Etienne Minié, but we should really call it the Burton ball after James H. Burton, the Harpers Ferry armorer who refined Minié’s slug into the conical killer we all know. Three rings, two rings, or smooth, millions of Minié balls were made during the war. Most of those went down the barrels of muskets to be launched back out at enemies, but others served to occupy the time of bored soldiers. Inventive troops could carve the soft lead into a wide array of shapes to pass the time. Some were simply sliced into slivers, while others became artistic expressions. Many troops were more prosaic with their knives, turning the bullets into tools to keep weapons in good order, like the cone protector on the opposite page. While the Minié ball did not see military service much after 1865, as muzzleloaders were eclipsed by breechloaders using cased cartridges, hundreds of bullets were recycled. Veterans sported slugs as badges of their service, and some even housed scenes related to the conflict. All those varied postwar uses helped to cement the pliable bullet’s status as an icon of the Civil War. 62

THE CIVIL WAR IN TENNESSEE COLLECTION (6)

THE LEAD BULLETS COULD BE CARVED, SMASHED, OR DRILLED FOR ANY NUMBER OF PURPOSES

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CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: DANA B. SHOAF COLLECTION/PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN; STEPHEN RECKER COLLECTION; DANA B. SHOAF COLLECTION/PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN (2)

MINIE BALL

PEER INTO THE PAST

After the war, bullets such as this Confederate Gardner slug were drilled out to accept a microimage magnified by a lens. These curios were called “Stanhopes.” This particular example contains a wee view of the massive soldier statue nicknamed “Old Simon” that stands guard at the Antietam Battlefield National Cemetery.

KEEP YOUR AMMO DRY

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: DANA B. SHOAF COLLECTION/PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN; STEPHEN RECKER COLLECTION; DANA B. SHOAF COLLECTION/PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN (2)

THE CIVIL WAR IN TENNESSEE COLLECTION (6)

MOURNING MINIÉ

The oxidation makes it a bit hard to read, but “GAR” and “85” have been stamped into this flattened .58-caliber bullet, indicating this item was made for an old soldier attending a Grand Army of the Republic event in 1885. The delicate chain for this piece points to its likely use as a watch fob. Black ribbons were associated with mourning in the period, so this may have been made to wear at the funeral of a prominent Union veteran.

Bullets were frequently made into cone protectors. A soldier has cut this bullet in half, and then re-formed the round hollow bottom into a square to place it over the square bottom of the cone. Doing so prevents it from being damaged by the hammer. It perfectly fits a Model 1861 rifle-musket.

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MEN AND NATURE ABLAZE REVIEWED BY RICK BEARD he Army of the Potomac’s passage across the Rapidan River in early May 1864 promised the first battlefield confrontation between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. The stakes could scarcely have been higher: a Union defeat might well lead to an armistice and defeat for Abraham Lincoln in the fall presidential elections. A Fire in the Wilderness offers a compelling narrative of the Overland Campaign’s first clash of arms, characterized by one Union officer as “a useless battle, fought with great loss and no result.” Federal casualties, more than one and half times greater than Confederate losses, offered numbing proof of Grant’s plan “to hammer continuously at the Armed forces of the enemy…until by mere attrition…there should be nothing left to him but… submission.” Reeves skillfully deploys first-person accounts of the frightfully brutal battle. A year earlier, much of the fighting during the Chancellorsville Campaign had been at close quarters in the a dense second-growth forest of the Wilderness. Lee knew that confronting Grant here would neutralize the Union’s advantages of men and matériel. The fighting on May 5, Reeves argues, proved Lee’s prescience. Union troops, many of them inexperienced replacements, were thrust into battle in piecemeal fashion, suffering heavy casualties and too often retreating chaotically. Reeves attributes this counterproductive strategy to a high command plagued by friction between Grant and Maj. Gen. George Gordon

A Fire in the Wilderness: The First Battle Between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee By John Reeves Pegasus Books, 2021, $28.95

KEITH ROCCO/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

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INTO THE WILDERNESS

KEITH ROCCO/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

The 140th New York Zouaves charge across Saunder’s Field into a hornet’s nest of Confederates. The action on May 5, 1864, opened the Battle of the Wilderness.

