Civil War Times June 2022 by HistoryNet

GETTYSBURG 50 TH REUNION: STIFLING HEAT AND SHORT TEMPERS H

Emory Upton, pictured as a major general, was just a colonel when he led his Spotsylvania assault.

SPOTSYLVAN IA 1864

UPTON’S ATTACK

BRILLIANT NEW TACTICS SHATTER THE CONFEDERATE LINE AT THE MULE SHOE A HEAVY ARTILLERYMAN’S BATTLEFIELD LETTERS ARE WE ON THE EVE OF ANOTHER CIVIL WAR June 2022 HISTORYNET.com

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CIVIL WAR TIMES JUNE 2022

38 50 YEARS GONE

Union 2nd Corps veterans meet with former Confederate soldiers on the Gettysburg battlefield in 1913.

ON THE COVER: Emory Upton had a genius for war and revolutionized American military tactics. 2

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Features

Spotsylvania Shock Wave

By Jeffry D. Wert “They are charging!” screamed a Confederate on May 10, 1864, as Colonel Emory Upton’s handpicked regiments bore down on the Mule Shoe at Spotsylvania Court House.

Return to Gettysburg

By Richard Selcer

Food shortages, intolerable heat, and the occasional fistfight plagued the 1913 Reunion of the Battle of Gettysburg. But the photo ops made all seem well.

‘Pretty Rough Times’ By Jonathan A. Noyalas

The letters of a Union heavy artilleryman describe his rapid change of lifestyle when he marched away from D.C.’s clean forts to fight as an infantryman in the 1864 Overland and Petersburg campaigns.

Holding the East Pass

By Sheritta Bitikofer

Confederate General Braxton Bragg tried to gain control of vital U.S. forts in Pensacola, Fla., with a quickly raised local militia unit.

Departments 6 8 14 16 18 22 25 60 64 72

Return Fire Rufus Weaver’s Work Miscellany A New Battlefield Is Born Details In Good Company Insight Another Civil War? Rambling Antietam Storyteller Interview Follow the Money Editorial Gettysburg Exclusion Armament A Brassy Rifle Reviews Drafting Confederates Sold ! Exceptional Corps Badge

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2); HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS; RTRO/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; COVER: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, EVERETT COLLECTION/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES/PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: BRIAN WALKER

JUNE 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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MICHAEL A. REINSTEIN CHAIRMAN & PUBLISHER

JUNE 2022 / VOL. 61, NO. 3 Dr. Chester Crist with German POWs at Gettysburg.

EDITORIAL DANA B. SHOAF EDITOR / MANAGING EDITOR, PRINT CHRIS K. HOWLAND SENIOR EDITOR SARAH RICHARDSON SENIOR EDITOR Mary Chesnut’s wartime reminiscences

‘THE COLONEL’S ORDERLY’

A soldier’s diary preserves the only known text of an Emory Upton speech. Historynet.com/UptonsOrderly

HERO’S WELCOME

At Gettysburg’s 1888 Grand Reunion, Confederate outcast James Longstreet turned man of the hour. Historynet.com/HerosWelcome

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ADAMS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

WWII AT GETTYSBURG

Scrap drives, war rallies, and German POWs took over America’s preeminent battlefield. Historynet.com/WWIIGettysburg

Antietam letters collected by Ezra Carman and John M. Gould

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CIVIL WAR TIMES JUNE 2022

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

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

Actual size is 38.1 mm

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

Celebrating the 100th Anniversary With Legal Tender Morgans

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

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3/17/22 8:30 PM

RETURN FIRE

WEAVER’S GRIM WORK Insightful and informative April issue article on Dr. Rufus Weaver, a figure of importance in the tangled history of Civil War Reunion and “Reunification” who has been largely forgotten. I was especially interested in his connection to Ada Egerton of Baltimore; one of the items in my collection is an envelope addressed to Dr. Weaver at a Baltimore address that’s always been somewhat of a mystery to me. Perhaps it was Ms. Egerton’s boarding house? On the back of the envelope are penciled notations,

no doubt in Weaver’s hand, of some gravesites of Confederate prisoners who died at Fort Delaware, and were buried at Finn’s Point, N.J., during the war. He apparently did not confine his efforts to identify and return Confederate remains solely to the Gettysburg battlefield. Charles T. Joyce Media, Pa. April was another great issue. I found the article “Collateral Costs” most interesting, informative, and

very well written. My parents owned a home just outside Gettysburg in the 1960s and ’70s, and my wife and I live about 30 miles from Gettysburg. I have always had a strong interest in the battle and the aftermath. After reading your article on the burials, the exhuming, and reburials, I’ve wondered how many unmarked graves are still unaccounted for, not only here, but on any of the other battlefields. Very sad to think there still may be unaccounted-for bodies who were never returned to their loved ones and are still lying where they fell.... known only to God. Just my curiosity. Keep up the good work. I love every issue!! Randy Jenkins Shrewsbury, Pa.

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GETTY IMAGES; VANGELIS ARAGIANNIS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Great February articles on Antietam, my favorite Civil War site. I’m amazed how history seems to have neglected the actions of Irwin’s brigade (2nd Division, 6th Corps), especially the fruitless attack on the Piper Farm by the 7th Maine. As for the burial photo, it’s surprising William Frassanito overlooked this location in Antietam: The Photographic Legacy of America’s Bloodiest Day, as he identified three other photos in the same approximate area. I guess even the most knowledgeable historians can’t uncover all the mysteries. Next mystery to solve is where was the limestone outcropping that Colonel Turner Morehead posed on (left)—if it still exists! Clayton Kite Harrisonburg Va.

CHARLES T. JOYCE COLLECTION; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

ANTIETAM IMAGE

COUPLE OF GEMS The gem photos and the painting of the USCT in “Gems Discovered” and the “Jersey Boys” article in the April issue, in my view, is what history is really about. Shayne Davidson’s wonderful portraits as well as the search and genealogy of Dan Casella is what brings me back time and time again to CWT. They resurrect and recognize longforgotten heroes, honor their memory, and demonstrate what soldiers were like and how important each one was to the national effort. Thank you. Rick D. Huff Sykesville, Md.

CAPTAIN, MY CAPTAIN

GETTY IMAGES; VANGELIS ARAGIANNIS/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

CHARLES T. JOYCE COLLECTION; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

I just enjoyed the article “Jersey Boys” by Dan Casella in the April issue. In the article, the author states that the title of “Captain” on Benjamin Ogden’s 1915 headstone is “a mystery yet to be solved” as he was always a private during his term of service in the Union Army. In the preceding paragraph, however, the author indicates that, in the 1880 census, Benjamin Ogden is listed as working as a “waterman.” I would submit, therefore, that the title of “Captain” on his headstone was not his military rank, but instead was likely his civilian rank as a ship’s captain after the war. Mark L. Hamlin Otsego, Mich. Author Dan Casella responds: Good thought. There’s definitely evidence to suggest that, and for the record I also believe he had to be a boat captain. But I haven’t been able to find something (yet) that’s 100 percent confirmation that he became a ship captain. In 1905, Benjamin’s son graduated from Philadelphia’s Jefferson Medical School. A successful boat captain could have afforded such an education for his son.

TOUGH TO SWALLOW After reading about the death of thousands of animals in the Civil War, reburials at Gettysburg, explosions at

ONLINE POLL

90.4

9.6 The Results Are In!

Our recent Facebook poll asked what would you prefer to do on an overcast, 50-degree day—hike a battlefield or sit by the fire with a Civil War book? The results prove that we have an active readership dedicated to battlefield tramping! Our next poll goes online April 28.

the munition factories, and the Sanitary Commission, I believe that the April edition should be named the Gruesome Edition. You have a great magazine and these topics should be addressed, but it took me awhile to get through them. Don Stough Bracey, Va. Editor’s note: Through no premeditation on our part, that issue did contain a lot of difficult subjects. Historians are now often focusing more attention on the “dark” aspects of the Civil War. I think it is important that Civil War Times function as a conduit to get some of that research out to a general audience.

THE SPICE OF HISTORY I want you to know how much I appreciate the variety of articles and viewpoints presented in Civil War Times. After reading the “Why Marx?” letter in the April 2022 issue I am dismayed how many people want to live in their own bubble, rejecting anything that

they see lies outside their concept of the world. Your magazine reported a historical fact about Karl Marx’s thoughts on Lincoln. I found this stimulating because it showcased how Lincoln’s reputation spread beyond the United States. It is sad that a reader of a publication devoted to history would bristle about a historical fact. I cherish articles that allow me to learn new things and challenge the things I may have believed were true. Keep up the good work. Stephen E. James Clarksville, Tenn.

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

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CULPEPER

STATE PARK IN THE WORKS

CAPTURED AND KILLED

In his diary, 9th Virginia Cavalry trooper Bird Willis documented the execution of the USCT: “They were the first [USCT] we had seen....They were taken out on the road side and shot and their bodies left there.”

CIVIL WAR TIMES JUNE 2022

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ULYSSES S. GRANT ASSOCIATION; MELISSA A. WINN COLLECTION (4)

troops born in Culpeper. Unlike White soldiers, USCT soldiers, if captured by Confederate troops, could be executed as escaped slaves under rules approved by the Confederate Congress. Three USCT soldiers are known to have been captured and executed at the side of the road on May 5, 1864. A memorial marker near the site of their execution was installed in Lignum, Va., on November 9, 2021.

PHOTO BY BUDDY SECOR; CLINT SCHEMMER/STAR EXPORT

Virginia state park focused on the battlefields of Brandy Station and Cedar Mountain, as well as the site of a ridgetop Union encampment near Stevensburg is on the verge of creation. First outlined in 2015, the proposal for Culpeper Battlefield State Park has gained ground through local support and advocacy. Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin submitted an amendment to the state budget regarding the proposed park on January 21, and both chambers of the Virginia legislatures approved budgets for establishing the park. Although the exact details are still in the works, 1,700 acres already preserved by the American Battlefield Trust will be donated to the park. Another 4,000 acres are now held in conservation easements on private land, and more land may be acquired. Advocates for the park note that it preserves land between the Rappahannock and Rapidan Rivers that was contested during the war and traversed not only by Union and Confederate troops but also by slaves escaping bondage as well as USCT regiments fighting in the 1864 Overland Campaign. These USCT soldiers—numbering close to 4,000— were remembered with a marker erected at Brandy Road in Brandy Station in Culpeper County on February 26, 2022. The marker was paid for by the Freedom Foundation, which is devoted to preserving the memory of USCT

STEPPING DOWN AFTER DEVOTING YEARS to the Ulysses S. Grant Association, John Marszalek and Chief Justice Frank Williams retired from the organization in March. Marszalek, executive director of the association since 2006, oversaw the transfer of Grant’s papers to Mississippi State University (MSU) in Starkville in 2009. Marszalek will serve as a contributing editor for the association. Williams was president of the association for more than 30 years. Anne Marshall, associate professor of history at MSU, is the new executive director of the Ulysses S. Grant Association and Presidential Library. She is the author of the 2010 Creating a Confederate Kentucky: The Lost Cause and Civil War Memory in a Border State and is at work on a biography of Kentucky farmer, politician, and antislavery activist Cassius Marcellus Clay.

CHANGING GRANT’S GUARD

Left to right: James Bultema, incoming Grant Association president; Frank Williams; John Marszalek; Anne Marshall, incoming executive director of the association; Edna Green Medford, association board member.

WAR F RA M E

ULYSSES S. GRANT ASSOCIATION; MELISSA A. WINN COLLECTION (4)

PHOTO BY BUDDY SECOR; CLINT SCHEMMER/STAR EXPORT

STRUCK BY HOW MANY miles were between his lover and himself, this Civil War soldier not only took the effort to send this 1/6th plate tintype of himself back home, he also tucked inside the case several slips of paper with verses of poetry. “Forget me not,” one poem implores. “When oceans us do sever, and when once death the eye doth close…forget me not.” The poet private also scribbled inside the case desperate pleas for the recipient, possibly named Mary, to remember him, including a popular sentiment of the time: “When this you see remember me.” Some historians have mused that the tender phrase coupled with a soldier’s portrait sent back home was one way for these men, faced with the possibility of death in the war, to establish some permanence. While the fate of this unidentified soldier is unknown, his romantic musings and longing for his lady remain to illustrate a very human side of the conflict.

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MISCELLANY

MONUMENTS

LINCOLN PRIZE 2022

NEW AND OLD

LEAVE NO TRACE LEAVING COINS on battlefield monuments seems harmless, but as retired Gettysburg National Military Park Historian John Heiser notes, such coins can damage the protective finish on the monuments. Leave your pennies in your pockets! 10

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; FREDERICK NEWS POST

THE GILDER LEHRMAN Lincoln Prize for 2022 went to Caroline Janney, University of Virginia Civil War professor, for her book Ends of War: The Unfinished Fight of Lee’s Army After Appomattox (University of North Carolina Press), which Civil War Times excerpted in the February 2022 issue. The Lincoln Prize is awarded each year by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and Gettysburg College. The judges lauded how Janney expertly narrates the confusion and uncertainty that followed the surrender at Appomattox in an account that “seamlessly blends military, social, and political history, taking readers across the war-torn landscape as individuals and groups of soldiers decide what their next steps will be.”

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: PHOTO BY NICHOLAS PICERNO; COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA; COURTESY OF JOHN HEISER; COURTESY OF MANASSAS NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD PARK

A MONUMENT TO Maine soldiers was dedicated on the Third Winchester battlefield on September 25, 2021. The monument project was spearheaded by Nicholas Picerno, Chairman Emeritus of the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation, and Pete and Cyndi Dalton, Maine Civil War historians and authors who recently moved to the Shenandoah Valley. The rear of the monument contains a quote from Major John Mead Gould of the 29th Maine Infantry, which reads: “We are glad that we could suffer for our country’s good; we glory in our strength and in all that is creditable to a soldier, but war we hate; it shall never exist again if we can prevent it.” In 1905, veterans of the 7th Georgia Infantry placed seven marble markers at Manassas Battlefield Park to mark their positions during the battles there. Six of the seven markers denoted positions occupied by the regiment during the First Battle of Manassas, while the seventh marker identified their position late on August 30, 1862, during the Second Battle of Manassas. Only two of these markers have survived on the battlefield, and on February 18, 2022, a fragment of another of the First Manassas markers was returned to the battlefield after decades. Jim Burgess, the park’s museum specialist, says he suspects this stone may have been situated along the Warrenton Turnpike and likely disappeared before the park was established in 1940. This fragment of the marker was donated to the park by the Country Day School in Langley, Va.

Union Flag Repaired in Frederick An enormous Union flag sewn during the Civil War by Matilda Kiefer Shawbaker, a German immigrant in Frederick, Md., has been restored and put on display on the second floor of Frederick’s City Hall, according to the Frederick News Post. Shawbaker had been hired to create the large flag for an agricultural fair, and one of her descendants donated it to Frederick in the 1980s. The flag needed attention to conserve the flaking, hand-painted stars in the canton and strengthen its fragile, fraying fabric stripes. Staff of Washington, D.C.-based Caring for Textiles worked on the delicate project for eight months, completing the $21,700 conservation last fall.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; FREDERICK NEWS POST

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: PHOTO BY NICHOLAS PICERNO; COURTESY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA; COURTESY OF JOHN HEISER; COURTESY OF MANASSAS NATIONAL BATTLEFIELD PARK

Overland Campaign Parcels The American Battlefield Trust is raising $137,500 to buy two parcels of land totaling 239 acres contested during the Overland Campaign of 1864. One 141-acre parcel is the site of the Battle of Todd’s Tavern at the crossroads of Brock and Carpathin Roads, where Union troops had to force out Confederates to clear the Army of the Potomac’s path to Spotsylvania Court House over May 5-8. The second parcel is 98 acres near Petersburg where Union forces in the Battle of Globe Tavern on August 19 worked on destroying Weldon Railroad and cutting off Confederate supplies.

A Lending Hand On February 26, 2022, members of the Antietam Institute Board of Directors presented the Burkittsville Preservation Association a check for $2,500 to support the restoration of the Hamilton Willard Shafer Farm, the site of Maj. Gen. William Franklin’s 6th Corps headquarters during the Battle of Crampton’s Gap on September 14,

Todd’s Tavern, 1865

1862.The circa 1830 Shafer House had been damaged over time by nature and neglect. The barn was seriously damaged and partially collapsed on August 26, 2021, as a result of a violent windstorm. Volunteers and workers have repaired significant portions of the house and barn since then. Once restored, the Burkittsville Preservation Association hopes to transform the farm into a center for the interpretation of the history, culture, and architecture of Burkittsville.

STARS AND STITCHES

A conservator carefully works on an American flag created by a patriotic Frederick, Md., citizen during the Civil War.

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MISCELLANY

WORTH

MOVE

REAL ESTATE WITH CIVIL WAR CONNECTIONS A posh separate town at the time of the Civil War, Georgetown prospered as a Potomac River port and the southern terminus of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. This large, Federal-style building, built in 1829, served as Lydia English’s Female Seminary, where well-off young women were educated. Tuition was about $40 a year per student, and some 130 pupils attended at a time. James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, and other prominent politicians visited the building. Georgetown was behind the wall of forts protecting Washington, D.C., and experienced the same shock waves from nearby battles. The 25,000+ square-feet building was three stories tall with 19 bedrooms, and also boasted hot running water. After the First Battle of Bull Run, the U.S. Army commandeered the well-equipped building as a hospital for officers and it remained so until 1865. Miss English used enslaved workers and was pro-secession. She moved to another location in Georgetown when the seminary became a hospital. She died in 1866. This gem will cost you a mere $12.9 million. But hey, it comes with 16 private parking spaces, worth their weight in gold. It’s approved for 18 upscale apartment units, so jack up that rent and get your money back. Check out the listing at wfp.com.

CLOSE UP! QUIZ

ANSWER TO LAST ISSUE’S WHERE WOULD YOU FIND this elaborate bronze

motif ? The first correct answer wins a Civil War Times water bottle. Send your answer to dshoaf@historynet.com, subject heading “A Big One.” 12

CLOSE UP ! CONGRATULATIONS to Robert E. Hurst of Oklahoma City, Okla., who correctly identified the shot-up outbuilding at the Carter House, Franklin, Tenn.

FROM TOP: WASHINGTON FINE PROPERTIES; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN; PHOTO BY JOHN BANKS

The hospital today, and below, during the war.

