About a year and a half ago I started this blog to get reconnected with the field of Civil War research, and to see where it would go. I've loved every minute of blogging since. And yet, while I have plenty of potential new blog post ideas floating around in my head, and a handful of multi-part series I've already started and need to finish, you will find Battlefield Back Stories fairly quiet over the next month or two.
If I told you my life was busy at the moment, it would be a major understatement. In less than two weeks - on September 7th to be exact - I will be getting married. Immediately after that, my new wife and I will drive off to Montreal for a week. When we return we will jump right into a major life change, and an exciting new adventure.
Like me, my soon-to-be wife is a museum professional. She has just accepted a job at James Madison's Montpelier, which she will start in October. So after wedding festivities conclude, we will return to Cooperstown, pack up, tie up loose ends at our current jobs, and relocate 500 miles south to Virginia.
We both couldn't be more excited about this opportunity. As far as the blog is concerned - I am hopeful that my new-found proximity to Virginia battlefields will yield plenty of posts in the long-run. In the short-run, I hope you will all excuse the lack of posts in September and October. I won't completely shut the operation down during that time, as I might snatch a few moments here and there to write some short posts. Once we've settled in our new home, I hope to get right back to it.
Battlefield Back Stories - Thoughts on the Civil War, its battlefields, and public history.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
The Last March of the Iron Brigade
A great video produced by Gettysburg National Military Park that covers my favorite experience from the 150th anniversary.
Monday, August 26, 2013
Library Corner: The Fall of the House of Dixie
This weekend I finished up Bruce Levine's new book, The Fall of the House of Dixie, a book that argues that massive social transformations associated with the destruction of slavery brought about the eventual demise of the Confederacy. I planned on writing a review, but I have a busy schedule over the next few weeks. I also ran across an excellent review of the book posted today on Al Mackey's Student of the American Civil War blog, so for those who are interested, head on over to Al's blog and check it out.
Sunday, August 25, 2013
"Fight it out with Facts Instead of Bullets"
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| The 111th New York monument at the Brian Barn. Photo taken by author on June 30, 2013. |
On May 27th, 1890, members of the New Jersey Monument Commission met upon the Gettysburg Battlefield to inspect the state's monuments and their surroundings. When the group approached the monument to the 12th New Jersey, located along the stone wall west of Hancock Avenue and south of the Abraham Brian farm, they discovered that something was amiss. There at the wall, between the 12th New Jersey monument and its right flank marker, excavations had begun on the foundation for a new monument. The Commission's reaction, and the controversy that followed, reveals the importance that Gettysburg veterans placed on the monuments on the field. In their minds, the memorials not only honored sacrifice, but also served as a permanent record of their deeds, written in stone for all time. These monuments would become the irrefutable evidence that visitors to the field would use to make sense of events. With such a mindset, even short distances became flash points between veteran organizations when it came to monument placement.
This particular controversy surrounded a new monument commissioned by the veterans of the 111th New York Infantry. In the battle, both the 111th and the 12th New Jersey served in Brig. Gen. Alexander Hays' third division of the Second Corps, though in separate brigades. The disagreement centered on each regiment's respective role during the repulse of Pickett's Charge on the afternoon of July 3rd. The 2nd brigade (including the 12th NJ) held a position along the stonewall between the angle and Abraham Brian's barn. The 3rd brigade (including the 111th), began the day in support of the 2nd, resting in an orchard just to to the east of the Brian house. According to guidelines established in 1887 by the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association, regiments were required to place their monuments on their "line of battle" where they entered the fight. The 12th contended that the New Yorkers had spent the entirety of Pickett's Charge in a line to their rear, and had only rushed forward at the end of the conflict. Meanwhile the 111th contended that they had moved forward to the stone wall by the Brian barn at the beginning of the rebel cannonade, and had held that position during the entirety of the charge. The difference in opinion could be measured in a few yards - to place a monument on the east side of Hancock Avenue, or on the west - but those yards meant a great deal to both sides.
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| A modern satellite view of northern Cemetery Ridge taken from google maps. |
The opening salvo in the affair came on May 28th, 1890, the day after the New Jersey Monument Commission first beheld the proposed location of the 111th's monument. On that day, the commission sought out Charles H. Buehler, Vice President of the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association, as well as secretary Calvin Hamilton, to complain about the 111th's monument. Among the commissioners was Edward L. Stratton, who had commanded Company F of the 12th New Jersey during the battle. That evening, Stratton and his fellow commissioners sat down at the Eagle Hotel on Chambersburg Street and wrote out a formal protest to Buehler. Work on the new monument came to a temporary halt.
Within a few days, the New Jersey commissioners began to rally support among the veterans of the 12th New Jersey to fight the monument location, and the letter writing began. On May 31, Capt. William E. Potter, the President of the 12th's Reunion Society, took pen in hand to write to the Adjutant General of New Jersey:
No one desires to disparage the services of the 111th New York. But it is capable of the clearest proof that whatever firing they did upon that eventful day was done in rear of, and over the heads of the line of the 12th New Jersey Volunteers which completely filled up the space between the barn spoken of, and the right flank of the 1st Delaware Vols.Another veteran, First Sergeant Joseph Burroughs of Company A, 12th New Jersey, took up the cause with a pair of letters to GBMA officials on June 4th - one to John Bachelder, and the other to Edward McPherson. Pointing to the previously erected monuments of the the 3rd brigade, (the 39th, 125th and 126th New York), he noted that "the other regiments of that brigade have placed their monuments on their (the second) line, and we cannot see the justice of the action of the 111th." Henry F. Chew, another veteran who commanded a company of the 12th during the battle, also wrote on the 4th. " The members of our regiment are very indignant over the matter," he explained to Bachelder, "and have directed me to proceed to Gettysburg as soon as possible and see what can be done." He would arrive a week later.