Meade, and the resulting poor communications with their subordinates. Reeves clearly faults Grant, but relies on the general’s contemporaries to make his case. “It was the beginning,” wrote a Union staff officer years later, “of a reckless…way of fighting battles by hurrying into action one division, one brigade, or even a single regiment at a time, which characterized every contest from the crossing of the Rapidan to the battle at Cold Harbor.” Despite the first day’s lost opportunities for the Federals, Reeves suggests, “There was something remorseless even in Grant’s mistakes.” The overnight hours offered horrific fires in the heavy underbrush that killed wounded soldiers unable to flee. By May 6, Reeves believes Lee had begun to fear he had underestimated Grant’s relentlessness, and momentarily betrayed his desperation by recklessly deciding to lead a charge by Texas troops. Only the intercession of his junior officers kept the general from risking his life. The wounding of James Longstreet somewhat fortuitously blunted a Confederate frontal attack that “ought never, never have been made,” one of Lee’s most loyal staff officers critically noted. “It was wasting good soldiers whom we could not spare.” On May 7, rather than continue to attack entrenched Confederate forces in the Wilderness, Grant sought to outmaneuver Lee with a night march to Spotsylvania Court House designed to position his forces between the Rebel army and Richmond, however. The attempt failed: Lee’s army arrived there first, and on May 12 one of the war’s costliest battles—the Bloody Angle—ensued. Throughout his book, Reeves utilizes personal experiences to great effect; the fall from grace of Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren, the hero of Little Round Top, is especially engaging. Although the inclusion of maps in the text would clarify a confusing fight, their absence detracts very little from an exciting, well-written account of the first clash between Grant and Lee.

DOMESTIC TERRORISTS REVIEWED BY GORDON BERG

ccusations of fake news and alternative realities competing for public attention in a highly partisan political climate are not unique to the present. In the years immediately following the Civil War, accounts of depredations against Union occupation troops and newly emancipated Blacks throughout the South vied for attention in the newspapers and in the halls of Congress. How to tell truth from falsehood? What was accurate and what was overblown? William A. Blair has uncovered a treasure trove of documentation from the records of the Freedmen’s Bureau, that underappreciated and understaffed government apparatus set up to help transition Southern Blacks from slavery to citizenship. Using nine microfilm reels from a plethora of archived material, Blair argues that “the thousands of pages that make up the records reveal that federal agents gathered intelligence to prove the pervasiveness of racial conflict and violent atrocities against freepeople in the reconstruction South.” Blair’s intention is to “tell the story behind this record.” After initial surveys of conditions in the South went unverified, General Oliver O. Howard, commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau, assigned assistant commissioners in the recently readmitted states of the old Confederacy to compile monthly reports cataloging the vioThe Record of Murders lence, overwhelmingly perpetrated by Southern and Outrages: Racial Whites against Blacks, to document the necesViolence and the sity of maintaining martial law. These efforts Fight Over Truth at the Dawn of were undertaken without the knowledge of Reconstruction President Andrew Johnson and the data was By William A. Blair leaked to Radical Republicans in Congress. The reports were specific; they contained UNC Press, 2021, $19.95 names, dates, and places where these crimes occurred. They also exposed the levels of intimidation, up to and including murder, that Black people endured to bring these violent acts to light. Blair believes that the reports contained only a fraction of the outrages. By the time Freedmen’s Bureau agents were largely withdrawn from the South at the end of 1868, their monthly reports catalogued “between 5,000 and 6,000 crimes against individuals.” Blair contends that these reports influenced government policy. They helped elect Republican governments in Southern states that adopted Black manhood suffrage. The reports also exposed the prevalence of voter intimidation against newly registered Blacks and the extent of racist violence they endured at the polls. Blair insists there are more stories buried within those nine microfilm reels. He rightly contends that the public’s lack of knowledge of White terrorism after the Civil War and “the extent of the atrocities has remained imperfectly represented in public memory.” Fake news and alternative realities thrive in an atmosphere where facts are discounted and truth-debased. The proof of what really happened during the turbulent years of Reconstruction lies, in part, in The Record of Murders and Outrages. FEBRUARY 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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GET TO