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CLASS

PHOTO IT TOOK TIME, effort, and patience to create this amazing image of a

Union infantry company, the basic building block of Civil War armies. On paper, a company consisted of 100 men, and 10 companies made up a regiment of 1,000 troops. But that was on paper. Illness and battle casualties, and men on furlough or special details, meant companies operated with far fewer than 100 men. Fifty-five troops are in ranks in this image, including officers and musicians but not the individuals at the far rear, so you are looking at how large a typical company would have appeared as it marched into battle. The men and unit are unidentified, but whoever originally owned the photograph obviously treasured it. This is a 10.5 × 9 inch albumen image, meaning a sheet of thick paper was coated with a mixture of salt and chicken egg albumen that was sensitive enough to capture the picture. Such photographs were meant to be framed and hung on a wall, and extra expense was paid to hand tint, or color, the buttons, flags, NCO stripes, trousers, and vegetation. Those dashes of vivid color make the photograph “pop.” Kudos as well to the unknown photographer for expertly staging the men on a natural terrace that provides scale. And let’s give some credit to these hardy ground pounders for holding still at their position of “parade rest.” Not one man is blurry. Just an incredible image. —D.B.S.

1. The company is “broken” into two platoons, a maneuver frequently done to “shrink” the front of a company and make it easier to march down narrow roads or streets, among other reasons. When in platoons, the company’s captain (1a) took command of first platoon, and the company’s first lieutenant (1b) led the second platoon.

2. A drummer and fifer stand to the right of first platoon. Unfortunately, vegetation hides the front of the drum, which may have been painted with the regimental designation. Just next to them, the company’s first sergeant wears his red NCO sash.

3. The soldier is the only one visible carrying a musket with a long-range site, meaning it is likely he carries a rifle musket. His bayonet also appears a bit thinner than the others.

4. This officer is likely the colonel, lieutenant colonel, or major of the regiment, as is indicated by his double-breasted coat. It appears his horse moved its head during the exposure, and its face is drawn in. The U.S. flag is mounted on a fixed pole, so it is likely the men are posed near a large permanent camp. Perhaps they are standing on the exterior wall of an earthwork fort. 5. This is most likely the regiment’s national flag. To the right, other individuals can be seen, including two kids. They might be associated with the company, or they might also simply be Civil War photobombers.

Civil War Times would like to thank collector Kevin Canberg for the use of this image.

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COURTESY KEVIN CANBERG

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by Gary W. Gallagher

WORDS HURT. SO DO CLUBS

THEN AND NOW DOES THE TURMOIL OF THE 1860s PRESENT A FAIR COMPARISON WITH CURRENT EVENTS? IT HAS BECOME commonplace that current political and cultural fissures

rival those at any other point in U.S. history. The Civil War is frequently offered as a comparative example to highlight contemporary disagreements. A New York Times piece from December 2021, titled “We’re Edging Closer to Civil War,” reflected this phenomenon in sketching an ominous national mood. Whether stemming from genuine ignorance about American history or from a cynical attempt to abet partisan political agendas, such claims and comparisons distort both mid-19th-century and 21st-century disruptions and, by extension, threats to the stability of the nation. In fact, as the United States enters the third decade of the 21st century, it is not witnessing an almost unprecedented breakdown of national civility. Public acrimony 16

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DIVISIONS

of the past decade pales in comparison to that of the period that included systemic political failure climaxing in secession, a cataclysmic military conflict, and wrenching postwar aftershocks that lingered for more than a decade. A few examples will illustrate the profound difference between the Civil War era and the recent past. Prominent actors increasingly use awards ceremonies as a platform to express unhappiness with political leaders. On April 14, 1865, a member of the most celebrated family of thespians in the United States expressed his unhappiness with Abraham Lincoln by shooting him in the back of the head. Similarly, Americans regularly hear and watch members of Congress direct rhetorical barbs at one another during hearings and in other venues. On May 22, 1856, Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina caned Senator Charles Sumner of Mas-

UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

South Carolinian Preston Brooks bears down on Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner. During Sumner’s years-long recovery, the Bay State left his desk vacant in silent protest.

GETTY IMAGES

UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

sachusetts into bloody insensibility on the floor of the Senate chamber because Sumner had criticized Senator Andrew Butler, one of Brooks’ kinsmen, for embracing “the harlot, Slavery” as his “mistress.” Recent presidential elections have provoked a good deal of posturing about how Texas or California might break away from the rest of the nation. The election of a Republican president in 1860 prompted seven slaveholding states actually to secede between December 20 and February 1, 1861. Four of the remaining eight slaveholding states followed suit between April and June 1861, and Americans grappled with the reality that the political system established by the founding generation had failed to manage internal tensions during an election no one claimed had been tainted by fraud. Events on January 6, 2021, at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., provide a final example. Often described by politicians and pundits, and even by some historians, as the gravest threat to the republic since the Civil War, the chaotic occupation of parts of the Capitol Building yielded deeply troubling images. But the incident lasted only a few hours before order was restored. The heated presidential canvass of 1860, in contrast, positioned the United States and the newly proclaimed Confederacy to engage in open warfare that stretched across four agonizing years of escalating bloodshed. More than 3,000,000 men eventually took up arms (that would be equivalent to more than 30,000,000 today). Between 618,000 and 750,000 perished (imagine between 6.2 and 7.5 million dead today). Hundreds of thousands of African American and White civilians became refugees (the number would be millions today). Four million enslaved people emerged from what Frederick Douglass called the “hell-black system of human bondage.” And the country soon entered a decade of virulent, and often violent, disagreement about how best to order a biracial society in the absence of slavery. The key to mid-19th century politi-

cal and cultural turmoil, and eventually to slaughter on battlefields, lay in the existence of the institution of slavery. Slavery’s toxic presence provoked debates about the gag rule in the House of Representatives, halted the untrammeled dissemination of printed materials to parts of the nation, affected diplomatic decisions relating to Mexico and Cuba, split mainstream Protestant

NO POLITICAL ISSUE IN 2022

APPROACHES

SLAVERY IN TERMS OF

POTENTIAL EXPLOSIVENESS

denominations, hastened the breakdown of the second party system, and, in the late 1850s, triggered a low-level guerrilla war in “Bleeding Kansas” and John Brown’s quixotic raid on Harpers Ferry. The key issue centered on whether slavery would be allowed to expand into federal territories, creating a series of crises between 1820 and 1860 that ultimately proved intractable.

No political issue in 2022 approaches slavery in terms of potential explosiveness, which bodes well for the long-term stability of the republic. More broadly, to compare anything that has transpired in the past few years to the political, military, and social upheavals of the mid-19th century represents a spectacular lack of understanding about American history that is potentially destructive to current political discourse. Public ignorance about U.S. history, or its willful manipulation for political ends, often gets in the way of fruitful debate about issues of surpassing importance that have ties to American past. The discussion of immigration, for example, too often betrays little appreciation of comparable public debates throughout U.S. history—or of the vitriol characteristic of some of those debates that makes the current ones seem almost tame. Once again, the Civil War era provides useful context. The Know Nothings of the mid-1850s (formally the American Party), with a strong focus on nativist issues, won control of the Massachusetts Legislature, polled 40 percent of the votes in Pennsylvania in 1854, and significantly affected politics in numerous other states. Moreover, mid-19th century statistics attest to the fact that percentages of foreign-born residents currently are not at unprecedented levels. In 1861, as the Lincoln administration prepared to go to war to restore the Union, almost one-third of the military-age White males in the loyal states had been born outside the United States, and the proportion of foreign-born residents in 1860 and in 2020 was almost the same (the 1860 percentage rose in the censuses of 1870, 1890, and 1910). A careful examination of U.S. history leads to an inescapable conclusion: A more certain sense of their national past would allow Americans, as a people, to know that almost no issue or debate is new, that earlier generations overcame far greater problems than the present generation faces, and that the nation almost certainly will emerge from current controversies intact. ✯ JUNE 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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Richard Clem holds half of a rare Confederate belt buckle he unearthed at Antietam.

SAGE OF ANTIETAM THE

A “BABE RUTH OF STORYTELLERS” HOLDS HISTORY IN HIS HEAD… AND HIS POCKETS ON A BABY-BLUE SKY fall afternoon, Richard Clem and I stand

among the remains of cornstalks in a field on the old Otho J. Smith Farm near the Antietam battleground. The South Mountain range stretches across the horizon to the east; roughly 350 yards away stand large, modern farm buildings. A hint of cow manure wafts through the air. Clem, a wiry octogenarian with a soft, deep voice, quickly shifts into storytelling 18

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IN HIS BLOOD

mode…and I love it. “John, I remember coming out here relic hunting, and when the sunlight hit the field just right, you could see the glass glistening from the broken medicine bottles from that hospital.” “Mr. Smith’s barn stood in the hollow out there. This hospital site was a mystery for many years.” “Right over here on this hill I found that ID disc of that VER-mont soldier.” A decade ago, I connected with Clem—a retired wood worker and lifelong Washington County, Md., resident—for a story about a Connecticut soldier who was killed by friendly fire at William Roulette’s farm at Antietam on September 17, 1862. We became fast friends, and no visit to Sharpsburg, Md., is complete for me now without exploring area historic sites with him or listening to Clem’s battlefield stories on his back porch. I won’t forget the afternoon we examined the ruins of prewar kilns along the bank of the Potomac River at Shepherdstown, W.Va. (formerly Virginia), where friendly artillery fire killed 118th Pennsylvania soldiers on September 20, 1862. “You’re an old man,” his delightful wife Gloria kidded him before our trek that day. “Watch yourself out there.” But Clem navigated the hills with the enthusiasm of a 22-year-old history geek. I also won’t forget the day we visited the grave of Nancy Campbell, once enslaved by Roulette—the man who farmed one of Antietam’s most infamous killing fields. Or the day we spent in the “Corner of Death” on David R. Miller’s farm, when five battlefield trampers marveled as Clem told them stories. Or after a lunch at Captain Bender’s Tavern in Sharpsburg, when the ever-generous Clem handed me a gift of four bullets and a Union coat button that he had eyeballed on the surface of the ground in the Bloody Cornfield in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Shortly after my return home from that visit, an all-caps e-mail from Clem arrived in my in-box. Our visit, he wrote, was “A TIME I’LL LONG REMEMBER.”

PHOTO BY JOHN BANKS

with John Banks

In the late 1940s, Richard Clem’s grandmother Betty—then in her 60s— fueled his interest in the Civil War. On Sunday afternoons, his father pumped 50 cents’ worth of gas into an ancient Ford for excursions with the family from Hagerstown to the Antietam battlefield. Grandma packed a container with sardines, crackers, cheese, and water for the trips. Mom sat up front while Grandma sat in the back with Richard, whom she fondly called “Dickie.” While Dad drove over gravel battlefield roads and across Burnside Bridge, then open to vehicles, Grandma fed Clem a steady diet of local history—the lifelong western Maryland resident knew people who had lived through the battle. She even recalled Civil War veterans visiting Sharpsburg. “Dickie,” Grandma said during a battlefield trip, “that’s the old Iney Swain home there, and she told me back when she was still alive that there were wounded soldiers in her barn from the state of Massachusetts.” At Bloody Lane, where the family ate lunch, Grandma recounted what locals had told her about the battle. “Even months after the battle, people would slip here on pools of dried blood,” she’d tell Dickie. Sometimes the truth may have been stretched a bit. On the return trip to Hagerstown on the Sharpsburg Pike, the Clems passed the site of Dunker Church, the iconic battlefield landmark that had collapsed in a windstorm in April 1921. Only a pile of bricks from the original church remained. Clem remembers when it was the site of a gas station and a convenience store that sold ice cream, beer, and sandwiches. In the early 1960s, the church was rebuilt on the site with many of the original bricks. “Grandmother didn’t understand exactly what happened during the Civil

War,” Clem says, “but she knew and spoke almost like it was reverent to her. Sometimes she’d even tear up.” Years later, Clem and his brother Don discovered the joys of hunting for battlefield relics. Most of the battlefield was in private hands then. So, on afternoons after work, Clem rode in his brother’s four-wheel drive jeep to Antietam, where they would eyeball relics in the fields—with a farmer’s permission, of course. On the surface, just south of Bloody Lane, Clem found his first bullet—a fired, Union three-ringer. He still has it. “If you found four or five bullets, that was a good afternoon,” Clem recalls about those early hunts. After a hard rain in the 1960s, he eyeballed 18 bullets behind Dunker Church. Later, the Clem brothers discovered the joys of hunting for artifacts with metal detectors. Their hobby turned into an obsession. On leisurely walks with Gloria, Clem often stared at the ground, fixated on what Civil War-era metal might lie beneath the surface. Over the years, the brothers unearthed roughly 30,000 bullets and other artifacts in Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Years later, they sold more than 12,000 of those bullets to artifact dealers for a

buck apiece. Clem gave many away. But these hunts were never business for Clem, who hung up his metal detector for good several years ago. In a notebook, he documented many of the artifacts recovered, noting their location and other details. For Cracker Barrel and Gettysburg magazines and The Washington Times, Clem wrote deeply researched stories about his most remarkable finds. And he continues to share his vast local historical knowledge with others. Most of Clem’s relic hunts were a short distance from his Hagerstown home in Washington County, where brigades of soldiers in both armies fought and camped from 1861-65. Thousands of bullets and other artifacts turned up in U.S. Army 6th Corps camp sites in a farm field across the road from his house. In his backyard, Clem unearthed his first U.S. box plate and 50-60 bullets. At the Otho Smith Farm, Clem and I walk steps from where Alexander Gardner set up his camera in September 1862 for a series of remarkable photographs. Here, at the division hospital for U.S. Army Maj. Gen. William French, doctors, volunteers, and others cared for hundreds of Antietam wounded from both sides.

PHOTO BY JOHN BANKS

DEEP ROOTS

Clem enjoys Miller’s Cornfield on a fall day at Antietam. The days when he could pick relics off the ground are long gone, and his frequent hikes have become more quiet and contemplative. JUNE 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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Two images Gardner shot on the farm intrigue me most. In a cropped enlargement of one, an unidentified man—undoubtedly a wounded soldier—rests in a makeshift, hay-covered tent. Another shows 14th Indiana regimental surgeon Anson Hurd standing among wounded. Clem and I often wonder about the heart-rending scenes that played out here. “Almost every hour I witnessed the going out of some young life,” recalled nurse Elizabeth Harris about her service on the farm. On the brink of death, a blue-eyed soldier—a “mere youth” with a “full, round face”—captured Harris’ heart. “Hold my hand till I die,” he told her. “I am trying to think of my Saviour; but think of my mother and father; their hearts will break.” On a beautiful, fall day on the Smith Farm in 1991, Clem unearthed a brass identification disc—roughly the size of a quarter—under five inches of earth on a cedar-covered ridge. The rare find turned into an obsession for Clem, who has recovered three other soldier ID discs while relic hunting—a feat equivalent to Babe Ruth hitting four grand slams in a game. Dog tags weren’t issued to Civil War soldiers; instead, they purchased their 20

UNFORTUNATE DISTINCTION

During a relic hunt at the site of the Otho Smith Farm, the location of a Union post-battle hospital run by Dr. Anson Hurd, left, Clem excavated an ID disc, right. It had been carried by Corporal William Secor, the only man of the 2nd Vermont to die at Antietam.

own “tags” in which they had their names and units stamped. No soldier wanted to be forgotten if he fell in battle or from disease. Letters, diaries, photographs, and ID discs often aided burial crews in the identification of soldier remains. Clem’s dogged research brought the owner of the Smith Farm disc back to life. It belonged to 2nd Vermont colorbearer William Secor, a corporal, and the only soldier in his regiment to die at Antietam. Perhaps he was one of Harris’ patients. Using a small hammer and lettered dies, a sutler probably hammered Secor’s name and regiment into the goldplated disc. It may have cost the soldier 25 cents for a pair—one for him, another to send home. Secor stood 5-foot-6¼, with blue eyes and brown hair. From Halfmoon, N.Y., he enlisted in neighboring Vermont. He was 21 and unmarried. On September 17, 1862, Secor was mortally wounded

at Bloody Lane—an old sunken, country road during the battle and where the Clems picnicked decades later. A condolence letter Clem discovered from Secor’s commanding officer to his stepfather shed further light on his last day on Earth. “I saw the Chaplain that was with him in his last hours, and he said that it might be of consolation to his friends to know that he lived with a hope in Christ and was resigned to his fate,” Lieutenant Eugene O. Cole wrote. “As a soldier, there was none better.” Clem believes U.S. Army comrades transported Secor to the Smith Farm along with countless other casualties. He likely was buried on the ridge with others. Perhaps their remains still rest there. Secor’s ID disc may have fallen out when his remains were disinterred for reburial in New York. Before our visit to the farm ends, Clem pulls from his pocket the small disc. And so an Antietam story comes full circle. I am half-tempted to send Clem my own all-caps e-mail: WE’RE GRATEFUL, RICHARD, THAT YOU KEEP HISTORY ALIVE. ✯ John Banks, who lives in Nashville, is author of a popular Civil War blog (john-banks.blogspot.com).

PHOTO BY JOHN BANKS

with John Banks

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TODAY IN HISTORY JANUARY 16, 2001 THEODORE ROOSEVELT BECAME THE ONLY U.S. PRESIDENT EVER TO RECEIVE THE MEDAL OF HONOR. PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON AWARDED THE MEDAL TO ROOSEVELT POSTHUMOUSLY FOR HIS SAN JUAN HILL BATTLE HEROICS. THEODORE ROOSEVELT JR. ALSO RECEIVED THE MEDAL OF HONOR AS THE OLDEST MAN AND ONLY GENERAL TO BE AMONG THE FIRST WAVE OF TROOPS THAT STORMED NORMANDY’S UTAH BEACH. For more, visit WWW.HISTORYNET.COM/ TODAY-IN-HISTORY

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with Roger Lowenstein

MONEY MAKERS

Abraham Lincoln and Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase confer about the 1863 National Bank Act in this N.C. Wyeth painting. Chase’s financial policies raised millions.

chew. He’s got a nice little commodity cartel with energy, and it seems he thought that would cow NATO—a similar dynamic to the South thinking the world would bow to cotton. “Cotton is King”; no one will dare make war on us. The other reason they weren’t prepared is because there just wasn’t any financial architecture for such a massive governmental undertaking.

