tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74331778437757640752024-03-10T23:22:12.287-04:00Battlefield Back StoriesBattlefield Back Stories - Thoughts on the Civil War, its battlefields, and public history.Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.comBlogger211125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-49078459197684310262020-08-29T18:29:00.000-04:002020-08-29T18:29:35.088-04:00"Need I now tell you why our boys burnt buildings?" - Robert McAllister and the Stony Creek Raid<div class="separator"><div style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1010" data-original-width="828" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEOZ7CXXTdHpcClEgbSRHMtL1Ch6M-I2yveEihgBaDH6DaoJ1AnvJvqREoQoAe1hylesQqS2LUlVy4jfoZd2k88E3_TYZ0ytjzxBm2e0KODp1aicwB0vHHwyCf0Ibid1O6098VXuJL_Pvy/w263-h320/McAllister.jpeg" width="263" /></div></div><p>This summer, I found myself reading an amazing collection of 637 letters written by Robert McAllister to his family during his wartime service from 1861 to 1865. 47-years-old and living in New Jersey when the war broke out, this former railroad construction engineer had every reason to pass on military service and nevertheless enlisted as a Lieutenant-Colonel in the 1st New Jersey. He had every reason to serve a period of time and come home to the accolades of his neighbors, and yet remained in service throughout the war with the Army of the Potomac. He received two battlefield wounds, and three promotions during the war. He saw combat in some of the worst places of the Eastern theater - Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Spotsylvania, and Hatcher's Run to just name a few. He is one of many deserving officers of the United States Army who sacrificed a great deal for his country during the Civil War, only to have his own contributions obscured and overshadowed by the glorification and deification of rebel leaders by later historians influenced by the Lost Cause.<br /></p><p>Over time, I have discovered that I much prefer contemporaneous wartime accounts - letters, diaries, etc. written in the moment - to the memoirs so many participants published decades after the war. For me, they ring more true to the realities of the war, and provide a far more complete picture of the experiences of soldiers in the ranks, particularly beyond the movements and stratagems of the battlefield.</p><p>The details of the events I highlight below come from a letter McAllister wrote to his wife on December 14th, 1864. This letter struck me immediately as a powerful depiction of the war, and described the kind of scenes and expressed the raw emotions that later memoirs and histories often glossed over and submerged from view. Walt Whitman was not wrong when he wrote, "The real war will never get in the books."</p><p>----<br /></p><p>On the morning of December 10th, 1864, Brigadier General Robert McAllister and his men in the 3rd brigade, 3rd division, 2nd corps of the Army of the Potomac began to stir amidst a wintry landscape. Encamped within ten miles from the North Carolina border, and some forty miles south of the main U.S. lines outside of Petersburg, McAllister's men had spent the last three days marching and tearing up miles of railroad tracks. Temperatures had plummeted below freezing and rain and sleet fell steadily through the preceding night. "The trees and bushes were loaded with icesecles; the ground was covered with ice," McAllister reported in a letter home a few days later. He and his men faced a long return march to the safety of U.S. lines through mud, ice and water. Along the way, rebel cavalry and infantry stalked their progress in the hopes of cutting off and destroying the large raiding force of more than 20,000 under the overall command of Major General G.K. Warren. The successful expedition, called by some the Stony Creek Raid, is today a little-known footnote in Civil War history.<br /></p><p>After a hot cup of coffee and breakfast, McAllister got his men on to the muddy roads and they began to march. "Our artillery sunk deep in the mud," he recorded. "The ice still hung on the trees, and it continued cold." The column pushed north alongside the remnants of the Weldon Railroad, and then turned northeast on to a road leading toward Sussex Court House. Up ahead in the small unincorporated crossroads of Henry, Virginia, this day would forever alter the world of the many residents of Andrew Jackson Leaville's plantation.</p><p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgptRLkScM-h141KxPA65Hnfz2U2K51BhEdcy2lstLTd52W4-Ytee44JwaIMmyCoScyEyKm9WJYtJWOcDbKY0DmxPw-EXUfjuZXg9tc1GFZ59Yth9lnUYWsm2TWY-DccvJYlA3I94sZmhpk/s752/Leaville+Farm.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="474" data-original-width="752" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgptRLkScM-h141KxPA65Hnfz2U2K51BhEdcy2lstLTd52W4-Ytee44JwaIMmyCoScyEyKm9WJYtJWOcDbKY0DmxPw-EXUfjuZXg9tc1GFZ59Yth9lnUYWsm2TWY-DccvJYlA3I94sZmhpk/s640/Leaville+Farm.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>War of the Rebellion Atlas, Volume I, Plate XCIII</i> shows the Leaville plantation, located south of Sussex Court House and east of Jarratt's Depot on the Weldon Railroad.<br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br />Leaville was 48 years-old in 1864. He apparently did not serve in the Confederate Army, but rather as a member of the local home guard. He resided here on this plantation with his wife Martha (44) and three children: two daughters Fanny and Helen (both 18), and a son Walter (14). In the 1860 Census, Leaville claimed his property to be worth $13,000, and also estimated his personal property at $41,000. These values tell us that Leaville's plantation was sizeable, and that he enslaved a large number of African Americans. </p><p>McAllister's men marched through a part of Virginia that had escaped the attention of the U.S. army for much of the war, but no longer. Enslaved African Americans made the most of their opportunity to claim freedom as the U.S. army passed. One Pennsylvania soldier wrote "Negroes from all directions left their masters and flocked to the protection of the Union troops, among them old women and little children." McAllister himself wrote of a separate incident on December 8th:</p><blockquote><blockquote><p><i>You ought to have seen the poor slaves--old and young, men and women--running out to meet us and hobbling along to the 'land of liberty.' When asked where they were going, they would answer: 'Going with the Union Army!" They know that our flag is the flag of liberty and not oppression. One man and all his family (except one little girl) were fleeing their masters and had reached the road. But the thought of leaving the child behind caused the old man to cry out: "God bless you! God bless you! Oh, get my daughter, my daughter! I will pay you for it! I will do anything! Get her! Get her! God help you!" One of my aides road up to the house, procured the child, and delivered it to the parents. I cannot describe to you the happiness of that family, some nine in number, and a happy group. They stood in the road as our column was passing, with a fair prospect of soon getting to the land of liberty.</i><br /></p></blockquote></blockquote><p>As McAllister's troops came into view of Andrew Leaville's plantation, a similar seen was about to play out. Leaville and his 14-year-old son Walter were not at home as the column passed by. Guerilla fighters had plagued Warren's entire expedition, and McAllister assumed that the men of this household had probably hidden out in the woods with arms in their hands. He wrote that only Martha Leaville and one of her daughters remained at home. McAllister's aides, Lieutenants Charles Bowers and William Plimey, approached the house to speak with the residents. They found that soldiers had already visited the comfortably appointed home and turned things upside down looking for liquor. Martha Leaville pleaded with the lieutenants for a military guard, and insisted her missing husband was a "first rate Union man." They declined to offer a guard.</p><p>Meanwhile, outside the home McAllister noted the bountiful fields of the plantation - "hay and grain stalks all around." Those responsible for tending these fields, the Leaville's enslaved labor force, began to join to the army on the march in droves. McAllister wrote:</p><blockquote><p><i>I beheld a sight which I wish could be seen by every man in the North. Slaves were running off in squads to have the protection of the Union army--old men, young men, old women, young women, even babys--seventeen from this one house.... These slaves, hearing of the Union army coming and seeing our glorious old flag--the emblem of union and liberty--floating to the breezes along their highways, snatched up their little all and came running to the road to join our moving column and to march to the land of freedom. They were all either very thinly or or very poorly clad. The house girls had old threadbare summer clothes and shawls, given to them by their mistress.... At this time we had no wagons with us. They were ahead. On marched the veteran troops, and on pushed these contrabands to keep up, yet buoyed by the hope of liberty and freedom. Barefooted, on they trudged through the mud and ice, with smiling faces at the thought of liberty.</i></p></blockquote><p>About a mile up the road, the column halted to camp for the night. The soldiers built large fires, put up a tent and delivered rations to the refugees fleeing the Leaville plantation. They found one family worried about a missing daughter: </p><blockquote><p><i>They told us this story. Some week or more before we passed along, this girl was tied to the whipping post and received 100 lashes from her mistress, after which she fled to the woods and had not returned to the home. Her brother attended to her by carrying her food in the darkness of the night. After seeing the family safe in our hands, the father and brother devoted that night to getting the lost sister, notwithstanding the dangers of the undertaking with the Rebels on our rear. To the joy of this family, before dawn of day the lost and abused one was restored to the contraband household. The night was very stormy, with a greate deal of rain. But it was not so cold as it had been, and morning found them quite comfortable.</i> <br /></p></blockquote><p>The next morning the column continued its march toward Sussex Court House. Before they had traveled very far, McAllister received word that the bodies of six or seven murdered U.S. soldiers had been found in the woods, not far from the road.</p><blockquote><p><i>I went to the spot. It was a sad sight. From appearances they had been stripped of all their clothing and, when in the act of kneeling in a circle, they were shot in the head--murdered in cold blood by the would-be 'Chivalry of the South.' Oh what a story for historians to tell! It is a story that will make the blood run cold in the veins of those who read it. It holds up to light the true character of those who are pushing the rebellion to the destruction of our glorious Union. Need I now tell you why our boys burnt buildings? I ordered the men to bury the bodies."</i></p></blockquote><p>From this point forward, the destruction of private property by U.S. soldiers on the march back toward Petersburg became indiscriminate, enraging the rebel soldiers following close behind. One Pennsylvania soldier reported: "Now, either with or without orders, the men began to burn and destroy every thing within their reach."<br /></p><p> </p><p>On December 10th, 1864, at least seventeen people who called the Leaville plantation home seized their opportunity for freedom as they marched away with the U.S. army. Over the ensuing years of Reconstruction, and then a century of Jim Crow that followed, that so-called freedom contained its own trials and oppression. Sadly, though Robert McAllister's vivid account provides us a window into this dramatic scene at the Leaville plantation, the individuals formerly enslaved by the Leavilles remain anonymous, and I have no way of tracing their story further.</p><p>For Andrew Leaville and his family, December 10th likely represented a terrible though temporary blow to their economic prospects; prospects tied directly to their enslavement of other humans. The families that left his plantation on that day represented a significant portion of the $41,000 of personal property he reported in the 1860 Census. Though I could not locate Leaville and his family in the 1870 Census, they appear again in 1880, on the same farm in the same small crossroads community. In this Census many of Leaville's neighbors are black tenant farmers, their occupation listed as farm laborers, likely in the fields of Leaville and the other white landowners that formerly enslaved them.<br /></p><p>---</p><p>I first came across this account against the backdrop of the ongoing protests that swept the nation after the murder of George Floyd by a police oficer, and the subsequent debate about Confederate monuments and symbols. We've had this debate already: in 2017 after Charlottesville, in 2015 after Charleston, and countless times before. Go back to the late 19th century and you will find veterans arguing about the propriety of Confederate monuments on the Gettysburg battlefield.</p><p>In all of this, I'm reminded of a speech Frederick Douglass gave on Memorial Day in 1877, about the memory of the Civil War:</p><blockquote><p><i>We must not be asked to say that the South was right in the rebellion,
or to say the North was wrong. We must not be asked to put no difference
between those who fought for the Union and those who fought against it,
or between loyalty and treason….</i> <i>It was a war of ideas, a battle of principles and ideas which united
one section and divided the other; a war between the old and new,
slavery and freedom, barbarism and civilization; between a government
based upon the broadest and grandest declaration of human rights the
world ever heard or read, and another pretended government, based upon
an open, bold and shocking denial of all rights, except the right of the
strongest....</i> <i>There was a right side and a wrong side in the late war, which no
sentiment ought to cause us to forget, and while today we should have
malice toward none, and charity toward all, it is no part of our duty to
confound right with wrong, or loyalty with treason. If the observance
of this memorial day has any apology, office, or significance, it is
derived from the moral character of this war, from the far-reaching,
unchangeable and eternal principles in dispute, and for which our sons
and brothers encountered hardship, danger, and death.</i></p></blockquote><p><br /></p>Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-57325475787407354802019-10-27T21:25:00.002-04:002019-10-27T21:25:59.811-04:00Gettysburg Newspapers Mourn a President and Debate Reconstruction<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>The news of the death of President Lincoln, by assassination, was received here on </i></div>
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<i>Saturday morning, between 8 and 9 o'clock. That it shocked, appalled all--such as </i></div>
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<i>no piece of intelligence ever before did--is but using a weak expression as to its effect. </i></div>
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<i>Every face gave evidence of the occurrence of some terrible calamity.</i></div>
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The weekly edition of <i>The Compiler</i> went to press late on Monday, April 17, 1865. The editor of Gettysburg's Democratic newspaper apologized for the delay, explaining to subscribers that he desired to include all the latest particulars of the shocking news of the President's assassination. The news moved at an astonishing pace in April of 1865. Since the start of the month, Richmond and Petersburg had fallen, the largest rebel army had surrendered, and an actor had murdered the President of the United States. The brutal war was swiftly coming to an end, but the daunting and unprecedented task of reconstruction now stood before the nation. Gettysburg's dueling partisan newspapers attempted to make sense of it all.</div>
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The news of Lincoln's death brought a measure of unity to Gettysburg. Both the Republican <i>Adams Sentinel </i>and <i>The Compiler </i>described a town in mourning. "This awful event," the <i>Sentinel </i>recorded on April 18th, "...threw over our town a gloom which has never been equaled. The dreaded deed was so shocking to every heart, even of those who had been his friends, and as also his opponents, that but one feeling prevailed, of deep and painful sorrow." All businesses shuttered their doors, and flags draped in mourning soon covered the town. Bells tolled to announce the shocking tragedy.<br />
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Yet a survey of these newspapers in the spring of 1865 reveals that rebel surrenders and the assassination of the President did nothing but paper over Gettysburg's obvious political divisions. Alongside notes about Lincoln's funeral, and exciting news about the progress of the United States army, the <i>Compiler </i>and <i>Sentinel </i>continued to lock horns in partisan battles. As during the war, slavery and racism drove these divisions among white Gettysburgians. By April of 1865, Congress had sealed the fate of slavery with the passage of the 13th Amendment. The rights of African Americans and the status of four million newly freed-slaves now hung in the balance. For Democrats, "the Union as it was" reemerged as the rallying cry. <i>The Compiler </i>reported just ten days after Lincoln's death:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>If the Abolitionists are in earnest in their professions of attachment to the Union, why not allow</i>[?]<i> to have it as our fathers made it? Why these talked of negro-equality experiments and other equally repulsive and unnatural schemes? The old Union was good enough for the men of 1783--why not for those of 1865? Reasonable men should want no more.</i></blockquote>
Later in the same issue, the editor commented, "When the war is fully over...the people will begin to reflect, and estimate what Abolitionism has cost the country. The result will stagger many who give the subject no thought now."<br />
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Republicans had successfully argued for the end of slavery as a war measure. Yet in the coming years, one central question of Reconstruction tested the nation: would white Americans accept full political and social equality for African Americans. The battlelines formed even as northern states celebrated the end of the war and mourned Lincoln. What political power could African Americans expect to gain? What political power could the defeated white plantation class that brought on the war expect to retain? These questions shaped competing memories of the war before the smoke cleared from its last battlefields. On May 9th, the <i>Sentinel </i>scoffed at the veneration of Robert E. Lee in a passage that could have just as well been written in 2019:<br />
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<i>It is disgusting to observe the indications of a mawkish spirit which has appeared in certain quarters to regard some of the rebel leaders, and hold them up as great and admirable men...</i><i>. In what respect is Robert E. Lee better than the cause of treason, murder and arson which he served? He was probably its ablest instrument, but in every respect he was as bad as any of his associates. Educated at the expense of the United States, he rebelled against, and used the very qualifcations which he had received from them to work their destruction.... It is a most weak, false, perverted sentiment which attaches to traitors the qualities and virtues which belong to honest and honorable men.... The memories of tens of thousands of our brethren who fill untimely graves forbid it. The melancholy procession of widows and orphans made so by this rebellion protest against it. Towns destroyed by fire--devastated fields, and ruined works of public improvement, bear witness to the guilt of treason. Shall the men who wrought all this evil be exalted in public estimation while their crimes cry aloud for punishment? We think the ghosts of all that fell from the day on which Massachusetts men were massacred in Baltimore, until Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, exclaim against it.</i></blockquote>
These competing Gettysburg newspapers highlighted the challenge Republicans faced as they looked toward the reconstruction of the nation. Though a semblance of unity existed among white northerners to support the war effort and reunite the country, that unity did not extend to guaranteeing freedom and equality for black Americans. Though the fighting between field armies on battlefields came to an end in April 1865, the war over the central issues at stake raged on. <br />
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Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-61811316195403895512019-08-03T21:38:00.000-04:002019-08-03T21:38:53.719-04:00"Valor, devotion, and loyalty are not always rewarded according to their just deserts" - Robert Brown Elliott and the Civil Rights Act of 1875<br />
<a href="https://historycms2.house.gov/uploadedImages/People/Listing/E/E000128.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="ELLIOTT, Robert Brown" border="0" height="400" src="https://historycms2.house.gov/uploadedImages/People/Listing/E/E000128.jpg" style="height: 233px; width: 175px;" width="300" /></a>Sometimes, you read a source so good, you just have to share it out.<br />
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The speech given on the floor of the House of Representatives by Congressman Robert Brown Elliott on January 6, 1874 opens a window on the radical and swift changes wrought by the Civil War and Reconstruction, reveals the hope and optimism of that particular historical moment, and serves as a stark reminder of the nation's ultimate failures.<br />
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Born in England, Elliott had served in the Royal Navy before emigrating to the United States and settling in Charleston, South Carolina in 1867. There he became an associate editor of a freedmen's newspaper and an emerging leader in the Reconstruction politics of South Carolina. Elliott represented South Carolina's 3rd District in the 42nd and 43rd Congress and counted himself among the first black Congressmen in the nation's history. On the sixth of January, 1874, he rose to give a blistering speech in defense of the Civil Rights Bill that Senator Charles Sumner, continued to push through both houses of Congress. The bill made it illegal for places of public accommodation and entertainment to make distinctions between black and white patrons, and prohibited discrimination on account of race in public schools, churches, transportation, cemeteries, and on juries. Sumner thought that "very few measures of equal importance have ever been presented" before the United States Congress, and spent the better part of four years championing the bill, which only passed after his death in 1875.<br />