WORK REVIEWED BY GORDON BERG rom the end of the Civil War to the beginning of World War I, a period known as the Gilded Age, America experienced unprecedented industrial growth, vast accumulations of wealth for a privileged few, and frequent, often violent, labor unrest pitting industrial workers, tenant farmers, and small agriculturalists against “robber baron” industrial oligarchs, corporate monopolies, and, at times, the federal government. How members of various laboring groups incorporated and reimagined their memories of Civil War service and incorporated military symbols into the social and labor upheavals of the time is the subject of Matthew Stanley’s penetrating, albeit ideologically oriented and occasionally turgidly written, analysis of those turbulent decades. Grand Army of Labor is not an easy read. The narrative is dense with individuals, organizations, and ideologies. Stanley’s arguments are complex and multi-tiered. But readers who stay the course will be treated to a penetrating alternative to how we understand the complexity of Civil War memory and the tumultuous decades of labor-management strife that followed the war and Reconstruction. “The living memory of Civil War veterans,” Stanley argues, “saw a proliferation of working-class cultural politics that created contradictions—contradictions that often gave rise to change, but also to schism and disintegration.” Civil War stories and images, Stanley maintains, “were critical points of reference within the labor movement for decades after Appomattox and well into the twentieth century.” Among the dynamic individuals Stanley introduces is labor leader Eugene Victor Debs, often referred to as the “Second Great Emancipator” carrying Abraham Lincoln’s free labor vision forward and using it to emancipate working people from “wage slavery” just as he had emancipated Black people from chattel slavery. Civil War veterans who were members of The Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor, Stanley concludes, “viewed themselves as the inheritors of the mid-century antislavery mission and framed their struggle as a continuation of the slave’s cause.” Their newspapers, pamphlets, songs, and sloganeering incorporated Civil War iconography to attract new members, including women and Black workers. But

Grand Army of Labor: Workers, Veterans, and the Meaning of the Civil War By Matthew E. Stanley University of Illinois Press, 2021, $30

radical labor organizations like The Knights and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) that came later were eventually co-opted by politically conservative and socially reformist coalitions like the American Federation of Labor. By the end of the century, racial, class, and political schisms splintered any hope of cultivating Civil War memory to nurture working class unity. Progressive minded workers were branded as socialists or communists and a series of violent strikes led to repressive federal legislation that blunted any remaining vestiges of labor unity. Stanley laments that when white Democrats and Confederate veterans engineered the largest coup d’état in U.S. history and overthrew the duly elected city government of Wilmington, N.C., in the fall of 1898, it “signaled both the conclusion of the national Populist upsurge and the end of an era in which radical class-based coalitions employed war symbols to appeal to coalitions of Civil War veterans.”

Karl Marx, the German political theorist and the author of 1848’s The Communist Manifesto, was fascinated by the American Civil War. In January 1865, Marx congratulated Abraham Lincoln, “the single-minded son of the working class,” on his reelection as president and for leading his country “through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world.” Marx hoped that the end of chattel slavery in America heralded an age that would end working men’s wage slavery in a socially reconstructed United States.

CIVIL WAR TIMES FEBRUARY 2022

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Gettysburg National Military Park Museum & Visitor Center T H E O F F I C I A L S TA R T TO YO U R G E T T Y S B U R G V I S I T

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See the Film. Experience the Cyclorama. Explore the Museum. Tour the Battleeld.

11/1/21 5:48 PM

Proceeds from tickets and other purchases in the Museum & Visitor Center benet Gettysburg National Military Park and Eisenhower National Historic Site.

For tickets and current hours, call 877-874-2478 or visit GettysburgFoundation.org. 1 1 9 5 B A LT I M O R E P I K E , G E T T Y S B U R G , PA 1 7 3 2 5

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What Are You

Reading?

