America's Civil War Fall 2023

TODAY IN HISTORY

MAY 13, 1865

UNION SOLDIER JOHN J. WILLIAMS IS KILLED ON THE BANKS OF THE RIO GRANDE DURING THE BATTLE OF PALMITO RANCH. RECOGNIZED AS THE LAST MAN TO DIE IN THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR, HE WAS ONE OF AN ESTIMATED 700,000 MEN—ROUGHLY 2% OF THE U.S. POPULATION AT THE TIME— WHO LOST THEIR LIVES DURING THE CONFLICT. THOSE DEATHS ROUGHLY EQUAL THE COMBINED AMERICAN FATALITIES IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR, THE WAR OF 1812, THE MEXICAN-AMERICAN WAR, THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR, WORLD WAR I, WORLD WAR II, AND THE KOREAN WAR.

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In All Its Splendor

With Gettysburg on the horizon, Stuart and Hooker deliver wakeup calls outside bucolic Culpeper, Va.

Bloodied Road to

Northern

‘Our Troops Have Not Been Idle’

The

Vol. 36, No. 3 Autumn 2023

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‘Union’ Man or Not?

I have been impressed with the range and depth of articles published in America’s Civil War; thank you. While reviewing the Spring 2023 issue, the article “Have we come to this?” (P.20) by Brian C. Neumann has piqued my curiosity due to the many questions I found unanswered.

The bulk of the article provides impassioned and eloquent comments in support of the Union by William McWillie while serving in the South Carolina Legislature in December 1832. McWillie was described as a “Union” man, one of the 40 percent of voters who was opposed to tariff nullification.

McWillie was also quoted as stating: “We have been told [by Nullifiers] that the object of the north and west is to emancipate our slaves, to destroy our property….If any thing would be likely to destroy the value of this property, it would be disunion and civil war.” The last sentence in the article therefore came as a nonsequitur: “As governor of Mississippi in 1857-59...he pledged to dissolve the Union rather than surrender slavery.”

What caused this dramatic change in McWillie’s beliefs? In order to answer this question, I conducted some very modest research. The only other article of substance about William McWillie

was located in the Mississippi Encyclopedia, by David G. Sansing, University of Mississippi. McWillie’s service in the South Carolina legislature was noted, but not one word of his prior comments regarding the Union. Instead, McWillie was described as “an ardent advocate of states’ rights” and “an active supporter of the Confederacy.”

Were McWillie’s 1832 comments now considered an embarrassment? Inconsistent with the concept of a unified South?

Slightly more information was available on McWillie’s plantation, Kirkwood. It was one of the largest cotton plantations in Mississippi, worked by approximately 200 enslaved persons. Kirkwood was also the site of McWillie’s entertainment of Confederate luminaries, including Jefferson Davis. McWillie died at age 74 at Kirkwood, where he is buried. The house was demolished in the early 1900s, leaving only the family graveyard.

So much is unknown, besides the reason for McWillie’s about-face. Did McWillie keep a journal after leaving office in 1859? How did McWillie actively support the Confederacy? Did he make any comments regarding the war? Was McWillie able to keep Kirkwood a successful operation after the war?

My opinion is that McWillie’s success as a mega-plantation operator made his decision. But William McWillie was a complex human being, so there could be more to the story. I would enjoy reading a comprehensive study of his life, one that is neither blue-washed nor gray-washed.

Custer Controversy

I enjoyed reading “Summer of Discontent” by Richard H. Holloway in your Summer issue. Publix supermarket has abolished their book section, which I think is a sign of the ongoing illiteracy of America. Their small magazine section thankfully had the latest issue of America’s Civil War. I wonder if there is something readers can do to encourage supermarkets not to get rid of their newsstand magazines entirely.

I have a question for Mr. Holloway on an anecdote told by General James Longstreet regarding General George Custer on the eve of the Confederate surrender at Appomattox. In his memoir, Longstreet stated that a wild-eyed (and haired) Custer galloped into his command area demanding his surrender. Longstreet’s curt (and seemingly amused) answer to Custer read like something out of a movie. Did this encounter really happen?

Mr. Holloway responds: Yes, there are several accounts of Custer’s brash interaction with Longstreet just as you describe. His reckless ways led him to gain acclaim and high rank during the Civil War, but it also directly contributed to his death. To prevent you from not having access to America’s Civil War, please subscribe. I do subscribe for both myself and for a family member. I never miss an issue that way.

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COMMEMORATING THE 160TH ANNIVERSARY OF BRANDY STATION

Just before first light, at 4:30 a.m. on June 9, 1863, hundreds of 8th New York Cavalry troopers crossed Beverly’s Ford in Culpeper, Va., surprising two Confederate pickets of the 6th Virginia Cavalry and their comrades camped in a nearby field. As the Federals began to attack, the pickets ran back across the field.

“Captain! Captain! The ground is black with Yankees,” they yelled while firing their pistols in the air to alert their comrades and commanders to the incoming threat.

“Stay calm, men, and shoot to kill!” ordered Captain Bruce Gibson of Company A, 6th Virginia Cavalry. The Battle of Brandy Station had begun.

One hundred and sixty years later, on June 9, 2023, at 5:30 a.m. (adjusted for daylight saving time), Jasan Hileman of Culpeper Battlefield Tours shared the history of those opening moments in real time and on the very ground it occurred. The tour kicked off a three-day schedule of events to commemorate the 160th anniversary of the Battle of Brandy Sta-

tion, the largest cavalry battle ever fought on American soil. Real-time tours rolled out through the first day and included talks from co-founder of the Brandy Station Foundation, Clark “Bud” Hall.

Cavalry Corps

Mounted Confederate reenactors climb Fleetwood Hill. More than 100 horses and reenactors participated in the commemoration of the battle.

The weekend’s events also included cavalry and artillery reenactments, a living history camp, speakers, a presentation by historian Gary W. Gallagher, and a special 30th anniversary showing of the movie Gettysburg with a talk by its writer and director Ron Maxwell. The nearby Graffiti House, owned and operated by the Brandy Station Foundation, was open for visitation all three days, and next door, the historic Fleetwood Church was open to the public for tours, campsite lectures, and period music, with a special service taking place on Sunday, June 11— the first service in the church in 49 years. The commemoration activities drew hundreds of spectators to the battlefield, which will be incorporated, along with Cedar Mountain Battlefield, into a new Virginia state park, opening in July 2024.

Pocket Punch

The design for the volcanic lever pocket pistol shown below was patented on Valentine’s Day 1854, the product of a collaboration among leading weapons inventors and business ventures just before the Civil War. In the 1840s, inventor Walter Hunt had developed what was called “Rocket Ball” ammunition—a single cartridge combining both the bullet and powder. Hunt endeavored to build a weapon that could fire these projectiles in rapid succession, but his “Volcanic Repeating Rifle” would be flawed. Nevertheless, he laid the groundwork for sweeping changes in the industry that others, such as Horace Smith, Daniel Wesson, and Benjamin Tyler Henry, capitalized upon.

In 1851, entrepreneur Courtland Palmer led an effort to improve the design of the Jennings rifle, which Lewis Jennings patented in 1849 as an upgrade to Hunt’s original design. Palmer brought in Horace Smith, and the resulting Smith-Jennings rifle—though enhanced—enjoyed only a limited production run and even less financial success. The repeating firearms concept, however, was attracting widespread attention, including from Scientific American, which had been behind the “Volcanics” nickname in gushing during a review that the rate of fire from these weapons compared to a volcanic eruption.

Another joint effort by Palmer in 1854, this one with both Smith and Wesson, led to the addition of a primer to the “Rocket Ball” projectile, as well as a renovated lever operating mechanism, and in 1855 the creation of the Volcanic Repeating Arms Company. That entity lasted only a year, however, with Smith and Wesson leaving to start a second rendition of their former company and then Oliver Winchester, a principal investor, using assets to form the New Haven Arms Company.

Zouaves in Action

Match the Civil War Zouave unit with the engagement in which it notably fought.

A. 1st Louisiana Zouave Battalion (Coppens’ Zouaves) (CS)

B. 53rd New York (D’Epineuil’s Zouaves)

C. 9th New York (Hawkins’ Zouaves)

D. 11th New York (Ellsworth’s Fire Zouaves)

E. 1st Maryland Battalion (Maryland Guard Zouaves) (CS)

F. 8th Missouri (American Zouaves) (US)

G. 10th New York (National Guard Zouaves)

H. 13th Louisiana (Avegno’s Zouaves)

I. 114th Pennsylvania (Collis’ Zouaves)

J. 5th New York (Duryée’s Zouaves)

Critically, Winchester hired Henry to manage his new company. Henry was a brilliant inventor and machinist, whose improved lever design led to manufacture of the .31-caliber No. 1 Pocket Pistol and .41-caliber “Volcanics.” With a barrel only 3½ inches long, the Pocket Pistol lacked firepower. But for Confederate Colonel W. Blouke, whose name is inscribed on the model above, it at least provided him a quick defensive option in sticky situations.

The greater contribution of these early New Haven Arms Company weapons was in leading Henry to develop the first reliable repeating rifle, one with the signature two-hole action that bore his name. The Henry Rifle was the most sophisticated repeating rifle of the Civil War. After the war, Winchester folded New Haven Arms Company into one of the country’s most famous and successful arms manufacturers, the Winchester Repeating Arms Company. Jay Wertz

1. Fredericksburg

2. First Manassas

3. Gettysburg

4. Perryville

5. Gaines’ Mill

6. Roanoke Island

7. Second Bull Run

8. Shiloh

9. Wilderness

10. Antietam

Farewell Pending for Texas Museum

The Texas Civil War Museum in Fort Worth, one of the country’s largest such facilities, will close its doors on December 30. After 16 years of operation, Texas oilman Ray Richey and his wife, Judy, have decided to retire. “It was a hobby that got out of hand,” Richey professed in 2006 when he opened the 15,000-square-foot facility to house his extensive personal artifact collection.

End of an Era

Display cases with historic firearms at the Texas Civil War Museum, which exhibits more than 5,000 items from oilman Ray Richey’s private collection.

Touted as the largest Civil War Museum west of the Mississippi River, the building has more than 5,000 artifacts on display, valued at $15 million–$20 million. Included are Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s presentation sword, Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuar t’s saber and personal battle flag, Maj. Gen. Benjamin Butler’s dress uniform, and Maj. Gen. Phil Sheridan’s saber and saddle blanket. The country’s second largest Civil War gun collection is also on display.

The north wall of the exhibit hall features Union artifacts, the south wall Confederate. In addition to the Civil War artifacts, Victorian-era dresses are featured, including one worn by Lady Randolph Spencer Churchill, Winston Churchill’s mother.

The Richey collection will be auctioned off by The Horse Soldier Auctions in Gettysburg, Pa. The Civil War artifacts of the Texas United Daughters of the Confederacy—also displayed at the museum—will be stored at another location, with portions to be occasionally loaned to other museums.

“What a great gift Ray and Judy provided,” says Texas historian Don Frazier. “Ray had an eye for antiques. There’s not another collection like it. It’s the end of an era.” Donald L. Barnhart Jr.

CIVIL WAR ILLUSTRATED

One of the most intriguing cartoons used as propaganda during the war featured two images shrewdly merged into one. While one part could be easily seen, in order to view the other part of the illustration, a reader would have to physically flip the image upside down (in the case here, the drawing was printed on writing stationery). Held in one direction, we see a smiling Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard and July 22, 1861—the date following the Confederates’ First Manassas victory. Upside down, we see a dejected Beauregard and July 22. 1862—the day President Lincoln publicly revealed his plan to free the slaves.

A Ray of Sun CONVERSATION PIECE

Not a lot is known of the origin of this particular design of Louisiana buckle, but examples of it were found at battlefields in Virginia and Louisiana. Unofficially dubbed the Louisiana Pelican Sun Ray buckle, this stamped brass belt plate has at least eight young pelican offspring being fed by their mother. As shown throughout various incarnations of the state’s flag, the adult pelican will rip into its own chest to feed its babies with its own blood. Due to the rarity of this plate, struck around the 1860s, few examples still exist today.

Violence App Out

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, Middle Tennessee State University, and Yale University are collaborating to create the first comprehensive database examining violence during the Civil War. Over the past year, a research team led by political scientist Jason Hartwig at the University of Pennsylvania has conducted a pilot project in Kentucky and Tennessee to expand on Frederick Dyer’s Compendium of the War of the Rebellion. Through that research, the number of recorded events in those two states grew from 2,000 initially documented by Dyer in 1908 to more than 5,000. These additional events were drawn from reports in the Official Records, wartime governor papers, court-martial proceedings, department command correspondence, newspapers, and personal correspondence.

Each event within the dataset was also geo-coded with precision, varying from exact location to county vicinity. In addition, Dr. Andrew Fialka, a Middle Tennessee State historian, has managed a similar effort documenting violence in Missouri using wartime governor correspondence. With funding from Yale’s Identity and Conflict Lab, the team will expand the project to cover every Southern and border state.

A mobile phone app the team has created—the ICL Civil War Data Collection app—will allow for broad public participation in further research. The app directs volunteers to various state archives, alerting them to collections of interest. From these archives, researchers can upload photos of documents recording instances of violence to a cloud-based repository.

Volunteers can also use their expertise to alert the research team to different source material to help expand the effort.

Included among the remarkable data the team has already collected are precise geo-locations of every recorded engagement, skirmish, and multi-day operation of the major field armies; analysis of the relationship between conventional military operations and guerrilla violence; and trends in patterns of violence by type and location over the course of the war.

“Whilst I highly prize Military education, yet something more is required to make a general.”

—Stonewall Jackson

BATTLE RATTLE

—Edward

An Anxious Wait

Unto the Breach

GALLANT CHARGE BY RHODE ISLAND CANNONEERS HELPS BREAK THE CONFEDERATE LINES AT PETERSBURG IN APRIL 1865

IN THE EARLY MORNING HOURS of April 2, 1865, a collection of Vermont soldiers and Rhode Island artillerymen performed what was aptly remembered as “one of the most perilous exploits of the war.” During the Union assault at Petersburg, Va., the New Englanders captured two Confederate howitzers and, as the battle raged around them, reversed the guns and began firing at the Rebels. For their contributions in the eventual Union victory that broke the Confederate lines around Richmond, leading to Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox one week later, seven members of the battery and two Vermonters received Medals of Honor.

Representing the Ocean State in this daunting mission was Battery G of the 1st Rhode Island Light Artillery. No surprise, as artillerymen from Rhode Island were regarded by many as the best in the Union Army. The nation’s smallest state would, in fact, send 10 batteries to the front during the war, all of them trained by the Providence Marine Corps of Artillery, a militia organization dating back to 1801. Battery G was mustered in in the fall of 1861, the unit an amalgamation of Yankees from the

rural parts of Rhode Island, the sons of the business elite from Providence, and Irish and German immigrants.

First engaged at Yorktown, Va., in April 1862, as part of the 2nd Corps, the battery would fight at Fair Oaks on the Virginia Peninsula and in the subsequent Seven Days’ Battles. At Antietam in September 1862, its guns were heavily engaged at the Dunker Church and in the Bloody Lane and were again in the fray that December at Fredericksburg. In May 1863, Battery G suffered severely during the fighting at Chancellorsville and, after being transferred to the 6th Corps, took part in a rear-guard action near Gettysburg in July.

The following spring, the 1st Rhode Island Light Artillery, still attached to the 6th Corps, served prominently in the Overland Campaign, and in the fall was engaged in the Shenandoah Valley. Early in the clash at Cedar Creek on October 19, 1864, the battery—now under the command of Captain George W. Adams, a tough, no-nonsense but respected combat veteran—was overrun. It would lose nine men killed and two guns before reinforce-

ments helped produce a monumental Union victory.

After a winter spent reorganizing the unit, including consolidation with the 1st Rhode Island Light Artillery’s Battery C, the refurbished Battery G arrived back at the Petersburg siege lines in February 1865. By late March, after the Army of the Potomac had spent nine grueling months besieging Richmond and Petersburg, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant sensed a potential breakthrough for his Union forces. Lee’s lines were stretched to the breaking point, as his 40,000 or so men tenuously defended a 40-mile front. With Confederate deserters pouring in each day, Grant felt it was time to strike.

His plan to capture Richmond and end the war was set in motion on March 29, as the Cavalry Corps and the 5th Corps swung to the left and on April 1 captured the strategic crossroads at Five Forks. Yet Grant, unable to flank Lee’s defenses, ordered a frontal assault by the Army of the Potomac on Petersburg itself, to begin at 4 a.m. April 2.

