America's Civil War Autumn 2022 by HistoryNet

Gettysburg: July 2, 1863

Fix Bayonets! Did the 20th Maine really save the Union Army on Little Round Top?

Plus Col. Joshua Chamberlain captures a 15th Alabama officer at the end of the epic charge. HISTORYNET.COM

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Action Front! The ‘other’ VMI cadets who shone at New Market Mystery Keepsakes Seeking answers for photos found on Gettysburg dead

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Autumn 2022

Last Resort?

The 20th Maine’s bayonet charge was Hollywood gold. But how much did it change Gettysburg’s outcome? By Tom Desjardin

AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

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CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: EVERETT COLLECTION/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND CULTURE; VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE ARCHIVES; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; COVER: © DON TROIANI. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 2022/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

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Departments 6 10 14 16 20 54 58 60 64

LETTERS A photo myth debunked; more on Ben Grierson’s spectacular raid GRAPESHOT! Data center plan endangers Manassas National Battlefield LIFE & LIMB Hardtack wasn’t the only forgettable part of a soldier’s diet DIFFERENCE MAKERS Wounded soldiers on both sides find a “Wisconsin Angel” FROM THE CROSSROADS Reputation redeemed—at a heart-rending cost TRAILSIDE Seeking Civil War harmony in Moorefield, W.Va. 5 QUESTIONS The 5th Massachusetts Cavalry’s imperfect legacy REVIEWS War as profit venture; Alabama-Kearsarge clash under the microscope FINAL BIVOUAC This Union trooper happened to love the South

Who Are They? The secrets behind photos found on fallen soldiers remain unsolved By John Banks

‘Mowed Down Like Grass’

Overlooked VMI cadets help wreck a Union cavalry charge at New Market By Chris K. Howland

Rebel Beacon

The Atlanta Daily Intelligencer played a vital dual role in the war By Stephen Davis and Bill Hendrick ON THE COVER: LIEUTENANT ROBERT H. WICKER OF THE 15TH ALABAMA, A SWORD PRESSED AGAINST HIS CHEST, SURRENDERS TO COLONEL JOSHUA L. CHAMBERLAIN AT THE BASE OF LITTLE ROUND TOP DURING THE 20TH MAINE’S LEGENDARY BAYONET CHARGE ON GETTYSBURG’S SECOND DAY OF FIGHTING. CHAMBERLAIN LATER RECEIVED THE MEDAL OF HONOR FOR HIS ACTIONS.

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AUTUMN 2022

6/1/22 11:14 AM

Michael A. Reinstein Chairman & Publisher C E L E B R A T I N G 35 Y E A R S

HISTORYNET.com/ AMERICAS-CIVIL-WAR

CHAMBERLAIN AND ME

Tom Desjardin provides an exclusive look at his experiences working with actor Jeff Daniels, who portrayed Joshua Chamberlain in the movies Gettysburg and Gods and Generals. historynet.com/chamberlainandme

CALL OF DUTY

Guarding Clement Vallandigham, the notorious Copperhead whom Abraham Lincoln banished to the South in 1864, proved remarkable for a few Confederate soldiers. historynet.com/operationcopperhead

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Vol. 35, No. 3 Autumn 2022

Chris K. Howland Editor Jerry Morelock Senior Editor Sarah Richardson Senior Editor Brian Walker Group Design Director Melissa A. Winn Director of Photography Austin Stahl Associate Design Director Dana B. Shoaf Managing Editor, Print Michael Y. Park Managing Editor, Digital Claire Barrett News and Social Editor A DV ISORY BOA RD Gordon Berg, Jim Burgess, Steve Davis, Richard H. Holloway, D. Scott Hartwig, Larry Hewitt, John Hoptak, Robert K. Krick, Ethan S. Rafuse, Ron Soodalter, Tim Rowland CORPOR ATE Kelly Facer SVP Revenue Operations Matt Gross VP Digital Initiatives Rob Wilkins Director of Partnership Marketing Jamie Elliott Production Director A DV ERTISING Morton Greenberg SVP Advertising Sales mgreenberg@mco.com Rick Gower Regional Sales Manager rick@rickgower.com Terry Jenkins Regional Sales Manager tjenkins@historynet.com DIRECT RESPONSE A DV ERTISING MEDIA PEOPLE Nancy Forman nforman@mediapeople.com

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LETTERS No Dispute New research verifies Maj. Gen. Franklin Gardner is portrayed in both these photos. An earlier research effort speculated that Richard Garnett is shown far left.

online misindentification. However, there is a new CDV of Gardner in the Louisiana Digital Library collection. This photo shows the general standing next to a table. If you look closely at the table, you will see it is the same cap with the light colored band that he is wearing in the disputed photo. You can also see this is the exact same person in the other photo incorrectly identified as Garnett. Also, printed on the front of the picture is the following statement: Entered according to act of Congress, in the Clerk’s office of the U.S.D.C., Eastern District of Louisiana, by T. Lilienthal, 15th September, 1863. This date and place, as well as the photographer himself, all indicate this image is of Gardner. Theodore Lilienthal began his career taking photos in New Orleans shortly after his arrival in 1853. The date the photo was certified coincides with the period coming not

Accomplished Brothers

I read with great pleasure Richard H. Holloway’s article on Henry Forbes and Company B, 7th Illinois Cavalry, as part of Grierson’s Raid through Mississippi in April 1863. The troopers in Company B split off the main body as a diversion and were successful in their own right. Grierson’s Raid was probably one of the Union Army’s most spectacular feats, so much so that even the Confederate press praised it. The men of Company B were from the hill country of northwestern Illinois where we lived for a lot of years. Henry and his younger brother, Stephen, were from a family farm in the southeast part of Freeport, not too far from where the Walmart is today. Their father died when they were young, so Henry, as the oldest son, inherited the farm. It is presumed that he went back to work that land after he war, although I am

AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

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PHOTO BY MAGNUS MANSKE

I read the March issue with much enjoyment. My favorites were the article on Shiloh from an Ohio officer’s perspective and the cover story about Grierson’s Raid through Mississippi. I did note, however, an inaccuracy on a photo identification in the article titled “Macabre Trophies” by John Banks. The photograph in question was one of Maj. Gen. Franklin Kitchell Gardner on P. 50, but, according to the caption, there is new research suggesting it is actually a photograph of Confederate Brig. Gen. Richard B. Garnett. I recall seeing this argument before, so I looked through my back issues of your magazine until I located a 2009 letter to the editor from a gentleman who compared the same Gardner likeness along with two other images—one of Garnett’s relative and a later picture of Gardner. I have found another CDV of Gardner that definitely answers all of the questions on the comparisons. The argument for it being an image of Garnett is simply based on an apparent

COURTESY OF RICHARD H. HOLLOWAY; LOUISIANA DIGITAL LIBRARY

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long after the capitulation of Port Hudson, La., in July 1863. Even Gardner’s sword shown in the CDV is significant, as it was returned to him immediately after he surrendered it to Union Brig. Gen. George Leonard Andrews when Port Hudson fell. Gardner’s slim, almost gaunt figure demonstrates the hardships all of the garrison endured due to their severe lack of food during the siege. Other photographs of Gardner taken at a later date show the same man as the two indicated but with a fuller beard and mustache. I hope this look at the images clears up any misconceptions concerning General Gardner’s images. The search for a confirmed image of Maj. Gen. Richard B. Garnett must continue. Edward Windsor Corinth, Miss.

PHOTO BY MAGNUS MANSKE

COURTESY OF RICHARD H. HOLLOWAY; LOUISIANA DIGITAL LIBRARY

LETTERS unaware of any documentation. Henry’s letter, which is the basis of Holloway’s article, is good. Stephen Forbes, Henry’s younger brother, wrote his own account of their exploits which is still available. In my opinion, Dee Brown’s book on the raid is excellent. Unfortunately, it is out of print, though still available as an e-book. Stephen Forbes had a most interesting career. Like most of Company B, he enlisted in the Union Army at Cedarville, Ill., at the age of 19. He was taken prisoner at Corinth, Miss., but released after four months. After the war, Stephen earned a PhD in Natural Science from Indiana University. Eventually, he became a professor of Natural Science at the University of Illinois. While there, he published more than 100 papers and books, did two very significant research projects, and became head of an organization that was a precursor of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources, among other accomplishments. He is recognized as one of the first scientists to describe an ecological system and is considered one of the founders of ecology. Among the many awards he received, both domestic and foreign, he has an Illinois state park named after him. Not bad for an Illinois farmboy and Civil War veteran. A couple of sidebars: Ben Grierson was born in Pittsburgh and raised in Youngstown, Ohio. As an adult, he moved to Jacksonville, Ill., where he became a close friend of Abraham Lincoln and wrote his campaign songs for the 1860 election. When Grierson was 8, he was kicked in the head by a horse. From then on, he hated horses and was afraid of them. Of course, the Army made him one of their best horse cavalry officers and he was handed a career as a cavalry officer. In any case, when he was commanding the 10th U.S. Cavalry postwar, the Army offered him the opportunity to transfer to a White soldiers’ unit three times. He refused. Edward Hatch commanded the 2nd Iowa Cavalry as part of Grierson’s Raid.

His unit was also split off as a diversion to convince the Confederates that the raid had ended. From that point, all of the troops and all of the commanders in the raid—up to and including Ulysses S. Grant—were from Illinois. Hatch, after the war, commanded the 9th U.S. Cavalry, another Buffalo Soldier unit. This one operated in the Colorado area. To give some indication of the character of the raid, the troopers took great care to avoid civilian casualties, and to avoid damaging civilian property. In one instance, the fires they started to destroy Confederate supplies spread to some buildings in the town they were in. The Union troopers worked with Confederate locals to put out these collateral fires. I encourage your readers to further study Grierson’s Raid. They will be amazed. James A. Ketzel Panama City, Fla.

depot at St. Inigoes. This memorial is reputedly the smallest of all U.S. military memorials or cemeteries. Annually on or about November 11 the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, Sgt. James H. Harris Camp #38 conduct a memorial ceremony at the gravesite. [Harris was one of two countian USCT soldiers awarded the Medal of Honor, as noted in your piece.]

Overlooked Tragedy

How pleasantly surprised was I to find a beautiful three-page focus on Maryland’s St. Mary’s County in your March issue’s “Trailside.” Thank you for this look at our rich historical area. You really bring home attention to some of the less-reported but vital action that occurred along the Potomac River. I recognize the constraints publications have on length of articles, but I would like to call to your attention to a couple of other sites that Civil War visitors should explore in Maryland’s “Mother County.” Primary among them is the memorial to the lost sailors of the USS Tulip, killed on November 11, 1864, when their ship’s boiler blew up as they sailed to Washington’s Navy Yard for repairs to, you guessed it, the boiler. Apparently, Tulip’s captain ignored orders to proceed at low power, perhaps out of fear of being a sitting duck for Confederate gunners on the Virginia shore. Of 57 crew members, 49 lost their lives. Some of the recovered bodies are interred at the site of the Potomac River supply

USS Tulip memorial

Because St. Mary’s County hosts one of the largest Veterans Day parades in Maryland, the commemoration is recognized on a proximate date. According to Harris Camp Past Commander Wesley Mumper, Tulip had departed the St. Inigoes depot earlier that day but had not gone far upstream before its boiler, pressed beyond capacity, exploded. Also of note is the wharf at Chaptico, which has connections to the Francis Scott Key family. And the Old County Jail, which you pictured, has a commemorative plaque noting the lynching of a young Black man. This plaque was dedicated on Emancipation Day 2021. Karl K. Pence Hollywood, Md. AUTUMN 2022

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LETTERS

Truthseeker

FIRST MONDAYS

Regarding the artice “An Enduring Myth” by D. Scott Hartwig in the March 2022 issue (“From the Crossroads,” P. 20), I agree with him about the endurance of the Gettysburg myths. It makes me wonder if park rangers and battlefield guides are forbidden to tell the truth about Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart. The narrative is always that Robert E. Lee was “blind” and Stuart was “late.” Even the Stuart reenactor goes along with that narrative. I saw a video of him south of the Mason-Dixon Line and he told the audience that “you can’t be late to some place you weren’t told to go.” He then explained Stuart’s actions. I doubt if he’s allowed to do that in Gettysburg. Thanks to Eric Wittenberg and J. David Petruzzi, one can get informed of Stuart’s orders and actions in their book Plenty of

Blame to Go Around: Jeb Stuart’s Controversial Ride to Gettysburg. Also, valuable information can be found in Kent Masterson Brown’s Retreat From Gettysburg. He explains why Lee entered Pennsylvania. Even if the rangers and guides read these books, would they be allowed to change the narrative? I no longer YouTube Gettysburg Battlefield walks; it’s just too frustrating. Your magazine is full of information and articles that fascinate and enlighten me. Irene Mack Shillington, Pa. WRITE TO US Send letters to America’s Civil War, Letters Editor, Historynet, 901 North Glebe Road, 5th Floor, Arlington, VA 22203, or e-mail acwletters@historynet.com. Letters may be edited.

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.

Exciting Changes! Dear readers: Beginning with this issue, America’s Civil War is moving to a quarterly publication schedule. But don’t worry: existing subscriptions will be extended, so you will get all the issues you have paid for. We’ve made some exciting improvements to our already excellent content, and plenty more is in the works—all aimed to provide our devoted readers with even more value than before: • We’ve redesigned our website to make it more compelling, active, and easier to search. Two million users visit every month: check it out at historynet.com. • We’re offering a subscribers-only e-mail newsletter—“The America’s Civil War Monthly Dispatch”—that includes fresh material not available elsewhere. Subscribers will soon have exclusive access to special content on historynet.com, with the insight, excitement, and quality you’ve always experienced as readers of America’s Civil War. •L astly, we are in the process of digitizing all back issues of America’s Civil War, going back to 1987. This tremendous and unprecedented resource will soon be available exclusively to subscribers.

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GRAPESHOT!

A Blast of Civil War Stories

Depth of Field The viewshed from atop Henry Hill would be permanently altered if the proposed PW Digital Gateway is developed on the border of the battlefield.

Defending Manassas

Kathy Kulick. She told reporters she’s worried about the local watershed, the loss of the park’s historic feel, and quality of life concerns. “People who are going to live next to that are afraid,” she said. “They didn’t move out here to live next to the world’s largest data center industrial zone. Nobody did.” QTS, the company developing the data centers, said it has been working with stakeholders “to identify and preserve green space, shared space, possible park and cultural landmark enhancements, as well as future trail and wildlife crossing areas, in a manner that aligns with the long-term land management goals of each entity.” A coalition of groups, including the Manassas Battlefield Trust, the National Parks Conservation Association, the Prince William Conservation Alliance, Piedmont Environmental Council, and the American Battlefield Trust have been advocating for alternative plans. “We see industrial development of this location, historically part of the battlefield and teaming with wildlife, as the worst possible fate for this largely pristine landscape,” the ABT said in a statement released in January. “Data centers in this area are incompatible with a National Park and State Forest. We urge the county to consider another location, more suitable for such development.” More information about this new fight at Manassas can be found at growsmartpw.org. —M.A.W.

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COURTESY OF RICHARD H. HOLLOWAY; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

On May 10, 2022, Preservation Virginia designated Manassas National Battlefield Park one of Virginia’s “Most Endangered Historic Places.” The organization releases a list of the most endangered historic sites every May, National Historic Preservation Month, as an effort to raise awareness and spur action to advocate for preserving the spots. The National Park Service and preservationists have successfully fought off commercial development threats to Manassas National Battlefield Park for decades, but a new proposal threatens to put millions of square feet of data centers against the western and northern boundaries of the park. The park encompasses nearly 5,000 acres of the land on which the First and Second Battles of Manassas were fought in July 1861 and August 1862. The proposed PW Digital Gateway would slate more than 2,100 acres of agricultural land bordering the battlefield to allow for data centers—large, box-shaped buildings that house computer systems. A Prince William County archaeologist, Justin Patton, said the rezoning effort allowing for the development of numerous data centers would have negative consequences for both the natural and historic resources within and adjacent to the battlefield. Local residents and opponents of the plan held a news conference in May to voice their opposition to it. “It’s a total and complete change of the character,” said resident

PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN

A NEW THREAT LOOMS OVER THE VIRGINIA BATTLEFIELD

Restored Culpeper Culpeper Battlefield Tours, LLC launched in April to enhance visitation of historic battlefields and sites in Virginia’s Culpeper County, home to both the June 1863 Battle of Brandy Station and August 1862 Battle of Cedar Mountain, among other critical Civil War engagements. The endeavor, conceived by Chris Army and Susan Ralston, includes a licensed guide training program that will help support the newly created Culpeper Battlefields State Park, responsible for more than 1,700 acres of preserved land in the county. For more info, call 540-632-4500 or e-mail info@culpeperbattlefieldtours.com.

George Crook

QUIZ

Take the High Ground... or Hold It Match the lofty objective with the officer who either defended it or assaulted it :

COURTESY OF RICHARD H. HOLLOWAY; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

CIVIL WAR ILLUSTRATED Many popular political cartoons about the Civil War came out of England. Punch was one such foreign publication known for lampooning political leaders on both sides—sparing no mercy in particular on Abraham Lincoln. This illustration, published in its July 26, 1862, issue, came on the heels of Union Maj. Gen. George McClellan’s failed Peninsula Campaign. It shows Lincoln mixing the New York Press between goblets marked victory and defeat.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Henry Hill Lookout Mountain Fisher’s Hill Crampton’s Gap Shimonoseki Batteries Cheat Mountain Marye’s Heights Rohrbach’s Bridge Missionary Ridge Allatoona Pass Maj. Gen. George Crook Captain David S. McDougal Colonel Nathan Kimball Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Jackson Brig. Gen. Robert Toombs Brig. Gen. John M. Corse 1st Lt. Arthur MacArthur Brig. Gen. Howell Cobb Colonel Jacob Frick

Answers: A.5 B.4, C.1 D.9, E.2 F.3, G.10, H.6, I.8, J.7.

PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN

A. B. C. D. E. F. G. H. I. J.

AUTUMN 2022

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GRAPESHOT!

Etched in Metal This Colt Model 1861 Navy revolver was carried at the 1864 Battle of New

Market in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley [see our story, “Mowed Down Like Grass,” P.38]. On its grip is a silver plate inscribed “O.P.E. New Market May 15th 1864.” It has been speculated that “O.P.E” stands for Oliver Perry Evans of the Virginia Military Institute, one of the famed cadets who fought during the landmark Confederate victory. Evans was the Corps of Cadets’ color-bearer during the late-afternoon attack over inhospitable ground known as the “Field of Lost Shoes.” Whether this revolver (Serial No. 4667) belonged to Perry or not, its owner—or another individual—made sure to memorialize the battle and its significance with that inscription. –Jay Wertz

Rare Find One of the Confederate Army’s more popular handguns, this Colt M-1861 Navy revolver purportedly belonged to a VMI cadet at New Market. It featured a 7.5-inch barrel and a cylinder for six rounds of .36-caliber ammunition.