ABE’S PRIVATE THOUGHTS REVIEWED BY LOUIS P. MASUR

THOMAS G. CLEMENS ANTIETAM SCHOLAR, PRESIDENT OF THE SAVE HISTORIC ANTIETAM FOUNDATION, DOG RESCUER

I’ve been reading William Marvel’s new biography about General Fitz John Porter, Radical Sacrifice: The Rise and Ruin of Fitz John Porter, which I like very much. It is very deeply researched and also very readable. Marvel skillfully lays out the details of Porter’s court martial, and how and why it was “rigged.” Marvel illustrates the schemes the Radical Republicans undertook to purge the Army of those leaders not committed to their agenda. Porter’s military career was solid and unblemished, and yet he was convicted by court martial and humiliated primarily for being politically naïve. This book is a good read.

Radical Sacrifice: The Rise and Ruin of Fitz John Porter By William Marvel The University of North Carolina Press, 2021

n this beautifully produced volume, Ronald C. White, the distinguished author of biographies of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, among other books, turns his attention to the collection of undated notes and fragments that Lincoln left behind. One hundred and eleven have survived, though Lincoln, who was in the habit of jotting down thoughts or rehearsing ideas for speeches on scraps of paper, certainly produced scores more. While many of these notes simply concern appointments or vacancies, the most revealing serve, in White’s apt words, as “repositories for his most important insights.” White has selected 12 notes for discussion and has divided them into three chronological sections that cover Lincoln as lawyer, politician, and president. The result is an eye-opening volume that invites readers into Lincoln’s private thoughts. There are only seven extant notes from the 1830s and 1840s. One of Lincoln’s most lyrical is his meditation on his visit to Niagara Lincoln in Private: Falls in 1848. He marveled at its “mysterious What His Most power” and how its timeless flow connected Personal Reflections viewers to “the indefinite past.” Tell Us About Our Greatest President Several of the notes concern slavery. One of the most succinct, likely written in 1858, By Ronald C. White reads, “As I would not be a slave, so I would Random House, not be a master. This expresses my idea of 2021, $28 democracy. Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy.” While Lincoln’s notes remained largely unknown until John Nicolay and John Hay serialized their biography in 1886, Mary Todd Lincoln presented this one to Myra Bradwell in 1875 as an expression of gratitude for help in getting her released from a private sanitorium. Lincoln always believed slavery to be wrong while others defended it as right. Both sides invoked God’s authority. Perhaps the best-known Lincoln note is his Meditation on the Divine Will. White accepts early September 1862 as the likely date of its composition, though others have suggested 1864. What is clear, Lincoln offers an interventionist God who “wills this contest, and wills that it shall not yet end.” White draws the lines of connection to the Second Inaugural and reminds readers that Lincoln’s religious beliefs were no more static than his evolving political positions. A few notes read more like diary entries than political or philosophical ruminations. In 1858, Lincoln compared himself to Stephen Douglas and lamented, “with me, the race of ambition has been a failure.” He did not, however, allow defeat to define him. In another note, he observed that life was a “passing speck of time.” He wanted to see slavery abolished and vowed “to contribute an humble mite to that glorious consummation, which my own poor eyes may not last to see.” In the end, he knew he had not failed.

CIVIL WAR TIMES FEBRUARY 2022

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April 29,30, 2022 Expert Civil War Western Theater Speakers Living Historians • Civil War Maritime Music Door Prizes/Raffles Presented by the Old Baldy Civil War Round Table of Philadelphia For information and updates: http://www.oldbaldycwrt.org FaceBook: Old Baldy Civil War Round Table

FIRST MONDAYS

Symposium to be held in Cooperation with Rutgers University Camden, New Jersey Department of History

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.

