Civil War News January 2019

For Civil War Enthusiasts

2018 Ends on a High Note

Richmond and Franklin Civil War Show News

“Fall Farm Skirmish” a Successful Harvest for GBPA

Capping a 2018 season that saw a reduction in the number and size of reenactments generally, the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association successfully bucked the trend by staging the “Fall Farm Skirmish” Oct. 20 & 21, at the Historic Daniel Lady Farm.

Units of the First and Second Regiments of the Federal Volunteer Brigade faced off with the 7th Louisiana Infantry and local Confederate forces in a live-action skirmish over the two days.

The vollies were exchanged on 10 acres of the historic farm at 1008 Hanover Street that was held by the Confederates during most of the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg. The farm saw skirmishing during the first day’s fighting and, as the battle progressed, both the house and barn were struck by Union artillery fire. Both served as a field hospital for wounded and dying Confederate combatants.

100,000 square

(Jack Melton)

RICHMOND, Va. and FRANKLIN, Tenn.—With a one-two punch, Mike Kent of MK Shows kicked off the fall Civil War show circuit with two back to back events for Civil War buffs. The 38th Annual Capital of the Confederacy Civil War Show was held Nov. 17 and 18 at the Richmond Raceway Complex in Richmond, Va., and was a huge success according to Show Chairman Kent who manages

the event for the Central Virginia Civil War Collectors Association.

For the past few years the show has competed with a modern gun and knife show in an adjacent building at the Raceway Complex, the Richmond Marathon which is known for multiple street closures and traffic jams, and the nationally known Tulsa Gun Show. This year the show returned to its traditional weekend before Thanksgiving to avoid all the competing events. Although attendance was unchanged from last year, the move enabled several well-known dealers such as Vin Caponi, Al Duquette, Ken Hamilton, and Brian Akins to participate for the first time in several years.

After a cold, rainy start to the week, Friday arrived with cool temperatures but plenty of sun for moving in as vendors loaded tables with their latest finds and acquisitions then went to work buying, selling, trading, and renewing old friendships. At the close of business on Friday, several vendors remarked that they already had a successful show, even though the event had not yet opened to the public.

The Capital of the Confederacy Show is viewed as a bell weather for other Civil War Shows according to Kent, who also promotes the Middle Tennessee Civil War Show in Franklin and

the Chickamauga Civil War Show in Dalton, Ga. If the Richmond show is a success based on attendance, dealer participation and feedback, sales activity and enthusiasm, it bodes well for upcoming shows according to Kent. All these metrics were met, with dealers coming from as far away as Texas, New York, and Florida, and the public parking lot sporting tags from all over the eastern United States. One attendee with a “down under” accent introduced himself and stated he had come from Sidney, Australia, to hit the Richmond and Franklin shows and then ship his purchases back for his growing Civil War collection!

With the current political climate being what it is, it was refreshing to see hundreds of likeminded collectors and enthusiasts gathering to discuss and celebrate their passion without regard to political affiliation said Kent. Whether examining buttons, buckles, bullets, muskets,

Confederate troops assembled across the Lady Farm for the assault on Culp’s Hill on the second and third days of the battle. GBPA officials report that close to 300 reenactors representing the North and South exchanged volleys during the two-day engagement that also provided visitors with a close look at daily life in the two camps.

Event organizer and GBPA Board of Directors member Kirk Davis said the reduced scale of the event worked to the advantage of both participants and spectators.

“The audience could really hear the commands of the officers during the battle and, at the same time, the reenactors knew they were under close scrutiny to follow those orders and give authenticity to every aspect of the clash,” said Davis.

An added feature on Saturday was a concert by noted historic musician Kent Courtney for troops and visitors.

Information about the Historic Daniel Lady Farm and the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association can be found at www.gbpa.org.

The Williamson County Ag Expo Park is a great venue for the show, featuring

feet of exhibit space.

A line of reenactors in front of the historic Daniel Lady Farm’s historic barn.

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Editor to the

TO THE EDITOR:

I have just visited, in company of my host Michael Harrington, President of the Houston Civil War Round Table, the Museum of Southern History in Houston. An exhibit that caught my eye was a Confederate soldier’s pocket diary inscribed by a “Parson Baldwin,” writing in February 1864. I was struck by what was added under his name: “during Civil War Between States Over Freedom of States Rights.”

If there is importance to what combatants call their conflicts, this one deserves contemplation. On another note.

Re: “ongoing cultural conversation”

Recently I attended a Civil War symposium in Nashville. One speaker made a point of stating that Confederate monuments were raised in the South during the late 19th Century as reminders to Blacks that Jim Crow was supreme.

I raised my hand, countering that scholarship demonstrated that the heyday of monument building, roughly 1880-1910, occurred when the graying war generation had statues built to remind later Southerners of why and how they had fought. I added that many Northern statues to Union veterans were erected in the same era.

The professor replied: “Check

the evidence. It is not on your side.” He declared that the next period of Confederate monument building occurred in the mid1960s, when white Southerners opposed federal civil rights acts. I reminded him that 1961-65 were the years of the Centennial, when Americans memorialized the war further.

By this time, I was standing in the front row. The speaker approached me: “Your face is red! Sit down!”

My response: “I am not your student, sir!”

Of course, at the end of the session we shook hands, laughed and parted as friends.

But it goes to show--here I quote the great Donald Davidson (1893-1968)--that after 150-plus years, we’re “still Rebels, still Yankees.”

Stephen Davis Cumming, Ga.

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swords, or documents, the conversations were lively, polite, and stimulating, as they should be among friends and fellow collectors. As the show drew to a close on Sunday afternoon and the packing up began, dealers were already shouting out “good byes” and “see you in two weeks” as they looked forward to the granddaddy of them all, the Middle Tennessee Civil War Show in Franklin on Dec. 1 and 2.

As always, the Middle Tennessee Civil War Show, known by most as simply “the Nashville Show,” was a sell out again this year, retaining its title as the country’s largest Civil War show. Although table sales came in a little slower than usual, all tables were eventually filled and Kent even sold a few extras as hopefuls showed up Friday morning on the outside chance that a spot could be found for them.

Saturday broke warm but wet as thunderstorms pounded the area overnight. Fortunately for attendees, the lobby of the Williamson County Ag Expo is huge, as it was filled to capacity a half hour before the show started. The doors were actually opened 10 minutes early to make room for the crowd that had assembled; when the first hour’s gate was tallied, over 700 attendees had passed through the turnstiles for a record breaking start to the Franklin show.

The show was missing a few familiar faces due to age, illness, and other plans, according to Kent, however he continued, it was refreshing to see new exhibitors with multiple tables and quality merchandise taking their place, a trend that hopefully will continue as new folks discover our hobby.

Porter’s Battery is always an attention getter at the Franklin Show and they did not fail this time, even under threat of inclement weather. As soon as the rain stopped Saturday morning, they wheeled their cannon into place and went on to perform flawlessly throughout the afternoon and into Sunday, blasting off rounds every hour as smoke enveloped the bluff just outside the venue.

Awards are an important part of any Civil War show and recognition should be given to those who travel to shows, rent tables, and set up their displays for no monetary gain; only the appreciation of the public and their peers. Oftentimes the displays represent a lifetime of collecting, documenting, researching, and building to get ready for a public appearance; they are always a

Al Duquette brought this impressive collection of firearms all the way from Texas! (All photos by Jack Melton)

Debi and Kent Robinson added some pizazz to the show with prints by John Paul Strain.

Bob Baird of the Central Virginia Civil War Collectors Association displayed his collection of spurs to showcase the many types of rowels used during the Civil War.

Larry Munther had a great selection of photographs for sale.

Stones River Trading Company is a regular at all MK Shows.

Jerry Lynch with a great assortment of early Americana for sale.

Mike Greenfield always has a great display touting tourism for Spotsylvania, Va.

Mike Fisher’s collection of badges and medals was on display for the first time.

labor of love. While some displays are as simple as a single rifle or sword, others are worthy of their own wing in a history museum. The display of “Civil War Grapeshot and Canister” by David Gotter falls into the latter category and was an obvious winner of the Best of Show Award. Many attendees and dealers commented that it was the most complete and important collection at the show and one that could never be duplicated.

Other Franklin show award winners and their displays were:

Paul DeHaan

Chairman’s Award

Admiral Farragut Collection

Al Lyons

People’s Choice Award

Civil War Buckles and Plates

Dean Sprowl

Best Dug Relic

Texana Relics

Brian Riel

Best Non Dug Relic

Sniper Rifles –Civil War through WW2

Ernie Arnold

Historical Significance Award

Everything Burnside Display

Jerry Roxbury

Historical Significance Award

Cutlasses of Columbus, Ga.

Elizabeth Topping

Historical Significance Award

Sanitary Fairs

David Noe

Historical Significance Award

European Firearms of the Civil War

Overall, the Franklin show was a great success and the bellweather rang true at Richmond, as both Richmond and Franklin demonstrated that our industry is strong and interest is still high in the American Civil War. As we finish up 2018 and look forward to the 2019 shows, we can all rest assured that our hobby will be around for years to come.

See MK Shows full page ad on page 3 for information on show dates and locations or visit the website as www.MKShows.com.

The blue double breasted brigadier general’s frock coat, buff sash, triple bullion Moroccan leather belt, and hip high riding boots of Brig. Gen. Charles Cleveland Dodge, one of America’s youngest generals when promoted in 1862. He was wounded during the land battle of Monitor and Virginia while he was a commander of Union cavalry in Virginia at the time. Walter Husted Stevens as a brig. gen. wearing a gray C.S. maj. gen. rank frock but with a brig. gen. button configuration. One of Lee’s generals, Gen. Stevens was chief engineer of the Confederacy, the last man documented to cross the bridge when Richmond fell; he was paroled at Appomattox Courthouse. Accompanying the coat is his gold colored sash, French made sword wrapped in gilt lace, and his hob nail boots.

(Andrew Pells collection)

Tim Prince of College Hill Arsenal with a stunning array of Civil War long guns and bayonets.

The Best of Show Award winning display of Civil War grapeshot and canister by David Gotter.

Allen Wandling of Mid West Civil War Relics brought a group of museum quality artifacts for sale.

Al Lyons hadn’t displayed in a while but took home the People’s Choice Award for his belt plate exhibit.

Shannon Pritchard of Old South Military Antiques seems to be enjoying himself at the show!

George and Sue Whitely with their vintage photographic equipment and ephemera.

Ron Coddington, publisher of Military Images magazine visiting with a customer.

Award winners, left to right: Brian Riel, Elizabeth Topping, David Gotter, Al Lyons, Paul DeHaan, Jerry Roxbury, David Noe, Ernie Arnold, and Dean Sprowl.

Looks like Jeff Shrader has cornered the market on trench art with his outstanding collection!

Josh Phillips of the American Bowie Knife Association poses in front of his display of Confederate Bowie knives.

Author and coffee connoisseur Gregory Newsome dressed for the part. He stands next to show promoter Mike Kent.

Award winner Paul DeHaan with his Admiral David Farragut display.

More on Bullet Lube & Weapons for Reenactments and Shooting

Bullet Lube

Analysis

In response to my last column on British ammunition problems in India during the Sepoy Rebellion, my friend Bill Adams added that, “They were still using the old formula powder and .568" diameter bullets during the Sepoy Rebellion.” He posited the heat melted tallow in the lube causing the paper patch wrapping causing the bullet’s paper path wrapping to swell, thus increasing diameter. He also cited an 1859 British ammunition manual that claimed “acids in the animal fat also caused the bullets to corrode in warm climates” like India. The original lube was apparently

intended as a compromise formula for use in all climates, but the India problems revealed to the British that beeswax worked in all climates.

Bullet Diameters

I had always thought that if anyone had consistent ammunition criteria in the nineteenth century, it would be the British, but Bill Adams, my go to Enfield guy, says not so. Bill advised that “an analysis of 100 imported British .577 bullets done back in the 1970’s came up with seven different lengths, seven different diameters, and eight different cavity depths.” These characteristics also led to differences in bullet weight. Bill went on to note that: “There were numerous code/maker’s marks made in the cavities by the compressing rods when the bullets were formed.

Vin Caponi Historic Antiques

Given the wide variations in the quality of powder, bullet diameters, lubes, and other factors, even a good marksman was at a disadvantage. The Confederates certainly tried very hard to develop a system of quality control while making British style Enfield cartridges, but made slow progress.”

The Revival of Historical Firearms

This subject is not specifically about the Civil War but is interesting as it provides some of the origin story of the muzzle loading rifles used in modern living history presentations, reenactments, and North-South Skirmish Association target shooting. In the early 20th century, there wasn’t much interest in target shooting, hunting, reenacting battles, or creating historical interpretation presentations using the weapons of the past, and, unlike today, no craftsmen were creating custom copies of the arms of yesteryear, nor were any companies making affordable reproductions.

Vin Caponi, Jr. 18 Broadway Malverne, NY 11565

Store: 516-593-3516

Cell: 516-353-3250

rampantcolt@aol.com http://www.vincaponi.com

We carry a very large inventory of Colt and Civil War firearms including muskets, carbines, rifles and accoutrements. Our inventory of historic antiques and firearms begin at the early collectors level and range all the way up to the advanced collector and investors level.

“Militiamen” march across Concord Bridge in 1925. Note “Indians” in canoes in left background. (Joseph Bilby Collection)

A British casualty, actually a Mass. National Guardsman, lies on Concord Bridge in 1930, his Model 1873 Springfield by his side. (Joseph Bilby Collection)

David McDougal takes aim with a Pennsylvania long rifle at Sea Girt, N.J., in 1926. (Joseph Bilby Collection)

Although there were sporadic attempts at reenactments of historical battles in the 19th century, the modern concept of the art form, while noticeably imperfect, originated with the Sesquicentennial of the American Revolution in 1925. A photograph of the 1925 parade commemorating the Battle of Concord Bridge reveals marching “militiamen” armed with cobbled together muskets featuring the percussion ignition system that was not adopted by the military until the 1840s, although there is one individual shouldering what appears to be an original British land pattern flintlock musket. At the time of the 1930 reenactment, a photograph of a British “casualty,” lying on the “rude bridge that arched the flood” at Concord with his weapon alongside him, reveals it is a Model 1873 Springfield rifle with the 1879 pattern rear sight.

In the early 1930s, interest in shooting original and custom-made muzzle loading rifles as sport, whether at targets or for hunting, became more popular and resulted in the founding of the National Muzzle Loading Rifle Association (NMLRA), an organization that still exists with a headquarters, museum, and a range that hosts national shoots in Friendship, Ind. The NMLRA also charters local clubs around the nation.

Popular films of the day usually used the readily available trapdoor Springfields as a Civil War arm, and these guns were also, with fake flintlocks attached, seen in stories set in the 18th century. They were readily available and easier for extras to reload. Original weapons were occasionally used in close ups, however, most notably in The Red Badge of Courage.

There were plenty of original arms still available at the approach of the Civil War Centennial for both shooters and reenactors, although prices began to rise. Beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, the growth of the North-South Skirmish Association, the Civil War Centennial reenactments, and the formation of the Brigade of the American Revolution, as well as the establishment of muzzle loading hunting seasons in many states, led firearms entrepreneur Val Forgett to establish Navy Arms, which became a major retailer of imported reproductions of historic guns. Navy Arms was later joined by other companies.

Before all of this, however, there was a long forgotten precedent set in Sea Girt, N.J., during an interstate civilian and military target match at the N.J. National

Guard range in 1926. A contemporary photo was captioned thusly: “Memories of American pioneers were revived in the great interstate rifle and pistol matches at Sea Girt by the Daniel Boone Match, in which weapons of ancient vintage that kick like the proverbial Missouri Mule are aimed at targets only fifty feet away. It is hard on the shoulders that are not sturdy enough to take the shock of a Dempsey or Tunney punch. The Daniel Boone match was one of the feature events at Sea Girt. Major General John A. Lejeune, Commandant of the Marine Corps, is watching David McDougal, 15-yearold son of Lt. Col. Douglas C. McDougal, try his luck with the obsolete firearm. The lad was the youngest entrant in the match and is following in the footsteps of his father, a nationally known rifleman, shown in the background on the right.” Of course, a Springfield Model 1903 rifle in .30-06 caliber recoiled far more severely than one of “ancient vintage,” but the reporter obviously did not personally compare the two.

Joseph G. Bilby received his BA and MA degrees in history from Seton Hall University and served as a lieutenant in the 1st Infantry Division in 1966–1967. He is Assistant Curator of the New Jersey National Guard and Militia Museum, a freelance writer and historical consultant and author or editor of 21 books and over 400 articles on N.J. and military history and firearms.

He is also publications editor for the N.J. Civil War 150 Committee and edited the award winning New Jersey Goes to War. His lat est book, New Jersey: A Military History, was published by Westholme Publishing in 2017.

He has received an award for con tributions to Monmouth County (N.J.) history and an Award of Merit from the N.J. Historical Commission for contributions to the state’s military history.

He can be contacted by email at jgbilby44@aol.com.

The Artilleryman Magazine is a quarterly magazine for enthusiasts who collect and shoot cannons from the Rev War to World War II.

Subscription only $34.95/year.

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28th Annual

Civil War Weekend

March 22-24, 2019

The Inn at Virginia Tech and Skelton Conference Center

Blacksburg, Virginia

With optional field trip to Hampton, Virginia – The Peninsula

March 24-26, 2019

Speakers include:

For more information visit our website at www.cpe.vt.edu/cww

James I. “Bud” Robertson, Jr.

William C. “Jack” Davis

Gary W. Gallagher Joan Waugh

By Shannon Pritchard

When students of history envision a Virginia cavalier galloping along behind the dashing Jeb Stuart, this is the slouch hat our perfect vision of chivalry wears. Though its time had passed for the rest of the world, the South still clung to the chivalric code. Probably for this very reason the slouch hat was far and away the favorite headgear of Confederate cavalrymen. With his ostrich plume dancing in the wind, he considered it a privilege to defend a lady’s honour, and war was but a frolic.

While we have unfortunately lost the cavalier’s name, his regiment’s place in history has been preserved in this time capsule. The brass insignia affixed to the hat’s front bears the stamped brass regimental number 5, over cavalry’s brass crossed sabre insignia; all surmounting the brass letters VA, designating his home. Therefore the hat’s history is that of the 5th Virginia Cavalry.

Six companies of scouts under Lieutenant Colonel Clay Pate, to which were added four companies primarily drawn from Virginia’s coastal counties, were banded together in June 1862 to form the 5th Virginia Cavalry.

The regiment followed Stuart’s sword through the battles of the

5th Virginia Cavalry Slouch Hat

Seven Days, 2nd Manassas, the Maryland campaign, Fredericksburg, Brandy Station, Upperville, Gettysburg, Bristoe, Mine Run, the Wilderness, and a hundred unnamed skirmishes. After Stuart’s death at Yellow Tavern, the regiment fought on under Wade Hampton at Cold Harbor and was afterwards transferred to Early’s Shenandoah Valley operations.

On Nov. 8, 1864, it was consolidated with the 15th Virginia Cavalry and designated the 5th Consolidated Regiment Virginia Cavalry. Now returned to the Petersburg front, the regiment fought many times around that ill-fated city until driven to Appomattox, when rather than surrender, all but two of the regiment cut their way through their would be captors and returned to their homes.

Fortunately this slouch hat has survived as a monument and testament to their sacrifice and suffering; its jaunty air reminding us of the halcyon days when the Virginia cavalry under Stuart were a terror to the villains in blue.

The hat remains in virtually pristine condition, its inner and outer bands intact, and with its original stitching; the plume that waved so proudly over many

fields is still firmly held in place.

Shannon Pritchard has authored numerous articles relating to the authentication, care and

conservation of Confederate antiques, including several cover articles and is the author of the definitive work on Confederate collectibles, the widely acclaimed

Back of slouch hat with ostrich plume. (Photos courtesy OldSouthAntiques.com)

Front view of slouch hat worn by a soldier in the 5th Virginia Cavalry.

Collecting the Confederacy, Artifacts and Antiques from the War Between the States, and is co-author of Confederate Faces in Color.

Lincoln Forum Presents Annual Achievement Awards

GETTYSBURG, Penn.—On

November 18, The Lincoln Forum presented its annual Richard Nelson Current Award of Achievement to historian David W. Blight, the prize-winning author of both Race and Reunion and the acclaimed new biography of Frederick Douglass, Prophet of Freedom. Blight, who directs the Gilder Lehrman Center at Yale and teaches in its History Department, accepted the award and delivered the keynote address at the 23rd annual Lincoln Forum Symposium Nov. 18 at the Wyndham Gettysburg. Some 300 enrollees braved an unusual autumn snowstorm to attend the three-day event.

The Current Award was presented by Harold Holzer, newly elected Forum Chair, who praised Professor Blight “for reminding us in his work why the Civil War was fought, and how long the fight lasted beyond 1865; for helping us, compelling us, and inspiring us to awaken from historical amnesia and acknowledge, reconsider, and reshape national memory; for revivifying the life, struggles, and words of the American prophet Frederick Douglass and convincingly advocating for his heroic place in the national story; for defining the arc of the struggle for equality that has roiled our past and continues to challenge us today; for inspiringly engaging the public in the search for the usable past; and for compelling all of us to contemplate an imperfect reunion in the 19th century in order to form a more perfect Union in the 21st.”

Blight serves as Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale University. Earlier, he taught at both Amherst College and in a public high school. His widely hailed 2001 book, Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory won the Frederick Douglass Prize, the Bancroft Prize, and two prizes from the Organization of American Historians. It awakened interest in “memory history” and the painful impact of postwar reunion that emphasized sectional over racial reconciliation. Blight’s newly published book is Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom.

The Current award is in the form of a newly created Lincoln bust by sculptor (and Current Award laureate) John McClarey. Previous winners are: Gabor Boritt (1996); Brian Lamb (1997); John Hope Franklin (1998);

Senator Paul Simon (1999); David Herbert Donald (2000); Garry Wills (2001); James M. McPherson and an honorary award to Richard Nelson Current himself (2002); Sam Waterston (2003); John Y. Simon (2004); sculptor John McClarey, plus an honorary award for founding chairman Frank Williams (2005); Doris Kearns Goodwin (2006); Jeff Shaara (2007); Ken Burns (2008); Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (2009); Mark E. Neely, Jr. (2010); Ed Bearss (2011); Eric Foner (2012); Tony Kushner (2013); James Getty (2014); Edward Steers Jr. and William C. “Jack” Davis, with an honorary award to Harold Holzer (2015); James I. “Bud” Robertson (2016), and Ron Chernow (2017).

Wendy

Allen Award

The previous evening, Nov. 17, the Forum’s annual Wendy Allen Award for achievement by a Lincoln organization or society went to the International Lincoln Center for American Studies at LSU Shreveport.

Outgoing Forum Chairman— now Chairman Emeritus— Frank J. Williams officiated at the presentation of the Wendy Allen Award to the International Lincoln Center for American Studies at Louisiana State University Shreveport, the first Lincoln organization founded in the Deep South. Accepting the award was the institute’s director, William D. Pederson, a longtime Forum Advisory Board member.

In his speech, Professor Pederson reminded the audience of the many honors given Lincoln that includes the minting of Lincoln postage stamps in his honor in most countries abroad.

“The International Lincoln Organization has introduced and sustained the Lincoln legacy in many countries where his example is still desperately needed to light the way to freedom,” Chief Justice Williams said in his presentation. “Bill Pederson and the Center have made sure that this vital story remains alive and well in every corner of the globe while reminding Americans of Lincoln’s deservedly outsize impact on the global image of the United States.” The award, named for the premier Lincoln artist Wendy Allen, a Gettysburg resident, is in the form of a print based on one of her paintings of the 16th president.

Founded in 1983, the Center offers a year-round cycle of events and programs for students and the community, conducts a

wide-ranging publishing program (most recently, in 2009, with Lincoln Lessons, edited by Pederson and Williams), and hosts annual Constitutional Democracy lectures, a triennial presidential conference series, a summer Washington D.C. mini-semester, and visits to Lincoln-related sites around the country and the world. For more information: william. pederson@lsus,edu.

In accepting the award, Professor Pederson said that “coming to know Frank Williams in 1992, I felt obliged to become a ‘collector,’ too. So I resumed stamp collecting, which had begun and ended in elementary school, this time focusing on Lincoln stamps from abroad. I thought I might end up with a single, slender volume, but it has instead turned into some 30 thick volumes and a growing number of articles authored on the topic for philatelic publications.”

The Wendy Allen Award honors “organizations that exemplify Abraham Lincoln’s spirit in word and deed.” Previous winners include the Friends of Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C.; President Lincoln’s Cottage at the Soldier’s Home in Washington; the Lincoln Home National Historic Site in Springfield, Ill.; the Lincoln-Douglas Society of Freeport, Ill.; the Ulysses S. Grant Association at Mississippi State University/Starkville; the Lincoln Shrine in Redlands, Cal.; the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History in New York; the Lincoln Heritage Museum at Lincoln College in Lincoln, Ill.; the Gettysburg Foundation; and the Friends of the Lincoln Foundation in Fort Wayne, Ind.

Artist Wendy Allen (L) helps present award named in her honor to Lincoln Studies Center at LSU Shreveport. Professor William Pederson accepts framed Lincoln print as Harold Holzer and Frank Williams look on. (Henry Ballone)

Frank J. Williams (right) and Harold Holzer (center) present 2018 Richard Nelson Current Award to historian David Blight. (Henry Ballone)

The “Virginia Model” Rifle Musket

The State of Virginia Armory Commission developed a rifle musket design for manufacture at the Richmond Armory some months before the Civil War began. Prototypes were built at Springfield Armory to test the design, and machinery ordered. The following article about the so-called “Virginia model” rifle musket appeared in the Richmond Daily Dispatch on Feb. 22, 1861, about two months before the Commonwealth of Virginia seceded from the Union.