It was the task of Major Andrew Cowan’s 6th Corps’ Artillery Brigade to provide supporting fire for the assault. After receiving notice of the charge, Adams met with corps commander Maj. Gen. Horatio Wright, offering a mission the captain had been considering since arriving in Petersburg. During a charge on the Confederate lines, infantrymen accompanied by select cannoneers would attempt to capture enemy artillery—guns that could then be used both to boost the assault and repel any Confederate counterattack. Adams’ remaining cannoneers in Battery G, meanwhile, would provide support with their own 3-inch Ordnance Rifles.

At 10 p.m. on April 1, all eight 6th Corps batteries launched a heavy bombardment on the Confederate defenses, which fortuitously masked the noise of the forming infantry. By midnight, the 6th Corps infantry had formed en masse in front of the Confederate works.

Axmen would lead the assault, cutting away defenses so the infantrymen could quickly exploit the breach. The soldiers were ordered to load but not cap their weapons, to prevent accidental firing. Silence was vital. The men were threatened with death if they spoke.

Battery G, 1st R.I. Light Artillery [3-Year]

Assigned Army of the Potomac: Sedgwick’s Division; Reserve Artillery, 2nd Corps; 3rd Division, 2nd Corps; 4th Brigade; 6th Corps; Army of the Shenandoah; Camp Barry; 6th Corps

Mustered In Providence, R.I.

Active

December 1861–June 1865

Total Served 292

Total Casualties 108

Notable Engagements

Siege of Yorktown, Fair Oaks, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Cedar Creek, Third Petersburg

Notable Figures

Before granting Adams permission, Wright “warned him of its extreme danger”; Adams, though, would not back down, finally receiving Wright’s consent. The captain would take only volunteers, however, fearing it was likely to be a costly assault. Stressing the mission’s extreme importance and danger, Adams said none who chose not to volunteer would be looked down upon. Every member of the battery stepped forward instantly, with 20 eventually selected.

Capt. Charles Owen, Capt. George Adams, Sgt. John Havron, Corp. James Barber

Adams’ detachment reported to Colonel Thomas W. Hyde’s 3rd Brigade, moving into position near Fort Welch. The 6th Corps formed in the shape of a spear, with Maj. Gen. Frank Wheaton’s 1st Division on the right, the 2nd at center, and the 3rd on the left—roughly 14,000 men total. Hyde’s brigade, in Wheaton’s center, was to swing left after entering the entrenchments to cut off the Boydton Plank Road and then the South Side Railroad. It was a moonless, misty night with a heavy ground fog hanging over the trenches—so thick that most soldiers couldn’t see 20 yards ahead. After 4 a.m. passed without a signal, as Grant waited for the fog to lift so the advancing columns would not be struck by friendly fire, Adams asked his men once more if any wanted to return to Battery G’s main position. Three did.

The first shot was finally fired at 4:40 a.m. by the 1st Rhode Island Light Artillery’s Battery E on the corps’ extreme left. Immediately, every gun in the Army of the Potomac opened fire, including Battery G’s four pieces. Because of the cannonade’s immense noise, there was a 10-minute delay before the men realized the barrage had been the signal to advance.

Recorded Dr. George Stevens of the 77th New York: “Without wavering, through the darkness, the wedge which was to split the Confederacy was driven home.” Many of the 6th Corps’ batteries, however, fired only about a dozen rounds before stopping to avoid the “friendly fire” casualties Grant had feared.

Unlike the infantrymen, who were armed with muskets and bayonets, the cannoneers would carry only their friction-primers, sponge-rammers, lanyards, and artillery spikes, which, if the men faced trouble, could be pounded into the guns’ vents to render them inoperable.

As Hyde deployed his brigade, Adams and his men lost contact with the New Yorkers to their right and instead angled left, following Brig. Gen. Lewis A. Grant’s Old Vermont Brigade. The Vermonters rushed onward in total darkness, aiming for a 600-yard long ravine leading directly to an expected weak point in the Confederate line.

As the Federals advanced, the Confederate defenses came alive. The Rebels, though poorly equipped, clearly had plenty of fight left in them. The guns Battery G had been sent to capture happened to be firing canister and were wrecking the Vermont lines. In merely 15 minutes, 1,100 6th Corps soldiers went down.

Regardless, the 17 Rhode Islanders pushed ahead, and within minutes Union infantry were scrambling into the Confederate forts, many firing a single volley and going in with bayonets. After crossing the deadly killing ground, the Rhode Island detachment angled for its prime destination, an earthen gun emplacement near a swamp in a

monters furiously working the howitzers, Sperry surrendered the position to Adams’ men. (The major later received a Medal of Honor as well.)

Some of Adams’ men had understandably worried the assault would inflict a high casualty count, but that was not the case. A ragged final volley by the scrambling North Carolinians did wound two cannoneers, however. Private Luther Cornell received a devastating right shoulder wound from a Minié ball, an injury from which he never recovered, and Private George W. Potter was blinded in the left eye.

Knowing a fierce struggle still lay ahead, Adams had little choice but to relieve his severely wounded cannoneers, ordering them to the rear. Cornell succeeded on his own, but Potter needed to be carried by two comrades. That left Adams with 13 men.

Ocean State Standouts

woodlot. They promptly obeyed a “Capture that battery!” directive from the Vermonters.

Defending the line of earthworks around the fortification was a North Carolina brigade under the command of Brig. Gen. James H. Lane, who had positioned two 24-pounder howitzers at a vulnerable opening and another howitzer, two cannons, and an 8-inch mortar on the right of the ravine through which the Vermonters were charging.

Captain Charles Gould’s Company H, 5th Vermont, which had lost its way crossing no-man’s land during the initial bombardment, leaped into the redoubt, with 30 men following Gould for the cannons. A fervent hand-tohand clash ensued.

Gould, who would receive a Medal of Honor for his actions, recalled it as “a short but desperate fight.” After the defenders abandoned the position, his unit quickly re-formed and pushed on.

Following directly behind Gould was Major William J. Sperry of the 6th Vermont. Upon seeing the two abandoned howitzers, he directed a dozen men to have the guns reversed and then fired at the fleeing Confederates. Some of his men and a few wayward members of the 11th Vermont were ordered to load the pieces, but Sperry, unable to locate friction primers, resorted to having his soldiers fire blanks into the cannons’ vents.

When the Battery G gunners arrived to find the Ver-

At the South Side Railroad, the 6th Corps re-formed and swung left, capturing hundreds of prisoners while tearing up the tracks but also taking heavy losses as they pushed toward Hatcher’s Run. Nearly 50 Confederate guns would be captured, including a dozen in Battery G’s sector alone, but the remaining 13 Rhode Islanders could man only the two captured 24-pounder howitzers.

Union officers had trouble keeping their commands together, with their men, on the brink of victory, excited and energized. As the sun rose, however, the Confederates made a determined stand to hold their line and directed their fire at Battery G’s new position. Despite a hurricane of lead, the Rhode Island boys stood firm.

In the early morning light, with the unnerving cavalcade of shouting and Minié balls providing perhaps a perfect backdrop, the artillerists continued to load and fire their captured howitzers. The sustained fire and additional Union reinforcements finally pushed back the last remaining Confederate defenders.

The Rhode Islanders would fire nearly 100 rounds total during the brief engagement. According to one postwar account: “The men who served this gun so nobly, standing up unflinchingly before the terrific fire of the enemy were rewarded for their bravery and daring.”

Corporal Edward P. Adams was among the members of Battery G to be excluded from the assault force despite volunteering. He never forgot his comrades’ heroism, writing, “The Captain and his trained men with steady tread marched up with the Corps until the opportune moment when, rushing with great impetuosity they scaled the earthworks and crowned their undertaking with success….”

A good cross-section of the state was represented in what was labeled by one historian as “Adams’ intrepid band of cannoneers.” Sergeant Archibald Malbourne, a mill worker from West Greenwich, had recently transferred from Battery C, as had Sergeant John H. Havron, an Irish immigrant now living in Providence. Corporal

James A. Barber was a fisherman from Westerly who joined in 1861 and was one of the few surviving Westerly Boys. Private John Corcoran was a machinist from Pawtucket who had served in Battery C. Private Charles D. Ennis came from a farm in Charlestown, while Corporal Samuel E. Lewis and the grievously wounded George W. Potter were from Coventry.

Adams nominated all 17 men who followed him into the “jaws of hell” for Medals of Honor, but trouble lay ahead. The commander had led 17 cannoneers into the assault, although only 13 were there to work the captured cannons after two were wounded and two others detailed to help those comrades to the rear. Adams never equivocated in establishing that all had been incredibly brave to volunteer.

In April 1866, the 17 Rhode Islanders were recognized with Medals of Honor, and in striking and engraving the 17 medals, the War Department did not differentiate among the names of those who had entered the fort and those who had gone to the rear—the citation on each reading: “For gallant conduct at Petersburg, VA., April 2, 1865. Being one of a detachment of twenty picked artillerymen who voluntarily accompanied an infantry assaulting column and who turned upon the enemy the guns captured in the assault.” Nevertheless, because of federal bureaucracy, only seven would receive theirs. The existence of the other 10 medals has been lost to history.

On June 20, 1866, four medals were delivered to Rhode Island for Sergeants Malbourne and Havron and for Corporals Barber and

Lewis, the non-commissioned officers who had led the detachment in the action. There was no formal presentation; they arrived at the men’s homes in simple boxes along with a certificate announcing the award. Unfortunately, the officer in charge of the process failed to mail them to the privates who had also been recognized.

Potter, Corcoran, and Ennis received theirs in 1886, 1887, and 1892, respectively. When Adams inquired why the Medal of Honor had not been awarded to all at an earlier occasion, he received a nonplussed response: “It is possible that these soldiers have been overlooked, this particular service having been performed so near the close of the war.”

Adams already had a brevet of major for his heroism at Cedar Creek. Instead of receiving the Medal of Honor for planning and executing the mission, he was rewarded with brevets of lieutenant colonel and colonel. He wasted no time in sewing his eagles to his uniform, but his pay grade remained at the rank of captain.

The Battery G men took part in the pursuit of the Army of Northern Virginia to Appomattox and were then mustered out in June 1865. Now part of Pamplin Historical Park near Petersburg, the site of Battery G’s charge remains one of the most decorated places in American military history.

Robert Grandchamp is an award-winning author from Jericho Center, Vt. His article “‘O Sarah!’ Did Sullivan Ballou’s Famed Letter Come From Another’s Pen” appeared in ACW’s November 2017 issue.

“The men who served this gun so nobly, standing up unflinchingly before the terrific fire of the enemy were rewarded for their bravery and daring”

Amber Vision

TINTED GLASSES SHIELDED SOLDIERS’ SENSITIVE EYES AFTER INJURY

ALTHOUGH EYES CONSTITUTE such a small percentage of the body’s surface area, injuries to one or both were exceedingly common during the Civil War. Whether the result of flying projectiles or exploding shrapnel, soldiers’ eye damage usually meant a permanent disability, from vision impairment, blindness, or even paralysis.

One of the cases recorded in the Medical and Surgical History of the Rebellion describes the experience of Lieutenant Herman W. Lilycrantz of the 103rd U.S. Colored Infantry, Company D, who sustained an injury from the discharge of a pistol into the cranial cavity above his right eye. The injury caused Lilycrantz impaired sight, muscular weakness, and the inability to look at bright light.

Many soldiers reported new sensitivities to light, or an intolerance to the sun, even after final recovery. Wire-framed glasses, with darkened, colored lenses would have helped lessen pain associated with exposure to bright light and general eye fatigue.

The pair shown here is part of the “When the War Was Over” exhibit at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine, which provides information about the significant and lasting implications of wartime injury. The exhibit includes other artifacts that represent the realities of postwar recovery, such as a wheelchair from the 1870s and eating utensils designed for amputees.

‘A Hot Place’

THOUGH THE MEN ARE NAMELESS, THEIR STRUGGLES UNSPOKEN, THE HORROR IN THIS WARTIME PHOTOGRAPH ENDURES

WHAT CAN WE LEARN from an old photograph, a moment in time captured on a glass plate negative? In the case of the image above—taken by Alexander Gardner and Timothy O’Sullivan on September 19, 1862, two days after the Battle of Antietam—the answer is quite a bit. It appears to be a burial detail, but we will discuss this more later. The granite outcropping and boulders piled on it make the identification of this site straightforward. It is marked today by the unique 90th Pennsylvania Infantry monument of three stacked rifles supporting a water or coffee bucket with the inscription: “Here fought the 90th Penna (Philadelphia) Sept 17, 1862 A Hot Place.”

The last three words of the inscription are an apt description of this spot on September 17. Few locations on the Antietam battlefield saw more sustained combat than what swirled around this point. It is located about 50 yards south of David Miller’s famed Cornfield. The camera is facing slightly southwest with the Cornfield directly behind the viewer. The woods visible behind the group of

four living soldiers on the right are the West Woods. Midway between the outcropping and the West Woods the line of occasional brush marks a fence line that ran east-west from the Hagerstown Pike to the southern tip of the East Woods and was used as cover by Colonel Marcellus Douglass’ Georgia brigade in its fierce engagement with the Union brigades of Brig. Gens. Abram Duryée, John Gibbon, and George Hartsuff.

The first troops heavily engaged near this point were the 97th, 104th, and 105th New York of Duryée’s 1st Brigade in Maj. Gen. James Ricketts’ 2nd Division, 1st Corps. They would be relieved by the 12th Massachusetts, part of Hartsuff’s brigade, also in Ricketts’ division. Around this outcropping, they engaged the 13th and 60th Georgia, and Brig. Gen. Harry Hays’ Louisiana brigade, which launched a counterattack that was repulsed with significant losses. “Never did I see more rebs to fire at than that moment presented themselves,” recalled Corporal George Kimball of the 12th Massachusetts—hit

Grim Glances

The men, both living and dead, in this photo of a possible burial detail are unidentified. Two of the soldiers are likely captured Rebels.

arrived. That no Union dead appear in the image is evidence that burial details had already been at work here.

We can presume that the five living soldiers looking upon the dead are a burial party, but unlike another set of soldiers Gardner and O’Sullivan photographed near the Miller Farm, these men have no tools. Jeff Dugdale, who produced a fascinating book about Confederate uniforms during the Maryland Campaign, believes the two men sitting and crouching in front of the two men on top of the outcropping are prisoners, based on their clothing. If they are Confederates, which might explain the one Union soldier behind them holding his musket, they may have been stragglers, captured when the Army of Northern Virginia retreated the night of September 18 and put to work gathering the dead for burial. Perhaps the four bodies in front of them had been moved, laid out in a rough line. The other three bodies seem to have remained where they fell or where they were dragged by comrades during the fighting.

hard, too, with 49 killed, 165 wounded, and 10 missing.

Typically, struck soldiers drop their weapons and/or equipment (belts, canteens, cartridge boxes, haversacks, etc.), lose their hats, tear off pieces of clothing to locate their wounds, or grab for blankets to help carry wounded to the rear. Walking this ground on September 21, physician and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. found it “strewed with fragments of clothing, haversacks, canteens, capboxes, bullets, cartridge-boxes, cartridges, scraps of paper, portions of bread and meat.” We can see in the foreground what Holmes is referring to. The ground is literally covered with discarded clothing and gear.

There are seven dead bodies and, on the far right, what looks like a dead horse. All appear to be Confederates, but who? Numerous Rebel units passed this point or fought in its immediate vicinity: the 2nd and 11th Mississippi of Evander Law’s Brigade; the 1st and 3rd North Carolina of Roswell Ripley’s Brigade; and the 28th and 23rd Georgia of Alfred Colquitt’s Brigade. All had high casualty counts—the 3rd North Carolina suffered an appalling 116 killed or mortally wounded and the 1st 50 in this area alone. Illustrating just how lethal the fighting was, the 3rd North Carolina at one point had to change front to the northeast to counter an advance by the 128th Pennsylvania, a maneuver in which seven of the regiment’s 10 companies had every officer killed or wounded.

What seems odd is that no dead are visible beyond the outcropping, but they may already have been picked up for burial, or buried, by the time the photographers

It is remarkable that members of the burial detail—if that is what this is—seem grim but otherwise unaffected by the carnage before them. September 19 was warm—75 degrees—and the rapidly decomposing bodies were emitting an offensive odor. A Massachusetts soldier in a West Woods burial party described the work that day as “very unpleasant,” that he “tasted the odor for several days.” And according to civilians from Lancaster, Pa., who visited immediately after the battle, “the stench...from the decomposing bodies was almost unendurable.” The soldiers here have made no effort to ward off that odor by covering their mouths or noses with a handkerchief or bandanna. Perhaps they believed it would make no difference, as the smell penetrated everything.