WAR

ROGER LOWENSTEIN, author of many histories of 20th-century

American finance, became interested in the 19th-century banking system that predated the Federal Reserve and its origins in the Civil War. In his latest book, Ways and Means: Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War (Penguin Press), Lowenstein narrates how the challenges of funding the United States effort produced innovations that included a new banking system and a new role for government in shaping the nation’s future. CWT: What were U.S. finances like at the start of the war? RL: Everyone thought it would be a short war, so no one was prepared. There is a modern-day resonance with Vladimir Putin, who has bitten off more than he can 22

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CWT: How did things stand in the Confederacy? RL: The same situation stood for the South, but it had no willingness to tax. In addition, the South had this massive delusion that kept them unprepared. One person in Jefferson Davis’ Cabinet, Judah Benjamin, suggested they ship a lot of cotton to Europe to finance the war. At that time, the sea lanes were still open; they could have done it. Davis and other members of the Cabinet instead came up with this bizarre strategy to hold back cotton so that England and France would feel the need to come in and intervene and stop the war. By the time they realized that wasn’t happening, the Union Navy

RTRO/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

COST

CWT: What about the banks? RL: Previous wars had been financed basically by going to banks. We think of banks now as big institutions with thousands of employees and millions of shareholders. Back then, banks were small and entrepreneurial. They were lending out from the founders and a few partners. Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase went to the banks and said, “Lend me your gold.” They lent him $50 million. And then the U.S. government spent 60 times more than that sum. There was no national bank, there was no national currency, no taxes to speak of then. No financial organization for this undertaking.

began to constrict the sea lanes. The South was in trouble. CWT: There was some Union trade for the South’s cotton? RL: The United States also wanted the cotton. They wanted American trading partners Britain and France to get the cotton, and Lincoln wanted the North’s own cotton mills to have raw materials. People began to ask the U.S. government for permission to go into occupied territories and take cotton and ship it North. It was impossible, however, to buy cotton in the unoccupied or occupied South without the revenue going into Jefferson Davis’ coffers. I’m sure this trading delayed the war’s end. It’s bizarre—we never would have gone into Berlin in 1942 and started trading with the Germans.

PHOTO BY JUDY SLOVIN

RTRO/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

CWT: How did the Union fund the war’s enormous cost? RL: Every government has three ways of raising funds, war or no war. You can tax, meaning transfer, some wealth of the country to the government; you can borrow; or you can print pieces of paper. The interesting thing is the extent to which you use each of these affects the viability of the other two. To the extent that you tax and have real wealth behind the government, people will be more willing to lend because your credit will be better. In the North, they made two decisions. One was to print paper; they’re called demand notes. They weren’t compulsory. They used these to pay for the war because they just didn’t have enough gold. People were very suspicious and many times refused them. The U.S. Congress came to a very difficult decision, which was to print pieces of paper and call them money. They called them greenbacks, legal tender. CWT: Explain greenbacks. RL: So these were legally money; you had to take them. The greenback was a great success. To Jefferson Davis’ dismay, they were even circulated deep in the South. The greenback worked because the Union was very careful to

set a limit on its volume. Ultimately the amount of greenbacks printed was about one-sixth of the overall war debt, and as a proportion, that’s not overwhelming. CWT: What else paid for the war? RL: Really extensive taxation. What for the time was revolutionary taxation— an income tax that was higher for higher incomes, and they taxed all sorts of industries individually. Secretary Chase was very aware of Americans’ traditional and cultural antipathy to taxation, which is true today, but

Roger Lowenstein

Northerners did accept it. That was greatly instrumental in the Union’s ability to borrow money. Jay Cooke, who became the agent selling Union bonds across the country, would advertise that Union bonds are backed by the productive power of every state, all the businesses, all the individuals. When you lent to the Union, there was something there. CWT: What happened in the South? RL: They were unwilling to tax. Their wealth was in land and slaves, so they didn’t really have a lot of liquid wealth. Nor a lot of industry. For ideological reasons they were reluctant to choose to tax land and slaves until the very end. Therefore they couldn’t really borrow. They tried one issue of borrowing by

creating bonds backed by cotton. But they could only borrow in Europe, so the logistical problems are immense and they made a complete hash of it. All that was left to them was the printing press. That caused impossible inflation. A barrel of flour cost about $5.50 at the beginning of the war. By 1863, when Richmond women rioted to break open the repositories of flour because they were hungry, flour was up to $38 a barrel. By the end of the war, it was $1,000. The North had inflation of 80 percent, high but not like the 9,000 percent it was in the Confederacy. CWT: Was Salmon Chase prepared to manage all this? RL: He learned on the fly. He had a deep suspicion of financiers. He had a suspicion of paper money. But there was something persuasive about him. He said to the bankers, you lend me the money or I will drive the price of breakfast to $1,000, meaning he would inflate their notes to that degree. He was very reluctant to go ahead with legal tender, but he had no choice. He revolutionized the banking system in quite a clever and enduring way. The system that he formed of national banks lasted until 1913, a half century. It’s amazing to realize that President Lincoln and Secretary Chase spent more money than all previous U.S. governments combined. CWT: The war opened a window of opportunity. RL: These ideas were very important to people like Lincoln, and in the July 4, 1861, address—his first to Congress as president—he called Congress in special session to raise troops and money, and he took time out to remind them of what he called the leading object of government, which was to elevate the condition of man. There was a reason he wanted to preserve the Union. He thought American democracy could really be a beacon to the world, to elevate the condition of men, or men and women as we would say now. ✯ Interview conducted by Sarah Richardson. JUNE 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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Known for their swashbuckling looks, Mosby and his Rangers wreaked havoc throughout Northern Virginia.

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by Dana B. Shoaf

A large contingent of United States Colored Troop veterans march down an Easton, Pa., street in 1912.

MISSING

VOICES

SPECIAL COLLECTIONS AND ARCHIVES, GETTYSBURG COLLEGE

IT REMAINS UNCLEAR IF USCT ATTENDED GETTYSBURG’S 50TH REUNION THE 1913 GETTYSBURG REUNION is one of those events I would love to visit if time travel were possible (P. 38). The chance to hear veterans talk over their experiences would have been incredible. Listening to old soldiers fight battles over and over, for example, was a primary inspiration for Bruce Catton’s interest in the Civil War. But there was one group of old soldiers whose voices don’t seem to have been present at the 50th reunion, those who served in the USCT. No Black troops fought at Gettysburg, but there were numerous White vets at the reunion who had also served elsewhere in July 1863. The presence of any Black vets at all—and if they even were invited—has been debated by scholars. New Jersey veteran Walter Blake wrote an account of his time at the reunion called Hand Grips, and his book is an oft-cited source for those arguing Black men were there. Blake’s descriptions, however, were vague, and he wrote that “negroes for the Union side” were in attendance. Were those men soldiers? Teamsters? It’s hard to say. Reunion images don’t show many African Americans, unless they were working there, such as the Black porter in the background of the photo on P. 40. Also, the speeches and tenor of the Gettysburg reunion made little mention of slavery or emancipation. The focus was on White reconciliation and a reunited nation—a whitewashed interpretation of the Civil War that held sway for decades. In recent years, new books, monuments, and tablets about the USCT experience (P. 8) have helped fill out the war’s complex story. We can no longer talk to USCT vets, but their voices are finally being heard. ✯ JUNE 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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SPOTSYLVANIA

SHOCK WAVE DYNAMIC UNION TACTICS

MET SOUTHERN GRIT ON MAY 10, 1864 BY J E F F RY D. W E RT

After the Battle of the Wilderness on May 5-7, 1864, the Army of the Potomac tried to slip by General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia. Lee, however, was just able to block the Federals’ flank move, and both armies faced each other from trench lines in the vicinity of Spotsylvania Court House. An eager, bright young Union officer came up with a plan to break the impasse.

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arfare suited Colonel Emory Upton. He embraced it with an evangelist’s fervency and a scientist’s objectivity. A native New Yorker, Upton was 24 years old in the spring of 1864 and three years out of the U.S. Military Academy. He had drilled recruits, had been appointed colonel of the 121st New York Infantry after the Battle of Antietam, and now served as a brigade commander in the 6th Corps. A fellow officer wrote that Upton had “an ardent love for the profession of arms.” Upton also possessed, in the estimation of Brig. Gen. James H. Wilson, “a patriotic sleepless ambition” and “the resolve to acquire military fame.” Under his tutelage, the 121st New York became so proficient in drill and discipline that it acquired the nickname “Upton’s Regulars.” An unbending abolitionist and “despiser” of “all treason,” he could be, however, arrogant and self-important. There could be no denying what Wilson stated about Upton: “His courage was both physical and moral, and therefore of the highest type. In the hour of battle he was as intrepid a man as ever drew a saber.” It was this intense, enterprising colonel who had approached his division commander, Brig. Gen. David A. Russell, with a plan of attack on the afternoon of May 9. Upton had been at the forefront of a swift assault on an enemy bridgehead at Rappahannock Station, Va., on November 7, 1863. Upton’s troops had overrun the Confederate works, using only their bayonets, not stopping during the advance to fire, which was standard tactical practice. His units had charged on a narrow front as they had at Fredericksburg the previous May during the Chancellorsville Campaign. When he met with Russell, Upton proposed a similar tactical formation, with the regiments stacked in four lines, advancing rapidly without firing shots until they reached the enemy’s works. Once they breached the entrenchments, the troops in the first line would fan out left and right, widening the breakthrough. The second line would deepen the penetration, while the third and fourth lines came up in support. Russell took Upton to Sixth Corps headquarters, where he presented the plan to Brig. Gen. Horatio G. Wright, who had succeeded the mortally wounded John Sedgwick.

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OVER THE WORKS

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An evocative N.C. Wyeth painting conveys the feral violence that reigned when Colonel Emory Upton’s assault poured over the Confederate earthworks on May 10, 1864. Before the attack, a Union soldier noted it felt like rain, and the atmosphere was “hazy” due to the “racket and smoke made by skirmishers and batteries....”

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corps commander. Wright’s instructions had been verbal. In a postwar letter, Upton stated, “My interpretation of these orders was that the object of my assault was to break the enemy’s line; that Mott would then move through the opening; and, forming at right angles to the works, would charge, continuing to roll up the enemy’s flank.” Upton did not confer with Mott about what was expected of each officer’s role in the offensive strike. Martin McMahon, the 6th Corps’ chief of staff, showed Upton a list of the 12 regiments the aide had chosen for the attack, inquiring, “Upton, what do you think of that for a command?” Upton looked at the assigned units and replied: “Mack that is a splendid command. They are the best men in the army.” The staff officer continued, explaining his duty, “Upton, you are to lead those men upon the enemy’s works this afternoon, and if you do not carry them, you are not expected to come back, but if you carry them I am authorized to say that you will get your stars.” “Mack, I will carry these works,” declared Upton. “If I don’t, I will not come back.” The ambitious warrior mounted and, turning in his saddle, exclaimed: “Mack, I’ll carry those works. They cannot repulse these regiments.” The officers and men in the dozen regiments numbered upward of 4,500. Seven regiments served in Russell’s division, including three from Upton’s brigade, and the remaining five came from Thomas H. Neill’s command. The men hailed from Maine, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin—veteran soldiers with fine combat records. The previous autumn Upton had observed to his brother, “No soldier in the world can equal the American, if properly commanded.” Captain Mackenzie conducted Russell and Upton to the edge of woods 28

he Mainers, Pennsylvanians, and New Yorkers emerged from the trees. Across the open ground, a Rebel shouted to his comrades, “Make ready, boys—they are charging.” The Yankees began to run, cheering as they went. The Georgians triggered a volley and then a second one. The Federals reached the abatis, clawed their way through the stakes and entwined branches, and jumped on to the earthworks. Then, the Federals “left them have it.” Upton had accompanied the first line and reported later that the enemy “absolutely refused to yield the ground.” For a few minutes, the struggle in the trenches became a frenzy of killing and wounding. Yankee and Rebel alike wielded their bayoneted rifles,

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FRONT-LINE LEADER

Emory Upton was wounded at the First Battle of Bull Run, and at the September 19, 1864, Third Battle of Winchester a shell fragment tore open his leg and exposed the femoral artery. He nearly bled to death.

opposite the western face of the salient, where a slight bulge or “curve” protruded out from the main earthworks. Three regiments of Georgia troops, perhaps 1,350 officers and men, under the command of Brig. Gen. George Doles manned this smaller salient—later called Doles’ Salient. Behind the Georgians, four cannon of the 3rd Richmond Howitzers provided support for the infantry. From the woodline, the Yankees needed to cross roughly 150 yards of open ground, break through abatis, and cross over the line of works into the trenches. Upton gathered the regimental commanders together and explained in detail the plan, assigning a role to each regiment. Three regiments in each line, 20 paces between the lines, Upton told them. Each soldier should load his rifle, but only the troops in the first line—Upton’s own units, the 5th Maine, 96th Pennsylvania, and 121st New York—would have their weapons loaded and capped, ready to fire. The command would rendezvous at a house owned by William D. Scott, rented at the time by a man named Shelton, located behind woods slightly more than a quarter of a mile from the Rebel works. Headquarters scheduled the charge for 5 p.m. in conjunction with the renewal of assaults on Laurel Hill. When they were delayed, Upton’s attack was rescheduled for an hour later. The regiments rendezvoused at the Shelton House, and Upton led them on a woods road or path to the edge of the tree line across from Doles’ Georgians. Here the Federals “formed for the charge,” in Upton’s words. The time approached 6:30 p.m. “I looked about in the faces of the boys around me,” recounted a New Yorker, “and they told the tale of expected death. Pulling my cap down over my eyes, I stepped out.”

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Wright endorsed Upton’s scheme and later discussed it with Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Maj. Gen. George G. Meade. Both commanders approved, but neither general possessed adequate intelligence on the nature and strength of the enemy’s defenses and the disposition of Confederate units. Although the tactical formation differed from linear alignments, it remained a blind, frontal assault. Nevertheless, they authorized Wright to select a dozen regiments for the attack force and to assign a division to be ready to exploit a breakthrough. In turn, Wright assigned Russell to overall command of the operation. The attack force would advance from the Union center toward the opposing Rebel earthworks or a section of the salient. Wright met with Upton on the morning of May 10, informing the colonel that 12 regiments from the 6th Corps had been assigned to his command. Earlier, Grant had shifted Brig. Gen. Gershom Mott’s 2nd Corps division to the left flank of the 6th Corps and placed it under Wright’s direction. Mott’s two brigades, Wright said, would support Upton’s attack. Captain Ranald S. Mackenzie of the engineers “will show you the point of attack,” concluded the

DESPERATION, FRENZY, GORE

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HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS

Corporal Clinton Beckwith of the 121st New York remembered Confederates firing revolvers and that the defenders of the Mule Shoe were “lunging at our men with bayonets and a few had their guns clubbed.”

stabbing with them, swinging them as clubs, and even hurling them as spears. Upton’s second line scrambled over the works and joined in the fighting. The Georgians fled rearward while Upton’s first line filed left and right down the trenches, widening the breach. The Federals “poured through,” exclaimed a Georgian, overran the four cannon of the 3rd Richmond Howitzers, and captured many Rebels, including George Doles, who lay down on the ground. Penetrating deeper into the main salient, the attackers struck the right front of Junius Daniel’s North Carolina brigade, shattering its ranks. At the left end of the breakthrough, the Federals raked the flank and rear of the 2nd and 33rd Virginia of the Stonewall Brigade, sending them fleeing “in great confusion.” “It was a crisis of dreadful suspense,” exclaimed a Confederate staff officer, “and for a brief interval the worst fears prevailed.”

Major General Richard S. Ewell had been at the Harrison House when Upton’s regiments charged. He rode to the scene, meeting eddies of fleeing soldiers. He halted by Daniel’s North Carolinians and tried to rally them, shouting: “Don’t run, boys. I will have enough men here in five minutes to eat up every damned one of them.” Even as he spoke, Confederate reinforcements were racing toward the breach—from the south, Stephen Dodson Ramseur’s North Carolinians and Cullen Battle’s Alabamians; from the east Robert Johnston’s North Carolinians and Clement Evans’ Georgians. As Captain J. W. Williams of the 5th Alabama recorded, the Rebels “went in at a run.” Behind them, a pair of Confederate batteries turned their guns on the blue-coated foes.

A REBEL SHOUTED TO HIS COMRADES,

“MAKE READY, BOYS—

THEY ARE CHARGING” Johnston rode ahead of his troops and met Ewell, Lee, and their staffs. Ewell was, wrote Johnston, “very much excited and entreating me to hurry up the Brigade.” Lee had been with Ewell at the Harrison House when the enemy attacked. The army commander had spurred Traveller ahead, joining Ewell at the front and helping to rally their officers and men. “The General,” noted Johnston of Lee, “was looking very calm and quiet and pointed out to me the line of works occupied by the enemy.” JUNE 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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Upton’s success depended not only on his own men, but also on the efforts of supporting columns. Maj. Gen. Gersham Mott’s tepid effort, in particular, helped the Confederates mount a counterattack. 30

Lee, Ewell, and their aides were less than 200 yards from the fighting and under Union artillery fire from the guns supporting Upton’s attack. One shell struck within 15 feet of the army commander, plowed along the ground, and barely missed Traveller. “I look for him [Lee] to fall every minute,” asserted a courier in a letter to his aunt the next day. Walter Taylor’s horse was wounded twice, while Charles Marshall had a hole shot through his pants and a button clipped off his coat. Johnston’s North Carolinians came

up double-quick, halted, and strung out a line of battle. When they saw Lee, who was “greatly exposed,” the officers and men refused to advance until the army commander withdrew to the rear. The incident rivaled the Texas Brigade’s encounter with Lee on Orange Plank Road on May 6. Lee turned rearward, and the North Carolinians charged. Behind them came George H. Steuart’s brigade of Virginians and North Carolinians. Loading and firing, pressing forward, veteran fighters from eight Confederate brigades closed

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MISSED CHANCE

in on the attackers. “The excitement of the advance…was beyond anything I have ever felt,” Major Campbell Brown, Ewell’s stepson and chief of staff, exclaimed in a letter to his mother. “I shouted till I was hoarse.” In the Union ranks, all twelve of the regiments had entered the enemy works but had become entangled in a mass. “There was not a single unit under my control,” Upton admitted later. The Federals fought stubbornly, clinging to the breach in the enemy line. The struggle was “the bravest fighting I ever saw,” attested Captain Williams. “Not a Yankee bent his body that I could see, and I know our

VETERAN FIGHTERS

FROM

EIGHT CONFEDERATE BRIGADES

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CLOSED IN ON THE ATTACKERS men stood perfectly erect, loaded and fired.” A North Carolinian wrote in his diary, “It was an awful time for about thirty minutes.” Upton ordered his men to retire outside of the works and “to hold the ground.” The Union colonel expected reinforcements from Gershom Mott’s 2nd Corps brigades. Mott’s troops had advanced before Upton attacked, angling toward the apex of the salient. When they cleared some woods into open ground, Confederate batteries in the salient raked them with shellfire and canister. The Yankees reeled under the blasts and then broke in confusion to the rear. No one informed Upton of Mott’s bloody repulse. “Night had arrived,” Upton stated in his report. “Our position was three-quarters of a mile in advance of the army, and, without prospect of support, was untenable.” He rode back to their starting point in the woods and met Russell, who ordered a withdrawal. Upton returned to the action, penned a retreat order, and had it sent along the line. Members of the three Vermont regiments refused until instructed to do so repeatedly by corps commander Wright. “This I assure you was galling to the pride of brave men,” declared one of their officers, adding that he and many men cried while others voiced “unnumbered salvos of profanity.” Upton estimated his losses at about 1,000 killed, wounded, and missing. The Mainers, Pennsylvanians, and New Yorkers of his brigade in the first line suffered 464 casualties, while the 49th Pennsylvania in the second incurred losses of 246, or a casualty rate of 52 percent. The Yankees captured 950 Confederate officers and men, and “several stands of colors.” Upton reported, “Many rebel prisoners were shot by their own men in passing to the rear over the open field.” Upton regarded the assault as a “complete success” but attributed the outcome to “the difficulty of combining the operations of two corps.” Others were more pointed in their criticisms. Theodore Lyman groused that Mott’s troops “behaved abominably.” A fellow staff officer, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., declared, “Nobody did anything to speak of except 6th Corps.” Tuesday, May 10, had been a difficult day for Union leadership and its rank and file. The assaults on Laurel Hill had been ill-conceived and wretchedly executed and had ended in costly failures. Veteran units either had refused to advance far or had Gen. Doles gone to ground. Frontal attacks eroded