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When he took to the floor of the House of Representatives on January 6th, Elliott particularly sought to rebut the arguments of two Southern Democrats - Kentuckian James F. Beck and former Vice President of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens. Just one day before Stephens had spoken in opposition to the bill. The author of the famous "Cornerstone" speech again admitted that slavery caused the war, but declared "the cause is now forever removed," and rejected the need for further national protections for African Americans. Stephens invoked the self-evident truth of equality embodied in the Declaration of Independence, but opined: "This truth was never meant, in my opinion, to convey the idea that all men were created equal in all respects, either in physical, mental, or moral development." He insisted he held no prejudices, but railed against the idea of desegregated accommodations: "I do not believe the colored people of Georgia have any desire for mixed schools, and very little indeed, for mixed churches." He rejected the Constitutionality of the Civil Rights Bill and concluded with an impassioned defense of states rights - the same arguments that Southern segregationist lawmakers recycled for the next century. "The United States," Stephens said, "still exist as a Federal republic, and are not yet merged into a centralized empire."<br />
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Robert Brown Elliott had built a reputation for his oratorical skills, and deployed these skills to full effect on this day in the House of Representatives, in front of a gallery packed with African American spectators. He began:<br />
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<b>While I am sincerely grateful for this high mark of courtesy that has been accorded to me by this House, it is a matter of regret to me that it is necessary at this day that I should rise in the presence of an American Congress to advocate a bill which simply asserts equal rights and equal public privileges for all classes of American citizens. I regret, sir, that the dark hue of my skin may lend a color to the imputation that I am controlled by motives personal to myself in advocacy of this great measure of national justice. Sir, the motive that impels me is restricted by no such narrow boundary, but is as broad as your Constitution. I advocate it, sir, because it is right. The bill, however, not only appeals to your justice, but it demands a response from your gratitude.</b></blockquote>
Elliott offered a history lesson on the bravery of African American soldiers in the Revolution and War of 1812. He highlighted the loyalty and service of African Americans to the Union during the Civil War, while sniping at the record of Beck's Kentucky - <b>"a State which answered the call of the Republic in 1861, when treason thundered at the very gates of the capital by coldly declaring her neutrality in the impending struggle."</b><br />
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Elliott unleashed a point-by-point rebuttal of the Constitutional arguments laid out by Stephens, Beck, and others. He carefully recounted the limits of the Supreme Court's recent <i>Slaughterhouse </i>decision and demonstrated why it did not affect Congress's ability to pass the Civil Rights Bill.<br />
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Elliott reserved particular scorn for the former Confederate Vice President:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>...In this discussion I cannot and will not forget that the welfare and rights of my whole race in this country are involved. When, therefore, the honorable gentleman from Georgia lends his voice and influence to defeat this measure, I do not shrink from saying that it is not from him that the American House of Representatives should take lessons in matters touching human rights or the joint relations of the State and national governments. While the honorable gentleman contented himself with harmless speculations in his study, or in the columns of newspaper, we might well smile at the impotence of his efforts to turn back the advancing tide of opinion and progress; but, when he comes again upon this national arena, and throws himself with all his power and influence across the path which leads to the full enfranchisement of my race, I meet him only as an adversary; nor shall age or any other consideration restrain me from saying that he now offers this Government, which he has done his utmost to destroy, a very poor return for its magnanimous treatment, to come here and seek to continue, by the assertion of doctrines obnoxious to the true principles of our Government, the burdens and oppressions which rest upon five millions of his countrymen who never failed to lift their earnest prayers for the success of this Government when the gentleman was seeking to break up the Union of these States and to blot the American Republic from the galaxy of nations. [Loud applause.]<br /><br />Sir, it is scarcely twelve years since that gentleman shocked the civilized world by announcing the birth of a government which rested on human slavery as its corner-stone. The progress of events has swept away that <i>pseudo-</i>government which rested on greed, pride, and tyranny; and the race whom he then ruthlessly spurned and trampled on are here to meet him in debate, and to demand that the rights which are enjoyed by their former oppressors--who vainly sought to overthrow the Government which they could not prostitute to the base uses of slavery--shall be accorded to those who even in the darkest of slavery kept their allegiance true to freedom and the Union. Sir, the gentleman from Georgia has learned much since 1861; but he is still a laggard. </b></blockquote>
In a powerful conclusion, Elliott laid out the stakes of the bill:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<b>Technically, this bill is to decide upon the civil status of the colored American citizen; a point disputed at the very formation of our present Government, when by a short-sighted policy, a policy repugnant to true republican government, one negro counted as three-fifths of a man. The logical result of this mistake of the framers of the Constitution strengthened the cancer of slavery, which finally spread its poisonous tentacles over the southern portion of the body-politic. To arrest its growth and save the nation we have passed through the harrowing operation of intestine war, dreaded at all times, resorted to at the last extremity, like the surgeon's knife, but absolutely necessary to extirpate the disease which threatened with the life of the nation the overthrow of civil and political liberty on this continent. In that dire extremity the members of the race which I have the honor in part to represent--the race which pleads for justice at your hands today, forgetful of their inhuman and brutalizing servitude at the South, their degradation and ostracism at the North--flew willingly and gallantly to the support of the national Government. Their sufferings, assistance, privations, and trials in the swamps and the rice-fields, their valor on the land and on the sea, in part of the ever-glorious record which makes up the history of a nation preserved, and might, should I urge the claim, incline your respect and guarantee their rights and privileges as citizens of our great common Republic. But I remember that valor, devotion, and loyalty are not always rewarded according to their just deserts, and that some after the battle who have borne the brunt of the fray may, through neglect or contempt, be assigned to a subordinate place, while the enemies in war may be preferred to the sufferers. </b></blockquote>
All seven African American members of the 43rd Congress spoke passionately in support of the Civil Rights Bill and offered personal testimony of the types of discrimination they had personally faced. Congressman and former U.S. General Benjamin Butler sponsored the bill and shepherded it through the House. Speaking of his support for the Bill, Butler recalled an engagement in Virginia in which he commanded black soldiers who had died in battle:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
As I looked on their bronzed faces upturned in the shining sun to heaven as if in mute appeal against the wrong of the country for which they had given their lives...feeling I had wronged them in the past...I swore to myself a solemn oath...to defend the rights of these men who had given their blood for me and my country. </blockquote>
The Civil Rights Act finally became law in 1875, though without several key provisions such as that prohibiting racial discrimination in schools. The Grant Administration declined to enforce the law. The Supreme Court effectively overturned the law in 1883, arguing that the 13th and 14th amendments did not empower Congress to prohibit racial discrimination by private individuals. Historians consider the Civil Rights Act as the last major piece of Reconstruction legislation passed by Congress. The Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1968 later reenacted portions of the act almost a century later.Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-20178732077243531702018-05-06T12:00:00.000-04:002018-05-06T16:19:29.302-04:00The Stories We Tell and the Stories We Don't<b>Should public historians tell the stories our audiences want to hear? Or the stories that we believe they need to know?</b><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dr. John Brockenbrough's House, 1201 Clay Street, Richmond<br />
Library of Congress.</td></tr>
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<br />
The question itself contains inherent flaws. In determining what stories our audiences want to hear, we go a long way toward defining the very makeup of those audiences.<br />
<br />
Some might say we should just "present the facts." Of course, public historians always have to choose which facts to tell, why they matter, and which facts we leave out. We must decide which stories about a given place are powerful, relevant, and worthy of the telling. <br />
<br />
A friend of mine recently asked: how far must a historical site like Gettysburg go in presenting the story of slavery. Should the interpretive markers on Little Round Top explain the significance of the institution of slavery and its relevance to the war?<br />
<br />
I'm conflicted in my answer. The power of a historic site <i>is</i> the power of place. Little Round Top's draws more than a million people a year because they can stand there and imagine the chaos and fury of a battle with supreme stakes, see in their mind the lines of troops, picture the air filled with deadly missiles, and smoke rising from the hill like a smoldering volcano. An evocative scene stirs emotions. Little Round Top is not the place for interpretive markers delving into the complex backstory, causes, and legacy of the Civil War.<br />
<br />
And yet, we cannot fully appreciate the importance of Little Round Top's story without connecting it to the larger causes and legacies of the war. What's more, our historic sites have been selectively chosen over time, robbing us of the ability to experience the power of place at other meaningful sites. For more than a century, we've preserved battlefields and the houses of the wealthy and powerful. The plantation fields and structures have gone away, removed deliberately or through neglect. Likewise, the slave pens and jails have disappeared from the modern landscape. Few places remain where one can stand and imagine the historical scene of a slave coffle marching south in chains.<br />
<br />
The stories of enslaved people were largely silenced too. We can learn thousands of soldiers' stories through the diaries, letters, memoirs, regimental histories, newspaper articles, speeches, monuments, and pension records they left. Comparatively, there are few records as rich to tell the story of enslaved people. We have a few hundred slave narratives. Slave owners used enforced illiteracy as a tool of control. Federal and State governments did not approve funds for the erection of monuments to slaves. We have private foundations that pump money into battlefield preservation, but seem less concerned for the preservation of slave quarters.<br />
<br />
The result is a lack of important perspectives at public history sites. <br />
<br />
This weekend I toured the Confederate White House in Richmond. I've visited twice before, but not in the last decade. On this trip, I noted that the house itself had hardly changed. The period rooms remained almost exactly as I remembered them from my last trip in 2005. The stories I heard changed. In the entrance hall, our guide presented us with a signed pass for the enslaved butler, Henry. He described how this pass represented the total control that white society sought to exert over Henry's life. Then he described how Henry used the commotion of a fire in the basement one day in 1864 as a diversion to make a daring escape.<br />
<br />
The Dining Room remained set for a council of war held in the spring of 1862, as rebel military leaders contemplated the defense of Richmond during the Peninsula Campaign. Our guide reflected on the enslaved servants who came and went from the room during the meeting. What did they overhear? Was it safe to discuss this information freely in front of these potential enemies?<br />
<br />
Even with the updated storylines, I wondered at the decisions made long ago in interpreting and furnishing this historic home. Here in a house built in 1818, the central story revolved around a brief four years of its history, and around only one of the many families who called it home.<br />
<br />
I wondered about the original builder of the home, and what the surrounding city looked like in 1818 when this home went up in an elite section that included neighbors like John Marshall. I wanted to hear about pre-war Richmond, and how the war drastically altered life here. And I was intensely curious to know the home's postwar story. Seized by the United States government, the mansion became headquarters for the First Military District during Reconstruction. The stories of this house during that tumultuous period could fill a vacuum of public knowledge on the subject.<br />
<br />
I left the tour wondering if the decision to restore the entire house to such a specific period robbed it of a chance to tell a broader, more complete story of the American Civil War.<br />
<br />
At every site, there are the stories public historians choose to tell and the stories we choose to ignore. Each site has valid reasons for these decisions, and for continuing to operate based on assumptions made by past leaders in past eras. Funding, resources, logistics, and often the limits of historical evidence available, all contribute to the central narratives chosen.<br />
<br />
Yet, it is worth taking the time occasionally to step back and question the assumptions underlying our most basic interpretive decisions.Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-41803500689999885272017-09-17T19:31:00.002-04:002017-09-17T19:31:46.246-04:00Sketching out a Unionist Spy Operation in Orange, Virginia and stumbling across Charles A. BeardThe mystery begins with a <a href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/cwp2003000270/PP/" target="_blank">photograph taken at Brandy Station, Virginia in March of 1864</a>. The image depicts scouts and guides of the Army of the Potomac just a few months before the start of the Overland Campaign.<br />
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According to the Library of Congress summary, the second man standing from the left may be James Cammack. I say "may" because a question mark placed after his name indicates a lack of certainty. How his name became attached to this photograph in the first place, I am unaware.<br />
<br />
Who was this man dressed in civilian clothing, and what was his role with the Army of the Potomac in March of 1864? A variety of sources connect some, but not all, of the dots, adding to our knowledge of how Unionist Virginians provided invaluable assistance to the Army of the Potomac's Bureau of Military Information.<br />
<br />
The name Cammack appears several times in the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. On September 5th, 1864, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant received a message from Assistant Adjutant General George K. Leet, relating the following:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
WASHINGTON, September 5, 1864--2:30 p.m. Lieutenant-General GRANT, City Point, Va.: </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The information contained in dispatch of 29th ultimo was obtained by the scouts from an agent named Cammack, an old man who lives near Orange Court-house. Scouts in this morning, who derive their information from the same source, report the following: No troops have passed to or from the Valley since Fitzhugh Lee's cavalry went up. Force of infantry there is Ewell's old corps, Breckenridge's division, and Anderson's brigade of Field's division. Have been steadily falling back of late, but no signs of their leaving the valley.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This information is to the 3d instant, and Mr. Babcock, who has charge of scouts, thinks it reliable. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Geo. K. Leet, Captain and Assistant Adjutant-General.</blockquote>
Ten days letter, another message sent from the head of the Bureau of Military Information, George Sharpe, to Army of the Potomac Chief of Staff Andrew A. Humphreys also mentioned Cammack:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
I have a report from Captain McEntee, dated day before yesterday, at Washington. Scouts had returned that morning from Cammacks and Silvers. The news they bring amounts to the absence of all movements through Orange Court-House toward or from the Valley. Cammack reports that a neighbor of his lately received letters from friends in the Ninth and Thirtieth Virginia Regiments...."</blockquote>
Two scholars of the intelligence operations of the United States army during the Civil War, Edwin Fishel and William B. Feis, obliquely refer to the agent named Cammack in their writings, but spend more time exploring the role of another spy in the area, Isaac Silver. In Fishel's landmark study, <i>The Secret War for the Union</i>, he writes:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Silver again put his Orange county business connections to use as cover for visits to that problem area. He paid special attention to railroad depots, where he questioned railroad employees and travelers, seeking information of movements on the Orange and Alexandria and the Virginia Central, and any other military news they might have. James W. Cammack, who evidently had connections similar to Sliver's (and shared with Silver the sobriquet 'the old man') was similarly employed.</blockquote>
In Feis's work, <i>Grant's Secret Service</i>, he writes something similar:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Sharpe sent Babcock to Washington in early August to establish an organization to monitor Early's main rail links with Richmond. This operation depended upon three Virginia Unionists who lived in the vicinity of the depots of the Orange and Alexandria; the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac; and the Virginia Central Railroads. Isaac Silver (alias 'the old man'), James W. Cammack, and Ebenezer McGee, all of whom lived west of Fredericksburg, would visit the depots regularly, question passengers and railroad employees about the composition and direction of recent traffic, and watch specifically for troop trains heading for the valley.</blockquote>
Yet the identification of James W. Cammack as the individual referenced in the September, 1864 dispatches flowing to and from Grant's headquarters at City Point raises some questions. One dispatch clearly labels "Cammack" as an old man. Census records reveal that there was a James W. Cammack who lived in Orange County, Virginia. However, he was born in 1833, and in 1864 would have been about 31 years of age. This potentially matches the Library of Congress image we have of Cammack at Brandy Station, but neither supports the description of an old man.<br />
<br />
A variety of census, marriage, and death records start to unravel the mystery of the Army of the Potomac's agent, including census records for 1850, 1870,and 1880. James W. Cammack's parents were William E. and Rebecca Cammack. They operated a farm of about 150 acres in Orange County, Virginia at the beginning of the Civil War. William E. was 53 years old in 1861, and his wife 66. The couple had at least three children: James W. (age 28 in 1861), George W. (24), and Catherine (19). George W. enlisted in the Confederate army in 1861, serving with the 46th Virginia, but his brother apparently did not.<br />
<br />
There is compelling evidence to suggest that the "old man" related by Union reports was actually William E. Cammack, and that his son served for a period as a scout for the Army of the Potomac, traveling to and from his father's home.<br />
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<a href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/g3883c.cw0531700/" target="_blank">An 1863 Army of the Potomac map in the Library of Congress</a> highlights a residence named "Cammack" just south of Robertson's Tavern and Old Verdiersville, several miles to the east of Orange Court House.<br />
<br />
Then there's an intriguing account left us by Judson Knight, a man who served as a scout (and later chief of scouts) in the Army of the Potomac. Writing in<i> The National Tribune</i> on July 21, 1892, Knight weaves the following story of creating a new source of information within Confederate territory:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
During that [Mine Run] campaign a party of scouts from Army Headquarters found themselves in the vicinity of "Old Vidersville," about 12 miles south of Culpeper, Va. in the neighborhood of the farmhouse that looked as though food for man and beast might be procured. Upon the party riding up to the house they were met by an old Virginia farmer who anxiously asked if they were "Yankees." He was told that they were, to which he replied, "I am mighty glad to see you-all."<br />