CONVERSATION PIECE

BATTLE RATTLE

“These stories of our defeats in the Valley fall like blows upon a dead body. Since Atlanta, I have felt as if all were dead within me, forever.” —Mary Boykin Chesnut, September 1864

Soldiers, officers, and undoubtedly quartermasters had varying sentiments about the civilian sutlers who accompanied Northern and Southern armies during the war, whether in camp or on campaign. In many ways, sutlers were a necessary evil. While they sold many of the comfort provisions soldiers craved—tobacco, newspapers, alcohol, coffee, etc.—sutlers tended to be hucksters, charging inflated prices for them. They generally followed single regiments or divisions, using script or brass tokens that they manufactured on their own as currency that could be used only at their respective establishments. Shown here is one such token—a 25-cent piece created by Union sutler J.A. Garman—on display at the U.S. Army Museum at Fort Belvoir, Va. Garman was the sutler for the 54th Pennsylvania Infantry, which was part of Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel’s Department of West Virginia in the spring of 1864 and fought at the Battle of New Market, with 174 casualties. Note the “54 Pa. Vols” inscribed on its face. The four prongs pictured here are not attached to the token, but used to hold it on display.

COURTESY OF JAY WERTZ; ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN

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Help Save Battery Heights On the New Market Battlefield And receive a copy of “They Were Ready for Us” The Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation (SVBF) is working to preserve the 52-acre Battery Heights tract on the New Market Battlefield, which includes the ground where a VMI Cadet battery helped turn back 1,000 Union cavalry during the climax of the battle on May 15, 1864. But we need your help; we need your support to save this land. And this preservation campaign features a special reward – a unique thank you gift. Donors who give $500 or more will receive a limited-edition canvas giclee of Keith Rocco’s remarkable new painting, They Were Ready for Us, which depicts the dramatic action on Battery Heights. (For more on this pivotal cavalry charge and the painting, see the story on page 38.) The canvases will be available in two sizes: 16" x 30" or 20" x 36".

Keith Rocco’s painting, They Were Ready for Us

To support this critical preservation effort – and to receive your limited edition canvas giclee – fill out and return the form below, call the SVBF at 540-740-4545, or visit our website at www.ShenandoahAtWar.org. Photo at Top: The Battery Heights property on the New Market battlefield. Photo by Kirsten Kauling Heder.

To DonaTe To This efforT

Complete this form and mail it with your payment to the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation, P.O. Box 897, New Market, VA 22844. First and Last Name ___________________________________________________________ Address_____________________________________________________________________ City _________________________________________ State______ Zip ________________ Phone Number_______________________________________________________________ Email ______________________________________________________________________ q Check Enclosed q Pay by credit card. Please charge $_______ to my: q Visa q Mastercard q Amex q Discover If you’re contributing more than $500, please circle which size canvas you’d like to receive: 16" x 30" or 20" x 36"

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LIFE & LIMB

Soup’s On Soldiers were encouraged to boil desiccated vegetables in a soup, often depleting their nutrients.

Eat Your (Desiccated) Vegetables PROVIDING SOLDIERS A PROPER AMOUNT OF VITAMINS WAS A CONSTANT STRUGGLE FOR THE ARMIES

A soldier’s regular diet generally did not include fresh fruits or vegetables, consisting instead largely of salted meat (often pork), beans, coffee, and hardtack (6 parts flour, 1 part water—you can try it at home, though I don’t recommend it). Although there were a few variations in diet for soldiers in both armies (Confederates, for example, typically had cornbread instead of hardtack), the basic nutritional value was the same: poor. The government had few viable ways of getting vegetables (and the important vitamins that came with them) into a soldier’s diet. Desiccated vegetables became an important tool in the arsenal of nutrition. In order to combat scurvy among those serving on the frontier before the Civil War, Congress passed a law providing for the creation of canned, compressed, and mixed vegetables: called “desiccated.” The rations of desiccated vegetables supposedly contained string beans, turnips, carrots, beets, and

AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

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HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS

The nonprofit NMCWM, based in Frederick, Md., explores the world of medical, surgical, and nursing innovation during the Civil War. To learn more about the stories explored in this and future columns, visit civilwarmed.org. The museum also hosts walking tours to the city’s Civil War hospital sites on Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. from April to October.

“EAT YOUR VEGETABLES.” Parents use the phrase today in a desperate effort to get their children to eat something besides ice cream or french fries. During the Civil War, though, such a request could literally be life-saving. Disease was responsible for more than two-thirds of all Civil War deaths. Diarrhea and dysentery were the most common reported diseases during the conflict, with more than 1.6 million cases in the Union Army alone. All told, that led to roughly 50,000 deaths on both sides. Chronic diarrhea was often a sign of malnutrition or critical vitamin deficiencies. In having to deal with it, Civil War doctors and surgeons typically associated diarrhea with scurvy—a disease caused by vitamin C deficiency but one that also was widely acknowledged to be treatable with fresh produce. But why was this such a common problem during the war?

NPL-DEA PICTURE LIBRARY/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

By John Lustrea

HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS

NPL-DEA PICTURE LIBRARY/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

LIFE & LIMB onions that had been compressed into one-inch-by-oneof this disease. As a consequence it has more than once happened on a grand scale, during the present foot rectangular bricks. Because of the dreadful taste, soldiers would often war, to see a sudden and palpable diminution in the refuse to eat them. As Sergeant Cyrus Boyd of the 15th amount of diarrhea follow the liberal issue of potatoes Iowa grumbled: “I ate a lot of dessicated vegetables yesand onions to an army in which the tendency to scurvy was exhibiting itself in a manner too evident terday and they made me the sickest of my life. I shall never want any more such fodder.” It wasn’t long before to be overlooked. the troops branded the creation “desecrated vegetables.” Nevertheless, these were indeed vegetables in the cans. Lack of fresh produce usually hindered fulfillment of Soldiers, however, were instructed to prepare them in a recommended dietary treatments. To increase that supsoup that would take 1–3 hours to prepare, which likely ply, the federal government often relied on the aid of pridiminished the health benefits. Not only were many vita- vate organizations like the U.S. Sanitary Commission. mins boiled out of the vegetables, but the lengthy prepaThankfully civilians appreciated the benefits of eating ration time also made it hopelessly impractical to prepare healthy. Getting vegetables to the frontlines was as while an army was on the move. important as medicine and bandages, Foraging (even when it was not according to the Sanitary Commisallowed) was an important, if sposion, which occasionally held fundradic, means for soldiers to access raisers to pay for shipping those essential vegetables. One campaign fresh fruits and vegetables. It was not slogan perfectly captured the sentiuncommon for soldiers to seek out ment: “Don’t send your sweetheart a fruits or vegetables as they passed or camped by local farms. In at least one love letter. Send him an onion.” recorded instance, General Robert E. Shipping vegetables to the troops Lee encouraged his men to forage the became an important task for the surrounding countryside in the weeks Sanitary Commission. A lack of potaleading up to a campaign so they toes and onions nearly produced a health epidemic for Ulysses Grant’s would be in peak health. Civil War medical personnel were army in the 1862-63 Vicksburg Camwell aware how critical fruits and vegpaign. Upon hearing this, Mary Liveretables were for healthy armies, parmore of the Western Sanitary Commission (a separate but related ticularly, as mentioned earlier, in entity) resolved to marshal their cases of scurvy. The fruit-and-vegetaresources to alleviate the dire shortble option to treat diarrhea was less What’s For Dinner? common, but doctors frequently went age. Once they accumulated the necesUnion soldiers received two types that route if cases lingered for sary vegetables, they had to find a way of rations: “marching rations” extended periods. to get them to the front since the roads and “camp rations”; both included hardtack; salt pork; and coffee, In 1863, Union surgeon Joseph were in such poor condition. Eventusugar, and salt. Woodward concluded in a study on ally, Livermore convinced Grant to camp diseases that Civil War surprovide boats to ship the produce if geons, though often stereotyped as ill-informed butchers, the women of aid societies would make sure the boats could form fairly sophisticated hypotheses based on data were manned. Thus, the “potato fleet” was born. they collected. Woodward’s understanding of chronic In the end, eating one’s vegetables was the most effecdiarrhea and its causes was strikingly accurate: tive way to avoid the deadliest condition of the war—diarrhea. It could be fairly stated then that if the soldiers had Originating chiefly among troops in camps, [diarrhea] been able to eat more vegetables, Civil War armies would evidently stands in some definite relationship to the have been larger, healthier, and more prepared to fight— usual conditions of camp life. Of these, it would and their mothers would have been happy. appear most intimately connected with the diet, and this relationship is of such a kind that chronic diarJohn Lustrea is the Director of Education and the Website Manager at the National Museum of Civil War Medrhea becomes more and more common and fatal as icine. He earned his Master’s degree in Public History the constitutional manifestations which result from from the University of South Carolina. Lustrea worked camp diet approach more and more to the condition at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park during the of recognizable scurvy, a most important point to be summers of 2013-16. considered in connection with the hygienic treatment AUTUMN 2022

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DIFFERENCE MAKERS

Fighting for the Soldiers THIS ‘WISCONSIN ANGEL’ CHAMPIONED IMPORTANT CHANGES IN HOSPITAL CARE By Ron Soodalter “I would not exchange the memory of their grateful faces and their heartfelt ‘God bless yous’ for anything in this world.” —Cordelia Harvey

'Sanitary Agent' Cordelia Harvey remained devoted to serving the citizens of Wisconsin after her husband’s term as governor ended abruptly in 1861.

Aid Society, a group formed in support of the war effort. The society supplied Wisconsin troops with everything from handsewn uniforms to pencils and paper for writing letters home. Now, no longer Wisconsin’s first lady, Cordelia was suddenly directionless. Governor Edward Salomon, who had replaced Louis Harvey in Madison, prevailed upon her to take a position as a “sanitary agent” and begin working on behalf of Wisconsin’s wounded soldiers. It was a fortuitous assignment. Expressing genuine concern for the soldiers’ welfare, she began touring various military hospitals in which ill and wounded Wisconsin troops were receiving care. She then made recommendations to Governor Salomon on how that care might be improved. Early in the war, reliable ambulance and hospital services had yet to be developed out West; in fact, in some areas, medical care was at best rudimentary. Often, soldiers lay upon the battlefield for days before receiving

WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY

IT REQUIRED TREMENDOUS FORTITUDE and self-confidence for a woman in the early 1860s to effect changes that would permanently alter the course of the nation’s health care system and improve the survival rate of soldiers at war. Fortunately, Cordelia Harvey was one such individual. Born Cordelia Perrine in 1840, she moved with her family from a small community in upstate New York to Wisconsin at the age of 16, settling in Kenosha (then called Southport). There, she began working as a teacher. Seven years later, she wed Louis P. Harvey, editor of Southport’s local newspaper and a young businessman with political aspirations. Cordelia would bear him a daughter, Mary, who unfortunately would soon die of scarlet fever. In November 1861, with the Civil War in its seventh month, Harvey was elected governor—part of a statewide Republican sweep. He was Wisconsin's seventh governor, and also the first in the state to die in office. Shortly after the Battle of Shiloh on April 6-7, 1862, Harvey gathered supplies and medical staff, and accompanied them to Tennessee to provide aid to Wisconsin’s sick and wounded soldiers. While attempting to board a steamer on the Tennessee River, he slipped and fell into the water, drowning in the swift current. During her 94-day tenure as Wisconsin’s first lady, Cordelia had served as president of the Madison Ladies AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

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DIFFERENCE MAKERS

what might pass for aid. The sheer number of sick or wounded so overwhelmed the medical community that neither side was prepared to address the troops’ needs effectively. And of those who did receive treatment, a stunning number would die of infection, shock, or perhaps the greatest killer of all, disease. Field hospitals were often makeshift affairs set up during or after a battle in local barns, churches, or houses. Proper, or even basic, sanitation was rare. Often, with neither the time nor the expertise to treat and care for battlefield wounds, amputation of limbs was a standard fallback. And given the massive destruction rendered by shell, canister, grapeshot, Minié balls, and so forth, amputation was often justified. Notoriously, severed limbs would be piled up outside overcrowded field tents, where wounded soldiers were frequently lined up in cots or on the bare ground to await treatment. According to many who bore witness, the sights and sounds of a field hospital, as well as the screams and the stench, required a strong stomach for anyone thrust into the midst. Formal urban hospitals were not much better—often unventilated buildings, converted from schools, hotels, or warehouses. They were stifling in summer, reeked of filth and putrefaction, and were grossly understaffed, undersupplied, and overcrowded. As author Stanley B. Burns attests: “In cities, hospitals were for the indigent and

working classes, and had a reputation as places to die. It would not be until the last decade of the nineteenth century that hospitals were looked upon as places of healing.” The prospect, therefore, of proper treatment for a wounded or disabled soldier was unpredictable. Cordelia Harvey set out to change that scenario. It seemed she was never still, doing whatever she could to secure donations of vital supplies from Wisconsin residents, principally clothing, blankets, and food. A small woman clad in a hooded black cape, she became immediately recognizable on her visits, welcomed for bringing letters, news, and gifts from home. She repeatedly petitioned Salomon for critical supplies and, more important, for additional medical professionals—both doctors and nurses. She would not discriminate between Yankee and Rebel, always willing to visit Confederate prisoners. It wasn’t long before she became known to the troops as the “Wisconsin Angel.” Two months into her new position, Cordelia met with Maj. Gen. Samuel Curtis, commander of the Army of the Southwest, who requested that she oversee the inspection of the hospitals and the care of the troops under his command in the Trans-Mississippi Theater. She was provided with whatever supplies and transportation she requested. That was a prime example of Cordelia’s combined compassion and efficiency in effecting change. In three days alone, she evaluated the condition of 1,500 soldiers, ensuring that those who were too young, too old, or too ill would be sent home. The terrible pace, combined with the unsanitary conditions in the hospitals that Cordelia visited, took a toll on her health, however. After falling ill in early 1863, she wouldn’t recover for four months, and not until she had returned north. The restorative properties of the fresh Northern air, she was firmly convinced, was what returned her to health. Cordelia immediately resumed her work, but with a new mission. At the time, Wisconsin did not have its own military hospital, so she circulated a petition for the construction of a facility, for the benefit of the state’s ill and

WISCONSIN HISTORICAL SOCIETY

Soldiers’ Orphans Home Harvey used former Wisconsin Governor Leonard Farwell's Madison residence as a hospital for wounded soldiers during the war. In 1866, she converted it to a home for soldiers' orphaned children.

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injured troops. She then took the document—which contained some 7,000 signatures, including some of government officials—to Washington, D.C., where she met with President Abraham Lincoln in an effort to get him to open military hospitals throughout the North, specifically the one she desired in Wisconsin. Believing that the ill effects of the dank Southern air—the “Miasma,” as it was called—was having a debilitating and often fatal effect on the troops, she argued to Lincoln: “Many soldiers in our Western army must have Northern air or die.” Her argument was convincing. The president’s military advisers, however, had convinced him that sending soldiers to hospitals near their Northern homes would induce them to desert. Nevertheless, after three days of meetings, during the course of which she refused to be cowed, she convinced Lincoln—who would describe her as a “lady of intelligence” who “talks sense”—to authorize the establishment of a hospital in Michigan. He offered to name it after her, but she insisted that it bear her husband’s name. In time, two more hospitals would be opened in Wisconsin because of her efforts. In the summer of 1865, she visited the devastated South and realized that the tremendous mortality rate of the previous four years had left countless children

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“Many soldiers in our Western army must have Northern air or die.” parentless. She convinced the Madison City Council to convert the hospital into an orphan asylum. Over the next several years, hundreds of orphaned children would find a home there. Cordelia served as its first superintendent. She eventually remarried, moved back east, and returned to teaching. One of her students aptly described her as having “a loving personality—quick, keen and jolly.” Having outlived her second husband as well, Cordelia would return to Wisconsin, where she died in 1895 at age 70. She lies next to Louis and is still remembered throughout the state as the “Wisconsin Angel.” Ron Soodalter writes from Cold Spring, N.Y.

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FROM THE CROSSROADS

Never Forget Well off the beaten path, this monument to 125th N.Y. Colonel George Willard is among those Gettysburg memorials usually accessible only to the very hardy.

Tragic Redemption AT GETTYSBURG, THE 125TH N.Y. AMENDED ITS WOEFUL START TO THE WAR, BUT LOST ITS HIGHLY REGARDED COLONEL IN SO DOING

marker was placed. In their own way, both reflected how time, and death on a battlefield, can soften opinions, for initially the unit’s soldiers utterly despised their colonel. Willard came from a military family, but his father preferred he pursue a business career. Nevertheless, when the Mexican War came, George enlisted and would distinguish himself at the 1847 Battle of Chapultepec. On the recommendation of U.S. Army commander Winfield Scott, he earned a commission to the 8th U.S. Infantry. On August 15, 1862, the 35-year-old Willard made the jump from the Regular Army to the Volunteer Army and was appointed colonel of the new 125th New York. Although some Regular Army officers conceded that working with and motivating volunteers was different than regulars, Willard was not one of them. A rigid disciplinarian, he quickly earned his men’s hatred. Unit morale was not improved by the Union debacle at Harpers Ferry in September 1862, when the 125th surrendered with the rest of the garrison to Maj. Gen. Stonewall Jackson. The 125th was sent with the other

AMERICA’S CIVIL WAR

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

TRACKING DOWN OBSCURE monuments is a popular activity for those who enjoy tramping Gettysburg’s fields. One of the least visited in the heart of the battlefield is the simple four-foot granite monument marking the approximate location where Colonel George Willard—commanding the 3rd Brigade, 3rd Division, 2nd Corps of the Army of the Potomac—was killed on July 2, 1863. It was erected in 1888 by survivors of the 125th New York, the regiment Willard commanded before assuming brigade command. The reason this monument is so seldom visited is twofold; Willard is a relative unknown and it requires a hike of several hundred yards across an uneven meadow to what is known as the Codori-Trostle thicket. Since there is no well-trodden path, once you reach the thicket it can take a few minutes of hunting to locate the monument. Chaplain Ezra D. Simons, the 125th New York’s historian, called Willard the “embodiment of a true soldier— strict when on duty, cool amid danger, of oft-proven bravery, respected alike by subordinates and superiors.” Simons’ history was published the same year Willard’s