Because the photographers made no known effort to identify either the living or the dead in this image, we are left to speculate, which perhaps makes it easier for a viewer to remain emotionally detached from the scene. It is horrifying, but we do not know who the dead are. One conceivably is Anson W. Deal, a 25-year-old private in Company B, 3rd North Carolina, who in the summer of 1862 had been conscripted from his family farm in Duplin County, N.C. Deal was initially listed as missing and presumed captured, and his family surely held out hope that he had survived. Months later, though, the remarks on his fate were changed to “supposed to have been killed in battle at Sharpsburg” and then to “killed at Sharpsburg.” He was almost certainly buried as an unknown soldier in a mass grave with other Confederates. His name, and the family that grieved his death, are a reminder that every anonymous body we peer at in photographs from that fateful day had a story to tell and deserves to be remembered as a person and not a prop.

Bloodied Censure

‘Burning Zeal’

AS CIVIL WAR LOOMS, ANTI-ABOLITIONISTS AND AN ABOLITIONIST NEWSPAPER LOCK HORNS TO MARK THE TRUE POWER OF THE PRESS

CONDEMNING SLAVERY WAS a dangerous business in the 19th century. As a small, vocal, and growing group of Americans began to agitate in favor of abolition in the 1830s, they were often met with mob violence.

The attacks sometimes made headlines. William Lloyd Garrison was dragged through the streets of Boston by a mob in 1831, and preacher and newspaper editor Elijah Lovejoy was shot and murdered during a shootout with an anti-abolition mob in 1837. The abolitionist-funded Pennsylvania Hall was burned to the ground by arsonists only days after it opened in 1838. For many abolition evangelists, however, violence and threats were merely a fact of life. In an 1840 letter to abolitionist leader Theodore Dwight Weld, one traveling lecturer noted an uptick in violence but remarked wearily, “I have not reported them to any of the papers because I am tired of [reading] about them....”

Abolitionists were quick to argue their traveling lecturers and newspapers should be protected by freedom of speech and the press guaranteed by the Constitution. That included

Cassius Marcellus Clay, scion of one of the most influential slaveholding families in Kentucky, who had embraced abolitionism while studying at Yale. Although Clay supported a more gradual approach than radicals like Garrison, his politics generated many enemies in his home state. Undeterred, he began publishing an anti-slavery newspaper, True American, in Lexington in 1845.

When a group of men in Lexington met and demanded he cease publication, Clay responded with venom: “Go tell your secret conclave of cowardly assassins that C.M. Clay knows his rights and how to defend them.”

Southern Accent is produced in partnership with the Nau Civil War Center at the University of Virginia, which promotes scholarship, teaching, and public outreach regarding the United States in the Civil War era. It draws upon UVA’s rich resources, faculty, and students.

A second meeting, held two days later, would be attended by more than a thousand residents. Thomas F. Marshall, a local lawyer and nephew of former Chief Justice John Marshall, was asked to address the crowd and outline a legal pretext for shutting Clay down. Marshall offered a rousing, remarkably explicit justification for vigilante action against abolitionists. Though he could cite no specific law, Marshall succeded in giving the

crowd’s planned suppression of Clay a veneer of legal legitimacy by highlighting the danger abolitionists supposedly posed to a slave society. The Lexington community, he argued, had an inalienable right to defend itself against Clay’s incendiary writing:

A formidable party has arisen within a few years in the United States….They aim at the Abolition of Slavery in America and halt not at the means. They are organized, active, united in pursuit of this object, and desperately fanatical. They have found their way into the National Legislature, and already exercise a threatening influence there. They command a powerful press in the United States. They have among them a burning zeal, commanding talent, and a large amount of political influence and monied capital….They maintain that the negro slave here is an American born, entitled to the full benefits and blessings of republican freedom, under the Declaration of Independence, which freed all of American birth. They maintain for him the right of insurrection and exhort him to its exercise.…

In proceeding by force and without judicial process, to arrest the action of a free citizen, to interfere in any degree with his private property, and if the necessity of the case and the desperation of the man require it, to proceed to extremities against his person, we owe it to our own fame, and the good name of our community, to set forth the facts upon which rises in our justification the highest of all laws, the law of self defense and preservation from great and manifest danger and injury.…

Such a man and such a course is no longer tolerable or consistent with the character or safety of this community. With the power of a press, with education, fortune, talent, sustained by a powerful party...who have made this bold experiment in Kentucky through him, the negroes might well, as we have strong reason to believe they do, look to him as a deliverer. On the frontier of slavery, with three free states fronting and touching us along a border of seven hundred miles, we are peculiarly exposed to the assaults of abolition. The plunder of our property, the kidnapping, stealing, and abduction of our slaves, is a light evil in comparison with planting a seminary of their infernal doctrines in the very heart of our domestic slave population. Communities may be endangered as well as single individuals. A great and impending danger over the life or personal safety of a single man, justifies the employment of his own force immediately in his own defense, and to any extent that may be necessary for his protection....

Our laws may punish when the offense shall have been consummated; but they have provided no remedial process by which it can be prevented. To war with [a newspaper] of

Abolition by action or indictment for libel, would make that powerful party smile....An Abolition paper in a slave state is a nuisance of the most formidable character—a public nuisance—not a mere inconvenience, which may occasion delay in business or prove hurtful to health or comfort, but a blazing brand in the hand of an incendiary or madman, which may scatter ruin, conflagration, revolution, crime un-nameable, over everything dear in domestic life, sacred in religion, or respectable in modesty. Who shall say that the safety of a single individual is more important in the eye of the law than that of a whole people? Who shall say that when the case of danger—real danger, of great and irreparable injury to a whole community, really occurs— that it is not armed legally with the right of self defense?

....An unauthorized crowd, who inflict death upon persons or destruction upon property, for the gratification of passion or even for the punishment of crime, is a mob, and is the most fatal enemy to security and freedom. But as in the case of sudden invasion, or insurrection itself, the people have at once, independent of the magistrates, the right of defense, so when there be a wellgrounded apprehension of great, and, it may be, irreparable injury, the use of force in the community is lawful and safe. We hold the abolitionists traitors to the constitution and the country, and enemies to the terms upon which the Union was originally formed, and the only terms upon which it can continue to subsist. When they bring their doctrines and their principles into the bosom of a slave state, they bring fire into a magazine. The “True American” is an abolition paper of the worst stamp! As such, the peace and safety of this community demand its instant and entire suppression.

Inspired, the meeting adopted a series of resolutions condemning abolition and formed a committee to seize and ship the printing press and other items in the True American offices across the Ohio River to Cincinnati. Bedridden with typhoid fever, Clay was in no position to contest the seizure. His foes would also publish a pamphlet decrying his conduct and defending seizure of his press.

Upon recovery, Clay sought prosecution. Several committee leaders won cases defending their actions as lawful abatement of a public nuisance, arguing the True American was a danger to the community and its removal was justified to preserve public safety. In an 1847 trial against one ringleader in a neighboring county, however, Clay was awarded $2,500 in damages from a jury unconvinced that he needed to be silenced for the public good.

BloOdieD Road to GlOry

It didn’t take long for Wheat’s Tigers’ opening gambit at First Manassas to turn to legend

William S. Love of the 1st Special Battalion of Louisiana Infantry had little time to revel in his army’s victory at the First Battle of Manassas. For nearly three weeks, the Confederate surgeon from New Orleans found himself “constantly employed” treating wounded from both sides at the Carter House, a Manassas hillside homestead now serving as a field hospital. Finally, on August 9, 1861, Love fired off a quick note to his father, apologizing that it had taken him so long to do so. “I have had charge of some thirty or forty wounded prisoners,” he professed. “I got rid of them two or three days ago and have now here only [Captain] George McCausland who had gotten into a conflict wounded in a duel [and] is not in a condition yet to be moved.”

The Civil War’s first major battle on July 21, 1861, had sent a shockwave across both sides of the fractured country. As the clash on the plains of Manassas, Va., teetered on the edge of an expected Union victory that many believed would quell the Southern states’ burgeoning rebellion, fate played its hand, allowing the combined armies of Confederate Generals P.G.T. Beauregard and Joseph E. Johnston to storm back and claim a victory.

Don’t Be Fooled

Despite their flamboyant attire, the Tiger Rifles from Louisiana were a harddrinking bunch of dangerous fighters, feared by many, even on their own side. The Tigers certainly lived up to their combative prowess, as Federal soldiers would find out at First Manassas.

Hand-picked to win it all, Union Brig. Gen. Irvin McDowell attempted a bold advance that morning against the Southern forces assembled both on Matthews Hill and along the Warrenton Turnpike. Buckling under intense pressure on Matthews Hill, Love’s Louisiana Tigers—along with their beleaguered comrades from South Carolina and Virginia cobbled together in Colonel Nathan “Shanks” Evans’ 7th Brigade—withdrew in disarray toward Henry Hill, where the Southern commanders settled into a defensive posture.

Flush with grandiose visions of victory, McDowell ordered his troops to “press the Confederates.” At midday, astride his horse, he galloped along his lines shouting, “Victory! Victory! We have done it! We have done it!” The Union commander’s euphoric cries, however, produced ill-advised inaction among many of his troops—and soon a Herculean effort by their Confederate counterparts.

Hardscrabble Defense

Patiently awaiting the Union advance behind a slope near Henry Hill were an unassuming former Virginia Military Institute professor named Thomas Jonathan Jackson and his contingent of Virginia infantry. The subsequent stand by the Old Dominion native would become immortal, of course, as was the Confederates’ remarkable rally on the field, which by evening had the Union troops and hordes of resident bystanders scampering back to Washington, D.C., as fast as the roads would allow.

The Southerners had indeed grasped victory from the hands of defeat.

The letters Love finally sent to his father, parts of which are published here for the first time, were heartfelt and in places detailed, particularly his descriptions of the incident involving Captain George McCausland and a visit to the battlefield by Prince Napoleon, the cousin of French Emperor Napoleon III.

Joining Wheat’s Tigers in Colonel Evans’ Brigade at Manassas were the 4th South Carolina; the 30th Virginia Cavalry, Troops A and I; and a section of the Lynchburg (Va.) Artillery. Poor McCausland, a volunteer aide-decamp on Evans’ staff, had gotten into an altercation with Captain Alexander White, commander of the 1st Special Battalion’s Company B. Only 24, McCausland was a native Louisianan—considered “a strikingly handsome man,” but a little unwise perhaps. White was a notorious character, having once been convicted of murder during a poker game. When McCausland made insulting remarks about the Tigers in the wake of the victory, White was outraged. To satisfy his honor, he challenged the youngster to a duel.

McCausland accepted the challenge, and on July 24 the two squared off near their camp with Mississippi Rifles at “short-range.” White fired first, sending a .54-caliber bullet through both of McCausland’s hips.

McCausland, who had fired but missed, languished with the wound in Love’s hospital for more than a month and ultimately perished “in great agony” of pneumonia on September 17. His body was returned to New Orleans for burial at his home in West Feliciana Parish.

Corporal Robert Gracey was among the captured Federals for whom Love also cared at his field hospital. As Gracey later conveyed to a New York newspaper, his two-week stay at the Carter House had been pleasant enough. He revealed that after being wounded he was taken to the hospital “in one of our own ambulances, captured at Bull Run,” and had been “placed… under [the] guard of Lt. Thomas Adrian and his command of Tiger Rifles, of Louisiana.”

The kindly Confederates, Gracey recalled, furnished him with “more condiments, luxuries and personal attentions than were bestowed upon their own sick. Lt. Adrian frequently and jocularly remarked, as an excuse for this, that his object was a selfish one. He wanted to take [him] to the South, and exhibit him, a la [Phineas T.] Barnum, as a fine specimen of the living Yankee who couldn’t be killed.”

As for Prince Napoleon, he did visit the Manassas area in the days following the battle and shared a carriage with Beauregard, escorted by more than 100 cavalrymen under that flamboyant Virginian, Colonel J.E.B. Stuart. According to one unidentified observer, Beauregard and his guest disembarked at the now-famous Stone Bridge and strolled about before returning to their carriage and arriving “on the bare plateau rising above the Bull Run, at the very center of the action, amidst corpses, dead horses and freshly-dug graves.”

The battlefield excursion would end at 11 a.m.

Desperate for news from home to distract him from his exhaustive duties, Love implored his father to direct any letters to him “at Manassas, Wheat’s Battalion. The letters all go addressed to it into our box are taken out and sent as directed.”

“I hope to join the Battalion soon,” he divulged. “[I]t is encamped at Bull Run, where the Battle of the 18th alto [Blackburn’s Ford] was fought. I hear that we are to be kept to the sea, but I hope not.” Love also informed his father that he had sent him “by the Southern Express Company fifty dollars some days ago. I now enclose you the receipt for it lest you might have trouble getting it. I would have sent it long since….[but] the Post Office is at Manassas some eight miles from here and I could not get them to mail a letter….”

By the end of November, Love wrote his father again about the “very cold” weather where he was staying at Camp Florida, outside Centreville, Va. It was something to which the Louisiana native was certainly not accustomed. “I would have obtained a furlough ’ere this to have gone to Richmond probably to New Orleans,” he explained, “but that being in daily expectation of a grand battle with [George] McClellan’s whole Yankee army, I did not like to be absent from the company.”

By mid-December, Wheat’s Tigers were still

Hillside Oasis for the Wounded The Carter (Pittsylvania) House on Matthews Hill, where Love maintained his field hospital after the battle. By the Second Battle of Manassas in August 1862, it had burned down.

Honored Guest France’s Prince Napoleon would later tour the battlefield with P.G.T. Beauregard. Affectionately called “Plon Plon,” he enjoyed the grand treatment afforded him by the South while visiting the divided country.

recuperating their strength. Now camped east of Manassas Junction, they stored their flimsy canvas tents and built more substantial log cabins to weather the increasing winter temperatures. It had been less than a year since they had arrived in Virginia.

Although, as Love noted, offensive actions in the area had halted for the most part as winter approached, he elaborated: “Our scouts report the Yankees to be advancing in immense force. The battle is expected to take place in two days. Whole brigades of our army are sent out on picket duty and daily are capturing bodies of Yankee scouts and foraging parties. We are all sanguine and entertain no apprehensions as to the result. From all accounts it will be a bloody battle. But pray God will give us victory.”

The only “grand” battle of any consequence nearby would be known as the Bog Wallow Ambush, occurring December 4. Tired of Confederates capturing their men, the Yankees began probing enemy positions and finally launched a trap that produced a narrow victory, with five Confederate and four Federal casualties.

The group that had first organized six months earlier at Camp Moore in southeast Louisiana proved a raucous assortment of men. Recruited from the alleyways and docks in the seedier side of New Orleans, they were at least experienced fighters, just not disciplined. While at Camp Moore, a young private from another company, John F. Charlton, wrote in his diary: “Our excitement in camp with the Tiger Rifles was our first experience being often aroused during the night by cries of ‘fall in fall in’ expecting to be attacked by the Tigers. They never liked us because we often accused them of Stealing.”

Initially they were all adorned with regular-issue Confederate uniforms, but they did wear distinctive wide-brimmed hats with slogans painted on the bands such as “Lincoln’s Life or a Tiger’s Death” and “Tiger in Search of Abe.” A rich benefactor, Alexander Keene Richards, admired them and purchased one company (the “Tiger Rifles”) wildly colored Zouave-style uniforms consisting of a red fez and shirt, a dark blue jacket trimmed in red, baggy blue-and-white-striped pants, and white gaiters to fit over most of their blue-and-white-striped socks. They were armed with .54-caliber Mississippi rifled muskets and had huge Bowie knives strapped to their waists. Stitched on their flag, ironically, were the words “As Gentle As” adjacent to a resting lamb in the center.

A Virginia native, Chatham Roberdeau Wheat was a veteran of many wars, and during the fighting in Mexico in 1846-48 received particular praise from General Zachary Taylor, who described him as “the best nat-

Training Days

Camp Moore was the Confederate Army’s major camp of instruction in Louisiana. Clara Solomon was among the enthusiastic visitors to socialize with soldiers training at the camp.

Keeping Order in the Ranks

An imposing figure, Major Chatham Roberdeau Wheat wielded an iron hand to keep his illdisciplined men in line. In Mexico, General Zachary Taylor, the future U.S. president, called him “the best natural soldier he had ever seen.”

ural soldier he had ever seen.” He followed that up with military forays in Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Italy.

In addition to being a born leader, Wheat was a physically imposing figure, standing 6-feet-4 and weighing nearly 275 pounds. He demanded respect from the soldiers serving under him and was stout enough to earn it. At one point, Wheat was overheard screaming at his men, “If you don’t get to your places, and behave as soldiers should, I will cut your hands off with this sword!” It was widely acknowledged that his men feared him and that he was the only person able to control them.

Despite his rough exterior, Wheat interacted gentlemanly with the ladies of New Orleans. One Crescent City girl, 16-year-old Clara Solomon, was highly impressed with the major and was a family friend of one of his company commanders, Captain Obed P. Miller. Before the Tigers were scheduled to head off to war on June 15, 1861, Solomon traveled to Camp Moore in a desperate attempt to see “Maj. Wheat’s first special battalion.”