Letters continued to pour in, and on June 10th, the Adjutant General of New Jersey, William Stryker, joined the fray at the direction of Governor Leon Abbett, pressing the GBMA to deal with the situation. The swift involvement of the government reflects the political power of veteran organizations in the late 19th century. The outpouring of indignation caused a quick reaction within the GBMA. On the 11th, Buehler wrote to Bachelder, and seemingly laid the blame, and the task of finding a solution at the historian's feet:
I am surprised that the Directors of the Memorial Association, with the experience of the 72d Pa. in their hands, should allow the 111th New York to usurp the position of the 12th New Jersey; and that in direct contradiction to the rule of the association more often alluded to than any other. I hope to hear that this flagrant breach of our rules has been stopped.For his part, Bachelder also came down on the side of the side of the 12th. The 111th was in a reserve brigade, he wrote to Buehler, "the position of this command should be marked on the East side of Hancock Ave. on a line with the 39th, 125th, and 126th N.Y. of the same brigade."
With the outrage of New Jersey veterans, the pressure of the New Jersey government, and the endorsement of John Bachelder and Charles Buehler, the matter perhaps seemed settled. But in Auburn, New York, Clinton D. MacDougall--commander of the 111th at Gettysburg--was organizing his response.On June 25th, Captain Aaron P. Seeley of the 111th wrote to MacDougall to offer his assistance:
Our percentage of loss at Gettysburg was only exceeded by two other Union Regiments, and the survivors will never forget, where they stood and where their comrades fell, and should it become necessary for the old fellows to go down, and fight it out with facts instead of bullets. Give us the long roll and we are at your heels as of yore.The battle had been joined. In my next post I will look at the 111th's response and the ultimate resolution. To be continued.
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Source Note: The correspondence cited in this post comes from The Bachelder Papers: Gettysburg in Their Own Words, Volumen III, transcribed, edited and annotated by David L. and Audrey J. Ladd, and published by Morningside Press in 1995.
Friday, August 23, 2013
National Parks and the Sequester
Yesterday I ran across the following link tweeted by Gettysburg College's Peter Carmichael:
While I don't speak from personal experience, my understanding is that it can be difficult to find your way into a Park Service career. With limited position openings, crowded applicant pools, and jobs that don't necessarily pay a great deal, embarking on a career path in the Park Service requires dedication. The federal sequester has made this process even more difficult, and if the funding challenges continue, it seems to me that it will become very difficult for the Park Service to recruit top young professionals. The job postings just aren't there, and when they are, the positions come with huge challenges. It can be frustrating to try and accomplish your goals when you have no funds to work with. On top of all this, it has become the norm for all federal employees to work constantly with the threat of furlough or even a complete government shutdown over their heads. Understanding these challenges will likely cause many young professional to think twice about heading down this career path.
I give a lot of credit to those persevering through these challenges. The Park Service brings so much to the public good. I try not to get political here on this blog, but with the funding debates coming up this fall, those of us who feel strongly about the value of our National Parks need to stand up and do whatever we can to help get funding back to where it should be. Every little bit helps, like contacting your representatives in Washington.
How the sequester is destroying the professional hopes of an entire generation of aspiring public historians http://t.co/NPvOIgQmkiThe article describes the effect that the federal sequester has had on National Parks around the country. These parks, already critically underfunded, have had to make due with even less since last winter. The parks have had to cut hours at visitor centers, cancel educational programming, close roads, and operate with skeleton staffing. But I think Carmichael's brief twitter commentary on the article hit on another side-effect, perhaps one that will have long-lasting consequences.
— Peter S. Carmichael (@PSCarmichael) August 23, 2013
While I don't speak from personal experience, my understanding is that it can be difficult to find your way into a Park Service career. With limited position openings, crowded applicant pools, and jobs that don't necessarily pay a great deal, embarking on a career path in the Park Service requires dedication. The federal sequester has made this process even more difficult, and if the funding challenges continue, it seems to me that it will become very difficult for the Park Service to recruit top young professionals. The job postings just aren't there, and when they are, the positions come with huge challenges. It can be frustrating to try and accomplish your goals when you have no funds to work with. On top of all this, it has become the norm for all federal employees to work constantly with the threat of furlough or even a complete government shutdown over their heads. Understanding these challenges will likely cause many young professional to think twice about heading down this career path.
I give a lot of credit to those persevering through these challenges. The Park Service brings so much to the public good. I try not to get political here on this blog, but with the funding debates coming up this fall, those of us who feel strongly about the value of our National Parks need to stand up and do whatever we can to help get funding back to where it should be. Every little bit helps, like contacting your representatives in Washington.
Sunday, August 18, 2013
French's Pets: Meeting the Officers of the 3rd Division, 3rd Corps
See Part 1 of the Series.
In the aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg, twelve inexperienced regiments joined the Third Corps of the Army of the Potomac. Though the veterans of the corps disdained the soldiers that made up its new Third Division, many of these new additions welcomed the change of pace after ten months of guarding railroads and canal locks. Let's meet some of the officers of this new division.
Maj. Gen. William H. French served as the Third Division's first commander, though not for long. When French's men joined the Third Corps, he became its ranking officer, and with Dan Sickles absent due to his Gettysburg wound, French assumed command of the corps. French was no stranger to the Army of the Potomac, he had served in the Second Corps until late June of 1863, as a brigade and division commander, and he had demonstrated an ability to command soldiers in the field. Yet the officers of the Third Corps viewed their new commander as an outsider. Colonel Regis de Trobriand, a brigade commander in the corps, noted that the way in which French "exercised his new authority was not calculated to render him popular." Some veterans thought he showed favoritism to the new Third Division.