<br />
"Oh! Give us a rest; we have heard that kind of talk before," was the reply from some of the scouts. The old farmer looked anxiously and rapidly from one to another, and a shade of fear swept over his face as he observed the motley dress of several of the party until his eyes rested upon one who wore a full Federal uniform. He scrutinized him carefully, while the boys were still chaffing him, and addressing him personally, said: "Are you Yankees?"<br />
<br />
"Yes, we are!" And the reply was so emphatic and made in such a tone as though the speaker was proud of the fact and of the chance of telling one whom he supposed to be an enemy of the government, that his face instantly cleared and all could see that his assertion of "I am mighty glad to see you all," was a fact.<br />
<br />
"Come, gentlemen, light," was his next salutation; and they "lit."<br />
"Can you furnish us a dinner and a feed for our horses?"<br />
"Yes, and glad to do it, too."<br />
<br />
While discussing the news the old farmer said: "I am glad you-all came out here today, for I have a son that I want you-all to take with you when you leave here."<br />
<br />
He was told that it would not be done, as there was no spare horse for his son to ride.<br />
<br />
"Never mind about the horse. I have got as good a horse as any of you-all, and he can have him, if you will only take him along with you all."<br />
<br />
All hands saw by this time the old man was a Unionist, and in dead earnest. He told the party his son had been in a neighboring State, and had been able to keep out of the army until the previous June, when he was conscripted and allowed to go home to join a Virginia regiment. He had been home about six months, hid in one of the chambers, and had not been out of doors in daylight in all that time. Stepping to the stairway he called him down. His son was about 32 years of age, and about five feet 10 inches in height, and as white as ghosts are supposed to be, from his enforced seclusion during all those weeks. He was taken along, and when Gen. Meade fell back across the Rapidan he went with us. <br />
<br />
Some time during the month of December, 1863, it was concluded at Headquarters that if we could find a good crossing just above Jacob's or Germanna Fords, we would start a line between Headquarters of our army and Headquarters of the Army of Northern Virginia by sending relays of men to the house of the old Unionist, whose name I am not going to divulge; neither shall I tell the name of his son, but in future will refer to him as "Bob."</blockquote>
The "old man" - William E. Cammack - continued to live in Orange, Virginia after the war. In the 1870s he applied for and apparently received reimbursement for war damages from the Southern Claims Commission. Reimbursement required proof of Union sympathies and loyalty.<br />
<br />
His two sons went west. Both James and George moved to Indianapolis after the war. George returned to Virginia by 1870 and was later buried at New Hope Baptist Church in Orange County, Virginia, along the old Plank Road.<br />
<br />
James W. Cammack did not return. At an unknown date during or perhaps before the war, James had married Laura Ann Beard of Guilford County, North Carolina. If James and his father are the individuals referenced in Knight's account, it is likely that North Carolina was the "neighboring state" that Cammack spent time in prior to returning to Virginia upon his conscription.<br />
<br />
Laura Beard's family were staunch Quaker Unionists during the war, and removed to Indiana at its conclusion, apparently leading or following James and Laura Cammack. James and Laura eventually settled in Knightstown, Indiana with the rest of the Beard family. And it was in Knightstown in 1874 that their famous nephew, noted American historian Charles A. Beard, was born.<br />
<br />
-----<br />
<b>Sources Included:</b><br />
<br />
U.S. Census Records, 1850-1880<br />
Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Collection<br />
Ancestry.com Public Member Stories (including newspaper obituaries for members of the Beard family)<br />
<br />
<b></b>
Feis, William B. <i>Grant's Secret Service: The Intelligence War from Belmont to Appomattox. </i>Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2002.<br />
<br />
Fishel, Edwin C. <i>The Secret War for the Union: The Untold Story of Military Intelligence in the Civil War</i>. New York: Mariner Books, 1998.<br />
<br />
<i> </i>United States War Department.<i> The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. </i>Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1880-1901.<br />
<br />
<b> </b>Tsouras, Peter G. <i>Scouting for Grant and Meade: The Reminiscences of Judson Knight, Chief of Scouts, Army of the Potomac. </i>New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2014. Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-6496681024803573682017-01-26T21:52:00.000-05:002017-01-26T21:52:04.176-05:00The Sanctuary Cities of Slavery<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWyazP4cCB-QsRwYC3jvjE3Lbq5L_uJccoZwjohxp7WhZ52QZTIIRrwhVYvYYUZkQXWQv3ut_8vjUZoNnYgtLTZzP7BOANotiBNpO373yp1tkwo0LesKni3CfUPgcOW7ONVdNq3bajzhkX/s1600/Anthony+Burns.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWyazP4cCB-QsRwYC3jvjE3Lbq5L_uJccoZwjohxp7WhZ52QZTIIRrwhVYvYYUZkQXWQv3ut_8vjUZoNnYgtLTZzP7BOANotiBNpO373yp1tkwo0LesKni3CfUPgcOW7ONVdNq3bajzhkX/s400/Anthony+Burns.jpg" width="292" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Anthony Burns drawn by Barry from <br />a daguerreotype by Whipple & Black;<br /> John Andrews, sc. Source: Library of Congress</td></tr>
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On Wednesday, the President of the United States released an executive order to step up enforcement of immigration laws, and to take targeted action against so-called "sanctuary cities," denying them federal funding. These are cities that refuse to hand over undocumented immigrants to federal authorities intent on deporting them. While such efforts to defy federal authority may strike some as an unprecedented defiance of our national government, it's not terribly unprecedented. In fact, such actions call to mind the personal liberty laws passed by numerous states during the mid-nineteenth century.<br />
<br />
The Constitution itself provided provision for the return of fugitive slaves in Article IV, section 2. In 1793, Congress turned this provision into law with its first fugitive slave law. Yet growing anti-slavery sentiment in the North led some states to pass personal liberty laws designed to distance their relationship from slavery. In 1826 Pennsylvania passed such a law forbidding state authorities from aiding the capture and return of runaway slaves. The law walked a fine line - it did not subvert the Constitution because it did not prevent <i>federal</i> authorities from seeking out and returning slaves; only state authorities.Nevertheless, the law was struck by the Supreme Court in <i>Prigg v. Pennsylvania </i>in 1842<i>. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
Despite the decision, increasing Abolitionist agitation brought about the passage of stronger personal liberty laws in Massachusetts and Vermont in 1843, New Hampshire in 1846, Pennsylvania in 1847, and Rhode Island in 1848. As part of the Compromise of 1850, however, Congress passed a stricter fugitive slave act. This new law compelled northerners to participate in the recovery of fugitive slaves, threatening heavy fines or imprisonment. Stiff penalties were also set for those individuals found to have assisted fugitive slaves in their escape. The act crystallized northern opposition to slavery, as it seemingly forced their participation in maintaining the inhumane institution. Opposition to the law reached its zenith in the city of Boston in May of 1854, when a Virginia merchant by the name of Charles F. Suttle sought to recover his runaway slave, Anthony Burns.<br />
<br />
Working on the wharfs in Richmond Virginia, Burns had managed to board a ship bound for Boston earlier that year. To recover Burns, federal marshals worked with local law enforcement to first arrest the fugitive on fabricated robbery charges. When local abolitionists learned of Burns's incarceration and impending deportation back to slavery, they organized resistance. 5,000 citizens gathered at Faneuil Hall to protest, while a smaller group of black and white abolitionists, led by the minister Thomas Wentworth Higginson, made plans to storm the court house and free Burns. Armed with axes and a battering ram, they breached the heavy doors of the court house, and a melee ensued, during which one defender was stabbed and killed. The abolitionists failed to reach and free Burns.<br />
<br />
To enforce the law, local militia were called out, and two companies of U.S. marines were sent to Boston by President Franklin Pierce. One week later, hundreds of federal troops escorted Burns back to slavery. As the rendition took place, some 50,000 Bostonians turned out in the streets to witness the sad scene. As historian Manisha Sinha has recently described it, "Buildings were draped in black, American flags were outlined in black, and a coffin with the word <i>Liberty </i>on it was displayed."<br />
<br />
One witness to the events wrote: "When it was all over and I was alone in my office, I put my hands in my face and wept. I could do nothing less."<br />
-----------<br />
<b>Sources / Further Reading</b><br />
Hall, Kermit L. <i>The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States</i>. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.<br />
<br />
Sinha, Manisha, <i>The Slave's Cause: A History of Abolition</i>. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016.<br />
<br />
Wilentz, Sean. <i>The Rise of American Democracy. </i>New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2005.Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-89417932483275736502016-10-18T20:02:00.000-04:002016-10-18T20:02:35.203-04:00The Power of Place: Germanna Ford<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE9qd1Pst68B1SwI5eRgozXhw_70876g3CN6lMJpI8u4adug6UQKVTTwOoteDdL4LXDZcnkzcXrNxY0x07iN6f-YuMMGp8jLS1hr4zQGWY-Vq8sVWYohGnnmGmJjxwWPeN6ogWmDLV8A3G/s1600/2016-10-17+11.45.57.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgE9qd1Pst68B1SwI5eRgozXhw_70876g3CN6lMJpI8u4adug6UQKVTTwOoteDdL4LXDZcnkzcXrNxY0x07iN6f-YuMMGp8jLS1hr4zQGWY-Vq8sVWYohGnnmGmJjxwWPeN6ogWmDLV8A3G/s400/2016-10-17+11.45.57.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View of the Rapidan River at Germanna Ford</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Sometimes you can stand in a place and connect with a sense of its history. Yesterday, I felt this power of place when I visited Germanna Ford on the Rapidan River for the first time. As I stood overlooking the stream with the sound of modern traffic audible on the Route 3 bridge nearby, I was struck by the fact that it was here, on the south bank of the Rapidan, that the war entered its final, darkest, act on May 4th, 1864.<br />
<br />
The Rapidan begins high up in the Blue Ridge Mountains as a small stream, cascading down over rocks and creating small pools. It meanders across the Piedmont of Central Virginia on its 88-mile journey to a confluence near Fredericksburg with the Rappahannock, which continues on to the Chesapeake Bay.<br />
<br />
These two rivers became the dividing line of the war in the east. John Pope and Robert E. Lee's armies skirmished and sparred with each other over these rivers in August of 1862, as a prelude to Second Manassas. The Army of Northern Virginia contested a Rappahannock crossing again at Fredericksburg in December of 1862, and the two armies wintered on opposite banks in the battle's aftermath. In April of 1863 the Army of the Potomac utilized Germanna Ford in an attempt to flank Lee's position at Fredericksburg, but withdrew after defeat at the Battle of Chancellorsville. Under George Gordon Meade, the army returned to Germanna Ford in November, a portion crossing here before aborting its campaign in front of Lee's entrenchments at Mine Run. During the winter of 1863 and 1864, the Rapidan divided the armed camps of both armies.<br />
<br />
For nearly three years, rebel forces had thwarted every attempt by the United States army to establish itself south of these rivers.<br />
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After dark on May 3, 1864 the Army of the Potomac broke up its camps around Culpeper to begin yet another, final, attempt to pass the Rapidan. By 4 a.m. on May 4th, the men of the 50th New York Engineers had arrived at Germanna Ford and began to build two 220 foot bridges across the Rapidan. Within two hours, the engineers completed both bridges, and troops began to flow across the river. By 6 p.m., that evening, some 50,000 soldiers of the 5th and 6th Corps, of the Army of the Potomac had crossed on these two bridges.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3zutssgUS4AScoN8gBxwIqXe-zBmEM7CHueQKmUvPcL9OvbLgGl0A9XKcnPEydHYr4CPP524CKc1vlDk84eki1T69Y2aeew8MywZsJHUgaP-cEt8U4VjOOhDnCXoz6xeCc0OKC8WS-6H_/s1600/Crossing+the+Rapidan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="618" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3zutssgUS4AScoN8gBxwIqXe-zBmEM7CHueQKmUvPcL9OvbLgGl0A9XKcnPEydHYr4CPP524CKc1vlDk84eki1T69Y2aeew8MywZsJHUgaP-cEt8U4VjOOhDnCXoz6xeCc0OKC8WS-6H_/s640/Crossing+the+Rapidan.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Germanna Ford, Rapidan River, Virginia. Grant's Troops Crossing Germannia [Sic] Ford. <br />Timothy O'Sullivan. Library of Congress</td></tr>
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Sometime late that afternoon, photographer Timothy O'Sullivan, traveling with the Army of the Potomac, crossed the bridges with his dark wagon, and set up on a bluff on south side to record a series of historic images of the crossing.<br />
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These fascinating images record an army in motion. By May of 1864, the soldiers of the Army of the Potomac had gotten used to crossing the Rapidan River. Few of these soldiers probably thought about the historical nature of this crossing. Who among them could have predicted that for most of them, this would be their final crossing of the river before the end of the war? Yet the stakes were higher this spring. The end of this season of battle would bring with it a Presidential Election. It may be hard for many of us to fathom, but the election season of 1864 was darker and fraught with more dangers than even our current unhappiness.<br />
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Theodore Lyman, a military aide to Meade, recorded crossing at about 9:30 in the morning, and resting for some time on the high bank south of the river,watching "the steady stream of men and cannon and trains pouring over the pontoons." He later reflected:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>I remember thinking how strange it would be if each man who was destined to fall in the campaign had some large badge on! There would have been Generals Sedgwick, Wadsworth, and Rice, and what crowds of subordinate officers and privates, all marching gaily along, unconscious, happily, of their fate</i>. </blockquote>
Up ahead lay the Wilderness of Spotsylvania County, where the men of the 5th and 6th Corps would be drawn into battle the following morning. It marked the beginning of 42 days of consecutive battle.<br />
<br />
<u>Further Reading</u><br />
William Frassanito, <i>Grant and Lee: The Virginia Campaigns, 1864-1865</i><br />
Theodore Lyman, <i>With Grant and Meade: From the Wilderness to Appomattox.</i><br />
Gordon Rhea, <i>The Battle of the Wilderness: May 5-6, 1864.</i>Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-25722954959222285602016-09-12T17:10:00.000-04:002016-09-12T17:10:27.815-04:00Stumbling into Civil War History in Shenandoah National ParkWe've made efforts to preserve parts of our history through monuments, interpretive markers, historic houses, battlefield parks, and museums. Yet our preservation and commemoration efforts are often narrowly selective. Sometimes the past remains hidden in plain sight, obscured but not erased from our more modern landscapes. With a little work, intrepid history lovers can discover these forgotten stories. And living in Virginia, I love the constant opportunities for stumbling across Civil War history.<br />
<br />
Over the Labor Day Weekend, my wife and I met some friends and camped at Big Meadows in Shenandoah National Park. During our stay, we set off from the campground on a round-trip hike that took us up to Fisher's Gap, down a hiking trail to Rose River Falls, and looping back along the Rose River Fire Road and the Appalachian Trail to our campsite. It was a beautiful, somewhat strenuous hike. We made the trip down to the falls along a rocky and steep trail, and the terrain on our climb out provided additional challenges, at least until we hit the Rose River Fire Road. This well-maintained gravel road eased our travel considerably, not the least because its ascent back to Fisher's Gap proved much more gradual than our previous trail.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPg-P8YjFCFsNaRPTUmtFGVBtsbKtTkQFA_Qh_DqwbVVrzBb7k1egxnqbO8HQ_Ztx0e55optKiNamwKz0suZkzSpo_mEClSh3kF8kcdVSEQPAtzZHv8TFdbeUkUUEMSeRtG6knLaLkPuL2/s1600/Rose+River+Fire+Road.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPg-P8YjFCFsNaRPTUmtFGVBtsbKtTkQFA_Qh_DqwbVVrzBb7k1egxnqbO8HQ_Ztx0e55optKiNamwKz0suZkzSpo_mEClSh3kF8kcdVSEQPAtzZHv8TFdbeUkUUEMSeRtG6knLaLkPuL2/s640/Rose+River+Fire+Road.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Google Maps shows the Rose River Fire Trail today, along the remnants of the 19th Century Blue Ridge Turnpike.</td></tr>
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Today, Shenandoah is wilderness; but for centuries before it became a national park, many people made their homes and utilized the Blue Ridge Mountains. In the 19th century, various roads, turnpikes and byways crossed the mountains to connect the Shenandoah Valley with Eastern Virginia. As we hiked, I thought about the many times both United States and Confederate soldiers crossed these very mountains during the Civil War. But I did not realize that for part of our hike, we tread one of the frequent paths they used. That discovery awaited my return home, when I looked up the history of the various fire roads in the area, and came upon the story of the Blue Ridge Turnpike.<br />
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Chartered in 1848 and opened in 1853, the Turnpike ran 56 miles from Gordonsville across the Blue Ridge to New Market. The private toll road opened a vital connection for agriculturally rich areas of the Valley to what was at that moment the closest railroad link - the Virginia Central Railroad - in Gordonsville. The <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=XzgUAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA9-PA8&dq=1851+Report+of+the+President+and+Board+of+Directors+of+the+Blue+Ridge+Turnpike+Company&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwin44nK2orPAhWBrD4KHZfvAPMQ6AEIIjAB#v=onepage&q=blue%20ridge%20turnpike&f=false" target="_blank">1851 Report of the President and Board of Directors of the Blue Ridge Turnpike Company</a> declared the turnpike:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>One of great value and importance, penetrating as it does into such a rich and fertile portion of the Valley, over mountains deemed heretofore almost impassable, and affording as it will the easiest and shortest communications with the markets of Eastern Virginia.... The industrial wealth of the Valley will be poured into Richmond; or, when the Alexandria railroad, now in progress is completed, they will have a choice of markets, and will have the benefit of that competition for their trade.</i></blockquote>
The company macadamized portions of the turnpike crossing the Blue Ridge to improve the firmness of the road, and envisioned creating "an excellent road of easy grade." After only eight years though, war disrupted the operations of the turnpike. Along with the agriculture riches of the valley, the turnpike now saw the movement of thousands of soldiers.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuX4z9qZckPcaB-qdMFIPlnASFtsPZSMPqwutFYLIuEHw876tGPAhzS-UQC_v6PAyeQHQiUJmCUYIwWHIGOyOx4EHMc_eHW_o_W5gcaaJTGrG3olPOs1o70NLwvHKZUxmJEmG324EaMfc6/s1600/Blue+Ridge+Turnpike.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuX4z9qZckPcaB-qdMFIPlnASFtsPZSMPqwutFYLIuEHw876tGPAhzS-UQC_v6PAyeQHQiUJmCUYIwWHIGOyOx4EHMc_eHW_o_W5gcaaJTGrG3olPOs1o70NLwvHKZUxmJEmG324EaMfc6/s640/Blue+Ridge+Turnpike.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/gvhs01.vhs00330" target="_blank">Map showing the Turnpike </a>completed by Confederate Chief Engineer Jeremy F. Gilmer during the Civil War.<br />Library of Congress.</td></tr>
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The road through Fisher's Gap was sketched by Confederate cartographer Jedediah Hotchkiss, He later <a href="http://valley.lib.virginia.edu/papers/A2562" target="_blank">wrote to his wife</a> of the experience riding through the pass:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Monday was a fine day, and I had a nice ride across the Blue Ridge, by the crookedest road I have ever seen -- 19 miles across -- but the road is a fine one -- I stopped for the night at the foot of the Mt. Tuesday I came on to New Market...</i></blockquote>
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Stonewall Jackson utilized the turnpike during his Valley Campaign in the spring of 1862. Later that year, following the conclusion of the Maryland Campaign, Jackson's Corps again used the Blue Ridge Turnpike in November to pass through Fisher's Gap (sometimes called Millam's Gap during that time). They marched to rejoin the rest of the Army of Northern Virginia at Fredericksburg. Captain James Cooper Nisbet of the 21st Georgia recalled the march:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The pike road leading across the Blue Ridge to Madison Court House winds up the mountain by easy grade. It was a cool November afternoon, the brandy warmed the boys up, and made them hilarious. They sang corn-shucking songs. One of my men, Riley Thurman, who had a remarkably fine voice, led. The whole Brigade joined in the chorus; which they could do well, as the leading Regiment was often close to the rear of the Brigade, on account of the windings of the road. General Jackson caught up with us, and in trying to pass on was caught in the jam; and had to listen to some very </i>risque<i> couplets. The austere Presbyterian Elder could not hide his amusement at the cheek of the fellow leading. He did not seem to be worried that his twenty thousand veterans felt happy and light hearted.</i></blockquote>