The giddy teen jotted in her journal:

But hush! we are nearing Tangipahoa [where Camp Moore was situated]! The whistle is sounding! we are at the depot! ‘What hope, what joy our bosom’s swell!!’ Quickly my head is thrust out the window in search of one familiar, well beloved form [Battalion Adjutant Allen C. Dickinson]. The report! It is seen!! A moment more and we are with it. Our fears are ended. They have not gone! But one received the ‘kiss salute.’ How tantalizing!! He [Dickinson] was glad to see us! Sufficient! We slowly wind our way to the Hotel. We remain there a few moments and then proceed to the seat of action, ‘The Camp,’ accompanied by Capt. White and his wife.

Unexpectedly, the unit’s departure to Virginia was delayed until the following Thursday. The soldiers were eager for a fight and seemed somewhat blue because of the delay. As Solomon would recall, “When we arrived at our quarters, the first object that attracted our attention was our ‘handsome Major [Wheat],’” who, she wrote, “greeted them very cordially.” Lamenting that Wheat was without a female companion, she offered to be his escort for the evening activities and later chided the major for not relaying his “proper” goodbyes to her at night’s end.

Once Wheat and his men finally departed on trains to Virginia, they found themselves packed tightly in the rail cars, much like sardines in a can. The companies comprising the battalion consisted of the Walker Guards (Robert A. Harris, commander); Tiger Rifles (Alexander White); Delta Rangers (Henry C. Gardner); Catahoula Guerrillas (Jonathan W. Buhoup); and Old Dominion Guards (Obed Miller). It was a plodding, uncomfortable ride, but it allowed for overnight stops. Local crowds cheered them on and often convinced the train to stop so they could pass out goodies to the Louisianans. One gift was a big cake made especially for Wheat.

The trip, though, was not entirely pleasant. During a stop at Opelika, Ala., Wheat’s men left the train and seized control of a hotel, including the bar inside. Unable to clear the troublesome men out of the building, the local authorities sought assistance from the major, who at the point was fast asleep on the train. Wakened, Wheat rushed to the scene, pistol drawn, and immediately ordered the belligerents to disperse and return to their railcars. But for a few men, all obeyed the order. Of those continuing to resist, two ruffians were clearly identified as the ringleaders. A witness, Colonel William C. Oates of future Gettysburg fame, later disclosed: “Wheat shot both of them dead. He told me the only way to control his men was to shoot down those who disobeyed or defied him, yet they loved him with the fidelity of dogs.”

Upon the battalion’s arrival in the Old Dominion, the men made an impression on the soldiers of the 18th Virginia Infantry, one of whom recalled witnessing “one freight car…pretty nearly full of Louisiana ‘Tigers’ under arrest for disorderly conduct, drunkenness, etc., most of which were bucked and gag[ged].”

At Lynchburg, former bookstore-clerkturned-Catahoula Guerrilla Lieutenant William D. Foley wrote: “Our destination is ‘Manassas Gap’. We will have the gratification to participate on the ‘Big Fight’ on Virginia’s soil, the first of Louisiana’s troops. The enemy outnumber us,

but we are all prepared, and more than anxious for the Conflict. Troops from Richmond are being sent to the Gap. Tiz a place we must and will hold. The God of battles being with us.”

Before they could reach Manassas, however, the battalion clashed with Federal soldiers at Seneca Dam on the Potomac River.

Many of the Tigers were immigrants—a large number from Ireland who had fled that country’s potato famine. As the New Orleans Daily Delta noted, “As for our Irish citizens—whew!— they are ‘spiling’ for a fight.”

It wouldn’t take long for them to get their wish. After McDowell’s forces were rebuffed attempting to cross Bull Run Creek at Blackburn’s Ford on July 18, the Union general was convinced it was too heavily defended and began looking for another point along the Confederate lines to assault. He moved his forces upstream and on the morning of July 21 put his renewed attack plan in place.

Just before daybreak, Southern pickets near the Stone Bridge heard a large movement of troops approaching their position. Colonel Evans deployed one of Wheat’s companies and some of his South Carolinians as skirmishers by the bridge, while the rest of his brigade took position on the nearby hills overlooking the bridge and the Warrenton Turnpike. The Union threat at the Stone Bridge, however, was merely a demonstration. The bulk of McDowell’s force was intending to cross 2½ miles north at Sudley Ford.

Soon, a Confederate signal station in Manassas—manned by future Confederate luminary Edward P. Alexander—alerted Evans that a large Union force was moving to turn his left flank. Evans and Wheat agreed they had to shift their lines to meet this new enemy front, hoping reinforcements would hastily arrive. With no desire to abandon such an important position entirely, the commanders left Lieutenant Adrian and a contingent of Tigers guarding the Stone Bridge.

Confusion among the Louisiana and South Carolina troops proved a problem, as the latter unwittingly fired on their Pelican State comrades while navigating a wooded area, and the Louisianans returned the fire. Wheat rushed to the scene to stop the shooting, but not before two of his men lay mortally wounded.

At about 9:45 a.m., Union Colonel Ambrose Burnside’s men advanced with bayonets fixed through a heavily wooded area into a clearing and found themselves flushing out the Catahoula Guerrillas, then hiding in the tall brush. Relayed Guerrilla Sergeant Robert Richie: “[T]he enemy opened on us, and we had the honor of opening the ball, receiving and returning the first volley that was fired on that day….After pouring a volley, we rushed upon the enemy and forced them back under cover.”

The Guerrillas’ advance at the double-quick forced Burnside’s startled men back into the cover of the forest. The Union colonel, however, had six cannons total, and some were lined up to repulse the Southerners. Guerrilla Drury Gibson remembered the deadly fire, writing, “The balls came as thick as hail [and] grape, bomb and canister would sweep our ranks every minute.”

Some of the Tiger Rifles and Catahoula Guerrillas dropped their Mis-

“Wheat shot both of them dead. He told me the only way to control his men was to shoot down those who disobeyed or defied him”

sissippi Rifles, which were bereft of lugs to hold bayonets, and unsheathed their Bowie knives before charging the Federals with ferocity. In later describing the conflict, one Alabama soldier called the Louisianans “the most desperate men on earth,” crowing that when they threw their knives at the enemy, they “scarcely ever [missed] their aim.” Worse for the Yankees, those large knives had strings attached, allowing them to be retrieved after they plunged into an enemy soldier’s body.

Vividly portraying the attack’s desperate moments, Ritchie crowed: “Our blood was on fire. Life was valueless. They boys fired one volley then rushed upon the foe with clubbed rifles beating down their guard; then they closed upon them with their knives. I had been in battles several times before, but such fighting was never done, I do not believe as was done for the next half hour[;] it did not seem as though men were fighting, it was devils mingling in the conflict, cursing, yelling, cutting, shrieking.”

One Tiger’s account of the battle found its way into a Richmond newspaper:

As we were crossing a field in an exposed situation, we were fired upon (through mis take) by a body of South Carolinians, and at once the enemy let loose as if all hell had been left loose. Flat upon our faces we received their shower of balls; a moment’s pause, and we rose, closed in upon them with a fierce yell, clubbing our rifles and using our long knives. This hand-to-hand

Feeling the Plunge

Tigers’ Firepower

Most of the .54-caliber Mississippi rifled muskets carried by Wheat’s Tigers had been issued from the Baton Rouge (La.) Arsenal. This model, made at the federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Va., includes a bayonet lug. Most of the Tigers’ weapons, however, did not have that attachment—one of the reasons they chose to carry large Bowie knives into combat.

fight lasted until fresh reinforcements drove us back beyond our original position, we carrying our wounded with us. Major Wheat was here shot from his horse; Captain White’s horse was shot under him, our First Lieutenant [Thomas Adrian] was wounded in the thigh, Dick Hawkins shot through the breast and wrist, and any number of killed and wounded were strewn about.

The New York Fire Zouaves, seeing our momentary confusion, gave three cheers and started for us, but it was the last shout that most of them ever gave. We covered the ground with their dead and dying, and had driven them beyond their first position, when just then we heard three cheers for the Tigers and Louisiana. The struggle was decided. The gallant Seventh [Louisiana Infantry] had ‘double quicked’ it for nine miles, and came rushing into the fight. They fired as they came within point blank range, and charged with fixed bayonets. The enemy broke and fled panic-stricken, with our men in full pursuit.

When the fight and pursuit were over, we were drawn up in line and received the thanks of Gen. Johnston for what he termed our ‘extraordinary and desperate stand.’ Gen. Beauregard sent word to Major Wheat, ‘you, and your battalion, for this day’s work, shall never be forgotten, whether you live or die.’”

This Bowie knife was carried by one of Wheat’s Tigers, quite possibly during the intense morning fighting against Colonel Ambrose Burnside’s Rhode Island units on Matthews Hill. A Tiger would tie a string to his knife, which allowed it to be retrieved once thrown, even when that meant pulling the weapon out of the impaled body of a luckless Yankee foe. The knife here, now owned by a private collector, includes a label on the blade with some text. Unfortunately, all that’s still legible from that label is: “Bowie knife carried by one of Wheat’s Louisiana Tigers during the Confederate war...”

Momentum Swing

In this drawing from the New York Illustrated News of August 5, 1861, Burnside’s troops attack Leftwich’s Battery. The Southerners held their ground, helping turn the battle’s tide.

several years, had been the one to draw Clara Solomon’s interest back at Camp Moore. When news of the battle reached New Orleans, she lamented, “No news about our Lieut. Dickinson.” Informed of Wheat’s fate, she wrote: “Just think the two persons, for whom we care most in the war, we should hear, in the very first battle, of one being seriously wounded, and nothing of the other.”

A contributor to the Richmond Dispatch , writing under the pseudonym “Louisiana,” tried to clear things up, including the status of the battalion’s leader. “The gallant Colonel Wheat is not dead,” he wrote. “I have just got[ten] a letter from Capt. Geo. McCausland, Aid[e] to Gen. Evans, written on behalf of Major Wheat, to a relative of Allen C. Dickinson, Adjutant of Wheat’s Battalion.”

The contributor went on to describe Dickinson’s injury in detail: “The wound is in his leg, and although not dangerous….His horse having been killed under him, he was on foot with sword in one hand and revolver in the other, about fifty yards from the enemy, when a Minie ball struck him. He fell and lay over an hour, when fortunately, Gen. Beauregard and staff, and Capt. McCausland, passed. The generous McCausland dismounted and placed Dickinson

on his horse. Lieut. D. is doing well and is enjoying the kind care and hospitality of Mr. Waggoner and family, on Clay Street, in this city.”

The Shreveport Weekly News published the lyrics of a song written expressly about the battalion’s exploits. Borrowing its tune from the song, “Wait for the Wagons,” it had three stanzas praising the Louisianans at First Manassas—the song’s title aptly changed to “Abe’s Wagons.”

We met them at Manassas, all formed in bold array, And the battle was not ended when they all ran away. Some left their guns and knapsack, in their legs they did confide, We overhauled Scott’s carriage, and his epaulets besides.

[Chorus]

Louisiana’s Tiger Rifles, they rushed in for their lines, And the way they slayed the Yankees, with their long Bowie knives. They laid there by the hundreds, as it next day did appear, With a countenance quite open, that gaped from ear to ear. [Chorus]

The battle being ended, and Patterson sent back, Because he did not fight us, for courage he did lack.

Abe Lincoln he got so very mad, when his army took a slide, And we jumped into his wagons, and we all took a ride.

A British reporter recalled a peculiar tactic practiced by the Louisianans, writing, “[T]hey would maintain a death-like silence until the foe was not more than 50 paces off; then delivering a withering volley, they would dash forward with unearthly yells and [when] they drew their knives and rushed to close quarters, the Yankees screamed with horror.”

Lieutenant Adrian rejoined the battalion with his scant force, and after

being wounded in the thigh fell to the ground. When he noticed some of the Tigers falling back, he propped himself up on one elbow and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Tigers, go in once more. Go in my sons, I’ll be great gloriously God damned if the sons of bitches can ever whip the Tigers!”

First-person reports were published in New Orleans’ Daily True Delta after the unnamed “vivandier of the Tiger Rifles” strode into their offices with letters from some Tigers to their friends back home. The newspaper cited:

These letters give a detailed history of the Tigers’ sayings and doings since their departure hence, and especially their participation in the battles of…Manassas. The loss among them, we are pleased to say, is much less than has been reported. They have twenty-six of their seventy-six, wholly uninjured, and several more who are but slightly wounded. That they fought like real tigers everybody admits and Gen. Johnston, it is said, complimented them especially on the brave and desperate daring which they had exhibited.

[Lieutenant] Ned Hewitt reported here as having been killed, did not receive the slightest wound. Moreover, none of the officers of the Company were killed. Two of the Tigers who had been missing for several days after the fight, made their way to Manassas on Thursday last, one being slightly and other pretty badly wounded. The kindness of the Virginia ladies to the wounded soldiers is said to be beyond all praise—like that of a mother to a child or a wife to a husband. Soldiers so nursed and attended can never be anything else than heroes and conquerors.”

Having defied death—and skeptical doctors— when gravely wounded at First Manassas, Wheat would not be so lucky when shot in the head 11 months later at the Battle of Gaines’ Mill, the third of the Seven Days’ Battles on June 27, 1862. His purported final words— “Bury me on the field, boys!”—were to open a poem in his honor. Wheat had been the only one to truly rein in the rambunctious battalion, which formally disbanded on August 15, 1862. Fortunately, their legend survives.

A frequent contributor, Richard H. Holloway is a member of America’s Civil War’s editorial advisory board. He thanks Glen Cangelosi for his help in preparing this article.

A Coffee Legacy

With its taste, aroma, and caffeine-derived energy, coffee has always been an indulgence for the people of New Orleans, But, indirectly, it also has served as a form of communication. Any time of day or night, Crescent City residents were known to brew a pot to consume while conversing with friends. It is a tradition that has transcended time.

In their twilight years, former Confederate soldiers at Camp Nicholls, a “retirement” facility in New Orleans, enjoyed entertaining their comrades and medical staff. Three men in particular—Hugh Smith, Charles Pendergrass, and W.H. Bennett—would share countless cups of coffee while spouting memories of their fateful days with Wheat’s Tigers, both before and after First Manassas.

Long before the Civil War, New Orleans was known for its amazing brews. Many believed that the addition of chicory to coffee in the Crescent City had been out of necessity since the Union blockade had limited residents access to their indispensable brewed treat. Chicory, however, was a caffeine-free flowered plant brought to New Orleans from France in the early 1800s. The slightly woody and nutty taste and aroma of chicory mixed with coffee was an instant hit.

The 1st Special Battalion was eager to head off to war in June 1861, just not without their Joe. A thousand pounds of New Orleans coffee, worth nearly $30,000, was shipped by rail to Richmond to coincide with the regiment’s arrival in the Confederate capital. It wasn’t long before the supply ran out, however, and the surly moods would follow. Dr. Love was among those who scrambled to acquire some for his ailing patients, usually having to settle for poor substitutes.

“[W]e get nothing to eat but bread and coffee, [and] in addition to that it is very filthy and nasty,” Sergeant Edmond Stephens of the 9th Louisiana wrote from his hospital bed. As limited distribution in meager amounts became the norm, many Louisiana soldiers resorted to bartering tobacco for coffee with the enemy.

Known worldwide, Café du Monde was founded in New Orleans’ French Market in 1862 by Fred Koeniger. The menu has remained virtually the same over the years, with only a few additions. Even Northerners like George Custer and his wife, Elizabeth, grew to love the special brew. Wrote Libbie: “We spent hours… at the market, and the General drank so much coffee that the old mammy who served him said many a ‘Mon Dieu!’ in surprise at his capacity, and volubly described in French to her neighbors what marvels a Yankee man could do in coffee-sipping.” —R.H.H.

For a closer look at a little French Market coffee indulgence, go to historynet.com/cafe-du-monde-delight

Supply and Demand

Culpeper was a key supply depot on the Orange & Alexandria Railroad, which ran from Alexandria, on the outskirts of Washington, D.C., to Gordonsville in Orange County, Va. In August 1862, photographer Timothy O’Sullivan placed his camera directly on the track to capture this photograph of a stopped freight train.

In ALl its Splendor

Culpeper, Va., would play host to several major armies. Two Grand Reviews and an epic clash on its fertile fields set the stage for Gettysburg

In 2002, I ventured to Culpeper, Va., to satisfy a particular quest of mine: to explore the route that Brig. Gen. Evander Law’s Alabama Brigade, in Maj. Gen. John Bell Hood’s Division, undertook from Raccoon Ford to Gettysburg in June 1863. Hood’s command was present at the massive cavalry reviews that Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, the Army of Northern Virginia Cavalry Corps’ commander, conducted in the vicinity of Brandy Station on June 5 and 8.