BATTLEFIELD PROMOTION

Major General Horatio Wright had the challenging task of replacing the popular Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick, who was killed on May 9, in command of the 6th Corps. Wright served competently in his demanding new role.

morale, causing demoralization among the soldiers. The day had been the costliest since the Wilderness, with approximately 4,100 killed and wounded. Across the bloodstained ground behind the Confederate earthworks, Lee’s officers and men had demonstrated their fighting prowess once again. They had punished the Yankees along the Po River, tore gaps in their foes’ ranks in front of Laurel Hill, and undertook fierce counterattacks that recaptured Doles’ Salient. Lee informed Secretary of War James Seddon, “Thanks to a merciful Providence our casualties have been small.” The losses surely exceeded 2,000, if not 3,000. Doles’ Georgians had begun the campaign, for instance, with roughly 1,560 officers and men but counted only 550 after Upton’s attack. A Rebel courier who had witnessed the counterattacks against Upton’s Federals claimed in a letter, “but it had not been that Gen. Lee was so close and rallied our men, the day would have been lost.” The army commander and his aides had been fortunate that no one among the group had been killed or seriously wounded. The concern for Lee’s safety and his irreplaceable bond with the army had been exemplified first by the Texans and then by the North Carolinians within five days. Before Lee returned to the army headquarters, JUNE 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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he sat with Ewell and various Second Corps generals on the porch of the McCoull House. At one point, Lee turned to Robert Rodes and remarked, “General, what shall we do with General Doles for allowing those people to break over his lines?” “We shall have to let Doles off this time,” responded Rodes, “as he has suffered quite severely for it already.” Doles had escaped a Union prison by feigning death until his men and their comrades had driven the Yankees from the salient. Later Lee instructed Ewell, “It will be necessary for you to re-establish 32

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WAR FLAG

Emory Upton’s 2nd Brigade in the 6th Corps’ 1st Division carried this pennant at the Battles of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania Court House in May 1864.

your whole line to-night.” He conjectured that Grant might undertake a night attack “as it was a favorite amusement of his at Vicksburg.” Lee and Ewell evidently had discussed holding the salient, for the army commander wrote, “I feel no apprehension on your part if the men do their duty.” He urged Ewell to keep pickets alert during the night and to send out scouts toward the enemy’s lines to the west. Earlier, shortly after the repulse of Upton’s charge, a Confederate band played “Nearer, My God, to Thee.” In the distance, a Union band followed with the “Dead March.” A Rebel soldier wrote that he and his comrades remained “in fine spirits, and eager for the enemy to come.” A sense of things, a dark reality, seemingly hung over some in the Federal ranks on Wednesday, May 11. One of Winfield Hancock’s aides, Lt. Col. Francis A. Walker, complained that since the Wilderness “everything had gone wrong with the Union army.” In a letter on this day, a Second Corps brigade commander, Colonel Robert McAllister, confided to his wife: “This campaign beats all the rest in desperation and determination. God only knows the result.” Six days of unrelenting combat, of random death brought by unseen sharpshooters, of futile assaults, and of woods and fields awash in carnage had marked the passage from the fords of the Rapidan River to the earthworks of Spotsyl-

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MOVE IT!

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A mounted U.S. officer with a bandaged head and his bayonet-wielding soldiers drive Confederates to the rear during Upton’s attack on May 10. The Shelton House is in the background.

vania Court House. It could have appeared that both armies had descended into a foreboding nightmare of staggering cost and without an end. It could also have appeared that the descent would only deepen. Ulysses S. Grant, however, assessed the situation as promising on the morning of May 11. While eating breakfast, Grant was joined by Elihu B. Washburne, a friend and congressman who had been with the general-in-chief since the campaign’s outset. Washburne was returning to the capital and suggested that Grant might want to write a note to the president. Grant demurred, explaining: “We are certainly making fair progress, and all the fighting has been in our favor. But the campaign promises to be a long one, and I am particularly anxious not to say anything just now that might hold out false hopes to the people.” Later, in a dispatch sent at 8:30 a.m. to Henry W. Halleck, Grant wrote, expecting the chief of staff to share the message with Abraham Lincoln: “We have now ended the sixth day of very heavy fighting. The result to this time is much in our favor. But our losses have been heavy, as well as those of the enemy.” Grant estimated his casualties at twenty thousand men, believing that the Rebels’ “must be greater.” Reinforcements, he hoped, “will be sent as fast as possible, and in as great numbers.” “I am satisfied the enemy are very shaky,” Grant continued, “and we are only kept up to the mark by the greatest exertions on the part of their officers, and by keeping them intrenched in every position they take.” He reiterated his commitment to the ongoing campaign: “I am now sending back to Belle Plain [on the Potomac River] all my wagons for a fresh supply of provisions and ammunition, and propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.” The soldiers had come to call Grant the “silent man.” An artilleryman said of him about this time, “I have seen Genl Grant a few times he is plain quiet looking man smokes no show.” Writing to a hometown newspaper, a 5th Wisconsin soldier, who had charged with Emory Upton, maintained,

“The army is well satisfied with Gen. Grant’s plans and movements thus far, and is giving him its most entire confidence.” Upton’s breakthrough had convinced the general-in-chief that another assault on a massive scale with timely support could succeed in possibly ending the stalemate around the crossroads village. The army’s senior leadership, however, knew little of the nature, shape, or extent of the Confederate lines on the enemy’s right front and flank. Grant concluded that the farm of John and Elizabeth Brown, where Gershom Mott’s troops had started from on the previous night, could serve as the staging area. Grant dispatched Lt. Col. Cyrus B. Comstock of his staff on a reconnaissance of the ground between Mott’s division and Ambrose Burnside’s 9th Corps units posted east of Fredericksburg Road and south of the Ny River. Comstock’s efforts yielded scant solid information on the enemy’s dispositions and fieldworks. Mott offered limited knowledge of the terrain but advanced troops to the Willis Landrum House, which lay south of the Brown homestead and closer to the Confederate position. Rebel skirmishers contested the movement, and Mott withdrew. Comstock agreed with Grant that the Federals should use the Brown Farm. “The result of the day’s work on our front,” wrote Lieutenant Colonel Horace Porter in his memoir, “was to discover more definitely the character of the salient in Lee’s defenses on the right of his center.” In his memoirs, Grant stated: “A salient was discovered at the right center. I determined that an assault should be made at that point.” Both accounts, however, were written from hindsight, not reflecting accurately the writers’ knowledge of the contours of Lee’s lines at that time. Nevertheless, by three o’clock in the afternoon, Grant had “matured his plans,” according to Porter, and sent instructions to George Meade: “Move three divisions of the Second Corps by the rear of the Fifth and Sixth Corps under cover of night so as to join the Ninth Corps in a vigorous assault on the enemy at 4 a.m. tomorrow.” Warren and Wright should “take advantage of any diversion caused by this attack.” Grant had “little doubt in my mind” that Upton’s attack would have succeeded had it gone forward an hour earlier and “had been heartily entered into” by Mott and the Ninth Corps. Left unstated was that Grant expected the undertaking to be different on May 12. When Meade received Grant’s orders, he summoned Hancock, Warren, and Wright to army headquarters. Details of the discussion went unrecorded, but no one at the meeting or at headquarters possessed firm knowledge of either JUNE 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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Grant assigned Comstock and Lieutenant Colonel Orville E. Babcock to the duty. The Union commander also wanted them to conduct a thorough examination of the terrain toward the enemy works. Colonel Charles H. Morgan, Hancock’s chief of staff, and two aides accompanied Comstock and Babcock. It had been raining most of the day, more heavily in the late afternoon. The five horsemen rode for hours, with Comstock “missing the way” and finally halting at Burnside’s headquarters. Hancock’s staff officers turned back, searching for the proposed staging area, which they located finally about dark. According to one of them, Major William G. Mitchell, they “made as careful a survey as possible before night.” The three officers had crept forward until they encountered an enemy picket line. Staff member Francis Walker argued subsequently, however, that the “party had to select the positions for the column of attack, without learning much definitely regarding the extent and direction of the works to be assaulted.” The staff officers reported their findings to Hancock as the rain kept falling.

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the location of or the approaches to the Confederate position. In turn, Meade directed Hancock to march the divisions of Francis Barlow, David Birney, and John Gibbon after dark to a point between the left flank of the 6th Corps and the right flank of the 9th Corps, joining Mott’s 2nd Corps brigades. Warren and Wright were ordered to make preparations for either a diversion or an attack in support of Hancock. Meade likely impressed upon the three generals the importance of this large-scale offensive to the general-in-chief. While Meade finalized matters, Grant issued orders to Burnside at 4 p.m. The instructions reflected Grant’s mounting concern for the cautiousness, even the outright failures, of the former commander of the Army of the Potomac during the campaign. At times, Burnside had been immovable and seemingly incapable of directing even a corps. “You will move against the enemy with your entire force promptly and with all possible vigor at precisely 4 o’clock to-morrow morning,” commanded the general-in-chief. Preparations should be completed “with the utmost secrecy, and veiled entirely from the enemy.” In his earlier orders to Meade, Grant stated, “I will send one or two officers over to-night to stay with Burnside and impress him with the importance of a prompt and vigorous attack.”

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A COUPLE OF BAD DAYS

Brig. Gen. Gersham Mott failed to support Union efforts on May 10 and 12. A subordinate officer wrote that Mott routinely kept his headquarters “well to the rear, and he don’t seem to be anxious to get to the front....”

rivate Asbury Jackson of the 44th Georgia wrote to his mother on May 11. A member of George Doles’ Brigade, Jackson had survived the attack by Yankees on the previous evening. The Georgian finished his letter home by probably repeating a camp rumor: “I forgot to say the prisoners captured last night were drunk, this is said to be the case throughout the lines. They wont fight when sober.” Perhaps so, but inebriated or not, the enemy had broken through the Rebels’ earthworks, overrun a battery, and fought their foes for an hour before being ordered back. Although the Confederates had sealed the breach with counterattacks by reserve units, the Union assault demonstrated the exposed nature of the salient. In the fighting’s aftermath, Robert E. Lee had instructed Richard Ewell to “rectify his line and improve its defenses.” Improvements in the salient’s defenses had been ongoing since their original construction. On May 11, the Confederates strengthened the earthworks and added more traverses, cleared more ground in front by cutting down trees, and fashioned more abatis with “limbs and branches interwoven into one another.” Colonel Bryan Grimes of the 4th North Carolina boasted on this day, “We now have good breastworks and will slay them worse than ever.” Stonewall Brigade commander James Walker thought the fieldworks were “apparently impregnable.” The rain and occasional shots from Union sharpshooters hampered the labors. Some men recalled being soaked by afternoon thunderstorms. Danger from sharpshooters proved to be a constant throughout the day. At one point, Walker ordered Colonel William Terry of the This article is excerpted 4th Virginia to select two hundred men and “to from The Heart of feel” for the Yankees beyond their skirmish line. Hell: The Soldiers’ Before Terry acted, the order was revoked. Struggle for Morale among the salient’s defenders remained Spotsylvania’s Bloody high. “Our boys are in fine spirits,” Captain Angle by Jeffry D. Wert. John G. Webb of the 9th Georgia informed his Copyright © 2022 by father in a letter on this day. Jeffry D. Wert. Published Late in the afternoon, General Lee came to by the University of the Edgar Harrison home, which Ewell used North Carolina Press. as his headquarters. With Ewell were Robert Used by permission of Rodes, the Second Corps’ chief of artillery, the publisher. Brig. Gen. Armistead L. Long, and their staffs. www.uncpress.org Reports from scouts, skirmishers, and signal

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officers in the upper story of a brick church near the village courthouse indicated a movement by the enemy. While Lee was there, a 4:30 p.m. dispatch arrived from his son, cavalry Major General William H.F. “Rooney” Lee. Referring to the units of Burnside’s 9th Corps, the message read: “There is evidently a general move going on. Their trains are moving down the Fredericksburg road, and their columns are in motion.” If Grant were withdrawing and marching south, Lee wanted to pursue, either interdicting the movement or barring its route. Was the intelligence accurate, or were the Federals just redeploying units within their lines? During the previous night, while sitting on the porch of the McCoull House, Lee “playfully remarked” to the assembled subordinates, “I do not know which one of you may be called to the command of the army when I am gone. Until then you could not know the difficulties which beset the commander of an army, the greatest of which is to distinguish the true from the false reports which come from scouts.” His son’s dispatch evidently settled the matter. “Genl Lee had information which he considered reliable that Grant was moving his army somewhere else,” wrote the army’s chief of artillery, William N. Pendleton, two days later. Four days earlier, the Union commander had abandoned the Wilderness, moving south, so Lee had reason to conclude that his opponent was undertaking a similar movement. Lee ordered Ewell to evacuate the salient, withdrawing the Second Corps infantry divisions to the crossroads village. Ewell expressed concern for the men’s welfare in the heavy rain, asking if they could remain under their shelters and leave in the morning. Lee acceded to the request. The army needed to be prepared to march, so Lee directed Long to pull out the Second Corps batteries from the salient. “This involved the removal before dark of such artillery as might embarrass or retard a withdrawal from the lines at night,” Long explained in his memoirs. The gun crews “had to pass through a dense wood by a narrow and difficult road” to reach Spotsylvania Court House. The batteries limbered up and began rolling before dark. When Lee examined the salient and described it as “a wretched line” on May 9, the arguments for maintaining the position had been predicated on artillery batteries being posted behind the infantry. The guns began unlimbering that day and, by the morning of May 11, three battalions of Second Corps artillery manned the salient. Major Richard C.M. Page’s four-battery battalion and Lt. Col. William Nelson’s three-battery battalion were posted to cover the apex and approaches to the left and right front of the

UPTON’S ATTACKERS The Army of the Potomac regiments that took part in Upton’s attack were chosen for their mettle and strength under fire.

Brig. Gen. Russell

UNIT

Brig. Gen. Neill

Colonel Bidwell

COMMANDER

6th Corps MG John Sedgwick 1 1st Division MG Horatio Wright 2 2nd Brigade Col. Emory Upton 5th Maine Col. Clark S. Edwards 121st New York Col. Emory Upton 95th Pennsylvania Lt. Col. Edward Carroll [Killed at Wilderness]

96th Pennsylvania Lt. Col. William H. Lessig 3rd Brigade BG David Russell 3 6th Maine BG Hiram Burnham 49th Pennsylvania Col. Thomas M. Hulings [KIA at Spotsylvania CH]

119th Pennsylvania Lt. Col. Gideon Clark 2nd Division BG Thomas H. Neill 2nd Brigade Col. Lewis A. Grant 2nd Vermont Col. Amasa Tracy 4 5th Vermont Col. John R. Lewis 6th Vermont Col. Elisha L. Barney

[MW at Wilderness; died May 10] 5

3rd Brigade Col. Daniel D. Bidwell 43rd New York Col. John Wilson [Killed at the Wilderness]

77th New York

Col. Winsor B. French

1 Killed May 9 2 Replaced Sedgwick as 6th Corps commander 3 Replaced Wright as 1st Division commander 4 In command May 12 after John S. Tyler mortally wounded at the Wilderness 5 Lt. Sumner H. Lincoln was wounded at the Wilderness and not in action at Spotsylvania Court House, but later assumed command of the regiment.

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BOY GENIUS

FOR

WAR

straight down the fortifications,” while the other pair unlimbered roughly twenty yards to the right to fire “straight down their front.” Captain W.A. Tanner’s Virginia gun crews deployed their four cannon to the southwest of and at a right angle to Carrington’s crews. Carrington’s artillerists shouldered their cannon into traverses, which one of them described as “oblong pens of logs, filled with earth, with openings left for the guns.” They strengthened the works, but one of them stated later, “I remember that the men complained of the position and said that something was wrong as we were exposed to a cross fire on account of the federal line of battle.” Colonel Thomas Carter had been assigned to “special direction” of Cutshaw’s battalion. He had never believed that the salient was defensible, “so miserable was the shape.” He had voiced opposition to staying there “all the day” on May 10, to Lee and Ewell. But, according to Carter, Rodes and Johnson, “having made their breastworks, insisted they could hold it.” Car-

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salient, 29 cannon in all. Lieutenant Colonel Robert A. Hardaway’s five batteries of 20 guns were arrayed behind Rodes’ infantrymen and swept the ground in front of the salient’s western face. It had been one of Hardaway’s batteries that Emory Upton’s attackers had seized temporarily. In compliance with Lee’s orders, Long withdrew Page’s and Nelson’s battalions, stripping the main sections of the salient of critical artillery support. Two batteries from Major Wildred E. Cutshaw’s battalion moved forward from their reserve position, with eight cannon replacing 29. Major James M. Carrington’s Virginia battery unlimbered near the Stonewall Brigade, with a pair of guns posted to fire to the left and “really

PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN; DANA B. SHOAF COLLECTION

Emory Upton was a military mastermind. Born in 1839 in New York, Upton graduated eighth in his class of 45 cadets at West Point in May 1861 and immediately entered the Civil War’s fury. Even before he left the academy he presaged the upcoming conflict by engaging in a saber duel with fellow cadet Wade Hampton Gibbes, after the future South Carolina gunner accused Upton of having improper relations with African American women. The duel left Upton with a slashed cheek, but intact honor. His first major command was as the colonel of the 121st New York. If you visit the regiment’s monument on Little Round Top at Gettysburg, you’ll see that LEGACIES the veterans thought highly enough of him Upton’s profile is featured to place his bas relief on the obelisk. on the 121st New York’s It’s surprising to realize that Upton was Gettysburg monument. An still a colonel when he led the attack at 1889 copy, below, of Upton’s Spotsylvania. On May 12, 1864, the day Maj. postwar tactics manual. In 1867, Secretary of War Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock’s 2nd Corps Edwin Stanton prohibited attacked the Mule Shoe using Upton’s plan, the teaching of any other he was finally promoted to brigadier genmanual for the U.S. Army. eral. By the time the conflict ended, he was a brevet major general. Upton’s postwar war years were productive. A fervent believer that American troops were the best in the world but suffered from poor leadership and outdated tactics, he authored a number of books that influenced unit tactics. His book The Military Policy of the United States from 1775 had a profound impact on the development of the modern American military system. Union General James Wilson called Upton “incontestably the best tactician of either army…whether tested by battle or by the evolutions of the drill field and parade…he had a real genius for war.” For years, Upton suffered from debilitating headaches, which may have been caused by a brain tumor. On March 14, 1881, with his headaches worsening and his behavior becoming more erratic, Upton sat down at his desk at the Presidio in San Francisco, penned a letter to his sister, wrote a note resigning his commission, picked up his Colt .45 and shot himself in the head. He was 41 years old. “Up to the time when he was disabled by the disease which caused his death,” Wilson said, “he was, all things considered, the most accomplished soldier in our service.” —M.A.W.

