Civil War News 2017 Gettysburg Section

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GETTYSBURG 2017 FREE Courtesy of Civil War News

Inside: Monuments at Gettysburg Teach Visitors • Robert E. Lee • Military Abbreviations Explained • Bullet Holes in Downtown • Images of a Gettysburg Photographer • The Daniel Lady Farm • 26th North Carolina • One Soldier’s Shot at Redemption • Opinioned Roster of Gettysburg Books • After the Battle • Gettysburg Veterans • Virtual Reality at Gettysburg and much more!

Images courtesy of Buddy Secor with exception of 11th Pennsylvania Infantry.

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Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section

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July 2017

Cause, Comrades, and Courage: What the Monuments at Gettysburg Can Teach Visitors Today

By David Weaver The following words, spoken at the dedication of the 153rd Penn. Inf. Regt.’s monument on Barlow’s Knoll, are typical of hundreds of monument dedication speeches at Gettysburg that shed light on how Union veterans remembered their service. It is in speeches such as this that we find the meaning of service as it was understood by Union veterans: This beautiful monument which we dedicate this day, will, as the years roll on, tell the story of what you did here. And when we are no longer, and the last one of us shall be gathered with the Grand Army beyond the grave, and none of us are left to talk about Gettysburg, this marble shaft will remain to tell the story.1 Gettysburg National Military Park has long been admired by tourists from around the world for its unique collection of monuments. When visitors see these monuments, there is an important opportunity for

Licensed Battlefield Guides, National Park Service Rangers, and others in the interpretation business, to convey to those visitors the meaning of military service through the eyes and memory of Union veterans. This proper understanding of the nature of service in wartime is needed these days as Americans have grown apart from the experience of military service. This is particularly true with respect to small unit combat elements, such as those depicted by many of the park’s monuments. Among the best sources for this material can be found the dedication speeches of regimental memorials.

Historians who would seek to connect the soldier’s experience at Gettysburg and similar places could do worse than go back and review these speeches as they are rich with insight. While Union veterans lived in a different time and held different social and political values from us today, their understanding of the nature

of their service on matters such as courage, duty, willingness to face deprivation, hardship, and death are timeless—but rather different from what many Americans believe today to be the nature of war and military service.

Like so many topics associated with the history of the battlefield, the exact number of monuments in and of itself is a topic that remains controversial.2 Whatever the case, there are well over a thousand monuments and markers and many, if not most, share a couple of essential attributes, they were built in the late nineteenth century with the support of veterans, and that they honor specific units of the Union army by their location and inscription. A tourist driving around the battlefield today, if he or she covers the entire prescribed auto tour route, will literally see hundreds of examples.

It is worth taking a look at the history conveyed by monuments. While the topic of

the Battle of Gettysburg and its numerous related matters has generated a large and vibrant scholarly industry, there remains nevertheless unique insights and issues that, although they may have been examined by historians in the past, are still worth considering today.3 What role do the monuments play in

this? How do they preserve and transmit to us the value system dominant to their generation?

What themes did the veterans themselves regard as salient when they put these monuments on the battlefield? When visitors gaze at

H Cause, Comrades

. . . . . . . . . . . see page 4G

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Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section

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H Cause, Comrades

. . . . . . . . . .. from page 2G popular regiments like the 44th N.Y., the 20th Maine, the 56th Penn., or any of dozens of similar regimental markers, they’re pondering a different era that sheds perspective on our own.

This is worth communicating to visitors at Gettysburg and other Civil War sites.

Today, less than one percent of our nation’s population is serving in the military. Less than 16% of Americans today have a family member in the armed forces.4 These realities serve to remind us that Gettysburg National Military Park plays a role in informing the public about what I call “basic military literacy.” Yet in spite of the declining rate of military service among Americans, interest in visiting Gettysburg is as strong as ever. The battle, its political context, and human aftermath remain topics of great interest to the public. In fact, interest in military matters remains high. Americans admire their armed forces and genuinely cherish veterans these days.

However, if Americans, especially their political leaders, lack direct experience with war and military service their capacity to understand the nature of conflict and the experience of veterans is diminished. A proper understanding of Union veterans’ perspectives can

make a small dent in our current civil-military gap.

Salient in this public perception gap today is the matter of courage. For Americans today, courage often entails a conception of the heroic individual battling alone against the enemy and receiving the Medal of Honor. Oftentimes, this plays out in a White House ceremony where the recipient’s actions are explained to the audience, which always includes significant press reporting.

Of course, this focus on individual heroism was always present in American culture to some degree. For previous generations, Sgt. York or Audie Murphy were household names. There were also countless stories of heroism from antiquity that literate Americans in the nineteenth century would have been familiar with from the classics (think Horatious at that bridge). Today, however, that public focus on the single courageous soldier has really crowded out other notions of collective battlefield courage, particularly with respect to the role of elite forces that are, in fact, a relatively small part of the armed forces. Hollywood has intensified this effect every time another movie comes out featuring a lone sniper or Navy Seal saving the day against great odds. Even the Battle of Gettysburg has seen some recent focus on the brave

single soldier, Alonzo Cushing’s Medal of Honor ceremony in 2014 is one example. Union soldiers at Gettysburg didn’t see themselves as elite and, while they greatly admired individual heroes like Cushing, they didn’t need popular culture to promote stories about elite warriors to allow them to bask in reflected glory. Their service in plain volunteer regiments of the line was big enough.