Leaving the crass commercial sprawl of the I-95 corridor and Spotsylvania County, I traveled west on Virginia State Route 3 to the vast open space of Culpeper County. Since first visiting Culpeper in the early 1990s, I could not help but feel the county seat was a somewhat odd place, suffering perhaps from an identity crisis or cultural amnesia. It appeared to be a town lost in time, not knowing how to, or not interested in, capitalizing on heritage tourism. Although Culpeper was not unique, the song remained the same in many historic towns in Virginia and beyond. But Culpeper had been so significant in the war.

The town and surrounding area held a wealth of history that had not been tastefully capitalized on. Perhaps it was lofty idealism on my part, sprinkled with unreasonable economic considerations.

The architecture of Lt. Gen. A.P. Hill’s hometown was impressive and hopefully a future anchor for downtown redevelopment. One could see the potential of investing in history, especially in the wake of the Ken Burns’ pop-culture phenomenon, The Civil War.

Just north and east of Culpeper is the battlefield of Brandy Station— known as the largest cavalry battle in the war (though folks heavily interested in the 1864 cavalry battle at Trevilian Station, Va., might argue otherwise). Of course, as many know, Brandy Station has the often-common layers of Civil War history—from Maj. Gen. John Pope’s 1862 Federal occupation to the massive 1863 battles, to the grand encampment of

the Army of the Potomac, to nearby Kelly’s Ford, Rappahannock Station, Cedar Mountain, and so on. It is indeed a target-rich environment, as all these sites are within a few miles of each other.

Many modern preservation battles have been fought here as well. In the past 40 years, the county has been on the front-line of the seesaw preservation saga. Because Culpeper is located on the U.S. Route 29 highway—which provides a corridor for quicker ingress and egress, thus accommodating the growing Washington, D.C., regional commuting population movement in that direction—developers have long salivated over exploiting the area. Traditionally, many members of the Culpeper Board of Supervisors have not exactly gone out of their way to care for their historic pearl, as their voting records will attest.

Despite the constant development hurdles, much property has been protected through the yeoman service of long-term Culpeper–Brandy Station advocate Clark “Bud” Hall. The founder of the Brandy Station Foundation has fought much for the battlefield land around Culpeper —from thwarting a proposed Formula 1 racetrack in the mid-1990s to efforts by Southern California land developers looking to exploit and radically change the area.

Until 1987, not a single acre of Brandy Station had been saved. Since then, the Association for the Preservation of Civil War Sites (APCWS), which became the Civil War Trust (now the American Battlefield Trust), and others have saved 1,872 acres of the Brandy Station battlefield, including Fleetwood Hill, the site of J.E.B. Stuart’s headquarters and the epicenter of the battle. Because the battle was so massive, and substantially a cavalry fight, it covers a lot of ground—more than 10,000 acres.

The Brandy Station preservation issue begs reoccurring questions: How much land needs to be saved? Why should it be saved? How does one quantify preservation? Who benefits from it? Time is dwindling to save this vast historic and natural area from the advancing Washington, D.C., commuter traffic and population. The area is indeed fragile.

On my 2002 trip to Culpeper, many of the historic sites were threatened, and I was concerned I perhaps would never get to see them. Yet my schedule dictated a fast pace, negating extensive exploration—always a big draw when traveling into history in the Old Dominion. My focus this time was on Law’s Yellowhammer Brigade in June 1863 at Brandy Station.

Law’s Brigade camped with John Bell Hood’s Division southeast of Culpeper, near Pony Mountain and paralleling the Fredericksburg Pike (modern-day Virginia Route 3), from June 5 through June 15. A soldier in Hood’s Division wrote of the town: “Once more we stand with shattered walls of Culpeper, and again our line of operations points onward to the Potomac....Shaken by the shock of twenty battles, mutilated by four barbaric invasions, her sanctuaries defiled, devastated by pestilence and famine and the citizens driven from their hearths depending on God alone for food….”

In early June 1863, J.E.B. Stuart had assembled a force of 10,000 troopers around Culpeper. The size of a mounted force that large made me wonder about the forage and logistics of the horse and mule element of Lee’s army; it was a part of military strategy of which I often feel ignorant.

Peter Wellington Alexander, the popular partisan reporter from The Savannah Republican newspaper, would write about forage and logistics of equestrian sustenance while at Culpeper:

The number of horses [and mules] in this army, including the cavalry, artillery, quartermaster’s department, and field and staff, is not far from 35,000....To supply these horses with the usual rations of corn and hay, would require 7,500 bushels or 420,000 pounds of the former and 490,000 pounds of the latter, per day. The labor and expense of supplying so large a quantity of forage are necessarily very heavy. Fortunately for us, as well as for the horses, neither army has occupied this part of the State since last fall, and consequently the supply of grass, clover and timothy is abundant, otherwise it would be impossible to subsist so many animals with our limited wagon and railroad transportation, and at a time of so much scarcity as the present. You will be surprised to hear, therefore, that the horses receive no hay at all, and very seldom and fodder, and only one third the usual ration

Then and Now

of corn. And yet I have never seen them in better condition.

It is reported that the grazing in the counties between the Rappahannock and the Upper Potomac is equally as good as it is in this vicinity. Many of the farms have been abandoned, and much of the fencing destroyed, but it is believed that the supply of grass, though not as abundant as in times of peace, is ample for our wants, should the army advance. The farmers are allowed ten cents per day for the grazing of each horse, which would make the total cost of grazing 35,000 horses, $3,500 per day.

That account underlines the logic of necessity for Lee to move his army to another region to survive. I have often overshadowed the Confederate desire for supplies as a major reason for their movement north in 1863; however, the mathematical logic illustrated by Alexander’s account partially illuminates the hard realities of supply and logistics.

“The Grand Review”

In this Mort Künstler painting, Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart and his commanders, as well as a colorfully clad partisan group, watch 10,000 Confederate troopers parade near Brandy Station, Va., on June 8, 1863.

On June 5, and three days later, Stuart conducted massive cavalry reviews near Culpeper. Hood’s Division attended both events; General Robert E. Lee attended the latter.

A Southern soldier-reporter in Hood’s Division said of the June 5 equestrian spectacle: “It was an imposing sight. One hundred and fortyfour companies passed in review in the most splendid order. I counted twenty-six stands of colors, exclusive of those belonging to Stuart’s horse-artillery. After the review there was a sham fight, in which the artil -

lery fired over one hundred and sixty rounds, and the cavalry made several brilliant charges. The horses were generally good, and everything indicated a good degree of discipline. Many ladies, blooming in health and beauty, were present. Gen. Hood marched his whole division out to witness the review.”

Such accounts always spur my imagination and whet my appetite to travel back in time. It is hard to fathom what 10,000 cavalrymen would look like thundering ahead. To what can we truly compare the sound of 40,000 charging hooves?

“On the 8th of June General Lee ordered a review of the whole of General Stuart’s Corps,” recalled Robert T. Cole, the 4th Alabama’s adjutant. “The 4th…was present and witnessed the grandest and most spectacular display of the largest body of cavalry they had ever seen massed on one field. General Stuart was in all his glory. Mr. Davis, his cabinet, and a large number of ladies from Richmond and the surrounding country were among the spectators.”

Wrote one of Hood’s infantrymen: “Yesterday we had a great review. Thousands of cavalry and infantry were upon the ground. The infantry rested on their arms and the cavalry pranced and maneuvered over the field to the delight of about 500 young and thoughtless beauties. The cavalry looked fine with the Prince of showy men

“It was an imposing sight. One hundred and forty-four companies passed in review in the most splendid order”

at their head, dressed with gold and yellow trappings glistening on the plain grey surface like fire-flies on a darkening night. They were essentially a collection of pretty men, dressed in their best, while the poor, tattered, worn and tired infantry received not one smile from the light-hearted beauties who were out on that day....The cavalry parade was a beautiful sight, but I have no patience for such tomfooleries.”

I could relate somewhat to that soldier’s words; in my reenacting days, the grimy, hardcore, authentic types rarely got the attention of the fairer sex—but the cavalry did, especially if they wore “glittery” things.

Alexander, usually writing under the acronym “PWA”, was a notorious Stuart critic. On June 8 he penned an article that would appear in the June 15 Savannah Republican, declaring: “Gen. Stuart has assembled a heavy cavalry force here....Some of the ladies adorned him and his horse with flowers, and in this condition he presented himself to General Lee, who, it is reported, having surveyed him from head to foot, quietly remarked: ‘Do you know General, that Burnside left Washington in like trim for the first battle of Manassas. I hope your fate may not be like his.’ Unfortunately, Stuart was too much occupied with his flowers to take the hint.”

That evening, observed Cole, “General Stuart entertained his visitors with a sham battle. To several members of the 4th Alabama there was only one thing to mar the occasion—the absence of the dashing Alabama artillerist of Stuart’s Horse Artillery, John Pelham, who was killed leading a cavalry charge [at Kelly’s Ford] only a few miles from where we then were, on the 17th of March 1863.”

Following the Plume Confederate cavalry follows Stuart into action at Brandy Station on June 9, 1863. Stuart lost more than 400 troopers in the chaotic fight.

Continued Cole: “That night the little village of Culpeper was filled to overflowing with beautiful women and brave men, where a dance...inaugurated by the cavalry contin-

ued until long after we infantry had retired...”

Early the next morning, true fighting broke out at Brandy Station, although Hood’s Division was held back in a concealed support position near Pony Mountain. Although the Federal horsemen were repelled after a hard-fought clash, Lee’s troop concentration at Culpeper had been revealed. Wrote Alexander: “Lee’s flank movement, like a coal of fire on the terrapin’s back, has had the effect to put [Hooker’s Army of the Potomac] in motion….”

The Gettysburg Campaign had begun.

Visiting Culpeper last October, I was struck by the new sense of community building with a historic bent. As I drove by the nearby fields of Brandy Station, it felt good to know much is now protected and that a new state park incorporating neighboring Brandy Station and Cedar Mountain is being developed. It’s the kind of development I love to see. I thought of Bud Hall, whose incredible efforts over the years have helped bring this park to fruition. Without him, so much would have been lost, denying me and others the opportunity to easily imagine the historic events that had transpired there, such as those glamorous Confederate cavalry reviews of June 5 and 8.

Time Lapse

Some of the inevitable wear-and-tear on the Grand Army of the Potomac’s Meade Post No. 40 shows in this 1935 photo, taken about the time the town’s last Civil War veteran passed away. Built in the early 19th century, the structure had been converted to two stories in 1881.

NortheRn Exposure

Eastport, Maine’s important Civil War contributions find a renewed focus

Arare gem of a Civil War memorial can be found in the small coastal town of Eastport, Maine. Patriotic and corps badge murals adorn the walls of a Grand Army of Republic meeting hall there, uncovered when modern construction was stripped away. Although thousands of G.A.R. buildings sprang up around the country after the war—and there were many far grander— Eastport can take pride in that its hall is one of the few that still exists. Countless others, in fact, have been modernized or repurposed beyond recognition, if not razed all together. Also fortunate is that Eastport’s G.A.R. Hall was recently donated to the Tides Institute & Museum of Art, a local powerhouse of preservation already involved in expert conservation of the facility.

It is no exaggeration to call Eastport “downeast,” for you can go no farther in that direction without leaving the United States and entering Canada. Despite its distance from the centers of the first European settlements on the continent, covetous eyes were eventually cast upon the region’s lush forests, fertile soils, and rich fishing grounds. In 1745, during the struggle between Britain and France for control of what is now Canada, members of a British expedition preparing to lay siege to France’s Fortress Louisbourg took note as they sailed past and later returned to claim the region, wresting it from its original inhabitants, the Passamaquoddy Indians.

The New Englanders, however, were not the only ones who recognized its value. When the British took a worrisome interest in the area in the early 19th century, the fledgling United States built Fort Sullivan on a hill above Eastport’s deep water harbor in 1808. Lest that defensiveness seem unwarranted, during the War of 1812 a British flotilla led by Admiral Sir Thomas Hardy of HMS Victory fame took possession of the town. It was held in what Britain was calling New Ireland until 1818, when it was returned to the United States.

When the Civil War tore the country apart roughly a half-century later, it roused men and boys of this far corner of the Union from their homes. Maine, of course, made a remarkable contribution to the Civil War. Despite a relatively small population—just more than 600,000—it sent 31 regiments of infantry, two regiments of cavalry, one regiment of heavy artillery, and seven sharpshooter companies into action, and raised coast guard infantry and artillery units to watch over the state’s line of ports.

Remarkably, 72,945 men between the ages of 18 and 45 (60 percent of the state’s population) would serve, purportedly the largest proportion of any state in the Union. That also meant a high proportion of fatalities: 9,398 (3,184 killed or mortally wounded in battle, twice that number from disease).

Although the 1860 population of Eastport was a mere 3,850, the little town sent 614 men to serve in the Army and Navy, leaving

Signs of Strength

Above: The old barracks of Fort Sullivan can be seen on the horizon of this landscape painting that appeared on a 1907 postcard. Below: This grand mural formerly graced the wall of Maine’s first G.A.R. Hall in nearby Pembroke

scarcely a Maine regiment without an Eastport man in its ranks.

Those lucky enough to return home after the war soon came to accept that those with whom they served best understood the terrific impact their wartime experiences had had on their lives. Many served with men from their hometowns, where what kept a man going was the desire to not let down his brother, his cousin, or his best friend. But there were also relationships forged in moments as disparate as those of mor tal danger, or those hours of paralyzing boredom, loneliness, and homesickness.

For many veterans, the answer was the Grand Army of the Republic, and though Maine’s population was small, by 1868 the state saw more than 167 G.A.R. posts in towns across the state, with more to follow. The posts served many of the veterans’ needs including ones beyond camaraderie. There were bereaved families, and those whose loved ones had returned disabled, who needed financial assistance and support.

It was also important that those who never returned would be remembered and honored. Eastport’s Post #40 hoped to memorialize Captain Thomas Roach of the 6th Maine Infantry, who had been mortally wounded during Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick’s Second Fredericksburg assault on May 3, 1863, during the Battle of Chancellorsville. Roach had his wounded leg amputated below the knee and would die several weeks later after gangrene set in.

The Eastport veterans initially committed to

naming their post in Roach’s honor, but it eventually became known as the Meade Post in honor of Army of the Potomac commander Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade, who in 1869 had been instrumental in stymieing plans to use Eastport as a staging area for a possible attack by the Fenian Brotherhood on British interests in the Canadian province of New Brunswick. The Fenians hoped that in posing an armed threat against New Brunswick, British naval vessels would be forced to remain engaged in nearby waters and would be unable to recross the Atlantic Ocean to defend against an armed insurrection in Ireland.

After a ship loaded with weapons and ammunition for the Fenians arrived in Eastport’s harbor in April 1869, Meade, on behalf of the U.S. government, quickly seized the ship’s cargo and effectively put an end to the threat.

Not all memories were grim for Eastport veterans, as Maine soldiers acquired a reputation for valuable skills other than their tenacity in battle. The number of lumberjacks in the 6th Maine, for instance, made them a handy addition to any army. Their proud commander decreed to one visiting general, astonished as a work party hewed trees in the Eastern Theater, that the 6th Maine was “axing” its way to Richmond.

The Maine boys were also known for their adept foraging skills. When asked how far Union troops had advanced toward the enemy, their division commander at the time, Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock, responded: “That’s uncertain; but if you want to know, go out and pass the picket line and go as much farther to the front as you think it safe to do; then climb the tallest tree you can find, and off in the distance you will still

Eastport Proud Top: In an undated photo, Eastport veterans assemble outside Meade Hall. Above: G.A.R. members first named the hall after Captain Thomas Roach, who was mortally wounded at Second Fredericksburg in May 1863.

Hidden Gold Mine

The building that houses restored G.A.R. Post No. 40 in Eastport, Maine, originally opened in the early 19th century as a 1 ½-story vestry for the Free Will Baptists, but was converted to two stories in 1881, with the second floor becoming home to the G.A.R.’s Roach Post. Lost to history is the name of the artist who decorated the walls with the patriotic symbols and corps badges held dear by Eastport’s Civil War veterans. After the last of those celebrated veterans passed away in the 1930s, the facility would be renamed American Legion Post #11, known as the Fred Mitchell Post in honor of the town’s first serviceman killed during World War I. In 2009, the Seeyle family of Eastport purchased what was now a dilapidated building and stabilized it with a new foundation, roof, and clapboard siding. A surprise reward came when the dropped ceiling on the second floor was removed and the hidden murals revealed. The Seelyes eventually donated the building to the Tides Institute & Museum of Art (TIMA), an Eastport-based shining star for historic preservation. Since then, the first floor has become an apartment/studio for artists in residence, and the second floor, with its exceptional murals, is being carefully restored. The Tides Institute, and its current director, Hugh French, are well-recognized for their preservation philosophy. Among entities delegating TIMA with safekeeping of their Civil War documents, G.A.R. records, prints, and photographs is Eastport’s Border Historical Society. Private individuals and surrounding communities have done likewise with their Civil War records and artifacts. The nearby town of Pembroke, for example, recently donated more than 50 artifacts, including Civil War rifles,

Reawakening

swords, and uniforms, and also entrusted TIMA with furnishings from the town’s G.A.R. hall, including an oil-on-canvas American Eagle that once graced the walls of their I.C. Campbell Post No. 1 Maine’s first G.A.R. post, honoring 2nd Lt. Isaac C. Campbell of the 6th Maine, killed at Spotsylvania’s Mule Shoe Salient in 1864.