With French commanding the corps, the Third Division fell at first to the command of Brigadier General Washington Lafayette Elliott. Elliot was a professional soldier who had seen service in the west as well as the east. But on October 3rd, 1863 he was ordered to report to the Army of the Cumberland. His replacement was a veteran of the Third Corps, Joseph Bradford Carr. Carr was born in Albany in 1828; his parents had both emigrated from Ireland just a few years earlier. Prior to the war he worked as a tobacco merchant and a dance master, but had also served as an officer in a local militia unit. In the spring of 1861, Carr received command of the 2nd New York. While serving on the Peninsula he swiftly rose to brigade command, and continued to head a brigade in the Third Corps until October of 1863, when he replaced Elliot. He was a veteran of many of the Army of the Potomac's battles, and had shown courage and skill as a combat leader.
The division's three brigades were commanded by Brig. Gen. William H. Morris, Colonel Joseph Warren Keifer, and Colonel Benjamin F. Smith. Though they commanded soldiers who had seen little or no combat, all three officers had been tested in battle to various degrees, and two of the three, Morris and Smith, were West Point graduates. Morris graduated in 1851. During the Peninsula campaign he served on the staff of General J.J. Peck. In the fall of 1862, he took command of the 135th New York, soon rechristened the 6th New York Heavy Artillery. For a time Morris and his men served in the defenses of Baltimore at Fort McHenry. They eventually moved to Harper's Ferry where, as a newly minted Brigadier General, Morris oversaw the garrison on Maryland Heights until the Gettysburg Campaign wrought vast changes in the structure of the defenses in Maryland. Once attached to the Army of the Potomac, Morris's brigade consisted of his old command, the 6th New York Heavy Artillery, as well as the 14th New Jersey, 151st New York, and the 10th Vermont. To this point in the war, none of these soldiers had seen combat, though they had all been in the service since the fall of 1862. Instead they had guarded railroad lines and other posts along the upper Potomac, or had marked time in the defense of Baltimore.
Joseph Warren Keifer commanded the 2nd Brigade. Keifer was an Ohioan, and at the start of the Civil War he joined up with the 3rd Ohio and received a commission as its Major. He was further promoted to the position of Lieutenant Colonel of the regiment, and saw action at Rich Mountain and Cheat Mountain in West Virginia. In September of 1862 he left the 3rd to become Colonel of the newly formed 110th Ohio. The 110th made up part of Milroy's command at Winchester in June of 1863, and saw combat against Ewell there. When the 110th joined the Army of the Potomac, Keifer ascended to brigade command. Joining the 110th Ohio in this brigade was the 122nd Ohio, the 6th Maryland, and the 138th Pennsylvania. The two former regiments had also served with Milroy at Winchester, but the 138th had never seen combat, having spent its ten months of service guarding vital locations along the B&O Railroad outside of Baltimore.
Colonel Benjamin F. Smith was the third and final brigade commander in the division. A graduate of the class of 1853 at West Point, Smith was a captain in the 6th U.S. Infantry when war came. In August of 1861 he received a commission as the Colonel of the 1st Ohio Infantry, which had just organized for three years of service. As part of Don Carlos Buell's Army of the Cumberland the next spring, Smith led his men into battle on the second day of Shiloh. He received a brevet to the regular army rank of major for gallant and meritorious service at the battle. Later that spring, Smith returned to the 6th Infantry, where he saw service in the Peninsula Campaign and at Second Manassas before taking command of a new regiment that fall, the 126th Ohio. The 126th was assigned to Schenck's 8th Army Corps, and in June of 1863 was stationed at Martinsburg. The brigade that Smith took control of that July consisted of two units from Milroy's battered division, the 67th and 87th Pennsylvania, and two from Brig. Gen. Benjamin F. Kelley's old 1st division, 8th Corps - the 106th New York and Smith's own 126th Ohio. The 67th and 87th PA were the longest serving regiments of this new division for the Army of the Potomac, the only soldiers that had signed up in 1861. All of Smith's regiments had been in combat that June at Winchester or at Martinsburg.
Thus organized, the division featured twelve regiments from six different states, all with little or no combat experience. For the men in this division, their first month of service with the Army of the Potomac featured hard marching and little fighting. The division first came under long-range artillery fire at the Battle of Wapping Heights on July 23rd, as the Third Corps tried to smash through Manassas Gap and cut into Lee's retreat route in the Shenandoah Valley. That August, the army came to rest on the north side of the Rappahannock River. For the next five weeks the men rested and recovered as best they could in the sweltering heat. The division received new uniforms and equipment, and on September 7th the Third Corps held a grand review for General Meade. It was this review that helped cement the Third Division's new nickname within the Corps. Chaplain E.M. Haynes of the 10th Vermont recalled the scene:
To be continued...
In the aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg, twelve inexperienced regiments joined the Third Corps of the Army of the Potomac. Though the veterans of the corps disdained the soldiers that made up its new Third Division, many of these new additions welcomed the change of pace after ten months of guarding railroads and canal locks. Let's meet some of the officers of this new division.
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| Major General William H. French and staff, September 1863. Library of Congress. |
Maj. Gen. William H. French served as the Third Division's first commander, though not for long. When French's men joined the Third Corps, he became its ranking officer, and with Dan Sickles absent due to his Gettysburg wound, French assumed command of the corps. French was no stranger to the Army of the Potomac, he had served in the Second Corps until late June of 1863, as a brigade and division commander, and he had demonstrated an ability to command soldiers in the field. Yet the officers of the Third Corps viewed their new commander as an outsider. Colonel Regis de Trobriand, a brigade commander in the corps, noted that the way in which French "exercised his new authority was not calculated to render him popular." Some veterans thought he showed favoritism to the new Third Division.