PHOTO BY NOEL KLINE

By D. Scott Hartwig

FROM THE CROSSROADS

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

PHOTO BY NOEL KLINE

Union prisoners to Camp Douglas’ parole camp in Chi- that those gaps be closed, whatever the cost. As dusk cago, where they were confined until they could be approached, Hays was ordered to send a brigade to the exchanged. They became known collectively as the “Harp- left. He chose Willard, instructing the colonel to “take ers Ferry Cowards,” only adding to their demoralization. your brigade there and knock the h--- out of the rebs.” Finally in November they were exchanged and sent to Nearing the southern end of Cemetery Ridge, in the Washington, D.C. There, the business of reorganizing the vicinity of where the Pennsylvania Monument stands regiments and rebuilding morale began. today, the brigade encountered the confusion brought on Willard continued to founder as the regiment’s com- by the frantic exodus of 3rd Corps soldiers retreating mander. His lieutenant colonel, Lewis Crandell, wrote in from the Confederate onslaught. Willard deployed his December that Willard “has come to the conclusion that brigade approximately along the line where Hancock he cannot or has not the faculty to command a volunteer Avenue now runs. “It was difficult to keep a line in the Regt successfully,” and had told the regiment’s adjutant face of these squads of flying men,” wrote one 111th New “he would be d----d if he did not resign as the regt was York soldier, who noted they also faced artillery fire—“terwholly demoralized.” When Willard took a leave of rific” in its intensity. Then, from a thicket about 400 yards absence, Crandell noted how the to the west, came small-arms fire men “have become cheerful, and from Brig. Gen. William Barksdale’s have done more drilling than they advancing Confederates. have since we left Chicago.” Under orders from corps commander Maj. Gen. Winfield HanThe 125th, 126th, 111th, and cock, Willard directed his brigade 39th New York formed what was forward. Although, as Ben Thompknown as the “Harpers Ferry Brison wrote, “men fell at every step,” gade,” and in January 1863 received the New Yorkers—their bayonets a new commander, Brig. Gen. Alexfixed and shouting “Remember ander Hays. Although he also had been Regular Army, Hays underHarpers Ferry”—swarmed forward. stood volunteers and knew how to Despite bullets and enemy shells make soldiers and build morale. It tearing through “our ranks fearseems he also helped Willard reset fully,” they drove back Barksdale’s his relationship with his men. men, mortally wounding the general On June 25, 1863, Hays’ brigade in the melee, and continued on was assigned to the Army of the toward the Emmitsburg Road. As Potomac, then marching north to they neared the road, though, shellconfront the Confederate invasion of ing from Rebel batteries around the Pennsylvania. In the reorganization Peach Orchard, as well as friendly New York Roots of the army that took place on the fire from Union artillery, forced WilWillard, the 125th New York’s first march, Hays’ brigade was assigned lard to order a retreat in order to colonel, was in command of the to the 2nd Corps, with Hays prore-form east of the thicket. “Harpers Ferry Brigade” when killed. moted to command of the 3rd DiviThat proved difficult, and losses sion. The promotion put Willard, as the senior colonel, in command of the brigade. By this point, however, opinions about him had changed. Even though his soldiers accepted that he remained a firm disciplinarian, they had also come to recognize that he displayed “the utmost care for the welfare of his men.” A week later, at Gettysburg, Willard’s brigade found itself arrayed in a reserve position along the northern end of Cemetery Ridge. The men all hoped for a chance to erase the stain of Harpers Ferry from their reputations. They spent the afternoon of July 2 listening to a furious battle on the Union left. Late in the afternoon, with a general collapse of that flank, troops of the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th Corps began streaming to the rear in retreat. Yawning gaps developed in the Union front that advancing Confederate troops threatened to exploit. It was imperative

were heavy. The atmosphere choked with smoke and the noise of artillery deafening, Willard rode among his men, attempting to steady and reorganize them into regimental formations. And then an enemy shell found its mark on the colonel, almost decapitating him. To prevent his sudden, gruesome death from demoralizing the men, Willard’s mangled body was quickly gathered up and carried from the field. The stigma of Harpers Ferry had been erased, but at a terrible cost. Monuments are about memory. Willard may not have been “loved” by his men, but the granite marker standing in the Codori-Trostle thicket is a fitting reminder that he had earned their respect and that his courage and sacrifice would not be forgotten. Scott Hartwig writes from the crossroads of Gettysburg. AUTUMN 2022

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Desperation and Determination Although the specifics of the 20th Maine’s furious bayonet attack down Little Round Top on July 2, 1863, have varied over the years, the bedlam portrayed in this Mort Künstler painting, is fairly accurate. Historians and artists disagree, however, whether Chamberlain was wearing a hat.

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LaST Resort?

Historian sheds new light on the 20th Maine’s epic bayonet charge down Little Round Top By Tom Desjardin

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PAINTING BY DALE GALLON

A Miracle Escape As Chamberlain neared apparent death in June 1864—grievously wounded in a Union assault at Petersburg—he was hastily promoted to brigadier general. Not only did he recover, he lived until age 85.

Decades after Oates, Southern historical writer Shelby Foote said of the Mainers and Alabamians who fought on the small but tactically crucial hill: “[T]he men of these two outfits fought as if the outcome of the battle, and with it the war, depended on their valor: as indeed perhaps it did, since whoever had possession of this craggy height on the Union left would dominate the whole fishhook position.” Filmmaker Ken Burns, whose 1991 PBS documentary made Foote famous and forever changed the way people see the Civil War, said of Chamberlain: “He executed an obscure textbook maneuver that only an academic would remember at the battle of Little Round Top that saved the day, saved the Union Army perhaps and maybe saved the Union.” But there was no textbook, and the 20th Maine performed no obscure maneuver. That there is no evidence to support facts such as these has seemingly had no effect on the misperceptions of millions who encounter the story and the great importance heaped upon it by modern chroniclers. One of the first things that happens to soldiers who report to Officer Candidate School in the U.S. Army is they are handed a copy of Field Manual 22-100, the guidebook that will inform their training on the road to becoming officers. The first lesson they encounter in this book, beginning on page 8, is the story of the 20th Maine at Gettysburg. This example of military leadership concludes by saying, “For a few moments, the fate of an Army [sic] and a nation rested on the shoulders of 358 farmers, woodsmen, and fishermen from Maine.” When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. decided in 2007 to create a series of children’s books called “Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s American Heroes,” he chose as the subject of its first volume Joshua Chamberlain and the American Civil War. In it, he describes how Chamberlain and his men “saved our country from destruction” on Little Round Top at Gettysburg. In his 2014 autobiography, U.S. Army combat veteran and former Congressman Allen West called Chamberlain, “[o]ne of my favorite leaders in American history.” He then described the Maine warrior’s most famous action by writing, “using a maneuver called a ‘swinging gate,’ (he) created a frontal assault and flanking attack simultaneously, leading the charge that saved the day at Little Round Top. With his actions, Chamberlain saved the Union Army of the Potomac.” All the same, in widespread popular culture,

t is a story made famous by the likes of Ken Burns, Jeff Daniels, and Ted Turner. A small, inexperienced infantry regiment in the Civil War finds itself defending the key to the outcome of the largest battle in the history of North America. Attacked by a force superior in both numbers and experience, the little band of Mainers holds off assault after assault and, with a surprise bayonet charge, saves the Union army, and perhaps the Union itself, from destruction. Particularly in the past few decades, few stories from the Civil War have received as much attention as that of Colonel Joshua L. Chamberlain and his 20th Maine Infantry at Gettysburg. The subject of novels, documentaries, artwork, and a feature film, the efforts of this one regiment to save the Union army in the epic three-day battle have become legendary. Placed on the far left of the Union position on the battle’s decisive second day, the unit became the target of a massive Confederate assault on the end of the Yankee line resting on a small hill that later became known as “Little Round Top.” After an hour and a half of intense, sometimes hand-to-hand fighting, and with a third of his men down and others running out of ammunition, Chamberlain and his men went on the offensive, carrying out an unexpected bayonet charge that swept their Alabama attackers from the field and secured the Union left. More than a century ago, Colonel William C. Oates, commander of the 15th Alabama soldiers who attacked the 20th Maine, wrote of his Yankee counterparts: “[Chamberlain’s] skill and persistency and the great bravery of his men saved Little Round Top and the Army of the Potomac from defeat.”

U PAINTING BY DALE GALLON

few if any have taken an in-depth look at all the circumstances from that encounter and determined whether the role of the 20th Maine lives up to the heroic modern assessment applied to it in literature, film, and in other ways. By peering behind the legend and the modern machinery of myth-making, does the story as told and believed so widely today compare to what our society has built it up to be? The main question to be answered is: Was there ever a possibility the Rebels could have seized Little Round Top, placed artillery there, and used it to “shell the U.S. army into submission”? If that answer is no, then a discussion about whether anyone saved the Union Army or the Union itself on Little Round Top is moot. To answer this key question, let us consider the best possible scenario for the Confederate troops and the worst-case scenario for their Union counterparts to see if the idea is feasible. nfolding circumstances denied the Confederates the benefit of a reserve force that could have exploited any gains made by those who attacked the hill initially. The movement of the Union left flank southward just prior to when the Alabamians stepped off on their assault, meant that the far right of the attacking force had to move and stretch to the right of their original angle of attack. This was compounded when Yankee sharpshooters began harassing the Alabamians from the base of Round Top on their right, requiring a further shift in this direction to clear their flank of enemy fire. As this unfolded, it became clear that the line of battle was stretched

too thin and the 44th and 48th Alabama regiments that would otherwise have provided support as reserve troops, stepped up to the front line and instead moved away from the far right of the assault. These two regiments fought in Devil’s Den with far fewer casualties than other units in their brigade. An analysis of strengths and casualties shows that about the time of the now famous charge of the 20th Maine, Colonel Oates’ 15th Alabama had about 330 men still engaged in the fight. In a best-case, although unlikely, scenario, these might have been supplemented by others in the brigade. If, for example, 90 men of the 47th Alabama, which had left the fighting in its initial minutes after suffering heavy losses, had somehow rallied and returned to the fight, and if 260 men remaining on duty in the adjacent 4th Alabama had joined the assault, the renewed Confederate attack might have numbered 680 men. Assuming the remnants of the three regiments of Law’s Alabama BriSouthern View The 20th Maine’s position on the southeast corner of Little Round Top—the Union army’s far left flank—as seen from the perspective of Colonel William Oates’ attacking 15th Alabama.

Could the rebels have seized little round top, placed artillery, and shelled the u.s. Army into submission? gade close enough to exploit a collapse of the 20th Maine’s line were able to rally and focus their efforts toward the top of the hill, and also assuming that the remaining regiments of Union Colonel Strong Vincent’s 3rd Brigade were at their weakest point of the battle—neither of which is a safe assumption—then roughly 680 Alabamians, fighting uphill, would have had to dislodge and defeat nearly 17,000 Yankee infantrymen. As they joined forces and renewed the assault on Little Round Top, climbing upward, the Alabamians would first have faced the 800 men of Vincent’s brigade still on duty. Had they somehow swept these soldiers aside, they would have been met by at least 1,285 soldiers of Brig. Gen. Stephen H. Weed’s brigade, including the remnants of the 140th New York that had just driven the 4th and 5th Texas from the hill. AUTUMN 2022

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Then there is the uncooperative shape of the summit. Little Round Top was not so named because of the roundness of its top. It became known by that name years after the battle simply because it was adjacent to and smaller than its neighbor, Round Top. Given the decidedly nonround topography of the hill, it is unlikely that any more than four pieces of artillery could be brought to bear in the direction of the Union line. Again, this could only be accomplished if the 17,000 otherwise unoccupied Union soldiers in

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ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES

Fields of Fire Little Round Top’s craggy summit shows how little opportunity there was to use artillery against the Union lines on July 2. The bottom photo, from 1909, depicts the limited line of fire the Rebels would have had toward the main Union position (far right); the top photo, taken after the battle by Mathew Brady, is where the 4th and 5th Texas and 140th New York clashed. Had other Alabama units below the hill renewed the assault, Colonel Strong Vincent’s 800 or so Federals, lodged among rocks and breastworks on the upper right, blocked their path (see P.28).

UNIVERSITY HISTORY ARCHIVE/UIG/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

If the remaining 680 Alabamians somehow succeeded in seizing the summit of Little Round Top, they would have then faced the full force of Union soldiers in the vicinity in what would surely have been an immediate and forceful effort to retake the hill. In all, there were more than 16,900 Union soldiers within just one-half mile, assuming these nearby units were then at their lowest strength levels of the entire battle. Of these, about 10,000 had yet to be engaged in any fighting at that point. In the unlikely scenario in which fewer than 680 Alabamians make an attack on Little Round Top, and in the worst case for their enemy they are met by nearly 17,000 Union troops, the probability that the Confederates could have taken and held Little Round Top is undoubtedly zero. For argument’s sake, let us say these exhausted, outmanned Alabamians somehow took and held the hill. Then they could have—or so legend has it—brought artillery to the summit and “bombarded the Union army into submission.” As one Pennsylvania professor once wrote, “Confederate artillery emplaced upon this height could enfilade the Union line and render it untenable.” But is this statement supported by the facts? This legend is betrayed by two critical elements: Getting guns to the hill and finding ground on which to place them for action. First, the summit of Little Round Top is a very poor artillery platform, particularly when aiming northward toward the Union line of battle. The effective range of a Confederate rifled cannon is around 1,820 yards, or just more than a mile. Any artillery piece fired from the summit would have been able to reach no more than a third of the Federal line within sight of the hill, which in turn was little more than half of the overall Union force.

ALABAMA DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES

UNIVERSITY HISTORY ARCHIVE/UIG/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

the near vicinity decided not to hamper, much less destroy, any Confederate artillery that became engaged from the summit. Secondly, there is an enormous problem of command and control. For even a single piece of Southern artillery to begin firing from the summit, some Confederate officer with the authority to do so, would have to order it there. The nearest available guns were among the batteries of Cabell’s Artillery Battalion roughly a mile to the west. These, however, were under the command of Maj. Gen. Lafayette McLaws, whose division had borne the brunt of the fighting and had incurred heavy casualties on July 2 across the Peach Orchard, the Wheatfield, and the lower part of Cemetery Ridge. This left the far right Confederate division under Maj. Gen. John B. Hood, whose command included Henry’s Artillery Battalion (with Latham and Reilly’s batteries, which were in position more than a mile to the west). Hood, however, had been badly wounded earlier in the assault, well before the fighting on Little Round Top began. Once Hood was removed from the field, command of the division fell to Brig. Gen. Evander Law, the division’s senior brigade commander, whose units included the attacking Alabama regiments. Law’s experience was a good example of the difficulty inherent in locating a specific officer on an active battlefield since staff officers who went in search of him following Hood’s wounding to inform him that he was now in command of the division were unable to locate him until after the fighting ceased. Assuming someone, somewhere, recognized the importance of the hill and found their way through the chaos of battle to General Law or any other officer whose command included artillery, and convinced him of the importance of redirecting cannons to Little Round Top—any battery to whom he gave that order would have to determine how to relocate his guns, limbers, caissons, horses, and men to the summit. Realistically, because of the steepness of the slope in places and the large boulders in others, there is only one way to do this, via the path on the eastern slope of the hill used by Union infantry and two guns of Lieutenant Charles E. Hazlett’s Battery D, 5th U.S. Artillery, to reach the crest. To do so safely, the battery would also need an escort of cavalry to shield it from Union troops along the path. As they neared the hill, they would have confronted 17,000 Union soldiers who by then would have been quite unwilling to allow an enemy battery to ramble past on its way to this key location. Assuming some miracle allowed

their safe passage, once their cannons went into position and opened fire, those working the guns would have been immediately subject to a hellacious counter battery fire from at least four Union artillery units just north of the hill. All things considered, and assuming the best possible circumstances favoring the Confederates, there is clearly no realistic scenario in which Southerners could have used Little Round Top to bombard the Union army at all, much less “into submission.”

t could be argued that Confederate seizure of the hill, despite its shortcomings as a base for artillery, would have given them control of the Taneytown Road, a key supply route into the Union lines that ran within several hundred yards of Little Round Top. The wooded eastern slope of the hill, however, shielded the road from view, and even if Federal commanders chose not to risk use of the road for supply wagons, there were at least two eastward roads north of the Maryland border and well south of the Round Tops that led directly to the Baltimore Pike, which was still securely in Union hands. This theory again requires more than 10,000 Yankees who had yet to be engaged in battle at all to simply allow a few hundred worn-out Confederates to continue to occupy such a key position unchallenged. Since the Confederates never had a realistic chance of taking and holding Little Round Top once Union troops arrived there, and certainly had no way to use the hill to bombard the Union army into retreat, a failure of the 20th Maine would not have meant the loss of the battle for the Army of the Potomac. Although claims the 20th Maine “saved” the Union army at Gettysburg are unrealistic, their efforts should not be diminished. What is important is how well the regiment performed despite a number of factors that could have caused it to fail. Apart from several dozen transfers from the disbanded 2nd Maine Infantry, Gettysburg was what one veteran called the 20th’s “first real, standup fight.” The regiment had marched nearly two dozen miles per day for a week or more but arrived on the field at Gettysburg in the early morning hours of July 2, giving them nearly 12 hours of rest before being called to action. The 15th Alabama, by comparison, had been in every major battle in the East since the First Manassas clash in July 1861. In his memoir published in Incapacitated 1905, Colonel Oates recalled that he Overcome by “heat and and his men had marched two dozen exertion,” Colonel William C. miles in the early part of the day to Oates was carried to the rear by his men after the attack. reach Gettysburg. He also wrote that soon after arriving in the position from which they would begin their assault, he dispatched two men from each company to take all of the canteens, find a water source, and fill them before returning to the regiment. According to his recollection, these men were captured and had not returned when the regiment stepped off on its movement toward the enemy, meaning they—and the regiment’s canteens—were lost for the duration of the fight. Detailed records of the casualties of the 15th Alabama, however, do not show at least two men captured or missing in each company, casting doubt AUTUMN 2022

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Roughly since Ken Burns called the 20th Maine’s Little Round Top charge a “textbook military maneuver,” the notion the regiment executed a practiced maneuver as its colonel shouted orders has become widely accepted, with phrases such as “a gate swinging on a post” and “great right wheel” the norm among descriptive narratives. There are, however, a number of theories and reminiscences that suggest these events transpired in a different manner. First, according to both Chamberlain and Acting Major Ellis Spear, no “charge” order ever rang out across Little Round Top’s southern spur. Spear maintained that he never heard this, or any other order, after the left wing for which he was responsible bent back to present a front to the flanking 15th Alabama. Chamberlain recalled on various occasions that the order “caught in his throat” or was never uttered because of the noise—“no one would have heard it in the mighty hosannah that was winging the sky.” What seems to have initiated the charge was the order “fix bayonets” that Chamberlain did deliver, and a movement at the center of the regiment in which men of the color company moved forward a few feet to rescue wounded comrades near the large boulder formation along their front. Visible above these men’s heads as they made this brief foray was the regiment’s 6-by-6½-foot red, white, and blue flag. Seeing the colors moving forward, Spear responded as trained by moving the men on the left forward so as not to break the line. Here, topography intervened as the somewhat abrupt crest of the hill on which the left wing

How the Soldiers Remembered It As described by the men who executed it, the 20th Maine’s charge was largely a response to the movement of enemy troops following orders to flee back in the same direction they had come. Chasing the Alabamians caused the regiment’s left wing to follow a path that is best described— though not with complete accuracy—as “swinging” from left to right.

was positioned dropped off in front of these men sooner than it did at the center’s formation. Spear and his men were already headed down the hill before the colors’ brief advance had halted. The men on Spear’s extreme left chased the enemy straight ahead and even a little to their left before capturing a group of troops in a nearby farm lane. As the momentum continued its shift to the center, the Mainers who followed the initial rush ran into more surprised Rebel soldiers. The Alabamians, it seemed, were fleeing in the same general direction as the Yankees giving chase. Knowing he was unlikely to dislodge the Yankees on his front—and with his energy, his soldiers, and also daylight ebbing away—Oates chose to make the most of a bad situation. Noting the dominance of the large hill they had traversed on their assault march—Big Round Top—he told his men, upon his signal, to run back the way they had come, hoping to hold that large hill and perhaps use it to their advantage in the morning. Instead, the Alabamians were pushed to move by the 20th Maine’s sweep down the slope. Acting on instinct, or perhaps believing they had missed the signal, the Alabamians fled as ordered. But for those hit first on the far right, the choices were limited. Some dropped their rifles and ran straight back, quickly captured in the farm lane. Others who fled suddenly encountered fresh Union faces rushing at them from that direction and surrendered with the belief they had been surrounded by enemy reinforcements. These were actually men of the 20th Maine’s Company B, which Chamberlain had sent out earlier as skirmishers. They had drifted into the woods and were then cut off by the 15th’s initial charge— forced to hide behind a stone wall, able to hear but not see the nearby fighting. As the graycoats began running “like a herd of wild cattle”—their commander’s own words—some ran headlong into these “reinforcements” and surrendered. The remaining Rebels had only one direction left—the path their colonel had ordered them to use. The 20th Maine’s pursuit was chaotic, but it generally fell under the broad description of “swinging” rightward from their original position. As the men of the left wing cleared the boulder formation and came into view, the Mainers on the right wing advanced in turn, further “sweeping” the Rebels out from their front. For his part, Joshua Chamberlain, along with the remnants of the regimental color guard, ran down the hill with the boulders, as he remembered, “entirely on my left.” —Tom Desjardin