The Virginia Model Musket

The Commissioners appointed for arming the State found it

necessary, before ordering the machinery for the armory, to prepare a model of the arm to be manufactured at the Virginia works. After consulting the principal ordnance officers of the army, and learning from the War Department, through the Hon. James M. Mason, the usage of European armies, and after a course of experiments with muzzle and breech-loading arms at the Virginia Military Institute, conducted by Major Colston, the Commissioners determined to adhere to the muzzleloading rifled musket for infantry of the line. In this conclusion, they follow the example of the American and European armies, and the advice of all the military men whom they consulted.

Having determined the

character of the arm, and its general conformity to the British and American regulation muskets, it became necessary to settle its details. In doing this, the Commissioners consulted the Master Armorer, Mr. Salmon Adams, and requested Mr. Burton’s opinion of the relative merits of the British and American muskets. After a careful examination and comparison of an Enfield musket, brought over by himself, and a United States rifled musket made at Harper’s Ferry, he made a report to the Commissioners, containing numerous valuable suggestions, which, with the approbation of Mr. Adams, were adopted. The result was, a musket conforming in its interior to the United States musket, and in its exterior to the Enfield musket, with some changes for the better from both.

By permission of those in authority, the model musket was made at the Government works at Springfield, by Mr. Adams, who arrived in Richmond with the arm a few days since, and on Tuesday last exhibited it to the Senate and House Committee on Military Affairs, who were highly pleased with it as a weapon of offence and defense. We saw the musket ourselves, and regard it in all respects as the most perfect weapon of the kind in existence. To show the extreme sensitiveness of our Northern neighbors, we may mention a fact that we gleaned at the time—viz: that after the musket was made, by permission, as a model, they were unwilling to let it go, and would have laid an embargo on its transshipment thither if a position of the kind would have been at all tenable. Mr. Adams, the Master Armorer here, has made himself obnoxious to the Black Republicans by aiding the shipment of arms South by parties desiring them, an operation which he performed to such an extent that it raised the Republican ire. The following description of the model musket will give some idea of its superiority as a firearm:

• Stock — Conforms very nearly to the Enfield stock. An alteration is made in the shape of the butt, at the point where the toe of the butt plate rests.

• Barrel — Length 40 inches, same as the “U.S.” Exterior form same as the Enfield; barrel to weigh 4 oz. more than the Enfield; this additional weight to be distributed from the lower band to the muzzle; barrel to be browned.

• Tip for Stock — Material, brass, same as the Enfield.

• Rod Spring — Same as the Enfield.

• Lock — Same as the Enfield, except the comb of the hammer, which will be less, both vertically and horizontally.

• Bands — Convex adjustable screw bands, after the style of the Enfield.

• Butt Plate — Material, brass. Lateral and longitudinal curvatures will vary slightly from the Enfield. One curve from the heel to the toe will be observed, in order to facilitate the manufacture.

• Butt Screws — Same as the “U.S.”

• Side and Tang Screws — Will vary a little from the Enfield.

• Ramrod — Same length as the “U. S.” Diameter of body, .24 inches; head countersunk so as to accommodate the shape of the “U. S.” bullet; a small hole drilled nearly of [sic] an inch from the end of the head.

• Bayonet — Form of blade same as the Enfield; socket same as the “U. S.”

• Leaf Sight — Same as the “U.S.” Whatever became of the Virginia Model rifle musket? When the Armory signed an agreement with the J.R. Anderson & Company (Tredegar Iron Works) in late 1860 for the production of machinery to modernize its equipment, it was recognized that it would require almost a year to get the machinery built and installed. The contract called for equipment sufficient for producing 5,000 units per month of the new ‘Virginia Model’ rifle musket by Dec. 1, 1861, according to Major Raleigh E. Colston’s Reports & The Proceedings of The Virginia Armory Commission 1860 (Abridged).

In mid-April 1861, Virginia seceded from the Union. Then Colonel Thomas J. (soon to be General) “Stonewall” Jackson seized the equipment at the U.S. armory at Harpers Ferry. “By a stroke of very good fortune, Virginia literally acquired an almost fully intact arms making plant overnight. As quickly as possible the Harpers Ferry

machinery was removed to Richmond and…installed in the Richmond Armory.” The captured Harpers Ferry short rifle making machinery was sent to Fayetteville, N.C. By October 1861, the Richmond Armory was producing its own version of the U.S. M1855 rifle musket, minus the Maynard tape primer. The Virginia Model rifle musket is eerily similar to the Colt Special Model of 1861. It appears there could be a couple of reasons for that since Colt was involved in the design, production, and testing of the prototypes. It also helps explain how Colt had the Special Model of 1861 ready to go so quickly when the first U.S. Government contracts were awarded; it was largely an identical copy of the Virginia Model. On the other hand, Samuel Colt was the U.S. agent for gun-maker Potts & Hunt of London. Colt also had a factory in London during the mid-1850s. Samuel Colt could well have been copying their Enfield long rifle or an earlier amalgamated design he planned to build in England and pitch to the English War Department.

A hobbyist and part time historian named S. Saunders did an unpublished monograph on the subject called “The Virginia Model Musket: The Rifle-Musket That Never Was.” The author concludes: “While some writers and historians credit Sam Colt with designing the Special Model of 1861 Rifle-Musket, there is a lot of circumstantial evidence that indicated the Virginia Model Musket served as the inspiration for the U.S. Special Model of 1861. Both the Virginia Model Musket and the U.S. Special Model of 1861 Rifle-Muskets are hybrid designs, containing design features of both the American Springfield and British Enfield Rifle Muskets. Both designs are very similar to each other and in some respects, identical. The prototypes for both the Virginia Model Musket and the U.S. Special Model of 1861 Rifle Muskets were made at Springfield Armory and it is very likely that many of the same armory employees that worked on the Virginia Model Musket prototype later worked on making the prototype for the U.S. Special Model of 1861 Rifle-Musket. The Ames Company was in the process of building machine tools designed to manufacture the Virginia Model Musket for installation in the Richmond Armory when Virginia seceded from the Union. Obviously, after that happened, the machinery could not be delivered. Most likely that machinery was slightly modified

and used to produce Special Model of 1861 Rifle Muskets at either Colt, LG&Y or Amoskeag. So, the grand irony is that while the Virginia Model Musket never made it into production in the Confederacy, the Yankee rifle musket it most likely inspired was made by the many tens of thousands by three different Northern manufacturers to arm the Union. That is quite a legacy for a Southern design!”

Craig L Barry was born in Charlottesville, Va. He holds his BA and Masters degrees from the University of North Carolina (Charlotte). Craig served The

Watchdog Civil War Quarterly as Associate Editor and Editor from 2003-2017. The Watchdog published books and columns on 19th-century material and donated all funds from publications to battlefield preservation. He is the author of several books including The Civil War Musket: A Handbook for Historical Accuracy (2006, 2011), The Unfinished Fight: Essays on Confederate Material Culture Vol. I and II (2012, 2013) and three books (soon to be four) in the Suppliers to the Confederacy series on English Arms & Accoutrements, Quartermaster stores and other European imports.

Fathers and Sons

“My son is a rebel! – I defend him not!” – U.S. Senator John J. Crittenden

Both the North and South wanted Kentucky on their side. Situated between three slave holding and three free states, Kentucky was a major producer of wheat and livestock. On Jan. 19, 1862, two inexperienced armies clashed at the Battle of Mill Springs, Ky. The Confederates were led by Gen. Felix Zollicoffer, a former Tennessee journalist and U.S. Congressman. Zollicoffer was appointed Brig. Gen. for his political not military experience.

Zollicoffer’s superior officer was Brig. Gen. George Bibb Crittenden, Cmdr. of the District of East Tenn. As the son of U.S. Senator John J. Crittenden he had been promoted to Brig. Gen. to attract possible recruits.

Zollicoffer selected Mill Springs as his winter quarters for its high riverbank bluffs on the Cumberland River, ample water,

and timber. The camp was in a horseshoe bend of the river, surrounded on three sides by water, with a 1,200-foot line of earthworks spanning the fourth.

Crittenden, a career military officer, was appalled at the site. It was a trap not a fort. The location violated the military maxim to never fight with your back to

a river. Having been captured in a similar situation during the Mexican War, Crittenden was not willing to repeat the experience. Furthermore, the river was unfordable; the pontoon bridge and several boats had been washed away in a recent storm. Zollicoffer’s fleet consisted of a small paddle-steamer, the Noble Ellis, and two wooden flat-boats. It would be impossible to convey the men, 12 cannon, horses, wagons, and supplies away in a timely manner.

The Confederates were aware that Federal Gen. George Thomas was assembling 5,000 men nearby. Since the Southerners lacked supplies to withstand a siege; it was agreed to execute another military maxim, “strike your enemy while he is divided and defeat him piecemeal.” They would use the weather to their advantage because the continuing freezing rain would flood Fishing Creek making it possible to surprise the Federals ten miles north at Logan’s Crossing.

Crittenden ordered that, to identify each other from their foe, the Confederate password would be “Kentucky.” At midnight on Jan. 18, his 5,000 men left Beech Grove. The march in the cold, driving rain and mud as deep as 12 inches took six hours. Zollicoffer led the cavalry in the front. At daylight, pickets of the U.S. 1st Ky. fired at the Rebel cavalry before falling back to the 10th Ind.

Brig. Comdr. Col. Mahlon D.

Col. Speed S. Fry; Colorization © 2018 civilwarincolor.com courtesy civilwarincolor.com/cwn. (University of Kentucky)

Felix K. Zollicoffer; Colorization © 2018 civilwarincolor.com courtesy civilwarincolor.com/cwn. (Library of Congress)

Manson, 10th Ind. Inf. ordered the alarm sounded. New to command, instead of sending a messenger, Manson personally went to alert Thomas several miles away. Along the way, he warned Col. Speed Fry, 4th Ky, at the camps of the 2nd Minn. and the 9th Ohio. During Manson’s report, Thomas interrupted, “Damn you, sir, go back to your command and fight it.” As he returned, Manson alerted artillery batteries.

Meanwhile the 10th Ind. Inf. was on their own. They retreated up a narrow ridge. The Confederate 19th Tenn. Inf. advanced in a fog and the shooting became “almost constant.” Zollicoffer, with the Nineteenth, could only see muzzle flashes and was unsure of the size of the enemy’s force. The 4th Ky. Inf. rushed to bolster the 10th Ind. and experienced the same withering fire. It was Federal Enfield riffles against Southern flintlocks. During the battle, the 15th Miss. believed the 20th Tenn. was to their front. To determine the facts, Col. Edward Walthall, yelled, “Whose troops are those?” The reply was “Kentucky.” He repeated the inquiry with the same response. The Fifteenth unfurled their flag and the Yankee Kentuckians riddled it with bullets. Walthall returned exclaiming, “Now I think you know who they are”.

Confederate Zollicoffer, spotting a regiment that he thought was the 15th Miss., rode forward to direct its placement; at the same time, Union Fry had ridden out to get a better view of the field. Through the haze he could see another officer riding towards him on a white horse. He was wearing “a white rubber coat and a blue army cap.” Fry approached Zollicoffer with “our horses’ heads coming very near together… so closely that our knees touched.” Zollicoffer said, “We must not shoot our own men.”

Fry responded, “Of course not. I would not shoot our own men intentionally.” Zollicoffer pointed towards the 19th Tenn. and said, “Those are our men.” Fry rode in that direction to look and noticed a staff officer emerging from behind a tree. The officer fired at Fry yelling, “It’s the enemy, general!” Multiple Federals fired at Zollicoffer. Fry would later say, “I raised my pistol and fired. His horse turned and he fell.”

Before the battle, Zollicoffer had shaven his beard to make himself less identifiable. Alas, it may have been his extreme nearsightedness that prevented Zollicoffer from identifying his enemy’s attire.

The fury of the battle continued.

The thickness of the underbrush prevented charges. “We were so close to the enemy that we bayoneted them through the fence. The Mississippians were armed with great knives which they intended using on us, but our bayonets outreached their knives,” claimed a 10th Ind. soldier. Crittenden sent in Gen. William H. Carroll, whose brigade was in reserve.

As the smoke and fog obscured the enemy, he placed his men on each side of the road, using it as a landmark before advancing into open space. Immediately, the men hit the ground due to lack of cover. The dampness prevented the flintlocks from firing. Some men abandoned their weapons and the field.

When Thomas and his artillery arrived “… the enemy opened a most determined and galling fire, which was returned by our troops in the same spirit.” The 9 Ohio took a position behind a fence on the west side of the road before pushing forward. “If it gets too hot for you, shut your eyes my boys – Forward!” yelled the Ninth’s Maj. Gustave Kammerling. Having positioned themselves on the east side, the 2nd Minn. advanced in tandem with the Ninth. Both sides fired furiously through the fence. Being overwhelmed, the Confederates fled leaving Lt. Bailie Peyton Jr., 20th Tenn. on the field. He walked towards the Federals. Instead of surrendering, he fired his pistol; the Federals immediately shot him through the left eye killing him. The son of a former U.S. Congressman and Unionist, he died carrying his father’s sword, a gift from the citizens of New Orleans during the Mexican War. The North celebrated their victory without giving Thomas much credit. Both Fry and Manson were promoted to brig. gen. in March 1862. Fry and his father became estranged. The elder Fry believed high-ranking officers should honor a code of chivalry that forbade shooting each other, especially in the back. More importantly, the Battle of Mill Springs was the beginning of a chain of battles that won Kentucky for the Union.

Sources:

• Sanders, Stuart W.; The Battle of Mill Springs Kentucky

• American Battlefield Trust; The Battle of Mill Springs

Stephanie Hagiwara is the editor for Civil War in Color.com and Civil War in 3D.com. She also writes a column for History in Full Color. com that covers stories of photographs of historical interest from the 1850’s to the present. Her articles can be found on Facebook, Tumblr and Pinterest.

Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States: War Papers (MOLLUS) – Pennsylvania, California, and Oregon

This month, we close our review of the MOLLUS Papers with a look at Pennsylvania (volumes 58 and 59), plus California, and Oregon (volume 60). Many recollections of Abraham Lincoln populate Pennsylvania’s second volume. For researchers wishing to access previous installations of this article, which have covered the entire MOLLUS series, please visit https://issuu.com/mshaffe3.

As a reminder on the background of this series, the first two volumes of the Broadfoot 1990s reprint set, unnumbered, consist of ‘Biographical Sketches of Contributors,’ and ‘Companions.’ The second volume offers hundreds of photographs of the various members. The collected papers from the commanderies appear in the following order. Ohio, volumes 1-9; Illinois, 1013D; Missouri, vol. 14; Kansas, 15; Maine, volumes 16-19; New York, 20-23; Indiana, 24; Nebraska, 25; Minnesota, 26-31; Rhode Island, 32-41; District of Columbia, 42-45; Wisconsin, 46-49; Michigan, 50-51; Massachusetts, 52-54; Iowa, 5556; Vermont, 57; Pennsylvania, 58-59; California and Oregon, volume 60; and a four-volume index completes the Broadfoot set for this series.

Digitized-versions of MOLLUS exist online at the organization’s website: http://suvcw.org/mollus/ warpapers/warpapers.htm (also check http://suvcw. org/mollus/molid.htm) and at the Internet Archives, http://bit.ly/2EVfpPC. Researchers wishing to purchase the printed set may do so at Broadfoot Publishing, http://www.broadfootpublishing.com. Remember to check WorldCat http://www.worldcat. org/ for help in finding the Papers in a local library; search ISBN 1568370016. Continued good luck in researching the Civil War! Readers wishing to view all the articles in this series thus far can visit https:// issuu.com/mshaffe3.

Michael K. Shaffer is a Civil War historian, author, lecturer, instructor, and a member of the Society of Civil War Historians, the Historians of the Civil War Western Theater, the Georgia Association of Historians, and the Georgia Writers Association. Readers may contact him at mkscdr11@gmail.com, or to request speaking engagements, via his website www.civilwarhistorian. net. Follow Michael on Facebook www.facebook.com/ michael.k.shaffer and Twitter @michaelkshaffer.

America's First President - by Brevet Major General Joshua L. Chamberlain

The Battle of Stone's River - by Lieutenant James A. Worden, D.D.

Recollections of General Grant

Pickett's Charge as Seen from the Front Line - By Companion Chaplain Winfield Scott U.S. Army

Loyalty - by Brevet Major General

Joshua L. Chamberlain

During the Siege of Vicksburg - by Major and Surgeon William S. Forbes

The Kindred Organizations: The Society of the Cincinnati and the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States - By Companion Thomas Mitchell, Captain 198th Penn. Vol. Inf. Cavalry Fight on the Right Flank at Gettysburg - by Lieutenant Colonel William Brooke Rawle

The Petersburg Mine - By Companion Freeman S. Bowley, 1st. Lt. 30th USCT, Capt. Co. B. 1st Batt. Infantry, M.V.M. Samuel Bradford Fales - Tribute by the Pennsylvania Commandery Abraham Lincoln Memorial Meeting: February 13, 1907 Californians in the Field. Historical Sketch of the Organization and Services of the California "Hundred” and "Battalion," 2nd Massachusetts Cavalry - By Companion Samuel W. Backus, Late 2nd Lt., 2nd California Cavalry

Address Delivered at the Celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Founding of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States - by Brevet Major General Charles Devens

President Lincoln at the State Capitol, February 22, 1861 - by Major William H. Engle

The Movement of the 11th and 12th Army Corps from the Potomac to the Tennessee - by Captain John P. Green

The Maryland Campaign of 1862by Captain Isaac W. Heysinger

The Education of Abraham Lincoln - by Lieutenant James A. Worden, D.D.

With Lincoln to Gettysburg - by Brigadier General Henry C. Cochrane

"Shiloh" as Seen by a Private Soldier - By Companion Warren Olney, Capt. 65th USCT Inf.

Seven Months in Confederate Military Prisons - By Companion Freeman S. Bowley, 1st Lt. 30th USCT, Capt. Co. B. 1st Batt. Infantry M.V.M.

Lincoln Under Fire - by Brigadier General J.P.S. Gobin Our Boys in the War of the Rebellion - By Companion Charles A. Woodruff, Capt. Commissary of Subsistence U.S.A.

When and Where I Saw Lincolnby Major Oliver C. Bosbyshell California in the Rebellion - By Companion DeWitt C. Thompson, Commander California Cavalry Battalion Reminiscences of 1861 - by First Lieutenant Franklin D. Howell Lincoln in Parable - by Brevet

The Movement of Pennsylvania's First Troops in 1861 for the Defence of the National Capitol - by Major James Wren

The Campaign of 1861 in the Shenandoah Valley - by Brevet Brigadier General William W. H. Davis

Lieutenant Colonel James W. Latta Gen. A. D. McD. McCook at Stone[s] River - By Companion Lt. Col. James H. Woodward, 1st Tenn. Light Artillery.

With Malice Toward None; With Charity for All - by Major Moses Veale

The Last Campaign of the Potomac: From a "Mud-Crushers" Point of View - By Companion Henry T. Lee, Maj. 4th NY Heavy Artillery

Personal Experiences of a Prisoner of War - by Captain Henry C. Potter Lincoln and the People - by Brevet Brigadier General James A. Beaver The Narrative of a Prisoner of War - By Companion Henry Hugh Todd, Capt. 8th New Jersey Volunteer Infantry.

The United States During the Civil War - by Major Richard S. Collum

Personal Experiences of a Cavalry Officer 1861-1866 - by Brevet Colonel William H. Harrison

The Second Cavalry Division of the Army of the Potomac in the Gettysburg Campaign - by Brevet

Major General David McM Gregg

Personal Recollections of President Abraham Lincoln - by Major General Grenville M. Dodge

The Loyal Californians of 1861By Companion Hugh A. Gorley, Capt. 1st California Vol. Inf.

The Work of the California Volunteers as Seen by an Eastern Volunteer, By Companion Charles A. Woodruff, Corp. 10th Vermont Vol. Inf., and Major, Com. Of Subsistence, U.S. Army.

Reminiscences of the Mississippi Squadron in 1864-65 - by Acting Ensign Persifor Frazer

Gregg's Cavalry in the Gettysburg Campaign - by Lieutenant Colonel William Brooke Rawle

Personal Experiences on a Monitor at the Battle of Mobile Bay - By Companion Harrie Webster, Chief Engineer, U.S.N. Field Operations - First Day at Gettysburg - by Brevet Brigadier General J. William Hofmann

The First Day's Fight at GettysburgBrevet Major Richard L. Ashhurst

Personal Notes and Reminiscences of Lincoln - by Colonel Henry S. Huidekoper

Major General George H. Thomas and the Battle of Nashville - by Brevet Brigadier General James F. Rusling

Some Characteristics of Abraham Lincoln - by Chaplain Henry C. McCook, D.D.

Abraham Lincoln Memorial Meeting: February 3, 1909

Lincoln and His Veterans - by Chaplain Henry C. McCook, D.D.

From Concord to FredericksburgBy Companion John Charles Currier, Late Capt. 11th New Hampshire Vol. Inf.

The Battle of Shiloh - by Companion Edward Bouton, Col. 59th U.S. Colored Infantry. Bvt. Brigadier General USV

Lincoln Literature - by Brevet Major William H. Lambert Nagging the South - By Companion Warren Olney, Capt. 65th U.S.C.T.

Celebration of the One Hundredth

Anniversary of the Birth of

Abraham Lincoln - Oration by Major General Joshua L.

Chamberlain

Was Secession Taught at West Point? - by Brevet Lieutenant

Colonel James W. Latta

The Occupation of Fort Sumter and Hoisting the Old Flag- By Companion Franklin Jordon, Acting Ensign U.S.N

Grant: A Study- By Companion William Henry Linow Barnes,

A Few Stray Leaves from Civil War

Reminiscence Yet Uncut - by Brevet

Lieutenant Colonel James W. Latta

The Chattanooga Campaign - by First Lieutenant and Adjutant Leander W. Munhall

An Episode of History - by

Lieutenant Charles H. Jones

The Completeness of “Reconstruction” - By Companion Benjamin Cummings Truman 12th-20th Army Corps in the War of the Rebellion - by Brevet Captain John O. Foering

The Making of Abraham Lincolnby Captain John Richards Boyle, D.D.

Lincoln and his Cabinet - by

From Ordinary Seaman to Rear Admiral - By Commander Oscar Walter Farenholt, Rear Admiral U.S.N.

The Monitor Catskill: A Year’s

Reminiscences! 1863-1864 - By Ex Commander Oscar Walter Farenholt, Rear Admiral U.S.N. The Kearsarge and the Alabama - by Pay Director Joseph A. Smith

Personal Recollections of the Maryland Campaign of 1862 - by Lieutenant Thomas McCamant

Captain John Pugh Green

One of Sheridan's Ways with Indians and What Came of It - by Brigadier General Richard Henry Pratt

President Lincoln, Commander-inChief of the Army and Navy of the United States - by Captain Isaac Winter Heysinger

Gettysburg - By Brevet Brig. General Edward S. Salomon, Lt. Col. 82nd IL Inf. U.S.V.

Oregon

Lieutenant Colonel James W. Latta

12th-20th Army Corps in the War of the Rebellion - by Brevet Captain John O. Foering

The Chattanooga Campaign - by First Lieutenant and Adjutant Leander W. Munhall

Charles

The Making of Abraham Lincolnby Captain John Richards Boyle, D.D.

Lincoln and his Cabinet - by Captain John Pugh Green

Reconstruction - By Companion Benjamin Cummings Truman

From Ordinary Seaman to Rear Admiral - By Commander Oscar Walter Farenholt, Rear Admiral U.S.N.

The Monitor Catskill: A Year’s Reminiscences! 1863-1864 - By

Ex Commander Oscar Walter Farenholt, Rear Admiral U.S.N.

The Cavalry Raid to Richmond, May 1864 - by Captain Nobel D. Preston

Some Phases of the Life and Character of Abraham Lincoln - by Captain George Randolph Snowden

Abraham Lincoln and his Religious

Faith - by Brevet Brigadier General James F. Rusling

The Afterglow of Abraham Lincoln's Life - by Lieutenant James A. Worden, D.D.

How the Secessionists Secured the Election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States - by Chaplain Benjamin L. Agnew, D.D.

Abraham Lincoln, The Exponent of Democracy - by Mr. Walter George Smith

Abraham Lincoln - by Rev.

Alexander Henry Leo

Abraham Lincoln, The Man - by Brigadier General Samuel Warren

Fountain

Independence and Patriotism - by Lieutenant Colonel Francis S. Key-

Smith

Cedar Creek - by Commander Joseph Leidy, Jr.

The Battle Between the Alabama and the Kearsarge, Off Cherbourg, France - by William G. Littleton

The Cumberland, the Monitor and the Virginia (Popularly Called the Merrimac) - by William G. Littleton

By Thomas P. Lowry

When this author was an Air Force doctor, he received many patients from all over the world by “Air Evac.” This miracle of modern medical transport is in sharp contrast with the 1863 journey of convicted murderer Homobono Carrabajol, from the mountains of southern Colorado to Washington, D.C., by wagon, horseback, steamer, and railroad while in chains. Who was Carrabajol and why was he ordered to be “… hanged by the neck until he is dead, dead, dead?” Why was one “dead” insufficient?

Carrabajol was born in old Mexico, spoke no English, and

(1896)

Article/Author

Pensions - By Companion John Gibbon, Brig. Gen. U.S.A. and Maj. Gen. U.S.V.

General George H. Thomas: His Place in History - By Companion

Thomas M. Anderson, Col. 14th Inf., U.S.V.