Seven months later, at the end of July, 1863, portions of the Second Corps again passed through Fisher's Gap during Lee's retreat from Gettysburg. This time Sam Pickens, a soldier from the 5th Alabama, traveled through the pass with the sick, wounded, and those unable to walk from Robert Rodes's division. He left the following diary entry:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Started at 6 yesterday evening and had a very </i>rough<i> ride. Went through Luray, a pretty large town, & turned to the left & traveled till 12 O'clock--having made 12 or 15 miles. This morning John C. & I walked on ahead & soon came into the New Market & Gordonsville Turnpike wh. we traveled last Fall, & wh. crosses the mountain at Fisher's Gap. The Divis. train came around this way too, & when we got tired John & I got into Maj. Adams' wagon & rode & slept. J. & I got out on top the mountain & walked on all the rest of the day. There is a stream of cold--pure water that dashes down the side of the Mountain & crosses the road </i>[the Dark Hollow Falls of Hogcamp Branch]<i>. Here we stopped & drank & washed our faces & hands. The road is very winding; so that by cutting across & going straight down the mountain a few hundred yards you cut off a mile or more in some places. The distance over the mountain is 14 ms., & I suppose we traveled about 20 in all to-day. </i></blockquote>
The war put a premature end to the Blue Ridge Turnpike Company. By 1867 the toll gates were no longer maintained, and the road itself had fallen into disrepair from the constant passage of troops. Pursuant to state laws, abandoned turnpikes became the property and responsibility of county governments. The turnpike continued on well into the 20th Century, remaining in use into the 1940s. <a href="http://mdid.cit.jmu.edu/media/get/116830/r-6227724/129100/snp025-2/" target="_blank">In an interview conducted in 1977</a> as part of the Shenandoah National Park Oral History Collection, Ralph Cave--a local who grew up along the turnpike in the early part of the 20th century, recorded some reminiscences of the road:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Interviewer: ....It must have taken him a while to get there.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Cave: Well, we'd always just walk down there and tell him. Have to - or ride. Ride horseback. A lot of 'em ride horses in there, you know.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Interviewer: Uh-huh.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Cave: We'd ride a horse or sometimes they had what they call a buckboard or a spring wagon or something like that.</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Interviewer: Was that a pretty rough road? That Gordonsville Turnpike?</i></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Cave: Well, it wasn't that bad. They kept it up - the State kept it up pretty good.</i></blockquote>
In the era of Shenandoah National Park (1935), the road over the mountain closed to public transportation. Today, the old Blue Ridge Turnpike is marked on trail maps of Shenandoah as the Rose River Fire Road east of Fisher's Gap, and as the Red Gate Fire Road west of the gap. Many tourists come each year to hike along these fire roads and the interconnected trails and foot paths in the vicinity. They seek out the Dark Hallow Falls or the Rose River, and perhaps hope to see some wildlife along the trail. The wilderness experience they crave was a 20th century creation, but the 19th century toll road at their feet still speaks to Shenandoah's earlier story. <br />
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<u>Sources for further reading</u><br />
<i><a href="http://www.milaminvirginia.com/milam_gap.html" target="_blank">The History of Millam's / Fisher's Gap</a> - </i>Great info on the Turnpike, the Gap, and the families that called the area home.<br />
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<i><a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Tzjk1ILwf6MC&pg=PA191&lpg=PA191&dq=new+market+turnpike+to+gordonsville&source=bl&ots=-Lgx0XCNqG&sig=ojLByg8MKM3_LzcY16EQGDbnxFU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwir7obrpPnOAhVHbiYKHW1fCSU4ChDoAQgjMAM#v=onepage&q=new%20market%20turnpike%20to%20gordonsville&f=false" target="_blank">Voices from Company D: Diaries by the Greensboro Guards, Fifth Alabama Infantry Regiment, Army of Northern Virgina</a>, </i>Edited by G. Ward Hubbs.<br />
<br />
<i><a href="https://archive.org/stream/fouryearsonfirin00nisb/fouryearsonfirin00nisb_djvu.txt" target="_blank">Four Years on the Firing Line</a></i> by Colonel James Cooper Nisbet.<br />
<br />
<i><a href="http://mdid.cit.jmu.edu/snp/" target="_blank">Shenandoah National Park Oral History Collection</a> - </i>James Madison University Libraries<br />
<br />Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-12850681072447607772016-05-28T14:31:00.003-04:002016-05-28T14:31:45.745-04:00The Meaning of Memorial Day<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fredericksburg National Cemetery</td></tr>
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Each year on this weekend, I'm reminded of the powerful message of Memorial Day.<br />
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This morning, I thought about <a href="http://battlefieldbackstories.blogspot.com/2013/07/corporal-smiths-last-march.html" target="_blank">twenty-year-old Corporal William G. Smith</a>, who was instantly killed with a bullet to the head while charging the railroad cut on July 1st, 1863 at Gettysburg. <a href="http://battlefieldbackstories.blogspot.com/2013/07/heavy-tidings-gettysburg-news-comes-home.html" target="_blank">I think about his father Robert</a>, a newspaper editor in Haverstraw New York, who set out on an ultimately unsuccessful journey to Gettysburg to recover his son's body. <a href="http://battlefieldbackstories.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-final-resting-place.html" target="_blank">And I think of the unmarked grave</a> where Corporal Smith's remains likely reside on Cemetery Hill today.</div>
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<a href="http://battlefieldbackstories.blogspot.com/2012/05/first-memorial.html" target="_blank">I think about the men of the 1st Minnesota</a>, and their sacrificial charge on July 2nd, 1863 at Gettysburg. I think of the fifty-two Minnesotans buried on Cemetery Hill, and of the simple yet powerful memorial erected by their surviving comrades, the very first memorial erected on the Gettysburg Battlefield:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>All time is the millennium of their glory</i>.</blockquote>
<a href="http://battlefieldbackstories.blogspot.com/2015/05/photos-fredericksburg-national-cemetery.html" target="_blank">I think of the 15,300 United States soldiers buried in the Fredericksburg National Cemetery,</a> 12,000 of them unknown.<br />
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I think of these men and all that they lost, but I also think more broadly about the lessons they can teach us. Memorial Day was born out of a sad necessity. Some 700,000 men lost their lives in the Civil War (we will never know a precisely accurate number). The war resulted from the birth defects present at our nation's founding: racially-based slavery. Through four bloody years of savage combat, our ancestors saved our Union and ended slavery. Yet those four years created their own bitter legacies and lasting acrimony, and they failed to solve the issues of racial bias at the root of conflict.<br />
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In Gettysburg, site of Lincoln's call for a "new birth of freedom," <a href="http://battlefieldbackstories.blogspot.com/2012/09/forgotten-valor-lincoln-cemetery.html" target="_blank">we can find another, obscure cemetery</a> that contains the remains of thirty African American Civil War soldiers. These men fought to preserve their country, and yet were laid to rest segregated from the cemetery where Lincoln spoke his immortal words. For years, stretching into the twentieth century, the black community in Gettysburg held its own, segregated Memorial Day observances.<br />
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It's a mistake to think we have moved beyond the legacies of this war. We need only to pay attention to the events and heated debates of the last year to understand this.<br />
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When I contemplate the meaning of Memorial Day, I often remember the poignant words Rufus Dawes of the 6th Wisconsin Infantry. In December of 1881, Congressman Dawes wrote to his wife:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">My dear wife:--I have today worshiped at the shrine of the dead. I went over to the Arlington Cemetery. It was a beautiful morning and the familiar scenes so strongly impressed upon me during my young manhood, were pleasant. Many times that I went over that road, admiring the beautiful city and great white capital, with its then unfinished dome, going to hear the great men of that day in Congress. An ambitious imagination then builded castles of the time when I might take my place there. Now at middle age, with enthusiasm sobered by hard fights and hard facts, I ride, not run with elastic step over the same road, with this ambition at least realized, and with warmth enough left in my heart to enjoy it. My friends and comrades, poor fellows, who followed my enthusiastic leadership in those days, and followed it to the death which by a merciful Providence I escaped, lie here, twenty-four of them, on the very spot where our winter camp of 1861-1862, was located. I found every grave and stood beside it with uncovered head. I looked over nearly the full 16,000 head-boards to find the twenty-four, but they all died alike and I was determined to find all. Poor little Fenton who put his head above the works at Cold Harbor and got a bullet through his temples, and lived three days with his brains out, came to me in memory as fresh as one of my own boys of today, and Levi Pearson, one of the three brothers of Company A, who died for their country in the sixth regiment, and Richard Gray, Paul Mulleter, Dennis Kelly, Christ Bundy, all young men, who fell at my side and under my command. For what they died, I fight a little longer. Over their graves I get inspiration to stand for all they won in establishing our government upon freedom, equality, justice, liberty, and protection to the humblest.</i></blockquote>
Dawes's words speak to me. For Memorial Day is not just a day to remember our deceased soldiers, but also a call to action to heed the lessons they might teach us. <i>For what they died, I fight a little longer</i>. <i>Over their graves I get inspiration to stand for all they won</i>.<br />
<br />Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-82947875448985709862015-12-28T10:58:00.002-05:002015-12-28T10:58:56.493-05:00Debate Continues Over St. Louis Confederate Memorial<br />
My wife and I spent some time this holiday season visiting her family in St. Louis. While visiting the Missouri History Museum this week, we passed by the Confederate Memorial in Forest Park. Over the past year, this monument has generated a fair amount of controversy as the city considers proposals for its removal and relocation. <a href="https://pastexplore.wordpress.com/2015/12/27/an-update-on-the-status-of-the-st-louis-confederate-monument/" target="_blank">Nick Sacco has covered this on his Exploring the Past Blog.</a> It will be interesting to see how the debate turns out.<br />
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I first ran across the Confederate Memorial on one of my earlier visits to the city, and ended up doing a bit of research about the monument's erection. Here's what <a href="http://battlefieldbackstories.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-civil-war-in-st-louis.html" target="_blank">I wrote back in January of 2013</a>, before the controversy erupted:<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">My most interesting discovery during the week though was two monuments located in Forest Park, just a few hundred yards away from the Missouri History Museum and a stone's throw from one another. These two monuments speak strongly to the divided nature of the war years in St. Louis, and also to the struggle over the memory of the war.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">General Franz Sigel Statue, in Forest Park, St. Louis.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">During the war, St. Louis was a city with divided loyalties. Many residents had southern roots. Yet the growth of finance and industry before the war created many strong ties to the North, and St. Louis's expanding population of German-born Americans remained staunchly Unionist and antislavery. The first monument we ran across spoke to this population of German immigrants - it was an equestrian statue of General Franz Sigel.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Sigel obtained his first military experience in his home nation of Baden, and participated in the 1848 Revolution. When the Revolution was suppressed, Sigel fled, eventually settling in New York in 1852. He made a name for himself in the German-American community, writing for the New Yorker Staats-Zeitung and the New York Times. In 1857, Sigel moved to St. Louis, and at the outbreak of the war proved instrumental in rallying German-born Americans to enlist. He became a Colonel in the 3rd Missouri and fought under Lyon. In August of 1861 he was promoted to Brigadier General, a position he earned in no small part to his value as a recruiter of German-Americans. Sigel served throughout the Civil War, but never gained much success as a military commander.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">The statue was unveiled in 1906. It was sculpted by German sculptor Robert Cauer and cast at the Lauchhammer Foundery in Lauchhammer, Germany. The inscription at the base of the monument reads: "To remind future generations of the heroism of German-American patriots in St. Louis and vicinity in the Civil War of 1861-1865. General Franz Sigel."</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Nearby, we came across the Confederate Memorial in Forest Park. At first, I was somewhat surprised to find a Confederate Memorial here. Missouri divisions ran deep, but St. Louis remained a Union stronghold throughout the war, despite the presence in the city of southern sentiments. When we arrived at the monument though, I began to understand: this monument, dedicated in 1914, sought to set in stone (quite literally) the Lost Cause mythology of the war.</span><br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2IaEczwWEKEsIVr_XH8CtmUhECDAZQbAxM14jazs2Gd5Py3iAiXKgAVC4h_Dw-VHTN1UeNIhCxk3PNGs6i0wQ-CSwqlcfu-1q9oh6NKv9rU7ZIgmiXbodIuu10BlTrikFMhN_IbYKJj2C/s1600/2013-01-01+16.11.46.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #777777; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="478" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2IaEczwWEKEsIVr_XH8CtmUhECDAZQbAxM14jazs2Gd5Py3iAiXKgAVC4h_Dw-VHTN1UeNIhCxk3PNGs6i0wQ-CSwqlcfu-1q9oh6NKv9rU7ZIgmiXbodIuu10BlTrikFMhN_IbYKJj2C/s640/2013-01-01+16.11.46.jpg" style="background: transparent; border: none; box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.0980392) 0px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative;" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10.56px;">Confederate Memorial, Forest Park, St. Louis.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">The statue features bronze statuary depicting a southern family sending a young man off to war, above which sits a relief carving of the "Angel Spirit of the Confederacy." The back side of the 23 foot tall memorial features two engraved quotations. The first was written by Robert Cattlett Cave, a St. Louis minister who had served as a Virginia soldier in the war:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">
To the Memory of the Soldiers and Sailors of the Southern Confederacy.<br />
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Who fought to uphold the right declared by the pen of Jefferson and achieved by the sword of Washington. With sublime self sacrifice they battled to preserve the independence of the states which was won from Great Britain, and to perpetuate the constitutional government which was established by the fathers.<br />
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Actuated by the purest patriotism they performed deeds of prowess such as thrilled the heart of mankind with admiration. 'Full in the front of war they stood' and displayed a courage so superb that they gave a new and brighter luster to the annals of valor. History contains no chronicle more illustrious than the story of their achievements; and although, worn out by ceaseless conflict and overwhelmed by numbers, they were finally forced to yield, their glory, 'on brightest pages penned by poets and by sages shall go sounding down the ages.'</blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">The inscription oozes Lost Cause mythology at its finest. We did not fight to protect slavery, this monument states, but rather to protect the right of self government guaranteed by the Declaration and the Constitution. And, it continues, we would have won if not for overwhelming numbers. If one inscription does not drive the point home - another inscription quotes Robert E. Lee:</span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">
We had sacred principles to maintain and rights to defend for which we were duty bound to do our best, even if we perished in the endeavor.</blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">After viewing the monument, I hoped to find out more about how it came to be when I returned to New York. So far I have yet to locate any newspaper coverage of the construction and dedication, but I have found some information about the monument in </span><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=KWLbbcCQ0T8C&pg=PA211&dq=Confederate+Memorial+Forrest+Park,+St.+Louis&hl=en&sa=X&ei=HZPoUPa5Kqnh0wHY3IDwBQ&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Confederate%20Memorial%20Forrest%20Park%2C%20St.%20Louis&f=false" style="background-color: white; color: #777777; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Katharine T. Corbett's <i>In Her Place: A Guide to St. Louis Women's History</i></a><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">, published in 1999. The monument was dedicated on December 5, 1914, and was funded by the Ladies Confederate Monument Association of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. It's construction came not without a bit of controversy though. It took several years of advocacy on the part of the UDC to succeed in placing the monument. Government officials objected to any memorial that commemorated Confederate military forces.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10.56px; text-align: center;">Confederate Memorial, Forest Park, St. Louis.</td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">To get around this injunction, the UDC held a public competition calling for designs that did not depict a soldier in Confederate uniform, nor any object of modern warfare. Models of each submission were displayed in the new St. Louis Public Library. George Julian Zolnay's winning design - with it's young man in civilian clothing headed off to war - met the requirements. The UDC raised the $23,000 for the monument and presented it as a gift to the city. Not wanting to expend any money on a monument to treasonous Americans, city councilmen passed an ordinance requiring the UDC to pay for the upkeep on the monument.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">By 1914, the Lost Cause version of the Civil War was in the ascendancy. The following year would bring the release of </span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Birth of a Nation</i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">. In 1917, the Virginia Memorial would be dedicated at Gettysburg, the first of the Confederate state monuments on the battlefield.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13.2px; line-height: 18.48px;">Today, the Confederate Memorial that stands in Forest Park not only honors the memory of the soldiers and sailors of the Confederacy. It also stands as a testament to the effort to win the battle over the memory and to rewrite the meaning of the war. Taken together with the monument to Sigel that stands not too far away - it reminds us that St. Louis was a divided city during (and after) the Civil War.</span>Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-84909454882540253622015-11-30T06:58:00.000-05:002015-11-30T06:58:43.596-05:00The American History Guys Discuss Confederate SymbolsHappy Holidays everyone. I haven't had much time to post much in 2015, but I'm still here!<br />
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I'm late to the game on this, but if you haven't already listened to <a href="http://backstoryradio.org/shows/contested-landscape/" target="_blank">this <b><i>BackStory with the American History Guys</i></b> show</a> on Confederate symbols, it's absolute must. The show provides easily one of the most thoughtful commentaries on Confederate symbols that I've heard this year.<br />
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For those of you unfamiliar with <i>BackStory</i>, it's one of the best public radio programs around. On each show, historians Ed Ayers, Peter Onuf, and Brian Balogh provide three centuries of historical context to the events, debates and issues of our modern world.<br />
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Enjoy.Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-27229700567897903912015-07-25T12:16:00.001-04:002015-07-25T12:16:42.172-04:00Considering the Legacy of the War at Sunset<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv27Ag8TryMlHYhHZkJR0CWAUfvkUP3lBE0FWTHvTAxT_N2y064EGGs8E0X66y2XlH02MitxE5imA43s1dgoA0VqE0s9seue4XG8X9RrIgqIJqbl6XOFIOuxnDX8nP1oBAjE0kJh4jVLbT/s1600/2015-07-24+19.02.50.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv27Ag8TryMlHYhHZkJR0CWAUfvkUP3lBE0FWTHvTAxT_N2y064EGGs8E0X66y2XlH02MitxE5imA43s1dgoA0VqE0s9seue4XG8X9RrIgqIJqbl6XOFIOuxnDX8nP1oBAjE0kJh4jVLbT/s400/2015-07-24+19.02.50.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