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MAURICE SAVAGE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; COURTESY OF PEJEPSCOT HISTORY CENTER

A “Great Right Wheel” of sorts

MAURICE SAVAGE/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; COURTESY OF PEJEPSCOT HISTORY CENTER

on the story. Even without abundant water, Written in Stone the weather in Gettysburg on that July 2 did The 20th Maine’s not exceed 81 degrees under mostly cloudy monument on Little skies and the humidity, according to a local Round Top, dedicated professor, was “unusually low for that season in 1886. Nearby, and of the year”—downright comfortable weather often overlooked, is a it would seem for men from hot and humid memorial to Company B—latecomers to the southern Alabama. unit’s historic charge. Joshua Chamberlain returned to his regiment on June 30 after a 10-day absence due to illness, likely malarial fever and dysentery that had become rampant among his men in the latter part of June. Upon his return, he learned that his promotion to colonel and command of the regiment had been approved, making him the newest colonel in the entire Union Army at that time. What he learned about warfare in 10 months since he left a professorship back home had been from books, daily drilling, and the remarkable example set by the previous commander, West Point graduate Adelbert Ames. In battle, Ames showed absolutely no fear, and Chamberlain quickly learned the value of two traits that made for a good combat commander; calmness in all circumstances and a willingness to expose oneself to danger. Every glance by a soldier back at his commanding officer that revealed a calm, confident demeanor was reassuring, and not much inspired bravery in those soldiers more than a colonel who would stand exposed among his men in the face of danger. As to drilling, the many long hours that the men spent repeatedly carrying out movements and maneuvers on various open fields near camp were rendered useless when they reached the southern end of Little Round Top with its plentiful trees, rocks, and sloping hills providing obstacles for which they had not prepared. By all accounts, Chamberlain and his men adapted well to these sudden challenges, and it probably saved many of their lives. Demonstrating these two key qualities of command almost caused Chamberlain to lose each of his legs to Confederate bullets: the first one hitting the underside of his right foot and tearing open the arch of his boot; the second striking the scabbard of his sword hanging at his left side. The blow broke the scabbard into two pieces and badly bruised his left leg. Between these two wounds and the draining effects of his illnesses, it is a wonder the Maine profesLeather Shield Chamberlain wore this boot on his right leg at Gettysburg. The leather of the boot’s arch, struck by a bullet and ripped apart, was repaired. The colonel was fortunate not to be seriously wounded by the strike and able to keep fighting—unlike at Petersburg in 1864, when he was almost mortally wounded (see P.24).

sor-turned-warrior could stand upright at all at Gettysburg, much less effectively command an infantry regiment. Had he been in the best of health, the prospect that a man trained as a professor—known as he was for handling problems with prolonged study in quiet environments—could react instantly to the battlefield situations that presented themselves, and do so effectively, is truly remarkable. Also considering his illness, wounds, and lack of combat leadership experience, Chamberlain surely would’ve been forgiven a misstep or two. When the smoke of battle had cleared, however, there was no need for forgiveness, only marvel. Despite the challenges, which included facing a large force of battle-hardened Alabamians, Chamberlain acted calmly, maneuvered his regiment to meet each threat, and provided a stalwart inspiration to his men, even after more than a third of them had been killed or wounded. Thanks to its elevation to mythical status over the past few decades, the real story of the 20th Maine’s work at Gettysburg is often overshadowed by the story people want to believe. This is unfortunate since the real story of personal courage, sacrifice, and ultimately success reveals a remarkable accomplishment even without the modern embellishments. An 11th generation Mainer, Tom Desjardin has studied the 20th Maine since the age of 10. He was actor Jeff Daniels’ historical adviser for the movie Gettysburg (see P.4). His The Autobiography of Joshua L. Chamberlain and The Legend of Joshua L. Chamberlain are scheduled for publication in late 2022 or early 2023. AUTUMN 2022

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DENVER ROCKY NEWS; COURTESY OF JOHN BANKS

Lost and Found Accounts of keepsakes recovered on the battlefield often ran in newspapers, like the one below found on a dead Georgia soldier at Gettysburg. That was also where the photo at right was found—later published in the 14th Connecticut’s regimental history.

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Who are tHEy?

Postwar newspapers provided clues to two Gettysburg photo mysteries. Now you can help solve them. By John Banks

DENVER ROCKY NEWS; COURTESY OF JOHN BANKS

he Amos Humiston story resonates like few others from Gettysburg. On July 1, 1863—Day 1 of the epic, threeday battle—a local resident discovered the body of the 154th New York Infantry sergeant near John Kuhn’s brickyard, north of the town square. The soldier clutched in his hand an image of three children. He carried no identification. To identify the children and thus reveal the soldier’s name, a doctor had hundreds of cartesde-visite of the photograph created and distributed. “Whose Father Was He?” read the headline above a story about the image in The Philadelphia Inquirer and other Northern newspapers. The publicity effort worked. Months after the battle, Humiston’s widow identified him after reading a detailed description of the photograph of the children in a religious publication. But the Humiston saga wasn’t the only mystery involving Gettysburg photographs. In the immediate aftermath of the battle, burial crews discovered other poignant images—a torn portrait of a fiancée, a blood-spattered image in a captain’s stiff fingers, a baby’s likeness smeared with blood, and many others—among bodies,

bibles, scraps of letters, clothing, and weaponry. In November 1867, a daguerreotype of a woman—in her early 20s with “dark hair, combed back and falling loosely over her shoulders”—was unearthed, along with a soldier’s remains and a cartridge box containing 43 bullet, near the Emmitsburg Road at Gettysburg Based on the location on the battlefield, the grave was believed to belong to a fallen Confederate. As one newspaper reported: “We have been particular in describing the daguerreotype, as it may lead to its identification.” Identification of this soldier and the image of the young woman, however, were not ascertained. The names of other subjects in photographs found on the battlefield also have been lost to history. But enough clues have surfaced for us to inch closer to solving two other Amos Humiston-like Gettysburg mysteries. Each involves a Confederate soldier, whose remains—like Humiston’s— were found with a mysterious photograph. We don’t have all the answers yet. So, jump-start your brains, log on to genealogy sites, and scour old newspapers. More than 158 years after one Gettysburg photo mystery was settled, you can assist in solving two more.

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Glenn was slightly wounded in the head and face at Gettysburg, severely wounded in the breast at Hatcher’s Run, near Petersburg, and suffered two other war wounds. By February 1865, he had become a 1st sergeant for the hard-fighting unit that had seen action at Antietam, Fredericksburg, Morton’s Ford, and elsewhere. But Glenn survived the war and returned to Bridgeport, Conn. As a civilian, Glenn served as a police officer and a truant officer and became an influential member of veterans’ organizations. The war— and the Gettysburg photograph he had brought home with him—remained seared into his brain. In 1911, Glenn gave such a graphic description of Pickett’s Charge to a Grand Army of the Republic gathering that “the audience had but little difficulty in seeing why” Confederates “gladly surrendered after their awful experience.” Two years later, weeks before Glenn attended

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; PHOTO BY STEVE A. HAWKS, COURTESY STONESENTINELS.COM

High Water Mark Confederates attacking the center of the Union lines during Pickett’s Charge on July 3, 1863— Gettysburg’s third day—were repelled, resulting in more than 50 percent total casualties.

BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

t about dawn on July 4, 1863, the 87th anniversary of the creation of the United States and the day after Pickett’s Charge, Russell Glenn of the 14th Connecticut Infantry searched the battlefield with comrades near the Bloody Angle. The soldiers found a “terrible valley of death”: bloodied and battered enemies, body parts, and the detritus of war. While some of Glenn’s comrades assisted wounded Rebels, others searched for war trophies, a common activity of soldiers following a battle. Then the 19-year-old corporal happened upon a Confederate lying face up near a boulder, his blue eyes wide open as if staring at the sky. He is handsome—even noble-looking—and so lifelike that he appears he can speak, Glenn thought to himself about the fallen enemy, perhaps a teen. Then he noticed the gruesome, bloody hole in the Rebel’s chest, perhaps from a bullet or canister, and knew death must have come quickly. When Glenn stooped to examine the curly-haired Confederate, clad in a gray blouse and coat, he noticed something in his hand, near his left breast. He broke the death grip and examined the object, a daguerreotype of a young woman in her late teens or early 20s. She was clad in a highnecked dress with what appeared to be a brooch pinned near the top. Her hair, parted in the middle, formed a bun. With a Mona Lisa–like hint of a smile, she stared straight ahead. The case was battle-damaged, but the image itself remained unscathed. Glenn wondered if the photograph was a sweetheart: Did this man stare at the image as he died? Using the Confederate’s coat, the teen wiped blood from the photograph’s glass cover and slipped the souvenir into his coat pocket. Burial crews tossed the remains of the unknown soldier—perhaps from the 16th North Carolina or an Alabama regiment—into a long trench with dozens of his comrades.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; PHOTO BY STEVE A. HAWKS, COURTESY STONESENTINELS.COM

BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

a 50th anniversary reunion at Gettysburg with 14th Connecticut comrades, a Bridgeport newspaper made the daguerreotype subject of a P. 1 story. “Glenn’s Trophy Tells Tragedy of the Civil War,” the headline read, followed by “Worn Daguerreotype Is Token of Romance Blighted by Conflict” and “Bridgeport Soldier Has Not Sought to Restore It Fearful of Causing Heartaches.” Concluded the newspaper: “This little incident of a terrible battle, one of a thousand too trivial to be noticed by the historian yet a mighty reason why there should be no more war, remained to be told by the camp-fire and after the war about the fireside.” After the war, the story explained, Glenn tried to find the young lady in the daguerreotype, which had remained in the veteran’s possession since its discovery. “A woman who lost [a] father, brothers and [a] sweetheart at Gettysburg is believed to be the original of the picture,” the newspaper reported. Glenn was certain of her identity, but he was “fearful of reopening an old wound [and] he refrained from communicating with her.” Frustrating future historians and amateur detectives, the newspaper offered no name or other clues that could lead to the identification of the woman or the fallen Confederate found with the photo. In 1906, a copy of the image appeared in the 14th Connecticut regimental history. In the

Cost of War The corpses of thousands of soldiers covered the Gettysburg battlefield in the days after the three-day battle. Many were buried in shallow graves, but not before being picked over for mementos or treasures.

accompanying text, Glenn called the photograph “the most valuable relic of his war experience.” On November 29, 1919, the morning after he attended the funeral of a friend, Glenn died of heart disease at 74. He left a widow and two sons. No mention of the veteran’s prized Civil War souvenir appeared in his obituary in The Republic Farmer, a local newspaper. The fate of the image, as well as the names of the subject and owner, remains unknown. Perhaps with deeper research, more information will surface about Glenn and the photograph that had such an impact on his life. He, of course, wasn’t the only veteran to have an extraordinary experience involving an image found on the battlefield.

O Nutmeg Regiment A monument to the 14th Connecticut Infantry was dedicated near the Bloody Angle on July 3, 1884—21 years after Corporal Russell Glenn found his photo mystery near the same spot.

n a warm day in late July 1878, as Confederate fallen were exhumed on William Blocher’s farm north of Gettysburg, a skull surfaced from a grave; so did a “C.S.A”-stamped belt buckle, a brass “3,” “1,” and “F” from a kepi, and other accoutrements. And, as a Civil War veteran Henry Mark Mingay watched the tedious work, a remarkable artifact appeared between two rib bones: an ambrotype—a photograph produced on a glass plate—of two girls and a young lady. The woman, with jet-black hair and red-tinted cheeks, appeared to be in her late 20s. The children, between four and 10 years old, had the same features as the young lady. Newspapers published contradictory reports on how the photo ended up with Mingay, who was visiting Gettysburg with comrades. “The case had decayed,” a Gettysburg newspaper reported days after the discovery, “but the picture is still perfect, showing features, clothing, AUTUMN 2022

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Double Standard The 31st Georgia Infantry, which first formed as the 27th Georgia in 1861, had 252 men in the ranks at Gettysburg and lost heavily, finally surrendering on July 3 with only 120 left.

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THE BALTIMORE SUN

OLD SOUTH MILITARY ANTIQUES, WWW.OLDSOUTHANTIQUES.COM; BURBANK TIMES

coloring and gilding with the clearness of recent taking.” Based on the etching on an old grave marker and the company and regimental designations from the kepi, the Confederate served with the 31st Georgia. (Another newspaper account noted that the fallen Rebel served with the 7th Georgia, but Blocher said he was a 31st Georgia soldier.) On July 1, the 31st Georgia fought across the Blocher Farm north of Gettysburg. But no identification was found with the fallen soldier in Company F, a unit raised in Pulaski County. Could the soldier’s wife and children be the subjects in the ambrotype—“their last gift to papa,” as a Pennsylvania newspaper speculated days after its discovery? Like Russell Glenn’s relic, the Blocher Farm photograph has a tantalizing history—one intertwined with Mingay, a diminutive man with a keen sense of humor. “A natural ham,” a newspaper reporter once called him. Born on December 3, 1846, in Filby, England, Mingay immigrated to the United States with his family in 1850, eventually settling in Saratoga, N.Y. In 1860, he left school to become a shoe shiner and a “printer’s devil”—an apprentice in a newspaper’s printing department. In April 1861, he heard news of the shelling of Fort Sumter from a telegrapher, who told him to sprint like hell to deliver word to his employer. On August 29, 1864, 17-year-old Mingay enlisted as a private in Company D of the 69th New York—part of the famed Irish Brigade—and served through the rest of the war. In June 1865, he mustered out as a sergeant. After the war, Mingay was active in veterans’ organizations—it was at Grand Army of the Republic event in Gettysburg that he acquired the ambrotype, possibly from Blocher, who reportedly witnessed the 31st Georgia soldier’s burial by U.S. Army soldiers in 1863. Mingay took the treasure Local Legend home to Penn-Yann, N.Y., intent on returnHenry Mingay and ing it to the fallen Georgian’s family. his photo discovery periodically made In August 1878, a Gettysburg newspaper newspaper headlines. reported Mingay planned to “have the facts Mingay, who became [about the image] well published, with the a local celebrity after view to the restoration of the picture to the moving to California, family of the deceased.” According to lived to be 100 years old. another Pennsylvania newspaper, the pho-

tograph was taken to Philadelphia, where copies were to be made and then sent to Georgia “in the hope of discovering the relatives of the dead soldier.” But it’s unknown whether the ambrotype ever made it to Philadelphia or any copies were made and distributed. In 1897, the photograph’s trail picks up in Colorado, where Mingay had moved 12 years earlier. By the late 1890s, the successful newspaperman was interested in finding a home for his collection of other war relics—mementos that included not only the photograph, but a piece of the tree near where a bullet fatally wounded Union Maj. Gen. John Reynolds at Gettysburg; a penny dug up at Dutch Gap Canal in Virginia; a pen-holder Mingay used at Petersburg; slivers of the 77th New York’s regimental and battle flags; and a piece of overcoat, with the button attached, from the 31st Georgia soldier’s grave. In August 1897, Mingay donated artifacts— including the prized ambrotype and the button attached to the overcoat—to the State of Colorado for inclusion in a display of war relics at the state capitol in Denver. Even 34 years after the battle, Mingay hoped the soldier’s relatives might claim the photograph.

Family Ties

In The Rocky Mountain News on August 16, 1897, a story about the veteran’s donations included an illustration of the ambrotype with this description:

THE BALTIMORE SUN

OLD SOUTH MILITARY ANTIQUES, WWW.OLDSOUTHANTIQUES.COM; BURBANK TIMES

At the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, 5th Maryland Corporal George D. Wernex carried with him a daguerreotype of his 25-year-old sister, Anna Mary. He had promised to carry the picture of his sibling in the breast pocket of his coat during the war. During that day’s brutal fighting, probably near the Bloody Lane, a bullet struck Wernex in the chest, denting the daguerreotype but apparently doing no physical damage to him. Wernex was among the lucky ones in the 5th Maryland, a U.S. Army regiment that suffered 39 killed and 109 wounded at Antietam. “Returning to his home [after the war],” The Baltimore Sun reported on October 2, 1927, “he presented the picture to his sister, asking her to retain it always as the charm that saved his life.” After the war, Wernex served as a Baltimore fireman—he missed only three alarms in 30 years—and ran a cigar store for 42 years. “His customers numbered many of those who were frequent passengers on trains leaving Camden Station, his business being located just across the street from the depot,” the Sun reported in 1915 after the 71-year-old Wernex’s death from Bright’s disease. “He had been a reader of the Sun ever since he had received sufficient education to be able to read.” After Anna Mary married Charles L. Mattfeldt, the couple gave the battle-damaged daguerreotype a “prominent place in their home.” After her death in 1916, the image was inherited by her son. The current whereabouts of the image, however, are unknown. It’s also unknown whether a bullet-damaged daguerreotype carried by a Confederate soldier at Gettysburg saved his life, too. Captain Franklin Pease of the 37th Massachusetts discovered the image of a young lady on the battlefield. A Armor Plate bullet had struck behind her face, raising it “the In 1927, The Baltimore Sun ran a photo of this size of the ball.” daguerreotype of Anna “The picture belonged to a rebel, but traitor as Mary Wernex. The he was, we have not the heart to hope the face cased image shielded he loved did not save him,” a Massachusetts her brother from a newspaper reported weeks after the battle. bullet to the chest at the Another battlefield-found image involved Battle of Antietam. misfortune and fortune.