TIMA has invested more than $75,000 in restoration of the Meade Post hall, with funds provided by private individuals and foundations. Its latest project involves a historic windows restoration. Upcoming projects will include lighting and exhibit upgrades and day-to-day maintenance of the facility.

For those unable to visit Eastport in person, a bird’s-eye view of the restoration project can be seen at tidesinstitute.org/gar-hallroyal-art-lodge-c-1820. The restored corps badge panels are accessible at tidesinstitute.org/civil-war-murals. —D.M.S.

By the Sea

Top: This remarkably distinct bird’s-eye map of Eastport dates to 1879. The USS Housatonic (above) was under the command of Eastport’s own Captain John Crosby when sunk by the sub H.L. Hunley in 1864.

see men from the Sixth Maine in the corn field stealing corn.”

Since many an Eastporter made his living on the sea, plenty chose to serve in the U.S. Navy during the war. They served on more than 200 ships, most enduring the tedium aboard vessels assigned to blockade duty, but a number volunteered for the naval shore parties that assisted in the capture of North Carolina’s Fort Fisher in January 1865. Two Eastport men, Edward Bowman and Clement Dees, received Medals of Honor for their Fort Fisher contributions.

Dees, unfortunately, forfeited his medal by going AWOL after the war, but the Navy saw to it that another participant in the Fort Fisher assault, Joseph Cony, was not forgotten—naming the destroyer USS Cony, built in August 1942 at Maine’s Bath Iron Works, in his honor.

Yet another Eastport sailor whose Civil War service was anything but routine was Eastport’s Captain John Crosby, acting commander of USS Housatonic—the first ship sunk by a submarine in warfare. In a night attack by the Confederate vessel H.L. Hunley, Crosby first believed the long, thin shadow in the water was a log, but as it continued to approach his ship ordered the crew to quarters, the ship’s chains slipped, and its engine backed, although it would be too late. Hunley’s spar torpedo struck Housatonic amidships near its magazine, and the resulting explosion sealed its fate. Hunley’s eight-man crew, however, paid for their heroics with their lives.

The restoration of the Meade Post #40 G.A.R. Hall is an outstanding memorial to the Eastport veteran soldiers and sailors, always lionized by the town’s residents, but particularly so in their later years—usually finding a prominent place

in the annual July 4 parade. Two of Eastport’s last surviving Civil War veterans were Peter Kane, who rode and fought in the 1st Maine Cavalry, and Fred Call, who served in the 7th Maine Infantry as a teenager. All five Call family boys—William, John, Stephen, Levi, and Fred— served in the Union Army, with all, by great fortune, surviving.

Fred and Peter made the trek to Gettysburg for the milestone 50th anniversary, and on their return, the hometown newspaper reported, “The Gettysburg veterans are home again, coming back with weary feet and tired body but filled to the brim with delightful memories, not only of scenes of half a century ago renewed, but with the realization of the unitedness of this great nation....”

That a historic structure such as Eastport’s G.A.R. hall has survived, and its importance recognized, is gratifying for many.

Diane Smith, an author of several military histories (dianemonroesmith.com), writes from Holden, Me. She thanks Tides Institute’s Hugh French and her husband, Ned, for their help.

Memorial Days

Above (L-R): Henry H. Wadsworth, former adjutant, 9th Maine Infantry; Corporal Charles W. Lewis, Co. A, 1st Maine Battalion; Frank S. Beale, 8th Maine Infantry; Private Frederick W. Call, Co. D, 7th Maine Infantry. Below: This granite-and-bronze memorial, erected by Eastport’s citizens in “Memory of the Men Who Served the Union on Land and Sea,” can be found on Washington Street.

Majestic Beauty and Terror

Extending 125 miles in central Oregon, a tributary of the Deschutes River, the Crooked River is regarded as one of the Pacific Northwest’s most scenic routes. Though picturesque, its jagged plateaus and basalt canyons created unpredictable, often-inhospitable turf for Union troopers hoping to outwit the region’s formidable Snake Indians.

‘OUR trOops have not beEn idle’

With no Gettysburg or Chickamauga on hand, Oregon Cavalry tried to ‘chastise’ the Paiute

As Brig. Gen. Benjamin Alvord sat in his office at Fort Vancouver contemplating the operational season that had just concluded, he had every reason to feel satisfied about his first full year as District of Oregon commander. Almost everything he had asked of his forces, especially the 1st Oregon Cavalry, had been achieved. The only thing his mounted command had not done was largely out of its control: “chastise” the Snake Indians, more specifically the Northern Paiute. To accomplish that, as regimental commander Colonel Reuben Maury could point out after two years, one needed to find them first.

During the winter of 1863–64, Alvord mulled over how to make certain the Oregon Cavalry found the Snakes. On February 10, 1864, he mapped out his plans for the coming campaign in a letter to Oregon Governor Addison Gibbs, telling Gibbs: “I shall recommend to the general commanding the department [Department of the Pacific] that troops be sent to traverse thoroughly the whole region” from Canyon City to the California border, and as far east as Fort Boise.

While the Oregon Cavalry had spent the past two summers and falls in the field, Alvord planned to deploy them differently in 1864. “I hope to put two expeditions in the field the whole season for that purpose against the Snake Indians...,” he detailed. “I shall also recommend a movement from Fort Klamath easterly; but as that post is not in my district I cannot speak so definitely in reference to it.”

The plan was textbook military strategy: Alvord’s concept was to constrict the open spaces as the various Oregon Cavalry companies moved toward each other. If all worked well, one or more of those contingents would finally have the clash they sought with Chief Paulina’s band of Northern Paiutes. This differed in two ways from what the Oregon Cavalry had done the previous two years. First, the operations area would be shifted; instead of spending most of their time from Fort Boise eastward, along the immigrant trails, they would operate in eastern Oregon and western Idaho Territory, south of Canyonville, Ore. Next, this would entail multiple expeditions taking place at the same time.

With the three-year enlistments of most of the Oregon cavalrymen set to expire between

Yet Another Obstacle

The sympathies of John Whiteaker, Oregon’s governor, were in question when the war began, forcing Lincoln’s political and military leaders in Washington, D.C., to bypass him in forming a Union military presence in the region.

December and March, this was likely the troopers’ last chance to prove their loyalty to the Union. Alvord was empathetic, knowing the “ardent desire of many of them would be to join in the war in the East.” Since that had never been possible, a well-coordinated military campaign to stamp out any Indian raiders along the immigrant trails was their only chance to prove their patriotism for the larger Union cause.

It had been more than two years since federal officials finally decided to raise a regiment of Oregon volunteers to replace the departing Regular Army units in the District of Oregon. From its origins, the 1st Oregon Cavalry was different than the Union’s other volunteer commands. Not only would its service be different, the manner in which it was formed also differed from other volunteer commands. While governors in other states played prominent roles in raising regiments by appointing officers to lead them, that was not the case in Oregon.

From the start of the war, federal officials had concerns about the loyalty of Oregon’s governor, John Whiteaker, who had supported John Breckinridge’s presidential candidacy in 1860. Since the start of the secession crisis, Whiteaker had made a number of public statements supporting the South’s right to leave the Union. Those comments culminated with a set of

lengthy remarks that were widely circulated in the Oregon newspapers in June 1861. Not only did the South have the right to secede, but, according to the governor, the Confederates had the right “if need be, to use every just means within their power to defend themselves, their property and institutions, against the unjust encroachments of the North.”

As the Army authorized the raising of a regiment of Oregon volunteers, the only question was whether Whiteaker was a Confederate sympathizer or just a local Copperhead. One regional newspaper editor felt Whiteaker was the former, calling him “as rank a traitor as Jolane [Joe Lane],” the former Oregon senator who ran as the vice presidential candidate on John Breckinridge’s ticket. Federal military and political officials in Washington, D.C., agreed and decided they would not work through the governor, opting to maneuver around him. Doing so was not an easy matter, even as his popularity eroded considerably throughout the summer.

The political and military leaders in the U.S. capital had not circumvented a governor before and did not have a clear alternative in place. They knew they needed to ensure that any Oregon Volunteers were led by men loyal to the Union cause, but they were not sure how to go about it. So, on September 24, the adjutant general of the Union armies informed Thomas Cornelius, Reuben Maury, and Benjamin F. Harding they had been selected, “upon the strong recommendation” of Oregon Senator Edward Baker—President Lincoln’s dear old friend—who “relies confidently upon the prudence, patriotism, and economy with which you will execute” the raising “for the service of the United States one regiment of mounted troops.” The three men were informed they would “be governed by any directions sent to you by Col. E.D. Baker, and will under all circumstances report your conduct to the premises of the War Department.”

Senator Baker’s role ended abruptly on October 21, 1861, when he was killed at the Battle of Ball’s Bluff, Va. Upon his death, the challenging task of recruiting what became the 1st Oregon Cavalry fell solely to the trio in Oregon. The difficulties were exacerbated by the onset of the worst winter in a generation. Desperate to put a large mounted force in the field, the U.S. Army decided it could not wait to recruit a full complement of men, if it were even possible. In March 1862, the regiment formed with just six companies. A seventh company was added the following year.

For two years, the seven companies traversed thousands of miles in some of the country’s most inhospitable regions, from north central Oregon to southeastern Idaho Territory. At times, individual companies went into the field; at others, several served together for as long as seven straight months. They rode through mountain passes in the midst of snowstorms as late as June and as early as September, and across scorching high plains deserts. During those first two years, they had provided security for whites streaming into the Northwest, but they had not forced a large engagement on the various tribes they simply called Snakes. Despite their frustration, they were achieving part of the objective their leaders set for them—just not the one most of the troopers had sought. Alvord’s plan for 1864 just might give them the opportunity to finally prove, in the only way they could, “to the world, by acts rather than by words, our love and veneration for this blessed heritage bequeathed us by our [fore]fathers.”

Four weeks into the 1864 campaign, Captain John M. Drake had nothing to show for his efforts except growing frustration over the numerous delays. As a result, the column had reached a point only about 125 miles southeast of his base at Fort Dalles. While he and some of his men took note of the vegetation and nature of the terrain they had ridden over, most of that land had been explored before. The fact his column had ridden on existing, though rough, roads most of the way, made

Right:

The Wily Enemy

it clear they had yet to explore any true frontier regions. Worse, given Alvord’s objectives, the only Indians the Oregon Cavalry had encountered during the campaign thus far were their own Warm Springs scouts. As his force continued southeast, he sent small patrols and some of his Indian allies fanning out on his forward flanks to find Paiute encampments or at least some indication they had been in the area. On May 17, that discovery occurred two miles below Drake’s camp, at the junction of the North Fork Crooked River and the main river channel. A Warm Springs scouting party that Drake subsequently sent out revealed a Paiute “camp about 12 or 15 miles [northeast] distant, numbering 9 lodges, and a large band of horses, 100 or more.”

Eager to engage the Paiutes, either in a confrontation of arms or to verbally impress upon them the cost of attacking Whites, Drake moved quickly. He ordered Lieutenant John M. McCall to make a night march to the site of the Paiute camp with a force including 26 of his own men from Company D; Lieutenant Stephen Watson and 10 men from Company B; and 21 Warm Springs scouts led by Stock Whitley. The objective was for McCall to surprise the camp in the pre-dawn hours, despite having no evidence they had done any raiding. Drake would follow with the rest of the command in the early morning.

At 9:30 p.m., McCall left Drake’s camp on the Crooked River and headed in a northeasterly “direction over an extremely rockey [sic] country for some 12 miles,” before coming to “the vicinity of the camp, where we found our [Warm Springs] scouts.” Traveling guardedly in the dark, McCall’s force did not reach his scouts’ location until about 2 a.m. He sent four Warm Springs scouts ahead to find the best way to close the mile gap between his men and the Paiute camp. The scouts reported they could close to within 500 or 600 yards without being discovered. McCall quietly

moved his force as near as possible, noticing the camp was on flat ground, under juniper trees, with the Paiute horses herded together in two groups above and below the camp.

On his scouts’ advice, McCall decided to approach from the west, dividing his force into three groups. Watson would be in the center, as Whitley and his 21 Warm Springs scouts moved to the left and McCall advanced with Company D on Watson’s right.

The crucial coordination between the three columns—made more challenging in the dark— quickly unraveled after the advance started about 4 a.m. The eager Watson, who had the easiest path, quickly outpaced the other two wings. McCall’s men literally bogged down while crossing treacherous ground and then having to traverse “a quagmire” with some difficulty.

By this point the Paiutes, discovering they were being attacked by a force of undetermined size, sent a man out to gather their horses. McCall’s men drove the man off and “immediately secured these, and put them in charge of a corporal and two men.” The struggle through the quagmire and disorganization caused by capturing the horses left McCall well behind Watson’s group, although the Warm Springs scouts were making steady progress on the far left.

After detailing the three men to take charge of the horse herd, McCall moved the rest of his wing toward the Paiute encampment. According to McCall, upon hearing firing to their left, they turned to find “we were going directly under the fire of Lieutenant Watson’s men.” Shifting to the right to get out of the line of fire as they moved

forward, McCall’s men “found Lt. Watson’s party all cut to pieces.” As Watson’s men emerged into the open, the Paiutes had fallen back to a defensible position among some rocks on the hill, where they fired both guns and bows. “Lieutenant Watson was the first to arrive in front of the Indians,” one of his men observed, “and on the first fire fell mortally wounded from his horse—two of his men were killed at the same time.”

McCall Firefight

Others were hit during the ensuing firefight, including five more troopers. A civilian named Richard Barker was shot in the thigh, breaking the bone, and one of the Warm Springs scouts was also hit. Their leader, Whitley, was struck at least four times. One of the bullets “entered just under his ear and came out of his mouth carrying away two teeth, another fracturing his collar bone.”

After emerging on the right, and out of the line of friendly fire, McCall “found on examination that the Indians were completely fortified in a cliff of rocks.” With both Watson’s troopers and the Warm Springs Indians receiving heavy fire and his own group of troopers starting to come under fire, McCall decided that if he was going “to save my wounded men and the horses, my only recourse was to retire to a safe place, and send for reinforcements.” At 6 a.m., McCall’s situation was precarious; he believed reinforcements were nearly 30 round-trip miles away. About 8 a.m., a worried McCall “reached what I considered a safe place” near a spring.

Fortunately for McCall’s force, Drake had led a patrol out of camp at the usual time, heading generally in McCall’s direction. Thus, Drake was already an hour out of his camp when he saw two riders “approaching at full speed.” Learning from the messengers—a trooper and one of the

Warm Springs Indians—that Watson had been killed and McCall was in danger, Drake “and a detachment of 40 men” from Captain Henry Small’s Company G “proceeded with all possible speed to the scene of the conflict.”

Having ridden “at a plunging trot,” Drake arrived at McCall’s defensive position three long hours after the call for reinforcements had gone out. While his surgeon attended to the wounded, Drake rode the extra mile to the scene of the firefight. As near as Drake could tell the Paiutes had left in considerable haste about an hour before his arrival, leaving a large quantity of provisions and some equipment. They fled on foot because the Warm Springs scouts managed to capture the horse herd after the three cavalrymen fell back with the rest of McCall’s command, abandoning their prizes. Drake’s men also recovered the bodies of their dead comrades, who had been stripped and mutilated. The Warm Springs scout had been disemboweled and scalped.

After burning the Paiute encampment with “an immense amount of provisions, robes, saddles and plunder,” Drake’s men gathered the remains of their dead comrades and headed back to McCall’s position. From there, the wounded who were able to ride mounted horses while the two most severely wounded were carried on impromptu stretchers; they slowly returned to the campsite selected by Lieutenant William Hand, finally reaching it at 11 p.m.—in Drake’s words, “weary, tired and gloomy.”

May 19 “was consumed in the necessary preparations for the burial of our fallen comrades,” Drake recorded in his journal. “Their graves were dug side by side on a small knoll south of camp in the edge of the timber and the three bodies were buried with appropriate [military] honors.” The surviving Warm Springs scouts gathered their wounded and dead and returned to their reservation. Drake acknowledged “a sad feeling pervades the command on account of Watson,” who, according to one trooper, “was about the most popular officer in the regiment.”