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PHOTO BY MELISSA A. WINN; DANA B. SHOAF COLLECTION

ter decided to remain with Cutshaw’s batteries in the salient and to spend the night with artillery chief Long. Like Carter, battalion commander Hardaway raised objections to the withdrawal of his batteries. “I told Gen. Rodes & Ramseur,” Hardaway asserted in a postwar letter, “that if they would sustain me in a court martial, I would disobey orders and retain my artillery in position though I had orders to move at dark and Gen Lee had left the McCoull house and I could not communicate with him.” Hardaway encountered Armistead Long and perhaps pleaded his case. Long told him that “he did not intend for the guns to be brought out until the troops left.” Hardaway informed his battery commanders to remain in position until the withdrawal of Rodes’ infantry, which had been planned for the next morning. Long’s retention of Hardaway’s and Cutshaw’s batteries was perhaps based on the judgment that if the Yankees attacked again, it would be on Rodes’ front. “The withdrawal of these guns was the one fatal Confederate blunder of this whole campaign,” observed Porter Alexander, who kept his First Corps batteries with the infantry in the works on Laurel Hill. The reports of a Union retreat “proved erroneous,” but Lee accepted their accuracy. Believing the reports to be true, he might have seen an opportunity to regain the initiative in the campaign and to strike the enemy while on the march. The removal of the artillery would have saved some time at the outset of the pursuit but, if he was mistaken about Grant’s intentions, withdrawing the artillery incurred serious risk. Perhaps historian Gordon Rhea had it right, “Never had Lee made a more egregious miscalculation.” When Lee rode away from the salient, he stopped at Henry Heth’s headquarters in a church in the village. A sick A.P. Hill and other officers were with Heth when Lee arrived. They criticized Grant for attacking the Confederate earthworks and having his men “slaughtered.” Lee countered, “Gentlemen, I think that General Grant had managed his affairs remarkably well up to the present.” Then, turning to Heth, the army commander asserted: “My opinion is the enemy are preparing to retreat tonight to Fredericksburg. I wish you to have everything in readiness to pull out at a moment’s notice, but do not disturb your artillery, until you commence moving. We must attack these people if they retreat.” Hill interjected, stating, “General Lee, let them continue to attack our breastworks, we can stand that very well.” Lee answered, “This army cannot stand a siege; we must end this business on the battlefield, not in a fortified place.” With this done, Lee walked out of the church, mounted Traveller, and rode away in the darkness. Inspired by Upton’s success, At 5 o’clock a.m. on May 12, Grant launched the 2nd Corps, some 20,000 troops, at the Mule Shoe. The Federal troops smashed through the Confederate earthworks, helped initially by the fact the Southern artillery was still being withdrawn. Twenty-two hours of horrific fighting resulted. The U.S. troops captured 3,000 Confederates, including two generals, and 20 field-

HE GOT THE LATTER

Corporal Silas Shirley of the 16th Mississippi Infantry survived the May 10 onslaught. Two days later on May 12, however, Shirley died when Maj. Gen. Winfield Hancock’s attack, following Upton’s tactics, careened into the Mule Shoe, initiating a full day of battle.

pieces. But once again, the supporting Union assaults failed to help exploit the breakthrough, and when the fighting died down, Lee’s men held a patched-up line one mile to the rear from their original position that defied the Army of the Potomac. Grant and Meade’s men would probe the Spotsylvania Line until May 21, when the Federal troops shifted around Lee’s left flank once more, heading for the North Anna River.

Jeffry D. Wert is a retired Pennsylvania high school history teacher and a Civil War historian. His books include biographies of Generals James Longstreet, J.E.B. Stuart, and George Armstrong Custer and works on the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac. JUNE 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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RETURN TO GETTYSBURG AGING VETS FACED A NUMBER OF CHALLENGES AT THE

1913 REUNION BY RICHARD SELCER

RALLY ONCE AGAIN

A column of veterans trudges down a dirt lane on a hot Pennsylvania day in July, heading for their tents at the 50th reunion of the Battle of Gettysburg. In 1863, heat and dust also plagued them, along with deadly bullets and shellfire.

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he common story of the 1913 reunion of the Blue and Gray at Gettysburg emphasizes camaraderie between former foes and the shared reminiscences of past glories. More than 50,000 elderly veterans showed up, creating the biggest tent encampment on American soil since the Civil War. The national press covered the four-day event in exhaustive detail, and President Woodrow Wilson gave his own “Gettysburg Address” that, while not quite on a par with Lincoln’s, was still widely praised. There was another side to the reunion that has been lost amid all the nostalgia and patriotism attached to the event, however. One of heat, chow shortages, and short tempers. Some of those reports have come to light only recently thanks to the online digitization of newspaper archives. Reporters did not have recording devices or readily available databases for fact-checking. They were reliant on memory and notes to write their stories. That is why names were spelled differently in various reports and some men could get away with telling whoppers about their age and wartime service. Veterans came from 46 of the 48 states (minus only Nevada and Wyo-

ming). Those who came from the Far West spent four days or more on trains to get to Gettysburg, a town served by just one rail line. Some of the aging men had argued for a Gettysburg reunion ever since the last one 25 years earlier in 1888. While there were still enough of them around to hold a reunion, they lobbied for another grand get-together. Not all, however, were in favor. Seventy-seven-year-old R.M. Holbert of Fort Worth, Texas, who had fought under the Stars and Bars remained an unreconstructed Rebel. “I gave those Yankees all that was a-comin’ to ’em in the sixties,” he said, “and it is certain I’m not goin’ to fool ’round ’em now.” Besides, he added, “Gettysburg is too far north of the Mason-Dixon line.” On the other extreme was an 85-year-old veteran who lived with his

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after. Pickett actually died in 1875—with two good legs. he reunion was hosted by the U.S. Army, the Gettysburg Battlefield Commission, and the town of Gettysburg itself. Except for those who might have friends in the town or managed to secure a room in the Gettysburg Hotel, everybody got the same accommodations: U.S. Army tents, courtesy of the Philadelphia Supply Depot. Their occupants included officers and privates alike. The tents were laid out in street after street covering several hundred acres. Some of the old vets got lost at night trying to find their street. The Army also set up mess tents, rest stations, hospitals, and telephone lines for an expected crowd of 40 to 50 thousand. All their planning and preparation, however, were overwhelmed by the 55,000 veterans and 10,000 visitors who showed up. The Battlefield Commission put together the program and raised money, and the town threw open its doors symbolically speaking. But the town’s hospitality extended only so far. They prohibited the sale of alcohol, so the elderly gents had to make do with what they had brought with them or send out to other nearby towns, a little foraging reminiscent of the old days. The spirit of camaraderie included former rivals sharing a bottle in get-togethers at night, resulting in “many cases” of “overindulgence in alcohol” being treated in the local hospital. The Blue and Gray did not just meet at Gettysburg. Many former enemies traveled together, sometimes for several days. They were already acquainted with each other back in their hometowns and had worked together before. For instance, on Decoration Day (Memorial Day) every year, United Confederate Veteran (UCV)

NEW ARRIVALS

A few of the 55,000 veterans who attended the reunion disembark from their train and head for the largest veteran gathering in Gettysburg history. They are remarkably overdressed for the summer compared with current standards. Note the “OHIO” on the lead veteran’s hatband.

son. The son told the old man he could not go “under any circumstances,” so the vet crawled out a window and went anyway. Who could be neutral about something so important to their lives? Newspapers in countless little towns across the country followed the preparations of the veterans who planned to go. Some of the men whom nobody had paid attention to for years were suddenly celebrities and interviewed by every reporter who could get them to sit down. The resulting stories were sometimes long on derring-do and short on facts, reflecting the passage of the years and the desire to please. Judge Charles C. Cummings of Fort Worth, who considered himself something of a historian, recounted how as a member of the 7th Mississippi Infantry he had been wounded on the first day of the battle. But as he went on, he came off better than Maj. Gen. George Pickett, who in his version lost a leg in the charge bearing his name and “died as a result of his injury” soon there-

BUNKMATES

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Charles McConnell, who served as a sergeant in the 24th Michigan, brought this tent. The Iron Brigade veterans shared the canvas with their former First Day foes from North Carolina.

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FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG; REPORT OF THE PENNSYLVANIA COMMISSION DECEMBER 31, 1913; HERITAGE AUCTIONS,DALLAS

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camps and Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.) posts in the former Confederate states held joint ceremonies while decorating the veterans’ graves in the local cemeteries, albeit with different flags. Now they collaborated in raising the money to attend the reunion. Many of the elderly gents, living on piddling pensions and the charity of family members, could not afford such a trip on their own. Together Blue and Gray launched fund-raising drives. In Fort Worth, for instance, the members of the R.E. Lee Camp of the UCV and the William S. Parmley Post of the G.A.R. formed a joint committee they called the “Blue and Gray Committee” to raise money and plan the trip. They arranged with the St. Louis and Southwestern Railway (aka the “Cotton Belt”) for their very own car to take them at the bargain rate of $39.40 per person round-trip, reservations required. At one point 80 veterans were said to be making the trip from Fort Worth, but when the day arrived only five had actually purchased tickets. Their numbers swelled to 20 as they were joined by men from as far away as Houston. Their most distinguished traveling companion was former Confederate General Felix H. Robertson, the Texas representative on the Gettysburg Battlefield Commission who had already spent time on site preparing for the big event. Now he was back in Texas to lead the Texas contingent. The intrepid travelers set out on their journey on June 26 at 8:50 p.m. They picked up addi-

STATE SEGREGATED

The encampment was situated between the Emmitsburg Road and West Confederate Avenue. The Great Tent is at far left, and a railroad serviced the camp. It’s interesting that the souvenir pennant at right pits Grant, not Meade, against Lee.

tional veterans as they crossed Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri, and on the way shared liquid refreshment they had brought on board to ease their aching bones and pass the time more pleasantly. Thanks to the Cotton Belt’s arrangements they did not have to change cars even once all the way across five states. They arrived hale and hearty at Gettysburg’s little train depot on the night of June 30 only to discover there was a shortage of tents. They had to sleep on the ground under the stars that night but took the foul-up in good nature, recalling similar sleeping arrangements 50 years before. At least they did not have to eat hardtack, and no one would be shooting at them the next day. Some of the men preferred to sleep outside, at least until a deluge hit on July 2. There were separate encampments for Blue and Gray, but many veterans spent their time visiting the other side’s tents. To accommodate the additional thousands, the Army had to scramble, even borrowing cirJUNE 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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side from accommodations and food, the biggest problem was the brutal July heat. The temperature reached 90˚ F. outside on the second day, reaching 103˚ indoors with no such thing as air conditioning. The forecast was that it would go higher before it was time to leave. Those temperatures were similar to what they had been in 1863, but these were no longer young men hardened by campaigning. Hundreds would suffer heat prostration and wind up in the hospital tents over the course of the four days. On July 2, General Hunter Leggett, the U.S. Army officer in charge, told a reporter that 6,000 men had already departed, and he estimated another 1,000 leaving that night. He tried to put the best face on it by explaining that the old fellows had gotten what they came for: a chance to see the old battlefield one more time, shake hands with long-ago foes, and reconnect with comrades. Having done all that, they were ready to return home and sleep in their own beds and eat home cooking. On July 2, a storm blew through that replaced sweltering temperatures with soaked clothing. Getting around the battlefield, which had not changed much since 1863, was a challenge for the aged veterans. While some made pilgrimages to Devil’s Den or Culp’s Hill, most were not so energetic. They stayed in the shade and hydrated with one form of liquid refreshment or another. Most of the socializing that went on was at night after the sun went down and the day’s heat had dissipated. Some Union vets organized an impromptu fife and drum corps and went calling on their Confederate comrades.

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DONE IN BY THE SUN

United States troops place an overheated veteran into an ambulance. A soldier holds his campaign hat over the face of the prostrate victim. Thousands of the aging warriors left early due to the heat.

brothers in arms. It was also the only tent on the whole field not furnished by the U.S. Army.

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cus tents and packing in the assigned occupants. Still, there were not enough tents on hand, and shipping in more from St. Louis would have taken too long. So hundreds slept on the ground, willingly or otherwise. The chief complaint about the Army-served chow was not the quality of the food but the meager amounts they got at every meal. Most of them had not gone hungry since the end of the war, and now they were reliving another unpleasant aspect of soldiering that they thought they had put behind them. There were gestures of kindness over and above the common courtesies. Colonel Charles McConnell, a 24th Michigan color bearer at Gettysburg, brought from Chicago a large tent to serve as the headquarters for his old regiment. Once it was set up, however, he invited the survivors of James Pettigrew’s North Carolina brigade to join them. The two regiments had fought each other on July 1, 1863; now they would gather under the same tent as

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The old fellows were not much interested in the first day’s fighting. Instead, they wanted to visit the sites and recount the stories of the second and third days. That was true of both sides. Judging by the reports, a remarkable number of the Confederates in attendance took part in Pickett’s Charge, or at least that was the way they remembered it. Fifty-year-old memories could get blurred. Two veterans, one Union and the other Confederate, met at Devil’s Den. The Confederate found the spot where he had been wounded on the second day and recalled that a Yank had saved his life by giving him water. The Union veteran cried out that he was that Yank. The problem with the touching story is that the Johnny Reb had been a member of Garnett’s Brigade, and they didn’t fight at Devil’s Den. Reporters wrote down the stories they heard without attempting to verify their authenticity, sometimes acknowledging that some stories may have been the result of “fifty years of embellishment.” According to veterans of both sides, there had been hard hand-to-hand fighting on all three days, at places with memorable names: Barlow’s Knoll, Culp’s Hill, Devil’s Den, the Peach Orchard, Little Round Top, the Bloody Angle. The oldest veteran at the reunion was Micyah Weiss, a Union vet who said he was either 110 or 112 years old (the story changed) and who also happened to be a veteran of the Mexican War (1846-48). If true he was a freak of nature. He said he had enlisted with the 144th Pennsylvania at the advanced age of 55, meaning he was older than most of the senior officers in his second war. No one at Gettysburg in 1913 asked for a birth certificate, and his stories of service in two wars entertained his fellows for four days. The youngest was 61-year-old John Clem who said he had

been a Union drummer boy in 1863, but his story, too, was subsequently questioned. Distinguished attendees included the governors of six states (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Virginia, Kentucky, North Dakota, and Iowa). Texas Governor Oscar Colquitt considered coming, and as late as June 25, newspapers reported he was going. But at the last minute he decided not to go, instead naming General Robertson, the state’s only native-born Civil War general to represent Texas. For those with long memories, Robertson was the same officer who had been disgraced by the actions of his troops in the Saltville Massacre (October 2, 1864) to the point that General Lee called for his court martial. But all was forgiven now. Robertson was in

PANORAMAS

The top view was taken from the perspective of the Emmitsburg Road. The Great Tent is at left, and the plinth of the unfinished Virginia Monument can be seen in the distant treeline. The bottom image looks to the east. The town of Gettysburg is at far left, and the Round Tops are at far right.

JUST HOW OLD?

Micyah Weiss served in the 144th Pennsylvania. He claimed he was somewhere north of 100 years old, and was proclaimed the oldest veteran at the 50th reunion.

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IS DEAD, MY SON IS DEAD”

One person who did not attend the reunion was Sallie Pickett, aka LaSalle Corbell Pickett. Major General George E. Pickett’s widow, 70 years old, was still mourning the death of her son, George Jr., two years earlier. As she wrote a friend: “Oh, I would like so much to be there, but do not feel that I would be able to bear up under the flood of emotions memory would arouse. My husband is dead, my son is dead, and it would be best for me not to attend.” Her health was also not up to the trip from her home in Washington, D.C. So, she sent her two grandsons, George III and Christiancy Pickett, to represent the family. They were the center of attention for all the Virginia veterans who had hoped “Mother Pickett” would attend the reunion as she had in 1888. The Pickett boys, 19 and 17 respectively, brought their grandmother’s warm wishes and posed for pictures. Veterans presented them with a special gift for Sallie. It was a gold pocket watch engraved to “Mrs. Genl. George E. Pickett.” The message on the back said everything about their high regard for the general and his lady. Engraved in tiny print letters, all caps, to her was this inscription: “...by Pickett’s men in memory not only of our beloved general but her own loyalty to us his soldiers. July 3rd 1913.” Sallie cherished the reunion watch until her death in 1931, as well as a watch engraved with George’s battles, which she had given him as an anniversary gift. She considered herself George’s spokesman to his men. They in turn revered her. —R.S. 44

KEEP THOSE MEMORIES FRESH

Plenty of knickknacks were produced to market to veterans and visitors at the reunion. This pot-metal plaque featuring Lee’s and Meade’s headquarters was set off with cheap gilding.