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| Joseph Bradford Carr. Library of Congress. |
The division's three brigades were commanded by Brig. Gen. William H. Morris, Colonel Joseph Warren Keifer, and Colonel Benjamin F. Smith. Though they commanded soldiers who had seen little or no combat, all three officers had been tested in battle to various degrees, and two of the three, Morris and Smith, were West Point graduates. Morris graduated in 1851. During the Peninsula campaign he served on the staff of General J.J. Peck. In the fall of 1862, he took command of the 135th New York, soon rechristened the 6th New York Heavy Artillery. For a time Morris and his men served in the defenses of Baltimore at Fort McHenry. They eventually moved to Harper's Ferry where, as a newly minted Brigadier General, Morris oversaw the garrison on Maryland Heights until the Gettysburg Campaign wrought vast changes in the structure of the defenses in Maryland. Once attached to the Army of the Potomac, Morris's brigade consisted of his old command, the 6th New York Heavy Artillery, as well as the 14th New Jersey, 151st New York, and the 10th Vermont. To this point in the war, none of these soldiers had seen combat, though they had all been in the service since the fall of 1862. Instead they had guarded railroad lines and other posts along the upper Potomac, or had marked time in the defense of Baltimore.
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| Brigadier General William H. Morris. Library of Congress. |
Joseph Warren Keifer commanded the 2nd Brigade. Keifer was an Ohioan, and at the start of the Civil War he joined up with the 3rd Ohio and received a commission as its Major. He was further promoted to the position of Lieutenant Colonel of the regiment, and saw action at Rich Mountain and Cheat Mountain in West Virginia. In September of 1862 he left the 3rd to become Colonel of the newly formed 110th Ohio. The 110th made up part of Milroy's command at Winchester in June of 1863, and saw combat against Ewell there. When the 110th joined the Army of the Potomac, Keifer ascended to brigade command. Joining the 110th Ohio in this brigade was the 122nd Ohio, the 6th Maryland, and the 138th Pennsylvania. The two former regiments had also served with Milroy at Winchester, but the 138th had never seen combat, having spent its ten months of service guarding vital locations along the B&O Railroad outside of Baltimore.
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| Joseph Warren Keifer. Library of Congress. |
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| Colonel Benjamin F. Smith. Library of Congress. |
In their new uniforms and shining muskets, with full ranks and splendid drill, it was not strange that General French would have felt proud of us, or that some of the older soldiers, who had been put to the harder work, should have called us "French's pets."French may have felt a great pride in the quality of his new fighting force, but had yet to lead it into action. For the veterans of the Army of the Potomac, soldiers earned their reputation on the field, not by the cleanliness of their uniforms. Theodore Lyman, a volunteer aide to General Meade who was also a new addition to the army that summer, captured the haughty pride of the two veteran divisions in the Third Corps as he described the September 7 review:
It was somewhat of a sad sight to look at these veterans, with their travel-stained uniforms and their battered canteens; many of the regiments had no more than 200 men, and their flags were so tattered that you could barely read such names as Fair Oaks, and Williamsburg, where so many of the missing 800 now lie. The men looked spare and brown and in good health; and also as if they would then and there fight French Zouaves or anybody else you chose to bring on.Like these battle-worn warriors, it seems that the high command of the Army of the Potomac harbored doubts about the qualities of the men in the corps's Third Division. During the Bristoe Campaign that unfolded in September and October, the Third Division found itself relegated to a reserve role guarding the corps wagon train. This campaign came to an end in late October, and the Army of the Potomac returned to a position north of the Rappahannock. As the calendar flipped to November, French's Pets would finally get their chance to prove themselves in battle.
To be continued...
Wednesday, August 7, 2013
A Hike at Antietam
For those of you who don't know, I am getting married in one month. This past weekend my best man arranged a "bachelor party" of sorts, though certainly not a typical one. The full schedule included camping near Hagerstown, Maryland, hiking on the Antietam Battlefield, and a trip to a minor league baseball game. It was perfect.
I last visited Antietam in the spring of 2008. The battlefield is in a wonderful state of preservation, and it provides several contrasts to Gettysburg. You won't find the same the commercial development in the town of Sharpsburg that you see at Gettysburg, and the veterans left far fewer monuments on the field. Antietam is smaller battlefield too, and I love the various hiking trails that the National Park Service has developed. There are many places for you to get off the beaten path at Gettysburg - The trail to Willoughby Run, the path at the Slyder Farm, the Weikert farm lane, Pickett's Charge, and the old trolly line are some of my favorites - but I am not aware of anything that approaches the comprehensive trail system, complete with self-guided walking tours, that exists at Antietam.
We arrived at the Visitor Center at 9 a.m. on Saturday. While my best man handled other arrangements for this weekend, our battlefield itinerary was left to my discretion. We had six in our group, and all but one of us had toured the field before. The forecast threatened rain, but we were determined to tour the field on foot - in my opinion the only way to get a grasp of the terrain features of a battlefield. We browsed the exhibits briefly, and spent some time orienting ourselves outside on the high ground around the Visitor Center. We then drove up and parked a car at the North Woods tour stop, dodging the rear elements of a 5K taking place on the battlefield that morning. Once we arrived at the North Woods, we began our first hike - the Bloody Cornfield.
I had come prepared with a few resources to help our understanding. In advance I had printed out all of the hiking trail guides offered on the NPS website. Each of the trails have multiple interpretive stops, marked by posts. The trail guides provide very brief descriptions of the action at each stop. In addition to this, I had downloaded the Civil War Trust's Antietam Battlefield App. The Trust has developed several of these apps, all of them very impressive. They provide multiple guided walking and driving tours of each battlefield, complete with interpretive text and videos. They are also GPS enabled, so that you can locate yourself on a map. Finally, the apps feature augmented reality "field glasses" that you can use to scan the field through your camera lens and view labeled landmarks and terrain features. The Antietam app's tours did not always match up with the hiking trails, but frequently there was a great deal of cross-over. In addition to these resources, I also packed William Frassanito's study of Antietam photography, and a mini-tour booklet put together by Antietam historian John Michael Priest.