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

- 1945 - 1947 CWT-220200-002 Old Baldy Civil War Roundtable.indd 1 - 1950 - 1974 For more,search visitDAILY QUIZ For more, Live broadcasts begin at noon on the first Monday of each month. FACEBOOK.COM/CIVILWARTIMES

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

ANSWER: 1974. PRIVATE TERUO NAKAMURA, A TAIWANESE NATIONAL,27. ENLISTED IN THE JAPANESE ARMY IN 1943. ANSWER: THE CURRENT DESIGN HAS BEEN IN HE HELD OUT ON 1960 MORTAI IN INDONESIA HE WAS CAPTURED PLACE SINCE WHEN THE FLAGUNTIL WAS MODIFIED IN DECEMBER 1974. EARLIER THAT YEAR, HIRO ONODA, WHO TO INCLUDE HAWAII, THE 50th STATE. HELD OUT IN THE PHILLIPINES, FINALLY SURRENDERED.

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ETERNAL FLAME REVIEWED BY DIANE MONROE SMITH

ne would be tempted to say that Brian Swartz’s editor and publisher have thrown him under the bus by allowing him to employ less than reliable, dusty old sources, when these mentors have promised something new and enlightening. It could also seem that Swartz and his editor were of two minds about just what the book Passing Through the Fire was meant to convey, for it presents strongly conflicting viewpoints of that now legendary (for better or for worse) warrior Joshua L. Chamberlain. There are Swartz’s own gushingly complimentary depictions of Chamberlain during the war, followed by the inclusion of other sources that are scathingly critical. The promise that groundbreaking discoveries lie within can be found in the book’s foreword penned by Tom Desjardin, who was one of the first authors to question both Chamberlain’s and Maj. Gen. Gouverneur K. Warren’s integrity and veracity. Desjardin assures us that in this work, Swartz has assembled the “latest and most voluminous collection of Chamberlain’s life in wartime and ably brought it to us to enjoy and to learn from.” Since a blurb on the book’s cover asserts that Chamberlain’s actions at Gettysburg helped save the United States, it’s not surprising that Swartz calls upon the much maligned voice of the 20th Maine’s Private Theodore Gerrish, quoting from his not too reliable memoir penned in 1882. Gerrish is best remembered for offering his account of the 20th Maine’s fight at Gettysburg, although he was not there. Despite that, Gerrish became embroiled in the controversy generated by Chamberlain’s chief critic, Ellis Spear. Spear’s campaign entailed a long effort to give the credit of saving Little Round Top to anyone but Chamberlain. Concentrating on Gerrish’s views of anything, therefore, is a puzzling first offering of resources. Swartz continues to give considerable attention to the Spear memoirs as he enters upon Chamberlain’s many military exploits, and he must thereby attempt to try to reconcile Spear’s accounts with Chamberlain’s, and also reconcile Spear’s ever-changing accounts with Spear’s. Spear wrote three separate memoirs, all different and compiled at different times. The first was written in the years after the war, another well after the war, and last, the one entering into Spear’s unrestrained antagonism toward Chamberlain. The University of Maine Press editor tasked with getting Spear’s memoirs ready for publication apparently tried and failed to reconcile Spear’s changing viewpoints and attitudes, and finally gave up. All three versions were published in the same volume which, if nothing else, allows the reader to judge and, likely recognize, how Spear seemingly could not even agree with himself. But on a more positive note, Swartz’s assessment of Ulysses S. Grant’s role preceding Sheridan and the 5th Corps’ fight at Five Forks, Va., is correct. The 5th Corps’ capture of the White Oak Road, with its potential for taking the all-important South Side Railroad, cost the 5th Corps 1,407 casualties in those last days before Lee’s surrender in April 1865. Grant, though entirely ignorant of the conditions on the ground, issued a storm of conflicting orders that directed the men to withdraw from their hard-won position, and rescue Grant’s beleaguered protégé, Phil Sheridan. Far from 70