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“MY HUSBAND

HISTORIC COLLECTION/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; MELISSA A. WINN COLLECTION

Sallie Pickett

Gettysburg on May 21 when Gettysburg officially welcomed the Battlefield Commission. He delivered the opening speech, receiving a “tremendous ovation” from the assembled townspeople and making him the first Southerner ever to speak as the Pennsylvania town’s representative at a public event. Now he was back and leading the Texas contingent of veterans. The Gettysburg experience was a dream come true for Robertson. In the spirit of forgive and forget his checkered past was not brought up. He was feted by Yanks and Johnny Rebs alike. For four days he strutted about the town in his general’s uniform, which was spotless and fit surprisingly well for something that had been in the closet for 50 years. One of the warm, fuzzy anecdotes to come out of the reunion involved Robertson on the last night. As related by him later, he chanced to meet a former West Point classmate who fought on the other side, General Barlow (presumably Francis Barlow, the one Union general by that name). Both in his telling were members of the class of 1857, and now they were seeing each other for the first time since 1861. The Texan recognized Barlow first and introduced himself, and they spent several hours in Barlow’s tent reminiscing about West Point and their wartime experiences. Nobody back in Texas questioned the story, but it had a few problems, beginning with the fact that Francis Barlow died in 1896. He also never attended West Point. Robertson entered West Point in 1857, but he would have been a member of the Class of 1861, not 1857, had he graduated, but he left in January 1861 to join the Confederacy. A lot of stories also of dubious authenticity were perpetrated at Gettysburg during those four days of 1913. Reputations were burnished after the fact, careers rewritten, and memories created out of whole cloth. Among Texans, however, Felix Robertson, last surviving general officer of the Confederacy (he died in 1928), would always be a hero. Neither the old warhorse Felix Robertson nor the attending governors were the biggest celebrities at the reunion. That honor went to the descendants of beloved general officers, a select group that included a son and two grandsons of Lt. Gen. James Longstreet, A.P. Hill’s daugh-

ter, two grandsons of General George Pickett, and three granddaughters of General George Gordon Meade. he grand reunion of Blue and Gray wrapped up on July 4 with a series of speeches climaxed by President Woodrow Wilson’s speech. Then it was home for the old fellows. The “after-action” report on the event said there were only nine fatalities during the four days, eight Union men and one Confederate. One newspaper reported that one of those deaths was the result of being struck by a car. It is impossible to know exactly how many attended. The count of Lewis Beitler who compiled the Report of the Pennsylvania Commission was 53,407, but that number blurs the fact that thousands departed before it was over. Various newspaper reporters on the scene also offered different counts. How to count them? No one could know for sure how many were there. The theme of “unity of North and South,” was endlessly repeated afterwards. It was symbolized by the meeting of the survivors of Pickett’s Charge, Billy Yank and Johnny Reb, at the stone wall on July 3, exactly 50 years after they clashed there in a death struggle. Now the onetime foes shook hands across the wall. (The latter may have been true, but the former was open to question.) Contrary to later reports, all was not peace and love between the old gents. A mixed group got into it in the dining room of the Gettysburg Hotel on July 2 when a Union vet defended Abraham Lincoln against the jibes of Southerners. Seven men were stabbed, all of them Yanks. The victims were all lightly injured, and their assailant was released. Fort Worth Judge Charles C. Cummings was not shy about partisan feelings in his speech on the last day of the reunion. Said he proudly, “The South has risen again,” not as some sort of “New South” but as “the same Old South!” Buried in the middle of his speech, this statement drew no response from the crowd. Among all the half-truths and tall tales to come out of the reunion was one myth that has taken on added significance in recent years, namely that the Gettysburg event did nothing to honor the nurses who attended the thousands of wounded in 1863. But they were certainly honored in 1913. Mrs. Salome M. Stewart, a resident of the town, turned her house “on a quiet little street” into a headquarters for the nurses of both sides. During the battle it had been an emergency hospital for the wounded of both sides run by Mrs. Stewart and six like-minded women of the town. With word of the reunion spread across the country, the nurses came back to Gettysburg

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HISTORIC COLLECTION/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; MELISSA A. WINN COLLECTION

SHOWING THEIR COLORS

Members of the Union 2nd Corps, top, near the famous Angle on Cemetery Ridge with a banner bearing their corps insignia. Above, a Virginia veteran with the Richmond Clothing Bureau coat he wore during the war.

from as far away as New York, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin. Some of the veterans of both sides who had been under their tender ministrations came by to see them. Even reporters dropped by to see why all the attention on these gray-haired ladies and hopefully get a fresh human-interest angle on the reunion. So, no, those women were hardly forgotten. The warm afterglow of the Grand Reunion stayed with attendees long after they bid farewell to Gettysburg. Judge Cummings pronounced it, “the grandest occasion of the century,” adding, “The spectacle of 50,000 men who formerly fought each other fraternizing will never be seen again.” Perhaps the most remarkable thing to come out of it was the proposal that Confederate and Union veterans’ organizations merge into one known as the United American Veterans. But nothing came of it. An occasional reunion with their opposite numbers was okay, but subsuming their unique identities into some integrated organization was too much.

Dr. Richard Selcer is a professor of history and author based in Fort Worth, Texas. He has authored 13 books and dozens of articles on American history. JUNE 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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The war in their words

‘Pretty Rough Times’ HEAVY ARTILLERYMAN LEWIS FOSTER

LEFT COMFORTABLE BARRACKS FOR THE FURY OF BATTLE B Y J O N A T H A N A . N O YA L A S

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GUARDING THE CAPITAL

Members of the 9th New York Heavy Artillery pose with an impressive array of firepower at a Washington, D.C., fort. The battery’s pup enjoys the view from the limber at far left.

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WHITE-GLOVE DUTY

A heavy artilleryman stands guard at Fort Foote near D.C. In spring 1864, many “Heavies” turned in their white dress gloves and went into the fight.

FORT GAINES

Dear Mother, I don’t see where the folks up north get the foundations for their rumors. I have not heard anything about this regiment being turned into infantry. Again the reason for the change of coats is that they want all the artillery to wear the same kind of coats. I don’t think we will leave here very soon… We are at work from 7 o’clock till ten. From 2 till 4 those that are not detailed on the fort have to drill on the big guns. I am detailed to work on the fort today… I am tired of working on roads and forts… I would like to go and garrison a Fort on the Sea Coast. Give my love to all Lewis FORT FOOTE

January 25, 1864

Dear Aunt, I have not been very well for about three weeks. It is three weeks ago today since I have done any duty. I am some better today… We expect our regiment will soon be filled up… It is so warm that the boys sit out by the side of the barracks in their shirt sleeves… We had some

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May 28, 1863

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mong the 28 regiments raised in New York as a result of President Abraham Lincoln’s call for 300,000 volunteers on July 1, 1862, was Colonel Joseph Welling’s 138th New York Volunteer Infantry, a regiment that was re-designated the 9th New York Heavy Artillery on December 9, 1862. Among those who answered Lincoln’s appeal and joined Welling’s regiment was Lewis Foster. Foster stated his age as 18 at the time of his enlistment in Company C on September 1, 1862, but in actuality he had turned 16 just four days before. Promoted to corporal on November 14, 1864, the resident of Wayne County, N.Y., served for the war’s duration with the 9th New York. On September 12, 1862, following a brief period of training, Foster and his comrades departed for Washington, D.C. Five days later they arrived in the nation’s capital. From that moment until May 18, 1864, the regiment served in Washington’s defenses. After that, however, they were one of the “Heavy” regiments pulled into the gory whirlpool of the 1864 Overland Campaign. The 9th never returned to its comfortable D.C. barracks, and spent the rest of its enlistment enduring rugged marches and bloody fights. In the spring of 2020, Alexander MacLeod, a descendant of a veteran of the regiment, donated 22 letters written by Lewis Foster, along with approximately 40 other missives penned by 10 other members of the unit and scores of other documents related to the 9th NYHA’s service, to the care of Shenandoah University’s McCormick Civil War Institute. All of these letters appear in “A Good Cause”: Letters from the Ninth New York Heavy Artillery. The letters excerpted here from Foster and an unidentified member of the regiment, offer insight into the regiment’s tenure in the capital’s defenses, service with Army of the Potomac in the spring of 1864, and in the conflict’s final months.

cold weather about a month ago. The river froze over so that the boys or some of them went across the river to Alexandria on the ice, but the ice is all out of the river now. [First Lieutenant Seth F.] Swift is getting to be pretty careless of his reputation, he drinks a considerable [amount]. He was on a spree one night with a lot of the officers and the next morning he was on guard and he was so drunk he could hardly stand up, he dropped his gun once, but the rest of the Officers was on and it all passed off. If the rest of the officers had not been on a spree with him and he come out to guard mounting drunk as he was then he would have been reduced to the HEAVY DRINKER ranks in no time. Cap[tain Harvey Follett] Bearded First Lieutenant don’t drink much now, his wife is here and Seth F. Swift is seated he carries himself pretty straight. at right along with two Your affectionate nephew. other officers in the 22nd Lewis New York, his first unit. Problems with alcohol lthough the work the regiment permay have caused Swift to formed during its first 20 months of resign his 9th New York commission in 1864. service—building roads, strengthening existing defenses, constructing new fortifications, and garrison work—proved important, some of the regiment’s members noted that they were “not particularly proud of its reputation” as construction laborers. They wanted to fight. That opportunity came in the late spring of 1864 when the regiment was ordered to join Maj. Gen. James Ricketts’ division of Maj. Gen. Horatio Wright’s 6th Corps. On May 18, 1864, the 1,900 men who comprised the 9th NYHA boarded three steamers—John Brooks, John W.D. Prouty, and State of Connecticut—and headed “to the front.” The scenes the regiment witnessed at Belle Plain Landing and in Fredericksburg, wounded from the battlefields of the Wilderness and Spotsylvania, proved jarring.

When the 9th joined the 6th Corps near the end of the month the men seemed “particularly pleased” to be part of it. However, the corps’ veterans wondered how this regiment, now commanded by Secretary of State William Seward’s son, Colonel William Seward, Jr., would perform in combat. While some of the 6th’s veterans derisively referred to the 9th as the “White-gloved Soldiers,” those labels no longer seemed fitting after the regiment’s baptism of fire at the Battle of Cold Harbor on June 1, 1864—an engagement in which the 9th suffered 148 casualties.

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FORT WARD, VA

May 17, 1864

GETTING IN FIGHTING FASHION

As Lewis Foster noted on May 17, 1864, the men in his company traded in their dress coats, like the one at left, piped in artillery red, for looser fitting four-button fatigue (“sack”) coats, right.

Dear Mother, Our Co[mpany] was sent to Fort Ward….We expect soon to go to the front. Our bed ticks have been turned in to the Quartermaster. We have turned in our shoulder scales and have to turn in our dress coats and draw blouses. A blouse is a loose kind of a sack coat, it is cool and comfortable. The barracks that we are in now are good comfortable ones. They are well ventilated with lots of doors and windows and on the roof is three little cupolas. The sides are made of slats so the barracks are well ventilated, our beds are easily described. We have got bunks and good soft boards to lay on with our knapsack for a pillow. We have orders to be ready to march at any time that we are called JUNE 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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upon. We have got a lot of hard tack here ready so when we do march we can bid good bye to soft bread… There is lots of wounded soldiers coming into the city every day… According to reports Grant is whipping Lee all to pieces….Grant is bound to crush Lee before he can get to Richmond and I think he will. My love to you mother, Lewis

ALMOST ALL TIRED

FREDERICKSBURG

SIGNS OF WAR’S COST

Injured soldiers at a hospital in Fredericksburg in May 1864. Scenes such as this one greeted members of the 9th New York when they arrived in the city and were a slight taste of what lay ahead. 50

ARE

FIGHTING”

COLD HARBOR

June 8, 1864

Dear Aunt, We have had one hard fight [Cold Harbor], probably you have heard….I went through the battle without a scratch except a slight mark on my nose. We had to fight in the woods. I stood behind a tree loading my gun when a ball struck the tree and glanced off a piece of bark hitting me on the nose starting the blood a little… Four companies of our regiment were supporting a battery….Our regiment was left back from the division to guard a wagon train but about one o’clock on the morning of the 1st of this month we was ordered to join our brigade. We marched about 10 miles and overtook our brigade then we marched about 7 miles and stopped and built a rifle pit and about three o’clock we was ordered to fall in line and attack the enemy. Our brigade formed in line of battle and charged on the enemy… We charged across an open field into the woods where the rebels were, we drove them through the woods…. Some of our boys got rebel haversacks with cornbread and bacon. I got some of their bacon….We have laid in reach of bullets every day this month….Some of the rebel prisoners say that if we drive them from this position Richmond is gone up. I hope it is so….Our men sent in a flag of truce last night for a cessation of hostilities to bury the dead. Our men and the Rebels met each other half way and exchanged papers. Our men are building rifle pits and batteries. They calculate to shell the rebels when they get everything ready. Lewis

n July 5, 1864, Ricketts’ division, due to the threat Confederate General Jubal Early posed to the nation’s capital once his command of approximately 14,000 troops pushed beyond Harpers Ferry, received orders to “take transports for Baltimore.” After arriving in Baltimore on July 8, the regiment boarded train cars that carried them west to

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©VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES; THE 9TH NEW YORK HEAVY ARTILLERY

Dear Mother, On the 18th our regiment embarked on board a transport and steamed down the river about 70 miles to Belle Plain Landing at the mouth of the Potomac Creek. It took three transports to carry our regiment… What sights of government property did we see there. There was train after train there of wounded soldiers and rebel prisoners….There is lots of guerrillas in this neighborhood. They quite often attack our trains. Every train has to be guarded from one station to another….There is lots of soldiers here and more coming every day. The rebel prisoners that are here are sulked and will not answer any questions. I don’t blame them for that….There is a train of ambulances at the dock that just came in from Grant’s army with wounded. Some are wounded in the arms, hands, some in the leg or feet, some in the head and face, some in the body…we may see some wild rebels before long. Your loving son, Lewis

SOLDIERS

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

May 21, 1864

“THE REBEL

Frederick, Md. The following day, the 9th NYHA fought in what would be one of its The 9th New York fought costliest engagements—the Battle of at Cold Harbor in Colonel Monocacy. The 9th suffered 207 casualties, Benjamin Smith’s Colonel Seward among them. In addition brigade. Its position is to receiving “a slight wound in the arm,” circled. The 9th served Seward broke his ankle after his horse “was with the 6th Maryland; the 110th, 122nd, and shot” and fell on him. 126th Ohio; and the 67th Nine days after Monocacy, the regiment, and 138th Pennsylvania. although not engaged, “came under fire” The regiments charged along the banks of the Shenandoah River at the prominent woodline. the Battle of Cool Spring. Over the next three months, the 9th NYHA experienced incessant marching and intense combat in the Shenandoah Valley as part of Union Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan’s Army of the Valley.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

THIS IS NOT A DRILL

and cabbages… Our men captured one Johnnie and the prisoners that our men captured today says that the Rebel soldiers are almost all tired of fighting and that there is lots of them that would desert and come into our lines but they cannot. They are kept well guarded. He also says that there is lots of them skulking around

CAMP NEAR KERNSTOWN, VA

November 26, 1864

We had a sort of Thanksgiving dinner yesterday, but it was a small fry. I tell you there was turkey and fowls of every [sort] sent by the folks at home, but they had to pass through so many officer’s hands before they got to us that there was not much left… It is reported in Camp today that the rebels are evacuating Petersburg, but I don’t believe it. It is only a rumor… You would laugh to see the huts we have got up here. They look almost half like beaver huts or something of that kind and [you] would smile to see the tools we have borrow[ed] from farmers here….We came across a wagon shop with lots of wagon spokes in it, all carved good….It was an old Rebel that owned the shop and I think he was a guerrilla as there was a lot of blue clothes found between the ceiling and the clapboards of the house….We took all the hay [he] had and a lot of potatoes

MONOCACY CASUALTY

Colonel William H. Seward Jr. took command of the regiment on May 22, 1864. At the Battle of Monocacy, Seward’s shot horse fell on him and broke his right leg. The injury left a scar on his leg that was noted in a 1908 examination. JUNE 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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SLOWING DOWN JUBAL EARLY

Union 6th Corps soldiers fire on advancing Confederates at the July 12, 1864, Battle of Monocacy. The 9th New York suffered more than 200 casualties and helped repulse a number of attacks during the engagement.

December 27, 1864

Dear Mother, It is pretty rough times here now for some reason or another. We don’t get more than half enough rations now… One of the boys that tents with me… bought bread and flour and so we have got along better than some of the boys… We have more duty to do than we did in the summer. We have to do picket duty, guard duty, drill, and 25 men have to stay to the fort half of the night and keep awake and we have to all get up at five in the morning and stay to the fort until daylight then we have to carry our wood nearly a mile.

“THE PICKETS KEEP FIRING ALL

THE

TIME”

Since we got the news of the capture of Savannah there has [been] 180 rebs come into our lines. They said that a whole brigade started but some of their own batteries were turned on them. Some … say that there is thousands of them that will come to us as soon as they get paid again so their families can have the money to keep them from starving. Your loving son, Lewis

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NEW YORK STATE MILITARY MUSEUM & VETERANS RESEARCH CENTER

uring the first week of December, Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant ordered the 6th Corps to move from the Shenandoah Valley back to Petersburg. Shortly before noon on December 3, 1864, the 9th NYHA broke camp, marched to the train depot north of Winchester, and boarded cars that carried them to Harpers Ferry. Two days later the regiment reached Petersburg. Although the New Yorkers returned to a familiar place the regiment’s veterans reflected upon how different the unit looked compared to when it departed Petersburg the previous summer. The fighting from Monocacy to Cedar Creek had taken its toll. “Scarcely more than half as many men return to Petersburg as left it in the preceding July. The months had sadly ravaged our ranks,” one of the 9th’s veterans recalled.

FORT WADSWORTH, VA

in the mountains that would come into our lines but they are afraid that the Yankees will treat them as they do guerrillas and that is to hang them. Some of the folks hide their things in the woods and bury them, but the boys manage to find the most of it. Today the boys found a lot of honey, butter, potatoes, cabbages, and other edibles hid in the woods. Your affectionate son, Lewis

FORT WADSWORTH

February 4, 1865

Dear Mother, The pickets keep firing all the time. Once in a few minutes our reserve pickets fire a volley that stops the rebs for a while but they soon commenced popping again. There is all kinds of rumors in camp about peace. Some says they heard that peace was soon going to be declared and some says that [Francis] Blair’s mission to Richmond was an entire failure. Then rumor says the peace commissioners have gone to Washington from Richmond to see what terms can be agreed upon, but I don’t credit much of it, but I hope it is true… I wish the war would close and that we could go home….I have seen men enough killed to satisfy my war fever entirely. From your loving soldier boy, Lewis

YANKEE PENNANT

A swallowtail pennant used by the 9th. Such flags helped mark an artillery battery’s flanks. After the unit converted to infantry, it would have been used to set the right and left flanks of the regimental formation.

FORT FISHER [PETERSBURG, VA.]

February 18, 1865

F NEW YORK STATE MILITARY MUSEUM & VETERANS RESEARCH CENTER

Dear Mother, We have left Fort Wadsworth and are quartered at Fort Fisher about three miles from our other camp….The Rebel lines are but a short distance from our own and we can see them very plainly when they are at work on their forts and breastworks. There is no firing on the picket line except [when] the Johnnies try to desert….The picket lines are close to them and their men desert very fast. Some nights if it is pretty dark some few to twenty will come in one night. Sometimes a squad of the Johnnie’s pickets will come half way and some of our boys go out to meet them and talk with each other. We have got some strong works here, and if the Johnnies pitch into us here we will give them a warm reception….I can hear the pickets yelling at each other. From your loving son, Lewis ollowing the Army of Northern Virginia’s surrender on April 9, 1865, the 9th NYHA protected the Richmond and Danville Railroad. The 9th performed this duty until May 22, when it was ordered to proceed north to Washington, D.C. On June 8 the regiment, along with the entire 6th Corps, participated in the Grand Review of the corps. While the review, as one of the regiment’s veterans recalled, presented an opportunity for “all those who had fought to save the Capital might, in triumph, march through its streets,” as the following excerpted letter, penned by an unidentified member of the regiment, notes it was a miserable experience. CAMP 9th NYHA Near Washington, D.C.