We followed the hiking trail south to Miller's Cornfield, and considered the back-and-forth fight that ruptured the chilly early-morning air on September 17th, 1862. Then, we picked up the West Woods hiking trail that begins by the Dunker Church. This is a trail I've never explored before. It takes you to the Philadelphia Brigade monument, and then loops around into the West Woods, allowing you to explore the terrain crossed by Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick's 5,000 man division. The path emerges into the open at the western end of the woods near the 15th Massachusetts monument - the unit that suffered the most casualties in the battle - and then it reenters the West Woods and winds down to the monuments to the 34th New York and 125th Pennsylvania (a 12th Corps unit). These two regiments held the left flank of Union forces in the West Woods when they were struck by a devastating Confederate counterattack that would eventually rout Sedgwick's entire command. Walking through this terrain, I observed many hallows and ravines in the woods, and came to understand how confusing a place this must have been for Sedgwick's men. The division was stacked up in a column of brigades when it was struck on its flank and rear, and the smoke of battle that filling the wooded ravines must have made it very difficult for officers and men to understand what had happened.
After a brief lunch at the Red Byrd - a restaurant on the Boonsboro Pike that I would highly recommend - we returned to the Visitor Center and headed out on the Bloody Lane hiking trail. This pathway had overgrown a bit, suggesting that it sees seldom use - but it is an excellent way to understand the fight for the Bloody Lane from the perspective of the troops in the federal divisions of William H. French and Israel Richardson. The trail leads out from the Visitor Center to the the Mumma and Roulette Farms. The trail guide provides information on these two families and the fate they suffered during and after the battle. The pathway then curls around the Roulette Farm, and picks up the line of march for French's division as it crested a rise sixty yards in front of the Sunken Road. It was on this rise that French's men first met with withering volleys of musketry from the Rebel forces firing behind fence rails in the lane. For two and a half hours, the Confederate forces in the lane held the 2nd Corps at bay and protected the main approach to Sharpsburg. Meanwhile, just across the Middle Bridge McClellan refused to commit his reserves to the engagement. The Confederate position finally collapsed at about 1 p.m., but Richardson and French's divisions could push on no further.
After a brief jaunt up the Bloody Lane observation tower, we returned to our vehicles at the Visitor Center, and drove down to Burnside Bridge. By now, light rain had set in. We visited the bridge and then considered the weather before we headed out on the Final Attack trail. We decided to give it a go. Unfortunately the rain increased as we got out on the trail, and at some points it became a steady downpour. We were mostly prepared with rain gear though, and we pressed on.
The Final Attack trail is one of my favorite Civil War hikes. This 1.7 mile loop covers Burnside's final attack toward Sharpsburg on the afternoon of September 17th, and A.P. Hill's successful counterattack. The hike takes you across the farm owned by John Otto during the battle. This farm remained in private hands until the Park acquired it in 2003. Today, it is easy for battlefield tourists to overlook the significance of fighting on this farm. The dramatic storming of the bridge across the Antietam attracts more interest. If you do make it out on the trail, you can visit several monuments that you cannot access from any tour road. You will also reach some of the best vantage points for obtaining panoramic views of the Antietam landscape.
The pathway heads west from the Burnside Bridge parking lot, and connects to the Otto Farm lane. The terrain the 9th Corps faced as it drove toward Sharpsburg was daunting. The undulating landscape gradually rises from the valley cut by the Antietam to the highest point held by D.R. Jones' Confederate division near Sharpsburg. Once the Otto farm lane is reached, the trail turns south and loops down beyond the 9th Corps flank to the southern boundary of the Antietam Battlefield, and the site where A.P. Hill's soldiers arrived that evening. Here you stand in what is known as the 40-acre cornfield, and you overlook a gully. Rookie soldiers of the 16th Connecticut and 4th Rhode Island were driven into this gully by Hill's advancing men. The landscape here reveals what a terrible ordeal these soldiers must have suffered through.
The Final Assault trail ended our hike at Antietam. We didn't have time to check out several other trails on the battlefield. A devoted hiker can actually explore the entire field on foot while rarely running into the auto tour routes. Most of the trails link up together rather easily, and the park's Three Farms trail actually connects its northern trail network (the Bloody Cornfield trail, the West Woods trail, and the Bloody Lane trail), with its southern network (the Sherrick Farm trail, the Union Advance trail, the Snavely Ford trail, and the Final Attack trail). Sometime I would love to do this. Judging from maps, it is about an 8 or 9 mile hike.
If you want to check out some of these trails, visit Antietam NPS's guide to hiking the battlefield to download their tour maps. For a few of these trails, you can also download a more in-depth podcast tour delivered by Antietam Park Rangers from the Civil War Traveler website. Finally, I would also highly recommend that smart phone users check out the Civil War Trust's Antietam App as an additional resource.
What are some of your favorite Civil War hiking trails?
I last visited Antietam in the spring of 2008. The battlefield is in a wonderful state of preservation, and it provides several contrasts to Gettysburg. You won't find the same the commercial development in the town of Sharpsburg that you see at Gettysburg, and the veterans left far fewer monuments on the field. Antietam is smaller battlefield too, and I love the various hiking trails that the National Park Service has developed. There are many places for you to get off the beaten path at Gettysburg - The trail to Willoughby Run, the path at the Slyder Farm, the Weikert farm lane, Pickett's Charge, and the old trolly line are some of my favorites - but I am not aware of anything that approaches the comprehensive trail system, complete with self-guided walking tours, that exists at Antietam.
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| Not a sight you see every day. As we hiked past the Dunker Church, we ran into the mascot of the Hagerstown Suns, cheering on runners at the nearby finish line. Photo by Ryan Stauffer. |
I had come prepared with a few resources to help our understanding. In advance I had printed out all of the hiking trail guides offered on the NPS website. Each of the trails have multiple interpretive stops, marked by posts. The trail guides provide very brief descriptions of the action at each stop. In addition to this, I had downloaded the Civil War Trust's Antietam Battlefield App. The Trust has developed several of these apps, all of them very impressive. They provide multiple guided walking and driving tours of each battlefield, complete with interpretive text and videos. They are also GPS enabled, so that you can locate yourself on a map. Finally, the apps feature augmented reality "field glasses" that you can use to scan the field through your camera lens and view labeled landmarks and terrain features. The Antietam app's tours did not always match up with the hiking trails, but frequently there was a great deal of cross-over. In addition to these resources, I also packed William Frassanito's study of Antietam photography, and a mini-tour booklet put together by Antietam historian John Michael Priest.