Campaign of General Lyon in Missouri: Its Value to the Union

Cause - By Companion Randolph C. Brant, Chaplain 2nd Kansas Volunteer Infantry.

From Cold Harbor to Petersburg with the Second Army Corps - By Companion Gavin E. Caukin, Capt. 1st MN Inf.

five years and would send all his pay to Lujan’s widow, “until such time as she may take another husband.”

during 1861 he enlisted, age 22, in the 1st New Mexico Infantry at Fort Craig, in the Godforsaken desert of south-west New Mexico. His regiment was soon consolidated with others, and he served mainly in Co. D, 1st New Mexico Cavalry, where he was assigned to routine patrol and escort assignments. In January 1863, under Lieut. John Lewis, a company of forty men was sent to Fort Garland on “detached service.”

This fort, in the verdant San Luis Valley of southern Colorado Territory, was established to keep the white settlers and the Muache band of Ute Indians from murdering each other.

Carrabajol’s role in history began the night of May 20, 1863. He and comrade Francisco Lujan left the fort in search of whiskey. It was not hard to find. The little creek beds outside the fort boundaries had many Mexican whiskey peddlers. Both men got drunk. Very drunk. And much in disagreement over who owed money to whom. Back at the fort, Lujan struck Carrabajol with a stick. The corporal of the guard, thinking it unwise to put both men together in the guardhouse, where their quarrel would continue, put Lujan to bed, and locked up Carrabajol. The next morning, he was released, but he wasn’t done yet.

Lujan was asleep in his bunk. His comrade tiptoed up close, placed the barrel of his cavalry revolver against the back of Lujan’s head and pulled the trigger. The ball exited above Lujan’s left eye, with a spray of brain tissue. The other men asleep in the same room “… didn’t hear a thing,” but the First Sergeant did. He disarmed the shooter, who readily confessed, and put him in “double irons, hand and foot.” The other soldiers wanted to lynch him on the spot but were prevented from doing so.

The court-martial was convened at Fort Garland June 6, 1863. There were no defense witnesses. Carrabajol submitted a written statement (through an interpreter) in which he admitted to the evil of his act and stated that if the court would show mercy, he would enlist for an additional

The court then sentenced him “to be hanged by the neck until he is dead, dead, dead.” In the original manuscript, the final three words are underlined. A blizzard of memos, involving the District of Colorado and the Department of the Missouri, then commenced. There were a half dozen examinations by surgeons and even a board of surgeons; all pronounced him to be “crazy,” or “insane,” or “of unsound mind.”

Meanwhile, the wheels of justice ground on. A communication from Major General Dodge, dated April 5, 1865, ordered that on April 14, 1865, at 2 p.m. Carrabajol would be executed at Denver City. “Should there be no gallows erected at this place for existing persons sentenced to be hung, you will erect a temporary one at some suitable place in the suburbs of Denver. You will make all the necessary arrangements for the interment of the body, previous to the hour of execution, such as providing the coffin, digging the grave, etc.” The suggested burial spot was one established by the city of Denver for executed criminals.

The tale is not yet over. A surgeon Hamilton, of the 1st Colorado Cavalry, submitted one more report, certifying Carrabajol’s insanity. This was followed May 3, 1865, by an order from Major General Barnes, setting up a board of surgeons charged with determining his sanity and; “If found beyond a doubt to be crazy, send him to the Insane Asylum at Washington, D.C. [St. Elizabeth’s], under escort.” Two full years had passed since his crime.

It is the journey, not the crime, which now becomes of interest. Carrabajol’s route, though not detailed in the record, was most likely northeast out of the San Luis Valley, along Sangre de

Cristo Creek, crossing Sangre de Cristo Pass, and then descending along an eastern branch of the Arkansas River to Old Colorado City, now Colorado Springs. From there it ran along the north fork of the South Platte River to Denver. The first railroad did not reach Kansas City, Mo., until 1887, so the Denver to Kansas City route was most likely by wagon (still in hand and ankle chains?) along a branch of the Republican River. From Kansas City onward travel was a mixture of steamboat and railroad. Our story ends, T. S. Eliot-like, “…not with a bang but with a whimper.” Homobono Carrabajol was admitted to St. Elizabeth’s in late September 1865 and released five months later as “cured.” Many St. Elizabeth’s records are lost, so the secret of his amazing cure is unknown. The New Mexico census records of 1870 and 1880 show no sign of him. In brief, Carrabajol mysteriously disappeared into the fabled “mists of history.”

Information based on original court-martial and service records in the National Archives.

NB With thanks to The Rev. Dr. A.H. Ledoux for a thorough search of the New Mexico census records.

Thomas Lowry graduated from Stanford Medical School in 1957 and has published two dozen Civil War history books and dozens of Civil War articles.

The Kearsarge and the Alabama - by Pay Director Joseph A. Smith

One of Sheridan's Ways with Indians and What Came of It - by Brigadier General Richard Henry Pratt

Gettysburg - By Brevet Brig. General Edward S. Salomon, Lt. Col. 82nd IL Inf. U.S.V.

Personal Recollections of the Maryland Campaign of 1862 - by Lieutenant Thomas McCamant

President Lincoln, Commander-inChief of the Army and Navy of the United States - by Captain Isaac Winter Heysinger

Oregon

“…dead, dead, dead.”

Fort Garland.

Fort Garland.

Ball Supports Gettysburg National Military Park Preservation

GETTYSBURG, Penn.—The

30th Annual National Civil War Ball was held at the Gettysburg Eisenhower Hotel on Saturday evening, Nov. 17. This event, sponsored by the Sons of Veterans Reserve, the Military Department of the National Organization of Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, is the original and official ball of Remembrance Day.

The proceeds from the ball are donated to the Gettysburg National Military Park for preservation or repair of any items in the park they deem in need. This ball has raised $85,000 over the years for the Park.

The Philadelphia Brigade Band, under the direction of Richard Cummines, provided the music, ranging from lively reels to romantic waltzes. The Victorian Dance Ensemble demonstrated and taught the dances throughout the evening and assisted any couples having difficulties. Larry Keener-Farley, Rebecca Kesler and Gray Peyre-Ferry served as dance masters, assisted by twenty VDE floor managers.

Over 250 guests came from around the country to attend the ball. Members of Civil War hereditary groups, both Union and Confederate, military and civilian reenactors, as well as supporters of Civil War preservation joined in the festivities. Many guests said that they came because they liked the VDE’s teaching style, the band’s music, and the preservation aspect of the event. Next year’s ball will be

Union and Confederate reenactors danced together, supporting the common cause of preserving history at Gettysburg National Military Park.

During a ceremony at the Woolson Monument, Maj. Gen. Robert Grim (right), Commander of the Sons of Veterans Reserve, presented a check to National Park Service Ranger Chris Gwinn, GNMP Chief of Interpretation. The donation for preservation was the profit from last year’s National Civil War Ball and brought the total raised by the event to $85,000.

held at the Wyndham Hotel in Gettysburg on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2019. For more information on Civil War Dancing, visit www. CivilWarDance.org.

(All photos by VDE Photo)

VDE President Annette Keener-Farley dancing with David Klinepeter, a 75 year member of the Sons of Union Veterans.

Philip Troll, the original dance master of the ball, returned for the thirtieth anniversary of the ball and danced with VDE member Rebecca Kesler.

Over 250 guests attended the National Civil War Ball and met new people during the Chassez d’Amour Waltz that required dancers to constantly change partners during the dance.

Remembrance Day Weekend in Gettysburg

By Steve Reilly

I had been a very active member in the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War for over thirty years, but never participated in Remembrance Weekend in Gettysburg. Each November, thousands of Civil War reenactors and historians travel to Gettysburg for the annual Remembrance Day Weekend. It is a time to remember the soldiers from both sides who died on the fields of Gettysburg. This year also marked the 155th Anniversary of President Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg Address.

While many of the events are very well known and attended by thousands, some are not as well known. On Saturday morning many Union units marched to the National Cemetery to pay respects to their states’ dead. To me, it seemed the highlight of the day was the parade sponsored by the Sons of Union Veterans. To my surprise, thousands of Union and Confederate reenactors marched through the Gettysburg with their drums beating. I was invited to march just behind Major General Robert Grim, the Commanding General of the SVR, SUVCW so I witnessed the full parade as it marched past the reviewing stand. I can tell you that anyone who feels the hobby, or interest in the Civil War, is fading out just doesn’t understand the spirit driving the men and women who are involved.

Few know of the Irish Catholic Mass that has been said each year, for the last twenty years or so. The Mass is sponsored by the 69th New York Historical Association. The old Fighting 69th of the Irish Brigade is the regiment my grandfather joined on April 21, 1861, and my son Rich is now commanding officer of Delta Company, 1/69 N.Y.N.G. The Mass is said at the Father William Corby Memorial for the Union and Confederates soldiers who gave their lives at Gettysburg. The memorial is located on Cemetery Ridge overlooking the Wheatfield. This year’s Irish Catholic Mass was celebrated by Father David Moreno, SDB and Father James Luckashinsky. The Mass was held near where the Irish Brigade was given absolution by Father William Corby, one of the more famous scenes from the movie Gettysburg. General Longstreet’s boys, had just broken through General Sickles Union line and the Irish Brigade was about to be sent into the Wheatfield to stop them. The Irish Mass was well

attended by Union soldiers and civilians; it started at 3:30 p.m. and ended just as the sun was setting behind Seminary Ridge. All are invited by the 69th New York Historical Association to attend next year. It never hurts to say a prayer for our honored dead or our military serving around the world.

As the sun goes down, there is a Remembrance Day Illumination, sponsored by the Gettysburg Foundation and the National Park Service. Each of the 3,512 Civil War soldier graves was given a

luminary candle from 5:30 p.m. until 9 p.m. The illumination was followed by two military balls, one by the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War, the other the Gettysburg Foundation. Both military balls support National Park Service efforts at Gettysburg.

We need to support, not just events such as Remembrance Day, but also our Civil War Media, such as the Civil War News. There are those who want to erase our history, don’t let them win.

Reverend Father William Corby’s bronze statue is south of Gettysburg on Hancock Avenue near the George Weickert Farm. Father William Corby was chaplain to the 88th New York Infantry of the famous Irish Brigade. (Jack Melton)

Abraham Lincoln on the speakers’ platform at the dedication of the National Cemetery of Gettysburg, November 19, 1863. (Library of Congress)

“A Want of Vigilance” – The Battle of Bristoe Station, Oct. 14, 1863

By Joe Bordonaro

Following the bloodiest battle of the Civil War—Gettysburg— General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and General Meade’s Army of the Potomac did not engage in battle for over three months. This was hardly surprising, given the number of casualties that both armies suffered at Gettysburg. What is surprising, given that Gettysburg is rightly viewed as a major Union victory, is the fact that in October 1863, it was General Lee who initiated action against General Meade, and not vice versa. The aggressiveness of Lee and the extreme caution of Meade was the reason for this state of affairs. When you realize that the Army of Northern Virginia had sent its largest corps west to help the Army of Tennessee prevent an invasion of Georgia it is even more remarkable that General Lee took the offensive.

As General Lee’s army moved toward contact with the Army of the Potomac, Gen. Meade ordered a withdrawal from his position in central Virginia and headed toward Centreville, a fortified location on the main railroad supply line of the Army of the Potomac. He was probably thinking back to 1862, when Union General Pope was roughly handled by the Army of Northern Virginia in this same area, culminating in the Second Battle of Manassas during August 1862; he was probably determined that, unlike Pope, he would not be hit with a flank attack and lose a third battle of Manassas.

In any case, the Army of the Potomac was spread out on the roads heading north and the Army of Northern Virginia’s Third Corps commander, General A. P. Hill, thought he saw an opportunity to fall upon the rearmost corps in the rear of the Union column. Hurriedly calling for an attack, General Hill neglected to conduct any reconnaissance of his own. With Confederate cavalry, under General J.E.B. Stuart, licking its wounds after an encounter with the Federal II Corps, Hill was committing his corps to battle without knowing whether his target, the Union V Corps, was actually the rear of its army’s

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line of march. In fact, it wasn’t. As Hill’s lead regiments headed down toward a bridge crossing Broad Run to close with the enemy, they were ambushed by elements of Warren’s II Corps. Having fortuitously arrived on the scene while screened by a railroad embankment from Confederate view, the Federal troops created havoc in their opponent’s ranks. Repulsed, and suffering over twice as many casualties as the Yankees, General Hill’s forces were reinforced with the appearance of General Ewell’s Second Corps and claimed a victory, although it certainly was of the pyrrhic variety. General Lee was not pleased; Confederate President Jefferson Davis was even less so, writing that the heavy casualties were caused by a “want of vigilance” on the part of Hill.

On the weekend of Oct. 13-14, 2018, Civil War reenactors gathered at the preserved portion of the Bristoe Station battlefield, in Prince William County, Va. The mission of the reenactors was to help Bristoe Station Battlefield Heritage Park draw the public to help commemorate the 155th anniversary of the battle. This mission was successful as the park enjoyed a large number of visitors over the course of the weekend.

Although surrounded by new development, in 2004, Centex Homes, Civil War Trust, and Prince William County had collaborated to preserve 130 acres of the Bristoe Station Battlefield.

More information on the park can be found at http://www. pwcgov.org/government/dept/ publicworks/hp/Pages/BristoeStation-Battlefield.aspx

More information on the battle can be found in A Want of Vigilance: The Bristoe Station Campaign, October 9–19, 1863 (Emerging Civil War Series) by Bill Backus and Robert Orrison.

Joe Bordonaro is a USAF veteran (1973–1977), Glassboro State College graduate (1980), Catholic school teacher (St. Joseph’s ProCathedral, 1983–1988), and retired public school teacher (Mullica Township School, 1988–2009). He has been involved with Civil War reenacting/living history since 1999. Joe began submit-ting articles to the Civil War News in 2005 and has been covering events for the News on a regular basis since 2016. Joe lives in Mount Laurel, NJ, and has been married to his wife Karen for 29 years. If you wish to contact Joe, you may send an email to joe1861@gmail.com.

Plan of the Battle of Bristoe Station, Orange and Alexandria Railroad, Va., Octr. 14th 1863. Shows the area of Fairfax County, Va., which was the site of the Battle of Bristoe Station. The map is oriented with Cedar Run to the south, Bristoe to the west and indicates the route of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. Also indicated are A.P. Hill’s Corps, Army

1832–1918, Library of Congress)

8th Florida falling in.

(Kelly Boynton)

Federal infantry advancing.

(Kelly Boynton)

of Northern Virginia, engaging the Union’s II Corps during its withdrawal toward Centreville, Va. (Artist Robert Knox Sneden,

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The Bombardment and Capture of Fort Fisher, N.C. Jany. 15th 1865

This occasional column highlights prints and printmakers from the Civil War discussing their meaning and most importantly, the print maker or artist’s goals.

By the time the firm of Currier and Ives folded in 1907, it had produced more than 7000 separate lithographic renderings or titles. Beginning in the 1840’s, the firm covered every major American and some world events in picture form for an eager American market. Early prints depicted the Mexican war, westward expansion, news events, political figures, verdant farm and country scenes, city views, and of course, the great Rebellion.

Between 1861 and 1865, Currier and Ives produced countless portraits of war personalities, politicians, and battle scenes. The latter left much to be desired, artistically. Many of them were so crudely and quickly drawn and produced, they stand out today for their naivete and lack of draftsmanship that other prints notably possessed. Nearly all were based on news from the front. Additionally, so many of the battle scenes were indistinguishable and if it were not for the depth and length of the caption, one battle looked much like another.

Despite their unreal, dreamlike quality, Civil War battle prints were a “great subject” for Currier.

According to one authority, the company produced fifty-three small folio battle scenes or more than one per month during the war. Adding seven large folios brings the total to 60—twice the number of steamboat scenes in the previous 30 years. To that sum must be added the numerous military portraits and “military genre scenes.”1 During the war, “Currier and Ives Civil War prints became increasingly patriotic,” aiming at the “Northern, proUnion market. Most battle prints were of Union victories and were so labeled with little concern for the facts,” according to author Brian Le Beau.2 Our featured print this month fits Le Beau’s description. The war was good to

Currier and Ives.

Unlike most battle depictions, the small folio illustrating the bombardment and capture of Fort Fisher, N.C., Jan. 15, 1865, was slightly more recognizable in that both land and naval forces were identified. According to the caption, “Both the Army and Navy were engaged in this great exploit, the most terrific of its kind on record. The Iron clads and Frigates under command of Rear Admiral Porter poured in a most destructive fire of shot and shell; while the gallant Soldiers under Genl. A.H. Terry rushed to the assault, and after a bloody contest of several hours, drove the Rebels out of their strong hold, capturing over 2000 prisoners, the rebel Genl. Whiting, and 75 Guns of large calibre; many of them of “celebrated English make.” Three cheers for the Army and Navy!”

The first attempt to take the fort in December failed. The fort was the gate way to Wilmington, and known as the “Gibraltar of the South,” with heavy naval traffic through its port. On Christmas Eve, 60 Federal ships attacked the defending force of 500 Confederates and were repulsed. The defeated Union armada returned to Hampton Roads. In the first month if the new year, General of the Army, Ulysses Grant tasked Major General Alfred Terry and Rear Admiral David Porter and their

combined forces of 18,000 to attack once more the last major, Confederate coastal stronghold. The garrison was commanded by Major General Robert Hoke. What the Currier print failed to mention was the engagement of a division of US Colored Troops under Brigadier General Charles Paine and a second division under Brigadier General Adelbert Ames. Between the navy’s heavy guns and the assault by Paine and Ames, Hoke’s men surrendered late that day. The last Confederate port of any significance was closed.

Ames went on to become a reconstruction governor of Mississippi; Paine was a New England Blue Blood, a descendant of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and after the war made a fortune in railroads. Hoke went on to enjoy a career as a businessman, dabbling in insurance and gold mining. Admiral David Dixon Porter remained in the navy but was largely involved with writing unremarkable histories and fiction, all now, long forgotten.

And the prints? In the 1930’s a group of collector/dealer/ scholars set out to choose the 50 best Curriers. It appears the battle prints were not considered. Currier and lithographic scholar, Harry Peters who wrote extensively on Currier, barely mentioned them. Ironically, the best Civil War battle prints were produced in the thirty years after the war by other lithographers.

Endnotes:

1. Harold Holzer, Mark E. Neely, Jr. The Union Image: Popular Prints of the Civil War North. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000, 199.

2. Bryan F. Le Beau. Currier & Ives: America Imagined. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001, 77. Salvatore Cilella is retired after 43 years in the museum field. His last position was President and CEO of the Atlanta History Center. He is the author of several articles and books. His most recent books are Upton’s Regulars: A History of the 121st New York Volunteers in the Civil War (U. Press Kansas, 2009) and The Correspondence of General Emory Upton, 1856–1881 (U. Tennessee Press, 2017) edited.

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“The bombardment and capture of Fort Fisher, N.C. Jany. 15th 1865.” Currier & Ives print shows Union soldiers during the attack on Fort Fisher, North Carolina, with Union warships, just offshore, bombarding the fort. (Library of Congress)

By Stephen Davis Special to Civil War News

Years after the war Union veterans reminisced and wrote about the battle of Pickett’s Mill, Ga. Fought on May 27, 1864, some two dozen miles northwest of Atlanta, the engagement was an important Confederate defensive victory won by Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne’s troops.

One sees this in the pages of the National Tribune, the newspaper published in Washington for Union veterans from 1877 to 1943.1 Especially in the 1880s, when veterans of both sides were publishing their recollections of the war, the National Tribune carried a fair number of pieces about Pickett’s Mill, in particular on what can be called the “bugle controversy.”

For instance, in January 1887 the National Tribune printed a short article entitled “The Bugle Was to Blame” by S.W. Bird, adjutant of the 35th Illinois in the First Brigade of Thomas Wood’s Third Division, called Willich’s brigade, after Brig. Gen. August Willich (it was actually led by Col. William Gibson after Willich took a service-ending wound at Resaca on May 15). The brigade had drilled so extensively with orders sounded by buglers that it had come to be called the “Horn Brigade,” according to Bird.

On May 27, the troops marched through the woods approaching Pickett’s Mill, just a few hundred yards in front of the Confederate line, to get into position for a surprise flank attack. Yet “all the commands in our brigade during these movements were given by the bugler,” Bird wrote; “if that was not warning enough for the rebs as to what we were driving at, I don’t know how we could have made it plainer, unless it had been to send an Orderly over and tell them.” Reflecting on the costly failure of the Union attack that day, Bird concluded, “if some one had smashed that bugle at the start there would not have been so many smashed heads and limbs that night.” In a follow-up article a few months later, Bird commented further, “I shall always think the bugle was out of place on that particular occasion.”2

W.P. De Land was an Ohioan in Brig. Gen. William B. Hazen’s brigade when it was ordered in at the start of Wood’s assault. He submitted an article published in the Tribune on April 21, 1887. De Land remembered that on the afternoon of May 27, as they marched through the woods,

“The Bugle Was to Blame”

there were orders for no loud talking; “we of Hazen’s Brigade were ordered to be very quiet.” Then came “the tooting of those infernal bugles,” he wrote. “We could not help realizing that at every ‘toot’ lives were being sacrificed; for the rebels needed nothing more to guide them, and informed them as to what was up.”3

I.M. Adair, who had served as sergeant-major of the 86th Indiana, also weighed in on the subject. “I have always believed that if Willich’s buglers had kept still the rebels might not have known just when, where or how we were approaching,” he wrote in the Tribune; “but previous to the charge they kept up a braying equal to a corral of army mules at feeding-time.”4

Not all Northerners agreed. W.J. Wright, whose 78th Pennsylvania in Col. Benjamin Scribner’s brigade advanced after Hazen’s repulse, wrote the Tribune, commenting on De Land’s article: “as to Willich’s bugles, I must say that they did not annoy us any. We had no trouble finding the enemy, and they found us apparently without the aid of bugles or anything else.”5

For all this discussion by Union veterans about Pickett’s Mill bugling, historians have concluded that it didn’t tip Confederates off about an impending assault. “They obtained their information, not from Federal bugle calls as some Union accounts stated,” Richard McMurry wrote a half-century ago, “but from a morning reconnaissance made by Brigadier General Daniel C. Govan’s Brigade of Cleburne’s Division.” A more recent chronicler of the battle, Brad Butkovich, agrees that “the Confederates knew where they [enemy forces] were with or without the bugle calls.”6

Scholarly conclusions, however, do not diminish the color or conviction that characterizes Union veterans’ writings in the National Tribune. The newspaper deserves more frequent citation by future scholars of the Civil War.

The National Tribune can be accessed online at http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov./lccn/ sn82016187/issues.

Endnotes:

1. Richard A. Sauers, comp., The National Tribune Civil War Index: A Guide to the Weekly Newspaper Dedicated to Civil War Veterans, 1877–1943, 3 vols. (El Dorado Hills CA:

This issue of the National Tribune, published on May 29, 1890, is owned by Frank Clark of Cumming, Ga. Mr. Clark kindly photographed its front page for Civil War News. The illustration shows a Union veteran a generation after the war—an amputee and G.A.R. member. “Because He Fought,” the left panel shows the U.S. Treasury awash with five billion dollars. “Had He Not Fought” on the right depicts the American economy in tatters, with U.S. bonds so worthless that their owner is selling them merely as paper.

Savas Beatie, 2018), vol. 1, vii.

2. S.W. Bird, “The Bugle Was to Blame,” National Tribune, Jan. 6, 1887; Charles W. Harrington, “New Hope Church,” National Tribune, Jan. 6, 1887 (“we soon heard the bugle calls for which that brigade [Willich’s/ Gibson’s] was noted”); W.F. Tait, “About Willich’s Bugles,” National Tribune, Aug. 18, 1887. (“Willich’s Horn Brigade”); S. W. Bird, “Willich’s Buglers Again,” National Tribune, March 24, 1887.

3. W.P. De Land, “New Hope Church: The Fight at Hazen’s Brigade, and Something About Willich’s Bugles,” National Tribune, April 21, 1887.

4. I.M. Adair, “On to Atlanta. Something About the Battles of New Hope Church and Pickett’s Mills,” National Tribune, June 9, 1887.

5. W.J. Wright, “New Hope Church. A Pennsylvanian’s Account of the Fighting There,” National Tribune, June 2, 1887.

6. Richard M. McMurry, “The Atlanta Campaign: December 23,1863 to July 18, 1864,” Ph.D. dissertation, Emory University, 1967, 163; Brad Butkovich, The Battle of Pickett’s Mill: Along the Dead-Line (Charleston: History Press, 2013), 86.

Steve Davis is author of four books on the Atlanta Campaign/ Atlanta in the war. His article on

Sherman’s bombardment of the city was featured in last spring’s The Artilleryman Magazine. His research on the National Tribune stems from an article he’s writing on the battle of Pickett’s Mill that will appear in America’s Civil War this coming May.

By Bruce Allardice and Wayne Wolf

Northern Quakers faced a moral dilemma. They were anti-slavery and pro-Union, to be sure, but their faith dictated that they play only a non-combatant role in the conflict. However, many enlisted in the Union army anyway; one was Amos Sharpless. From a wellto-do Delaware farming family, Amos (1832–1907) received a good education. Prior to the war he farmed and raised stock in Illinois and Delaware.1 In 1862, he enlisted in Benjamin Nields’ 1st Delaware Artillery Battery.2 Amos was soon promoted to 1st Lieutenant.

Organized at Wilmington, Del., the first served in garrisons at Washington, D.C., and Suffolk, Va., until 1864, when it participated in the Red River Campaign. The unit mustered out in 1865.

In 1862 Amos and his older brother Jehu (1824–1902) purchased the Ashland Mill in Christiana Hundred, Del., which they ran until 1893. Amos prospered and became prominent in the GAR. In 1895 he moved to Pennsylvania, where he died in 1907.