“The center person is a lady of apparently 30 years of age, with dark hair, and wearing a check dress, with a white collar. She wears a gold breast-pin and a ring on the third finger of her left hand. On either side of her are two girls…one with dark hair of a lighter tint….Each of the girls has a gold chain around her neck.” The frame of the ambrotype was “somewhat discolored,” the newspaper reported, “but the

In the spring of 1864, George Henry—an 18-year-old private in the 14th New York Heavy Artillery—picked up a daguerreotype of a young woman from the muddy Spotsylvania Court House battlefield. The keepsake probably was lost by a soldier—from which side, who knows? Fifteen years later, Henry’s children were playing with the image when the case cracked open. Peeking from underneath the velvet pad was an 1862 $100 bill. “Who the picture represents Mr. Henry knows not,” a New York newspaper reported, “but he doubtless appreciates the deposit found in the background of the picture.” —John Banks

features of the sitters in the portrait are still distinct.” The day of the story’s publication, the custodian of Colorado’s war relics mailed a copy of The Rocky Mountain News article to Georgia’s adjutant general with a letter seeking assistance in identifying the subjects of the portrait. “I was a soldier in the federal army,” wrote Cecil A. Deane, “and know how greatly the ambrotype will be regarded if its rightful owner can be found. It will afford me great pleasure to assist in restoring it to such person.” A week later, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reprinted the illustration with details about the ambrotype’s discovery. “Who Claims This Picture?” read the headline. The answer was in the veteran’s own backyard. In a front-page story in The Denver Post on November 24, 1897, “Mrs. Frank Smith” wept as she stared at the ambrotype during a visit to the war relic museum in Denver. Those are my sisters, the Como, Colo., woman declared. The soldier it was found with is my brother. One of the sisters in the ambrotype also lived in Como. The newspaper did not report the AUTUMN 2022

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charACter witnesS MUSEUM-GOER SOLVES PHOTO MYSTERY

Oh, the glorious cheer of triumph When the foemen turned and fled Leaving us the field of battle Strewn with dying and dead Oh, the waiting and anguish That I could not follow on So, amid my fallen comrades I must wait til morning’s dawn At Winchester National Cemetery, John’s

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VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND CULTURE

summer of 1862, Secrist handed him the tintype— an image taken when she was 15 and lived in Pennsylvania. They most likely maintained their relationship through letter writing, although no such letters are known to exist. War rocked Carmichael’s family, as it did to thousands of others. At the May 1863 Battle of Champion Hill, Albert was severely wounded. While convalescing in New Orleans, he wrote a poem that appeared in James Oxley’s journal. It included a grim reflection of the war’s cruelty:

THE SUNDAY REGISTER’S MAGAZINE; VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND CULTURE

or decades, the tiny photograph of the unidentified young woman charmed—and mystified— scores of visitors to the old Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Va. She stared straight ahead, her hair parted down the middle and smoothed behind the ears. A watch chain double looped around her neck—the shorter one included a heart-shaped charm. She wore a black ribbon on the crown of her head. For eye appeal, the photographic artist tinted the young lady’s lips and cheeks pink. In the summer of 1864, a Rebel plucked the image—a 1/16-plate tintype in a 1.5- by Secret Admirer 2-inch case—as a souvenir from a fallen Georgiana Oxley was Union soldier on a Virginia battlefield. In engaged to Albert the late 1890s, the veteran donated the Carmichael of the 24th photograph to the museum, now known Iowa when he carried as the American Civil War Museum. this image of her at But who was she? the Third Battle of During an early 1920s visit to the Winchester. Her brother museum, a couple from Cedar Rapids, later identified her in the photo on display at a Iowa, recognized the photograph. Months Virginia museum. later, they provided museum archivists with details. The brother of the young lady portrayed supplied an early 20th-century image of his sister for comparison to the museum likeness. That evidence, along with snippets of information gleaned from the Confederate veteran, convinced museum authorities of the photograph’s identity. The image that had long captivated museum visitors was of Georgiana (or Georgia Ann) Oxley Secrist of Marion, Iowa. The fallen soldier whom the Confederate snatched the image from was her fiancé, Albert Carmichael of the 24th Iowa, Company F. At the Third Battle of Winchester on September 19, 1864, the 24-year-old private was mortally wounded by an artillery shell that also nearly severed the legs of another comrade, according to Georgiana’s brother, James Oxley, who also served in the regiment. Carmichael’s younger brother John—a private in the 24th Iowa, Company H—was mortally wounded in the same battle. Newspaper accounts about the discovery appeared nationwide. Faded Portrait in Confederate Museum Reveals Romance of Iowa Lovers read one headline; Old Picture of Civil War Days Breathes Pathos was another. Secrist, the youngest of 10 children, attended school with Carmichael in a small log structure in Iowa. A romance blossomed. Carmichael was four years her elder, and the relationship continued while he attended Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa. They intended to marry and settle on a farm. But the war spoiled those plans. Eager to aid the Union, male students at Cornell College formed a company in the 24th Iowa. Before Albert Carmichael enlisted in the

remains rest in Section 76, under gravestone No. 3545. Albert’s final resting place, however, is unknown.

VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND CULTURE

THE SUNDAY REGISTER’S MAGAZINE; VIRGINIA MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND CULTURE

Other stirring examples have been recorded. In the spring of 1908, nearly 45 years after a daguerreotype of a young man and a girl was found near a fallen Union soldier on another Virginia battlefield, Edgar Whritenour returned the photograph to one of the subjects, Ellen “Nellie” Stowe. The New Jersey mineral water manufacturer’s effort astonished the 63-year-old woman, who would write: “I had forgotten that my name was in the case. Do you not believe that this is one case in a thouPhoto Sleuth sand—a picture restored to the original Efforts to identify images owner after forty-five years?” found on dead Civil War Apparently, after the Battle of Chancelsoldiers, such as this one lorsville, a Confederate soldier had picked of a little girl, continue up the photograph off the body of a dead to this day, including Federal lying on the battlefield. Later, the through stories in local soldier gave it to a 13th New Jersey soldier and national newspapers. to take back north. That soldier in turn gave it to his daughter, who married Whritenour. She gave it to her husband. In 1875, Whritenour began a dogged search to trace the origin of the image. The names “John Rawson and Nellie Augusta Nettleton” were written on the back of the case. Also in the case were a needle, a piece of thread, and a lock of hair. Whritenour “communicated with every Grand Army of the Republic post in the country” until he finally located “Nellie” in Milford, Conn. Rawson, a 27th Connecticut private, was killed May 3, 1863, during a desperate rearguard action at Chancellorsville that decimated the regiment. For nearly 10 years after the battle, Rawson’s fate was unknown to Stowe, believed to be the soldier’s sweetheart. “I wish I could make good to you all the expense you have gone to find the owner,” she wrote Whritenour. “I am thankful this little bit of my life’s history has been handed down to me over the silence of so many years…” Efforts to identify photographs found on Civil War battlefields continue even today. In 2012, the Associated Press wrote about unidentified images in the MOC’s vast collection—a long-shot publicity effort the museum hoped would lead to the names of the subjects. Two poignant photographs were of little girls—one with pink-tinted cheeks and hair in ringlets, the other with her hair parted in the middle. A Confederate soldier found the former photograph at Port Republic (Va.), between the bodies of two soldiers—one Union, one Confederate. Another Rebel retrieved the other image from the haversack of a fallen Union soldier on a Virginia farm in April 1865. Days later, Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia in nearby Appomattox Courthouse. The AP story mentioned six other unidentified images from the museum’s holdings, some housed there for 60 years or more. None included any identification. One, found by a Federal soldier on the Fredericksburg battlefield, was of a couple with two young children. Ten years later, all these photographs remain unidentified. —John Banks

whereabouts of the other sister. In 1861, “Mrs. Smith’s brother enlisted in the Confederate army, taking with him the picture answering identically this description of this one,” the Post reported. Added the newspaper: “A peculiar feature of this case is the fact that the man who found the picture, and two of the women whose portraits are on it, live in Colorado.” But the Post left out many vital details, including: Who was Mrs. Frank Smith? What was her maiden name and names of her sisters and fallen brother? Neither the News nor the Post followed up on their Gettysburg photo stories. At Gettysburg on July 1, 1863, only three soldiers in the 31st Georgia in Company F—the “Pulaski Blues”—suffered mortal wounds: Privates Samuel Jackson and Thomas Lupo and Sergeant George H. Gamble. Could one of these soldiers be linked to “Mrs. Frank Smith”? Searches on ancestry.com and other genealogy sites have failed to yield a definitive answer. In 1914, Mingay—one of the men who inspired this hunt—moved from Colorado to California. Thirty-one years later, the blind widower married again, after a 12-year courtship— his new bride was 68; he was 98. “I’m the luckiest boy in the world,” the oldest member of the Nathaniel Banks Grand Army of the Republic Post of Glendale, Calif., told reporters after the nuptials. When Mingay died at 100 in 1947, the local celebrity left behind a daughter, three grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren and a Burbank (Calif.) elementary school that bore his name. Like the fallen 31st Georgia soldier, the “Three Young Ladies in the Gettysburg Grave” photograph remained an enigma. In 2021, the most tantalizing clue of all surfaced online—the location of our mystery photograph was revealed as the History Colorado Center museum in Denver. An examination of the image could uncover a name on the plate or another clue. But like wisps of gun smoke on a battlefield, the photograph has disappeared in the museum’s collection. “[A digital copy] of the image that you have requested and paid for is inaccessible to us at this time,” wrote a museum representative. John Banks is the author of two Civil War books and his popular Civil War blog (johnbanks.blogspot.com). Banks, who never misses an episode of the crime show Dateline on TV, loves mysteries. He lives in Nashville, Tenn. AUTUMN 2022

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‘Mowed Down like graSs’ VMI cadets manning Parrott rifles rose to the occasion at New Market, paving the way for a startling Confederate victory in May 1864 By Chris K. Howland

No Parade Ground Two of the 14 Confederate cannons instrumental in stopping a massive Union cavalry charge had VMI cadets at the helm, in combat for the first time. Smoke from the Bushong Farm fighting clouds the horizon. George S. Patton’s 22nd Virginia is seen along the stone wall at center.

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COURTESY OF THE NEW YORK STATE MILITARY MUSEUM; COURTESY OF THE NEW MARKET BATTLEFIELD MILITARY MUSEUM

or any shortcomings Union Maj. Gen. Julius Stahel may have had as an officer, his courage, at least, seemed beyond reproach. A native of Hungary, Stahel had served with the U.S. Army since the war’s outset, helping form its first German American regiment—the 8th New York Infantry—and then seeing action in the First Bull Run Campaign. Despite the Union setback at Cross Keys during Stonewall Jackson’s celebrated 1862 Shenandoah Valley Campaign, Stahel received regard as “brave and enthusiastic… seen during the day in the thickest of the fight, encouraging and urging on his men.” Further commendation would come in August for his efforts with the Army of Virginia at Second Bull Run—yet another Federal defeat in that calamitous second year of the war. On May 15, 1864, the 38-year-old commander found himself engaged at the important Shenandoah Valley crossroads town of New Market. Serving as cavalry commander of Maj. Gen. Franz Sigel’s Department of West Virginia, Stahel was being counted on to play a prominent part in Ulysses S. Grant’s three-pronged conquest against Richmond that spring. As Grant’s Overland Campaign pushed through central Virginia toward the Confederate capital and Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler advanced up the Peninsula from Norfolk, it was the task of Sigel’s army to further disrupt the Rebel defenses and keep resources and reinforcements away from Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Though relatively small in scale, the Battle of New Market was signature in many ways. Most famous were the contributions of the Virginia Military Institute’s Corps of Cadets, called into the fray out of desperation by Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge and ultimately playing a role in a stunning Confederate triumph. For Breckinridge, New Market would be a particularly welcome success, coming in the wake of hard-luck Western Theater setbacks earlier in the war at battles such as Stones River and ChattaWell-Traveled, Well-Seasoned nooga. Breckinridge handled his force adroitly against Sigel’s vast Julius Stahel, who resided in Prussia and England after army, nearly twice the size as his. fleeing Hungary, arrived in New York in 1859 and began There were Union heroes, too: Medal of Honor recipient James working at a German-language newspaper. Early in the M. Burns of the 1st West Virginia; Captain Henry A. du Pont, war, he commanded cavalry in John Frémont’s Mountain Battery B, 5th U.S. Artillery; Colonel Jacob Campbell, LieuDepartment and John Pope’s Army of Virginia. tenant George Gageby, and Captain Edwin J. Geissinger of the 54th Pennsylvania—to name just a few. What remains uncertain is how exactly Sigel allowed what probably f lank on the Valley Turnpike, was growing should have been a comfortable victory get away from him. The incessant increasingly restless. Not known as a bystander, rain and stormy weather in which the armies clashed figured as major the Hungarian finally decided that action was needed and ordered an ill-advised, full-blown culprits, of course, as did Sigel’s seeming command complacency and lack of charge. The domino effect from that would cost Sigel’s army dearly. urgency in reaching New Market ahead of the Confederates. Breckinridge’s ability to do so allowed him to dictate critical avalry had yet to be a major factor. Earaspects of the pending showdown. lier in the day, Confederate Colonel John Often overlooked in assessing the batImboden’s troopers had moved east of tle, however, is Stahel’s mindset on May Smith’s Creek along with McClanahan’s 15 and how greatly it impacted the Battery to enfilade the Union flank. Fire from McClanahan’s guns forced the withdrawal of result. Early in the afternoon, even with the action unsettled and the weather Union cavalry and Alfred von Kleiser’s battery, worsening, Sigel’s significant advantage but when Imboden later attempted to cross back in numbers still offered promise of a Fedacross the creek to get behind the Federals, the eral victory. Yet Stahel, his cavalry swollen waters proved too great an obstacle. Breckinridge aligned a few miles behind the Union left “It was raining hard for the last hour, the

Hard Hit Troopers Flag carried by the 1st New York Veteran Cavalry, one of three Empire State units in Colonel William B. Tibbits’ 1st Brigade. At New Market, the 1st New York suffered 47 total casualties (12 killed, 26 wounded, 9 missing).

COURTESY OF THE NEW YORK STATE MILITARY MUSEUM; COURTESY OF THE NEW MARKET BATTLEFIELD MILITARY MUSEUM

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2)

ground was soaked, we were on low ground and there were puddles of water everywhere about us...,” grumbled Jacob Lester of the 1st New York Veteran Cavalry, adding that he and his comrades soon “got orders to ‘draw sabre’ and I knew we were to charge....Horses got stuck in the mud and fell over each other and in a moment we were mired up like a flock of sheep.” The order from Stahel was in response to an apparent advance on his right by Confederate Brig. Gen. John Echols’ Brigade and the dismounted 62nd Virginia Mounted Infantry. As Sarah Kay Bierle posits in Call Out the Cadets: “Stahel decided the cavalry had been inactive enough for one day and concocted a grand scheme fit for a Napoleonic battlefield, but which would not translate well on the Valley Pike.” Stahel, who had first gained notice fighting

during the Hungarian Revolution of 1848-49, had long studied and admired such Napoleonic tactics, but the general clearly misjudged in believing an all-out charge on this terrain and under these conditions would succeed. In addition to the mud, a ravine with broken ground lay ahead of the Federal horsemen, and the Valley Pike (modern-day Route 11) featured low stone walls that would funnel them into a compressed front and leave them easy Confederate targets. It is possible Stahel had no idea how great a threat he faced; even then, it might not have been enough to make him reconsider. The rain and low-lying battlefield smoke greatly hindered visibility, and Breckinridge— deducing a likely charge—had aligned his men perfectly. The Confederate position was formed into a defensive “V”: three batteries in the center, the 22nd Virginia Infantry on the left, and the 23rd Virginia Battalion on the right. (Jackson’s Battery was just west of Rugged Leather the pike, positioned behind the 62nd Virginia.) This saddle belonged Included in the assembly of cannons on so-called to Confederate cavalry Battery Heights were two Parrotts manned by VMI cadets, commander Colonel lined up behind a partially demolished rock fence. Under John D. Imboden, a Shenandoah Valley the command of Lieutenant Collier H. Minge, a fellow native. It is now on cadet, they would be the first from the institute to see comdisplay at the New bat and would not disappoint, handling their guns like seaMarket Battlefield soned professionals. “We got quickly into action with Military Museum. canister...,” Minge recalled. “When the smoke cleared away the cavalry seemed to have been completely broken up.” The collective Confederate firepower brought a quick end to Stahel’s brazen charge. Stahel had sent forth roughly 1,000 horses, but the lead elements never got close to the Confederate guns, cut down en masse in the middle of the road. As Rand Noyes of the 22nd Virginia later wrote: “Only one man on an unmanageable horse came through….” The 1st New York rallied for a second attempt, but was quickly undone by friendly fire. “They were ready for us,” lamented Sergeant William A. McIlhenny of the 1st Maryland (U.S.) Potomac Home Brigade, also known as Cole’s Cavalry [see ACW, January 2022]. “Our battalion marched directly into AUTUMN 2022

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their artillery fire. Shells were dropping all around us and musket balls were whistling. The rebels were so close that we could see their long grey line of infantrymen advancing. Where were our regiments of infantry? “The rebel infantry was nearing gunshot range. Just as they started firing a regiment of our men arrived. We fell back for them to form in line. But it was too late! The rebels were upon us, firing at close range. They mowed our men down like grass. Our cavalry tried to keep together, but were impeded by the retreating infantry men escaping from the hot fire of Breckenridge’s pursuing men. Many of them didn’t escape. All the way to the Shenandoah River they were hot on our heels.” Recalled Lester: “A shell from the rebel artillery struck a man at my side carrying away half of his head and spattering his brains, hair and whiskers all over the right side of me. The same shell carried away the left shoulder and arm of a man in front of me and struck another man farther on square in the back, passed through and as he toppled from his horse I saw his whole front torn open and a torrent of blood flowing from it.” In a June 1908 letter to Confederate Colonel George M. Edgar, Minge reminisced about the remarkable history his cadets had made:

First Command Collier H. Minge, an 1864 VMI graduate, later worked in the cotton trade in New Orleans. “I was put in command,” he wrote, “no doubt...to my being the then senior Captain of the Corps.”

[W]e were hurried down to position No. 3 on the right and just off the turn-pike road....Here we got quickly into action with cannister against Cavalry charging down the road and adjacent fields. I think all the guns [Major William] McLaughlin had were thrown down to this point. I believe the Artillery aided the Infantry very materially against this last bold move of the enemy. When the smoke cleared away the Cavalry seemed to have been completely broken up, and we

headquarters in New Market. Limited edition canvas giclées of the painting will be given to contributors to the SVBF’s preservation campaign for the Battery Heights property. (For more information, see P.13.) Visit keithrocco.com for more on Keith Rocco and his extensive historical art collection.

Inspiration Brian Mattingly (left) and Keith Rocco (right) pose with the painting in Rocco’s studio in the Shenandoah Valley.

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VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE ARCHIVES; PHOTO COURTESY OF MORPHY AUCTIONS, WWW.MORPHYAUCTIONS.COM

Keith Rocco’s painting, “They Were Ready For Us” (pictured P. 38), was commissioned for the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation by longtime SVBF member and donor Brian Mattingly as part of the foundation’s efforts to preserve and interpret the New Market Battlefield. It depicts Union Maj. Gen. Julius Stahel’s cavalry charge during the Battle of New Market as seen from the Confederate defensive line on Battery Heights. Shown at left center are VMI cadets working their two-piece section of guns, watched over by VMI cadet Collier Minge. The lead portion of Stahel’s attacking cavalry can be seen at right on the Valley Turnpike. The 22nd Virginia Infantry, commanded by Colonel George S. Patton (grandfather of the future World War II hero) is shown at center, along the stone wall, and smoke from the furious fighting on the Bushong Farm is visible on the horizon. Mattingly dedicated the painting to his parents, Alfred and Joan, for instilling in him a passion for American history. It is on display in the SVBF’s

VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE ARCHIVES; COURTESY SVBF

‘They Were Ready For Us’

saw no more of them to the close…. I have heard that the conduct of the boys composing the Section was commended both by Gen. Breckinridge and the Major. Dear Old Col. [William Henry] Gilham said some nice things about us, but his love for us would have overlooked our faults if we had committed any. Major Thomas M. Semmes of the Institute…was charged with the responsibility of seeing that we did not run away, and I have been told that he also had some very kind words for us.

VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE ARCHIVES; PHOTO COURTESY OF MORPHY AUCTIONS, WWW.MORPHYAUCTIONS.COM

VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE ARCHIVES; COURTESY SVBF

cIlhenny had questioned the absence of Union infantry support during the failed cavalry attack. As it turned out, the 54th Pennsylvania Infantry was nearby, positioned next to the Valley Pike on terrain Minge referred to in his letter as a “dale”— featuring rolling hills and a group of low cedar trees. Aligned to the 54th’s immediate right was the 1st West Virginia Infantry, which in turn was flanked by the 34th Massachusetts Infantry. The dreadful conditions and battle chaos, however, created uncertainty for all three of those regiments, and uncoordinated advances starting after 3 p.m. would turn particularly dire for the 54th Pennsylvania. Earlier in the war, the 54th had seen duty primarily in defense of a stretch of the B&O Railroad between Cumberland, Md., and what would become Martinsburg, W.Va. New Market would be one of the regiment’s first true engagements and it would hit the Keystone State boys hard. In approximately two hours of fighting, the 54th suffered 174 casualties—nearly 31 percent of its 566-man strength. To their credit, the Pennsylvanians remained engaged for some time before being forced to retreat from the field. At one point, Sigel’s Union lines had stretched roughly more than a mile west from Smith’s Creek to the North Fork Shenandoah River, just north of Jacob Bushong’s prosperous farmstead. The fighting had progressed west following Stahel’s failed charge and the 54th Pennsylvania’s struggle on ground to be labeled “The Bloody Cedars.” A Federal position on a rise next to the river, however, remained relatively strong, manned by the artillery units of Captains Alonzo Snow, John Carlin, and Alfred von Kleiser as well as elements of the 34th Massachusetts and 1st West Virginia. Sigel wanted the 54th Pennsylvania, 1st West Virginia, and 34th Massachusetts to advance in junction. That would not happen. The 1st covered about 100 yards before falling back, leaving the 54th and 34th isolated on its flanks.

From Boys to Men Above: The VMI cadets pictured here, members of the Class of 1867, all fought at the Battle of New Market. Bottom row, from left: Edward M. Tutwiler, John L. Tunstall, and Thomas G. Hayes. Top row, from left: Hardaway H. Dinwiddie and Gaylord B. Clark. Below: A 20-pounder Parrott rifle, similar to the guns a group of cadets used in foiling Julius Stahel’s cavalry charge. The cadets fired canister from the versatile Parrott, which was also capable of blasting solid shot, case shot, or shells.

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TROIANI, DON (B.1949)/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

PHOTO CREDIT

TROIANI, DON (B.1949)/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

PHOTO CREDIT

When a gap opened in the Confederate line around the Bushong Farm, fear grew that the Federals would exploit it. To this point, Breckinridge had held the cadets in reserve, reluctant to send them in. Urged on by an aide, Major Charles Semple, he finally relented: “Put the boys in, and may God forgive me for the order.” The cadets’ advance down an incline toward the Bushong House began ominously, as a Federal shell exploded in their midst, killing three: William Cabell, Charles Crockett, and Henry Jones. Fears that the cadets might run were promptly put to rest, though, even after another cadet, William McDowell, was shot and killed and several others were wounded. The VMI boys joined the line of Brig. Gen. Gabriel C. Wharton’s Brigade around the Bushong Farm. Their position was receiving steady fire from von Kleiser’s batteries as well as the 34th Massachusetts and 1st West Virginia. A stealth advance along the river by members of the 51st Virginia and the trailing 26th Virginia put Snow’s and Carlin’s guns in jeopardy, however, and fire from the Confederate right produced significant Federal casualties. The 300 or so yards of elevated ground that directly separated the cadets and von Kleiser’s guns were caked with ankle-deep mud—no deterrent in the least, it would prove. Their bayonets fixed, the cadets suddenly surged forward. Even when several lost their shoes in the muck

“Put the Boys In, and May God Forgive Me for the Order” The VMI cadets begin their advance across the so-called “Field of Lost Shoes” north of the Bushong Farm, captured in a Don Troiani painting. Note the dead Federal below the tree, likely a 34th Massachusetts soldier. and were forced to proceed barefoot, the momentum was unstoppable. Likewise impeded by the muddy terrain, von Kleiser’s uneasy men struggled to shift back the battery’s six guns. When the relentless cadets overran his position, von Kleiser would lose one of his guns. He then was forced to abandon a second, its wheels mired in the mud. The Union position atop the ridge collapsed and the fraught Federals retreated toward Mount Jackson, eventually crossing the North Fork of the Shenandoah and burning the lone bridge there to stop short the pursuing Confederates. It had been a spectacular, well-deserved victory, but for the triumphant Confederates, it would only delay the inevitable.

few days later, Grant removed Sigel from command. In June, Sigel’s replacement, Maj. Gen. David Hunter, torched the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington before advancing toward Lynchburg. Stahel continued as commander of the department’s cavalry, and his efforts at the Battle of Piedmont on June 5 earned him a wound and a Medal of Honor. He resigned from the Army in February 1865. Union Maj. Gen. Phil Sheridan eventually assumed command of what became the Army of the Shenandoah and unleashed a campaign of devastation upon the region’s bountiful agricultural resources—“The Burning,” as it was infamously known in Southern hearts. Sheridan’s victory at Cedar Creek on October 19, 1864, marked the effective end of any Confederate military hopes in this once-critical theater of war. Chris Howland is editor of America’s Civil War. AUTUMN 2022

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RebEl Beacon

The reputable Atlanta Daily Intelligencer was both news source and cheerleader for Southern readers By Stephen Davis and Bill Hendrick

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Gate City News, Fit to Print The Intelligencer’s Whitehall Street office stood next to a railroad depot, and by happenstance above and beside liquor stores. George N. Barnard took this photo during the city’s Union occupation in 1864. A playbill on one building corner advertises a benefit night featuring the band of the 33rd Massachusetts.

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strove to scoop one another on big stories, such Andrews’ Raid as the Great Locomotive Chase (Andrews’ Raid) After General’s crew of April 12, 1862. Both papers rushed to print and passengers on how Anthony Murphy, William Fuller, and disembarked for others had captured the Yankee train-thieves. breakfast at a Confederacy staff interviewed the two pursuit Georgia hotel, Union leaders; the Intelligencer in turn soldiers and a civilian printed those individuals’ written scout/spy made off with the Southern statements. Both pieces appeared engine and cars, on the 15th. Because the Intellikicking off the Great gencer got its morning issues out Locomotive Chase. early, it might have scored the scoop. But the long Andrews article was not on the front page, as one would expect today. Readers looked inside the Intelligencer’s four-page layout; like most papers of the day, it put big stories on page 2, sometimes page 3 (the one that carried its “Telegraphic” column). The first page was mostly ads, anyway. The Intelligencer was one of 844 newspapers, as counted by the Census Bureau, in what would become the Confederate States of America. Georgia had 105 of them—behind only Virginia—but that number counted dailies, weeklies, and the like. Moreover, in 1860 the U.S. Census posted 3,000 subscribers to the Daily and Weekly Intelligencer, thus ranking it among the top three papers in the state. Then, as now, a wartime paper’s chief function was reporting the news—and readers expected lots of it. John H. Steele, the Intelligencer’s editor for most of the war, got his information from several sources. Telegraphic dispatches were paramount, especially when received from the War Department in Richmond. To be sure, these were usually very brief— papers paid for wire reports by the word. Some dispatches proved downright wrong. In its issue of April 8, 1862, this headline blared: “Complete Victory! Great Battle at Shiloh!” The paper had relied on the message GenAds Get Top Billing eral P.G.T. Beauregard sent from the battlefield the night of Unlike today’s papers, the Intelligencer’s front page featured April 6, after Confederates had pushed Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. ads, with much of the important news relegated to pages 2-3, Grant’s Federal army back to the Tennessee River. “Thanks some of it running in the highlighted “Telegraphic” column. Be to the Almighty” screamed the paper’s editorial on the

PREVIOUS SPREAD: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; THE DAILY INTELLIGENCER (2)

wo weeks into the Civil War, students of the Atlanta Female Institute put on a program that included a faux bombardment of Fort Sumter. The Atlanta Daily Intelligencer covered the event. “It became necessary for one of the smallest of the girls to hoist the United States flag, and to keep it standing until the close of the bombardment,” the paper reported. William P. Howard, a teacher at the Institute who directed the event, apparently had trouble finding a volunteer. One girl of about 10 told him, “No, it is not our flag, and I will never hold it.” Two other young ladies also refused. Finally, a reluctant flag bearer was found. She held the Stars and Stripes, though crying as she did so, saying that she hoped she was not disgracing herself. This was the face of Confederate patriotism, as reported in Atlanta’s leading daily newspaper. The Intelligencer had been founded as a weekly in 1849, converting to a daily five years later. It was rivaled only by The Atlanta Southern Confederacy, another daily. The competitors

8th. Even amid later reports that Beauregard’s army had retreated to Corinth, Miss., the Intelligencer continued to crow about 8,000 Union prisoners taken, 70 cannons captured, and so forth. And the reverse: When bad news came, it was the editor’s job to soften and spin it. Take the Intelligencer’s handling of General Joseph E. Johnston’s retreats through northern Georgia in 1864. After word came that Johnston had abandoned Dalton, Steele assured his readers: “General Johnston, with his great and invincible satellites, are working out the problem of battle and victory on the great chess board at the front.” The Intelligencer is notable as well for its staying power. By 1865, there were only 253 newspapers still functioning in the Confederacy—and of them, just 20 were dailies. They had succumbed to loss of manpower when printers ran off to join the Army; the blockade that cut off sources of raw materials; rising costs in an inflationary economy; and—to be sure—enemy occupation of key cities such as Memphis and New Orleans. Then there were the strikes by printers, demanding higher wages. In the spring of 1864, after their workers walked out, Atlanta editors visited the city’s conscript office and addressed the printers’ status. They were exempt from the draft while working, the editors claimed; but now, as they were on strike, the draft officer was encouraged to draft them for Army service. The conscriptor liked the idea. “Gentlemen,” he said, “you are undoubtedly right. I will go to work at once, and as you are here, I will conscript you to begin with. “Conscript us!” exclaimed the editors. “Certainly. As you have no printers, you can’t get out your papers. So you no longer belong to the exempted class.” The editors raced back to their respective offices and contacted the printers’ union. In 15 minutes, everyone was back to work.

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PREVIOUS SPREAD: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; THE DAILY INTELLIGENCER (2)

uring the war, the Intelligencer raised its subscription prices eight times, from $6 a year to $10 per month. Nevertheless, the paper survived the war, although in July 1864, it was forced to flee to Macon, Ga., as Maj. Gen. William Sherman’s forces approached Atlanta. The paper returned in early December to issue a single-sheet “extra” reporting all the damage to the city that the Yankees had wrought. “Whitehall street from Roark’s corner up to Peachtree street is one mass of ruins,” the paper declared after returning to the city; its very offices were among the ruined buildings. The Intelligencer sometimes sent field correspondents to the battlefront—“specials” who sent back wires and letters relating what they had seen and heard. After General Braxton Bragg expelled reporters from the Army of Tennessee just before the Battle of Chickamauga in September 1863, Steele was without eyes and ears for the big battle fought in northern Georgia. The editor strained for anything and resorted to printing mere rumors brought down by train passengers. In the newspaper business, this is bad—as Steele found out after the Intelligencer reported, “Gen. [John Bell] Hood’s leg was amputated some distance above the knee, and it is our painful duty to state that he died after the operation.” Faced with wartime shortages and high prices for newsprint and ink,

Behind the Scenes Operating a large printing press was hard work. It required at least two men to turn the crank and produce a printed sheet of paper. Printing an entire newspaper took a long time, with subscribers getting their paper first. Southern papers learned to improvise. One solution was to form a press association to have news telegraphed, as the Associated Press in New York was no longer a viable option. The Intelligencer carried the P.A. columns, one of which got the story straight on September 22: “Gen. Hood is not dead.” That wasn’t the last time Steele had to do an about-face. Then there was the time that the Intelligencer took on President Jefferson Davis. When Steele was away in September 1864, associate editor Dr. I.E. Nagle penned an editorial criticizing the president for apparent neglect of Georgia’s safety. In a speech delivered in Macon on September 23—while he was heading to meet with General Hood south of Atlanta—Davis called an unnamed newspaperman “a scoundrel.” Southerners at the time and historians since have wondered to whom the president was referring. It was Nagle. After returning to his sanctum— the editor’s favorite word for his office—Steele tried to quell the hubbub by admitting it had been his associate. That the president was so alarmed by the paper’s accusations was no small AUTUMN 2022

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Exploring the Atlanta Daily Intelligencer’s wartime reporting provides a telling look at the nation’s most devastating period. On the following pages are a few capsules of diverse topics the Intelligencer shared with its devoted readers between 1861 and 1865.

Incredible Clemency

Chivalry was not yet dead in the spring of 1862, as Northern and Southern armies entered their second year of war. A series of letters printed in the Intelligencer indicates that civility could still exist between gentleman officers of the opposing armies, even as their soldiers sought to kill each other on the battlefield. During the Battle of Seven Pines, the 35th Georgia was engaged against the 20th Massachusetts a mile north of Fair Oaks Station. After nightfall, a severely wounded officer of the 35th, Lt. Col. Gustavus A. Bull, was brought into the Union lines as a prisoner. The 20th’s colonel, W. Raymond Lee, saw that Bull received medical care. After the next morning’s combat, Lee learned that the 27-year-old Bull had died at 8 a.m. The day after that, June 2, Lee searched for the ConGustavus Bull federate officer’s grave, intending to place a headboard upon it. He knew its general location, around a house behind the Federal lines that had been turned into a field hospital, but there were so many graves that Lee could not find the burial site of the slain Georgian. Two weeks later, the colonel wrote to General Robert E. Lee, whom he had W. Raymond Lee known at West Point (both graduated in its Class of 1829). He revealed Bull’s fate and suggested that someone in Confederate Brig. Gen. Wade Hampton’s command—against whom his men had fought—might know of the house and its graveyard. General Lee in turn had his staff officer, Major Charles Marshall, mail Colonel Lee’s letter to Bull’s father, a prominent attorney and Superior Court judge in LaGrange, Ga., offering the grieving father assistance in trying to find his son’s grave near Fair Oaks. Mr. Bull asked the editor of the LaGrange Reporter, Charles H.C. Willingham, to print the letters. The Reporter obliged, and the Intelligencer followed suit, publishing the entire correspondence in its July 27, 1862, edition. Bull’s father never took advantage of Marshall’s offer of assistance to look for his son’s grave in Virginia. Apparently Bull’s remains were disinterred shortly after the war, removed with those of the unknown Union dead, and reinterred in Seven Pines National Cemetery. Today a memorial in the family plot in LaGrange’s Hillview Cemetery reads: “Sacred to the memory of Gustavus Adolphus Bull, whose remains lie among the unknown dead of the battle field of Seven Pines.”

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HARPER’S WEEKLY

Steve Davis writes from Cumming, Ga.; Bill Hendrick from Marietta. Their University of Tennessee Press book The Atlanta Daily Intelligencer Covers the Civil War is now available.

From the Vault

WAR OF THE REBELLION; MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY

deal. Whether Davis was mollified by Steele’s confession is uncertain. In its loud, repeated predictions of Confederate victory, the Intelligencer did not go quite so far as the unidentified Johnny Reb who famously asserted, “I have no more idea that the Yankees will whip us than that a chicken can teach Latin”—but it sailed down that same course. At one point, the paper grew so enthused at the prospect of Southern triumph that it actually began envisioning the sorts of territorial demands the Confederate government should exact upon a defeated North. Similarly, the Intelligencer wasn’t as vindictive as a Columbia, S.C., paper inveighing against Yankees. Upon hearing that a brush fire after the June 1864 Battle of Kennesaw Mountain was burning wounded Federals, it headlined “Confederate Victory Near Marietta! The Yankees Roasting!” Still, in mid-August 1864, the Atlanta paper had some gruesome fun, upon news that 300 prisoners had died at Andersonville in one day, when it did some math: a 6,000-foot-long wagon train to carry the corpses to the graveyard, a trench 600 feet long to bury them; 120 men to dig the grave. “We thank Heaven for such blessings!” the paper exulted. And while the Memphis Daily Appeal, for example, was unseemly in calling the enemy “azure-stomached miscegenators,” the Intelligencer adopted the terms “ceruleans,” “cerulean abdomens,” and “bluebellies” for Federals—the latter term apparently originated in the war, but its first printed use is uncertain. In May 1864, the paper mocked the enemy as “the Yankees, the terrible, great big, bugaboo Yankees; the fellows with cerulean abdomens or azure corporations.” It could get even more rancorous. At one point, the Intelligencer claimed those bluebellies had been “gathered from all the purlieus of effete Europe and the North” and were in effect second-rate soldiers: “Dutch immigrants, cheated Irishmen, bamboozled mongrels, miserable contrabands, miscegenating adults and brigades of silly youths with cerulean abdomens, and a sufficiency of Yankees to leaven the whole mess with their accursed principles of injustice and wrong.” As we will show here, the wartime reporting in the pages of the Atlanta Daily Intelligencer provides an insight into this country’s most devastating conflict, the Civil War.

HARPER’S WEEKLY

WAR OF THE REBELLION; MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY

The Death of a Deserter A number of poignant stories found their way into the Intelligencer, such as one about the execution of Private Jacob Adams, a 46th Georgia Infantry deserter. As originally reported by the Charleston Courier and republished by editor John Steele on May 18, 1863, Adams had been executed at the race course outside Charleston, S.C. Confederate troops and the city garrison were formed under arms to witness what would be a solemn and imposing event. They were joined by a crowd of citizens. Adams was marched into a hollow square at the race course, as a band played a dead march. The funeral strain played by the convicted private’s escort ceased when he entered the square, only to be taken up by the bands of several other commands present. Reportedly, Adams bore himself with dignity. Standing before a firing squad, he received last rites from the Rev. Leon Fillion. He then knelt upon his coffin, crossed his arms, and, suddenly looking up, took off his hat and threw it to his right. Refusing to have his eyes bandaged, he looked directly at the execution party and awaited the order to fire with perfect calmness. The order was given—there was a flash, a report, and Adams lay prostrate upon the ground. A surgeon quickly examined the body

and confirmed that Adams was indeed dead. Hard Justice “The execution was an awful but necessary Soldier desertion— infliction of military justice,” concluded the and its sometimes Courier, its writer adding that the soldiers tragic outcome—was who had been brought out to witness the exeone of the subjects cution, particularly anyone secretly ponderfrequently covered in ing likewise slipping out of the ranks, “will be the Intelligencer. Such returned to their regiments wiser men.” stories tended to tug the heartstrings of readers Articles about the Charleston execution around the globe. would be printed as far away as London, Liverpool, and Glasgow—along with information about Adams’ disreputable service record. An Englishman, he reportedly had deserted from the British army and, when caught, was branded with a “D.” After immigrating to America, he had enlisted for a year’s service in the 1st South Carolina Infantry. Adams was arrested, according to the Confederate assistant adjutant general in Charleston, “for attempting to murder a comrade and for other breaches of discipline.” Sentenced to death, Adams would be spared by President Jefferson Davis, who commuted his penalty to imprisonment with ball and chain for the rest of his term of service. Undoubtedly, Adams was a rough fellow. During his imprisonment, “he several times attempted to murder people though heavily ironed,” the A.A.G. stated. He was also a bounty jumper—one who enlisted, collected a bounty, and then deserted. After his release on September 6, 1862, he joined the 46th Georgia, stationed at Charleston. In October, however, he again deserted but was quickly caught, tried, and sentenced to execution. This time, the punishment was carried out, though not before Adams spent seven months in a Charleston jail. Adams was one of 103,400 known Confederate deserters. Through the efforts of generals such as Robert E. Lee, most of those caught absent without leave would be given lenient sentences. Indeed, only 229 Confederate deserters were executed between December 1861 and the end of the war. Like Jacob Adams, 204 were by firing squad, 25 by hanging. AUTUMN 2022

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Prized Mounts Of the more than 20 horses Forrest rode in the war, Highlander wasn’t his favorite—that spot probably went to Roderick. Highlander’s story, however, may well be the most compelling of all.