June 9, 1865

Dear Parents, We had that great Review yesterday. I thought I would write a few lines to let you know that I was one of the number to live through it, but I had a pretty rough time of it. The day was scorching hot there was not the least bit of air in the city. There was a great many men sun stroke & some died, some dropped dead in the ranks. Officers fell from their horses….It must [be] a great pleasure for them head officers…there is no use of these

reviews….I shall not go on another review, if we have to go on another I shall fall out the first thing… All that lacks of our coming home is making out our discharges & our transportation….I don’t think I would give much for a soldier’s labor when we get home for they are like a lot of broken down horses. It will take food, clothing, rest, & washed about 3 times a week in warm water with some good bay rum in it to get his hide cleaned, a glorious old physic & the thorough cleansing of the blood & stomach to make anything of the worst of us.

oster mustered out of the regiment on July 18, 1865, he returned to New York, but did not remain long in the Empire State. In 1867 Foster and his new bride, Albina (the couple married on September 15, 1867), headed west to Nebraska. According to Foster’s pension file the Foster family, which eventually included three children, lived and labored in Beaver Creek and Lincoln as a farmer for 25 years. For reasons unclear, the Fosters moved to Powhatan County, Va., by 1896. On September 28, 1912, battling various ailments including chronic rheumatism, arteriosclerosis, and “mental insufficiency,” Foster was admitted to the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers in Hampton, Va. He died at the home on November 2, 1912, and was buried in the Hampton National Cemetery.

Jonathan A. Noyalas is director of Shenandoah University’s McCormick Civil War Institute and the author or editor of numerous books,. including “A Good Cause”: Letters From the Ninth New York Heavy Artillery. JUNE 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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HOLDING THE

EAST PASS

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A local militia unit served as

Braxton Bragg’s spearpoint to

control Pensacola’s U.S. forts BY S H E R I T TA B I T I KO F E R

GARRISON DUTY

The 6th New York Infantry—“Wilson’s Zouaves”—occupied the pentagonal Fort Pickens in 1861 and defended it against repeated Confederate threats. It was one of only four Southern forts to remain in Union hands throughout the war.

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n January 1861, the firing upon Fort Sumter and the Civil War’s outbreak were still months away, but the war had already arrived in Pensacola, Fla. The strategic naval port had three forts (Barrancas, McRae, and Pickens) and a navy yard—the largest in the soon-to-be Confederate States. Control of the Federal installations around the bay were crucial to both sides looking to maintain a foothold in the state. Senator David L. Yulee strongly recommended that the secessionists in Florida should “lose no time” in trying to capture them, and they did not. On January 8, secessionists had already taken control of the neighboring U.S. arsenal at Chattahoochee and Fort Marion in St. Augustine, when Federal soldiers guarding Pensacola’s Fort Barrancas fired warning shots at unknown passersby. With shots fired, Southern-sympathizing Florida Governor Madison Starke Perry quickly decided to seize all the United States property he

could in Pensacola. Troops converged in the city from Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Georgia. Florida formally seceded from the United States on January 10, and two days later the navy yard surrendered to Southern troops. Forts Barrancas and McRae followed suit and were soon under secessionist control, but U.S. troops held strong onto Fort Pickens at the western tip of Santa Rosa Island. Its location and size made it the ideal position from which to blockade and control the entire harbor, and its control by the Federals gave the U.S. Army the upper hand in the area. Brigadier General Braxton Bragg, who assumed command of the Confederate forces in Pensacola on March 11, 1861, believed that even if Fort

BRAGG WAS DETERMINED TO DEFEND THE EAST PASS, THAT JOB WOULD FALL TO THE NEWLY FORMED WALTON GUARDS AND

Pickens could be captured, it could not be maintained for long. By the end of April, Federal reinforcements had arrived at the fort and blockading efforts of key port cities had begun along the Gulf Coast. Bragg understood that he couldn’t contend with these forces, but he could try to hold them at bay. He was determined to defend the East Pass, and that job, he decided, would fall to the newly formed Walton Guards.

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FLORIDA MEMORY (2)

DEPARTMENT HEAD

In March 1861, Jefferson Davis assigned Mexican War hero Braxton Bragg to command the region around Pensacola and to train the area’s new recruits to the Confederate Army.

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n March 1, 1861, east of Pensacola in Eucheeanna, the county seat of Walton County, the town’s women organized and marched through the streets, chanting, “Go boys, to your country’s call! I’d rather be a brave man’s widow than a coward’s wife.” Inspired by the patriotic sentiment of their kin and community, 60 of the local men agreed to fight for the Confederate cause, and formed the Walton Guards. In early April, they elected as their captain William McPherson, a prominent 27-year-old local lawyer and graduate of Cumberland University Law School in Lebanon, Tenn. The unit embarked on the schooner Lady of the Lake at Alaqua Creek, destined for Garnier Bayou and then the “Narrows” to guard the East Pass. This corridor at the mouth of Choctawhatchee Bay, also called Santa Rosa Sound, allowed passage between the mainland and Santa Rosa Island. Most important, the East Pass and Narrows were the gateways to the “back door” of Fort Pickens, just 40 miles to the west. Confederates could use it as an avenue of assault, the Federals as a safe bypass to reinforce or resupply the fort. The only Confederate force protecting the East Pass was the Walton Guards, who set up their encampment, dubbed Camp Walton, around a collection of tall Mississippian Lt. Reddick mounds near the shoreline. Life at Camp Walton was fairly comfortable for the Guards. Their proximity to home and an ample source of fresh fish, timber, and entertainment along the beach made service in the Confederacy seem easy. Lieutenant Henry W. Reddick remembered, “We soon had the camp ground and drill grounds cleared up

BATTLE STATIONS

FLORIDA MEMORY (2)

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U.S. forts built to protect Florida’s mainland became battlegrounds for Federal and state troops after Florida’s secession. The Walton Guards camped east of Pensacola to defend the East Pass (inset) against Union troops reinforcing Fort Pickens.

and set to work building our houses, and in about a week we were all fixed and had a jolly good time.” The existing earthen mounds also provided natural protection from the direction of the Narrows, making the grounds of Camp Walton ideal for their mission. The Federal gunboats Water Witch, Wyandotte, and Maria A. Wood were tasked with blockading the East Pass from any Confederate breaches. Small skirmishes with the Walton Guards on July 12, 1861, and again on February 1, 1862, resulted in no casualties, but both sides became more wary of the other after a failed attempt by Bragg to capture Fort Pickens on the night of October 9, 1861. Hostilities around East Pass came to a head in late March 1862, when it was reported that “200 armed rebels” had “killed 2 sailors and wounded 2 others belonging to the blockading schooner stationed there.” Brigadier General Lewis G. Arnold, who had been assigned to command the Department of Florida on February 22, 1862, ordered Captain Henry W. Closson of the 1st U.S. Artillery for a reconnaissance in force to ascertain “the character of the upper end of the island and to punish and take prisoners any rebels he might meet.”

Closson was to carry out the investigation with Company L of the 1st Artillery and Company K of the 6th New York Infantry, known as Wilson’s Zouaves. Closson set out on March 27, traveling along Santa Rosa Island, and was 20 miles from Fort Pickens on March 28 when he was intercepted by Lieutenant Richard H. Jackson, acting assistant adjutant-general of the department, and Company D of the 6th New York, along with a Rebel refugee acting as a guide. The refugee, a Mr. Woods, was a former JUNE 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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WILSON’S ZOUAVES

The 6th New York Infantry, organized in May 1861, was composed mostly of gang members, ex-cons, and criminals. Rumor had it that a man had to prove he’d served time in jail before he was allowed to join.

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

sawmill manager who had been pressed into servitude at Bragg’s headquarters but had escaped to Santa Rosa Island, where he provided vital information to Jackson and Closson for the expedition. Jackson’s initial plan was to split Closson’s forces into three parts: one that would shell the camp from the island, one to cross the Narrows to the mainland, and the third to enter the pass and move down the sound with boats provided by Maria A. Wood on blockade duty. The latter element of the plan was abandoned due to the distance from the intended place of bombardment. “The island varied in width,” Closson would later detail, “so far as I had an opportunity to notice, from half a mile to 500 yards; to cut up by sand ridges, so as to make the passage of teams across very difficult and generally impossible; furnishes good water in pools or by digging in the depressions; but very little grass indeed, and that very coarse.” As Closson noted: “In many places, the island is perfectly open, in others screened from the main-land by ridges of sand hills and fringes of forest. The sound is in width from 3 miles to 300 yards, I should judge. The narrowest point is about 40 miles from the fort. Here the rebel camp was located. It is nowhere fordable; navigable for its whole extent for vessels of 7 feet draught, the channel running generally close along the main-land.”

ALPHA STOCK/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; HISTORICAL/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

ZONE DEFENSE

On January 10, 1861, after the surrender of the Pensacola Navy Yard, 2nd Lt. Adam Slemmer concentrated his Pensacola force at Fort Pickens to defend it against Confederate threat of attack and demands for its surrender.

t noon on March 31, Closson arrived within four miles of his target, but plans soon went awry. He set out at sunset with 170 men and traveled two miles up the beach. Two surf boats were dispatched for his use, which he hauled over the sandy hills of the island to the launching point, where they waited for the third boat. By then, it was reported that the Confederates suspected their intentions, via a report from Lieutenant Theodore K. Gibbs that two Rebel spies had been spotted on the mainland but were not detained. Closson now abandoned the crossing of the Narrows and settled for an artillery bombardment of Camp Walton. With only Company D of the 6th New York, Closson set up a single rifled gun about 250 yards across from the camp and waited until dawn before firing the first shot. The Guards were lined up for roll call when they heard the roar of the gun across the sound and the “shot whistling over their heads.” Lieutenant Reddick had been sleeping after a night of picket duty and was awakened by one of his messmates at the onset of the attack. “I thought that he was teasing me and while we were talking the second shot came, the ball going through our house near the top and just over my head,” Reddick relayed. “There was no more talking. I jumped up and began looking for my pants and shoes, which I had a hard time finding.” Once fully clothed, the lieutenant was ordered by Captain McPherson to assist in calming the panic among the men. The Walton Guards tried to re-form multiple times during the hysteria, but Union artillery continually dispersed them with startling accuracy. Not even McPherson could rally his men to make a stand. On the island, Closson later reported that, “Loud cries and yells were heard, and the rebels could be barely seen through the brush in their shirt-tails making rapidly into the back country. A scattering volley was fired from what I supposed to be their guard, who then disappeared also.” The earthen mounds became a refuge for some of the surprised Confederates while many of the troops fled to the sheltering woods north of camp. In a letter written after the attack, Confederate Lieutenant John L. McKinnon noted he “staid where I could see them all the time I was behind a very large tree & feared no danger.” In an April 2 letter to the Rev. John Newton, he said, “After all went out of camp I sent back after a sick man that was behind & I hollered to the Yankees on the island to come

ROUGH BUT READY

Confederate troops straight from civilian life pose next to their cook fire at a Pensacola camp. Aside from their rifles and accoutrements, little distinguishes them as soldiers. The Walton Guards likely had a similar appearance.

A LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

ALPHA STOCK/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; HISTORICAL/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

over to this side & we would fight them. They said for us to carry over some boats that was on the beach at our Camp & they would. You know we did not comply with this request.” The Walton Guards proceeded inland and encamped at Garnier Bayou under a heavy guard until the danger passed. Rumors came that the shelling was part of a plan to land troops, as it was suspected that 160 cavalry had landed on Santa Rosa Island in the vicinity of Camp Walton. This was not the case, as Closson’s rations were dwindling, and his mules broken down by the arduous journey from Fort Pickens. He thought it prudent to return without pursuing the Confederates on the mainland. For the Walton Guards, many of whom hadn’t experienced combat thus far in the war, the assault on Camp Walton was a harrowing experience. Orders were given for the company to return to their post and “hold that place at all hazards.” They were sent two 30-pounder naval cannons to assist, seeing as they were only armed with muskets up to this time. Once they returned to the Narrows, one gun was mounted near the water’s edge, but they never had the opportunity to mount the second. pril 1862 proved to be a disastrous month for the Confederacy. The defeat at Shiloh and the capture of New Orleans sent a panic through the high command. It became clear that Pensacola could not be held efficiently without the possession of Fort Pickens. Bragg had left the area in late February, leaving Brig. Gen. Samuel Jones in charge of the troops in Pensacola. On February 27, he gave the orders to “make all dispositions at the earliest moment, working day and night, to abandon Pensacola.” The evacuation wouldn’t be fully carried out until May 9, and the Federals took advantage of the abandoned forts almost instantly. With Pensacola irrevocably in Union hands, it was no longer necessary to protect the East Pass. The 64 members of the Walton Guards were consolidated into the 1st Florida Regiment, Company D. By 1863, the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 6th, and 7th Florida Infantry regiments were combined into the Florida Brigade. McPherson, Reddick, and the rest of the men would see

action at Perryville, Stones River, Chickamauga, and during the Atlanta Campaign. One Walton Guard who survived the war, John Thomas Brooks, returned to the site of Camp Walton in 1868. Brooks and his wife purchased 111 acres of land along the water where his company had encamped for a year. Camp Walton grew in popularity as a beach destination and attracted tourists and settlers from across the country. It would later be renamed Fort Walton Beach to imply a greater sense of prominence and attract vacationers. In the early 1900s, a resident of the area, W.C. Pryor, was digging fence posts near the Santa Rosa Sound, when his shovel hit something hard and immovable. When the site was excavated, they pulled from the ground, one of the 30-pounder cannons the Walton Guards had buried prior to their abandonment of the camp. The second is still buried in an unknown location, likely under busy Highway 98. The unearthed cannon was put on display on the sidewalk in the downtown area in front of the only surviving earthen mound used by the Walton Guards. Here, it can be seen by many travelers driving through Fort Walton Beach to this day.

Sheritta Bitikofer, a member of Emerging Civil War, writes historical fiction and manages www.belleonthebattlefield.wordpress.com. JUNE 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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ARMAMENT FROM THE FRONT LINES

A group of campaign-weathered Union soldiers, some with their bedrolls, pose with their Model 1841 “Mississippi” Rifles. Their socket bayonets suggest the guns had been altered like the example on the next page.

GOOD LOOKING KILLER

The Model 1841 Rifle is a handsome muzzleloader. The example at top was made at the Harpers Ferry Arsenal, and remains as produced with no bayonet lug. The bottom 1841 was altered with the addition of a long-range rear sight, a shorter nose band, and a brazed lug on the barrel to hold a Model 1855 Saber Bayonet. 60

HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS (3)

THE BEAUTIFUL BRASS-MOUNTED MODEL 1841 RIFLE SAW DECADES OF SERVICE

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ONE MISSISSIPPI, TWO MISSISSIPPI

THE MODEL 1841 RIFLE crackled into American military legend when the U.S. Army regiment made up of men from Mississippi led by Colonel Jefferson Davis—yes, that Jefferson Davis—used the rifles and .54-caliber patched round balls with devastating effect in the Mexican War. Their marksmanship forever applied the nickname “Mississippi Rifle” to the firearm. Between the federal armory at Harpers Ferry and five other contracting firms, nearly 93,000 M-1841s were made between 1844 and 1855. Davis continued to have an impact on the weapon when, as secretary of war in 1853-57, he ordered upgrades for older U.S. military firearms and the production of the new Model 1855 series. Before the war, but mostly after the war began, Model 1841s received a number of alterations. Some were fitted to accept bayonets for the first time, received long-range sights, and some were bored out and re-rifled to fire .58caliber ammunition. Both Union and Confederate troops carried M-1841 rifles during the first two years of the war, and one regiment, the 45th New York, went into the Battle of Gettysburg wielding their Mississippis. —D.B.S.

NOSE JOB

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS (3); NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY

HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS (3)

Henry Leman of Lancaster, Pa., altered Model 1841s by turning the end of the barrels down, as seen here, to accept a socket bayonet. Many were also stripped of the browned finish and polished bright, re-bored to .58 caliber and given ramrods made to fit over the end of the standard conical (“Minié”) ball.

SHORT BUT FEISTY

IMITATION IS FLATTERY

Between 1852 and 1853, the Wm. Glaze & Co. in Columbia, S.C., made 1,000 “Palmetto” Rifles that were nearly exact copies of the Model 1841. These guns saw service by troops of that state during the war.

The Model 1841 was about 49 inches long, and two bands secured the barrel to the stock. The Model 1861 Rifle Musket, left, used three bands to secure the barrel and was 7 inches longer. The brass patch on the Mississippi was used to hold gun tools and greased patches for the rifle’s round ball ammunition.

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ARMAMENT

MR. MISSISSIPPI

THAT’S A LOAD

THIS MISSISSIPPI STAYED SOUTH

A Confederate soldier clutches his Model 1841 Rifle. Regiments from Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia are known to have carried the guns. Some Confederate cavalry regiments, unable to obtain small, nimble breechloading carbines, instead toted the relatively short brass-mounted rifles. 62

The Model 1855 Saber Bayonet used on some Model 1841s was a beast that required its own unique belt, which was wider than the standard infantry belt and used a heavier buckle to hold the cleaver. Leather straps from a knapsack hooked to the brass slides on the belt to help the soldier literally keep his belt up. Imagine that big blade smacking your thigh as you marched down a dusty road.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS; CONFEDERATE MEMORIAL LITERARY SOCIETY

Jefferson Davis played an outsized role in the Model 1841’s history. The prowess of his Mississippi Volunteers in Mexico gave the guns their beloved nickname. Later, as Secretary of War, his orders set in motion alterations that updated thousands of rifles and extended their military usefulness.

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FIRST MONDAYS AN ORIGINAL VIDEO SERIES

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS; CONFEDERATE MEMORIAL LITERARY SOCIETY

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

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

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

HISTORIAN-GUIDED

B AT T L E F I E L D T O U R S The Seven Grant & Lee: Days’ Battles: The Overland Oak Grove to Malvern Hill

Campaign of 1864

TOUR GUIDE:

Robert E. L. Krick

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Live broadcasts begin at noon on the first Monday of each month. FACEBOOK.COM/CIVILWARTIMES

Gordon Rhea

June 10-12, 2022 June 14-18, 2022 W O O D B U RY H I S TO R I CA L TO U R S whtours.org • LastStandHill@icloud.com

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HEEL DRAGGERS

Bayonets and ropes are used to force reluctant Southern dandies to honor their conscription in the Confederate Army in this satirical cartoon.