Presented here are three wartime letters to his sister Edith Sharpless Cranston (1822–96).

All three feature the “thee” and “thine” terminology common to Quakers of the period. In the first letter Amos and the 1st are comfortably camped near Suffolk, Va. He wonders why the Union

A Quaker Goes to War

garrison there is so large, when troops are needed for the Army of the Potomac. He appears unaware that Robert E. Lee has launched his army north, heading towards Pennsylvania and Gettysburg.

Camp near Suffolk Va. June 12, [18]63

Dear Sister Thine of the fifteenth was duly received, and I take the present opportunity to reply.

We have not changed our camp since I last wrote nor do I think we will soon unless Suffolk is vacated and we retreat to Norfolk in order to send a portion of our force to the Army of the Potomac. Norfolk could be held with a [sic] much less force than is necessary to hold this place, and by falling back in Norfolk we would be able to spare ten thousand men for Hooker or Keyes; it would seem a pity to burn this small town but in case of a retreat it would become a military necessity to do so.

The inhabitants here are strongly Southern in principals [sic] but keep very quiet having but little to say on either side of the great National question. Most of them have fathers, brothers and sons in the rebel servis [sic]. The females seem to be the worst rebels we have, not because I suppose their Southern sympathy is stronger, but because they think they can take more liberty on account of their sect [sic]. If it were to become a military necessity to destroy Suffolk the whole country in this section would be as destitute of inhabitants (except contrabands) as though it never was settled.

Suffolk is a small town containing I suppose about two thousand inhabitants and was no hamlet before the war quite a business place, but now all has changed. The residents know nothing but war and desolation deprived of all the privileges they once possessed. The merchants here are all Northern men and even they are restricted in regard to who they sell to, not being allowed to see too any of the old residents unless they bring an order from the Provost Marshal. I don’t think this is a very healthy place. There are quite a number of our men sick at this time but principally effected with diarrhea.

I believe there is not much news of importance to communicate at this time. There are news of the enemy in force this side of the Black water [River] and consequently we are not troubled much with them. Occationly [sic] our scouts bring in a few prisoners. We have a very pleasant camp

here having got the camp of a company that was sent away. They came last Fall and went to a great deal of trouble to make themselves comfortable by building cabins for the officers and stables for their horses and as soon as they moved away we took their buildings. So we have the most comfortable camp we ever had and the men seem to like it better and enjoy themselves more than any camp they have ever been in before.

We have filled up the deficiency in our company with detached men from Gen. Cochran’s division so our battery is full. The weather is very warm here as warm as harvest in Delaware.

I am well and hoping the few lines may find thee the same. I remain thine very respectfully.

Lieut. Amos Sharpless

Edith Cranston

In the second letter Amos is once again comfortably situated in Camp Barry, an artillery camp northeast of Washington, D.C. He hints that homefolks wanting to evade the Union draft might do so if they raise the $300 commutation fee, though he thinks they should serve voluntarily.

Camp Marshall, July 29th 1863

Dear Sister

I take the present opportunity to answer thy most welcome letter received some time since. We have moved from our old situation near Suffolk and returned to the vicinity of Washington D.C. The company is in quite good health and not much the worse of our campaign in Virginia. We

had several skirmishes with the enemy but were fortunate enough not to lose a man either by disease or otherwise. We have a very pleasant camp where we are now and if it should be our fortune to remain here through the warm season it will be well for us.

The prospect for a termination of the war is more promising at the present time than ever before but I think likely should the prospect still continue the three years volunteers will be held until order is entirely restored and peace and quiet prevails.

I suppose some of the young men who are liable to conscription in your section are a good deal concerned for fear it may fall to their lot. I think it is the duty of everyone who may be drafted to shoulder his musket and carry it and use it in defense of his government but I judge all who can raise the commutation money will pay it in preference to doing what I think they ought to, defend and preserve the government at any risks and all hazards..

I received a letter from Eler [?] some days ago. He writes me he is well and seems to be in fine spirits. He does not know where Samuel Dixon [a cousin] is but supposes he is with his company somewhere in Rosecrans’ Army [Army of the Cumberland]. I have no idea how long we may remain as long as I desire but we are subject to orders at any moment and consequently may leave in a few days.

With these few lines I will close hoping you are all well and that Joseph may escape the draft.

Thine very respectfully

Lieut. Amos Sharpless Edith L. Cranston

In the third letter Amos expresses the belief that the Confederacy “is on its last legs” and that the war is “nearly over.” Numerous soldiers’ letters expressed this hope, but the war would last more than a year longer. The battery had briefly been sent to New York City to deal with the draft riots.

Camp Barry, Washington, Sep. 19th (1863)

Dear Sister I take the present opportunity to send thee a few lines to inform thee how I am; We have been moving about considerable these last few weeks, and have arrived at last in our old camp near Washington D.C. We left Camp Marshall where I think I last wrote thee about the 20th Aug. and shipped to N.Y. City where we remained about three weeks and then returned to where we are now.

We had a very pleasant trip around by sea to New York although rather tedious as I with about 85 men and 90 horses were nearly a week making it. We were first shipped on a river steamer which was not seaworthy and up on going out to sea found it was too rough for us and we had to about ship and run back to Old Point where we stayed about ten days coaling up and getting more provisions for we had by that time run short as we had only three days rations with us. The storm not still abating we are ordered to put our cargo on another vessel which we did and arrived safely

Artillery Depot at Camp Barry, near Washington, D.C. (Library of Congress)

in N.Y. Harbor.

We had a very pleasant time there although rather expensive, on last third day week we started for Washington where we arrived on fourth day noon passing through Wilmington about 11 o’clock on third day evening. We had to wait at Newport about fifteen minutes and I went up to the depot and seen the Major [?] and was talking to him some time. He told me that Samuel Johnson [a corporal in Nields’ Battery] was deceased and was to be buried on fifth day.

I have not been very well since leaving N. York having had a slight attack of the yellow jaundice but I have got tolerable well again and have gohn [sic] on duty. I have not heard from home since I came here this last time but am looking for a letter from John soon. I don’t know which thee or I wrote the last letter but if I don’t write thee need not hesitate in writing.

I suppose Joseph escaped the draft but John Cranston [Sharpless’ cousin] was the lucky one. Major told me his father paid his exemption fee and he is clear until there is another one which I don’t think there will be as I think the war is nearly over although there may be some hard fighting yet but I think the enemy have despaired of their cause and they cannot keep a large army in one place long as there supplies are cut off from the rest and the blockade prevents them from being supplied in the East, I really think the rebellion is on its last legs unless it gets succer [sic succor] from a foreign power which I think there is not much prospect at this time. Please excuse all errors in this hasty written epistle. Write soon and let me know how you are getting along farming and with the dairy this summer and who you have for help since Isaac left you.

Thine very respectfully

Lieut. A. Sharpless

Edith Cranston

Endnotes:

1. A biography of Amos is in Cope (ed.), Historic Homes and Institutions ….of Chester and Delaware Counties, p. 255-256.

2. Benjamin Nields (18311917) was a prominent Wilmington lawyer.

Bruce S. Allardice is Professor of History at South Suburban College in Illinois. He is a past president of the Civil War Round Table of Chicago.

Wayne L. Wolf is past president of the Lincoln-Davis Civil War Roundtable.

High School Students Help Rehabilitate Part of Chancellorsville Battlefield

CHANCELLORSVILLE, Va.—Central Virginia Battlefields Trust (CVBT) held is fifth annual Youth Community Service Day.

On Saturday, Nov. 10, more than two dozen students and teachers from Riverbend High School and members of the community collaborated on a project to clean up Anderson’s Ridge on the Chancellorsville Battlefield. The students, members of the Roe Kappa National Social Studies Honor Society, were joined by teachers Jessica Sollohub and Brooke Eby.

Anderson’s Ridge sits on the east edge of Riverbend High School property between the school and Harrison’s Crossing shopping area.

In late April 1863, Confederates under Maj. Gen. Richard Anderson built earthworks on the ridge as a defensive position to protect the Army of Northern Virginia, which was then occupying ground around Fredericksburg. When the Federal Army of the Potomac tried to outflank them by approaching through

Chancellorsville, Confederates abandoned Anderson’s Ridge and took the offensive to meet the threat.

“The area has become a cutthrough for students traveling back and forth between the high school and the shopping center,” explained CVBT Education Director Eric Powell. “As a result, a lot of litter has accumulated up there and the area has fallen into disrepair. Unfortunately, there’s also been a lot of vandalism.”

To rehabilitate the area, students helped pick up trash, repair and extend a split rail fence, install erosion control, seed grass, and remove graffiti from signage, a bench, and the walkway.

“By getting students involved in the clean-up effort, we hope they’ll take some ownership for this little part of the battlefield going forward,” Powell said. “Their school is on the battlefield, and Anderson’s Ridge is literally in the school’s backyard.”

Joining the students were a number of community members, including nine members of the 47th Virginia Infantry reenacting

unit. “By working alongside members of the community, students have the chance to learn about the importance of community involvement and civic engagement,” said CVBT President Tom Van Winkle. “We also hope they learned a bit about the history that took place all around them.”

Following the morning clean up, the group had lunch and then heard from Spotsylvania County Historian Terry Daugherty. The group then toured the First Day at Chancellorsville Battlefield with historian Chris Mackowski. Visit our website at www.cvbt. org for information about the CVBT.

Nathan Alexander Lee and Noah Howell, students at Riverbend High School, scrub graffiti from an interpretive sign at Anderson Ridge on the Chancellorsville battlefield. They were among more than a dozen students and faculty from Riverbend to participate in Youth Community Service Day sponsored by Central Virginia Battlefields Trust. (Travis Wakeman)

Heidi Dargal, Alexis Amos, and Makayla Foust, seniors at Riverbend High School, reseed a portion of Anderson Ridge as part of a Youth Community Service Day. (Travis Wakeman)

Riverbend High School students rebuild split rail fence on Anderson Ridge. (Travis Wakeman)

The Wilson Patent Breech Loading Rifle is one of the rarest and most sophisticated of the small arms imported by the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Thomas Wilson was an English engineer and inventor who registered no less than twenty-five British firearms patents between 1855 and 1868. However, Wilson appears only briefly in English directories as a “Gunmaker,” during the years 1861 and 1862. While pursuing that trade he was located at 45 Church Street in Birmingham. As a result, it is believed that most rifles manufactured using his patented designs were produced by other Birmingham gunmakers under license from Wilson. A similar licensing system was used

to allow other makers to produce Adams’ patent revolvers and Webley’s patent “wedge frame” revolvers during same period. However, Wilson’s limited time as a manufacturer of firearms belies his significant influence on firearms design and development. His patented designs were utilized by many English gunmakers, and while firearms of his own actual manufacture are extremely scarce, the use of many of his designs was common during the mid-19th century.

British patent number 1318 of 1859 covered Wilson’s Breech Loading Rifle. The patent described a percussion ignition, breech-loading rifle that was ingeniously simple and extremely sturdy. A simple “bolt” was

located at the breech end of the barrel and secured by a transverse wedge, similar to an extremely oversized Colt pistol wedge. To load the gun, the wedge was drawn outward, away from the lock plate. When pulled out sufficiently, the wedge freed the simple bolt to be drawn backwards and exposed the chamber for loading. The bolt had a pivoting, fish tail shaped, checkered piece at its rear that gave the operator a firm grasping area for opening the bolt and a large target to slam the bolt closed when using the palm of his hand.

A combustible cartridge was inserted in the chamber and the bolt slammed home to seat the cartridge. A greased felt wad in the bottom of the cartridge insured the chamber sealed completely and did not leak gas when the cartridge was fired. The locking wedge was then pushed back into the bolt, securing it and locking the action tightly. At this point the hammer could be placed on half cock, and a percussion cap placed upon the cone (nipple). The rifle was then fired like any traditional percussion ignition rifle.

The placement and design of the wedge insured safety, as the hammer had to be in the fired position for the wedge to be moved. When the wedge was withdrawn, or was not completely seated into the bolt, the hammer could not be moved at all and was blocked in the fired position. This eliminated any potential for an accidental discharge while loading the rifle, or firing the gun without having the bolt completely in battery.

Wilson produced the arms in two calibers, 28 Bore (.551) and 56 Bore (.451), and in three patterns: rifle musket (39 inch barrel), rifle (33 inch barrel) and carbine (21 inch barrel). All variants were rifled with 5-grooves, which made one complete turn in the length of the barrel of the .551 caliber arms (regardless of the actual barrel length) or 1 turn in 21 inches for the .451 caliber guns. The guns were offered with

either iron or brass mountings; the cost averaged between £8 and £10 each, depending on mountings and barrel lengths. The brass mounted guns were slightly less expensive than iron mounted ones.

As with any major firearms innovation of the era, the goal of Wilson’s invention was to obtain military contracts that could be very profitable due to the volume of sales involved. In fact, initial press regarding his breechloading rifle suggested that his design was superior to both major contemporary English competitors; the Westley Richards and Terry’s patent breechloaders. It was also implied that the mechanism’s simplicity might enable the British Ordnance Department to easily convert their existing stores of Pattern 1853 muzzleloading rifle muskets into breechloaders. In an attempt to secure those potentially lucrative British Ordnance Department contracts, Wilson submitted one of his percussion breech loading rifles to the Ordnance Select Committee for testing. As noted in their Aug. 1, 1860, report, they found the mechanism ingenious and reported upon it positively, but found the accuracy of the arms left much to be desired.

The problem was the ammunition. As the beech was sealed with a greased felt wad in the bottom of each cartridge, the wad remained in the bore after the cartridge was fired. This meant that the next cartridge fired left the bore with the former cartridge’s wad stuck to the nose of the bullet. This resulted in erratic accuracy, as the wad often interfered with bullet as it left the muzzle, causing it to heel and yaw, having a detrimental effect upon the aerodynamic design of the projectile. It is worth noting that the American Greene Patent Rifle had the same shortcoming in its ammunition design, a fact that effectively prevented the general adoption of a breechloading percussion rifle in America. The British Ordnance Committee was, however, so impressed with the mechanical part of the design that they requested Wilson alter two P1853 Enfield rifle muskets and one Whitworth rifle to his system for further trials.

The P1853s were fired for accuracy at 300, 500, and 800 yards prior to alteration, so their accuracy after the alteration could be compared to their original muzzleloading configuration. Again, the same problem reared its ugly head, and the March 26, 1861 report from the committee noted that the wild and capricious shooting of the converted Enfield is mainly owing to the action of

this wad on the apex of the bullet, immediately on the latter leaving the barrel. The committee further noted that the accuracy of the Whitworth was less impaired, and they attributed this fact to the smaller caliber, faster rate of twist of the rifling, and the longer bearing length of the bullet. These results may be why Wilson only offered his arms in calibers smaller than the typical British 25 Bore (.577) musket caliber of the period.

Wilson never completely gave up on obtaining British Ordnance contracts, as he submitted six altered P1853 Enfields for the Ordnance Board’s breechloading rifle trials in 1864. Although his design again received high scores, the lack of accuracy due to the ammunition design resulted in the Snider system being adopted for altering British military arms from muzzleloading to breechloading. Interestingly, Wilson held patents that in his words “anticipated” the Snider system, and he sued the War Office for £5,000, but agreed to a settlement payment of only £500, which suggests that the War Office certainly felt that his claim had at least some merit.

With the rejection of his design by the Ordnance Select Committee in early 1861, Wilson pursued sales with the newly formed Confederate States. It is not clear exactly how many Wilson breechloading rifles were obtained by the Confederacy, and to date only seven Wilson “short rifles” are known to exist in the United States. Three are iron mounted, 56 Bore (.451) rifles and have an “A” prefix before their serial numbers. The serial numbers include A12 (Springfield Armory Collection), A29 (exGeorge Wray Collection, now at the Atlanta History Center), and the highest known serial number A84 (private collection). These three surviving examples suggest that this series of rifles may have only been 100 units. Interestingly, A84 is additionally marked “CSN” and has provenance to the CSS Shenandoah. These guns are dated 1860 and have been arbitrarily termed “early” Wilson rifles by researchers.

A single, 1861 dated 28 Bore (.551) caliber rifle is known. It is a brass mounted rifle and has the serial number 221, without a prefix. It has been arbitrarily termed a “transitional” Wilson, although it is likely a concurrent production rifle with other .451 caliber rifles, simply in a different caliber. This rifle appears to have been produced by Wilson himself, and bears a (CROWN) / TW mark on the breech, signifying Thomas Wilson. The final

Tim Prince College Hill Arsenal PO Box 178204 Nashville, TN

Wilson’s Patent Breechloading Rifle –Part 1

three rifles known are also brass mounted and dated 1863 on their locks. They have been arbitrarily designated “late” rifles. Two of these guns are 56 Bore (.451) and one is 28 Bore (.551). These “late” rifles have serial numbers that begin with “2A,” suggesting another production run from the original “A” series, and have serial numbers in the 50XX range. These numbers far exceed the total output of Wilson breech loading rifles (both by himself and other makers), which is believed to be a few hundred at most, including a small order of carbines for Tasmania placed in 1864.

The serial numbering system may have been allocated in blocks, much like Adams revolvers, with certain makers receiving certain blocks of numbers to work within. This made tracking patent royalties easier. As Wilson himself only produced a very limited number of guns over a time frame of less than two years, this would easily explain the odd 50XX serial numbers. The prefix system may refer to the type of arm, with “A” series guns being iron mounted, and “2A” guns being brass mounted, although this does not account for the “no prefix” example made by Wilson.

Of the extant examples, dates on all 1860 rifles are stamped on the lock, as are the 1863 dated guns, while the single .551 rifle dated 1861 has an engraved lock plate date. All the rifles are marked T WILSON’S / PATENT on the top of the bolt and have standard Birmingham commercial proofs. The arms all follow the basic design of the British Pattern 1856 and Pattern 1858 rifles, with the exception of the breechloading mechanism. The rifles have 33 inch barrels with rear sights graduated to 1,100 yards. Sling swivels are located on the upper barrel band and either on the rear of the triggerguard tang or in the toe of the stock of the first two patterns of rifles, and on the front of the triggerguard of the late pattern.

The rifles have lugs on the right side of the barrel to accept a bayonet. It has long been disputed

whether the rifles took an English Pattern 1859 Navy Cutlass bayonet, or a conventional Pattern 1856 Short Rifle saber bayonet. The muzzle ring of the cutlass bayonet is sized to fit the thicker P1858 Naval Rifle, so it is too big for the muzzle of the Wilson rifles. However, the previously mentioned rifle A84 is accompanied by a Pattern 1859 cutlass bayonet numbered A84 and has had its muzzle ring bushed to fit the smaller rifle barrel. The British were known to have bushed older P1853 socket bayonets for use with the later production Martini Henry rifles, so this is not unheard of. However, my personal experimentation with several known Wilson rifles confirms that these arms accepted the standard P1856 saber bayonet. The early and late pattern arms have lugs without a lead that could have accepted either the cutlass style or standard saber style pommel, while the “transitional” rifle has a keyed lug, designed to accept only a Pattern 1856 Type I saber bayonet.

Now that we have discussed the basics and the background of the Wilson Breechloading Rifle, we will explore the Confederate connection more closely next month.

Tim Prince is a full-time dealer in fine & collectible military arms from the Colonial Period through WWII. He operates College Hill Arsenal, a web-based antique arms retail site.

A long time collector & researcher, Tim has been a contributing author to two major book projects about Civil War era arms including The English Connection and a new book on southern retailer marked and Confederate used shotguns. Tim is also a featured Arms & Militaria appraiser on the PBS Series Antiques Roadshow.

“Transitional” Wilson Rifle #221, dated 1861 and brass mounted. (All photos by Tim Prince) “Late” Wilson Rifle #2A5025, brass mounted.

Close up of “Transitional” Wilson lock date 1861.

Transitional Wilson Rifle #221 showing the (CROWN)/TW trademark of Thomas Wilson, the Wilson’s Patent mark, and the open breech with wedge withdrawn.

Transitional Wilson Rife with bolt open.

Reverse of Transitional Wilson Rifle with “Fish Tail” lever in the up position to provide a gripped surface for opening, or extra leverage for closing.

The Valley Project: Delving into the Online Archive

In December 2017, Ed Ayers spoke to the Atlanta Civil War Round Table on the subject of “War and Reconstruction.” He discussed, inter alia, the Valley of the Shadow Project (http:// valley.lib.virginia.edu), a digital archive that houses a remarkably rich store of Civil War-era documents from Augusta County, Va., and Franklin County, Penn.* Both communities lie in the Great Appalachian Valley and both featured prominently in the war which (in the view of the denizens of Augusta County) placed, for a time, an international border between the two communities. Newspapers. Census and tax records. Diaries. Letters. Courthouse records. Statistics. Soldiers’ records. Veterans’ records. Maps. Images. All there, all accessible online, and all free. I dove in. I selected two events from immediately before the war, John Brown’s Raid in October 1859 and the election of Abraham Lincoln thirteen months later, and perused the newspapers published just after the events occurred. As Yogi Berra said, you can observe a lot by watching. I watched the newspapers and this is what I observed. First, the raid on Harper’s Ferry.

“Qui facit per alium, facit per se,” reads the headline in the Staunton Vindicator on Oct. 21, 1859. A person who acts through another person does the deed himself. John Brown was “a humble instrument of the great, who, after the dirty work is done, never fail to thrust aside the poor devils; and so shield themselves from blame.” Like many others in the South, Staunton’s editors blame anti-slavery politicians for the insurrection. William Seward and Joshua Giddings earn specific mention.

Along with the opinion come rapid fire reports taken from various sources telling the readers who, what, when, where, and why, from the first report by the railroad’s mail agent and early speculation about the raiders’ motives, to the storming of the “fort” by the marines, and an account of the wounded John Brown speaking freely about his aims.

On Oct. 28 there is follow up. It is reported that papers found on Brown prove the “existence of a widespread conspiracy at the North for the forcible suppression of Southern slavery.” The paper expresses the hope that Virginia’s governor would seek extradition

GEORGIA’S CONFEDERATE MONUMENTS

In Honor of a Fallen Nation

Gould B. Hagler, Jr.

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of the conspirators and “demand them of the states in which they reside.” “Qui facit per alium, facit per se.”

Further north in the Great Valley, on Oct. 26, the Franklin Repository in Chambersburg reports on the raid. This edition gives little space to the factual details of the event, but does offer a firm opinion on where to lay the blame, in an editorial relayed

Scene from the 1860 Campaign at Lincoln’s Home. (Library of Congress)

Campaign Buttons for the Lincoln-Hamlin Ticket. (Library of Congress)

John Brown (abt. 1846–1847) by Augustus Washington.

from a New York paper.

If we were to look beyond the immediate actors in that affair, says the New York Tribune, we should say those were responsible who first set on foot and afterward encouraged and sustained the Border-Ruffian Pro-Slavery war against the Free-Labor settlers of Kansas. John Brown, then a peaceful and quiet citizen, went to Kansas with no intention to do anything against Slavery, except so far as his vote and influence might go to keep it out of that Territory by purely peaceable and legal means. He settled himself at Osawatomie, built a steam saw-mill there, gathered quite a settlement about him, and devoted himself with energy to the business in which he was engaged.

The lawlessness and violence of the pro-slavery forces left Brown no choice but to resist

with arms. Kansas bled as a cycle of violence spun out of control. Brown was not blameless, the Tribune and the Repository say, as Even after this partisan war was appeased in some parts of the Territory, it was kept up in Southern Kansas, and Brown had an active part in it. He began on the principle of defense – he now acted on that of revenge…. If anybody is to be held responsible for Brown’s conduct, we must say it must be those who made him what he is.

The Franklin Repository is also quite clear about who was not to blame. An editorial in this same edition defends the community of Chambersburg against the calumnious charges made by some in the South that townspeople aided the plotters. To suppose they would, in the most remote degree, countenance or favor, or “aid and abet” such a ruthless and

murderous plot, or any thing even slightly approximating to it, with a view to the wiping out of their “peculiar institution,” is ungenerous – nay, it is cowardly. Had our people had the least inkling of the designs of these deluded men, they would have nipped the plot in the bud.

Well, the plot was not nipped. The raid exacerbated tensions and helped propel the division of the Nation.

We now move forward one year and see the newspapers’ various perspectives on the 1860 presidential election.

The Staunton Spectator expresses profound regret over the election of Lincoln. “We are mortified at the success of the Black Republicans,” declares an editorial in the Nov. 12, 1860, edition. However, the paper counsels against secession. Democrats still controlled both houses of Congress and the Supreme Court and could halt anything the hated Lincoln would propose. “The danger is in secession,” the editors warn. “If several of the Southern States secede, they will leave us with a minority in Congress, where we now have a safe majority.”

The Spectator is nearly as hard on the Southern fire-breathers as it is on the Republicans. Reducing the Democratic majority in Congress to a minority

may be the reason why some of the Southern States are in such a hurry to secede. They think that if they secede and leave us at the mercy of a Black Republican majority in Congress, that we will secede likewise. This is the way in which they expect to drag us into a like destiny with them.

The Valley Spirit in Chambersburg was a Democratic paper. The October 24 edition urged the electorate to vote for “Union, and not a sectional president.” The editors warned against voting for the election of “an Abolitionist President – the greatest curse that could befall the Nation.” In spite of the paper’s efforts, Pennsylvania and Franklin County went for Lincoln. Still, the Spirit is hopeful, advising its readers after the election that “While we fear the worst results to the nation from the election of LINCOLN we still trust that the threatened calamity may be averted.” Hopeful, but just barely.