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| The monument to the 15th Massachusetts |
After a brief lunch at the Red Byrd - a restaurant on the Boonsboro Pike that I would highly recommend - we returned to the Visitor Center and headed out on the Bloody Lane hiking trail. This pathway had overgrown a bit, suggesting that it sees seldom use - but it is an excellent way to understand the fight for the Bloody Lane from the perspective of the troops in the federal divisions of William H. French and Israel Richardson. The trail leads out from the Visitor Center to the the Mumma and Roulette Farms. The trail guide provides information on these two families and the fate they suffered during and after the battle. The pathway then curls around the Roulette Farm, and picks up the line of march for French's division as it crested a rise sixty yards in front of the Sunken Road. It was on this rise that French's men first met with withering volleys of musketry from the Rebel forces firing behind fence rails in the lane. For two and a half hours, the Confederate forces in the lane held the 2nd Corps at bay and protected the main approach to Sharpsburg. Meanwhile, just across the Middle Bridge McClellan refused to commit his reserves to the engagement. The Confederate position finally collapsed at about 1 p.m., but Richardson and French's divisions could push on no further.
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| A view of the Bloody Lane. This photo was taken in 2004. Unfortunately the weather on my recent trip was not so nice. |
After a brief jaunt up the Bloody Lane observation tower, we returned to our vehicles at the Visitor Center, and drove down to Burnside Bridge. By now, light rain had set in. We visited the bridge and then considered the weather before we headed out on the Final Attack trail. We decided to give it a go. Unfortunately the rain increased as we got out on the trail, and at some points it became a steady downpour. We were mostly prepared with rain gear though, and we pressed on.
The Final Attack trail is one of my favorite Civil War hikes. This 1.7 mile loop covers Burnside's final attack toward Sharpsburg on the afternoon of September 17th, and A.P. Hill's successful counterattack. The hike takes you across the farm owned by John Otto during the battle. This farm remained in private hands until the Park acquired it in 2003. Today, it is easy for battlefield tourists to overlook the significance of fighting on this farm. The dramatic storming of the bridge across the Antietam attracts more interest. If you do make it out on the trail, you can visit several monuments that you cannot access from any tour road. You will also reach some of the best vantage points for obtaining panoramic views of the Antietam landscape.
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| Many battlefield tourists end their trip on the southern end of the battlefield here at the Burnside Bridge. But the Park Service has developed a great hiking trail that follows the 9th Corps's advance well beyond the bridge to the very edge of Sharpsburg. |
The pathway heads west from the Burnside Bridge parking lot, and connects to the Otto Farm lane. The terrain the 9th Corps faced as it drove toward Sharpsburg was daunting. The undulating landscape gradually rises from the valley cut by the Antietam to the highest point held by D.R. Jones' Confederate division near Sharpsburg. Once the Otto farm lane is reached, the trail turns south and loops down beyond the 9th Corps flank to the southern boundary of the Antietam Battlefield, and the site where A.P. Hill's soldiers arrived that evening. Here you stand in what is known as the 40-acre cornfield, and you overlook a gully. Rookie soldiers of the 16th Connecticut and 4th Rhode Island were driven into this gully by Hill's advancing men. The landscape here reveals what a terrible ordeal these soldiers must have suffered through.
The Final Assault trail ended our hike at Antietam. We didn't have time to check out several other trails on the battlefield. A devoted hiker can actually explore the entire field on foot while rarely running into the auto tour routes. Most of the trails link up together rather easily, and the park's Three Farms trail actually connects its northern trail network (the Bloody Cornfield trail, the West Woods trail, and the Bloody Lane trail), with its southern network (the Sherrick Farm trail, the Union Advance trail, the Snavely Ford trail, and the Final Attack trail). Sometime I would love to do this. Judging from maps, it is about an 8 or 9 mile hike.
If you want to check out some of these trails, visit Antietam NPS's guide to hiking the battlefield to download their tour maps. For a few of these trails, you can also download a more in-depth podcast tour delivered by Antietam Park Rangers from the Civil War Traveler website. Finally, I would also highly recommend that smart phone users check out the Civil War Trust's Antietam App as an additional resource.
What are some of your favorite Civil War hiking trails?
Thursday, August 1, 2013
French's Pets
A lot of bloggers have written of late on the state of the Civil War Sesquicentennial. They have wondered aloud whether Gettysburg’s anniversary marked the end of the attention the Sesquicentennial has received from mass audiences, and they have discussed the importance—and the difficulty—of keeping the momentum of the Sesquicentennial going for the next two years.
Somehow, romantic notions of the war up through
Gettysburg have survived over the years. There was nothing romantic about places like
Shiloh, Antietam, and Chancellorsville, but these depictions remain popular.
The story becomes different after Gettysburg though. Try writing a glorified
depiction of the Battle of the Wilderness, of the fight at the Mule Shoe, or of
Cold Harbor. Complex issues also demand attention when you commemorate the
final years of the war – emancipation, massacres of black soldiers, one of the
most racially charged elections in our nation’s history, and the fights over
Reconstruction that began as early as 1863. And then of course, there is the
human toll, and the difficult question: was it worth it?
All of these stories make commemorating the war in 1864
and 1865 complex. But it is a challenge that public historians must accept.
Whether or not one believes that Gettysburg and Vicksburg marked a crucial
turning point in the war, we must recognize that those who experienced the war
did not feel like the beginning of the end was at hand in July of 1863.