Last night I attended Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park's <a href="http://fredericksburg.today/history-at-sunset-2015-schedule" target="_blank">summertime Friday series, "History at Sunset."</a> This week's excellent program, delivered by the park's chief historian, John Hennessy on the Spotsylvania battlefield, encouraged the audience to think about the complicated legacy of the Civil War, the competing narratives of its historiography, and the role battlefields can play in helping us understand the war not just through a microscopic focus on battlefield tactics and soldier stories, but in also presenting the story of the war from a broader view. Hennessy used a pair of binoculars as a metaphor for the challenges of interpreting the war. We often look through the small lenses to obtain a close up, detailed portrait of war, he said; we zoom in on faces and belt buckles. However, doing so can sometimes detract from the larger issues that the combatants fought over - principally slavery. Hennessy encouraged us to flip the binoculars around, look through the larger lenses, and grasp the larger patterns and stories that may not appear so evident at extreme magnification. We must consider both views, he concluded, when interpreting history.<br />
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As the audience of about 120 wound its way from the Bloody Angle to the McCoull Farm and back, Hennessy offered several stories that challenged standard narratives of the Battle for the Mule Shoe on May 12th, 1864. Along the way, he argued that no historical event has been more carefully presented to the American public than the Civil War. In the years after the war, individuals in the North and South sought to craft a narrative of the war to facilitate reconciliation. This narrative emphasized that soldiers on both sides displayed honorable virtues, such as courage, valor, and chivalry. It sought to present a simplified depiction of the war, and to downplay the war's complexities. As John B. Gordon once wrote: "The unseemly things which occurred in the great conflict between the States should be forgotten, or at least forgiven, and no longer permitted to disturb complete harmony between North and South."<br />
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The carefully crafted narrative of the Civil War had little room to consider the ultimate cause of the war, human slavery. Yet in the past half century Americans have increasingly questioned the dominant narratives of the war. As new individuals and groups have gained voices through various movements to expand political and civil rights, they have used those voices to challenge old assumptions, and add new stories to our understanding of the war.<br />
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It was a beautiful evening on the Spotsylvania battlefield, but also an evening that required grappling with difficult and complicated questions. This proved especially true in light of the public conversations of the last month over the place of Civil War memory in our society today.<br />
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Freeman Tilden wrote that the chief aim of interpretation is provocation, and in this Hennessy certainly succeeded. Listen to the entire program, an audio file is embedded below, and it's well worth your time. <a href="https://soundcloud.com/tschubel/history-at-sunset-remembering-the-civil-war-today" target="_blank">The original audio file is courtesy of Ted Schubel.</a><br />
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<iframe frameborder="no" height="450" scrolling="no" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/216248688&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=true" width="100%"></iframe>Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-76563115755560853752015-06-26T12:21:00.000-04:002015-06-27T09:33:43.837-04:00The First Confederate Flag Memorialized at GettysburgOn July 3rd, 1887, twenty-four years after the battle, the first Confederate flag appeared on a monument on the Gettysburg battlefield. Erected at the Angle at the very center of the Union battle line, it honors the Army of the Potomac's First New York Independent Battery. The Confederate flag appears in a bas relief depiction of the climax of Pickett's Charge on July 3rd, 1863. Delivering the dedication speech, Congressman Sereno E. Payne reflected on the rebel flag:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Alas, the scars remain; and there is much that, although forgiven mayhaps, cannot be forgotten. And yet, pressing forward to the things that are before, let us endeavor to forget the things that are behind. Better that the captured emblems of that memorable struggle be hidden away, until the slow tooth of Time shall have eaten away the last shred, than that they be brought into the light of day, to awaken dying enthusiasm of other days, or to enkindle old animosities. Let our anger slumber with these embattled flags. One bright, glorious, significant flag--the Stars and Stripes--is enough for us. Its thirteen stripes, reminding us of the throes of the Revolution, its thirty-eight stars not one lost or clouded or dim, all set in the field of Union blue.... </blockquote>
I find myself reflecting on the Confederate flag today. The media attention surrounding it has reached a frenzied pitch following the tragic, racially motivated terrorist attack at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston last week. Political leaders in South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, and Virginia, have acted to remove the 150-year-old symbol from statehouses and license plates. Retailers such as Walmart and Amazon have announced that they will no longer sell Confedeate flag merchandise.This all seems like positive progress to me. Yet I was reminded last night of how far we have to go.<br />
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While perusing Facebook, I came across an announcement from Gettysburg National Military Park. The announcement read, in full:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The bookstore at Gettysburg National Military Park's Museum &
Visitor Center will continue to sell a wide variety of items that
feature both the U.S. and Confederate flags, as well books, DVDs, and
other educational and interpretive media where the image of the
Confederate flag is depicted in its historical context. However,
effective today, the bookstore will no longer sell stand-alone items
that solely feature the Confederate flag, including display and wearable
items. This<span class="text_exposed_show"> only affects 11 out of 2,600 items carried in the bookstore.</span> No other changes will take place on the battlefield: this includes
monuments and wayside exhibit panels. In addition, all ranger-led
interpretive programs and all living history programs and demonstrations
will continue as normal. We remain committed to providing the
public with the same historically accurate and authentic programming
that you have come to expect. Please visit our website for more information.</blockquote>
An appropriate response I felt, and a reasoned and carefully worded statement to explain the response, designed apparently to offend no one. And yet... it did. At last check, this post had drawn over 2,000 likes, 1600 shares, and 1600 comments. And the comments.... <i>oh the comments</i>. If you want to see how far some individuals will go to stretch, twist, and invent "history" to fit their own world view, it's worth a read. If you don't want to be appalled or angered by ignorance and racism, I would skip it.<br />
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Let's be clear. The Confederate flag from its very beginnings was a symbol entangled with slavery and white supremacy. Modern white supremacy groups have not "twisted" the meaning of the flag. <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/what-this-cruel-war-was-over/396482/" target="_blank">Ta-Nehisi Coates summed this up best in a recent Atlantic article.</a> If you want to know about the causes of the Civil War, each Southern State did us all a favor by explaining very clearly in their ordinances of secession in 1861. The State of Mississippi perhaps offered the most direct explanation in <a href="http://www.civilwar.org/education/history/primarysources/declarationofcauses.html#Mississippi" target="_blank">A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union:</a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery--
the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the
product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions
of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate
verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none
but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These
products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a
blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the
institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There
was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a
dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work
out our ruin.</blockquote>
History can be personal and difficult, and I understand why individuals get upset and defensive over the legacy of their ancestors. I trace my own lineage back to the earliest Dutch settlers of New York's Hudson Valley. These ancestors owned slaves.<br />
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I believe that for those who become fascinated with history, the initial appeal is one of simplicity and nostalgia. I am certain that such feelings drew me into the study of the Civil War as a freshman in high school. We live in an incredibly complex society, and, on the surface, the past appears to be a simpler time. We are drawn to ancestral stories of glory and honor, and to periods where we can clearly define right and wrong, good and bad.<br />
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Yet the true past was just as complex a world as ours, and real history is not hero worship. The Confederacy fought for slavery, yet in its struggle against the United States, it did not have a monopoly on racism. Many in the North did not support the cause of Emancipation, and Abraham Lincoln himself clung to impractical schemes for the colonization of freed slaves during the early years of the war. Real history seeks neither to elevate or denigrate individuals, causes or movements of the past. It seeks to understand them, to place them within proper context. At its best, history can help us use the past to understand our own modern world. <br />
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Congressman Payne wanted to banish the Confederate flag from our memory. We can't do that, and we shouldn't. The flag reminds us of our nation's challenging legacy on race - and of a war that cost the lives of 750,000 Americans. It should be studied, and understood for what it represented, and continues to represent. Places like the Gettysburg battlefield, and the wonderful museum at its Visitor Center, are appropriate places to display and study these symbols. State House grounds and government-issued license plates are not.<br />
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I am sure that some will mourn the loss of their ability to purchase a Confederate Flag shot glass at Gettysburg National Military Park bookstore. I will not. Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-58150718039381800642015-05-24T09:18:00.000-04:002015-05-24T09:18:56.576-04:00Photos - Fredericksburg National Cemetery Illumination<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNPhzjE32sVUGOL41TQUtADfQ07ZUN3kiU3n16Iw0F1aXIQH25A8UpvFO8sy4CPBQz2xVx5yiN2ZWWGuqOU49s_LxS9CKJ8qp6WN9oAf2OGvycu7mHxclSwmX0ZSvbxUJ1GdZeuDu4Xhg4/s1600/2015-05-23+20.45.11.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNPhzjE32sVUGOL41TQUtADfQ07ZUN3kiU3n16Iw0F1aXIQH25A8UpvFO8sy4CPBQz2xVx5yiN2ZWWGuqOU49s_LxS9CKJ8qp6WN9oAf2OGvycu7mHxclSwmX0ZSvbxUJ1GdZeuDu4Xhg4/s640/2015-05-23+20.45.11.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Last night, Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park held it's 20th annual National Cemetery Illumination to commemorate Memorial Day. <a href="http://www.fredericksburg.com/news/local/fredericksburg-national-cemetery-s-glowing-tribute-to-troops-now-in/article_269665d2-aeae-5509-a5ce-5665feef30db.html" target="_blank">This wonderful event is a partnership</a> involving Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, and other helping hands (nearly 1,000 volunteers all told). The beautiful cemetery was lit up with more than 15,300 candles--one light for each soldier resting at peace on the heights made famous during the 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg. In addition to the illuminaries, NPS staff and volunteers stationed themselves at various points throughout the cemetery to share individual stories of fallen soldiers. <br />
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The United States Congress created the National Cemetery in July of 1865, just three months after the end of the Civil War. It became the resting place for more than 15,000 United States soldiers. Most of these are Union soldiers who died in camps near Fredericksburg due to disease, or in one of the four major battles and countless minor actions that took place around Fredericksburg during the war. Roughly 100 of the graves are 20th century soldiers, and a few spouses, but the cemetery closed to new burials during the 1940s. About 12,000 of the 15,000 soldiers buried here have not been identified.<br />
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According to Fredericksubrg & Spotslyvania's twitter feed - last night's commemoration seemed on its way to an attendance record, with more than 6,600 people with an hour left to go.<br />
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The illuminaria is a fitting way to commemorate fallen soldiers on Memorial Day. The tradition harkens back to the very origins of Memorial Day, a holiday that grew out of emerging traditions of decorating the graves of fallen soldiers in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War.Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-91505086238460452992015-03-12T08:08:00.000-04:002015-03-12T08:14:47.782-04:00A Snowy Hike on Antietam's Three Farms TrailThis past weekend I traveled through Maryland and Pennsylvania, and on Sunday morning I spent a few hours at the Antietam National Battlefield. After nasty weather over the past several weeks, Sunday turned into a beautiful, spring-like day; perfect for a hike on Sharpsburg's snow-covered fields.<br />
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T<a href="http://battlefieldbackstories.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-hike-at-antietam.html" target="_blank">he Antietam National Battlefield has established excellent hiking trails for the intrepid battlefield tourist.</a> The park's trail system allows a visitor with enough time and stamina to explore the entire battlefield, from the North Woods to Snavely's Ford, on foot. On previous visits, I had explored many of these trails. On Sunday, with only a few hours to spare, I decided to seek out one that I'd not previously experienced.<br />
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The Three Farms Trail does not explore areas where intense combat took place during the Battle of Antietam. However, it takes hikers to some of the quietest and most beautiful locations on the battlefield.As its name implies, the path winds its way through three farms that existed during the 1862 battle. It begins at the William Roulette farm, and passes through the secluded fields and buildings of the Joseph Parks and Joshua Newcomer farms. As you make your way south along the west side of Antietam Creek, you pass over terrain traversed and occupied by elements of the 2nd and 5th corps of the Army of the Potomac during the battle on September 17th, 1862.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg644ZtMUlMDjuDI0yKnzqO_9F7WOinrQWjBJgOV-u7FaLnqLQOESxhQaxhGvTay922KNVRWpAAbDlNfYGr0yIbszeO_JwCVyDTL6aKtJY-a_wcAjl_w8wEZPjHFQujKlAD_N0wMqgu8kIe/s1600/2015-03-08+10.51.57.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg644ZtMUlMDjuDI0yKnzqO_9F7WOinrQWjBJgOV-u7FaLnqLQOESxhQaxhGvTay922KNVRWpAAbDlNfYGr0yIbszeO_JwCVyDTL6aKtJY-a_wcAjl_w8wEZPjHFQujKlAD_N0wMqgu8kIe/s1600/2015-03-08+10.51.57.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A view taken from near the Visitor Center on the Dunker Church Plateau looking toward the Mumma (left) and Roulette Farms (right), and beyond to the South Mountain Range. The Mumma Farm Lane runs across the middle of the view.</td></tr>
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You cannot access the trail head readily via car. First, you must hike a portion of the Bloody Lane Trail which begins at the Visitor Center, and visits the Mumma and Roulette Farms. More than 5,000 United States soldiers commanded by Brig. Gen. William French passed over these farms on their way to attack Confederate forces in the Sunken Road on the morning of September 17th. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Battle of Antietam brought a great deal of suffering to the Roulette Family. Their farm endured extensive damage as a result of the thousands of soldiers that tramped over it. During the battle the farm became a field hospital, and William Roulette later claimed that some 700 soldiers were buried on his property. The family's youngest daughter, Carrie May, later died of a disease likely brought by the armies.</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A second view of the Roulette Farm House and its springhouse and kitchen. <br />
This view was taken from the ravine through which French's division emerged onto the battlefield.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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After passing these farm buildings, the Bloody Lane Trail follows the Roulette's old farm lane. The start of the Three Farms Trail is found at the location where the farm lane curves to the southwest.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUaiAgmL5vHYL0BeoSzNvzG2YfJz-_mnP917qFVE_2s8GhLmqbZXKKlWh_798n30b3fylyucf9sMqphhzXbTyc0SjaBfcP9BjwnF1jx4PhoF35i64IUNqKH1CXz4GfKHl1unTUiXL-pNQO/s1600/2015-03-08+11.31.05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUaiAgmL5vHYL0BeoSzNvzG2YfJz-_mnP917qFVE_2s8GhLmqbZXKKlWh_798n30b3fylyucf9sMqphhzXbTyc0SjaBfcP9BjwnF1jx4PhoF35i64IUNqKH1CXz4GfKHl1unTUiXL-pNQO/s1600/2015-03-08+11.31.05.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Roulette Farm Lane can be seen in the foreground. In the distance, the Bloody Lane observation tower rises up above the ridge line. Cresting that ridge, United States soldiers recoiled from a withering fire delivered by Confederates resting in a sunken road on the opposite slope.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv-wJlpc_valJYvacdfUYOWW_WaoQtkWmpM60P35OLQx0J97e2j7JuYq85tCifh_Ws6M4lqAAPkDyMsT7FKhsb89DtqC0wc3w0PcCLdc8bDmd38oM842vRXrSzBxqbFhP6WuyMFaKgj8JL/s1600/2015-03-08+11.31.38.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv-wJlpc_valJYvacdfUYOWW_WaoQtkWmpM60P35OLQx0J97e2j7JuYq85tCifh_Ws6M4lqAAPkDyMsT7FKhsb89DtqC0wc3w0PcCLdc8bDmd38oM842vRXrSzBxqbFhP6WuyMFaKgj8JL/s1600/2015-03-08+11.31.38.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The trail head for the Three Farms Trail leads to the northeast away from the Bloody Lane.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
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The Three Farms Trail connects Antietam National Battlefield's northern and southern trail networks. From the Roulette Farm, it winds its way southward, part of the way along Antietam Creek, until it connects with the Sherrick Farm Trail south of the Boonsboro Pike, modern day Route 34.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This rutted road trace remains visible on the landscape today. In 1862 it connected the <br />
Parks, Newkirk, and Kennedy Farms to the Boonsboro Pike near the Middle Bridge over Antietam Creek. </td></tr>
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Along the way, the recreational trail joins the deep-cut trace of an old roadway as it makes its way toward the Joseph Parks farm. In 1862 this road connected the Parks Farm with the Boonsboro Pike to the south, and the Kennedy and Newkirk Farms to the north.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ-YTxIIdAtcr8a0_LE9Q55UuDiRbclRVVhBNG7o_2TCXkw0YaqOgw9f2ZFqUlgyQ1N8xF7rVUBpDjp_mLTcRccIx4BRgiwM-J24SagE6U_uCb0yb3DUDYAlTfv21R6UlNBxsgq1WI_9sz/s1600/2015-03-08+11.53.17.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJ-YTxIIdAtcr8a0_LE9Q55UuDiRbclRVVhBNG7o_2TCXkw0YaqOgw9f2ZFqUlgyQ1N8xF7rVUBpDjp_mLTcRccIx4BRgiwM-J24SagE6U_uCb0yb3DUDYAlTfv21R6UlNBxsgq1WI_9sz/s1600/2015-03-08+11.53.17.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Joseph Parks Farm today. Both the barn and the home in the background date to the 1830s, though both have seen alterations over time.</td></tr>
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Eventually, the path climbs a hill and emerges into a clearing occupied by the historic buildings of the Joseph Parks Farm. <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CCIQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Firmafiles.nps.gov%2Freference%2Fholding%2F450547%3FaccessType%3DDOWNLOAD&ei=DPwAVbj5MevdsASF0ILABg&usg=AFQjCNH2cbi3EraM1Zu1E5y8AXuZ35APuQ&sig2=Ys8S_CFppa7ahzqEzfAWIA&bvm=bv.87920726,d.cWc" target="_blank">According to a Cultural Landscapes Inventory completed by the National Park Service in 2011</a>, both the main house and barn were initially constructed around 1830, though both have undergone alterations. This land was long owned by the Mumma Family, who originally built the house and farm buildings. In 1861, the Mummas sold the farm to Phillip Pry. Pry owned another farm on the opposite side of Antietam Creek, which became Maj. Gen. George McClellan's headquarters during the battle. Pry operated this property as a tenant farm, and historians believe that the tenant at the time of the battle was Joseph Parks. On September 16th, United States Soldiers crossed the creek near the farm to protect the middle bridge. The following day, Union infantry and cavalry traversed the property, artillery batteries established positions on the farm to fire against Confederate positions on Cemetery Hill, and its likely that the homestead became a field hospital. Just five days after the Battle of Antietam--photographer James F. Gibson captured a view of the Parks farmstead in a view entitled "Antietam, Md. Another view of Antietam Bridge."<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2eck7O_PCzVYH2VWvgSgH7yX8X8WXuHG3Pw3LPnHwaf5Kv0aIAefve5atXu2BQQjTCHgYce5EmMAWhF3XQGtjdv4qGYih0zKtQyoXUwFMQEy_AB_QXlDUGC7AugDzd8GTzGKNsiAqWFkQ/s1600/01133u.tif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2eck7O_PCzVYH2VWvgSgH7yX8X8WXuHG3Pw3LPnHwaf5Kv0aIAefve5atXu2BQQjTCHgYce5EmMAWhF3XQGtjdv4qGYih0zKtQyoXUwFMQEy_AB_QXlDUGC7AugDzd8GTzGKNsiAqWFkQ/s1600/01133u.tif" height="504" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gibson photographed the Parks Farm from heights on the eastern side of Antietam Creek, <br />