Once their dead comrades were buried and the initial shock wore off, the camp was rife with talk about Lieutenant McCall’s conduct during the firefight. Most blamed him for the disaster. Drake, however, did not. While he repeatedly criticized his fellow officers when he felt they were not performing their duty effectively, he was pragmatic and restrained in his assessment of McCall’s actions. Drake told Lieutenant John Apperson: “I am not disposed to censure McCall

in this matter at all. He obeyed his orders. I did not send him out there to get a lot of men butchered for the mere glory of the thing.”

Drake dismissed camp talk that McCall had not moved fast enough to relieve Watson’s force, noting that the Paiutes’ position was strong and they had already shown their ability to crush a frontal attack. Even criticism that he could have used his remaining force to pin the Paiutes in their position did not impress Drake, who noted McCall had no way of knowing how long it would take for help to arrive. In the meantime, “the wounded were groaning and writhing in their agony, and a man whose heart is not very hard, could not be blamed much for trying to alleviate their sufferings as much as possible.”

Drake’s command spent the next 17 days building a defensible supply depot before resuming the march deeper into southeastern Oregon. Once the depot was fully constructed, most of the troopers continued their march to meet up with Captain Currey’s eastern prong of the operation. While the meeting eventually occurred, neither Drake’s nor Currey’s columns (nor Lt. Col. Charles Drew’s third column) ever caught up with a large body of raiders. In October, after an arduous seven months, the Oregon Cavalry companies returned to their bases of operation—Forts Dalles, Walla Walla, and Klamath—with most mustering out when their enlistments expired during the winter.

“[T]he results achieved,” Captain Drake candidly admitted, “are not all that I hoped for at the beginning” of the 1864 campaign. In truth, it was the Paiutes who had defeated the Oregon Cavalry twice—one of those, near the Crooked River, was the bloodiest day of the Oregonians’ cavalry service. Though disappointed at missing their last chance, to “chastise” the Paiutes, the

Ground Zero

Fort Walla Walla, in the southeastern corner of Washington Territory, was a base of operations for the Oregon Cavalry. Near the Columbia River, it covered 613 acres and included a parade ground, granary, saw mill, stables, and blacksmith’s shop.

Oregon cavalrymen had, to a large degree, succeeded in their three years of service. Indian raids in the District of Oregon did not end during the war years, but the cavalry’s roving presence did at least provide considerable protection, especially for inbound immigrant trains. Had they failed, there would have been no choice but to redirect forces recruited for the main fronts of the war, as had happened during the fighting against the Sioux in Minnesota and the Dakota Territory in 1862.

There would be no national coverage of romanticized raids as there would be for Confederates such as J.E.B. Stuart or Union leaders like Benjamin Grierson. After gathering reports from several Oregon Cavalry officers in 1866, Cyrus A. Reed, the state’s adjutant general, concluded that even though serving in the Pacific Northwest was different than service elsewhere during the Civil War, the Oregon troopers were “ready and willing…to imperil lives in their country’s cause.”

Noted Reed: “[O]ur troops have not been idle; that a large scope of our country has been explored, which is now being settled under their protection, metals brought into circulation, and, I can say without fear of contradiction, that for long, and tedious marches, excessive privation and hardship, that our troops can produce as fair a record as any; still they have encountered a sufficient number of hostile Indians in every conceivable phase of attack to demonstrate how ready and willing they were to imperil lives in their country’s cause.”

Not long after the Oregon Cavalry’s defeat near the Crooked River, one of Drake’s men wrote to a Portland newspaper, observing bitterly that “though public opinion did not so vote, it was just as deserving of praise to die here in the discharge of one’s duty as it would have been to fall at Chickamauga or Gettysburg.” This was their war.

James Robbins Jewell, a frequent America’s Civil War contributor, writes from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. This article is adapted from his latest book Agents of Empire: The First Oregon Cavalry and the Opening of the Interior Pacific Northwest During the Civil War (University of Nebraska Press, 2023).

Falls Church, Va.

On Storied Ground

TRANSFORMED FROM COLONIAL TOWN TO A POPULAR D.C. SUBURB, THESE STREETS HOLD HANDFULS OF HISTORY

A handsome stone church, nestled in the intersection of Fairfax and South Washington streets, embodies the central history of this “little city” in Northern Virginia. Established in the early 1730s as a member of the official Church of England, the then-wood church became known as the one “near the falls” of the Potomac River, and soon thereafter as “The Falls Church,” a name adopted by the community that developed around it and the city itself when it was incorporated in the 20th century. George Washington was an early vestry member and participated in the decision-making that led to the building of the current, Georgian-style stone structure with Palladian windows, completed in 1769.

Located just six miles from Washington, D.C., and settled by many northern colonists, the city’s population was divided in 1861 over secession and many left town when the state of Virginia ultimately voted in favor of it. Confederates occupied the town and the church until silently with-

drawing in September 1861 to Centreville, Va. By 1862, the Federals had moved in to occupy the town, the neighboring high grounds at Munson’s and Upton’s Hills, and the church, which was used as a hospital and later a stable.

Confederate Ranger Colonel John S. Mosby reigned terror over the city, conducting raids of it throughout the summer and fall of 1864. In October, his men shot and killed Frank Brooks, a Black member of the highly unusual interracial Falls Church Home Guard, and kidnapped and later killed abolitionist John Read, who is buried in the Falls Church Cemetery. A visit to the church and its cemetery are a must for history enthusiasts on any tour of Falls Church. A half dozen Civil War Trails signs lay mostly within walking distance and will bring you along the city’s journey from sleepy colonial town, through the Civil War, Reconstruction, and to its reemergence as a metropolitan provision for the capital of the United States. —Melissa

The Falls Church

115 E. Fairfax St.

The church’s congregation disbanded as the war broke out, with some families fleeing the village. Confederate forces occupied the church in August and September 1861. In 1862, Union troops began to use the structure as a hospital. By 1865, the church had been stripped of furnishings, and graffiti covered the walls. One Union soldier removed the baptismal font and asked the local postmistress to help him ship it home; instead, she hid it until the war ended. In 1866, the U.S. Army inexpertly repaired the church. The congregation formally reorganized in 1873 and elected a vestry that included former Federal soldiers who had moved to Falls Church.

Written in Stone 115 E. Fairfax St.

Several memorial stones lay within the Falls Church Episcopal Church Cemetery to commemorate its history, especially during the Civil War. The New York Memorial Stone commemorates New York soldiers buried in the churchyard, including many who died while camped at nearby Upton’s Hill. Some of their remains have been removed to Arlington National Cemetery or family plots. A separate memorial stone in the graveyard commemorates Union soldiers buried here and another commemorates Confederate soldiers buried here, including several unknown. Two poignant markers lay at the head of the walkway leading to the church, including one for James Wren, who designed the church and one “with gratitude and repentance” to honor “the enslaved people whose skills and labor helped build The Falls Church.”

Fort Taylor Park

15 N. Roosevelt St.

On June 22, 1861, Thaddeus Lowe and 15 men arrived here, at the site of Taylor’s Tavern, with his balloon Enterprise. Earlier that day, Lowe and his team had inflated it at the Washington Gas Works. Over the next three days, Lowe made several tethered ascents, the first aerial reconnaissance in American military history. Over a 34-day period that summer, Lowe made 23 flights from nearby Fort Corcoran and Ball’s Cross Roads (present-day Ballston). These ascents drew the first rifled artillery fire at a balloon from Confederate positions.

Galloway Methodist Church Cemetery

306 Annandale Rd.

In 1867, African Americans built Galloway United Methodist Church and established the historic cemetery here. According to local tradition, before and during the Civil War, enslaved people on the Dulany plantation secretly worshiped in the grove of trees at the center of the cemetery. Those buried here include Harriet and George Brice and Charles Lee, a free man of color, who served in the 10th USCI. A large grave marker notes the burial site of Eliza Hicks Henderson, who escaped bondage after the Battle of Vicksburg in 1863, and walked from Vicksburg to Washington, D.C., to rejoin her family. She concealed her young son, William Henderson, in a trunk.

Brice Home 198 E. Fairfax St.

Here in 1864, Harriet Brice, a “free woman of color,” purchased a house and farm for her and her husband George, who had escaped slavery two years earlier and in 1863 joined the 6th USCI. The regiment fought around Richmond and Petersburg until December 1864, when it embarked for North Carolina. On April 26, 1865, General Joseph E. Johnston surrendered his Confederate forces at Bennett Place in Durham Station, N.C., By 1871, the Brices’ claim for damages inflicted throughout the war was approved, and today their descendants continue to live on the land in Falls Church.

Cherry Hill Farmhouse

312 Park Ave.

Although soldiers repeatedly overran and raided Cherry Hill Farm during the Civil War, this circa 1845 farmhouse and the 1856 barn behind it survived almost intact. William Blaisdell of Massachusetts paid $4,000 for the 66-acre property in 1856. The migration of Northerners to this area resulted in a populace of mixed loyalties on the eve of the Civil War. Blaisdell and 25 others in the Falls Church District voted against secession in the statewide referendum held on May 23, 1861, while 44 voted in favor. The Blaisdells, like most families in town, felt the effects of both Confederate and Union occupation. Cherry Hill offers free tours of the farmhouse Saturday mornings, April through October, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Private tours can also be scheduled year round. cherryhillfallschurch.org

Northside Social

205 Park Ave.

The original house here, “Cloverdale” has late–18th century roots and once faced the Leesburg & Alexandria Turnpike. It saw its fair share of marauding armies during the Civil War, and by the 20th century the building was home to the American Legion Post 225. After years of neglect, instead of demolition, the structure was adaptively reused into the restaurant and cafe it is today. If you are lucky you can catch one of their afternoon tea events. www.northsidesocialva.com/ location/falls-church

No Delay

After resuming command of Union forces outside Washington, D.C., on September 2, 1862, George McClellan promptly

a

What Mac Did Right

It is impossible to separate Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan’s legacy from Special Orders No. 191, the famed Robert E. Lee “Lost Orders” found by Union soldiers in a field near Frederick, Md., during the September 1862 Maryland Campaign. For the remainder of his life, McClellan was unable to extinguish the prevailing argument that he had acted with undue hesitancy after learning of Lee’s campaign intentions on September 13, and that despite tactical triumphs at South Mountain and Antietam in the coming days, “Little Mac” allowed Lee’s battered army to escape back to Virginia, prolonging the war for another 2 ½ years. That argument has continued to hold sway for more than a century. Thankfully, a new study by Gene Thorp and Alexander Rossino (The Tale Untwisted, Savas Beatie) explores the controversy’s deepest roots, painting a compelling picture of what truly occurred in those critical weeks in the late summer of 1862.

1Was it more important here to present a defense of McClellan’s Lost Orders response or a more thorough examination of their impact on the Maryland Campaign itself?

GT: The genesis of this book began back in 1999 when I started a detailed day-by-day atlas of the Antietam Campaign. When creating the base maps and plotting out the troop movements, I was shocked by how little they reflected what I had read in contemporary histories. One item in particular that stuck out to me was how much activity there

was by the Union army the day the Lost Orders were delivered to McClellan. Everything mainstream I had read up to that point had given me the impression that the Union army was mostly stationary around Frederick the entire day as McClellan “dawdled.”

Alex later approached me with an offer to team up and publish a detailed study based on the new research we had acquired about McClellan’s September 13 actions. We first published this in a digital-only format, but in the end felt our readers wanted more context. This version does just that, but we needed to broach other issues like McClellan’s supposed “case of the Slows,” his role in the surrender of Dixon Miles’ Harpers Ferry garrison, and the political undercurrents of the time.

2You show that any criticism he had “the Slows” is unwarranted. Explain.

GT: The first question any objective reader needs to ask regarding this charge against McClellan is how do you calculate how many miles an army marched in a day? With any army, one part might be stationary to present a bold front to the enemy or hold a strategic point, while the other parts move aggressively in the rear and the flanks. Does one measure the distance marched for each column, then calculate the average of them all? What if each column is a different size? Are the average distances then also weighted by the number of men in each column? What about units that joined the army mid-campaign? How is their daily march counted into the whole?

The “six-miles-a-day” comment comes from Henry Halleck, who apparently counted only the movements of McClellan’s center column (the 2nd and 12th Corps) from September 7–10, which marched slowly out of necessity to allow the rest of the army to cross the Potomac to come up on their flanks. Ignored are the severe marches of 32–41 miles previously made by that same column in the days after Second Bull Run. Also ignored are the forced marches by nine new regiments, about 8,000 men, who were assigned to the 2nd or 12th Corps on September 7, and rapidly marched 34 miles from Washington up the crowded Rockville Pike to catch up to their veteran brethren. Halleck also completely discounts Franklin’s and Burnside’s wings, which during the same time marched 33–41 miles from the Virginia

side of the Potomac to both of the center column’s flanks. Ultimately, the real question for historians is, did McClellan move fast enough? Considering the extreme logistical and morale issues he was handed, we show that he did.

AR: The claim is easily disproven slander. The evidence suggests that McClellan’s advance in earnest, beginning on September 8-9, took Lee by surprise. That news, along with word that the garrison at Harpers Ferry remained in place, forced Lee to draft Special Orders No. 191, and to get his army moving. Lee had hoped to operate on the “northern frontier” until winter, but McClellan’s advance dispelled that delusion decisively. Even before September 13, McClellan moved more rapidly than Lee found convenient.

3

People tend to focus on what McClellan did wrong in Maryland. What did he do right?

AR: I’d like to turn that question on its head and ask, after reading our study, what did McClellan do wrong? We need to remember the received narrative for more than a century has been written from the perspective of the Radical Republicans and Lincoln enthusiasts, who loathed McClellan. From the start, that perspective has been biased and misleading, and we’re correcting the record. From a purely military perspective, claims of McClellan’s timidity, slow marching, and overcautiousness up to September 15 fall flat. Whatever one thinks of his Antietam performance, it is difficult to ignore his success to that point.

4

McClellan clearly was anything but docile before and after the Lost Orders discovery. Why is the extent of communication he issued ignored as it is in campaign histories?

GT: I would like to know that myself. I suspect there have been at least two issues. Not long ago, the only way historians could get access to the Official Records, letters, diaries, regimental histories, and newspapers of the Civil War era was to find a library that held one of those collections and visit during business hours. This is how my research started, and it was difficult. The good news is that things have changed dramatically in the past two decades. An incredible amount of primary source material can now be accessed online by anyone whenever it is convenient.

AR: Not all campaign histories ignore it. Scott Hartwig’s To Antietam Creek, for example, delves into the campaign’s early days and credits Mac more than other books generally have. That said, his book is just shy of 800 pages, which can be intimidating to the non-specialist. A shorter study like

ours can really dial into the subject and make the argument for McClellan’s energy and efficiency in a clear and comprehensible manner to casual readers and experts alike.

5As the move to discredit McClellan was politically motivated, might this never have attained the status it still has had he not run for president?

AR: In late 1863 and into 1864, assaults on McClellan’s military record began appearing in Republican-leaning newspapers and pamphlets distributed by Radical Republican organizations. The attacks levied by William Swinton in particular “exposed” McClellan’s “questionable” record as commander of the Army of the Potomac. Most of this criticism focused on his conduct of the Peninsula Campaign, but it eventually also spilled over into a critique of McClellan’s command in Maryland [and] McClellan was unreasonably censured for not rescuing Miles’ garrison in time even though blame for the surrender ultimately lay with Miles himself. It was all fodder for the partisan press, and an ugly personal element also emerged. Swinton openly declared his intent to dissect and expose McClellan’s character flaws to show why he should never be president.

GT: The administration did not want to draw attention to the great mistakes it made early in the war, such as closing the recruiting stations in April 1862, just as Union armies were beginning their first major advance across all fronts, and removing McClellan at the same time from the position of senior commander of all armies and not replacing him with anyone. The effective result was that two lawyers with no real military experience— Stanton and Lincoln—were responsible for all strategic operations until Halleck was finally appointed as general-in-chief in July 1862. By then, the damage was already done. Confederate veteran forces, now bolstered by a wave of conscripts, were well into a counteroffensive that would ultimately not end until the battles of Corinth, Perryville, and Antietam. Those two blunders took an almost-unbroken six-month string of victories by the Union forces under McClellan during the fall and winter of 1861-62 and turned it into an almost continuous series of defeats under Stanton and Lincoln until the Confederate advance was ultimately stopped in October 1862. Supporters of the Lincoln administration could not allow it to be seen as the source for these disasters, so blame for the reversals was directed at field generals like McClellan and [Don Carlos] Buell, even though the coordination of their movements and troop levels was controlled by Stanton.

To read the full interview, go to historynet.com/MacDoesRight

thePlucking Bloom of Youth

In 1861, 9-year-old John Clem ran away from home and joined the Union Army, serving as a drummer boy in the 22nd Michigan Infantry. That much is known for sure. After that, the historical record becomes murky, as the legend of “Johnny Shiloh” overshadowed the truth.