While the Staunton editors are mortified, and the Chambersburg Democrats disappointed, the Chambersburg Republicans celebrate and explain that there is little reason to fear that the election would split the nation. Lincoln is not an abolitionist, the editors at the Franklin Repository and Transcript calmly point out on Nov. 7. The Republicans will

Harpers Ferry, John Brown’s Fort, Then photograph. (Library of Congress)

Harpers Ferry, John Brown’s Fort, Now photograph.

(Jack Melton)

Tablet on “John Brown’s Fort.” (Jack Melton)

not permit the spread of slavery to the territories, but where the institution exists, it is protected by the Constitution. The Nov. 14 edition tells us that an increase in the protective tariff will save jobs and help the “poor man, desirous of employment” and “foster every branch of American industry against ruinous foreign competition.”

And the South will calm down.

“After Abraham Lincoln has taken hold of the Ship of State… for a year or two, by that time the fear of our affrighted Southern brethren will have become allayed – their shattered nerves will have become settled and calm.”

Well, Yogi said some other things too, like “Predictions are hard to make, especially about the future.” The reader is invited to check out the Nov. 1862 editions of the Vindicator, the Spectator, the Spirit, and the Repository to learn how “settled and calm” things were two years after Lincoln’s election—and 21 months into the administration of Jefferson Davis.

Next time we will look at some 1864 newspapers, and see what they had to say about the war at that stage. We will also test the Valley Project’s search feature and examine some diaries and letters.

*Ayers has written two books that draw on this resource, In the Presence of Mine Enemies (2003) and The Thin Light of Freedom (2017). The latter was reviewed in the April 2018 issue of Civil War News.

Gould Hagler is a retired lobbyist living in Dunwoody, Ga. He is a past president of the Atlanta Civil War Round Table and the author Georgia’s Confederate Monuments: In Honor of a Fallen Nation, published by Mercer University Press in 2014. Hagler speaks frequently on this topic and others related to different aspects of the Civil War and has been a regular contributor to CWN since 2016. He can be reached at gould.hagler@gmail.com.

Civil War Catalog

Featuring a large assortment of Civil War and Indian War autographs, accoutrements, memorabilia, medals, insignia, buttons, GAR, documents, photos, & books.

Wartime View of Harpers Ferry and the railroad bridge over the Potomac River. (Library of Congress)

The “Interior of the Engine House” under siege. (Library of Congress)

By Thomas Van Winkle President, Central Battlefields Trust

While the 1864 battle of Spotsylvania Court House is best known for the May 12 fighting at the “Bloody Angle,” there was more to the battle than just the Mule Shoe Salient.

Fredericksburg’s local preservation land trust, the Central Virginia Battlefields Trust, is excited to announce the acquisition of a vitally important property that will open up more of the story of the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House. This important property is Myer’s Hill.

“Myer’s Hill is one of the most important pristine sites remaining to be preserved on the Spotsylvania Court House battlefield,” says award-winning historian Gordon Rhea, whose work has focused on the 1864 Overland Campaign, including Spotsylvania Court House. “It is imperative that this key location be saved to enable future generations to walk the ground and understand the momentous events that transpired there.”

CVBT’s Acquisition of Myer’s Hill

Central Virginia Battlefields Trust now has the opportunity to preserve more than 73.3 acres of this important property.

“The story of the second week’s fighting at Spotsylvania Court House often gets overlooked in favor of the Mule Shoe Salient, but there is a tremendous amount we can learn from that second week,” explains historian Chris Mackowski, who has written extensively about the battle of Spotsylvania Court House. “The acquisition of Myer’s Hill will open up that broader story, so people can more fully understand the battle and the commanders.”

The story of Myer’s Hill features local Spotsylvania County troops, colorful Zouaves, a newly minted brigadier general, one of the most successful merchants in Spotsylvania County, and the near-capture of the Army of the Potomac’s commander, George Gordon Meade.

The May 14, 1864, fighting for Myer’s Hill pitted Union Brigadier General Emory Upton, a bold “young Turk” fresh off an innovative attack against the Mule

Shoe on May 10, against one of the most irascible, hard-fighting generals in the Confederate Army, Robert E. Lee’s “Bad Old Man,” Maj. Gen. Jubal Early.

“Federals hoped to outflank Lee on his right, so they shifted half the army for a major attack in the Myer’s Hill sector, but muddy roads worked against them,” Mackowski says. “Confederate artillery on Myer’s Hill threatened the new Union position, so Meade gave permission for his men to take it.”

First up the hill were two V Corps regiments, the 140th New York and the 91st Pennsylvania infantry, Zouave units wearing brightly colored uniforms patterned after the French Foreign Legion. They drove away Confederates from the 9th Virginia Cavalry, which consisted of horsemen raised from the local area. Independently, Upton led 800 men to take the hill but found it occupied by the Zouaves when he reached the summit. He deployed his men in a defensive position to further secure it.

“Lee still wasn’t sure what the Federals were up to by this point, so he ordered Early to retake the hill,” Mackowski says. “In the meantime, Meade rode to the hilltop to see the situation for himself. In the ensuing fight, Confederate cavalry nearly captured Meade, who only barely escaped” when the Rebels retook the hill.

Angry, Meade ordered the hill re-taken. This time, four brigades swept forward, but by that time, Lee had better determined Federal intentions and withdrew Early’s men to a more secure position. Federals retook the hill and occupied it for the remainder of the battle, which lasted through May 21.

“Spotsylvania is one of the seismic battles of the Civil War,” says legendary historian Ed Bearss, former chief historian for the National Park Service. “At Myer’s Hill Grant was checked, but he goes back and takes it. The fighting for the hill results in a crucial two-day delay for his army.”

This significant acquisition of Myer’s Hill comes with a purchase price of $450,000. We also have much work to do on the property. CVBT will need to raise $460,000 to cover the immediate costs.

Fortunately, we again have the opportunity for $1-to-$1 matching funds that will double donations. This is an increasingly rare opportunity to preserve an almost completely intact battlefield—one that history has paid little attention to nevertheless is so important to the entire story.

Myer’s Hill counts as one of CVBT’s larger preservation efforts in the twenty-two years we have been saving our history. The good news is that we have had other efforts in this price range

and we have successfully satisfied those challenges. Not long ago, for instance, we completed the $1 million pledge to help save Slaughter Pen Farm. Having accomplished a goal as lofty as that, we certainly can dig deep and make short work of this important project.

Make no mistake: this is a large challenge for a small organization such as CVBT.

Earlier this year, CVBT preserved 14.4 acres along Brock Road where the V Corps launched attacks against Laurel Hill on May 8, 1864. Coupled with this new opportunity to preserve Myer’s Hill, CVBT will have saved 87.8 acres of important hallowed ground from the battle of Spotsylvania Court House this year alone.

That will bring our total at Spotsylvania up to 132.7 acres— part of the nearly 1,300 acres CVBT has preserved on all four of the area’s major battlefields. Battlefields are “outdoor classrooms” and provide an invaluable place to study and reflect upon our past. Stay tuned for additional exciting news and information as CVBT works to preserve the Myer’s Hill.

CVBT continues to preserve the ground from which we may hear the faint echoes of battle, and the voices of those who gave so much in a defining moment of our still young country. Please visit www.cvbt.org for more info.

Escape of Genl. Meade 1864.” Inscribed below title (continued on verso): Some cavalry dashing out of the woods suddenly upon the genl. and his attendants came very near cutting off their retreat and making a capture of the party. Prominent near the genl., Col. Michler on a rough track or farm road that wound along the foot of a tree covered knoll out from which came the rebs to cut them off.

(Library of Congress)

Alfred Waud drawing titled “Narrow

Miscellany

1. What battle in Tennessee became notorious as a “massacre” of African American Union troops?

2. This Union cavalry officer led a raid toward Richmond in the winter of 1864, allegedly to capture and kill President Davis. In the failed effort he lost his life. Who?

3. What battle is featured in Michael Shaara’s novel, The Killer Angels (1974)?

4. Who famously exclaimed, “Damn the torpedoes!”?

5. On Sept. 15, 1862, Confederate troops led by Stonewall Jackson captured the Union garrison at an important U.S. arsenal town. Which one?

6. At what entertainment venue was President Lincoln when he was fatally shot?

7. What Union general led the Louisiana Red River Campaign in the spring of 1864?

8. Who, and in what battle, is noted for having remarked about war, “It is well this is so terrible! We should grow too fond of it”?

9. A physician invented a six-barreled machine gun named after him. Who?

10. Credited with holding Little Round Top for the Federals on the second day of Gettysburg is this colonel of the 20th Maine.

Answers found on page 44.

Steve Davis is the Civil War News Book Review Editor. He can be contacted by email at: SteveATL1861@yahoo.com.

Appreciating the Legacy of General James Longstreet

By Thomas H. Rasmussen

The Longstreet Society

The Longstreet Society, headquartered in the LongstreetPiedmont Hotel, Gainesville, Ga., works to promote greater understanding of the life and times of General James Longstreet, whose support for post-Civil War centrist politics of compromise is essential to our understanding of Reconstruction and relevant today. Founded in 1994, the Longstreet Society is preparing to celebrate its 25th anniversary and welcome visitors to its gardens, library, and museum to enjoy Longstreet’s success as a military leader and his advocacy of compromise and civility in politics.

Following defeat of the Confederacy in 1865, General Longstreet participated in a debate about the appropriate response to Northern victory in the War Between the States. Longstreet advocated compromise and civility in public discussion of post-war issues. He favored negotiating with Northern victors about how to implement Reconstruction as well as how to integrate newly freed black citizens into post-Civil War society.

Longstreet favored encouraging responsible black leaders and integrating black people into a new political and economic order. Longstreet argued that the best recourse was to join the Republican Party and shape it to Southern ends. “Since the Negro has been given the privilege of voting,” thought Longstreet, “it is all important that we should exercise such influence over that vote to prevent its being injurious to us, and we can only do that as

Few Georgians agreed with Longstreet’s message in 1870. However, one-hundred years

later in the 1960s, his ideas finally took hold; most white Georgians began to accept that Northerners should be welcome to invest, work, and live in the South and that more harmonious relations between white people and black people were essential.

For 100 years after the Civil War, Lost Cause writers unfairly blamed Longstreet for the South’s defeat in the righteous war against Northern aggression. Charges that Longstreet erred in advising General Robert E. Lee on military strategy and battlefield tactics filled the pages of the Southern Historical Society’s papers. Confederate generals wrote their memoirs primarily to defend their own military reputations and to assign blame for battlefield reverses to others, especially Longstreet.

General Lee never spoke in Longstreet’s defense. He was ill after the war and never wrote his memoirs before he died in 1870. Subsequently, he became a faultless hero in Southern eyes, the great leader who Longstreet, his trusted confidant and principal military adviser, betrayed. Neither was Longstreet adept at mounting his own defense. He criticized Lee unnecessarily and harshly, never fully appreciating that Lost Cause advocates canonized Lee as the invincible symbol of the Confederacy.

Longstreet’s appointments to Federal positions in the 1860s and 1870s opened him to the charge of being a scalawag, a greedy and self-serving beneficiary of Northern patronage. Longstreet’s reputation as a traitor to the Confederacy was complete when in 1874 an interracial militia in New Orleans under his command killed and injured many Confederate veterans protesting harsh Reconstruction policies.

Longstreet left New Orleans in 1875 and lived in Gainesville, Ga., for the rest of his life, presiding over the Piedmont Hotel, tending his vineyards, traveling to Northern veteran’s gatherings, and writing Manassas to Appomattox: Memoirs of the Civil War.

Today the Longstreet Society has nearly 300 members and welcomes some 1500 visitors each year, including school groups. To welcome visitors to the 25th anniversary year, the museum holdings are being expanded and presentation improved. Longstreet museum library contains an extensive collection of 19th-century newspaper articles, unpublished papers, letters to and from Longstreet, and rosters of Civil War soldiers for visitors to consult.

Longstreet Society annual seminars encourage research on Longstreet’s life and times. Recent seminars in Greenville, Tenn., and Richmond, Va., featured bus tours to important Civil War sites and presentations by important historians. New gardens now surround the hotel, featuring heritage camellias, gardenias, tea olives, other shrubs, and perennials, plants sold in the 1870s catalogs of the Beckman’s Nursery in August, Ga., with which James Longstreet would have been familiar since it was located adjacent to his uncle’s plantation—now the 13th hole of the Masters’ Golf Tournament.

On October 27, one hundred visitors enjoyed a festive celebration of General James Longstreet. The day featured conversations between General Longstreet and his friend Ulysses S. Grant (a.k.a. Dr. Curtis Fields), guided tours of the museum and gardens, musicians in costume playing Civil War era songs, and a Sons of Confederate Veterans encampment on the grounds.

To arrange tours of the museum and surrounding 1875 heritage gardens, visit longstreetsociety.org or call 770 539 9005. Longstreet-Piedmont Hotel at 827 Maple St., Gainesville, Ga., is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday.

I appreciate all the positive responses from last month’s column and have been asked for more examples of fake items in market.

There are expert dealers/collectors who know the difference between fraudulent objects and the real thing who will not speak up when items are brought to them or they see them in collections or displays. Many experts do not want to “rock the boat” as they constantly work with the same dealers and collectors; they just stay away from the “suspect” material. If a collector believes he has something real, no need to tell him different; if he is told it’s not real, he may quit collecting, and if it fooled him, it will fool someone else and if not, his estate can figure it out. That is the attitude I constantly hear.

The Franklin Battlefield Trust appreciates my frankness and saving them $90,000 this weekend over a potential purchase.

The FBT had pledged to spend $90,000 in late October to purchase Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood’s battle hat, with its attached silver star emblazoned “TEXAS,” with other material. The organization’s director and CEO recently called me for a consultation about authenticity since my December article on authentication was recently published. What a coup it would’ve been to have John Bell Hood’s battle hat back in Franklin; the battle that ended the war in the west and, not just for Hood but essentially for the entire Army of Tennessee.

The hat offered was a total fake with fraudulent provenance and it is quite doubtful that anything about the offer is even remotely associated with Hood. The Trust was offered other fraudulent objects from same collection that included a presentation sword to John Bell Hood from Napoleon III. To the untrained eye the presentation looks quite good but from a historical standpoint, Napoleon III was never king of France as it is presented. Such an historical error makes this presentation sword easier to identify as a fraud. It is amazing that one man turned up such large

http://www.ntxe-news.com/ cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=53&num=84875&printer=1

Mike@MKShows.com

• www.MKShows.com

groupings belonging to so many famous people; it’s only amazing if you believe he did.

All the groupings that I am aware of had at least one very fanciful presentation sword. The presentations are hand engraved, and quite excellent. Even experts can study the actual engraving and have a mix of opinions as the styles match those of the 19th century. The main problem with these items is their lacking provenance. I have read associated provenances and histories that were fabricated to go with these different collections. None could be substantiated in any way or were proved to be just made up such as with the Hood group. Several of these groupings have sold for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and one group for over $1 million. Caveat Emptor.

It amazes me that so many purported rare inscribed swords, firearms, uniforms, and other material ascribed to famous or historical people show up in a variety of institutions for short-term display with no prior provenance or collection history. Having items on temporary loan at unsuspecting institutions, where items are not vetted helps establish a short line of provenance. “This was displayed in a museum, it has to be real,” or “this item is pictured in a book, it has to be real.” Well this is not the case, there have been many fraudulent items sold where the buyers were “set up” by such scenarios. Unsuspecting authors or museum staff who might know little of an artifact’s originality allow photographs of purported historic objects to be associated with their texts; they do look good in the book, but when the objects are not real, they now have a semblance of originality.

For more information:

https://civilwartalk.com/ threads/general-john-bell-hoodswartime-hat-on-display.102655/

https://brentwoodhomepage. com/battle-of-franklin-trust-willacquire-hat-saddle-crutches-andother-john-bell-hood-artifacts/

https://www.fwweekly.com/2009/12/16/ major-collection/

"Through Jack’s superb photography; the collector and professional can now view an extensive exposure to sectioned projectiles. This is new for the average person in that for the first time since radiography; one can examine the internal makeup of a shell."

CWO4 John D. Bartleson

Inthisexample,riflebulletswereutilizedasthecaseshotmaterialincluding3-ring.58caliberbullets,3-ring.69caliberbul lets,andU.S.ring-tailSharpsbullets.Ithas brassBormannsupportplug(underplug)that countersunkonbothsidesof

flame’scommunicationchannel.Theblackpowderburstingchargewaspouredinloosearoundthebullets.Thismethoddid notworkverywellandoftenonlysucceededinblowingthefusesout.Projectilesfilledwithbulletsusedascaseshotarerare. Thisspecimenwasrecovered,alongwithotherConfederateandUnionprojectiles,fromthepost-CivilWardumpsitelocated neartheConfederatePowderWorksinAugusta,Georgia.

Caveat Emptor

Rather than share a few words to open this month’s Emerging Civil War newsletter, I want to share with you a few words from my colleagues as a way to commemorate Thanksgiving. I asked each of them to tell me, in a couple sentences, about something Civil War-related in their own lives that they were thankful for this year.

“Given that the very idea of a national day of Thanksgiving has its roots in the Civil War, this is appropriate,” Dave Powell replied.

It goes without saying that we here at Emerging Civil War are especially thankful for YOU, Faithful Readers, for all the support you give us online, at our talks, buying our books, attending our Symposium, listening to our podcast, and on and on. We’re also grateful that you continue to share your passion for the Civil War, America’s defining event.

As we sit down this year to remember the things we’re thankful for, please know that we

are grateful for you and for all you do.

— Chris Mackowski Editor-in-Chief

Edward Alexander: I’m thankful for organizations and individuals that have embraced digitization as a way to collaboratively expand our understanding of the war.

Todd Arrington: I’m thankful that my family moved to Gettysburg, Penn., when I was ten years old. Living there got me interested in the Civil War and history in general, which led to me to study history in college and have a wonderful career as a historian. I can’t imagine doing anything else!

Paige Gibbons Backus: I’m thankful for the opportunity that I had to work at Ben Lomond Historic Site and be able to write my first booklet and really get involved in the Civil War and the Emerging Civil War community through that site. I’m getting transferred this winter to Brentsville and, while Ben Lomond will always have a special place in my heart, I’m excited for the opportunity to delve into the history, both Civil War and non-war history, there.

Sarah Bierle: I’m thankful for Google Maps! Nothing can replace walking a battlefield, but sometimes this resource is a lifesaver for topography, mapmaking, or just getting a reminder since, living on the West Coast, I can’t drive over to the battlefields every weekend.

New Civil War Artillery Book

Civil War News publisher, Jack W. Melton Jr., will be setup and autographing his new 392 page, full-color book, Civil War Artillery Projectiles – The Half Shell Book.

For more information and how to order visit the website www.ArtillerymanMagazine.com or call 800-777-1862.

$89.95 + $8 media mail for the standard edition shown here. The limited edition deluxe edition is $125 + $8 media mail.

James Brookes: I’m grateful for my current research fellowship with the Smithsonian. On a recent Saturday morning, I was able to watch the sunrise from Benner’s Hill on a snow-covered Gettysburg battlefield with old and new friends, before paying tribute to, and following in the footsteps of, the soldiers who fought there. Without the fellowship, this would not have been at all possible. I’m looking forward to many similar opportunities as my time in the States continues. [James is from England.]

Sean Chick: I am thankful for being given the chance to write about Shiloh.

Doug Crenshaw: I have always had a strong interest in writing about the war, and would like to thank a few people who have encouraged and assisted me along the way. Bert Dunkerly has really been incredibly helpful and has introduced me to a lot of people and opportunities. Bobby Krick opened his library to me repeatedly, read my work, and offered constructive criticism. His library at the Richmond National Battlefield Park is amazing! I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Ashley Luskey, who suggested my first book topic on Fort Harrison. Finally, Chris Mackowski, who enthusiastically welcomed me into the ECW fold. I’ve learned a great deal about writing from Chris

Caroline Davis: What I am most thankful for was my ability to find my passion again. It didn’t hit me till I was standing in the middle of the Spotsylvania Battlefield while in the area for the symposium this past summer. Part of my issue last year and some of this year was that I had forgotten what it was all about— what history is all about. I realized for me it’s more than the battle, the regiments, and even the stories; it’s about finding that one

thing that is all yours. For me, I have always been “the history girl.” Family and friends would have a question about history, and my phone would start ringing. They did this not because I would know the answer (though normally I did) but because they knew I loved it. A friend of mine who passed away had a favorite quote: “Sometimes to change the world, all one needs to do is find a small piece of it and love it deeply.” I had forgotten how deep my love for history was. So while my answer is not 100% Civil War-related, I am thankful for the people in my life who remembered for me, who pushed me to find my passion again, and who kept me going when I had forgotten. I’m thankful that I found the small piece of the world again and have renewed my love for it. History is my small piece of the world that I get to love and nurture, and for that I am extremely thankful. I know that’s more than “a couple sentences,” but what can I say—I learned from McPherson, and have you seen Battle Cry Of Freedom? ;-)

Dan Davis: I am thankful for the efforts of the American Battlefield Trust, other smaller organizations, and their members for preserving not only our Civil War battlefields but battlefields and sites across the United States that make up the fabric of our shared American experience.

Steve Davis: I’m thankful that this past winter Mercer University Press agreed to publish my next book, Flawed Image: Confederate General John Bell Hood in 1864. It’s, as of now, scheduled to appear in December 2019.

Bert Dunkerly: Thankful for support and camaraderie from a great group like the ECW historians. For finally getting my own set of the OR (Yes, all 128 volumes), and for having the shelves to put them on. For being able to buy a house in a historic district where I can reflect on the Revolutionary and Civil War actions that literally took place out my front door. For the ability to travel and visit historic sites (visited battlefield #500 this summer). For family and friends who support me and my obsessive interests.

social and personal levels of the conflict. In a small way, it keeps the bond with my father, whom I walked many a field with.

Meg Groeling: I am very thankful that First Fallen: The Life and Times of Elmer Ellsworth is finally queued up to become a real book. The process has been long, but everything gets better with each suggestion and rewrite. It may be another year or more, but Ellsworth will be remembered! [First Fallen will be forthcoming in ECW’s Engaging the Civil War Series with Southern Illinois University Press.]

Steward Henderson: As the Thanksgiving holiday season approaches, I am thankful for the American Battlefield Trust. I was happy to appear on the American Battlefield Trust’s Facebook LIVE from Chancellorsville with my friends from Emerging Civil War, Kris White, Chris Mackowski, Dan Davis, Ed Alexander, and Ryan Quint. Later in the year, I recorded the voiceover for the Battle of New Market Heights on the Richmond Battle App, quoting Sergeant Major Christian Fleetwood of the 4th USCT. Ironically, I carried the 4th USCT flag in the 150th anniversary reenactment of the Battle of New Market Heights.

I am especially thankful for the 20th Anniversary celebration of the African American Civil War Memorial and Museum and the announcement of its expansion!

Dwight Hughes: I’m thankful for all our Civil War ancestors who were such avid and literate chroniclers of that fascinating era. We are blessed with an embarrassment of riches in journals, letters, newspapers, memoirs, articles, reports, etc. from Commander-in-Chief to lowliest soldier and citizen. Our challenge is to empower their voices to tell their story, distilling vivid accounts into insightful narrative history. It can be almost overwhelming at times but so fulfilling for writers and readers.

Civil War Artillery Projectiles –The Half Shell Book cover.

Phill Greenwalt: I was thankful this year to find Civil War history in Florida and start digging into the state’s connection with the war. I’m also thankful to continue to find new ways to explore my passion of American history and make connections to the present day through the

Frank Jastrzembski: I’m grateful for stumbling across William Styple’s fascinating book Generals in Bronze. Artist James E. Kelly sketched and interviewed dozens of Civil War generals years after the war. It was even more enjoyable listening to the audiobook because it felt like I was actually listening to the generals speak during the Kelly interviews.

Chris Kolakowski: I’m thankful for the ever-growing audience at the symposium. It shows

there’s an enduring hunger for and interest in the kinds of perspectives we are presenting. I look forward to next year!

Derek Maxfield: I am thankful for the opportunity to research and write a book on the Elmira Civil War POW camp, to be published by Savas Beatie as part of the Emerging Civil War Series. It is a quite personal project as Elmira is close to where I grew up. Also knowing that I had a great grandfather who served in the Veterans Reserve Corps and was stationed at Elmira brings the war closer to home. The book realizes a life-long dream.

Kelly Mezurek: I am thankful for the opportunity to work with such a diverse group of people who are committed to Civil War scholarship. My first graduate course at Kent State University, taught by Dr. Frank L. Bryne, was on the American Civil War. There I met two incredible mentors, Dr. John T. Hubbell and Dr. Leonne M. Hudson. Through them I was introduced to former graduate students who I have had the pleasure of working with, including Kent alumnus Michael P. Gray. His edited volume, Crossing the Deadlines: Civil War Prisons Reconsidered, is now available from The Kent State University Press. It was my great fortune that Dr. Gray asked me to contribute the chapter, “‘De Bottom Rails on Top Now’: Black Union Guards and Confederate Prisoners of War.” The ECW team invited me last year to share some of my research on the United States Colored Troops and Union prisons at the 2017 Emerging Civil War Symposium, connecting me to another group of talented Civil War researchers and enthusiasts. Words cannot express adequately my appreciation for the tutelage and support I have received from all of these wonderful people.

Julie Mujic: I’m thankful that

in a year of immense change for me professionally, my Civil War history colleagues were a source of constant support and inspiration. It’s a community that gives me roots.

Rob Orrison: I am thankful for my job every day and that I never have a truly bad day at work.

Kevin Pawlak: I’m thankful that the Union Army performs better than the Buffalo Bills! Oh wait, I’m getting my passions mixed up. Oops. Anyway, this year I’m thankful for being surrounded by a great group of friends and fellow historians with whom I can freely discuss the Civil War and all of its fascinating elements. It’s great to be surrounded by people who have as much of an interest as I do!