overlooking the Middle Bridge.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqJb1MCUVVcVhK6-Sd_1qB4BZg4Qplt82elr7ju-vvh9jV2am2VEPuoexypwWzn2vcU1gT8VYPhFp8IIOzR1yyXwKt17cM5vHqx5KKZKDgyIdURki2QTiLwX0sUhJd5LkUDiMbrsni9J_D/s1600/Zoomed+View.tif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqJb1MCUVVcVhK6-Sd_1qB4BZg4Qplt82elr7ju-vvh9jV2am2VEPuoexypwWzn2vcU1gT8VYPhFp8IIOzR1yyXwKt17cM5vHqx5KKZKDgyIdURki2QTiLwX0sUhJd5LkUDiMbrsni9J_D/s1600/Zoomed+View.tif" height="310" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A zoomed-in view of the previous photograph, focusing on the Joseph Parks Farm. <br />
The house and the barn still stand today.</td></tr>
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Moving on from the Parks Farmstead, I neared the Boonsboro Pike. Here the trail continues on past the Newcomer Farm, crossing the pike to eventually link with the Sherrick Farm Trail. Instead of completing the trail, I chose to turn aside here onto the Tidball Trail, which ascends a steep ridge line to the position of Captain John C. Tidball's Battery A, 2nd United States Artillery during the battle.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjCiVLyHA98m5kXGQBiT1hSZ9-3OUruIWG2uF_5lDKlfzkUb2kqkqTFRhKZ2hIeaRFM2dMGjp0dRAaeYCek3sgnGg080MblAqAAyCgmwmtj8keOgFSLmtC1IPm0n2qP9UFz6jDkRTVTFdQ/s1600/2015-03-08+11.56.20.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjCiVLyHA98m5kXGQBiT1hSZ9-3OUruIWG2uF_5lDKlfzkUb2kqkqTFRhKZ2hIeaRFM2dMGjp0dRAaeYCek3sgnGg080MblAqAAyCgmwmtj8keOgFSLmtC1IPm0n2qP9UFz6jDkRTVTFdQ/s1600/2015-03-08+11.56.20.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></div>
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After crossing the Middle Bridge before noon on September 17th, Tidball's men hauled their six rifled cannon by hand up this steep ridge, where they expended some 1,200 rounds of ammunition protecting federal troops positioned near the Bloody Lane and supporting Burnside's advance to the edge of Sharpsburg that afternoon.<br />
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The views obtained from Tidball's position, I think, are some of the best you will find on the Antietam Battlefield. From this one position you get a good view of the terrain over which the 2nd Corps assaulted the Sunken Road, the ground over which Burnsides' 9th Corps advanced in late afternoon against the Confederate right, and an imposing view of the rolling, open terrain that McClellan's soldiers would have had to cross to attack the Confederate Center on the outskirts of Sharpsburg. Many--including myself--have criticized George McClellan for not crossing his reserves over the Middle Bridge on September 17th to attack Lee's center when one more push could have potentially crushed Lee's army. Viewing the terrain from this vantage point, however, I saw the tremendous obstacles to such a movement.<br />
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The Antietam Battlefield is surprisingly compact, but the rolling nature of the terrain rarely allows you such a sweeping view of the battlefield. Here are a few of the shots that I snapped in this location:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg644ZtMUlMDjuDI0yKnzqO_9F7WOinrQWjBJgOV-u7FaLnqLQOESxhQaxhGvTay922KNVRWpAAbDlNfYGr0yIbszeO_JwCVyDTL6aKtJY-a_wcAjl_w8wEZPjHFQujKlAD_N0wMqgu8kIe/s1600/2015-03-08+10.51.57.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg644ZtMUlMDjuDI0yKnzqO_9F7WOinrQWjBJgOV-u7FaLnqLQOESxhQaxhGvTay922KNVRWpAAbDlNfYGr0yIbszeO_JwCVyDTL6aKtJY-a_wcAjl_w8wEZPjHFQujKlAD_N0wMqgu8kIe/s1600/2015-03-08+10.51.57.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJIZERFBxX5OvchqgUZ3yxlYh6N4935Dm1mr5LFUnuIaVhqgH8vgm8ynfnqQzpXNJAfhsb1q-CYx_efjDaV-J9ZTglAywBNGgrLB70svvtvtGPpqdS0MzRidBei5Wizuo8gF66vUS5Rx4a/s1600/2015-03-08+12.14.25.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJIZERFBxX5OvchqgUZ3yxlYh6N4935Dm1mr5LFUnuIaVhqgH8vgm8ynfnqQzpXNJAfhsb1q-CYx_efjDaV-J9ZTglAywBNGgrLB70svvtvtGPpqdS0MzRidBei5Wizuo8gF66vUS5Rx4a/s1600/2015-03-08+12.14.25.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From the ridge line looking back toward the Parks Farm.</td></tr>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQX2Do84RuIx5Fk1og0WjTjeaNLrKQ-Hmbp4xzHjS0HhhIBppPoFj_xGzHXzJgU5rcEf2qyVKkeVuczIOMnqswf3rIvy5eV4dtcycGl5Qwxeqweb9XPNcwykexVYcAxczFpKUX3ovSbwgL/s1600/2015-03-08+12.00.07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQX2Do84RuIx5Fk1og0WjTjeaNLrKQ-Hmbp4xzHjS0HhhIBppPoFj_xGzHXzJgU5rcEf2qyVKkeVuczIOMnqswf3rIvy5eV4dtcycGl5Qwxeqweb9XPNcwykexVYcAxczFpKUX3ovSbwgL/s1600/2015-03-08+12.00.07.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another view of the Parks Farm. I took this picture as I ascended the ridge line toward Tidball's position.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ7IPVTvQ5uAs3uVpUcwJLJbiy1bGHXEmxajeNCm1fyD0h5kgdJw60yF6ZuO0r1ZW43lILd24qaYsLRFjySB9msXVj9fXceW8pIVtB2AzE35bJF7_tKgSdGjq4HoeC7NjG4oGFdew6gKWi/s1600/2015-03-08+12.12.10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ7IPVTvQ5uAs3uVpUcwJLJbiy1bGHXEmxajeNCm1fyD0h5kgdJw60yF6ZuO0r1ZW43lILd24qaYsLRFjySB9msXVj9fXceW8pIVtB2AzE35bJF7_tKgSdGjq4HoeC7NjG4oGFdew6gKWi/s1600/2015-03-08+12.12.10.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A view from Tidball's position toward the surprisingly close Bloody Lane Observation <br />
Tower, just four-tenths of a mile away.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhANo-6z-RI2lHPUjLqoQ0UcNWXpzRE5oWV24jei6E0z-rgm8a2thzOtMBCNYpZewEcxx6fRhRVoNZwFyxLGLEMbaM_Acq2jBV5QaAB_N0mPSW1DZF6ckISVDn3krIRb_T9sHwu8oCr7jjx/s1600/2015-03-08+12.10.00.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhANo-6z-RI2lHPUjLqoQ0UcNWXpzRE5oWV24jei6E0z-rgm8a2thzOtMBCNYpZewEcxx6fRhRVoNZwFyxLGLEMbaM_Acq2jBV5QaAB_N0mPSW1DZF6ckISVDn3krIRb_T9sHwu8oCr7jjx/s1600/2015-03-08+12.10.00.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A view looking southwest across the Boonsboro Pike toward Antietam National Cemetery <br />
(marked by the evergreen trees on the hill in the right background).</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdkEGH9vzN45oLTRaHrJYfdbWGANqnI1gxb3455-mphenzIg71Fbr43RXFsP0rFl8KknkJLg7bIeg9-tihoKgEj6_ftuz-hv_VP6dhvQ6Zim8kVzeoWY7szQCI8HZ_GyoyJfn1qMyNlG7B/s1600/2015-03-08+12.05.00.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdkEGH9vzN45oLTRaHrJYfdbWGANqnI1gxb3455-mphenzIg71Fbr43RXFsP0rFl8KknkJLg7bIeg9-tihoKgEj6_ftuz-hv_VP6dhvQ6Zim8kVzeoWY7szQCI8HZ_GyoyJfn1qMyNlG7B/s1600/2015-03-08+12.05.00.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A close-up view of Cemetery Hill - with the National Cemetery to the left of the road. <br />
Lee's center rested on that ridge line on September 17th, 1862.</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWsIclCzUFvRYbNEqC-auxWA4ZPsiD3GeoosXiVGZeVY-7kr7vuL6nzQOT441oOFFo99mJDjxlsLUqHTfkn7ASd2L7_v7MlZjt6DP-pcqdBRWimBkAbkxVcyySIK31cWMXINiKkF25qkgy/s1600/2015-03-08+12.05.10.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWsIclCzUFvRYbNEqC-auxWA4ZPsiD3GeoosXiVGZeVY-7kr7vuL6nzQOT441oOFFo99mJDjxlsLUqHTfkn7ASd2L7_v7MlZjt6DP-pcqdBRWimBkAbkxVcyySIK31cWMXINiKkF25qkgy/s1600/2015-03-08+12.05.10.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A zoomed-in view looking southwest toward where the final advance of Burnsides' corps was turned back by Confederate reinforcements. The distant hill in the left background marked the farthest advance of the 9th Corps.</td></tr>
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Running short on time. I did not complete the Three Farms Trail after viewing Tidball's position. Instead, I struck out across country to the Bloody Lane, and completed my hiking circuit back to my car at the Visitor Center. After a brisk two-hour hike, I started back on my way home to Virginia. If you have the time, hiking is the only way to truly understand a battlefield like Antietam, and the Park Service has done a great job creating these trails that provide access to the under-visited locations on the field. The different views and terrain features you will observe while hiking will likely change your perspective of the battle.
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In the morning I had the Mule Shoe Salient essentially to myself,
excepting a herd of deer grazing in the hollows and depressions in front
of the Confederate works. It's hard to believe that some 151 years ago,
this now-quiet spot was the ugliest place in America.<br />
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<br />Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-50887768833095522982015-02-02T23:04:00.000-05:002015-02-02T23:04:45.000-05:00"A combat more persistent or heroic can scarcely be found..." - The 28th New York at Cedar Mountain <table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilB0-meOLm3c5DFvJDn0jcInqZJHPv9-jk73s1-y7C2YyKuwvMiQVLt3y-gfIpDUjNcMzUOZFLmtYRwd7S6_bZXzfYe8FQRHAtnhGu_pxTsLw0nY6qWp31tCWZOOQwdRDiiNZgAVjwummo/s1600/2015-02-01+13.36.23.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilB0-meOLm3c5DFvJDn0jcInqZJHPv9-jk73s1-y7C2YyKuwvMiQVLt3y-gfIpDUjNcMzUOZFLmtYRwd7S6_bZXzfYe8FQRHAtnhGu_pxTsLw0nY6qWp31tCWZOOQwdRDiiNZgAVjwummo/s1600/2015-02-01+13.36.23.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View of the Crittenden Gate on Cedar Mountain Battlefield. At this location<br />the Crittenden Farm Lane (off-screen to the right) joined the Culpeper Road<br />(marked by the fence line stretching away from the camera). This general <br />area marked the apex of the 28th New York's charge on August 9th, 1862.</td></tr>
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During the Civil War, some regiments sacrificed all on pivotal battlefields, their blood shed as the price paid for victory and for glory. The Iron Brigade and the 1st Minnesota at Gettysburg come readily to my mind. Yet many other units gave their last full measure of devotion on lesser-known fields, where often the results of battle hardly justified--if they ever did--the enormity of the suffering and loss. Yesterday, I explored the Cedar Mountain battlefield for the first time. This quiet, rural site some six miles south of Culpeper, Virginia remains in an excellent state of preservation. The Civil War Trust and the Friends of Cedar Mountain Battlefield have preserved and interpreted about 160 acres, complete with a 1.25 mile trail that takes you to significant sites of the August 9th, 1862 battle between Nathaniel Banks' 2nd Corps, Army of Virginia, and Stonewall Jackson's command of the Army of Northern Virginia. I had not studied this battle in any detail previously, but I was struck by the audacious, and ultimately ill-fated courage of the federal soldiers here, storming forward in the face of a superior foe with a daunting reputation for battlefield prowess. The soldiers who fought under Nathaniel P. Banks often suffer a poor reputation, primarily stemming from Banks' failures in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1862. This battlefield though told a different story. In particular I came away wanting to learn more about the 28th New York Infantry, a unit I had not come across before.<br />
<br />
The 28th New York mustered for two years of service in May of 1861. Recruited from Western New York, the regiment participated in the Shenandoah Valley Campaign, and saw action at Antietam and Chancellorsville, but it was at Cedar Mountain where the regiment made its most substantial, and most costly, contribution to the war effort.<br />
<br />
The New Yorkers had capable officers, led by Colonel Dudley Donnelly, Lieutenant Colonel Edwin F. Brown, and Major E.W. Cook. The regimental historian recalled that these field officers proved highly satisfactory to the men in the ranks of the 28th. "Colonel Donnelly was a man of military education and training," he wrote, "naturally a soldier, and fitted to command." Donnelly had served as Lieutenant Colonel of the 66th New York State Militia for years before the war. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Colonel Brown had "few superiors as an organizer and a leader," and the men regarded Major Cook as one of the best shots in the regiment. Adjutant Charles P. Sprout ably assisted these men in their duties, and had earned his own reputation as "a man of sturdy, rugged nature; a fine soldier, one who never knew fear." At Cedar Mountain, they would all have an opportunity to prove themselves against Stonewall Jackson's vaunted "foot cavalry."<br />
<br />
On August 7th, 1862, Stonewall Jackson ordered his three divisions across the Rapidan River in the hopes of dealing a crippling blow to a portion of John Pope's Army of Virginia before it could fully concentrate around Culpeper. Two days later, at about noon on August 9th, Jackson met Nathaniel Banks' 2nd Corps disposed on a ridge overlooking Cedar Run. With temperatures nearing or surpassing triple-digits, both sides deployed their forces and exchanged artillery fire. The duel lasted for close to two hours.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, Banks' arrayed his forces across the road leading from Orange Court House to Culpeper, determined to dispute Jackson's advance. On the left side of the road he stationed Christopher Augur's division, and on the right Alpheus Williams' division. Banks didn't realize it, but Jackson's forces doubled the 8,000 federal soldiers on the field. Nevertheless, he brashly chose to move forward on the attack.<br />
<br />
The 28th New York found themselves in Williams' front line, as part of Brigadier General Samuel Crawford's brigade. For most of the cannonade, Crawford's men lay sheltered by a densely wooded ridge in their front, and suffered little. At 5 p.m. preparations began for the impending assault. The brigade rose up and moved into the densely wooded terrain. In his official report, Crawford described the landscape that spread out before him on the opposite edge of the woods:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>A thick belt of woods skirted an open wheat stubble field on three sides; a road [Culpeper Road] running across formed the fourth. To the right a thick undergrowth of scrub oaks and bushes covered the space. In front of the line the field sloped generally downward toward the woods directly opposite, the point of which terminated at the road.</i></blockquote>
Realizing that his men would have to cross 300 yards of open wheatfield before reaching the far woods, and that the rebels undoubtedly held those woods in unknown strength, Crawford sent back to have a battery of napoleons brought up to shell the woods. Before receiving a response, the Assistant Adjutant General of Williams' staff arrived and urged an immediate movement, proclaiming it to be the "decisive one of the day." Crawford readied his men for combat, deployed in a line from right to left: 46th Pennsylvania, 28th New York, 5th Connecticutt, and 10th Maine. The Maine men, on the extreme left flank, were pulled some distance from the other regiments and operated independently under direct orders from Banks. The remaining three regiments, along with six companies of the 3rd Wisconsin attached to their right flank, prepared to go forward. Crawford ordered bayonets fixed.<br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNLVceb-uPsDT90qKN0GM4lfgScqtCUlhHYhTgXzkzK6-BNoUldOF1Wn8rdegP3CENp9Inmh4JNiIfDABLplCSWAELC84b_oM1moPky7Efo6kZ_-zRa8FZZVBsxMX_NKtVcRjUbWdRD2oh/s1600/2015-02-01+14.06.36.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNLVceb-uPsDT90qKN0GM4lfgScqtCUlhHYhTgXzkzK6-BNoUldOF1Wn8rdegP3CENp9Inmh4JNiIfDABLplCSWAELC84b_oM1moPky7Efo6kZ_-zRa8FZZVBsxMX_NKtVcRjUbWdRD2oh/s1600/2015-02-01+14.06.36.jpg" height="480" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View in the distance of Cedar Mountain. Jackson's forces during the battle covered to slopes of the mountain, and then stretched to the right of the camera's view. Crawford's brigade advanced against them, traversing the field in front of the camera from left to right.</td></tr>
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Gazing across the open field, the 28th's color bearer, Sergeant William Lewis of Company D, recalled that he could not see a single rebel soldier. Momentarily, Crawford gave the signal for his men to move out. An eyewitness recalled that the brigade moved forward in one long line,<i> </i>"burst with loud cries from the woods, [and] swept like a torrent across the wheat-field." Sergeant Lewis, who moments before had seen no enemy, noted: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>We had hardly struck the first edge of the wheat-field till we were made aware that the enemy were there in full force. Oh, how the bullets flew around and about us, but our boys pushed on at a double-quick across the field.</i></blockquote>
In the race across the open ground, Colonel Donnelly received a mortal wound, and was led from the field on his horse, supported by an orderly. Despite the loss of their leader, Corporal F.A. Camann of Company K recalled that it took a while for the enemy to find the range:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>The missiles that were sent upon us did but little harm, as but now and then a comrade from our closed column sank wounded to the ground. The arms of the enemy did not carry far enough, or their aim was taken too low. Whizzing, the bullets turned up the ground before our feet and excited the dust.</i></blockquote>
The federal charge had caught the Confederates unprepared. The rebel left flank was poorly posted and in the air. Compounding the problem, during the artillery duel preceding the federal advance a shell ripped through the arm and side of the commander of Jackson's divison, Charles S. Winder, inflicting a mortal wound. Crawford's men began their advance in the confused aftermath of this incident. Spurred on by their officers, the 28th New York--with their Connecticut and Pennsylvania comrades at their side--paused only once to unleash a volley before reaching the far woods, driving Virginians in great confusion before them. In his official report, even Stonewall Jackson recognized the rout:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Federal infantry moved down from the wood through the corn and wheat fields, and fell with great vigor upon our extreme left, and by the force of superior numbers, bearing down all opposition, turned it and poured a destructive fire into its rear. Campbell's brigade fell back in disorder.</i></blockquote>
The federals crowded into the woods and pushed forward toward Jackson's batteries on the opposite side of the Culpeper Road. The carnage continued at close quarters, sometimes hand-to-hand. At the height of the action, and for the first and only time in the war, Jackson drew his sword, so rusted he could not remove its scabbard, and waded into the melee. Staff office Charles Blackford offered an account of the scene:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>In an instant a regiment or two burst through into the open spot where I was standing, all out of order and mixed up with a great number of yankees. I could not understand it; I could not tell whether our men had captured the yankees or the yankees had broken through our line. In an instant, however, I was put at rest, for Jackson, with one or two of his staff, came dashing across the road from our right in great haste and excitement. As he got amongst the disordered troops he drew his sword, then reached over and took his battleflag from my man, Bob Isbel, who was carrying it, and dropping his reins, waved it over his head and at the same time cried out in a loud voice, "Rally men! Remember Winder! Where's my Stonewall Brigade? Forward men, forward!"</i></blockquote>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This photo looks toward the Crittenden Gate, and the woods beyond in which the 28th New York reached zenith of their charge. At left is General Winder Road, this portion following the approximate course of the Crittenden farm lane in 1862. Crawford's charge began in the right background of this view, moving through the woodline seen in the distance toward the gate, where the Crittenden Farm Lane met the Culpeper Road, which can be made out by the distant fenceline. </td></tr>
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Despite their ferocious and sudden onset, Confederate numbers began to tell against Crawford's men. The Stonewall brigade and reinforcements from A.P. Hill's division began to crowd into Crawford's front and around his flanks. Losses began to take their toll on the 28th New York, particularly among its officers. Lieutenant Colonel Brown had his arm shattered and was taken prisoner, and Major Cook was also wounded and captured. Adjutant Sprout lay dead at the farthest point of advance, just beside a rebel gun. Several dead Confederates lay about his body. Of the eighteen officers that went into battle that afternoon, the casualty roll listed seventeen as either killed, wounded, or captured. In the whole brigade, fifty-six out of eighty-eight officers became casualties.<br />
<br />
In his official report, General Williams wrote:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>A combat more persistent or heroic can scarcely be found in the history of this war; but men of even this unequaled heroism could not withstand the overwhelming numbers of the enemy, especially when left without the encouragement and direction of their officers.</i></blockquote>
Crawford wrote dejectedly just days later in his report:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>Their field officers had all been killed, wounded, or taken prisoners, the support I looked for did not arrive, and my gallant men, broken, decimated by that fearful fire, that unequal contest, fell back again across the space, leaving most of their number upon the field. The slaughter was fearful.</i> </blockquote>
With the tide of battle pressing against them, the survivors of the 28th now sought to cut their way back out. Nearly surrounded, they needed to escape the woods and traverse the open wheatfield to reach safety. Color Bearer Lewis had already received a wound, but remained on his feet. As he retreated, he looked around and found only two of the eight corporals designated to protect the flag. After making it partway across the wheatfield, Lewis finally collapsed from the effects of his wound, and turned the flag over to a corporal from Company H. The flag disappeared into the smokey landscape. This second bearer fell wounded too. The last member of the guard, when wounded and cut off from escape, tore the flag from its staff--which had been twice shot in two--and tried to conceal it under his coat. A member of the 5th Virginia of the Stonewall Brigade came upon him, however, and captured the flag.<br />
<br />