Passing Through the Fire: Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain in the Civil War (Emerging Civil War Series) By Brian Swartz Savas Beatie, 2021, $14.95

achieving his assignment of outflanking Lee, Sheridan had gotten himself trapped in a tight spot behind the Army of the Potomac’s advance. Another plus is Swartz’s inclusion of Ashley Towle’s consideration of Fanny and Joshua Chamberlain’s 50-plus year relationship. I’ve long believed that any attempt to understand Chamberlain benefits from an examination of his whole life, not just the three years of his military service. Less praiseworthy, in my opinion, is author Swartz’s embrace of the poorly defended theory that on June 18, 1864, Chamberlain did not know where he and his brigade were when they fought at the Battle of Petersburg. One has to consider Emerging Civil War’s statement that Swartz’s work draws upon “Chamberlain’s extensive memoirs,” as perplexing. For barring the discovery of new material not—or not yet—cited in this work, only a fragment of a memoir, one dealing mainly with his childhood, resides in the Bowdoin College’s archives. The book also suffers from careless editing. In one paragraph alone, a Lieutenant Wicker becomes Zwicker, then returns to Wicker. The most major flaw by far in this work is the absence of notes or bibliography. “Footnotes for this volume are available” online, a note on the contents page reveals. At the time this review was written, however, weeks after the release of the book, they haven’t gotten around to posting them. A reader cannot know if there’s any of the new material promised here because Swartz’s sources are, at present, unavailable, and therefore unidentified and unverified.

CIVIL WAR TIMES FEBRUARY 2022

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STATEMENT OF OWNERSHIP, MANAGEMENT AND CIRCULATION (required by Act of August 12, 1970: Section 3685, Title 39, United States Code). 1. Civil War Times 2. (ISSN: 1546-9980) 3. Filing date: 10/1/21. 4. Issue frequency: Bi Monthly. 5. Number of issues published annually: 6. 6. The annual subscription price is $39.95. 7. Complete mailing address of known office of publication: HistoryNet, 901 N Glebe Rd, 5th Floor, Arlington, VA 22203. 8. Complete mailing address of headquarters or general business office of publisher: HistoryNet, 901 N Glebe Rd, 5th Floor, Arlington, VA 22203. 9. Full names and complete mailing addresses of publisher, editor, and managing editor. Publisher, Michael A. Reinstein, HistoryNet, 901 N Glebe Rd, 5th Floor, Arlington, VA 22203, Editor, Dana B. Shoaf, HistoryNet, 901 N Glebe Rd, 5th Floor, Arlington, VA 22203, Editor in Chief, Alex Neill, HistoryNet, 901 N Glebe Rd, 5th Floor, Arlington, VA 22203. 10. Owner: HistoryNet; 901 N Glebe Rd, 5th Floor, Arlington, VA 22203. 11. Known bondholders, mortgages, and other security holders owning or holding 1 percent or more of total amount of bonds, mortgages or other securities: None. 12. Tax status: Has Not Changed During Preceding 12 Months. 13. Publisher title: Civil War Times. 14. Issue date for circulation data below: August 2021. 15. The extent and nature of circulation: A. Total number of copies printed (Net press run). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 34,634. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 39,319. B. Paid circulation. 1. Mailed outside-county paid subscriptions. Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 21,165. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 20,901. 2. Mailed in-county paid subscriptions. Average number of copies each issue during the preceding 12 months: 0. 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Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 9,046. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 11,679. H. Total (sum of 15f and 15g). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 34,634. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing: 39,319. I. Percent paid. Average percent of copies paid for the preceding 12 months: 97.5% Actual percent of copies paid for the preceding 12 months: 97.5% 16. Electronic Copy Circulation: A. Paid Electronic Copies. Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 0. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 0. B. Total Paid Print Copies (Line 15c) + Paid Electronic Copies (Line 16a). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 24,941. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 26,938. C. Total Print Distribution (Line 15f) + Paid Electronic Copies (Line 16a). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 25,588. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 27,640. D. Percent Paid (Both Print & Electronic Copies) (16b divided by 16c x 100). Average number of copies each issue during preceding 12 months: 97.5%. Actual number of copies of single issue published nearest to filing date: 97.5%. I certify that 50% of all distributed copies (electronic and print) are paid above nominal price: Yes. Report circulation on PS Form 3526-X worksheet 17. Publication of statement of ownership will be printed in the February 2022 issue of the publication. 18. Signature and title of editor, publisher, business manager, or owner: Shawn G. Byers, VP, Audience Development & Circulation. I certify that all information furnished on this form is true and complete. I understand that anyone who furnishes false or misleading information on this form or who omits material or information requested on the form may be subject to criminal sanction and civil actions.