One ‘Fine Steed’ On September 21, 1863—the day after the Confederate victory at Chickamauga, Ga., Nathan Bedford Forrest and his cavalry were chasing William Rosecrans’ beaten army back to Chattanooga. During the running fight, Forrest’s horse was shot in the neck. The general quickly plugged his finger into the wound and kept charging. When he removed his finger while dismounting at the end of the chase, the horse promptly fell dead. The story is well known. The horse’s name, Highlander, less so. Less-known still is how General Forrest acquired Highlander in the first place. One could, of course, read about it in The Atlanta Daily Intelligencer. Earlier that year, on May 3, Forrest and his command gained acclaim by running down Union Colonel Abel Streight and his raiders, forcing them to surrender 25 miles west of Rome, Ga. The Intelligencer joined the Southern

press in bestowing its accolades. Rome, after all, was only 55 miles northwest of Atlanta, a likely Yankee target. It was a “brilliant exploit,” the Intelligencer related to its readers on May 6—“a brilliant and dashing affair.” Forrest had bagged a bunch of “Yankee scoundrels,” asserted editor John Steele. “These marauding rascals, these devils in human shape” had ridden toward Georgia “to devastate the country, to capture and destroy Rome, Atlanta, and such bridges on the State Road, as would interfere with transportation, if not effectually to prevent it.” Atlantans joined the citizenry of Rome in thanking Forrest. On May 10, Steele announced that a fundraising effort had begun to purchase a “fine steed” for the general. In an article titled “A Horse for Gen. Forrest,” Steele informed his readers they could come by the newspaper’s office to contribute. Two months later, Steele exuberantly announced that $2,000 had been raised for that horse and another $1,200 for an elaborate saddle, bridle, and halter. The gift was presented to Forrest in mid-July, with the editor expressing his hope that the general would soon be riding this “splendid charger”—named “Highlander.” Steele would get his wish.

Sad Telegram

The caregiver who handled the young soldier’s missive apparently didn’t know the correct spelling of his name and only that he lived somewhere near Atlanta, so he sent the telegram to the city’s leading newspaper, the Daily Intelligencer. Editor John Steele published the plea July 26, prefaced by a notice to readers: “The following

telegraph dispatch has been received at this office. We do not know the residence of Mr. J.W. Neisbet, to whom it is directed, under our care, and therefore publish it, hoping some one will convey to him the information it imparts.—ED. INT.” Apparently no one did, but the case of the wounded lieutenant, who turned 22 just 10 days after his Gettysburg wound, worked out well. On August 3, he was granted a 60-day furlough to return home. He resigned from the Confederate Army in November 1863. After the war, he started farming, married, and raised a family north of Atlanta. He died at the age of 83 in 1925, one of approximately 60,000 Civil War amputees.

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MELISSA A. WINN COLLECTION

RICHMOND, July 14—To Mr. J.W. Neisbit, care of the Intelligencer: Dear Father—I am at Jordan Springs Hospital, near Winchester. I lost my left arm at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Come to me. Answer by telegraph. W.H. NEISBET.

Twelve days after he was shot in the left arm on the second day of fighting at Gettysburg, Lieutenant William Hoyle Nesbit wrote or dictated a telegram to his father in far-away Georgia.

MELISSA A. WINN COLLECTION

‘Loathsome Despoilers’ An important feature of the Confederate press was its propagandistic capacity to vilify the enemy, conjuring up especially odious images of Northern soldiers as destroyers of civilians’ homesteads and loathsome despoilers of fair Southern womanhood. Such is the imagery of a letter first published in the Columbus (Ga.) Times, and reprinted in the Intelligencer on October 25, 1864. The writer, a Confederate soldier in Hood’s army at Jonesboro, Ga., began, “If every man in the Confederacy could look back upon the desolation and ruin that mark the pathway of the Yankee army as they advance, we could then have a spirit of true harmony”—meaning, unity of resolve in the war-torn Confederate States—“and the foul breath that lisps that awful word, ‘reconstruction’”—meaning, reunion with the United States— “would be hushed.” The soldier referred to “desolated homes and fields” left behind by Northern armies marching through the South, and “the desecrated altars from which thousands of women and children have been ruthlessly driven out upon the world, penniless—homeless.” Then there was “one more spectacle which the fiendish hearts of our invaders have wrought,” the blood-chilling scene that the writer stated was just six miles from where he sat. There an elderly mother and father sat drooped with grief in their little cottage, “once the scene of happiness—now misery.” Sitting beside the parents, as described by the Columbus Times’ contributor, was “a young girl, aged about seventeen years.” She had been raped by Union soldiers, “the victim of the hellish appetite of these more than devils.” The writer had apparently heard the parents’ story about the Yankees: “three of them, in broad day light, before the face of these aged parents, outraged her.” (Rape was a word seldom used in Victorian America.) The soldier-correspondent concluded that one had only to see “the maniac gaze” of the troubled rape victim, to dismiss any thought of “reconstruction or union with such people.”

‘War and Its Horrors’

Northern and Southern newspapers occasionally broke free from the martial euphemism and Victorian patina that characterized correspondents’ reporting to give readers brutal glimpses of bloody battlefields. The following account by a soldier in Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, written to his father in Charleston, appeared in the Intelligencer’s August 2, 1862, edition: Blood Brothers

The painful details of our wounded I Personal accounts of will spare you, but will pass to the family tragedy and enemy’s side of the field, where onesacrifices on and off the half of the number laid; there were battlefield filled the pages of wartime newspapers, men with their arms, legs, and hands North and South. shot off, bodies torn up, features distorted and blackened. All this I could see with indifference, but I could not but pity the wounded; there one poor devil, with his back broken, was trying to pull himself along by his hands dragging his legs after him, to get out of the corn rows, which the last night’s rain had filled with water; here, another, with both legs shot off, was trying to steady the mangled trunk against a gun stuck in the ground; there, a fair haired Yankee boy of sixteen was trying with both legs broken, half of his body submerged in water, with his teeth clinched, his finger nails buried in the flesh, and his whole body quivering with agony and benumbed with cold. In this case my pity got the better of my resentment, and I dismounted, pulled him out of the water, and wrapped him in a blanket—for which he seemed very grateful. One of the most touching I saw, were a couple of brothers (boys), both wounded, who had crawled together, and one of them in the act of arranging a heading for the other, with a blanket, had fallen, and they had died with their arms around one another and their cheeks together. But your heart sickens at these details, as mine did at seeing them, and I will cease. AUTUMN 2022

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TRAILSIDE

Moorefield, WV

Surprise Attack

ated in the area. Today, historic homes, shops, and eateries line Moorefield’s quaint Main Street, which boasts a handful of Civil War Trails signs within blocks of each other. A walking tour of the area includes not only Civil War–related sites, but several dwellings that date back to the town’s 18th-century inception, including the 1786 Higgins House, owned by Revolutionary War Captain Robert Higgins of the 8th Virginia. Visitors to the area can also take a short drive to nearby Petersburg, W.Va., which houses the well-preserved dirt earthworks of Fort Mulligan, constructed during the latter half of 1863 to protect the South Branch Valley from Confederate forces. A stop atop the bluff where Maple Hill Cemetery rests offers some spectacular views of the mountains that not only envelop but adorn the tranquil valleys here today that, during America’s greatest conflict, were filled with the cacophony of musket and cannon fire. —Melissa A. Winn

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PHOTOS BY MELISSA A. WINN (4)

Trailside is produced in partnership with Civil War Trails Inc., which connects visitors to lesserknown sites and allows them to follow in the footsteps of the great campaigns. Civil War Trails has more than 1,400 sites across six states and produces more than a dozen maps. Visit civilwartrails.org and check in at your favorite sign #civilwartrails.

Returning to the Shenandoah Valley after taking part in Lt. Gen. Jubal Early’s raid on Washington, D.C., and the burning of Chambersburg, Pa., both in July 1864, Confederate cavalry under Brig. Gen. John McCausland and Brig. Gen. Bradley T. Johnson bivouacked in the fields of Moorefield, W.Va. On August 7, Union Brig. Gen. William Averell and his men surprised the Confederates and pushed them back toward the South Branch of the Potomac River. The 3rd West Virginia Cavalry charged three times across the river and literally made the Confederates run for the hills surrounding the area. Averell captured four cannons, more than 400 men, and hundreds of hard-to-replace horses. “[T]his affair,” Early claimed, “had a very damaging effect upon my cavalry for the rest of the [Shenandoah Valley] campaign.” Although largely Southern in sympathy, Moorefield housed whichever troops were in local control during the Civil War. The Confederate McNeill’s Rangers also oper-

PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN

FEDERAL TROOPS DROVE CONFEDERATE CAVALRY FROM THESE PASTORAL MOUNTAIN VALLEYS

TRAILSIDE

Battle of Moorefield 4975 US-220 Brig. Gen. Bradley T. Johnson’s Confederate Cavalry were camped in these fields on August 7, 1864, when Union Brig. Gen. William Averell got the jump on Johnson’s nearby pickets and began driving the Confederates back towards the center of town.

Run for the Hills

596 Harness Road

Brig. Gen. John McCausland’s troopers camped in this field while in Moorefield. On August 7, 1864, Brig. Gen. Bradley T. Johnson’s men forded the river and attempted to form a defense here with McCausland’s cavalry, but they were outflanked and outgunned. Brig. Gen. William Averell’s troopers chased the retreating Confederates into the surrounding hills.

Presbyterian Church 109 S. Main Street The leader of this church, the Rev. William Wilson, and his congregation were strong Confederate sympathizers. Wilson left town in 1862 to become a chaplain in the Confederate Army. During the war, both sides used the church as a hospital. Union soldiers stabled their horses inside and burned pews as firewood.

McMechen House

109 N. Main Street

Confederate sympathizer Samuel McMechen owned this 1853 home and its attached store on Main Street. McMechen entertained Confederate officers here when they controlled Moorefield. When Union forces occupied the town, McMechen left. Maj. Gen. John Frémont briefly made his headquarters here in May 1862, and Confederate Brig. Gen. John McCausland was asleep in an upstairs bedroom here when William Averell’s men surprised McCausland’s cavalry brigade camped in the fields around Moorefield.

Mullin Hotel

PHOTOS BY MELISSA A. WINN (4)

PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN

104 S. Main Street Built in 1847, the Mullin Hotel was once known as the Moorefield Hotel Co., and the stockholders included Charles Carter Lee, eldest brother of Robert E. Lee. After the Civil War, it was operated by Captain C.B. Mullin who made it into a popular hostelry known for its food. During Captain Mullin’s tenure in the 1860s and 1870s, old hotel registers indicate that many men of distinction were guests. The 22-room hotel houses the 1847 Mullin Restaurant as well as the historical society museum.

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TRAILSIDE

➊ ➋ ➍➌ ➎ ➏ ➐ ➑ ➒

1. Battle of Moorefield 2. Run for the Hills 3. Cemetery Hill 4. McMechen House 5. Mullin Hotel 6. Presbyterian Church 7. Fort Mulligan 8. Maple Hill Cemetery 9. The Grove Cafe & Bakery

Cemetery Hill

192 Olivet Drive

Fighting erupted among the tombstones on September 10, 1863, when Confederate troopers surprised Union troops camped here. The Union position was soon overrun. The Confederates captured 160 soldiers, 9 wagons, 46 horses, guns, and ammunition.

The Grove Cafe & Bakery 26 Virginia Avenue, Petersburg Dr. Thomas Grove built a residence here in 1854 and soon after built this small cottage to be used as his office and caretaker’s quarters. His property was used as a hospital during the Civil War, although he maintained strict neutrality. Today it serves up tasty treats, teas, coffees, and a West Virginia favorite: The Pepperoni Roll!

100 Mulligan Drive, Petersburg

Constructed in 1863 under the command of Union Colonel James Mulligan, Fort Mulligan was built to protect strategically located Petersburg. The fort helped defend the important road network, prevent Confederate raids on the B&O Railroad and supported U.S. efforts in the new state of West Virginia. On January 31, 1864, Jubal Early’s men shelled the fort before discovering that it had been evacuated. Today the 5.5-acre park offers interpretive signs, reproduction cannons, and stunning vistas of the South Branch of the Potomac River.

301 N. Main Street, Petersburg The brick church here was used as a commissary building for Union soldiers. When they learned of Early’s Confederates approaching in January 1864, Federal troops burned the church to prevent the capture of their supplies. The congregation built a new church in 1878 and was reimbursed by the federal government for the loss of the original structure. Several Confederate soldiers are buried in the graveyard.

PHOTOS BY MELISSA A, WINN (4)

Fort MulLigan

Maple Hill Cemetery

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Stalled at the Susquehanna Gen. John Brown Gordon’s grand plans go up in flames

PHOTOS BY MELISSA A, WINN (4)

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

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

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5 QUESTIONS

Interview by Sarah Richardson

Storm Troopers

year’s salary in many cases: what today would be in the $30,000–$50,000 range.

Yet the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry went into battle without horses. And not only were they dismounted, they also didn’t start out getting full pay. When the 5th Massachusetts arrived in Washington, the men didn’t know they would be dismounted; certainly in their minds, the bargain they had made in joining had not been kept. Two or three other regiments that happened to be White were also dismounted because of the shortage of horses. The Civil War is in many ways the bureaucratization, the organization of war. So, “We’re not going to be able to get you horses” is in some ways understandable when you look at the big picture. As for pay, they had been promised the same as Federal troops, but the War Department told the men, “We will pay you as laborers,” not what White troops were being

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COURTESY OF NEW YORK HERITAGE DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

Why was the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry formed? Was this the first Black cavalry unit? The cavalry were considered the fighter pilots of the 19th century. They were perceived as being an elite force—the scouts, the eyes of the army. There were a couple of USCT Cavalry regiments and a couple of regiments raised in the western area of the campaign. So where we are at the end of 1863 is that African American troops had been raised and were being raised following promulgation of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. The 54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments had been in the field since June 1863, and by the end of 1863 there is a recruiting frenzy, with African American troopers part of the state quota. The bounty of $350 was equivalent to a

History Makers Unidentified Black troopers of the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry—technically one of the Union’s first African American cavalry regiments, though its men were dismounted.

COURTESY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY (2)

More than 20 years ago, John D. Warner Jr., a graduate student at the time, came across an arresting account by Union officer Charles Francis Adams Jr., of leading Black troops into Richmond after it fell on April 3, 1865. He wondered why he had not heard that story before. Now Warner, archivist for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, has written Riders in the Storm: The Triumphs and Tragedies of a Black Cavalry Regiment in the Civil War, which describes the experiences of the 5th Massachusetts Cavalry—the unit Adams commanded in the occupation of Richmond. Published by Stackpole Books, the book covers the experience of Black troops in the Union Army as well as detailed coverage of the complexities of recruiting Black soldiers and White officers for service in a regiment like this.

5 QUESTIONS paid. That was specific to all African American troops until the law changed on June 15, 1864. It was scandalous it took 18 months to do so.

What happened when they were in service? The unit had been trained according to Cook’s Cavalry tactics, and when Massachusetts Governor John Andrew and his cadre decided to recruit officers for the regiments, they wanted people who had experience and who were committed to the movement, so to speak. If you had cavalry experience, you could be promoted from an enlisted non-commissioned officer to lieutenant or even a captain, which is a pretty big jump. So having that experience as cavalry troopers in White regiments, you show up in Washington, the theater of operations; you’re now dismounted and you’re now infantry. So it’s: “What do we do? We don’t have any training in moving infantry troops around, facing movements, how to shake out a line of battle, how to get to your squads, your platoons, companies organized in such as way as to be effective in bringing fire upon the enemy.” As far as what the 5th went through, they did go into battle, they did have casualties. They felt they came through it all right, acted as they should, nobody ran away. But the fact is that they were removed from the 18th Division and sent to Point Lookout [Md.] to guard Confederate POWs. They were in effect exchanged for a trained USCT infantry regiment to become prison guards.

COURTESY OF NEW YORK HERITAGE DIGITAL COLLECTIONS

COURTESY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY (2)

That must have been demoralizing. Yes, but in many ways it was fascinating. We have POW accounts, from Sidney Lanier, and John Omenhausser’s watercolor drawings to show what went on. This regiment knew the stakes, that it was an existential fight. You’re a young man and you join the Army at the zenith, when it is a fight to the finish, so to speak. When you look at the regimental records from when they formed in Massachusetts, about 800 of the 1,000 men who went off to war were signature illiterate. They made a mark, not being able to write their names. So there isn’t this vast body of letters or a cache of first-person accounts available. But you see in the POW accounts and particularly the watercolor drawings that these were men of agency. They were doing

what they had to do. Serving their country, knowing that they are also acting to free their race. In one Omenhausser drawing, he has the Black prison guard on the outside of the palisade looking down. “Do you belong in there” he has the trooper say, getting “I didn’t see the line” as a reply. “You better take care of it, or I’ll put a round in you,” the trooper responds. “The bottom rail is on top.” People says it’s anecdotal, but it’s noteworthy because it was what was being said by some people.

How does the unit get involved in the fall of Richmond? It’s a wonderful story, in some ways apocalyptic. The Battle of Five Forks on April 1, 1865, leads to breaking the Confederate lines. A messenger comes into a church in Richmond where Jefferson Davis is sitting with his family and whispers, “They’ve breached the line, it is time to pack up and get out of town.” Colonel Adams had petitioned for his regiment to be put back in the field, so

they pack up and take their horses and all their gear and turn in their rifles for carbines, sabers, and pistols. Back to being cavalry, they move up into Virginia. As the city is abandoned, the Confederates, in an attempt to deny war materiel to the approaching Union army, or perhaps out of pure cussedness, decide to blow up the Tredegar Iron Works and the bales of cotton that are being stored in the warehouses. There’s a high wind. Before long, about 20 city blocks are burned to the ground. The 5th marches in and they are the first African American soldiers into the city. In some ways, it was sort of unfortunate that they weren’t able to be in action as cavalry because we would have learned of their true mettle, but they entered as a duly brigaded regiment of the 25th Army Corps. Again, it’s a pretty good story. Bending the Truth? In one of his drawings, Omenhausser derisively has a 5th Massachusetts guard bark harsh orders at Confederate prisoners suffering in the cold.