Kristen Pawlak: I am thankful for how the Civil War continues to humble me. The sacrifice, bloodshed, heroism, and selfless devotion to their cause, country, and fellow soldiers are something I take inspiration from. As a historian, I can read their words, see the sights they saw, look at their faces in photographs, study their experiences, and understand their times. Anytime I feel down or am in need of inspiration, I look to them.

Dave Powell: More than anything, I am thankful for all the people—Park Service employees; historians, both academic and amateur; reenactors; and aficionados—who have taught me so much about this history. If I have learned anything, it is that everyone has a piece of the story to share, and they are all so willing to share it.

Ryan Quint: I’m thankful for the historians who are working to study and write about the smaller details of the Civil War. The conflict was not only fought at big places like Fredericksburg

and Gettysburg, and the research coming out about the war’s peripheries is a goldmine for the next generation of historians.

Dan Welch: I am thankful for all of the Civil War-related sites I was able to travel to this year. I was able to spend time at the Wilderness, Fort Monroe, Williamsburg, Bristoe Station, Gettysburg, Gettysburg campaign sites, Antietam, Glendale, and many more. I am also thankful that many of these trips were with friends and colleagues, making each trip an incredibly rewarding experience.

Lee White: I have a couple of things to be thankful for this year. First, the continued expansion of historic records being made available on the internet; second, the publication of the Index of the National Tribune by Savas Beatie—one of the most important contributions for historians in recent years.

Eric Wittenberg: This year, I am grateful for everyone who has donated their precious time and/or money to the cause of battlefield preservation, because saving hallowed ground for generations yet to come is one of our most critical tasks.

Emerging Civil War Bookshelf

On Thanksgiving Day, 1863, the Army of the Potomac rumbled out of its camps to cross the Rapidan River in a surprise attempt to get into the rear of the Army of Northern Virginia. The resulting encounter along Mine Run proved anti-climactic from a military point of view. “The campaign of Mine Run was celebrated for the fighting which did not take place, and for its failures,” one soldier said. However, the campaign had far-reaching implications for both armies and especially for Union commander George Gordon Meade.

Chris Mackowski’s new Emerging Civil War Series book, The Great Battle Never Fought: The Mine Run Campaign, Dec. 26-Nov. 2, published by Savas Beatie, recounts the story of the campaign that history forgot. Said another Union private, “The charge was not made, the battle was not fought, and Mine Run, as a great battle, has no place in history.”

Emerging Revolutionary War News

In early November a few of the historians from Emerging

Revolutionary War ventured into the Carolinas to visit the sites of important engagements during the Southern Campaigns of the American Revolution. Meeting with local historians and VIPs, the trip was a great success and helped pave the way for future volumes of the Emerging Revolutionary War Series. We also did a series of Facebook LIVE broadcasts, which you can watch on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook. com/pg/emergingrevwar/ videos/?ref=page_internal.

Stay up-to-date by perusing the blog at www.emergingrevolutionarywar.org.

Emerging Civil War Podcast

For November, the Emerging Civil War Podcast focused on Gettysburg. In the month’s first podcast, Chris Mackowski spoke with Sarah Bierle about the civilian experience before, during, and after the battle. In the second podcast, Chris, Kris White, and Dan Davis talked about some of the most iconic landscapes of the Civil War: the Roundtops, Devil’s Den, the Wheatfield, the Peach Orchard, and the rest of the July 2 battlefield.

Subscribe to the Emerging Civil War Podcast here: https://www. patreon.com/emergingcivilwar.

From left to right, Phill Greenwalt, Rob Orrison, Mark Maloy, and Mark Wilcox.

Civil War News book reviews provide our readers with timely analysis of the latest and most significant Civil War research and scholarship. Contact Stephen Davis, Civil War News Book Review Editor. Email: BookReviews@CivilWarNews.com.

Not Just Another Lincoln Assassination Book

Lincoln’s Final Hours: Conspiracy, Terror, and the Assassination of America’s Greatest President. By Kathryn Canavan. Photos, notes, index, bibliography, 248 pp., 2018. University Press of Kentucky, www.kentuckypress.com. $19.95 paperback.

Reviewed by Joseph Truglio

Ideas of Citizenship Change in the Crucible of the Civil War

The Loyal Republic: Traitors, Slaves, and the Remaking of Citizenship in Civil War America. By Erik Mathisen. Images, notes, bibliography, index, 240 pp., 2018. University of North Carolina Press, www. uncpress.org. $34.95 cloth.

Reviewed by Tim Talbott

In a relatively short volume the author presents a unique take on various events leading up to the calamity, the event itself and the aftermath. The story unfolds in 25 chapters, each covering a particular aspect. An epilogue presents short biographies of major participants. At only 183 pages of text we get a broad overview rather than a typical micro-managed presentation. An ample bibliography gives readers good sources for further research.

I found this to be a unique effort in the plethora of Lincoln books. It seemed to me to be targeting an audience of novice students. It is simple in style and the information is not cluttered with detail. I must admit I did garner several nuggets of information, particularly about the Peterson family. It does have appeal to the more seasoned student.

to secede, there were pockets where loyalty to the United States remained strong, and it was home to individuals who were unwilling to claim allegiance to the newly formed Confederacy. This situation presented intriguing issues. Among those that did side with secession, the author examines the murky world of whether one’s greater loyalty was to the state of Mississippi or to the emerging Confederate nation. On the surface this may seem one and the same, but various issues arose that hardened those lines and often made for difficult situations for many.

the war were later received in their home communities during Reconstruction.

Lincoln’s assassination is perhaps the most studied and written-about aspect of his life. One wonders what new information can be uncovered in yet another book.

Overall, I found this to be a worthy effort—easy to read and full of information. I highly recommend that you get a copy for a young student and put him or her on the path to discovering a defining moment in American history.

Who qualifies as a citizen? How is citizenship determined? Can one lose citizenship? If so, how does one get it back? How closely related are the ideas of loyalty and citizenship? The answers to these questions continue to evolve in American politics and society. However, few if any periods in American history had a greater impact on who is considered a citizen and what that means than the Civil War and Reconstruction eras.

Legally recognized citizenship has presented obstacles to traditionally marginalized individuals over the years. For example, at one period in American history only white property-owning males had citizenship status. And even then, elements of citizenship remained fuzzy as far as state-versus-nation loyalty and sovereignty. Obviously, citizenship has come to include many different groups of people in the years since the Civil War. However, much of that change had its foundation in the crucible of the conflict.

In The Loyal Republic: Traitors, Slaves, and the Remaking of Citizenship in Civil War America, Erik Mathisen uses the Mississippi Valley as his geographical area of focus. That region is an excellent choice due to all of the change it experienced during the Civil War and Reconstruction. Although Mississippi was the second state

Mathisen explains that this era brought previously unavailable opportunities for African Americans to demonstrate their loyalty to the United States. By fleeing their owners and entering Union lines, either to provide labor or enlist as soldiers when finally allowed to do so, they opened new doors toward citizenship. Blacks would ultimately use their loyalty during the Civil War as a leverage point in Reconstruction’s initial years. The formerly enslaved, especially those who had fought in USCT regiments, demanded recognition as citizens as reward for their service and sacrifice. Those demands were realized in the form of Constitutional amendments (14th & 15th), which in turn bred resentment among former Confederates.

One area that Mathisen could have probed further is the idea of fluid allegiances and what those meant in terms of one’s citizenship. It would make for fascinating analysis to examine those areas of the Mississippi Valley that were initially under state and Confederate control but fell to Union occupation, and how residents’ loyalty followed prevailing authority. It would have been equally intriguing to examine how those who exercised a fluid allegiance during

The Loyal Republic is a well-researched, thought-provoking, and timely work that makes one reexamine preconceptions of loyalty and citizenship and how we came to our current understanding of those terms. With Americans presently debating hot issues like immigration reform, entitlement rights, voter regulation and other citizenship-related concerns, it is important to understand the history of citizenship and how it has evolved over time. Joining other important works such as Steven Hahn’s A Nation Under Our Feet: Black Political Struggles from Slavery to the Great Migration (2003) and Paul Quigley’s Shifting Grounds: Nationalism and the American South, 1848–1865 (2011), The Loyal Republic is a significant addition to the growing list of scholarship on this topic.

Tim Talbott is the Director of Education, Interpretation, Visitor Services, and Collections at Pamplin Historical Park and the National Museum of the Civil War Soldier in Petersburg, Va. He is currently researching the various combination of elements that led to emancipation.

Joseph Truglio, of Manchester, N.J., is president of the Phil Kearny Civil War Round Table.

Reconstruction: A Concise History. By Allen C. Guelzo. Photos, notes, index, 180 pp., 2018. Oxford University Press, www. oup.com/us. $18.95 hardcover.

Reviewed

by

William Harris Bragg

Leftward from Appomattox

applaud Congressional Reconstruction, celebrate Radicals of all sorts, display conspicuous hostility toward the conquered white South, and ensconce the freed slaves at the valorized center of their accounts. Unlike the Dunning school’s first three decades---which saw other interpretations published, as well as spirited attacks from various historians—the Foner school has received practically unanimous peer approval and has been imitated repeatedly.

displaying her “gendered disdain” for the free-labor North.

For quite some time a brief, balanced history of Reconstruction has been needed—a short, judicious monograph that synthesizes previous scholarship to the satisfaction of objective historians, but also remains accessible to the educated general public. Although this is not that book, it will probably enjoy respectable sales—for it is indeed concise, as well as inexpensive and handsomely packaged. But, alas, this title will also no doubt be widely adopted as a college text, since it features scholarly trappings and (most important for university assignment) exceptionally correct political ideology.

Guelzo’s book appears three decades after the publication of Eric Foner’s revisionist classic, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution (1988). Like most revisionist Reconstruction historians since the late 1980s, Guelzo belongs to what may now be termed the Foner school of Reconstruction historiography— university scholars who have followed Foner’s lead in attempting to obliterate the Dunning school histories of the early 20th century.

There is a pleasing symmetry to the idea of Dunning and Foner schools—both take their names from eminent Columbia University professors linked with Reconstruction history. And the Foner school (building on previous revisionist works) has now enjoyed a three-decade ascendancy. This period is comparable to the inaugural thirty-year span between William A. Dunning’s first major Reconstruction title in 1897 and 1927, by which year all of the Dunning scholars’ Southern State Studies had been published.

In opposing the Dunningites, Guelzo and the other Fonerites

Nonetheless, as a 30th anniversary recapitulation of Foner school Reconstruction orthodoxy, Guelzo’s book seems malapropos, even beyond the lèse-majesté of competing directly with Foner’s 2015 abridgement of his school’s 1988 urtext. That opus, whatever else might be said of it, rested on monumental print and manuscript research at widespread repositories. In comparison, Guelzo uses only readily available printed primary sources and secondary works and makes no pretense of doing more. Such an approach works best when the author steeps himself in an abundance of such sources and displays his mastery of them.

But there is often something of a dilettante’s view to Guelzo’s survey, a suggestion of sources glanced at hastily and sometimes read and quoted carelessly. And, despite its brevity, the book is neither tightly focused nor closely edited.

Mistakes are frequent. For examples, in a sampling of erroneous references to Georgia alone, Guelzo has the Empire State reconstructed twice rather than its record three times and makes its scalawag Republican governor a carpetbagger (or, to use Guelzo’s euphemism, a “missionary of free labor”). One of the book’s many images of white-on-black atrocities (five appear on the dust jacket alone) comes from an 1872 memoir of abolitionist-turned-planter

Charles Stearns: a crude sketch of election-day skullduggery in Columbia County, where it happened (and showing accurately the county seat structures of the time) is wrongly ascribed to Taylor County, some 130 miles distant. Additionally, readers are told that in Mitchell County “five cases of Henry rifles were used by local Democrats to attack a Republican rally in Camilla, killing nine”—a gross mischaracterization of the incident, as well as a misreading of the source. But at least this source can be located through its endnote, unlike an 1867 letter written by novelist and Georgia native Augusta Jane Evans, quoted for

Although his works principally proclaim Guelzo to be a diligent miner of the Lincoln Lode, he nonetheless cannot be charged with unfamiliarity with the period’s major sources; this book actually marks the third time Guelzo has published a brief history of Reconstruction. His earlier surveys appeared in two differently titled but textually similar 1995 and 2012 accounts of the Civil War and its aftermath. In both books the war receives the lion’s share of coverage, but the briefer Reconstruction sections are suitably Fonerite. For the new book, the two earlier narratives have been recast, although all three surveys feature one favored metaphor: the transformation of Revisionist arch-villain Andrew Johnson from the “Moses” of the freed people into their “Pharaoh.”

In the freshest interpretation of his latest book, Guelzo imagines Reconstruction as a “bourgeois revolution,” a tentative and poorly developed concept that nonetheless imports into the book both class analysis and the vital word “revolution.” This coinage also allows the author to share his image of what the South’s post-Civil War period should have been: “a Unionapproved narrative of triumphant embourgeoisment.”

Obviously, Guelzo concurs with Foner’s assertion that “Even more than most historical endeavors, writing the history of Reconstruction has always been a political task as well as a scholarly one.” In fact, so conspicuously does Guelzo belong to the left-leaning Foner school that many of David Donald’s comments regarding Foner’s 1988 book serve just as well for Guelzo’s 2018 offering. Both books “overidealize the black community” and are “so lacking in sympathy for all Southern whites that their problems receive none of the thoughtful analysis and sympathetic understanding . . . [given] to issues that confronted blacks. Readers . . . will not understand that most ex-Confederates were not involved in the lynchings, terrorism, and Ku Klux Klan vigilantism . . . to which [the author] devotes so much attention. Instead, they lived hardscrabble lives, attempting to restore a region devastated by war.”

Nonetheless, Guelzo occasionally declares his independence from Foner—he returns the beginning date of Reconstruction to 1865 from Foner’s 1863, and his narrative organization is more strictly chronological than Foner’s.

But two chronological disruptions occur. First, legal and

constitutional issues receive their own chapter late in the book, rather than being effectively integrated within the text, as in Guelzo’s two earlier looks at Reconstruction. Second, the author unaccountably delays description of the South’s chaotic, devastated postbellum condition until his third chapter, covering March 1867-May 1868, and thereby delays giving context for white Southerners’ thoughts and actions during the two years after Appomattox. Moreover, where the conquered white South is concerned, Guelzo seems even more ruthless than others of the Foner school. To bring the South into acceptability, he toys with such ideas as implanting “a New England-style high type of culture” in the region, and of assuring Union loyalty by importing workers and voters from the North. But, in particular, Guelzo wishes on the region’s population a more stringent and prolonged period of military rule. Had the former Confederacy been kept longer under heavy heel, he argues, Reconstruction would not have been “overthrown, subverted, and betrayed.”

Guelzo further contends that the victorious North’s unwise leniency toward the fallen Confederacy was repeated disastrously in later centuries, when the United States failed

to impose “lengthy and expensive occupations” on Germany after the Great War and on Iraq after the two Gulf Wars. With this comparison, Guelzo highlights his opinion of the defeated South’s wickedness. In the three decades between Foner’s and Guelzo’s books on Reconstruction, little has changed in the ruling academic left’s view of America’s postbellum period. And there seems little reason to hope for a detached and responsible account of Reconstruction to emerge in the next thirty years— particularly since Guelzo’s presentist, fully politicized study has now been issued by the world’s largest university press.

William Harris Bragg, of Gray, Georgia, wrote the Introduction to a new (2017) edition of Reconstruction in Georgia by C. Mildred Thompson (one of Dunning’s students). His publications center on the U.S. Middle Period. Among them, De Renne (1999), traces a Savannah planter family through the Civil War and Reconstruction. “The Junius of Georgia Redemption: The ‘Nemesis’ Letters of Thomas M. Norwood” (Georgia Historical Quarterly, Spring 1993) deals with the 1871 collapse of Radical rule in Georgia.

Grant and Twain: The Story of a Friendship that Changed America (conclusion)

Book Review Editor’s note: in our last month’s column, General Grant had been enticed by the Century Company of New York to publish his memoirs. Mark Twain then asked the general for his own company to publish the book. Meanwhile, Grant’s throat cancer was worsening, even as he worked hours on end, every day writing his recollections. We pick up the story here, in the fall of 1884, based upon Mark Perry’s

Grant and Twain: The Story of a Friendship that Changed America (New York, 2005).

Twain finally finished Huckleberry Finn in 1883, after nine years of off-and-on again writing. Disappointed with the American Publishing Company of Hartford, Twain decided to have Charley Webster publish his new book. Twain gave Webster his manuscript, “with strict instructions,” as Perry writes, “that the book could be issued only after a large number of copies had actually been sold.” Thus Twain was talking with Grant about the general’s memoirs when he was working hard to get his own book published.

After Twain left Grant’s New York City home on Nov. 20, Grant discussed the offer with Fred, Julia and Adam Badeau. He then wrote to a friend, George Childs, asking him to come to New York and assess the competing book offers. Childs soon decided that Twain had extended the better deal.

“His condition now stable,” Perry explains, Grant was again able to write. He was at this point, in early Dec. 1884, about

to finish drafting the first part of his memoirs.

Finally, after Twain offered a 20 percent royalty on book sales (well above Century’s ten percent offer), Grant declared, “Give the book to Twain.” Clemens enthusiastically predicted that the general’s royalties could eventually amount to $420,000. To give Grant and his family some money in the meantime, Twain set aside $10,000 as an advance—“a highly unusual practice at the time,” Perry notes.

The Century Company’s leaders accepted Grant’s decision without rancor, understanding that in the publishing business, as in every business, it was all about the money.

Throughout late 1884, Grant tried to keep the actual state of his health from the press, even from his friends. When Cump Sherman paid a call to Grant’s home just before Christmas, he was more dismayed by signs of Grant’s financial distress than by evidence of his illness. In January ’85, Grant’s health showed slight improvement. “He now rose early each morning,” according to Perry, “wrapped himself in his shawl, and focused on writing his memoirs.” Dr. Douglas came to conclude that the general had resolved to tough it out—determined to finish writing his book before he died.

Still, by the end of February 1885, the general had not signed a contract with the Webster Company. On Feb. 26, as he relates in Mark Twain’s Notebook, Twain visited the Grant home; “I was astonished to see how thin and weak he was.” In Mark Perry’s words, “Twain was disturbed by Grant’s wan appearance. The general looked exhausted and spoke with difficulty and barely above a whisper.” At the end of his visit, Twain was taken aside by Fred, the general’s son, who said that doctors believed that Grant had only a few weeks to live; “Twain was shocked.” Yet Fred assured him that his father was working hard daily. By this time, the first planned volume of the memoirs was complete (taking Grant’s story from childhood through the Mexican War to Vicksburg), and the second was underway.

Twain, writes Perry, was such a “Grant-intoxicated man” that he had no doubt of his friend’s ability to finish the project. “Over the next months, as Grant faded, recovered, nearly slipped away, and then finally rallied, Twain never lost faith that his friend would win his last battle.” Grant’s determination stemmed in good measure from the awareness that he was writing a book whose sales would provide financially

for Julia and his family. In the process he felt strengthened, even envisioning the final appearance of the published memoirs: two volumes, each of about 450 printed pages. (In the set that I own, published in 1885 and 1886, Volume One has 584 pages; Two, with an index, is 647 pages long.)

Clemens aided Grant’s work in several ways. He instructed the Webster Company to finalize its contract and have it delivered to the Grant residence on 66th Street, where Grant finally signed it on February 27. Twain also supported the general’s decision to hire a stenographer, Noble Dawson, to take down Grant’s dictation and read it back to him. At the same time, Twain was planning the marketing campaign for the memoirs. He was short of cash, so he took out a loan of $200,000 to cover the printing of Grant’s book. He also increased his subscription canvassers’ commissions to incentivize their activity. Eventually these sales agents, traveling door to door selling the book, would include a large number of Union veterans, who saw the work as one of homage to a great Northern war leader.

“Twain was everywhere at once,” as Perry puts it, “insisting that he oversee every part of the operation, from reading the galleys to ordering the paper to ensuring that the book was properly printed, marketed, advertised, and sold.”

But there was a very big issue

that Sam Clemens could not manage: his friend’s health. In early January 1885, New York papers began reporting that Grant was ill, though they did not know the specifics. So many people in the city were now aware of the general’s malady that the Times came out with an electrifying headline on its front page on March 1: “GRANT IS DYING.” Within a day, reporters bunched outside the Grant home, craning to peer into windows. Some irreverently termed their vigil a “death watch.” Reporters from across the country soon arrived. Then there were the casual onlookers and curiosity seekers. Soon the N.Y.P.D. had to post constables outside the house to contain the crowd.

Actually, however, Grant’s doctors believed that the general’s writing not only diverted his attention from pain but was, as Dr. Douglas told Julia, possibly enabling him to live longer. Julia disagreed, arguing that the work was weakening her husband and should be suspended. Grant settled the issue by telling everyone that he wanted to continue working.

Former comrades made appointments to come by and pay respects; Grant entertained them as his health and work schedule allowed. Even the sons of Robert E. Lee and Albert Sidney Johnston visited. Grant proved genuinely happy when he received a visit from John Logan, a Union division commander at Vicksburg;

Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in uniform. Part of the Brady-Handy Collection, Library of Congress.

Samuel Clemens, also known as Mark Twain. Photograph published in 1906. Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1864-1952, photographer. (Library of Congress)

Grant read him the section of his book on the campaign.

Things improved financially for the Grants as well. Grant had resigned from the army to run for president in 1868. His friends lobbied Congress to reinstate him at that rank. When both houses voted to do so on March 4, 1885, the lieutenant general began earning an annual salary of $13,500. Julia was also assured an annual $5,000 retirement. The reinstatement was an immense relief to Grant, who had been ruined by the collapse of Grant and Ward. He turned anew to his daily dictation with Dawson. “Grant’s room, facing the street, was beginning to resemble a good-size Civil War library,” Perry observes.

The general’s desk was piled high with notes, orders, memos, maps, and books—as well as the list Grant made each late afternoon of which parts of the book should be completed the next morning. Grant sat in a large chair near the desk in his by now regular attire of bulging shirt, scarf, and knitted cap. Nearby was Dawson, writing what the general dictated, often waiting in pauses while Grant either rested his throat, retrieved a map, memo, or paper, or called to Badeau or Fred to clear up some point, add a date, check a spelling, or offer advice on a certain topographical feature. Dawson would often help Grant by reading back what he had dictated, and Grant would correct and shape his words depending on what he heard. Often he would think for long moments, trying to remember a particular

event, a face, or just how a battle had proceeded. At the end of each day he collected what Dawson had written and edited it before reading to Julia. Only then would the stack of paper be given to Badeau and Fred for their suggestions.

The stenographer proved a key to the general’s productivity. Dawson noticed that Grant dictated flowingly and without effort. He spoke so cogently that the written product rarely had to be changed. By late March Grant had put the finishing touches on his Vicksburg article for “Battles and Leaders.” When Grant finished his fourth article for Century, covering the Wilderness Campaign, he was able to fold all four narratives into this memoir. (The general would not see his work in print; “Shiloh” appeared as “Battles and Leaders” in the magazine’s Sept. 1885 issue, “Chattanooga” in Oct. 1885, and “Wilderness” in Sept. 1886).

A series of violent coughing spells on March 31 caused many to believe that Grant would not live long, but his condition improved and he returned to work on April 12. From notes he continued to dictate; on good days Dawson took down enough text to fill two dozen printed pages. Fred and Adam edited the text each evening, putting events in chronological order if the general had reminisced randomly. Twain held back, reserving for himself an editing purely for grammar. Yet he was quite pleased with what he was seeing. At one point he enthusiastically compared

Grant’s narrative to Julius Caesar’s famous commentaries.

“I was able to say in all sincerity that the same high merits distinguished both books,” he wrote in his autobiography: “clarity of statement, directness, simplicity, unpretentiousness, manifest truthfulness, fairness and justice toward friend and foe alike, soldierly candor and frankness, and soldierly avoidance of flowery speech.”

But the clock was ticking. Grant celebrated his sixty-third birthday on April 27, 1885, by working as he did every day. By now he was covering events from the Wilderness to Appomattox. Twain quietly concluded that if the general were to die now, Fred could finish the narrative.

In the middle of May, “Grant’s neck was now swollen,” Perry writes, “and he could barely speak. The cancer had spread into the back of his throat and into his jaw. It was literally eating him alive.” But the pain had an upside: it was keeping Grant up at night. Sitting in his chair, fitfully dozing, he would write while the household slept, though his penmanship was now weak and wavering.

On June 8, Grant told Twain that he had finished the second volume, at least in rough draft. Clemens quickly arranged for his printing presses to swing into action, applying all the money he had into the effort to get the general’s book out.

With summer approaching, doctors suggested that Grant get out of the New York City

heat for a cooler retreat upstate. He settled on a cottage in Mt. McGregor, a dozen miles from Saratoga. The general and his family left on June 16. By now, as Perry explains, “Grant could barely talk and spent most of his time communicating by writing short notes….Because he could not swallow, Douglas knew, he was literally starving to death.”

“Grant was forced to subsist on tea and soft fruit,” even as he persisted in the work of dictating and editing.

The general could feel the end was coming. On June 17, he managed to compose a letter to Douglas: “Dr., With a decrease of daily food, I have fallen off in weight and strength very rapidly for the last two weeks. There cannot be hope of getting far beyond this period.” That same day he wrote his son Fred as to his desired place of burial. He and Julia had bought a burial lot in St. Louis as well as in Galena, he wrote, but “I am also much attached to New York.” He left the final decision to Fred, asking only that “a place shall be reserved for your mother.”