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JOIN T O D AY ! T H E

LINCOLN FORUM

What began as a modest proposal to bring Lincoln enthusiasts together for a small East Coast-based yearly history conference at Gettysburg has blossomed into one of the leading history organizations in the country.

Our yearly November symposium is attended by scholars and enthusiasts from all over the nation and abroad. It attracts speakers and panelists who are some of the most revered historians in the Lincoln and Civil War fields. Visit our website:

thelincolnforum.org for more information

11/12/21 10:08 AM

TREASURE CHEST $4,600 Lieutenant Alfred W. Kredel kept mementoes of his service. Kredel, of German descent, was from Allegheny City, Pa., today part of Pittsburgh. He first served from 1861-1862 in the 9th Pennsylvania Reserves. Wounds to both shoulders suffered at the June 27, 1862, Battle of Gaines’ Mill knocked him out of the war for a period. He saw calmer service during his 1864-1865 stint as a lieutenant in the 6th Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery. The chest, sold by White’s Auctions, dates from that period. The veteran packed it with keepsakes after the war, including his U.S. buckle; artillery lieutenant shoulder straps and cap badge; a pair of spurs; a silver watch presented to him by the men of the 6th Pennsylvania; photos of himself in uniform and of a woman—likely his wife; and an assortment of other items and ephemera. Kredel, who worked as a druggist after the war, received a veteran’s pension of $6 a month in 1884, and died a year later at age 42. At the rate of his pension, it would have taken him about 64 years to be able to buy his own treasures. —D.B.S. 72

COURTESY OF WHITE’S AUCTIONS

INSIDE THIS UNASSUMING, BATTERED BOX,

CIVIL WAR TIMES FEBRUARY 2022

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Bags of Vintage U.S. Coins Dating as Far Back as the 1800s!

(se H e d IP eta P ils I N be G low )

Released to the Public

LOW AS

65¢

PE R COIN

very collection begins with a single coin. One solitary piece of American history we receive as a gift, or find among our pocket change as a child. For many of us, that coin was one of America’s many vintage coins—retired designs that somehow stayed in circulation long enough to find their way into our hands.

Guaranteed in Every Bag

Each bag contains eight different “types” of vintage coins, all in Good to Very Good condition. You’re guaranteed to receive at least one of each of the following (dates vary):

Finding one of these vintage U.S. coins is an incredible feeling. Now imagine a bag containing 100 of them!

 Indian Head Cent (1864–1909)  Lincoln Wheatback Cent (1910–1958)  Steel Lincoln Cent (1943)  Liberty Head Nickel (1883–1912)  Buffalo Nickel (1913–1938)  Jefferson “War” Nickel (1942–1945)  Barber Dime (1892–1916) 90% Silver!  Mercury Dime (1916–1945) 90% Silver!

“Banker’s Bags”

We understand the joy of taking a bag of coins, dumping them out on the table, gathering the kids and grandkids and setting to work sorting through all the dates, designs, mint marks and more. That’s why we’ve compiled these 100-coin “Banker’s Bags” of vintage U.S. coins.

Get More For Less

as only coins can tell. Call 1-888-870-7349 and use the special offer code below to secure your Banker’s Bags now!

Bag of Vintage U.S. Coins

1 Bag (100 coins) $69.95 ea. + s/h 2 Bags (200 coins) $67.95 ea. + FREE SHIPPING 3 Bags (300 coins) $64.95 ea. + FREE SHIPPING

Every coin in these bags has a story to tell, from the Steel Cents struck in 1943 so the U.S. Mint could donate its copper to our troops during World War II, to the “Mercury” dime nicknamed for Liberty’s resemblance to the Roman god of finance. These bags give you 100 stories to explore for hours of family entertainment.