In fact, Clem was never at Shiloh because his unit wasn’t mustered into service until months after the bloody battle. In addition, his birth name was Klem. How and why it changed, no one seems to know.

When it comes to writing about underage boys serving in the Civil War, separating fact from fiction is a tall order. Historians Frances M. Clarke and

Of Age: Boy Soldiers and Military Power in the Civil War Era

Rebecca Jo Plant have slashed through the fog of war to present a data-driven document that is both enlightening and unnerving in detailing the incredible numbers of youth who marched off to war in a divided country.

Of Age: Boy Soldiers and Military Power in the Civil War Era dispels the myths and dives deep into the hard reality of how both sides ignored minimum enlistment ages and admitted countless boys into military service. By their reckoning, the authors determined that at least 10 percent of Union troops were under the legal age of 21 (later 18 with an act of Congress)—far higher than the 1.6 percent estimated by previous historians. Confederate numbers were likely just as high, though more difficult to confirm due to a lack of records.

In a scholarly report, the book provides often disturbing insight into a society that gave little regard to the welfare of these young soldiers, often refusing to return underage recruits to distraught parents after proof of minority was established. In the North, the suspension of habeas corpus presented Union officers with the added excuse they needed to ignore family pleas.

Of Age: Boy Soldiers and Military

Power in the Civil War Era is filled with accounts of teens on both sides who heroically answered the call of duty and the tragedy of so many who met their fate on the battlefield or succumbed to the rigors of a military life that was wholly unsuited to young minds and bodies. It is a thorough history with detailed analysis of statistics, conditions, norms, and legal precedence of the day.

This eye-opening examination of a power struggle to maintain enlistment levels demonstrates the cost in terms of morality and human rights. While a savage war challenged the values of all members of society, it particularly assaulted the innocence of American youth for the sake of victory at all costs. The physical and psychological impact of war on boy soldiers—both North and South—altered a wounded society’s view of the age of consent for combat.

REVIEWS

RETIRED HISTORY PROFESSOR Frank P. Varney, author of the 2013 book General Grant and the Rewriting of History, presents here his follow-up volume provocatively arguing that Ulysses S. Grant, as both general and president, sought to destroy the reputations of his rival or subordinate Civil War officers, most specifically William S. Rosecrans—the subject of the first volume—and Joseph Hooker, George Thomas, and Gouveneur K. Warren in this subsequent edition. Varney correctly observes that historical perspective is always changing and that there is fury when historical icons are challenged due to preconceived myths, prompting his not-so-civil war with historians and reviewers of his books, charging the former with blindly accepting Grant’s version of history and the latter with attacking him without actually reading his work. I can assure him that neither is the case with this reviewer.

General Grant and the Verdict of History: Memoir, Memory, and the Civil War

Varney is to be commended for the painstaking archival research of original documents, including letters, diaries, and reports in various repositories from the National Archives to battlefield sites and university holdings. A pattern emerges, which he argues to some effect, that Grant often was unprepared, perhaps even incapacitated by drink (as foes often alleged), in any given battle, but that he possessed great tactical flexibility and tenacity so that he usually turned potential defeat into victory, with notable exceptions such as Spotsylvania Court House and Cold Harbor, and then let on as if he always had a master plan and blamed any failings on rivals such as the four generals listed above. It is even credibly charged that Grant falsified documents to reflect his view, which is a very troubling conclusion that demands further investigation.

The problems with this important book and its predecessors is that despite the careful examination of sources, Varney often overstates the possible conclusions with a tendentious tone alternated with a liberal sprinkling of “most likely” or “very likely” attached to his interpretation of key events. Grant’s hard usage at the hands of pro-Confederate “Lost Cause” historians that has bedeviled his reputation for over a century is barely mentioned. Finally, any study of generals with potential grievances against Grant should be headed by Lew Wallace, scapegoated for Shiloh in 1862, which is mentioned a few times, and Wallace’s removal from command after Monocacy—even though the latter saved Washington, D.C., from Jubal Early in 1864—is ignored. This glossy book includes seven original maps by Hal Jesperson; contemporary photographs interspersed throughout the text; and extensive endnotes, appendices, and an index. —William John Shepherd

American Catholics and the Quest for Equality in the Civil War Era

In the early days of the American republic, Catholics “carried the stigma of being outsiders,” Robert Curran observes in this stimulating study of how Civil War service gave churchgoers an opportunity to cast that stigma aside. In all, 200,000 Catholic Americans fought for the North, including 150,000 Irish-born men. Confederate Catholics numbered some 40,000.

Curran tells his story well, from the common soldier writing of the war to the Catholic newspapers covering it. Although key events are summarized in the narrative, even with no Catholics involved (e.g., the Trent Affair), the focus remains on the fighting of heavily Catholic units such as the Irish Brigade and the 6th Louisiana, or when Irish Confederates fought Irish Federals, as at Malvern Hill. When possible, Curran stitches in other Catholic threads: that Rose Greenhow was an Irish Catholic widow, that Mary Surratt had converted to the faith.

Catholic chaplains’ wartime exploits also appear: Father Corby at Gettysburg, of course, or Emmeran Bliemel of the 10th Tennessee— the only chaplain to die on the battlefield.

Partisan politics, sometimes ugly, are always in the background. Northern Catholics mostly opposed emancipation, as well as Lincoln’s freedom proclamation. As late as September 1864, abolition was ranked by one Catholic leader as a threat to American constitutional liberty.

High-ranking Catholic officers like Rosecrans and Beauregard get looks, and though Sherman—against his wife’s wishes—never identified as Catholic, Curran counts him in the fold, Sherman is credited by Curran among “three Catholic generals from St. Joseph’s Parish in eastern Ohio” who in 1864 had substantially ensured Union victory.

Despite the accolades, Curran concludes that Catholics still fell “a good deal short of becoming fully American.” But one may argue that their robust participation in this quintessential American experience carries them a good way down that long journey. Stephen Davis

UNIT HISTORIES

“[T]HE SECOND REGIMENT, hurried forward…and came out upon an open field beyond. Upon the left of this open space was a small house…belonging to a man named Mat[t]hews…. The plateau upon which the column emerged was an admirable position, and commanded a wide and pleasant prospect.” Thus, Augustus Woodbury chronicled how, on July 21, 1861, the 2nd Rhode Island arrived on the field and became the first Union infantry unit to form into line for the first major fight of the first major battle of the Civil War. Sadly, the 2nd lost both Colonel John Slocum and Major Sullivan Ballou on Matthews Hill, although Ballou would win fame in Ken Burns’ The Civil War for a heartrending letter he was credited as having written his wife a few days before the battle. In the regiment’s ranks as well that day was Elisha Hunt Rhodes, whose wartime musings also figured prominently in Burns’ series.

The Second Rhode Island Regiment: A Narrative of Military Operations in Which the Regiment Was Engaged From the Beginning to the End of the War for the Union

The amount of attention the 2nd Rhode Island received in posterity no doubt would have hackled some of its sister regiments, for the unit did not see significant action in the Seven Days’ Battles or at Second Bull Run, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, or Bristoe Station. Yet the battles of First Bull Run, Seven Pines, and Salem Church appear frequently in a roster that serves as Woodbury’s appendix, evidence that the 2nd’s soldiers experienced plenty of hard fighting on other notable occasions.

The regiment also suffered heavily in the Overland Campaign before the first week of June 1864 brought an end to its three-year term of service—the number of men still in the ranks a “little more than one-fourth” of that it had gone to war with in 1861. Enough members of the unit decided to remain in the service, however, to allow the organization of a detachment that, under Rhodes’ leadership, served with distinction in the Shenandoah Valley, Petersburg, and Appomattox Campaigns. While it missed or was only marginally engaged in some of the war’s best-known battles, the 2nd Rhode Island saw conspicuous service at both the first major engagement in the East, and the last: Sailor’s Creek in April 1865. This, as well as Woodbury’s extensive research, the readability of his prose, and the impressive amount of detail he provides in a work that appeared only 10 years after the war ended have long made, and will continue to make, this a unit history that is both interesting and of immense value to students and scholars of the Eastern Theater. —Ethan S. Rafuse

This biography of Irvin McDowell piqued my curiosity from the first page of its introduction. He stood 6-feet-4 and weighed about 220 pounds, which in itself is not particularly notable, even in the 1860s. What immediately caught my attention was a vignette that he supposedly ate an entire watermelon for dessert. (Yes, it could have been one of those small watermelons, but nevertheless.)

could depend for the work.”

Searching for Irvin McDowell: The Civil War’s Forgotten General

Stature aside, McDowell was a solid officer after his West Point graduation in 1838. During the Mexican War, his only notable incidents were the numerous injuries he incurred falling from his horse. Less than a week before the First Battle of Bull Run, British journalist William Howard Russell had a chance meeting with McDowell at a Washington, D.C., train depot. McDowell approached Russell inquiring of him if he had seen two artillery batteries that he was trying to find. The ensuing interaction between the two, however, revealed an unprepared Union commander. McDowell was unaware of the enemy’s actual numbers and, upon Russell’s prodding, stated: “I have not an officer on whom I

McDowell attempted to deliver some orders himself as the battle neared, evidence perhaps that he was acting more like a staff officer than an army commander. To make matters worse, McDowell was beset with a sickness the morning of July 21, 1861, possibly from eating “canned fruit” the previous evening. Despite his personal illness, McDowell had the Federal army on the brink of victory at one point. His green troops were exhausted, however, and their efforts languished in the hot afternoon sun. The hard-fighting Confederates rallied for a shocking victory.

The book covers McDowell’s entire career, including his controversial role in Fitz John Porter’s 1863 court-martial. It is fortunate the authors pull no punches in describing either his military accomplishments or failures, making this a worthy exploration of a commander who controlled the country’s fate in the war’s first major battle and left the North, at least, wanting. Fran Cohen

REVIEWS

Although often overshadowed by the exploits of its Iron Brigade comrades in the 1st Division, 1st Corps, Army of the Potomac, the men of Brig. Gen. Lysander Cutler’s brigade turned in a first-rate performance at the Civil War’s most celebrated battle. The first infantry brigade to arrive on the battlefield north and east of Gettysburg that John Buford had selected the fateful morning of July 1, 1863, Cutler’s command quickly found itself in a fierce fight with Joseph R. Davis’ Brigade that ended with the Confederates trounced. They then helped repulse attacks by Robert Rodes’ Division and beat back attacks by Alfred Scales’ Brigade before being compelled to retreat to the high ground south of Gettysburg. Despite the heavy losses Cutler’s command suffered on July 1, the men of the 7th Indiana, 76th New York, 14th Brooklyn (84th New York), 95th New York, 147th New York, and 56th Pennsylvania had enough fight left in them to make significant contributions to the defense of Culp’s Hill on July 2-3. When the guns fell silent at Gettysburg, four of the men who led Cutler’s regiments into battle on July 1 had been killed or wounded, and the brigade was one of only five that had suffered more than 1,000 casualties during the battle.

The Bullets Flew Like Hail is the third revised edition of James L. McLean Jr.’s study of Cutler’s command at Gettysburg. (The first appeared in 1987—four years after McLean began his much-loved Civil War publisher Butternut and Blue—the second in 1994.) For Gettysburg enthusiasts, especially those with an interest in “microhistory,” there is a lot to like here. McLean’s clear writing and fine attention to detail make the movements of Cutler’s units and the course of the fighting easy to follow, as do the plentiful, superbly crafted maps. His scholarship and the adeptness with which he addresses such issues as claims by 6th Wisconsin partisans regarding

“The Bullets Flew Like Hail”: Cutler’s Brigade at Gettysburg From McPherson’s Ridge to Culp’s Hill

the defeat of Davis’ command at the Railroad Cut are likewise remarkable. So, too, is his account of the ordeal of 14th Brooklyn Private John Jochum after being wounded in the fight for the Railroad Cut, which offers a compelling reminder that the blocks on the book’s maps were composed of human beings for whom the great actions chronicled had personal, painful, and enduring consequences. Ethan S. Rafuse

BORN IN BOSTON in 1841, Charles James Mills graduated from Harvard in 1860. In August 1862, he was commissioned second lieutenant of the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry. Severely wounded in the leg at Antietam, he received a disability discharge in April 1863. Though lame and walking with a cane, he was promoted several months later to first lieutenant and appointed adjutant of the 56th Massachusetts. A year later, as captain, he became adjutant in Ambrose Burnside’s 9th Corps. Brevetted major in January 1865, he was killed near Hatcher’s Run, Va., a week before Robert E. Lee surrendered.

From August 1862 until his death, Mills wrote some 200 letters to his parents. In 1977, Gettysburg specialist Greg Coco bought the collection. A few years later, Coco published 118 of them in a limited edition of 300 copies, with footnotes and index.

Through Blood and Fire: The Civil War Letters of Major Charles J. Mills, 1862-1865

That 1982 edition forms the basis of this book. Acken has replaced Coco’s notes with his own, along with new chapter introductions. (He has also searched but not found the 80 or so letters Coco didn’t print.) The 270-plus-page book looks at letters Mills wrote in the war’s final year: how he appreciated riding horseback as a staff officer; how he developed an unfavorable opinion of Burnside, calling him “weak and unbusinesslike”; and his disdain for army chaplains—“mostly black sheep who can’t get a parish.”

Although he shared the prejudices of many of his comrades, Mills was a Boston blueblood. He kept a servant with him, preferred the company of gentleman officers, and read Caesar in the original Latin. Of course, he had hard things to say about Ulysses Grant’s “useless and senseless mode of warfare”: “Pro patria mori is all very well,” he wrote, “but it is a contingency to be avoided if possible.” —Stephen Davis

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COLONEL Ambrose Stevens

When Colonel Ambrose Stevens died in 1880, a correspondent with The New York Times wrote: “[W]ith him have probably died some most interesting chapters of the unwritten and secret history of the War of the Rebellion.” In 1872, when that correspondent met Stevens at a veterans reunion at the Judson House in Lockport, N.Y., the colonel revealed to him “a very curious and rather startling episode of the war,” claiming Confederate agents had planned to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln five months before John Wilkes Booth did in April 1865.

Stevens had no military experience before the war but studied law, was fluent in several languages, and served as a representative in the New York General Assembly. He was also one of the top breeders of fine cattle serving the United States and Europe, praised by The New York Herald as an “authority upon all questions of fine stock raising, and…considered the best informed man in the world on short-horned pedigrees.”

He entered the war on May 7, 1864, joining the 46th New York Infantry as a major just prior to the Battle of Spotsylvania. By the end of the month, he had been promoted to lieutenant colonel and assigned to Maj. Gen. John A. Dix’s staff.

Undercover

In July, Confederate agents and commissioners tried to arrange a peace conference at the Clifton House on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. Stevens claimed that he received permission from Dix to go undercover and investigate the Southern sympathizers.

When he arrived, he mingled with Confederate agents

and Northern Copperheads, passing as one of them, known as a prominent Democrat and for having many acquaintances in the South. Fortunately, none of them was aware he was working for General Dix.

Allegedly, one of the men recognized Stevens and, after a long conversation, invited him to his room. There, under a pledge of secrecy, he revealed to Stevens that some of them planned to assassinate Lincoln the night before the November election. They hoped it would allow George B. McClellan, the Democratic candidate for president, to win the election and end the war.

Stevens rushed back to New York and reported what he had learned to Dix. The general in turn passed the intelligence on to Lincoln. According to Stevens, Lincoln preferred news of the plot not be leaked to the press, believing it would do more harm than good. It would remain a secret.

Finally in 1875, the aforementioned correspondent claimed in his New York Times article: “The story is truly an extraordinary one, but, considering the time, the situation, the position of the narrator, and some of the events the following April [1865], I fully believe it.”

The correspondent wouldn’t reveal Stevens’ identity, however, declaring that he “did not feel at liberty at that time to mention the name of my informant.”

On December 10, 1880, Stevens passed away at the age of 73 and was interred in Batavia Cemetery in Batavia, N.Y. He would take to the grave the truth of that alleged Lincoln assassination plot. –Frank

History, Competition and Camaraderie

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. The teams with the lowest cumulative times win medals or other awards. Some units even compete with cannons and mortars. Each team represents a specific Civil War regiment or unit and wears the uniform they wore over 150 years ago.

Competitions, called “skirmishes”, are held throughout the year in the association’s 13 regions. Members come from all over the country each spring and fall to national competitions held at the association’s home range, Fort Shenandoah, located just north of Winchester, Virginia. Skirmishing is an inclusive family sport with participation by men, women and young adults. There are even BB gun matches for the youngsters. There are also competitions for authenticity of Civil War period dress, both military and civilian in multiple categories.

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. If you’re a Civil War enthusiast or black powder shooter ready for our unique experience or are just in search of more information, visit our web site: www.n-ssa.org.

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