Twain grew impatient when the general insisted on adding little touches to his second volume draft. On June 21, he spent hours sitting on his porch at Mt. McGregor working. A few days later he and Dawson completely revised the chapter on Lee’s surrender. Still, the general was “sinking fast,” as his stenographer later recalled. Physicians were administering cocaine to ease Grant’s throat pain.

Grant asked Twain on the 27th to come to Mt. McGregor. Clemens was there the next day. “If I could have two weeks of strength I could improve it very much,” he jotted about his manuscript. Twain left without it, disappointed.

“Each day brought new coughing fits, which usually ended only when Grant, choking on his own blood, was able to vomit and clear his breathing passages,” as Perry painfully puts it. “I’m ready now to go at any time,” the general sadly wrote a friend.

On the afternoon of July 19, as Grant was seated, bundled in his chair, he put down his pencil and looked at Dawson. He smiled a bit, looked back down at his paper, and then handed it to his transcriber. The book was finished, he said.

Three days later, at 8:08 a.m. on July 23, Grant breathed his last.

Twain’s publishing company brought out Volume One of Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant on Dec. 10, 1885. Two and a half months later, Clemens gave Julia

a check for $200,000—the largest royalty payment in American history at that time. In all, the general’s widow would receive almost a half-million dollars. Twain made a lot of money as well; the Webster Company published Volume Two in 1886.

Before the Preface of Volume One is a handwritten statement:

These volumes are dedicated to the American soldier and sailor.

U.S. Grant New York City May 23d. 1885.

That Grant would write such a dedication—he could have dedicated his work to the Union soldier and sailor—demonstrates his magnanimity, and his respect for the American fighting man. That Federals and Confederates were somehow alike was demonstrated in an anecdote that Grant remembered, and included in his memoir. After arriving at Chattanooga, Grant made a personal inspection of his picket lines, accompanied only by a bugler.

I rode from our right around to our left. When I came to the camp of the picket guard of our side, I heard the call, “Turn out the guard for the commanding general.” I replied, “Never mind the guard,” and they were dismissed and went back to their tents. Just back of these, and about equally distant from the creek, were the guards of the Confederate pickets. The sentinel on their post called out in like manner, “Turn out the guard for the commanding general,” and, I believe, added, “General Grant.” Their line in a moment front-faced to the north, facing me, and gave a salute, which I returned.

In the closing pages of his memoir Grant offers the prediction that “we are on the eve of a new era, when there is to be great harmony between the Federal and Confederate.” “I cannot stay to be a living witness to the correctness of this prophecy,” he added sadly, “but I feel it within me that it is to be so.”

“Let us have peace,” he concluded. And, after a heroic struggle to compose and complete his monumental memoir, peace it was that Grant had finally earned.

Additional sources

• Ron Chernow, Grant (New York, 2017).

• Paul Kahan, The Presidency of Ulysses S. Grant (Yardley PA, 2018).

• Chris Mackowski, Grant’s Last Battle (2015)

• Mark Twain’s Notebook (New York, 1935).

• Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant, 2 vols. (New York, 1885, 1886).

Grant’s Tomb, New York, N.Y. Detroit Publishing Co., publisher, between 1900 and 1910. (Library of Congress)

A Sailor’s Visit to Ford’s Theatre to see President Lincoln Turns to Horror

I Held Lincoln: A Union Sailor’s Journey Home. By Richard E. Quest. Illustrations, maps, 224 pp., 2018. Potomac Books of the University of Nebraska Press, www.nebraskapress.unl.edu. $24.95 hardbound.

Reviewed by Frank J. Williams

Important New Diary from Well-Educated Southern Boy

the President to the floor. Loring cut Lincoln’s tie to help his breathing. Loring, with three others, carried Lincoln from the theater to the Petersen House across the street, where Lincoln was to die at 7:22 the next morning, April 15th.

Having enlisted in the United States Navy in 1862, Loring commanded a gun division aboard the USS Galena during the battle of Drewry’s Bluff. In 1863 he participated in the naval assault on Fort Sumter. He was promoted to lieutenant and was given command of the USS Wave

On May 6, 1864, Loring and his crew were attacked by Confederates when the Wave was powerless due to lack of coal. After fending them off, Loring was forced to surrender his vessel. He and his crew were sent to Camp Groce, a prisoner of war camp in Texas. Loring and his men faced abuse and starvation.

The War Outside My Window: The Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham, 1860–1865. Edited by Janet Elizabeth Croon. Illustrations, maps, footnotes, source notes, index, 480 pp., 2018. Savas Beatie, www.savasbeatie.com. $34.95 hardback.

Reviewed by Paul Taylor

As a consequence of that affluence, young Gresham had access to the best of everything Southern culture could offer. This reality is apparent in everything he sees and records.

Yet the one thing LeRoy could never obtain was good health. He was practically an invalid, his leg having been crushed in 1856 when a collapsing chimney fell upon him. Worse, it was an injury that never properly healed. Only a few years later he contracted the illness that would eventually prove fatal, which we now know was a form of tuberculosis (also popularly known at the time as “consumption”). As his seven-volume diary opens, his father had made plans to take young Gresham to Philadelphia to seek the best possible medical treatment. It was a trip that would prove fruitless.

superior to endnotes for reading ease) are plentiful and place Gresham’s remarks in full context. As a result, a reader somewhat unfamiliar with the Civil War could easily understand and enjoy this book.

The extras provided in this book are first-rate. In addition to Gresham’s diary, a “dramatis personae” section identifies all close and distant relatives, friends, family slaves, politicians and soldiers mentioned in the text. Dennis A. Rasbach, MD, has provided a superb medical foreword and afterword, in which Gresham’s tuberculosis is placed in full historical perspective and how modern science diagnosed young Gresham’s disease.

With over 2,200 books about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln among 16,000 books and pamphlets published about the sixteenth president, one wonders if there is anything left to say about him. The answer is, of course, “yes.” The stories about participants of the Civil War continue to fascinate and interest us. This is the first time that a sailor’s visit to see Lincoln at Ford’s Theatre has been published.

Union Navy Lt. Benjamin W. Loring limped, from war wounds, to Ford’s Theatre on April 14, 1865, to see President Lincoln attend Our American Cousin. This evening would turn into an expected horror.

Looking to the presidential box, Loring saw the Lincolns and another couple enter the box after the play had started. At about 10:15 p.m., Loring heard a gunshot. He looked toward the presidential box and saw a man (later identified as John Wilkes Booth) jumping from the balcony to the stage. He exited out by the rear of the theatre.

Climbing into the box, Loring helped Lt. William Flood move

On his second attempt, using false passes, Loring escaped. After a grueling 25-day journey across Texas, wearing a stolen Confederate uniform and surviving on dry corn, he finally made his way to a Union gunboat in Louisiana

Loring then learned after reporting to the Washington Navy Yard in Washington that his reputation had been destroyed because of his surrender of the Wave. He set about describing his ship’s dilemma and lack of coal to Admiral Farragut. He obviously convinced his commanding admiral; he received a new command as head of the “Naval Rendezvous” at the Washington Navy Yard.

The war appeared over when General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia. Loring learned that President Lincoln would be attending Ford’s Theatre and he purchased a ticket to attend. He was hoping to enjoy an evening’s entertainment—only to serve his country again by administering to its fallen chief magistrate.

Frank J. Williams is founding Chair of The Lincoln Forum.

Publishing the Civil War-era diary of a soldier, politician, or civilian who witnessed “the late unpleasantness” is a tradition that dates back over a century or more. Some have become classics, such as the daily journal of Union soldier Elijah Hunt Rhodes. Renowned civilian diaries include those penned by New York attorney George Templeton Strong and Confederate socialite Mary Chesnut.

Many, if not most, however, offer the reader little in the way of thoughtful insight, with the diarist’s entries generally nothing more than mundane comments on the weather or the food at hand.

That is hardly the case with the diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham— an educated and highly observant twelve-year-old Georgia lad when his diary begins in June 1860. That this diary remained unpublished for so long is a story unto itself and is explained in the publisher’s preface. It represents the first-ever published diary of a male teenage civilian—North or South—who experienced the entire Civil War. For the most part, Leroy’s thoughts and observations were either from within his bedroom or outside in his small, custom-made wagon in which a family slave pulled him around.

LeRoy Gresham was the son of a wealthy slaveholding family in Macon, Georgia. Per the 1860 census, his father owned ninety-three slaves and two plantations totaling over 1,700 acres.

Macon was an important Confederate depot, allowing LeRoy to witness and record all of the various troops that came and went. Yet until the time of General William Sherman’s “March to the Sea” in late 1864, LeRoy’s Civil War was somewhat distant, something to be read about in the papers, and young Gresham was indeed a voracious reader of anything he could acquire. As he read of the distant battles and politics, his remarks display confidence—and perhaps a youthful naiveté—in the Confederate cause, yet also a mature skepticism about newspaper accuracy. Nevertheless, it is his astute observations on his family’s travails and his slow physical decline that are engaging.

As for the contentious slavery issue, LeRoy wrote matter-of-factly. Unfortunately for the modern reader, he offers no eloquent rumination either defending or disparaging the South’s chattel slavery system. Though he routinely mentions his family’s slaves by their first names, it is apparent that he viewed the institution simply as a given, a mere fact of Southern life that was all he knew. LeRoy’s last entry was on June 9, 1865, just weeks after the final Confederate surrender and only nine days before his death on June 18 at the age of seventeen.

Editor Janice Croon—a professional genealogist and former educator—does an excellent job of annotating and editing the diary. For example, the author’s thrice-daily temperature records have been judiciously edited while Croon’s footnotes (far

Hundreds of Civil War books are published each year. While many may be well-researched and written, only a small number are truly important in that they significantly advance our understanding of the rebellion or offer the reader something unique or previously unknown. This work is one of those relative few. It has set a new bar for publishers and editors with regard to publishing any Civil War diary that may come to light in the future. Gresham’s diary is an amazing primary source document that, unbeknownst to its author at the time, slowly chronicles his own demise while concurrently documenting the Confederacy’s collapse. As such, I highly recommend this book.

Paul Taylor is an award-winning author of seven books pertaining to the Civil War era. His newest book is titled “The Most Complete Political Machine Ever Known”: The North’s Union Leagues in the American Civil War, published by Kent State University Press.

Attorneys at War

Uncivil Warriors: The Lawyers’ Civil War. By Peter Charles Hoffer. Annotations, 231 pp., 2018. Oxford University Press, www.oup.com. $29.95 hardcover.

Reviewed by John

Foskett

emancipation. Hoffer closes with the legal battles over the adoption of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Constitutional Amendments and over Reconstruction.

Hoffer concludes that the final Union victory represented a triumph influenced by lawyers, culminating in a fundamental change from the pre-war notion of a Constitution which strictly limited the Federal government to a document which embraced broad central authority.

and many others. It would be of interest to know how and whether their training as lawyers had an impact on methods of command, on how they dealt with desertion and courts martial, and similar subjects.

A Comprehensive, Scholarly Look at Imported Arms

History professor Peter Hoffer’s new book Uncivil Warriors is an efficiently-written examination of the influence which lawyers exerted on the Civil War from its genesis to its denouement. The book nicely fulfills its promised scope in one sense but falls short in another.

Mid-nineteenth century America was a nation in which lawyers occupied a prominent place in the social/political fabric. Living in a country which was founded in 1787 as a “nation of laws,” men of ambition flocked to the legal profession unconstrained by any requirements of formal education as a condition for admission to the bar. It is in this context that Hoffer analyzes the ways in which the Civil War was as much a contest of competing legal principles as one of sectional wills and differences and of military combat.

He addresses his topic chronologically, beginning with the debate over the legality of secession. What follows covers the roles of, and differences between, the opposing cabinets; struggles over the writ of habeas corpus in wartime, centered on the litigation of Ex Parte Merryman; legal disputes arising from the Union blockade of Southern ports; development of the “Lieber Code” (General Order 100) to regulate the treatment of prisoners of war and non-combatants; and Lincoln’s proclamation of

Hoffer’s analysis is heavily skewed towards the role of lawyers on the Union side. There are any number of reasons why this is unavoidable. The Union’s chief executive, Lincoln, was a highly accomplished lawyer while his counterpart, Jefferson Davis, was not an attorney. Lincoln’s cabinet was stuffed with leading lawyers, including Secretary of State William Seward, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, and Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase. There were attorneys in Davis’s cabinet as well—notably Vice President Alexander Stephens— but they exercised less influence.

The United States Congress was strongly active throughout the war, for good or for ill, while its Confederate analogue was far less so. Moreover, the United States Supreme Court continued to operate while the proposed Confederate Supreme Court was never actually established.

The context of an American civil war meant that legal issues would occupy a central role. For example, the Lincoln administration needed to utilize what in effect was a blockade but to do so by walking the legal tightrope to avoid conferring nation-status on the seceded states—thus the Prize Cases decided by the Supreme Court. Because the war involved Americans on both sides, including civilians, and the ultimate Northern objective was reunification, it had to be prosecuted in a manner which could be perceived as legitimate—hence the “Lieber Code,” General Order 100. And, of course, there was the core issue of slavery which led to secession and war. An emancipation order required legal dressing for legitimacy.

Hoffer’s analysis is competent and persuasive. This book represents a missed opportunity in one respect, however. The officer rosters on both sides included a large number of lawyers. Hoffer fails to cover the experiences of attorneys in uniform such as Francis Barlow, Jacob Cox, Rutherford B. Hayes, W.H.L. Wallace, Rutherford B. Hayes

Moreover, where lawyer-generals stepped into the areas treated by Hoffer, there isn’t much here. He briefly touches on Benjamin Butler’s 1861 foray into emancipation; Henry Halleck’s involvement in the “Lieber Code” and William T. Sherman’s loose application of that instrument; as well as Patrick Cleburne’s efforts at Confederate emancipation. But several officers had roles which likely called on their legal training. For example, on the Union side its first general-in-chief, Winfield Scott, who formulated the “Anaconda Plan” strategy, had a brief legal career. Thomas Ewing Jr. issued General Order No. 11 which removed hundreds of civilians from western Missouri. George H. Sharpe established the first effective military intelligence agency, the Bureau of Military Information. Even Butler’s Civil War experience was filled with abundant legal controversies connected not only to his premature 1861 emancipation order in Virginia, but also to his occupation of New Orleans. Examples on the Confederate side include John Mosby, whose partisan warfare wracked Union forces in the Shenandoah Valley, and Jubal Early who in July 1864 burned Chambersburg, Pennsylvania after failing to extort a ransom payment.

For the most part Hoffer has used relevant primary sources, supplemented by carefully chosen secondary works. The writing is clear and legal concepts are made accessible to the non-lawyer.

Aside from its unfortunate choice of a title that was used for a 1935 “Three Stooges” short, this book certainly is a worthwhile synthesis and analysis of subject matter which has been dealt with more narrowly by others. It does, however, leave much room for an author to explore the uncovered material.

John Foskett is a practicing attorney in Boston with a lifelong interest in the Civil War. He is descended from Isaac Foskett, who served for three years in the Engineer Battalion with the Army of the Potomac. In addition to numerous reviews in Civil War News, he has given Civil War Roundtable presentations on the subject of Civil War field artillery tactics.

European Arms in the Civil War. By Marc Schwalm and Klaus Hofmann. Footnotes, index, 192 pp., 2018. Mowbray Publishing, www.gunandswordcollector.com. $34.95 hardcover.

Reviewed by Joe Bilby

their toll, they have nonetheless discovered some very interesting surviving material. Although much excellent work has been done on British firearms of the Civil War era in recent years, continental European research has lagged until now.

It is no secret to those of us with more than a passing interest in the Civil War that European firearms were heavily used by the Union army in the first half of the conflict. Because the Confederacy, lacking an industrial base, never developed a viable firearms manufacturing industry, the South used them throughout the conflict. In their new book European Arms in the Civil War, Marc Schwalm and Klaus Hofmann provide us with a comprehensive and scholarly look at those imported arms, using original sources from both sides of the Atlantic.

The authors, both from Germany, provide a unique assessment of the European arms development, manufacturing, and supply system of the era, using European records prior researchers did not have access to. They note that while many original documents were unfortunately destroyed as companies dissolved and the World Wars took

Schwalm and Hofmann provide a much needed view of the sales of arms to the combatants in America from a European perspective, detailing what was going on internally in countries such as Belgium, a sort of catchall for weapons reconditioning and export. They also address the confusing German situation. The country was not yet unified and there were numerous German principalities mostly copying Prussian arms developments but often adding their own small details. These in turn can establish a weapon’s origin and aid in a determination as to whether it actually saw service in America. The authors’ primary source research is outstanding and includes exhaustive footnotes plus period reports and data on arms in both Union and Confederate service.

European Arms in the Civil War should be on the bookshelf of every serious Civil War weapons scholar, as it provides information unavailable elsewhere. I heartily recommend it.

Joe Bilby writes the regular “Black Powder, White Smoke” column for Civil War News.

Fighting for Atlanta: Tactics, Terrain, and Trenches in the Civil War. By Earl J. Hess. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index, 391 pp., 2018. University of North Carolina Press, www.uncpress.org. $45 cloth.

Reviewed by Stephen Davis

A Patch Over One Eye

abandoned: “They were the finest we had seen up to that time and it must have taken much labor to build them….they must have been constructed prior to the start of the campaign.” Bull’s speculation goes to the heart of historians’ discussion of whether before Sherman’s advance Joe Johnston had determined to retreat from Dalton to Atlanta (really!? C.S. engineers digging in at Cassville before the army got there!?). That Hess misses the opportunity to address Bull’s diary—which he cites elsewhere—shows that the author has a patch over one eye.

to the C.S. engineers (Capt. Lemuel P. Grant and Lt. Col. S. Wilson Presstman) who oversaw its construction (as in Petersburg’s Dimmock line, named for Capt. Charles H. Dimmock).

not see elsewhere in the literature, but which is topographically errant (the Confederate line was a full mile south of Peachtree Creek).

Engineer-in-Chief for the Army of Tennessee, second only to Maj. Gen. Martin L. Smith.

As with his previous history of the battle of Peachtree Creek, in this volume Earl Hess demonstrates impressive research, strong writing, and a talent for weaving a tight narrative. Weighing down this product, though, are occasional myopic lapses and superficial scholarship.

Let me give a few examples. When Johnston’s army was outmaneuvered at Dalton by McPherson’s flanking march through Snake Creek Gap on May 9, the author avoids a major question of the Atlanta Campaign: why did Johnston leave Snake Creek Gap undefended? He only refers to “the negligence of someone who had failed to identify Snake Creek Gap as an important point.” Really, Professor—why dodge an important controversy? Almost two decades ago, I wrote—after having driven to Montgomery to see them personally—that Confederate Brigadier Henry Clayton had in his cache of maps one that clearly showed all the passes through Rocky Face Ridge (including Snake Creek Gap). If a brigade leader knew of this topographical vulnerability, why didn’t the army commander?

Thirty miles to the south, at Cassville, “Confederate troops along the intended line began to dig in with a will on the afternoon of May 19,” as Hess writes. Johnston’s army gave up its Cassville line that very night of May 19-20. Hess fails to explore the observation of Sgt. Rice C. Bull, of the 123rd New York, who examined the Rebel works a few days after they had been

At New Hope Church on May 25, Peter Stewart’s men built “log breastworks,” Hess writes, overlooking Albert Castel’s statement that in their works the Confederates used tombstones from the church cemetery nearby. Castel doesn’t cite his source, but I believe it is the diary of Robert Patrick, 4th Louisiana, who wrote that “the tomb-stones, the Sheds, the railing around the graves were all torn away.” Professor Hess cites Castel in his endnote, but without mention of tombstones in his text. If he wishes to be the go-to-authority on Civil War fortifications in Georgia, given his previous books on entrenching in Virginia, I’d advise him to dig a little deeper (pardon). Reference should have been made to Castel’s and Patrick’s statements.

On the other hand, the author has commendably found, at Augusta State University, a copy of the circular issued to Southern troops on July 5 to explain the peculiar nature of Shoup’s Chattahoochee River defense line. Lt. Thomas Mackall, on Johnston’s staff, only refers to the “printed circular” that informed the men on how the works should be manned and defended; “men better pleased,” he noted. The text of this important document, which is not in the OR, should henceforth be quoted in the Atlanta Campaign literature.

In his text on the fortifying around Atlanta I also find grounds (again, pardon) for complaint.

Hess persists, as I noticed in his earlier books on the battles of Peachtree Creek and Ezra Church, in creating his own names for Atlanta’s Confederate works, in contravention to the names usually used in the literature. He even capitalizes “Atlanta City Line,” as if that were the standard name for the perimeter of earthworks constructed by Confederates in 1863–64. Rather than this academic arrogance, I wish he had used a term like “Grant-Presstman line,” referring

The author, as usual, produced his own maps, which are serviceable, but rather crude (trench lines resemble railroads). A most serious defect is Hess’ practice of not providing mileage scales on any of them—an elemental expectation. As for his drawing of Captain Grant’s line, I would have preferred reproduction of the original map possessed by the Atlanta History Center (note to UNC Press).

…which brings us to Wilbur G. Kurtz, known here as the guardian angel of Atlanta’s Civil War history. Had Hess consulted the voluminous Kurtz Papers at the AHC (he fails to cite them in his bibliography), he would have learned that in the 1950s Kurtz wrote the texts for the hundreds of historical markers lining Atlanta’s streets today. His tablet on Howell Mill Road, for instance, titled “Outer Defense Line,” has given students of the campaign an accepted name for the Confederate fortifications erected during Johnston’s last days as army commander. Instead of using this term, Hess invents his own, “Peach Tree Creek Line,”

not

When the author writes that Lt. Col. B.W. Frobel reported to Hood’s army on Aug. 4, 1864, for “specific duty unknown,” it becomes evident that Hess has not come upon Frobel’s memoir, published in Scott’s Monthly Magazine in 1868, in which he writes that he reported to Hood as no less than Assistant

From these instances, one may sense my disappointment with Professor Hess’ new work. Let us hope that with his next one, he offers cognoscenti material that we may deem of true value.

Steve Davis’ next book, Flawed Image: Confederate General John B. Hood in 1864, will be published later this year by Mercer University Press.

Civil War Encampment & Living History

July 20-21, 2019

Union Mills Homestead, Union Mills, Md.

Commemorating Civil War History along Meade’s Pipe Creek Line Where Citizen Meets Soldier

Infantry and artillery drills, living history, skirmishes both days at encampment sites of Stuart’s Cavalry & Sykes’ U.S. V Corps.

Military units and living historians contact: info@unionmills.org • (410) 848-2288

McCausland’s Raid, Johnston/Gilmore Baltimore Raid, Mosby’s Confederacy, McNeill’s Raids, more. Led by Steve French, Kevin Pawlak, Ted Alexander, Martin West, others.

Before making plans to attend any event contact the event host.

Deadlines for Advertising, Editorial or Events Submissions is the 20th of each month.

We strive to add all events submitted to us but do not guarantee that your event will be published. There is a 100 word maximum for each event. Email events to: ads@civilwarnews.com

Jan. – Feb., Alabama. Wednesday Civil War Presentation Series

Join us at 2-3 p.m. each Wednesday during the months of Jan. and Feb. for our Civil War Presentation Series. A historian will provide historical information on Fort Morgan’s role in the Civil War. The presentation will be given at the presentation casemate of the fort located at 110 State Hwy. 180, in Gulf Shores, Ala. General Admission Charged. For more information; visit http:// www.fort-morgan.org.

Jan. 5-6. South Carolina. Civil War Show

Low Country Civil War Show & Sale at Omar Shrine Temple, Mount Pleasant, Sat. 9-5, Sun. 9-3. Sponsored by American Digger Magazine. For information, 770-362-8671, 716-574-0465, www.americandiggerevents.com

Jan. 12, Georgia. Candlelight Hike

6 to 8 p.m. at Sweetwater Creek State Park, 1750 Mount Vernon Road, Lithia Springs. One-mile guided night hike is moderately difficult and goes to the Civil War era textile mill ruins of New Manchester alongside the beautiful rapids of Sweetwater Creek. Candle lanterns are provided. Children under 6 years and dogs not permitted. Admission: $5 per person plus $5 parking; cash only. 770-732-5871, http://gastateparks.org/SweetwaterCreek

Jan. 12, Luray, Virginia. Fourth Annual Preservation Ball

The Shenandoah Valley Civil War Era Dancers invite you to the historic Mimslyn Inn, Luray, Va. Music by Marshal and Company. Social hour and refreshments at 6 p.m. Dancing 7 to 9:45 p.m. Dress in your favorite time period 1700’s to 1800’s or modern formal. $40 single – $70 couple. Price includes Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation membership and complimentary portrait by John and Christine Milliker. Limited number of tickets available; please contact Kirsten Kauling, kkauling@svbf.net or call 540-740-4545. Ask for the $99 room rate at the Mimslyn Inn. Sponsored by the Luray Caverns and Tom and Lesley Mack.

Jan. 13, Pennsylvania. Open House Grand Army of the Republic (G.A.R.) Museum & Library Civil War related History presentation at 1:30 p.m. Civil War Concert by the 28th Pennsylvania Regimental Brass Band. Free admission. Historic Ruan House, 4278 Griscom Street, Philadelphia, Penn. For information; 215-289-6484, www.garmuslib.org.

Jan. 18-20, Florida. Reenactment

The 39th Annual Brooksville Raid Reenactment Weekend will take place at the Sand Hill Scout Reservation in Brooksville. The event, sponsored by the The Hernando Historical Museum Assoc., Inc. and North Pinellas County Scout Sertoma Club, includes a battle reenactment with over 1,500 reenactors, and sutlers is a re-creation of a Civil War battle that happened in Hernando County in July of 1864. For information; 352-799-0129.