Other companies are selling 60-coin banker’s bags of vintage coins at prices ranging from $53.99 to $81.94. That’s up to $1.37 per coin! But with this special offer you’ll receive not 60, but 100 vintage U.S. coins for as low as 65 cents per coin. It’s just one more reason that GovMint.com is the best source for coins worldwide®.

1-888-870-7349

Secure Coins Dating As Far Back as the 1800s

Secure Your Bankers Bag Now!

Please mention this code when you call.

Every bag is guaranteed to include at least one coin that dates back to the 1800s. That’s more than 120 years old!

This offer will only last as long as our supply of these 100-coin bags of vintage U.S. coins. Don’t miss this fantastic opportunity to explore American history

FREE SHIPPING on 2 or More Bags! SPECIAL LIMITED-TIME. Free shipping with 2 bags instead of the usual 3. Standard domestic shipping only. Not valid on previous purchases.

Call today toll-free for fastest service

Offer Code BVC144-02 SPECIAL CALL-IN ONLY OFFER

GovMint.com • 14101 Southcross Dr. W., Suite 175, Dept. BVC144-02 • Burnsville, MN 55337 GovMint.com® is a retail distributor of coin and currency issues and is not affiliated with the U.S. government. The collectible coin market is unregulated, highly speculative and involves risk. GovMint.com reserves the right to decline to consummate any sale, within its discretion, including due to pricing errors. Prices, facts, figures and populations deemed accurate as of the date of publication but may change significantly over time. All purchases are expressly conditioned upon your acceptance of GovMint.com’s Terms and Conditions (www.govmint.com/terms-conditions or call 1-800-721-0320); to decline, return your purchase pursuant to GovMint.com’s Return Policy. © 2021 GovMint.com. All rights reserved.

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11/1/21 5:59 PM

matte finish

56/58 mm-1/30 Scale

31353

Federal Irish Brigade Kneeling Ramming $42.00

31352

Federal Irish Brigade Standing Firing No. 1 $42.00

31235 · $44.00 Federal Iron Brigade Drummer

wbritain.com 31348

31351

Hand-Painted Pewter Figures

Please visit wbritain.com to see all these and more from the American Civil War as well as figures from many other historical eras.

Federal Irish Brigade Standing Firing No. 2 $42.00

Federal in Frock Coat Standing Defending, No.2 $42.00

31371

Federal in Frock Coat Reaching for Cap, No.2 $42.00

31354

Federal Infantry in Frock Coat Advancing at Right Shoulder $42.00

31355

Federal in Sack Coat Advancing Loading No.1 $42.00

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Federal in Frock Coat Kneeling The products shown and the entire W.Britain range can be purchased from the retailers listed below: Firing, No.2 $42.00

31372

For The Historian ........... Tel: 717-685-5207 • www.forthehistorian.com • web@forthehistorian.com

Federal in Frock Coat Standing Firing, No.3 $42.00

42 York Street, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania 17325

Treefrog Treasures ......................................... Tel: 507-545-2500 • www.treefrogtreasures.com 2416 E. River Road NE, Rochester, Minnesota 55906

Hobby Bunker .................... Tel: 781-321-8855 • Fax: 781-321-8866 • www.hobbybunker.com 103 Albion Street, Wakefield, Massachusetts 01880

31347

Federal Irish Brigade Kneeling Firing No. 1 $42.00

The History Store............. Tel: 740-775-7400 • www.thehistorystore.net • info@thehistorystore.net

101 North Paint Street, Chillicothe, Ohio 45601

Michigan Toy Soldier Co............... Tel: 248-586-1022 • 888-MICHTOY • www.michtoy.com 1400 East 11 Mile Road, Royal Oak, Michigan 48067

Sierra Toy Soldier.............Tel: 408-395-3000 • Fax: 408-358-3966 • www.sierratoysoldier.com

See our complete collection of 1/30 scale W.Britain historical metal figures at:

Tel: U.S. 740-702-1803 •

wbritain.com • Tel: U.K. (0)800 086 9123

CWT-220200-009 Wbritain Models.indd 1

are registered trademarks of the William Britain Model Figures, Chillicothe, OH

11/9/21 12:28 PM