To read the rest of our interview, go to historynet.com/5thmasscav AUTUMN 2022

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REVIEWS

“Deep Throat” was hiding in a dark parking garage when he directed

Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward to “Follow the money” to unravel the Watergate scandal, but David Thomson is not being so subtle. In his new book, Bonds of War: How Civil War Financial Agents Sold the World on the Union, he’s imploring Civil War enthusiasts and historians to explore the financial aspects of the conf lict to better understand it. For readers familiar with a Civil War vocabulary that includes generals, regiments, battles, and campaigns, Thomson suggests they add Jay Cooke, demand notes, 10-40 and 7-30 bond issues, specie payments, balance sheets, and greenbacks to their historiographic lexicon. Those who do will be treated to a fascinating foray into the world of Civil War finance and the beginnings of modern America’s Bonds of War: financial markets. How Civil War Wars are expensive. By the time of the Financial Agents Civil War, Thomson reminds us, “the Sold the World United States joined the long list of on the Union nations opting for bond issues to finance By David K. Thomson its conflicts.” The country’s previous conUNC Press, 2022, $29.95 flicts had been financed that way with

the cooperation of financial elites residing, to a large extent, on Wall Street and Northern banking houses. But the Civil War quickly grew far larger than anyone had expected and, as Thomson points out, “Union officials recognized that the support of northeastern elites would not be enough to keep the Union war machine alive.” Where to turn for the money? Thomson details a triumvirate of financial instruments: a variety of bond issues, greenbacks (the first nationally recognized currency other than gold or silver), and the first federal income tax. “None proved more critical,” Thomson concludes, “than the various bonds and Treasury notes issued by the federal government during the war.” These bond “provided nearly two-thirds of the $3.2 billion in funding for the Union cause— and in doing so helped keep the country afloat financially.” The hero of that story is not Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase although he was successful in negotiating the initial $50 million loan, principally from New York banks, at

EVERETT COLLECTION/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Financial Frenzy

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REVIEWS

EVERETT COLLECTION/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Precious Currency The Assay Office on Wall Street was the primary location in New York for investors to purchase U.S. government-issued bonds needed to help finance the Civil War.

the war’s outset. That money, however, was soon exhausted. Foreign investors were understandably hesitant to commit funds to the Lincoln government, especially when Union armies were experiencing defeat on the battlefield. Chase did believe that “a popular loan could take flight if given enough support and pitched properly.” He believed, wrongly, that he could do it himself. But when sales turned flat, Jay Cooke entered the picture with new ideas and the history of American finance entered a new, more modern phase. In 1861, Jay Cooke was a partner in a newly formed financial house in Philadelphia. He and his brothers saw the war as a great financial opportunity. “By the fall of 1861,” Thomson informs us, “Cooke endeared himself enough to Chase to be granted an agency to try to sell Northern bonds on behalf of the government.” Cooke’s modern marketing ideas exuded confidence in the Union cause and helped him succeed beyond anyone’s expectations. Early on, he advertised in local newspapers and published the names of his small subscribers, using the power of patriotism to motivate others. He sent his agents door-to-door all over the country. Cooke kept his offices open late so working people could purchase notes as small as $20; he set up payroll deduction schemes to make purchases easier for employees of large firms like the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad. Thomson concludes that more than anything else, “Cooke and his army pitched investing as a form of patriotism.” Thomson credits Cooke with making the war a people’s war by understanding that what mattered most to people was confidence—confidence that he and his itinerant legion of salesmen preached like evangelists “spreading the gospel of capitalism and Union” across the nation and abroad. Confidence, Thomson concludes, “became sort of an emotional commodity, ultimately providing a more durable basis for the Civil War economy than the antebellum one of cotton and the enslaved.” By buying into the Union cause, Americans were buying into themselves. –Gordon Berg

To the Uttermost Ends of the Earth: The Epic Hunt for the South’s Most Feared Ship—and the Greatest Sea Battle of the Civil War By Phil Keith with Tom Clavin Hanover Square Press, 2022, $29.99

FOR THE NORTHERN PUBLIC, there was much cause for discouragement as the summer of 1864 opened. To be sure, Union armies in Georgia and Virginia had made progress since the campaign season began in early May, but by late June hopes for a truly decisive victory in either theater before the heat of the Southern summer really kicked in appeared faint. Consequently, it was a decidedly welcome event when news arrived that Captain John Winslow’s USS Kearsarge had managed to locate the elusive CSS Alabama at Cherbourg Harbor and required only an hour of battle off the French coast to sink the notorious Rebel raider and leave its commander, Raphael Semmes, swimming for his life. So grateful was the Lincoln administration that, in addition to Winslow (whose relationship with the Navy Department was anything but warm) receiving promotion, authors Phil Keith and Tom Clavin note, “[a]n astonishing number of Medals of Honor were awarded” to members of Kearsarge’s crew—17 in all. The stories of Kearsarge, Alabama, their commanders, and their fateful confrontation on June 19, 1864, are by no means unfamiliar ones to serious students of the Civil War, and it must be said that there is not a great deal in To the Uttermost Ends of the Earth that will be surprising to those familiar with previous studies of these two ships and the war at sea by William Marvel, Spencer Tucker, James McPherson, and others. Nevertheless, Keith and Clavin deserve praise for their work. They do a good job of explaining the factors that shaped naval warfare and life at sea before and during the Civil War, a time when the Industrial Revolution was bringing about profound changes in the ways and means of warfare on both land and water. Yet, while they provide a good deal of technical information about the two ships, Keith and Clavin never lose focus on the human stories of Winslow, Semmes, and their crews, which they tell effectively. Readers looking for a good, highly readable study of these subjects will find much of value here. —Ethan S. Rafuse AUTUMN 2022

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REVIEWS

UNIT HISTORIES America’s Good Terrorist: John Brown and the Harpers Ferry Raid By Charles Poland Casemate, 2021, $34.95

IN ASSOCIATING JOHN BROWN’S traits with the current meaning of terrorist, he measures up to the profile. He was an American abolitionist leader who fought in Kansas Territory and led a small band that captured the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry in October 1859. Brown was hanged two months later; in the North he became a martyred hero. Charles Poland’s 336-page narrative chronicles Brown’s life comprehensively, with a noticeable focus on his attempt to aid Southern slaves. The author examines the personality and characteristics of this “Good Terrorist” in order to comprehend his life and motivations. The author traces Brown’s involvement in Bleeding Kansas in the 1850s and, most important, how he came to believe that violence was a way to ending slavery. He then examines Brown’s travels through the Northeast to find sponsors for his proposed liberation army. Even Frederick Douglass, though, opposed raiding Harpers Ferry. The author offers a fascinating review of Brown’s taking of the arsenal and his capture by U.S. forces under Colonel Robert E. Lee. Poland makes the point that Brown’s flawed preparation and poor leadership doomed the operation to failure. Poland offers insightful observations on Brown’s legacy after Harpers Ferry. For instance, after Brown’s death, many abolitionists in the North embraced violence as a way to ending slavery. America’s Good Terrorist is both captivating and rewarding—and a meticulous narrative of Harpers Ferry. It is excellent as history and quite appealing as biography. —David Marshall 62

Students of Cold Harbor have understandably focused mainly on

the Union assault of June 3, 1864, that led Ulysses Grant to later declare, “I have always regretted that the last assault at Cold Harbor was ever made….No advantage was gained to compensate for the heavy loss.” Yet, as Grant noted, the June 3 attacks were but the last assaults Union forces attempted at Cold Harbor. Two days earlier, units from the 6th Corps had attempted to break the Confederate lines, suffering terrible losses. Included among these was the 2nd Connecticut Volunteer Heavy Artillery, which belonged to the brigade Emory Upton led into battle that day. While the regiment would subsequently see combat at Petersburg and in the Shenandoah Valley, it was its experience on June 1 that cast the greatest shadow over its history. As Theodore F. Vaill chronicles in his 1868 unit history, of the 234 members of the unit killed or mortally wounded in action, 114— nearly half—fell at Cold Harbor. Vaill’s account is noteworthy for how effective he was in detailing the unit’s experiences in camp, on the march, and in battle—doing so before the Official Records were available. In September 1862, the newly formed 19th Connecticut Infantry appeared destined for a relatively dull and undistinguished war. Assigned to duty in Washington in November, it became the 2nd Connecticut Heavy History of the Artillery, reorganized for service in Second Connecticut the capital’s defenses. Because of a Volunteer Heavy need to replace heavy losses in the Artillery. Originally Overland Campaign, Grant brought the Nineteenth the regiment to Cold Harbor. It then Connecticut Vols. participated in operations at PetersBy Theodore F. Vaill burg in which new commander RanWinsted Printing ald S. Mackenzie (who replaced Company, 1868 Elisha Kellogg, killed on June 1) lost two fingers and was given the nickname “Bad Hand,” which accompanied him throughout his distinguished U.S. Army career. The Nutmegs went north with the 6th Corps in July 1864 to defend Washington and defeat Jubal Early, then returned to the Virginia Tidewater in December and participated in the decisive operations at Petersburg and during the Appomattox Campaign. In addition to chronicling the unit’s experiences, Vaill offers a citizen-soldier’s take on its leaders. Kellogg, he declares, was “the superior of all superiors, and major generals shrunk into pygmy corporals in comparison”; Mackenzie doesn’t fare as well. Though willing to give the West Pointer props for his bravery, Vaill labels him “a Perpetual Punisher,” concluding, “If we...have another war, it is gratifying to think he will probably have a command not smaller than an army corps….It would be somewhat impracticable to put rails on a whole army corps.” –Ethan S. Rafuse

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REVIEWS

The Great “What Ifs” of The American Civil War Edited by Chris Mackowski and Brian Matthew Jordan Savas Beatie, 2022, $29.95

MUCH FUN CAN BE HAD with historical “what ifs.” James Thurber, for example, once imagined that the simplest way for the South to have won the Civil War was for Ulysses S. Grant to have been drunk at Appomattox. He proposes a scenario in which the besotted Union leader awakes on the morning of April 9, 1865, in such a fog that he forgets who was surrendering to whom. Thus, he hands over his sword to an astonished Robert E. Lee and slurs, “There you are, General, we dam’ near licked you. If I’d been feeling better, we would of licked you.” That potential outcome was, of course, concocted tongue-in-cheek, but in this engaging new book there is indeed viable “what if” speculation by an esteemed cadre of experts. Cecily Zander explores what would have happened had Jefferson Davis, his generals in revolt, replaced Braxton Bragg in October 1863, surmising that with James Longstreet in charge the disaster at Missionary Ridge might have been averted; the Federal campaign against Atlanta delayed. In his essay, Timothy B. Smith considers the outcome had Albert Sidney Johnston not died on Shiloh’s first day and the Rebel attack hadn’t been called off before nightfall. Nothing, he argues, would’ve changed. Some essays do cover predictable themes: If Jackson had lived, if Longstreet had flank-marched at Gettysburg, and such. Yet, despite the familiarity of “What If Lincoln Had Lived,” Jordan and Ethan Rothera’s own essay is quite intriguing. Just a minor complaint: I do wish more attention had been paid to the counterfactual literature already out there. In “What If Robert E. Lee had Struck a Blow at the North Anna River,” for instance, Ronald Richards’ A Southern Yarn—in which Lee does just that, and the Confederates win independence by taking Washington—isn’t mentioned. —Stephen Davis

Funerals and the ensuing rites of public

mourning for prominent individuals have been more than just an occasion to honor the deceased since the Age of Pericles. Here, Susan Purcell closely examines the public funerals of nine Civil War–era individuals to explain how those events were shaped and memorialized to bolster the current political and ideological needs of various segments of society. In what Purcell calls ‘politicized mourning,’ these rituals became vehicles “to define American national identities” in the mid- to late-19th century. “Public funerals for particular figures,” she writes, provided a lens into how “disparate Americans asserted their versions of...national identity.” To begin, she uses the 1852 death of Henry Clay, the “Great Compromiser,” to showcase the public’s valiant— albeit unsuccessful— attempt to use Clay’s death to assert a vision of national unity even as decades of antebellum compromises were unraveling. It would be a pattern repeated often in the next five decades. During the war, heroic death figured prominently in the mind of the public. The deaths of Elmer Ellsworth and Stonewall Jackson,” she infers, “helped establish the martial sacrifice of strong, white men as bedrock values of both American and Confederate nationalism.” By organizing, taking part, or simply viewing these elaborate events, “people not only mourned their heroes but also created ties between them-

selves and reinforced sectional divides.” Mourning for these two martyrs “helped define white, male sacrifice as a national goal worth fighting for in and of itself.” Robert E. Lee’s rather simple funeral in 1870, she writes, “occasioned expressions of Southern identity that foreshadowed how national reconciliation would largely take place on terms agreeable to the South.” Lee’s funeral commemorations were important because they “became a battleground over Southern civic identity, the cultural power Spectacle of Grief: of the Lost Cause, and the place of ConfedPublic Funerals and Memory in the erate memory in the American nation itself.” Her analysis of the funerals of Senator Civil War Era Charles Sumner in 1874 and Confederate By Sarah J. Purcell General Joseph E. Johnson in 1891 demonUNC Press, 2022, strates the impossibility of any Civil War fig$34.95 ure controlling how he or she would be remembered. Their funerals, she notes, “promoted forgetting parts of the Civil War as a form of national reconciliation, but mourning for each man showed how imperfect that formula for reconciliation was.” Purcell concludes by examining commemoration of Frederick Douglass and Varina “Winnie” Davis. The widespread mourning that followed Douglass’ 1895 death showed that much of society could finally accept a Black man having “fully ascended into the pantheon of national heroes—albeit not without a fight from white supremacists who did not want to see men like him there.” Davis’ 1898 funeral—the largest for a woman connected to the war—proved a great opportunity for Lost Cause pageantry but also clothed “that pro-Confederate memory in the language of national reconciliation.” –Gordon Berg AUTUMN 2022

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FINAL BIVOUAC

BREVET BRIGADIER GENERAL

Herman H. Heath and had an elbow shattered during a the only Civil War general to flirt with skirmish against Confederate guerrilthe idea of serving the Confederacy las at Clear Creek, Mo. Three months before siding with the Union. He had later, he joined Maj. Gen. Samuel R. even gone so far as to write President Curtis’ staff, and in May 1863 became Jefferson Davis in 1861 offering to a major in the 7th Iowa Cavalry and serve in a civil or military position. the regiment’s colonel in May 1865. The 7th spent the war campaigning “[A]lthough a northern man by birth,” against American Indians in the he told a friend, “I have never been anything but southern in my feelings.” Nebraska Territory and the Dakotas. Yet Heath not only fought as a Union Though elected to the Nebraska cavalryman the entire war, he was Legislature in November 1866, Heath wounded twice and brevetted brigawas still enlisted in the Army and dier general for “gallant and meritocouldn’t serve. But in January 1867, rious” service. Did he have a Andrew Johnson appointed him New legitimate change of heart in 1861 or Mexico Territory’s secretary of state, was he merely an opportunist willing and in 1870, President Ulysses S. to serve the side promising him the Grant nominated him as the territobest chance for glory? We likely will ry’s marshal. Heath’s 1861 letter came back to haunt him, however. never know. Born in New York in 1823, Heath Found in Confederate archives, along started a pro-Southern newspaper with his business card, it had been before the war while working as a turned over to the War Department and made its rounds in Congress. clerk in Washington, D.C. After movHeath claimed it was a forgery, but ing to Iowa, he began editing the Democratic newspaper Weekly Grant was criticized in the papers for North-West, and supported John C. appointing Heath and other ConfedBreckinridge during the 1860 presierate sympathizers to government dential election. On April 9, 1861, positions out West and withdrew Heath wrote to St. George Offutt in Heath’s nomination. Montgomery, Ala., congratulating Heath left to pursue business him for accepting a position with the enterprises in Lima, Peru. He became Confederate government. “I, too, editor of the city’s first English newswould have been there, where my paper and worked in the packing and heart ever is, had your president meat preservation business. He History Made responded as promptly to me as my would die in Lima on November 14, Thanks to Shrouded Veterans, the proffer of service was tendered to the veteran headstone to Heath shown in 1874, and is buried in an unmarked the rear was recently installed at his grave at the Cementerio Británico new government,” he wrote. “Before I formerly unmarked Lima gravesite. would march against my brothers of Antiguo Bellavista. Shrouded Veterthe South, I would suffer myself to be ans recently worked to have a U.S. hanged on the first tree before the eyes of my own wife.” government-issued veteran headstone crafted and sent to By June, however, Heath was with the 1st Iowa Cavalry cemetery. Heath is the first Civil War general with a headas a first lieutenant. In August 1862, he broke his left hip stone installed in South America. –Frank Jastrzembski Final Bivouac is published in partnership with “Shrouded Veterans,” a nonprofit mission run by Frank Jastrzembski to identify or repair the graves of Mexican War and Civil War veterans (facebook.com/shroudedvetgraves).

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; COURTESY OF FRANK JASTRZEMBSKI

Herman H. Heath was not, of course,

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The U.S. Mint Just Struck Morgan Silver Dollars for the First Time in 100 Years! Struck in 99.9% Fine Silver for the First Time EVER!

D E T I M I L Y R VE Out at the Mint! Sold

Actual size is 38.1 mm

t’s been more than 100 years since the last Morgan Silver Dollar was struck for circulation. With a well-earned reputation as the coin that helped build the Wild West, preferred by cowboys, ranchers, outlaws as the “hard currency” they wanted in their saddle bags, the Morgan is one of the most revered, most-collected vintage U.S. Silver Dollars ever. Struck in 90% silver from 1878 to 1904, then again in 1921, these silver dollars came to be known by the name of their designer, George T. Morgan. They were also nicknamed “cartwheels” because of their large weight and size.

Celebrating the 100th Anniversary with Legal Tender Morgans

Honoring the 100th anniversary of the last year the Morgan Silver Dollar was minted, the U.S. Mint struck five different versions in 2021, paying tribute to each of the mints that struck the coin. The coins here honor the historic New Orleans Mint, a U.S. Mint branch from 1838–1861 and again from 1879–1909. These coins, featuring an “O” privy mark, a small differentiating mark, were struck in Philadelphia since the New Orleans Mint no longer exists. These beautiful coins are differO PRIVY MARK ent than the originals for two reasons. First,

they’re struck in 99.9% fine silver instead of the 90% silver/10% copper of the originals. And second, these Morgans were struck using modern technology, serving to highlight the details of the iconic design even more than the originals.

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31317…$42

Confederate General Robert E. Lee

31377…$45

Confederate Infantry Marching and Cheering

The products shown and the entire W.Britain range can be purchased from the retailers listed below:

The History Store.............................. Tel: 740-775-7400 • www.thehistorystore.net • info@thehistorystore.net 101 North Paint Street, Chillicothe, Ohio 45601

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

For The Historian ............................. Tel: 717-685-5207 • www.forthehistorian.com • web@forthehistorian.com 42 York Street, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania 17325

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

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

Michigan Toy Soldier Co. ...................... Tel: 248-586-1022 • 888-MICHTOY • www.michtoy.com

1400 East 11 Mile Road, Royal Oak, Michigan 48067

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

ACWP-220700-009 WBritain Pg.indd 1

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

are registered trademarks of the

W.Britain Model Figures, Chillicothe, OH

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5/26/22 11:40 PM