The broken and bloody remnants of the 28th New York scampered back across the wheatfield and into the woods from which they had begun their charge. Belatedly, support did arrive, but only in time to stem the rout. Banks' corps would be driven from the field that evening, retreating toward Culpeper and reinforcements. Stonewall Jackson's soldiers once again held the field. Jackson's performance was questionable, and he did not accomplish his goal of inflicting a significant defeat upon a portion of Pope's army. But after Cedar Mountain John Pope did cede the initiative to his adversary, and Robert E. Lee would take full advantage, inflicting a devastating blow against Pope's army just three weeks later at Second Manassas.<br />
<br />
The 28th New York reached Culpeper a shattered unit. They had taken into battle on August 9th eighteen officers and 339 men. Of these, 213 became casualties. On August 15th in Culpeper, Colonel Donnelly succumbed to his wounds. When the regiment gathered to escort his body to the train for his last trip home, it could only muster sixty-four men. Three days later, Colonel Donnelly was laid to rest in Lockport, New York. The survivors of the regiment later erected a monument in the cemetery in his honor.<br />
<br />
The veterans of the regiment never met their Colonel again, but they would reunite with the flag that he led them into battle under at Cedar Mountain. On August 10th, the night after the battle, captured members of the regiment had gathered at the train station in Orange Court House to await transport to Richmond prisons. There at the train station one of the members of the regiment discovered their flag sitting amongst other rebel trophies of the battle. Wanting a memento, the soldier cut a small square from the flag, and carried it with him through his imprisonment. After his parole, he turned over his treasure to Lieutenant Colonel Brown, and for 20 years Brown held on to this prized possession. In 1882 Brown visited the flag-room at the United States War Department, where the government stored many flags recaptured in Richmond at the end of the war. As he glanced at the host of flags before him, Brown discovered one that looked familiar. Upon investigation, he determined that it was the 28th's flag, and identified it beyond doubt by the piece that he had kept for so many long years. Brown wrote to the Secretary of War, and received permission to have the flag returned to the surviving veterans of the 28th New York.<br />
<br />
Less than a year after the Battle of Cedar Mountain, the 28th New York mustered out of service. They did not witness the Battle of Gettysburg, the fall of Atlanta, or the surrender at Appomattox. They did not erect multiple monuments on fields visited by thousands of Americans each year. On their most memorable day of the war, they impetuously led an ill-fated charge into some of the best soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia. Nathaniel P. Banks' plan of battle at Cedar Mountain was ill-conceived and doomed to failure. 8,000 soldiers could not drive 16,000 soldiers from the field. And yet, despite the odds stacked against them, and despite the reputation of their foe - the officers and men of the 28th New York for a brief moment did hold the field. Their stunning success even upset the equilibrium of the famously taciturn Stonewall Jackson, and drew forth his sword for the first and only time in the war.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH3oFR7EM7m4GKr0BgJ9VGHSt2MKomZZESAeSxmXa0QY0r9r4z2Owhq6f6fQY9oeW0Cm0uwCp4z2SKIs9vgG9L6qTTkgQ5Pd1lPSV75mCES6UryehH7WpR-_mZhJ-_MKEAXKrAGA7mwCeJ/s1600/Burial+Parties.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH3oFR7EM7m4GKr0BgJ9VGHSt2MKomZZESAeSxmXa0QY0r9r4z2Owhq6f6fQY9oeW0Cm0uwCp4z2SKIs9vgG9L6qTTkgQ5Pd1lPSV75mCES6UryehH7WpR-_mZhJ-_MKEAXKrAGA7mwCeJ/s1600/Burial+Parties.jpg" height="268" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Just days after the battle, Matthew Brady photographer Timothy O'Sullivan captured the fresh aftermath.<br />Library of Congress.</td></tr>
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After the battle, dead federal soldiers sat out in the broiling August sun for two days until the opposing combatants agreed to a truce to allow for federal soldiers to bury their comrades. When soldiers of the Army of Virginia returned to the battlefield, the blackened corpses were beyond recognition, and many soldiers were laid to rest unidentified in one large grave. After the war, many of the Union dead from the Cedar Mountain Battlefield were re-interred in Culpeper National Cemetery. Some 48 soldiers from the 28th New York perished in the battle or received mortal wounds there. Today, many of them--the exact number is not known--rest in Culpeper National Cemetery. In 1902, the veterans of the 28th chose the cemetery as the proper location for their only Civil War monument, where today it overlooks the graves of their fallen comrades. Next time I'm near Culpeper, I plan to stop by and pay my respects.<br />
-------<br />
<u><b>A Note on Sources</b></u><br />
Looking for more information? I used the following sources in preparing this post:<br />
<a href="http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=moawar&cc=moawar&idno=waro0016&node=waro0016%3A4&view=image&seq=147&size=100" target="_blank">Alpheus S. Williams' Official Report</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=moawar&cc=moawar&idno=waro0016&node=waro0016%3A4&view=image&seq=151&size=100" target="_blank">Samuel Crawford's Official Report</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://ebooks.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=moawar;cc=moawar;idno=waro0016;node=waro0016%3A4;view=image;seq=183;size=100;page=root" target="_blank">Thomas J. Jackson's Official Report</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://dmna.ny.gov/historic/reghist/civil/infantry/28thInf/28thInfMain.htm" target="_blank">28th New York Page - New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center.</a> <br />
(Always a useful start when researching New York Regiments)<br />
<br />
<a href="https://archive.org/details/briefhistoryoftw00boyc" target="_blank">C.W. Boyce, <i>A Brief History of the 28th Regiment, New York State Volunteers</i> (Buffalo: The Matthews-Northrup Co., 1896)</a><br />
(Includes not only Boyce's account, but also several other essays and recollections written by other veterans of the regiment) <br />
<br />
John J. Hennessy, <i>Return to Bull Run: The Campaign and Battle of Second Manassas </i>(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1993).<br />
<br />
Ethan S. Rafuse, <i>Manassas: A Battlefield Guide </i>(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014).<br />
(An excellent guide that includes "excursion trips," including an excursion to Cedar Mountain)<br />
<br />
James I. Robertson, Jr., <i>Stonewall Jackson: The Man, The Soldier, The Legend </i>(New York: MacMillan, 1997).Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-54878205636595309962015-02-01T17:45:00.000-05:002015-02-01T17:45:17.213-05:00Remembering Harry Pfanz<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Today, we learned of the passing of an eminent historian, Harry Pfanz. Mr. Pfanz served for ten years as a historian at Gettysburg National Military Park. He later served as the Superintendent of the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, and as the Chief Historian of the National Park Service. His three-part tactical study of the battle of Gettysburg, in my opinion, has no equal in the scholarship of that battle. Personally, though I've never met Mr. Pfanz, his books played a pivotal role in my developing interest in the Civil War, and in setting my eventual career path.<br />
<br />
My interest in the Civil War was kindled in 1998. That summer, while visiting my grandparents in Ocala, Florida, I picked up and read <i>The Killer Angels</i>. I spent long hours that week on their porch swing out front, breezing through the book. During the long, two-day car ride back north I barely put down <i>Gods and Generals</i>, Jeff Shaara's prequel to his father's classic. Within a few weeks, I had the first volume of Shelby Foote's <i>The Civil War: A Narrative</i> in hand. The Civil War quickly became my obsession.<br />
<br />
A year later, on my 16th birthday my parents took me on my first trip to Gettysburg. It was mid-August, and by the time we arrived at the Visitor Center to arrange for a Licensed Battlefield Guide, none were available for the rest of the day. I wasn't worried. After all, I had read <i>The Killer Angels</i>; I <i>knew</i> this battle. We spent two days driving around the battlefield and the town, most of our time spent on Little Round Top, at the Angle, and on Confederate Avenue. We attended ranger programs at the Peach Orchard and at the High Water Mark. We somehow missed Devil's Den, and probably Culp's Hill too - I can't rightly remember. My parents also drove me through a college that I didn't know existed - Gettysburg College. How cool, I thought, would it be to spend four years here?<br />
<br />
After that first trip, my passion for Civil War history grew. I picked up Longstreet's memoirs and Freemantle's <i>Three Months in the Southern States</i>. I read James McPherson's <i>Battle Cry of Freedom, </i>Stephen Sears books, and continued to plow my way through Shelby Foote's 3,000 unsourced pages. By my junior year, I had convinced my parents that it was time to return to Gettysburg, this time on a college visit.<br />
<br />
After two years of study, I began to realize some of the gaps in my Civil War knowledge and understanding, if not their massive extent. With Gettysburg in particular, I recognized how little I had actually seen on my first trip. For this second visit, I needed a plan. We hired a Licensed Battlefield Guide, and our whirlwind two hour tour this time included Devil's Den and Culp's Hill. We also stopped in to the Eastern National Bookstore, and I made several purchases that, looking back, signaled the beginning of my serious study of at least the battle of Gettysburg, if not the Civil War. First, I purchased Edwin Coddington's <i>The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command</i>. I also purchased John Imhof's <i>Gettysburg Day Two: A Study in maps. </i>Finally, I picked up two books by Harry Pfanz, <i>Gettysburg: The Second Day</i>, and <i>Gettysburg: Culp's Hill & Cemetery Hill</i>.<br />
<br />
I dove right into Mr. Pfanz's work, and they instantly became my favorite of all time. Anyone familiar with Mr. Pfanz knows the exacting detail, superb research, and rich prose that marked his writing style. I always loved the way he wove miniature biographies of important officers seamlessly into his battle narratives.<br />
<br />
At the time I first read these books, I was looking at colleges and considering my career path. In addition to some great history teachers, I credit Mr. Pfanz with introducing me to many important lessons about the craft and process of history. Most importantly, perhaps, I learned that while I <i>thought </i>I knew everything about the battle of Gettysburg, I hadn't scratched the surface. I began to realize that the more of history you learn, the more you become aware of what you don't know. It's a humbling experience, but one that is important for all historians to learn, and one that I've learned repeated throughout my life.<br />
<br />
On my shelf of Civil War literature, Harry Pfanz's work--including his later volume, <i>Gettysburg: The First Day</i>--stand out among all the rest. Most books I've read once and set back on the shelf. Some I've donated to libraries to make room for new works. Not Pfanz. I've read very few Civil War volumes more than once, but I've read all three of his Gettysburg studies multiple times. Beyond that, they have been my constant companion on the battlefield, especially when my dream of spending four years in Gettysburg became a reality. Each year in late August I had to decide which handful of Civil War books deserved a portion of my limited space in my dorm room. Pfanz's books made the cut every time. And on the occasional spring and fall afternoons where I felt caught up in my classwork, I'd throw a volume into my book bag and hike out to the battlefield, find a spot under a shaded tree or at the base of a monument, crack open the book, read, and visualize the battle. It was the best way to learn, and to understand.<br />
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This morning, when I learned of Harry Pfanz's passing. I pulled out <i>Gettysburg: The Second Day</i>. Its worn and beaten cover, its cracked spine, and its coffee-stained pages attest to the use I've gotten out of it. Someday, I may have to replace this volume, but I hope not. The wear and tear remind me of the time in my life when I began to make the transition from amateur Gettysburg enthusiast into a historian.<br />
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Rest in peace, Harry Pfanz.Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-48885934221084519382015-01-25T21:29:00.001-05:002015-01-25T21:29:39.867-05:00Gettysburg National Military Park's Winter Lecture Series Takes a Look at How Veterans Viewed GettysburgHere's an excellent lecture delivered by Gettysburg National Military Park's Supervisory Historian Chris Gwinn. A part of the park's Winter Lecture Series, Gwinn's talk is titled "What Gettysburg Meant to its Veterans." In it, Chris examines how the personal experiences and opinions of Gettysburg veterans about the battle and the battlefield fit into a larger discussion about reunion, reconstruction, and reconciliation. It's well worth your time.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/4ayaLqWfZgM" width="560"></iframe>
Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-16568856044881496992015-01-18T22:12:00.002-05:002015-01-18T22:12:34.808-05:00The Seven Days: Turning Point?<b>"No military campaign had more influence on the Civil War than these Seven Days' battles." </b><br />
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This proud claim greets visitors on an interpretive sign as they arrive on the Gaines' Mill Battlefield. In this post we will consider the merits of the statement.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX94UkrR9Fw5fmBQCS4rSCOyp9Ql40aWkhBhZtqo5x4dxfwvUSz8eTx98YZg4adBa8ZGarCsvY8CCqWb49UyR-WHZPT9zhy8RlHatxV9bqrVRUMSdGEsmRziG01SFXDJ1JGnq6j1LaUMmw/s1600/2015-01-17+11.10.40-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX94UkrR9Fw5fmBQCS4rSCOyp9Ql40aWkhBhZtqo5x4dxfwvUSz8eTx98YZg4adBa8ZGarCsvY8CCqWb49UyR-WHZPT9zhy8RlHatxV9bqrVRUMSdGEsmRziG01SFXDJ1JGnq6j1LaUMmw/s1600/2015-01-17+11.10.40-1.jpg" height="640" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Watt House - located on a plateau above Boatswain's Swamp, served as Maj. Gen. Fitz John Porter's headquarters during the Battle of Gaines' Mill. </td></tr>
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I viewed the statement yesterday, as I made my first trek to the battlefields of Gaines' Mill and Malvern Hill. The Richmond National Battlefield unit of the National Park Services operates both sites, and maintains nice hiking trails with interpretive signage. Gaines' Mill - the third of the Seven Days' battles - took place on June 27th, 1862. After establishing a strong defensive position along the slopes of Turkey Hill overlooking Boatswain's Swamp, the Army of the Potomac's 5th Corps Commander Fitz John Porter beat back successive assaults against his position throughout the afternoon. Finally, in the growing dusk, Robert E. Lee unleashed more than 30,000 men in a final assault that broke the federal lines. Darkness allowed Porter to safely withdraw his forces across the Chickahominy River.<br />
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The Army of the Potomac continued its retreat toward the James River over the next several days, finally halting on July 1st to occupy a strong position on the slopes of Malvern Hill. The federal position offered excellent fields of fire for artillery, and also received support from gunboats located in the James River. Despite the strength of George B. McClellan's position, Lee launched a series of disjointed, bloody, and ultimately unsuccessful assaults. This failure brought the Seven Days' battles to an end.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinuAUa_48SQxdqLGPYHlLcJ6xRvia7c5UqXvpZEOQ91gFBk7BUxlML66cba8UD251MjpA7_CZ1zjakH5ewzWvWRzYy8XBlBQovw8Q6QXp9R6NE9QaEfex2efyyzqOQGv60tv7vnc2ZdAJm/s1600/2015-01-17+12.30.02-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinuAUa_48SQxdqLGPYHlLcJ6xRvia7c5UqXvpZEOQ91gFBk7BUxlML66cba8UD251MjpA7_CZ1zjakH5ewzWvWRzYy8XBlBQovw8Q6QXp9R6NE9QaEfex2efyyzqOQGv60tv7vnc2ZdAJm/s1600/2015-01-17+12.30.02-1.jpg" height="640" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Union gun line atop Malvern Hill.</td></tr>
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Let's return to a consideration of that interpretive sign - "No military campaign had more influence on the Civil War than these Seven Days' battles." Freeman Tilden would smile reading this lead sentence. It's a provocative statement, and as Tilden set down in his six principles, "the chief aim of interpretation is not instruction, but provocation." I've spent a good deal of time since analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the argument.<br />
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For context, let's look at the entire statement (<a href="http://www.hmdb.org/marker.asp?marker=40249" target="_blank">courtesy of the Historical Marker Database</a>):<br />
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<i>No military campaign had more influence on the course of the Civil War than these Seven Days' battles. George B. McClellan's army of more than 100,000 Union soldiers landed at Fort Monroe in spring of 1862, and fought its way up the peninsula. By mid-May the Army of the Potomac lay on the outskirts of Richmond, hoping to capture the capital of the Confederacy and perhaps end the war. If that strategy succeeded the nation might be reunified, but without abolition of slavery. Confederate General Robert E. Lee chose not to wait for the Federal army's next move. Instead, he seized the initiative, and on June 26 advanced across the Chickahominy River with nearly 45,000 soldiers. That action opened a week-long series of battles that resulted in the Union army retreating to the banks of the James River. With Richmond secure, Lee's army moved north, defeating Union forces at Cedar Mountain and Second Manassas (Bull Run), and then marched toward Maryland and the first invasion of the North. </i></blockquote>
A historian could advance any number of campaigns as "most influential" on the course of the war, and make a compelling argument supported by evidence. Rather than engaging in such a debate, I want to look more closely at the evidence that supports Richmond National Battlefield's claim. How did the Seven Days' Campaign influence the war? The marker provides us with two primary examples:<b> </b><br />
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<b>Altering the Military Situation: </b>While he had held several important posts already during the war, the Seven Days' battles introduced the world to Robert E. Lee as commander of the Army of Northern Virginia. In Gaines' Mill, Lee achieved his first significant victory of the war. And the results of the Seven Days' not only neutralized McClellan's threat to the Confederate capital, they also gave Lee an opening which he used to transfer the seat of war from the gates of the Confederate capital to the banks of the Potomac River, and beyond.<br />
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<b>Emancipation</b>: Against the backdrop of the Seven Days' battles, President Abraham Lincoln continued to grapple with the issues of slavery and emancipation. He wasn't the only one. During the first half of 1862, Congress had debated the Second Confiscation Act, which extended the power of the Union military to free Confederate slaves. The act passed on July 17th, 1862 - just a few short weeks after the battle of Malvern Hill. A few days before the act passed, Lincoln first consulted with a few members of his cabinet on issuing an Emancipation Proclamation. Secretary of State William Seward eventually convinced Lincoln to await a Union victory before issuing such a document, but Lincoln's mind on emancipation had been set.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQGUkPo-6v3B5q0Zz_ETyFzDjpHhQoOKh2pozpO7ucV3G0xcBlNQSJQdjwacq_qggv0cYPDo0vttGj2hVvf2VG9cP2WyTDqcbSN0GoszKfB3THbI1r8h-zLIpNIjPBXIvZDWnRd4OaZohl/s1600/2015-01-17+13.28.43-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQGUkPo-6v3B5q0Zz_ETyFzDjpHhQoOKh2pozpO7ucV3G0xcBlNQSJQdjwacq_qggv0cYPDo0vttGj2hVvf2VG9cP2WyTDqcbSN0GoszKfB3THbI1r8h-zLIpNIjPBXIvZDWnRd4OaZohl/s1600/2015-01-17+13.28.43-1.jpg" height="640" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The crest of Malvern Hill viewed in the distance from the perspective of the Confederate advance.</td></tr>
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Glenn David Brasher's recent book <i>The Peninsula Campaign and the Necessity of Emancipation </i>argues that "the contributions that African Americans had made to both armies, coupled with the failure of McClellan's Peninsula Campaign, played a role in turning many Northerners in favor of emancipation." Throughout the campaign army officers and the northern press noted, and abolitionists highlighted, the invaluable support roles that the Confederacy's enslaved labor force filled for its armed forces. An increasing awareness of how African Americans could support the <i>Union</i> war effort, coupled with the lack of success in securing victory in a limited war, changed many hearts.<br />
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The first half of 1862 had brought encouraging signs for the Union war effort. Victories in the west and McClellan's slow but seemingly unstoppable march to the outskirts of Richmond signaled a swift end to the rebellion. Yet by July stalled progress in the west, and McClellan's defeat changed the outlook dramatically. The end of the war appeared farther away than ever before, and support for the type of limited war favored by McClellan waned. Most importantly, the President of the United States no longer believed in the success of a limited war that reunified the nation but left slavery in tact. The aftermath of the Seven Days' battles brought a new commander to Washington - Henry Halleck. It brought a call for 300,000 more troops to swell the ranks of federal armies. And it caused the Lincoln administration to settle on a new a war policy, one that coupled victory with emancipation.<br />