Public Hours: Sat. 9

History Comes Alive

May 10 & 11, 2019

Friday:

Living history for local schools. Come and share your knowledge of the Civil War with Columbia and Montour County school children. Dinner provided for all participants.

Saturday

Living history all day.

Jan. 20, Pennsylvania. General Meade Society Champagne Brunch & Awards Ceremony

Join the Gen. Meade Society of Philadelphia for its annual DeLuxe Champagne Brunch & Awards Ceremony, presenting the Society ‘Award of Merit’ Cannstatter Volksfest Verein at 9130 Academy Road, Philadelphia, Pa. 19114. For information and reservations; 215-848-7753 or gedwinmc@msn. com

Feb. 2-3, Georgia. Civil War Show & Sale

MK Shows presents the Chickamauga (Dalton) Civil War Show at the Northwest Georgia Trade Center, Dalton, Ga., for collectors and history enthusiasts. Over 400 sale and display tables. Adults $10, Children under 12 are free. Open Sat. 9-5 and Sunday, 9-3. For information; www.MKShows. com, email Mike Kent at mike@mkshows.com.

Feb. 12, Pennsylvania. Lincoln Birthday Celebration Parade and Ceremonies

Sponsored by the Union League of Philadelphia. Complimentary parking for reenactors is available at Laz Garage on the N.W. corner of 15th & Sansom

Small Talk Trivia

Answers

• Unit bounties paid

• Free registration

• Artillery and Cavalry welcome

• Sutlers welcome

• Large gun show also on the Fairgrounds

For more information and registration forms contact Eric Stahley at ecstahley@gmail.com

Bloomsburg Fairgrounds 620 W 3rd St • Bloomsburg, PA 17815

A House Divided

Dissent, Disagreement & Subversion During the Civil War Era

Shenandoah University McCormick Civil War Institute annual spring conference, Saturday, April 6, 2019, featuring nationally-recognized Civil War scholars Dennis Frye, Jonathan A. Noyalas, Paul Quigley and Jennifer Weber.

Registration information: su.edu/MCWI

Registration fee: $50 includes presentation & lunch

Location: Shenandoah University, 1460 University Drive, Winchester, VA

Questions: contact MCWI's director Jonathan Noyalas 540-665-4501 | jnoyalas01@su.edu

1. Fort Pillow, April 12, 1864. In an essay published sixty years ago in Civil War History, Albert Castel termed the event “essentially an outburst of racial antagonism” between Forrest’s men and the predominantly black garrison. About the same time Dudley Taylor Cornish, in The Sable Army: Negro Troops in the Union Army, 1861–1865, declared, “it has been asserted again and again that Forrest did not order a massacre. He did not need to.”

2. Col. Ulric Dahlgren, son of the Union admiral, was twenty-one years old at the time of his death on March 2, 1864. After an amputation at Gettysburg, he walked with a wooden leg. Confederates examining his body found that it was hollow and retrieved several documents. Among them was a sheet of stationery printed “Headquarters Third Division,” on which an unnamed officer wrote, “the men must be kept together and well in hand, and once in the city it must be destroyed and Jeff Davis and Cabinet killed” (James O. Hall, “The Dahlgren Papers,” Civil War Times Illustrated, November 1983, 30-39).

3. Gettysburg. My favorite passage from the novel has Longstreet talking with Fremantle about a conversation he had heard among Confederates about Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, which had been published two years before the war. As the general recounts to the Englishman, one Southerner declaimed, “Well, maybe you are come from an ape, and maybe I am come from an ape, but General Lee, he didn’t come from no ape.” In Turner’s film adaptation of the novel, the conversation takes place among Pickett’s three brigade commanders, Armistead, Garnett and Kemper on the night of July 2.

4. Union Rear Admiral David Glasgow Farragut (1801–1870). According to Chester G. Hearn, Admiral David Glasgow Farragut: The Civil War Years (1998), Farragut yelled, “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead, Drayton! Hard a starboard! Ring four bells!”

5. Harpers Ferry, Virginia. The surrender of 12,500 officers and men occurred on September 15, 1862. The capitulation was the largest surrender of United States armed forces until the surrender of Bataan and Corregidor in the Philippines, May 1942 (Department of the Army, American Military History 1607–1953 [1956]). The surviving arsenal equipment had been moved to Richmond, Va., and Fayetteville, N.C., by the Confederates during 1861.

6. Ford’s Theater. Originally a Baptist church, Baltimore theatre entrepreneur John T. Ford leased the building in December 1861. After renovation, Ford’s Atheneum opened in mid-August 1862. A fire four months later led to expansion and remodeling. The new theatre reopened on August 27, 1863 (W. Emerson Reck, A. Lincoln: His Last 24 Hours [1987]).

7. Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks. Banks’ campaign to capture Shreveport in the spring of 1864 ended in failure, though Banks did not describe it as such. “There is a futile attempt to make a victory out of this,” wrote Rear Admiral David Porter, “but two or three such victories would cost us our existence” (Fred Harvey Harrington, Fighting Politician: Major General N. P. Banks [1948]).

8. Gen. Robert E. Lee at Fredericksburg, Dec. 13, 1862, as quoted in George C. Rable, Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg! (2002).

9. North Carolina-born Richard J. Gatling (1818–1903).

10. Joshua L. Chamberlain (1828–1914).

January 2019

Civil War News

St. only. There will be a lunch for the participants at 12 noon. After the parade participants are invited to return to the Union League for refreshments and entertainment. For information; awaskie@temple.edu

Feb. 15-17, Florida. Reenactment

Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park will host the weekend long 43rd Annual Reenactment commemorating the 155th anniversary of the Battle of Olustee. More than 2000 living historians will give presentations of both civilian and military life during the Civil War. Events will include a wreath laying ceremony, Civil War Memorial Service, tours and medical demonstrations, entertainment, arts, crafts and food booths along with artillery night firing and oldfashioned barn dance. Spectators can visit authentic campsites, watch the parade, view artillery inspections, listen to a period music concert and watch the battle reenactment. Festivities will end with the Battle of Olustee Ball at the Ball Tent. Period attire required. Ball is for participants only. For information; 877-635-3655; www.battleofolustee.org.

Feb. 24-25, South Carolina. Reenactment

See history come alive with cannon, cavalry horses and living history experts. Reenactments, authentic 19th-century military encampments, living history presentations, civilian portrayals, reproductions of medical facilities, etc. Adults: $12, 6-12: $6, 5 and under: Free. For information; www.battleofaiken.org.

March 8-10, Florida. Civil War Reenactment

Join us for the Raid of Fort Pierce. Battles are at 1:30 p.m. Sat. and Sun. Ladies’ Tea is at 11 a.m., Sat. and a Grand Bon Fire Frolic will be held in the Confederate Camp at 7:30 p.m. Sat. If you play a musical instrument, feel free to bring it to the Frolic. Cavalry needed for school day, and artillery is welcome. The Ladies of the Order of Confederate Rose will be cooking dinner for school day participants on Fri. evening, breakfast on Sat. and Sun., and supper on Sat. evening. Bounty for the first Union and Confederate artillery pieces registered. Firewood, water, and hay provided. Persona or officer impressions to speak to school kids are welcome and appreciated. Reenactor Fee: None –Donations welcome. For directions and information; Jim O’Dell at 772- 318-8258 or thejdawg5692000@yahoo.com.

March 23, Pennsylvania. Annual Grand Army Museum Preservation Luncheon 9130 Academy Rd. Philadelphia, Pa. “Lincoln’s Gamble: The Tumultuous Six Months that Gave America the Emancipation Proclamation and Changed the Course of the Civil War” by Historian Todd Brewster. For information; garmuslib@verizon.net; or 215-289-6484

March 29-30, Virginia. Civil War Show and Sale

The Northern Virginia Relic Hunters Assoc. will present its 47th annual Civil War show at the Fredericksburg Expo Center. The show will feature Civil War and World Wars I & II era relics, memorabilia along with a wide selection of antique guns and swords. Hours are 12 to 7 p.m. on Friday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday. For information; contact Denny Chafin, 703-855-2376 or civilwarshow@nvrha.com.

March 30, Pennsylvania. Civil War Preservation Ball

36528. Battle will be held Sat. at 2 p.m. and a surrender ceremony at 3 p.m. On Sunday, there will be a 1 p.m. tactical. For information; 251-861-6992, via facebook (fb.com/fort Gaines) or call 251-861-6992.

April 27, Illinois. Civil War Show and Sale

Zurko Promotions presents The National Civil War Collectors Spring Show and Sale which will be held at the DuPage County Fairgrounds in Wheaton. Hours: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is $9 – includes admission to the CADA Collector Arms Dealers Assoc. Show. For information; www. chicagocivilwarshow.com.

May 1-4, Maryland. 6th Annual National Ed Bearss Symposium on Military Leadership & Combat

Featuring Ted Alexander, Steve Bockmiller, Dr. Richard Sommers, Martin West & others based in Chambersburg, Pa. Special guest Edwin C. Bearss will also join us. Exploring American military history! Tours of the following: Civil War sites in southern Pennsylvania including Monterey Pass; military history sites in Washington County, Maryland including the Hagerstown Aviation Museum; the Forbes Campaign of 1758 featuring stops at Fort Ligonier, Bushy Run Battlefield and more. Talks also given by the historians listed above. The full itinerary & pricing available on www. CivilWarSeminars.org.

May 4-5, Ohio. Civil War Show and Sale

42nd Annual Ohio Civil War Show & 25th Annual Artillery Show at Richland County Fairgrounds, Mansfield, Sat. 9-5, Sun. 9-3. Living history, cannon firing, field hospital, music, demonstrations. $7 ages 12 up. Seven buildings – One Gate Admission, Food and Handicapped Facilities, 30-Gun Artillery Show – Indoor/Outdoor, 6-Gun Battery Firing Demonstrations, Sutler’s Row, Civil War Field Hospital by the Society of Civil War Surgeons. Period Church Service Sun. Morning with Period String Music, Abe Lincoln Live Presentations, Living History Campfire by Brigade of American Revolution, 8th Pennsylvania Regiment, Period Music by Camp Chase Fife & Drums, 25th Annual Civil War Veteran’s Historical Association Encampment. For additional information; call 419-884-2194; or visit the website www. ohiocivilwarshow.com.

May 17-19, Georgia. Reenactment

Pennsylvania State Capitol Rotunda, Harrisburg, Pa. 7 p.m. - 10 p.m..

Surrounded by the majesty and history of the Capitol Rotunda, the 16th Annual Civil War Preservation Ball benefits the Pennsylvania Gettysburg Monuments Trust. The trust helps fund repairs and maintenance of the more than 140 markers and monuments that honor Keystone State regiments and individuals on the Gettysburg battlefield. Sponsored by the Civil War Dance Foundation, the ball has raised nearly $100,000 to preserve the Pennsylvania monuments. Admission $35 single, $65 couple. For more information, visit www.CivilWarDance.org. Email: Info@CivilWarDance.org.

March 30-31, Tennessee. Civil War Show

52nd Mid-South Civil War and Military Show at the Agricenter Showplace Arena located at 105 S. Germantown Pkwy., Memphis. For info. Sandy Parent at 901-962-7005, Don Harrison at 901-832-4705 or dharrison@aol.com.

April 6-7, Mississippi. Civil War Show

The 10th Annual Corinth Civil War Relic Show and Sale sponsored by the Col. W.P. Rogers, SCV Camp #321 will be held at the Crossroads Museum. Located at 2800 S. Harper Road exit on Hwy 45, just 1 mile south of Hwy 72 in Corinth, Miss., this show is expanded, larger and better than ever before. Sat. 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sun. 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. For information; Dennis Brown, 662-212-4621/ducksu@frontier.net, Buddy Ellis, 662-665-1419/bellis@1960@ comcast.net or visit www.battleofcorinth.com.

April 6, Alabama. American Battlefield Trust - Park Day at Fort Gaines

This annual event brings history enthusiasts together in an effort to help keep our nation’s heritage not only preserved but pristine. Volunteers will help preserve this important monument to honor the brave soldiers who fought and sacrificed in the American Civil War. Pre-register at the Fort Gaines is located at 51 Bienville Blvd. Dauphin Island, AL 36528, via facebook (fb.com/fort Gaines) or call 251-861-6992.

April 6, Virginia. Shenandoah University’s McCormick Civil War Institute in Winchester will host its annual spring conference from 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. “A House Divided...”: Dissent, Disagreement, and Subversion During the Civil War Era. Conference will focus on such topics as divisions within Jefferson Davis’ cabinet, Copperheads, Unionists in the Shenandoah Valley, and the ways John Brown’s raid created divisiveness. Presentations by historians Dennis Frye (Harpers Ferry National Historical Park, retired), Paul Quigley (Virginia Tech), Jennifer Weber (University of Kansas), and Jonathan Noyalas (Shenandoah University). Registration fee of $50 ($25 for students with valid id) covers all presentations and lunch. For information or to register visit www. su.edu/MCWI, call 540-545-7293, or email jnoyalas01@su.edu.

April 14, Pennsylvania. Annual Symposium

General George G. Meade - Life & Legacy will be held at the Conservatory at West Laurel Hill Cemetery in Bala Cynwyd. For information; Jerry McCormick 215-848-7753; ged-winmc@msn.com.

April 27-28, Alabama. Thunder on the Bay 2019

Come celebrate the upcoming 155th Battle of Mobile Bay Sponsored by the 6th Alabama Cavalry and the Alabama Division of Reenactors. Event will be held at Fort Gaines Historic Site, 51 Bienvile Blvd, Dauphin Island, Alabama

The 155th Anniversary “Battle of Resaca” reenactment will be held on over 650 acres of the original battlefield. This event will have main camps located within the original US and CS lines. Camping allowed in or near the breastworks. Amenities include straw, hay and firewood; food and ice on site. The planned activities include main battles both days at 2 p.m., period dance, medical demo’s, cavalry competition, ladies’ tea, civilian refugee camp, period church services and a memorial service at the Confederate cemetery. Handicapped parking is available. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the preservation efforts of the Friends of Resaca Battlefield, Inc. A $150 bounty will be paid to the first fourteen 57-inch cannon and crews registered by May 1st. Reenactor registration fee is $10 due by May 1. For more information, www.georgiadivision.org or Battle of Resaca, P.O. Box 0919, Resaca, GA 30735-0919.

May 17-19, Virginia. Period Firearms Competition

The North-South Skirmish Association 139th National Competition near Winchester. Over 3,000 uniformed competitors in 200-member units compete in live-fire matches with muskets, carbines, revolvers, mortars and cannon plus costume competitions and historical lectures. The largest Civil War livefire event in the country. Free admission, large sutler area, and food service. For information; www.n-ssa.org.

May 26, Pennsylvania. Annual Memorial Day Observed at Historic Laurel Hill Cemetery

Recreating the Original G.A.R. Decoration Day Service of 1868: The traditional Decoration Day service of the Grand Army Meade Post #1 will be recreated at Historic Laurel Hill Cemetery, 3822 Ridge Ave. Philadelphia at 12 noon. For information; 215-228-8200.

June 1-2, Pennsylvania. Lehigh Valley Civil War Days

The 11th Camp Geiger Reenactment will be held at Whitehall Pkwy., Whitehall, Pa. There will be a battle reenactment each day. This will include fighting in trenches and a tactical. Living History Street. Medical demos, historical personages, children’s activities and more. Period music and speakers each day. Sat. evening period dance. Sutlers and food vendor will be on site to serve reenactors and spectators. Water & wood is provided. Ice & straw available for small fee. Sutlers by invitation only. Registration fees - $10 until May 15, $15 after May 15. Sutler fees - $50 until April 15, $75 Apr. 15 – May 15. No sutler registration after May 15. For information and registration forms visit our website at www.friendsofcampgeiger.webs.com.

June 1-2, Pennsylvania. Civil War Event at Pennypacker Mills

Daily battle, artillery demonstrations, military encampments, Civilian Street demos, performance on Sat. by the 28th PA Regimental Brass Band, music & songs on Sun. by Matthew Dodd. Herb Kaufman will speak on Civil War medicine. Mansion tours, museum shop and food vendor onsite. Free to the public. $2/person until May 1. $10/ person after May 1. Under 16, Free. Sutlers’ fee $25.00. Free firewood, water, straw & cake on Sat. For information 610-287-9349. Registration forms at www.ppmcivilwar.org.

June 8-9, Mississippi. Civil War Relic Show

Brandon’s 5th Interactive Civil War Relic Show sponsored by SCV Camp #265 will be held at City Hall located at 1000 Municipal Drive, Brandon. For information; contact Tim Cupit at 769-234-2966 or timcupit@comcast.net.

June 29-30, Pennsylvania. Civil War Show

Sat. 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Sun. 9 a.m. – 2 p.m. Eisenhower Hotel & Conference Center Allstar Expo Complex, 2638 Emmitsburg Road, Gettysburg. The Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association’s Artifact and Collector’s Show features more than 200 vendors and over 300 tables of artifacts, swords, firearms, correspondence, books, photographs, documents and much more. Daily admission: Adults: $8. Children 12 and under free. Vendors contact: bsynnamon@gmail.com or call 717-334-2350. For more information visit www.uniondb.com or www.gbpa.org. Email: info@gbpa.org.

July 23-28, Maryland. Conference, Antietam: The Bloodiest Day

Featuring Ted Alexander, Scott Hartwig, Tom Clemens, Carol Reardon, Dennis Frye, John Michael Priest, Steve Recker, John Schildt and others based in Hagerstown, Md. Join us for the largest Antietam conference ever held led by expert historians! Detailed battlefield walks and specialized tours of the campaign such as Crampton’s Gap, Harpers Ferry, the C&O Canal during wartime, the Battle of Shepherdstown and more. Talks also given by the historians listed above. The full itinerary and pricing available on www.CivilWarSeminars.org.

July 27-28, Tennessee. Civil War Show and Sale

American Digger Events is hosting the first annual Chattanooga Civil War Show & Sale, to be held at Camp Jordan Arena in East Ridge. The event will be open to the public Saturday, 9-5 and Sunday, 9-3. Admission is $10 for adults, with kids under 12 free (if accompanied by an adult). More about this event can be found at americandigger.com/ american-digger-events, or by calling 770-362-8671. Over 200 tables of Civil War relics (including muskets and swords), WWI and WWII items, Native American artifacts, old coins and newspapers, artwork, metal detectors, books, and more will be on display to the public, with many items available for purchase. Buyers will also be set up at this event and many offer free appraisals of items brought in by the public.

Aug. 3, Alabama. 155th Battle of Mobile Bay Commemorative Day

The well-preserved ramparts of Fort Gaines have guarded the entrance to Mobile Bay for more than 160 years. Now a fascinating historic site, the Fort stands at the eastern tip of Dauphin Island where it commands panoramic views of the bay and the Gulf of Mexico. The event highlights Fort Gaines integral role in the Battle of Mobile Bay. The cannon will be fired every forty-five minutes in honor of the soldiers that fought in this pivotal battle. A living history day for the whole family. Demonstrations will be held all day in the Fort’s Blacksmith Shop. Fort Gaines Historic Site, 51 Bienvile Blvd, Dauphin Island, Ala. 36528. For information; 251-861-6992, via facebook (fb.com/ fort Gaines) or call 251-861-6992.

Aug. 10-11, Georgia. Civil War Show and Sale

41st Annual show in Marietta at the Cobb County Civic Center hosted by the North Ga. Relic Hunters. $6 for adults; veterans and kids free. Cobb County Civic Center, 548 S. Marietta Parkway, S.E., Marietta, Georgia 30060. Hours are 9-5 Saturday, 9-3 Sunday. For more information contact NGRHA, Attn.: Show Chairman, P.O. Box 503, Marietta, GA 30061, email: terryraymac@hotmail.com. Visit www.NGRHA.com.

Sept. 21-22, Pennsylvania. Fall Farm Skirmish

Historic Daniel Lady Farm, 1008 Hanover St. Gettysburg, Pa. Saturday, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m., Sunday, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. In honor of its 60th Anniversary, the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association will host a live action and living history program that will include Confederate and Union encampments and skirmishing on the hallowed ground of the Historic Daniel Lady Farm in Gettysburg. Over 500 reenactors will present the Battle of Antietam’s “Bloody Lane” along with a cavalry reenactment and other clashes during the two-day program. Adults: $15 for a one-day pass and $25 for a two-day pass. Children 15 and under free. Includes tours of the historic Daniel Lady farmhouse and barn. For information, www.gbpa.org. Email: events@gbpa.org.

Sept. 28, Pennsylvania. Ride for Monument Preservation

Soldier’s Grove, Pennsylvania Capitol Building East Wing. The 19th Annual Ride for the Monuments from Harrisburg to Gettysburg is sponsored by the Alliance of Bikers Aimed Toward Education (A.B.A.T.E.). It supports the Pennsylvania Gettysburg Monuments Trust for maintenance and upkeep of more than 140 monuments and markers on the battlefield that memorialize the actions of Pennsylvania troops. A portion also benefits upkeep of the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association’s Historic Daniel Lady Farm. Registration begins at 11 a.m. outside the State Capitol Building’s East Wing. Welcoming ceremony: 12:15 p.m. Ride departure: 1 p.m. Open to all interested riders. Rain or shine. Registration $10. For information, www.gbpa.org and www.abatepa.org.

Sept. 29, Illinois. Civil War Show and Sale

Zurko Promotions presents The National Civil War Collectors Fall Show and Sale which will be held at the DuPage County Fairgrounds in Wheaton. Hours: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is $9 – includes admission to the CADA Collector Arms Dealers Assoc. Show. For information; www.chicagocivilwarshow.com.

Oct. 4-6, Virginia. Period Firearms Competition

The North-South Skirmish Association 140th National Competition near Winchester. Over 3,000 uniformed competitors in 200-member units compete in live-fire matches with muskets, carbines, revolvers, mortars and cannon plus costume competitions and historical lectures. The largest Civil War live-fire event in the country. Free admission, large sutler area, and food service. For infor-mation; www.n-ssa.org.

Oct. 23-27, Pennsylvania - Guerillas, Partisans and Raiders

Featuring Martin West, Kevin Pawlak, Michael Hardy, Ted Alexander, Steve French and others based in Chambersburg, Pa. Special guest, award-winning author and historian Brian Steele Wills will also join us. We will examine irregular warfare through the ages from the Romans to present. Tours will include McCausland’s Raid, the Johnston/Gilmore Baltimore Raid, Mosby’s Confederacy and McNeil’s raids against the B&O Railroad. Talks also given by the historians listed above. The full itinerary & pricing available on www. CivilWarSeminars.org.

Oct. 26-17, Alabama. Skirmish

Alabama’s oldest active working farm, Old Baker Farm is located approximately 25 minutes south on Hwy. 280 from Birmingham in Harpersville. All branches invited. Firewood, hay, water and powder for Artillery provided. Sutlers welcome. For information; Jimmy White, alabamabattery@yahoo.com, 1174 Curt Jarrett Rd., Ashville, AL 35953.

Nov. 16, Pennsylvania. Remembrance Day in Gettysburg

General Meade & his Generals and the veterans of the Battle of Gettysburg

Honor/Dedication Ceremonies during the Remembrance Day Observance. Honoring all commanders and veterans of the Battle. Meet at the General Meade Equestrian Monument at 10:30 a.m. For information; Jerry McCormick, 215-848-7753 or gedwinmc@msn.com for info.

Nov. 16-17, Virginia. Civil War Show and Sale

MK Shows presents the “Original Richmond” Capital of the Confederacy Civil War Show for collectors and history enthusiasts. Located at the Richmond International Raceway, 600 E. Laburnum Ave. Free parking. Over 350 tables. Adults $10, Children under 12 are free. Sat. 9-5 and Sun. 9-3. For information; www.MKShows.com or mike@mkshows.com.

Dec. 7-8, Tennessee. Civil War Show and Sale

MK Shows presents the 32nd Annual Middle Tennessee Civil War Show and Sale at the Williamson County Ag Expo Park, 4215 Long Lane in Franklin. The nation’s largest Civil War show, featuring 1,000 tables of antique weapons, artifacts and memorabilia from top dealers and collectors around the country and encompassing all eras of military history from the Revolutionary War through World War II. Appraisers are always on hand to help you identify and value your military collectibles at no cost. Hours are 9-5 on Saturday, 9-3 on Sunday, parking is free and admission is only $10/adults and children 12 and under are free. For more information; www.MKShows.com or Mike@ MKShows.com.

Dec. 31, Pennsylvania. General Meade Birthday Celebration

Mark the annual anniversary of the birth of General George G. Meade, heroic commander of the victorious Union army at the Battle of Gettysburg. The General Meade Society of Philadelphia will celebrate at Historic Laurel Hill Cemetery, 3822 Ridge Ave. at 12 p.m. Champagne toast and reception will follow. For information; 215-228-8200 Laurel Hill Cemetery.

BLUECOAT AND PIONEER

The Recollections of John Benton Hart, 1864-1868

Edited by John Hart

$32.95 HARDCOVER · 240 PAGES · 32 B&W ILLUS.

In 1918, John Benton Hart began to tell stories of a three-year period in his youth. He recalled his days as a trooper in the Eleventh Kansas Cavalry, fighting in Missouri and on the frontier, and his time as a civilian jack-of-all-trades doing risky work for the U.S. Army on the Wyoming-Montana Bozeman Trail in the middle of the Indian resistance campaign known as Red Cloud’s War. Compiled and reproduced here, this memoir is a singular document of living history.

$38.50 - 1 year USA Print $48.50 - 1 year USA Print & Digital $66 - 2 year USA Print $86 - 2 year USA Print & Digital $29.95 - 1 year Digital only

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