YOU’RE

IN THE

ARMY NOW

n April 1862, the Confederate Congress passed the first conscription bill in American history. White men between the ages of 18 and 35 could now be drafted into the Confederate Army for three years, or less if the war ended sooner. As an alternative, they could pay a substitute. At the same time, those who had volunteered to fight for a year in 1861 saw their term of service extended to three years. For the duration of the conflict, the Confederate government would several times revise policies designed to fill its armies’ ranks and offset the Union’s overwhelming demographic advantage. In Confederate Conscription and the Struggle for Southern Soldiers, John Sacher offers a detailed narrative of the Confederacy’s efforts to solve its manpower problem and judges conscription a success that enabled the South to prosecute the war as long as it did. Historians who argue that conscription weakened the Confederacy, the author believes, fail to consider how the policy evolved in response to the critiques of Confederate stakeholders and too readily conflate anger and criticism over a particular policy as opposition to the Confederacy at large. The “Twenty Negro Law” of October 1862 offers Sacher an opportunity to illustrate his point. Many historians single out the law, which Confederate exempted overseers on plantations with 20 slaves Conscription and the from military duty, as undercutting Confederate Struggle for Southern conscription efforts. But fewer than 10 percent of Soldiers the South’s 43,000 plantations received such an By John M. Sacher exemption, the author argues, and the Rebel govLSU Press, 2021, $45 ernment tightened conditions for such an exemption several times during the war. 64

Sacher details how, over the four years of the war, critics of conscription challenged it as a threat to states’ rights and sought to exert state control over a process that Confederate leaders insisted was national; took issue with the evolving list of occupations exempting men from military service; and questioned the recruitment process’ effectiveness as opposed to the military’s often aggressive efforts. But, he concludes, most Southerners recognized conscription as necessary. By 1863, even its critics accepted it and instead worked to make it more equitable. Sacher concludes that “conscription tried to solve an unsolvable problem—finding enough men to both fight and farm without allowing special privilege—or even the perception of special privilege.” He suggests Confederate leaders had to reckon with three questions: How to reconcile national power with states’ rights? How to achieve an equilibrium between the needs of the military and the home front? And how could the anticipated sacrifices be spread equally across families and communities? How well Confederate leaders answered these questions is open to interpretation. On one hand, since the Confederacy was defeated, conscription was in the end a failure. On the other hand, an 11-state confederation with a White male population only a quarter that of its opponent kept Union forces at bay for four long years.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

REVIEWED BY RICK BEARD

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Eye Eye FOR

REVIEWED BY GORDON BERG

hen Frederick Douglass met with Abraham Lincoln in August 1863, he asked the president to “retaliate in kind and degree without delay upon Confederate prisoners in his hands” if Confederate authorities carried out their threat to kill or enslave Black Union soldiers captured on the battlefield. Lincoln demurred; he didn’t feel it just to punish so severely otherwise innocent soldiers for crimes perpetrated by others. Lincoln’s actions conformed to a highly ritualized process of warfare whereby, according to Lorien Foote, “the combatants staked broad claims about what civilized warfare should look like in practice and negotiated details about how to interpret the laws of war and conduct campaigns.” These laws, traditionally followed by civilized belligerent counties, were meant to mitigate the severity of battle, preserve national honor in the eyes of their own citizens and other nations, and justify their actions in the eyes of history. General Orders No. 100, known as the Lieber Code, spelled out how Union soldiers should conduct themselves in wartime. Foote’s in-depth examination of rarely studied and little understood rites of retaliation in the Civil War broadens our understanding of why politicians, military commanders, ordinary soldiers, and civilians saw the war as a crisis of civilization and attempted to keep it from descending into savage barbarity. Foote focuses her investigation on the Department of the South because it was there, in Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas, that the presence of Black troops—particularly the famed 54th Massachusetts Infantry and the 1st South Carolina Infantry—inflamed Southern soldiers and pressured the Confederate government into threatening to treat captured Black Union soldiers as runaway slaves liable to be hanged for armed insurrection and their White officers imprisoned as common criminals. “Retaliation incidents in the Department of the South,” Foote writes, “were regular, prolonged, and usually well documented.” Rather than follow a strict chronological narrative, Foote organizes her investigation around thematic constructs such as how rites of retaliation were used regarding the treatment of prisoners, the fears of a servile insurrection, massacres of wounded or surrendering troops, threats to use captured soldiers as human shields, and dealings with pillagers and reprisal assassinations. Foote carefully documents both the successful and failed retaliation rituals spawned by the

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Rites of Retaliation: Civilization, Soldiers, and Campaigns in the American Civil War By Lorien Foote UNC Press, 2021, $22.95

Union campaign against Charleston, including the attack on Battery Wagner, operations on James and Morris Island, and the Union bombardment of the city itself. She describes how various Union officers followed or deviated from accepted retaliation rituals and how Confederate commanders on the ground and civilian officials in Charleston and Richmond responded to each phase of the campaign. But the raids carried out by Black troops on Jacksonville and Darien, Fla., and the killing of wounded Black troops after the Battle of Olustee in February 1863—coupled with the massacre of surrendering Black soldiers at Fort Pillow in Tennessee the following April—threatened to dramatically change the character of Civil War warfare. Foote argues that the study of Civil War retaliation rituals is important because they “were foundational for establishing the norms that Western nations codified in the 20th century and that shaped the rules that the United States uses in its conflicts today.” Rituals for tomorrow’s conflicts may be another matter entirely.

JUNE 2022 CIVIL WAR TIMES

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FINAL EXAM REVIEWED BY MELISSA A. WINN

s the 1876 presidential election loomed, Ulysses S. Grant surprised everyone when he declined to seek a third term. Grant had ardently used his time in office to advance the principles he felt the Union Army had fought for (and won) under his generalship in the Civil War. Plagued by a string of scandals near the end of his second term, however, Grant was now desperate to be out of the spotlight and leave the nation building to others who, he hoped, would carry out a similar vision, particularly the work of integrating Blacks into society and protecting their new freedoms, especially in the South. “Was the nation ready to move forward, or was it hopelessly trapped in the division that led to the war in the first place?” Bret Baier asks in his new book, To Rescue the Republic: Ulysses S. Grant, The Fragile Union, and the Crisis of 1876. The answer, the 1876 election would prove, was the latter. The contest between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden was one of the most contentious in American history. With alleTo Rescue The Republic: gations of electoral fraud, violence, and Ulysses S. Grant, The the suppression of Republican black Fragile Union, And The votes, Hayes was declared the winner Crisis of 1876 only after a series of negotiations that By Bret Baier, with included the withdrawal of federal troops Catherine Whitney from Southern states and essentially the Custom House, $28.99 end of Reconstruction. To Rescue the Republic is Baier’s followup to his “Three Days” trilogy of presidential biographies, and attempts to act as one for Grant, too, covering everything from his upbringing in Ohio, to his days at West Point, the Civil War, and ultimately his presidency and legacy. It’s a quick read that summarizes the major points, events, and people in Grant’s life without much examination. The book’s strength lies in Baier’s analysis of Grant’s presidency and the political impact and implications of the 1876 election, not surprising since Baier has had a notable career as a political journalist and White House correspondent, including now as Fox News’ chief political anchor. His contemplations of this less-covered aspect of Grant’s final days leading a country to which he devoted his life, are worth understanding. 66

ERIC W. BUCKLAND RETIRED ARMY LIEUTENANT COLONEL, PRESIDENT OF THE STUART-MOSBY HISTORICAL SOCIETY, GRANDFATHER

What Are You

Reading?

I am re-reading James Williamson’s “Mosby’s Rangers.” Even though it is a frequent research tool for me, the enjoyment of reading it in its entirety always results in an even better understanding of the unit’s history. It never fails to provide another “golden nugget” about an individual Ranger, a specific location, or some small fight. The second edition, published in 1909, offers a revised and enlarged version of the first edition published in 1896 and continues to be the most comprehensive book about the 43rd Battalion Virginia Cavalry— Mosby’s Rangers. Anyone seeking to learn about that famous collection of cavaliers and daredevils should begin their quest with Williamson’s book.

Mosby’s Rangers By James J. Williamson Sturgis & Walton Company, 1909

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THE CALL OF McCALL BY GREGORY J. LALIRE THIS HISTORICAL NOVEL follows Confederate veteran Zach “the bastard” McCall, his African American bear-wrestling pal Jasper Washington and half-brother Jack “Crooked Nose” McCall from the Daniel’s Den (a bordello CWT-220600-001 Tupelo Tourism 1-2Horiz.indd 1 MAGAZIN E in Boonesborough, Kentucky) to Springfield, Missouri, to connect with Wild Bill Hickok. The trio watches Wild Bill win a shootout with cardsharp Dave Tutt and then follows the famous lawman-gambler to the Kansas cow towns of Hays City and Abilene. In the end, they all arrive in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, where one of the Wild West’s most famous murders takes place—during a poker game at the No. 10 Saloon. From Gregory J. Lalire, the editor of

3/21/22 12:40 PM

PRICE $25.95/447 PAGES HARDCOVER (5.5 X 8.5)/ISBN13:9781432892722 TIFFANYSCHOFELD@CEGAGE.COM FACEBOOK & TWITTER: @FIVESTARCENGAGE

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PRESIDENT

. ON TRIAL . REVIEWED BY GORDON BERG

ost chroniclers have portrayed the Andrew Johnson impeachment drama as a contest of political wills between Johnson and his supporters and the Radical Republicans in Congress. Robert Levine has broadened the scope of this clash to include a third player: the African American community led by its most influential leader, Frederick Douglass. In so doing, Levine has provided a fresh and nuanced account of how Reconstruction failed to achieve its full potential of creating a new nation that recognized Black citizenship and accepted racial equality. Levine’s stated objective is to “chart the course of Reconstruction, from the optimism of the spring of 1865, to the increasing pessimism of the late 1860s and 1870s from the perspective of a man who was not a senator or congressman, and was not directly involved with the political conflict between the president and Congress.” Levine demonstrates that immediately following Lincoln’s assassination, both Congress and African Americans had reasons to believe that Johnson would carry on in the spirit of the martyred president. But that era of good feeling was fleeting. Johnson’s Amnesty Proclamation of May 29, 1865, gave the first hint of an impending schism. Levine contends that “[w]ith his veto of the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill and the Civil Rights Bill, Johnson had essentially lost the support of his own party in Congress.” Levine is a literary scholar, not a historian. As such, he is acutely aware of the power of rhetoric and the importance of language in understanding Douglass’ growing disillusionment with Johnson. Along with other leaders of the African American community—men such as George T. Downing, Frances Harper, and Philip A. Bell—they sought to articulate an alternative vision of Reconstruction; one at odds with not only Johnson’s, but also with that of Congressional Republicans. Douglass, Levine adroitly shows, “posed challenges to both Johnson and Congress in the many speeches he delivered to Black, White, and mixed-race audiences.” By 1867, Douglass had gone so far as to “focus more specifically on the flaws of the American Constitution that he believed paved the way for Johnson’s actions.”

The Failed Promise: Reconstruction, Frederick Douglass, and the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson By Robert S. Levine W.W. Norton, 2021, $26.95

Levine offers the impeachment trial of Johnson as the culminating event that revealed the limits of congressional support for African American efforts to use Reconstruction as a springboard for achieving their rights as equal citizens under the law. The impeachment trial focused on a strictly political issue, the Tenure of Office Act. By failing to convict Johnson on any grounds, Douglass concluded in his famous “The Work Before Us” essay of 1868, it further encouraged racist outrages that were then roiling throughout the South. Levine’s analysis of Douglass’ essay concludes, “His point was that the Senate had implicitly exculpated Johnson for policies that led to such violence.” Douglas believed that until America honestly confronted the history and legacy of slavery, “the connection of the present with the past” could neither “be ignored nor forgotten.” Douglass’ words, Levine sadly contends, “confirms Douglass’ status as one of the nation’s prophets.”

Although Frederick Douglass may not have cared for President Johnson, he worked closely and cordially with Johnson’s successor, Ulysses S. Grant. After Grant’s death in 1885, Douglass eulogized him, saying, he was “a man too broad for prejudice, too humane to despise the humblest, too great to be small at any point. In him the Negro found a protector, the Indian a friend, a vanquished foe a brother, an imperiled nation a savior.”

CIVIL WAR TIMES JUNE 2022

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! t u O t i k c e Ch

THIS WEEK IN

HISTORY

AN ORIGINAL VIDEO SERIES

Join hosts Claire and Alex as they explore—week by week— the people and events that have shaped the world we live in.

JOIN T O D AY ! T H E

LINCOLN FORUM

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

HISTORYNET.COM

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

thelincolnforum.org for more information

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Teacher, Preacher, Soldier, Spy: The Civil Wars of John R. Kelso By Christopher Grasso Oxford University Press, 2021, $34.95

HE WORE MANY HATS REVIEWED BY STEPHEN DAVIS

hen the war broke out, Missourian John Kelso was an outspoken Unionist. He was elected major of a local Home Guard unit; then he volunteered as a private in the 24th Missouri Infantry. In the spring of 1862, Kelso transferred to a regiment of Missouri militia cavalry, earning a lieutenant’s commission. That summer and fall, Kelso’s regiment hunted down bushwhackers in the state’s bloody guerrilla warfare. He morphed into something of a spy for Brig. Gen. Samuel Curtis, commander of the Federal Army of the Southwest operating in Missouri. After his pro-Southern neighbors burned his house, Kelso swore revenge. Toward the end of the war, he was elected to Congress, proud to have killed 60 Rebels. Working from Kelso’s bombastic autobiography, Grasso keeps his focus consistently on his subject. Teacher, Preacher, Soldier, Spy in fact reads like a one-man war story rather than a study of the conflict in Missouri. The author is a professor at William & Mary. He found Kelso’s 800-page memoir at the Huntington Library in San Marino, and published its 12 wartime chapters as Bloody Engagement: John R. Kelso’s Civil War (2017). Subsequently descendants came forth with more of Kelso’s writings, making possible this quite thorough biography. John Kelso was a Methodist preacher who turned into a spiritualist, then an atheist; a school teacher who became a spy, often disguised as a Rebel; and a congressman who developed into an anarchist. Covering Kelso’s “rich and multifaceted life,” Christopher Grasso has indeed much to write about.

ALSO

ON THE

SHELF

Brigades of Antietam: The Union and Confederate Brigades at the Battle of Antietam, Bradley M. Gottfried, editor, 2021, Antietam Institute Press, $37.64 Fifteen experts on the Battle of Antietam contribute to this volume chronicling the activities of 112 Infantry and cavalry brigades in the Maryland Campaign. Each entry lists the brigade’s units, strength, and casualties, and then provides concise descriptions of the brigade’s role at South Mountain, Antietam, and Shepherdstown. Plenty of quotes enliven the text. Antietam still feels like an understudied battle. This volume will help change that equation. Gettysburg’s Lost Love Story: The Ill-fated Romance of General John Reynolds and Kate Hewitt, by Jeffrey J. Harding, 2022, The History Press, $21.99 Some of the story is familiar. General John Reynolds and Kate Hewitt are secretly engaged, and after he is killed at Gettysburg, she honors their pact and enters a seminary. But there is so much more to be learned, the California roots of their romance and her real life after his death. Through diligent research, author Harding uncovers the true story that brings depth to the tragedy that befell the star-crossed lovers. The Summer of ’63: Gettysburg: Favorite Stories and Fresh Perspectives from the Historians at Emerging Civil War, Edited by Chris Mackowski and Dan Welch, 2021, Savas Beatie, $29.95 It’s impossible to study the Battle of Gettysburg or visit the battlefield and not be struck by the stories—of heroism, daring, terror, and awe. And, let’s face it, everybody has a favorite story or two, or four. This new volume from Emerging Civil War features some of the favorites from historians studying and interpreting the battle today. It also includes some poignant essays about broad and individual strategies and efforts that affected the battle or its outcome and offer a new understanding of the war’s most devastating battle. U.S. Civil War: Battle by Battle, by Iain MacGregor, Osprey, 2022, $12 [U.S.] This new offering from Osprey, first printed in Great Britain, will be advantageous mostly for younger audiences and general readers, but that doesn’t mean it is without merit for aficionados. Particularly nice is the original artwork that accompanies the 30 capsule looks at battles fought in all three of the war’s major theaters, as well as the famed Virginia-Monitor clash at Hampton Roads. Getting a surprise but welcome look is the February 1864 Battle of Okolona, Miss.

CIVIL WAR TIMES JUNE 2022

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8/5/21 7:02 AM

WORK OF

ART $11,875 surely beamed with pride when his men presented him with this elaborate 2nd Corps badge, engraved on the back, “Lt. Col. Charles Kochersperger by the members of Co. F May 1864.” In 1861, Kochersperger was the captain of Company F of the 1st California, one of several Pennsylvania regiments designated as being from California in a brigade commanded by Oregon Senator Edward Baker, done so the West Coast could participate in the “short war.” But Baker died at Ball’s Bluff in November 1861, and the 1st was renamed the 71st Pennsylvania. Kochersperger had become a lieutenant colonel by the time his regiment helped repulse Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg. On the badge, sold by Hindman’s Auctions, a spread-winged eagle grasps the company letter “F” in its beak, while a gold wreath surrounds “1 Cal.” Each leaf contains the name of his brigade commanders: Edward Baker, Wallace Burns, and Alexander Webb. Not long after he received the treasure, Kochersperger was badly wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness, a trauma that led to his death in 1867. —D.B.S.

HINDMAN’S AUCTIONS

CHARLES KOCHERSPERGER

CIVIL WAR TIMES JUNE 2022

CWTP-220600-SOLD.indd 72

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CWT-220600-006 US Precious Metals *Cover 3*.indd 1

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56/58 mm-1/30 Scale

matte finish Hand-Painted Pewter Figures

31371…$42

31116

31351…$42

Confederate General “Stonewall” Jackson, No.2 $42.00

Each one of our 1:30 scale metal figures is painstakingly researched for historical accuracy and detail. The originals are hand sculpted by our talented artists before being cast in metal and hand painted – making each figure a gem of hand-crafted history. Please visit wbritain.com to see all these figures and more from many other historical eras.

Mention this ad for a FREE CATALOG Free Mini Backdrop with your first purchase!

Federal Irish Brigade Standing Firing, No. 2

31013…$44

Federal in Frock Coat Reaching for Cap, No.2

Confederate Infantry Officer Advancing, No.2

31380…$46

Confederate Infantry Bugler

31372…$42

31381…$46

Federal Infantry Drummer, No. 3

Federal in Frock Coat 31286…$44 Standing 146th NY Firing, Zouave Standing No.3 Reaching for Cartridge

31245…$52

Confederate 15th Alabama Flagbearer, Gettysburg

31177…$42

Confederate Infantry in Frock Coat Charging at Right Shoulder Shift, No.2

31317…$42

Confederate General Robert E. Lee

31377…$45

Confederate Infantry Marching and Cheering

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1400 East 11 Mile Road, Royal Oak, Michigan 48067

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

WBHN-CWT 03-03-2022 Americas Civil War.indd 1 CWT-220600-005 Wbritain.indd 1

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

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W.Britain Model Figures, Chillicothe, OH

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