In a continuing series of posts, I will take a look at a
division of soldiers that joined the Army of the Potomac just days after the
fighting concluded at Gettysburg. For these soldiers, the Gettysburg Campaign
was not a turning point, it was a start.
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| A view of Maryland Heights opposite Harper's Ferry. Photographed by James Gibson in 1865. Library of Congress |
Late in the afternoon of June 15th, 1863, roughly 1,200
dejected and exhausted soldiers stumbled into Harper's Ferry after a forced
march of thirty miles. Major General Robert H. Milroy road at the head of the
column. The day before, Milroy had charge of a command of about 9,000 troops at
Winchester, Virginia. That afternoon, Confederate forces under Lieutenant
General Richard Ewell had assaulted Milroy in his fortifications, and had
carried his outer works, rendering the town indefensible. Milroy ordered a
retreat during the dead of night, but Ewell set an ambush for the retreating
column in the darkness, completely scattering the command. The Confederates
captured Milroy's artillery, wagons, and over 3,400 of his men. The rest
scattered in multiple directions.
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| Photographic portrait of Robert H. Milroy taken at Matthew Brady's studio in Washington. Library of Congress. |
The disaster at Winchester sent shock waves of fear throughout Maryland and Pennsylvania. It marked the first bit of hard intelligence that indicated the Army of Northern Virginia planned to cross the Potomac once again. The engagement also set in motion a chain reaction of events that would eventually see the creation of a new fighting force for the Army of the Potomac.
Strangely enough, Milroy should not have been at Winchester in the first place. He commanded the 2nd Division, 8th Army Corps in the Middle Department. This corps was led by Major General Robert C. Schenck, with headquarters at Baltimore. Schenck’s task was to defend the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad in Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. In addition to Milroy’s men, Schenck had troops strung out at important points along the railroad. The 8th Corps’ first division, under the command of Brig. Gen. Benjamin F. Kelley, mustered six brigades spread out to protect the lower Shenandoah Valley and the upper Potomac River crossings. Kelley maintained his headquarters and a strong garrison at Harper’s Ferry, while another 1,300 troops held Martinsburg, 20 miles to the northwest.
Throughout the spring, Major General Henry Halleck, General –in-Chief of Union forces, warned Schenck about Milroy’s exposed position in the Valley. Winchester was an outpost and not at all vital to defense of the railroad, and Schenck was not to attempt to defend it if attacked. Again and again Halleck told Schenck to pull the majority of Milroy’s forces out of Winchester. Again and again, Schenck ignored Halleck. Finally, on June 14th, Halleck threatened to relieve Schenck if his orders were not followed, but it was too late. By the time Schenck wired Milroy to order a retreat, Confederate forces had cut the telegraph lines. Milroy’s last instructions were to hold the town until further notice. As word of Milroy’s disaster at Winchester spread on June 15th, Halleck angrily wired General Schenck:
Major-General SCHENCK, Baltimore, Md.:
Do not give General Milroy any command at Harper’s Ferry. We have had enough of that sort of Military genius. If you have not already done so, send all of your small posts and available troops there. That place must be held.
H.W. Halleck,
General-in-Chief
With this message a mobilization of military forces began
at Harper’s Ferry. In addition to the troops already present and the remnants
of Milroy’s command straggling in, garrison troops from multiple posts in
Maryland set out for Harper’s Ferry. They included the 14th New
Jersey, the 151st New York, the 10th Vermont, and the 138th
Pennsylvania. Most of these regiments had existed as essentially independent
commands up to that point in the war. They were not completely raw soldiers;
most had been in the service for about ten months. Yet none had witnessed combat.
At Relay House, some nine miles outside of Baltimore, the 138th
Pennsylvania received orders to move out at around 10 p.m. on June 16th.
“We were left under the impression that we were only going on a scout,” one
soldier wrote home. They soon found otherwise.
The forces gathering at Harper’s Ferry found themselves initially under the command of Brigadier General Daniel Tyler – an old school army officer and railroad engineer from the West Point Class of 1819. Tyler had recently taken over command of the troops at Martinsburg after serving in the west. He assumed control of all the forces at Harper’s Ferry after the disaster at Winchester, despite Robert Milroy outranking him. By June 19th, Tyler had concentrated roughly 10,000 men and thirty pieces of artillery. He disposed most of his forces on Maryland Heights opposite Harper’s Ferry, where he began to improve the fortifications as much as possible. On June 26, Tyler was superseded by Major General William H. French, an officer who had been serving as a division commander in the 2nd Corps of the Army of the Potomac.
The forces gathering at Harper’s Ferry found themselves initially under the command of Brigadier General Daniel Tyler – an old school army officer and railroad engineer from the West Point Class of 1819. Tyler had recently taken over command of the troops at Martinsburg after serving in the west. He assumed control of all the forces at Harper’s Ferry after the disaster at Winchester, despite Robert Milroy outranking him. By June 19th, Tyler had concentrated roughly 10,000 men and thirty pieces of artillery. He disposed most of his forces on Maryland Heights opposite Harper’s Ferry, where he began to improve the fortifications as much as possible. On June 26, Tyler was superseded by Major General William H. French, an officer who had been serving as a division commander in the 2nd Corps of the Army of the Potomac.
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| William H. French and his staff, taken at Culpeper, Virginia in September of 1863. Library of Congress. |
French was a member of the West Point Class of 1837. He
served in the Seminole Wars and in the Cherokee Removal. During the Mexican
War, he served on the staff of General Franklin Pierce and received three
brevets for his actions at Cerro Gordo, Contreras, and Churubusco. In the fall
of 1861, French was commissioned a Brigadier General. On the Peninsula, he
showed leadership as a 2nd Corps brigade commander at Fair Oaks and
during the Seven Days. He ascended to
division command, and led his division against the Bloody Lane at Antietam, against
Mayre’s Heights at Fredericksburg, and at Chancellorsville. French arrived at
Harper’s Ferry at a time when the forces stationed there had become part of a
power struggle between Halleck and Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker, commanding the Army
of the Potomac. Hooker wanted this force
to evacuate Maryland Heights, while Halleck wanted the post held. In the end,
Hooker would offer his resignation over this and other mounting disagreements,
and it was accepted.