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Did the Seven Days' battles have the greatest influence on the direction and outcomes of the Civil War? It's a debatable statement, but also one that has a lot of evidence to support it. What do you think?Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-1783303342732648932015-01-06T22:07:00.000-05:002015-01-06T22:07:50.093-05:00Library Corner - The Iron Brigade: A Military History<i><b>The Iron Brigade: A Military History</b></i><br />
<b>By Alan T. Nolan</b><br />
<b>Published 1983 (First Edition 1961) by the Historical Society of Michigan</b><br />
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Over the past few years, I've developed quite an interest in the Iron Brigade. My curiosity in the Army of the Potomac's elite Westerners first began when I waded into Alan D. Gaff's <i>On Many a Bloody Field: Four Years in the Iron Brigade</i>, an excellent and exhaustive study of Company B, 19th Indiana. Gettysburg National Military Park's now-retired supervisory historian Scott Hartwig continued to fan those flames of curiosity. At Gettysburg's Sesquicentennial in July of 2013, I attended his excellent interpretive program entitled "The Last March of the Iron Brigade." While retracing the steps of the brigade, Hartwig spoke of his favorite war recollection, <i>Service with the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers </i>by Rufus Dawes. On this recommendation, I later picked up Dawes's amazing account, and it didn't disappoint.<br />
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As my interest developed, I became keenly aware of a glaring gap in my knowledge of Iron Brigade (not to mention general Civil War) historiography: I had not yet picked up the late Alan T. Nolan's classic, <i>The Iron Brigade: A Military History</i>. I rectified this situation late last year, when I found a copy for sale at my favorite used book store, and I snapped it up. Finally, over Christmas, I buried my nose into Nolan's descriptive accounts of the standup fight at the Brawner Farm, of the horrific morning along the Hagerstown Pike at Antietam, and of the brigade's "last stand" at the hastily built barricade on Seminary Ridge at Gettysburg.<br />
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For a book that first appeared in 1961, it has withstood the test of time. Nolan's treatment of this famed brigade is comprehensive and complex. Rather than obsessing over the minutiae of battlefield tactics and maneuvers, the author's success lies in his ability to make his story a human drama. Through the book I came to know the men, and especially the officers, of the 2nd, 6th, and 7th Wisconsin, the 19th Indiana, and the 24th Michigan. I learned about their home towns and their motivations for fighting. I contemplated their thoughts on Union and emancipation, and began to understand the importance of politics and political connections in army life. I read about the daily experiences of soldiers in camp and on campaign, and recognized how discipline, rewards and punishments, and unit pride all contributed to the brigade's development into one of the best fighting forces of the war. In thoroughly acquainting his readers with the officers and soldiers of the Iron Brigade first, Nolan lent more power to his account when he brought them to the battlefield. <br />
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It would be difficult to find a unit anywhere with a more impressive combat record than the Iron Brigade. During the war, Confederate regiments that faced the brigade in the field without exception suffered astounding casualties. Correspondingly, the Iron Brigade lost a higher percentage of soldiers killed in combat than any other Federal unit. At Gettysburg, the westerners left nearly two-thirds of their number on the field, the greatest proportion of Union casualties in the war's largest battle. <br />
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In total, Alan Nolan's <i>The Iron Brigade</i> continues to serve as a model for a comprehensive, modern, unit history. My only regret is that this book wasn't longer. Nolan chose to essentially wrap his book up after Gettysburg, noting that battle casualties, expiring enlistments, and army reorganization destroyed the original fabric of the brigade. He summarized the record of the brigade between Gettysburg and Appomattox with a short epilogue chapter. While I understand why Nolan made this choice, the post-Gettysburg period of the brigade's history is one that I think is worthy of a more expansive study. I found myself wanting to know more about how the soldiers of the brigade coped with the increasing stresses of combat fatigue, the uncertainty of fighting alongside new recruits and draftees of unknown quality, and the challenges to morale when external forces disrupted unit cohesion and pride. This one critique aside, I would recommend this highly readable account as one of the very best unit histories that I've read.<br />
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I also note that, though scholarship is always evolving and improving, the popular history and popular culture related to the Civil War even today tends to focus on political and military leadership at the highest levels, men like Abraham Lincoln, Robert E. Lee, and Ulysses S. Grant. While I recognize the importance of studying their decisions and actions, I have personally become increasingly interested in learning about the war from a lower vantage point: from the view of soldiers and field officers at the regimental and brigade level. And as someone who thoroughly enjoyed HBO's <i>Band of Brothers </i>miniseries, I wonder if and when someone might take on a similar type of project focused on a Civil War unit. While I hesitate to trust Hollywood once again in the telling of a Civil War epic, I can't say I wouldn't be excited to see someone like Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg bring the story of the Iron Brigade to the big screen. Just a thought.Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-6563074312483073522015-01-04T22:36:00.002-05:002015-01-04T22:36:53.910-05:00Winter Around the CapitalTonight I had a little fun browsing Civil War photographs on the Library of Congress website, which I do from time to time. Here's an interesting albumen print depicting the 2nd Maine Infantry drilling over a wintry landscape. Viewed at a high resolution <a href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2009632246/" target="_blank">(which you can download here)</a>, the image yields a number of interesting details.<br />
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First - the presence of Sibley tents confirm that this photograph was taken in the winter of 1861-1862, as they were not generally used later in the war.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNeyxAhZhXWMsiOlhzfaZzcVFg_zjPEZI-GNX9n0Vwo3GUMxc6wglcZ2Eli62wMxOCitak5f6Q1IiR91yhsSTUb2bgr2ISiDlkDLocr_A5-WzEgus6xz45-hHhkrB4OJEBXMSV1wl9pjBe/s1600/03307u+(2).tif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNeyxAhZhXWMsiOlhzfaZzcVFg_zjPEZI-GNX9n0Vwo3GUMxc6wglcZ2Eli62wMxOCitak5f6Q1IiR91yhsSTUb2bgr2ISiDlkDLocr_A5-WzEgus6xz45-hHhkrB4OJEBXMSV1wl9pjBe/s1600/03307u+(2).tif" height="342" width="640" /></a></div>
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The layout and built environment of the camp - including evergreen boughs and festive arches arranged amongst the tents, several log structures, and large banners hung reading "2nd Maine" and what appears to be "Camp Jameson" - suggests that the 2nd Maine had inhabited this location for some time.<br />
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<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Wb8LAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA167&lpg=PA167&dq=2nd+Maine+Infantry+on+Parade+Photographic+history+of+the+war&source=bl&ots=blNM22tSTh&sig=MFccG2voL_nMhquUBzwBKNM3wRA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=DWKOVJ38M4idNoDMgMgD&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=2nd%20Maine%20Infantry%20on%20Parade%20Photographic%20history%20of%20the%20war&f=false" target="_blank">This photograph appears in volume one of Francis Miller's <i>The Photographic History of the Civil War</i>. </a>The caption for the photograph in part reads:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>This picture shows the Christmas Day parade of the Second Maine Infantry at Camp James near Washington, 1861.</i></blockquote>
Despite this caption, I am inclined to believe that this image was not captured on Christmas Day, but certainly sometime around Christmas. Searching for weather conditions around the capital in December of 1861, I <a href="http://www.loc.gov/collection/diary-of-horatio-taft/about-this-collection/" target="_blank">found the diary of Horatio Nelson Taft</a>, a Patent Office examiner, on the Library of Congress website. Taft's diary <a href="http://www.cw-chronicles.com/blog/1861/12/25/" target="_blank">reveals weather above freezing and no snow on Christmas Day </a>1861, and nothing that would create a snow covered field in the days leading up to Christmas. Taft reported snow on December 23rd, but, in his own words, "not enough to remain on the ground." Taft's account <a href="http://www.cw-chronicles.com/blog/1862/01/04/" target="_blank">does indicate snow during the first week of January,</a> 1862. He reports extremely cold weather and a light covering of snow on the ground. Perhaps the photograph was captured at that time.<br />
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Further evidence supporting a photograph date close to Christmas is <a href="https://play.google.com/books/reader?printsec=frontcover&output=reader&id=zUUIAAAAQAAJ&pg=GBS.PA45" target="_blank">derived from <i><span class="OjrvKe-r4nke-Q4BLdf"><span class="OjrvKe-r4nke-Q4BLdf-r4nke">Maine In the War for the Union</span></span></i></a><span class="OjrvKe-r4nke-Q4BLdf"><span class="OjrvKe-r4nke-Q4BLdf-r4nke"> by William E.S. Whitman and Charles H. True</span></span><span class="OjrvKe-r4nke-Q4BLdf"><span class="OjrvKe-r4nke-Q4BLdf-r4nke">. This book, published in 1865, provides details of the 2nd Maine's winter encampment at Camp Jameson on Hall's Hill in Arlington, Virginia, within sight of the United States Capitol. The description reads:</span></span><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span class="OjrvKe-r4nke-Q4BLdf"><span class="OjrvKe-r4nke-Q4BLdf-r4nke"><i>The men while at this post took great pains to make their quarters neat and comfortable, and they were models in this respect which were not surpassed. At Christmas the encampment was decorated with evergreens, arches and other ornaments, and presented a very picturesque appearance.</i></span></span></blockquote>
Either way, a fascinating image of a full Civil War regiment early in the war. The 2nd Maine served two years with the Army of the Potomac, returning home after the Battle of Chancellorsville. Many of the regiment's men who enlisted for three years instead of two famously served in the 20th Maine after the regiment disbanded.Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-50050376510435167762014-12-01T11:43:00.001-05:002014-12-01T11:43:39.277-05:00150 Years Later, Considering the Legacy of the Sand Creek MassacreAt dawn on November 29th, 1864 - just over 150 years ago - Colonel John M. Chivington led a command of approximately 675 U.S. Cavalry in an unprovoked attack on a village of approximately 700 Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians along Sand Creek in the Colorado Territory. Over the course of the day, the troopers killed more than 200, mostly women, children, and the elderly.<br />
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I noticed that the sesquicentennial anniversary of this event has passed off with very little notice from the traditional Civil War media channels that I follow. Some blogs devoted multiple posts to commemorating the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Franklin, but offered no notice of Sand Creek.<br />
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Even the New York Times Disunion Blog has not offered anything (yet) related to the Sand Creek Massacre. However, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/28/opinion/remember-the-sand-creek-massacre.html?_r=0&module=ArrowsNav&contentCollection=Opinion&action=keypress&region=FixedLeft&pgtype=article" target="_blank">on November 28th the New York Times did post an Op-Ed piece about the massacre written by Dr. Ned Blackhawk</a>, a professor of history and American studies at Yale University. In it, he highlights why this overlooked part of Civil War history is important:<br />
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<i>Sand Creek, Bear River, and the Long Walk remain important parts of the Civil War and of American history. But in our popular narrative, the Civil War obscures such campaigns against American Indians. In fact, the war made such violence possible: The paltry Union Army of 1858, before its wartime expansion, could not have attacked, let alone removed, the fortified Navajo communities in the Four Corners, while Southern secession gave a powerful impetus to expand American territory westward. Territorial leaders like Evans were given more resources and power to negotiate with, and fight against, powerful Western tribes like the Shoshone, Cheyenne, Lakota, and Comanche. The violence of this time was fueled partly by the lust for power by civilian and military leaders desperate to obtain glory and wartime recognition.<br /><br />Expansion continued after the war, powered by a revived American economy but also by a new spirit of national purpose, a sense that America, having suffered in the war, now had the right to conquer more peoples and territory.</i></blockquote>
There were <a href="http://www.nps.gov/sand/parknews/sand-creek-massacre-150th-schedule.htm" target="_blank">commemorations of the massacre</a>, planned by the Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site and the Cheyenne and Arapaho communities. The 16th Annual Sand Creek Massacre Spiritual Healing Run began yesterday morning. This annual run starts at the site of the massacre, and ends on several days later at the State Capitol in Denver. Here's a brief video about the run:<br />
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Sometimes our history can be difficult. Yet, it is just as important, if not more so, for us to remember aspects of our history that are difficult to stomach and hard to explain.Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-45411392762789951422014-11-27T08:30:00.000-05:002014-11-27T08:30:00.767-05:00Visualizing Artillery on the BattlefieldI've always found this photograph fascinating.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB047ofX2pSFN6RgT5-ReY6q6Z8lbE8gdGfLgdtzTB8m56lo9o5jwURw7SH6p9F3w-0_Ue0NzB9b1WJUxMOW4vIbwe2GXPozzwc6VMsUgISbphzSGAAxcLFQkpOJaEmfTdFxRaosokJ7l5/s1600/01117u.tif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB047ofX2pSFN6RgT5-ReY6q6Z8lbE8gdGfLgdtzTB8m56lo9o5jwURw7SH6p9F3w-0_Ue0NzB9b1WJUxMOW4vIbwe2GXPozzwc6VMsUgISbphzSGAAxcLFQkpOJaEmfTdFxRaosokJ7l5/s1600/01117u.tif" height="586" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Original LOC Caption: "Antietam, Maryland. Captain J.M. Knap's Penn. Independent Battery 'E' Light Artillery."<br />
Photographed by Alexander Gardner. To view and zoom in on a high res version, <a href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/cwp2003005547/PP/" target="_blank">go here.</a></td></tr>
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Taken by Alexander Gardner on September 19th, 1862--just two days after the battle of Antietam--it depicts Captain Joseph M. Knap's Independent Battery E, Pennsylvania Light Artillery on the battlefield. <br />
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This is an important Civil War photograph. The exact location of this scene was
first identified by William Frassanito in his book <i>Antietam: The Photographic Legacy of America's Bloodiest Day</i>, published in 1978. With Frassanito's discovery, this photograph became a tremendous resource for historians. It presents a panoramic view of a broad expanse of the terrain over
which the battle raged on the morning of September 17th, 1862. The
photograph provides documentation of what the terrain looked like at the time of the battle. Behind the battery stretches the fields of David R. Miller's farm, including the
bloody cornfield. In the distant background of the photograph, the North Woods loom
on the horizon.<br />
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I enjoy this photograph for another reason though: it provides a visual reference for what a battery looked like on the field of battle. <br />
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When touring battlefields, I find that visualizing the action can sometimes present a challenge, especially when I am leading others with limited knowledge of the Civil War. This applies especially to to the role and appearance of artillery. At most NPS sites today, cannon dot the landscape to mark where batteries deployed. Occasionally, you will find a full compliment of caissons, guns, and limbers to mark out a battery's location. Cushing's battery at Gettysburg and the guns at Hazel Grove come to mind in particular. Yet while the guns provide helpful information in locating a battery position on the field, they don't give us an adequate idea of what a battery in action would look like.<br />
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Each gun in a battery was hooked to a limber and pulled by six horses. Each gun then had a caisson, also hooked to a limber, and also pulled by a six-horse team. Therefore, each gun in a battery had typically 12 horses. For a six-gun battery, that's 72 horses, not counting replacements and officer mounts. Each battery also had a traveling forge, a battery wagon to carry tents, supplies, and tools, and usually six more caissons carrying reserve ammunition. That all adds up to a lot of horses.<br />
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When deployed for action, regulations suggested that the nose of the lead horse of each limber would be six yards behind the trail of its gun, and the lead horse pulling the caisson should be about 11 yards behind the limber. According to Jack Coggins' wonderful book, <i>Arms and Equipment of the Civil War</i>, a gun, its limber, and its caisson would take up a depth of almost 50 yards. Meanwhile, artillery manuals called for 14 yards in between each gun, meaning that a six-gun battery would occupy a front of more than 80 yards.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipc_u864GzEzT26rRb22hPawlKxf1P4yI83eHIzBpIkhll5KOA-zmHh_Zo-VyrQZZJtC1siqG-r0ygzUsyKvpb4Kz1Ur5QIqHVWhAMGtxbSAWyjiCReXJQGRS26PRoHGvU_EE25IB2BEts/s1600/33216v.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipc_u864GzEzT26rRb22hPawlKxf1P4yI83eHIzBpIkhll5KOA-zmHh_Zo-VyrQZZJtC1siqG-r0ygzUsyKvpb4Kz1Ur5QIqHVWhAMGtxbSAWyjiCReXJQGRS26PRoHGvU_EE25IB2BEts/s1600/33216v.jpg" height="450" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another great image of an artillery battery, this one attributed to army photographer Andrew Russell. This photograph was likely taken during the Chancellorsville campaign. <a href="http://npsfrsp.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/two-mystery-images-explored-and-two-mysteries-only-partly-resolved/" target="_blank">Here's a great blog entry exploring the photograph in detail.</a> To view and zoom in on a high res version, <a href="http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2012649385/" target="_blank">go here.</a></td></tr>
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I find all of that difficult to imagine when I stand on a battlefield looking at a couple of guns flanking a monument. Luckily, Gardner's photographic documentation of Knap's battery at Antietam, and many other similar photographs taken during the war, can help to create an image in your mind of what a battery would look like on the field of battle.Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7433177843775764075.post-90909805953159388252014-11-24T08:00:00.000-05:002014-11-24T08:00:12.168-05:00Museum Monday - Interpreting Slavery and African American History and CultureLast week I took particular note of two blog posts in my daily reading list. Both related to the challenges and opportunities of interpreting slavery at museums and historic sites. First, at the Engaging Places Blog, <a href="http://engagingplaces.net/2014/11/18/at-the-press-interpreting-african-american-history-and-culture/" target="_blank">Max van Balgooy previewed his upcoming book, <i>Interpreting African American History and Culture at Museums and Historic Sites</i>.</a> The book is a collection of essays published as part of the American Association for State and Local History's new "Interpreting" series. It's one that I've added to my wish list. I've also added the Engaging Places blog to my roll at the right, it's a great read if you are interested in interpretation at museums and historic sites.<br />
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Next, I noticed <a href="http://pastexplore.wordpress.com/2014/11/20/challenges-with-interpreting-northern-views-towards-slavery/" target="_blank">another great post from public historian Nick Sacco </a>of the Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site in St. Louis. In it, he discusses the challenge of interpreting Northern views toward slavery, and highlights the importance of encouraging guests to recognize that the historical legacies of slavery and racism are not unique to the South. I think this is an important point, and that it underscores a larger issue within historical interpretation. History is complex. We tend to want to make historical narratives fit within a nice, neat framework with good guys and bad guys, and we want our guests to leave with all their questions answered. Unfortunately, historical reality is not always that simple.<br />
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When it comes to the Civil War, we can recognize that slavery was at the heart of the conflict; that the war began over a conflict over slavery's expansion. Southerners wanted slavery to expand, Northerners wanted to contain the institution. Eventually, the war became a struggle for the very existence of slavery in the United States. Underneath this fairly straight forward surface, however, the actual beliefs and opinions of Northerners and Southerners toward slavery and toward African Americans, are complex, and cannot be effectively understood through two generalized camps of pro and anti-slavery. <br />
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Good food for thought to start the week.Steve Lhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12577084000971133449noreply@blogger.com0