On June 28th, the same day that Hooker’s replacement Maj. Gen. George G. Meade took command, he ordered Maryland Heights evacuated. Meade instructed French to designate a portion of his force to oversee the removal of as much government property as possible to Washington, and to march with the rest for Frederick, Maryland. French left roughly 4,000 men on the Heights under the command of Brig. Gen. Washington Lafayette Elliott, and set out on the evening of June 29th.
While the Army of the Potomac engaged at Gettysburg, French’s forces operated on its southern flank. He sent a small expedition out on the evening of July 3rd under Major Shadrack Foley of the 14th Pennsylvania Cavalry to destroy the Confederate pontoon bridge at Falling Waters. He also sent forces to occupy Crampton’s Gap. On July 5th, he sent an expedition back to Harper’s Ferry. With the Confederate army in full retreat, Meade ordered French on July 6th to reoccupy Maryland Heights. On the same day, the forces under General Elliott rejoined French. With the Army of the Potomac’s numbers depleted after Gettysburg, most these troops were assigned to the battered 3rd Corps, and French assumed command of the corps on July 9th. French’s command became the third division in the corps, commanded for the time being by General Elliott.
For the men in this new division, these were exciting times. All of the regiments had seen little or no combat in their experience as soldiers so far, they had only known the tedious nature of garrison duty. One soldier in the 138th Pennsylvania wrote home and explained: “We were playing soldier for 10 long months, and now we are experiencing reality.” Meanwhile, Chaplain E.M. Haynes of the 10th Vermont recalled:
On June 28th, the same day that Hooker’s replacement Maj. Gen. George G. Meade took command, he ordered Maryland Heights evacuated. Meade instructed French to designate a portion of his force to oversee the removal of as much government property as possible to Washington, and to march with the rest for Frederick, Maryland. French left roughly 4,000 men on the Heights under the command of Brig. Gen. Washington Lafayette Elliott, and set out on the evening of June 29th.
While the Army of the Potomac engaged at Gettysburg, French’s forces operated on its southern flank. He sent a small expedition out on the evening of July 3rd under Major Shadrack Foley of the 14th Pennsylvania Cavalry to destroy the Confederate pontoon bridge at Falling Waters. He also sent forces to occupy Crampton’s Gap. On July 5th, he sent an expedition back to Harper’s Ferry. With the Confederate army in full retreat, Meade ordered French on July 6th to reoccupy Maryland Heights. On the same day, the forces under General Elliott rejoined French. With the Army of the Potomac’s numbers depleted after Gettysburg, most these troops were assigned to the battered 3rd Corps, and French assumed command of the corps on July 9th. French’s command became the third division in the corps, commanded for the time being by General Elliott.
For the men in this new division, these were exciting times. All of the regiments had seen little or no combat in their experience as soldiers so far, they had only known the tedious nature of garrison duty. One soldier in the 138th Pennsylvania wrote home and explained: “We were playing soldier for 10 long months, and now we are experiencing reality.” Meanwhile, Chaplain E.M. Haynes of the 10th Vermont recalled:
Prior to this, our regiment and the regiments with us had acted nearly as an independent command, and had thought ourselves capable of creating quite a ripple on the great tide of events which as yet we had not seen…. Now we were swallowed up in a vast army, and were only as a drop in the mighty wave that was to surge and roll on, until it swept Rebellion from the American Continent, and rocked the Union until it rested in peace.
The excitement experienced by many of these soldiers was
not reciprocated by veterans of the Army of the Potomac. Brig. Gen. Joseph J.
Bartlett, a brigade commander in the 6th Corps, wrote that the new
troops “amount to nothing as far as fighting is concerned.” The first two
divisions of the Third Corps reserved a special antipathy for the new soldiers
and their new corps commander, General French. The soldiers eventually took to
labeling the Third Division “French’s Pets.” Colonel Regis DeTrobriand recalled
how he felt seeing these new soldiers just days after fighting in the
Wheatfield at Gettysburg:
While we were fighting in Virginia, they had guarded the railroads, and garrisoned Harper’s Ferry, Winchester, and Martinsburg, where they had made but a poor show when Ewell had presented himself. Amongst us they took the place of those we had left on the field of battle of Chancellorsville and Gettysburg; but they did not replace those. What the Third Corps gained in numbers it lost in homogeneity. On this account, the new-comers were never fully naturalized in the corps. The veterans of Sickles, refractory to the union, maintained their autonomy by the designation universally adopted amongst them: “The Third Corps, as we understand it.”
French’s Pets had joined the Army of the Potomac, but
they had much to do to earn acceptance within it.
To be continued...
War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Series I, Volume 27, Parts 1&3.
Available Through Google Books:
History of the 10th Vermont, written by Chaplain E.M. Haynes, 1870
History of the 87th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, George R. Prowell, 1903
Four Years in the Army of the Potomac, Volume 3 by Regis DeTrobriand,1888
Newspapers
"From the 138th Regiment," Star and Banner, July 2, 1863
Other Sources
The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command by Edwin B. Coddington, 1968
Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics & the Pennsylvania Campaign by Kent Masterson Brown, 2005
To be continued...
_____________________
Sources for this post include:
Available Through Google Books:
History of the 10th Vermont, written by Chaplain E.M. Haynes, 1870
History of the 87th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, George R. Prowell, 1903
Four Years in the Army of the Potomac, Volume 3 by Regis DeTrobriand,1888
Newspapers
"From the 138th Regiment," Star and Banner, July 2, 1863
Other Sources
The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command by Edwin B. Coddington, 1968
Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics & the Pennsylvania Campaign by Kent Masterson Brown, 2005
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