Civil War veterans, when they were erecting monuments, saw things differently. For the Civil War generation, and largely for following generations that served in the twentieth century, a much deeper understanding of courage existed. This was an understanding that firmly located courage into the shared experience of serving with comrades and enduring the travails of military life and the experience of combat collectively. Courage was something that we had, rather than something that he had. The profound bond forged through marching countless miles on dusty roads or fording swollen rivers; enduring the trauma of fever or the freezing cold at night; the heat and humidity of the South; facing fire from the enemy; repeatedly witnessing the random and sudden death of close friends…all the typical experience of a combat infantrymen in his teens or twenties added up

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to a life transforming experience and comradery. This is what lies behind the monuments at Gettysburg. This is what should be emphasized to the visitor touring the park today.

Since most veterans of the Civil War were born in the 1830s and 40s, their values and mindset are solidly within the Victorian aegis.

This certainly isn’t a new revelation—countless books and studies have confirmed this. Nevertheless, this mindset is foreign to most Americans today. Today’s visitors at Gettysburg can understand this mindset in the abstract (barely), but are largely unable relate to it on a personal level.

That is to say, we Americans today claim to admire courage on the part of soldiers and patriotism where and when appropriate, but the Victorian world view simply offers very little to us today that is personal and resonates with our contemporary views of the armed forces and their fit in American culture. In large part this is, of course, due to changed values with respect to masculinity, nationalism, feminism, the (supposedly) innate virtues inherit in military service, and, most importantly in my view, the value of war as a realm through which the best qualities of men can shine.

Courage and comrades are inseparable concepts in this culture. Dedication speeches res-

onate with accounts of where a regiment was located on the field, how they entered into combat action, and descriptions of the difficulties faced by the unit. By extension, these narratives describe courage, even if in a collective sense. It is perhaps worth remembering that for those in the audience at the time of the dedication, themselves largely veterans of the actual unit at Gettysburg or some other unit that saw similar action elsewhere…there wasn’t a great need on the part of the speaker to describe the thoughts and experiences of individual enlisted soldiers or junior officers, although this does occur on occasion. It was already understood how individuals were part of this and how their experience as individuals played out in the battle. Instead, as veterans, they knew intuitively that describing a regiment’s experience was, in a collective sense, talking about the experience of individual men.

This seems like an obvious observation but it contrasts somewhat markedly with how we think about military valor and courage in American commentary today, which invariably seems to require individual testimonies about individual men or women. Really, for that generation, all one needed to do was describe the experience of a regiment and everyone understood that this meant individ-

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July 2017 ual courage. In other words, the courage manifest in an infantry regiment was automatically recognized as synonymous with individual courage and vise versa.

That is hard for us today to relate to, but came naturally for that generation.

The concept of cause is also interesting and strongly linked not only to the unit’s courage but to the destiny of the American nation as it was perceived through the perspective of the 1880s.

Again, there are noticeable differences with modern points of view. Today, when the Civil War and Battle of Gettysburg are discussed, they tend to lead to invariable debates about the size and role of federal power vs. states but mainly upon the problem of slavery, which is today largely recognized as the essential cause of the conflict and whose resolution through abolition has come to be the most lauded political legacy of Union victory. When the focus is more tightly placed upon on the battle itself, modern interest invariably accrues to time worn (but still immensely popular) debates about Lee’s or Longstreet’s generalship, alternative history speculation, or Joshua Chamberlain’s role in saving Little Round Top. For the Union veterans present at monument dedications however, their retrospect on the conflict focused more on national survival. This arose at the dawn of a long period that would culminate in the early twentieth century with a national desire to focus on reconciliation between North and South, rather than re-opening old wounds about race and federal power. Reconstruction had ended and, although many historians today tend to regard Reconstruction as a mixed success at best if not a downright failure, the views of Union veterans so fresh after Reconstruction quite naturally steered toward the conception that their cause, however difficult to achieve, was in fact achieved; that national survival had been fulfilled and that their service and that of their comrades had not been in vain. For them, cause was seen through the lens of national success, rather than being seen in light of the complicated and very mixed results wrought by Reconstruction a decade earlier.

In short, the concept of “cause” as it was seen by middle aged veterans in the 1880s had come to be almost completely associated with the nation and a nationalistic view that saw no reason to exalt differences between North and South, moving, as they were, toward a re-united national consciousness. This may seem rather uncompelling to us today, but it was central to the outlook of Union veterans during the memorial period in the 1880s-90s.

Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section Victory at Gettysburg and the survival of America’s democratic experiment was what mattered.

For Union veterans, this transcended the vanquishing of other Americans in the Confederacy or (more so) the abolition of slavery and failure to sustain Reconstruction and African American enfranchisement…however much that failure seems bothersome to us today.

For these reasons, the concepts of cause, as articulated when monuments arose, mostly avoids the topics of federal power and slavery. Such a viewpoint doesn’t necessarily mean that these divisions didn’t still linger beneath the façade of speeches and dedication inscriptions. They did, and the veterans knew they did. However, due to the continued sensitivity of these things and the desire to have bipartisan support for funding and promotion of monument building, these issues were not a priority of focus. However bipartisan the concept of cause was articulated, it should still be remembered that the notion of national survival was sincere to Union veterans. It was much more than a contrived effort to supplant sensitive political issues with a glossy revisionist version that everyone could embrace.

We are today also a bit tin-eared to the resonance of camaraderie as it existed among Civil War veterans. Service in a Civil War regiment was typically a continual experience due to the nature of these units being formed locally by state governments. Unlike modern active duty soldiers who typically rotate through multiple units, schools, or major commands over the course of their career, a Civil War soldier entered military service in a local regiment and usually ended his service 2-4 years later with the same group of men. Combine this with the devastating casualties in these infantry regiments meant that survivors of battles like Gettysburg had an immensely strong bond with their fellow veterans—seen invariably in their mind as “the regiment”—that lasted throughout their lives. I tell eighth grade students visiting Gettysburg on field trips that these monuments are really “monuments to best friends for life.”

A short example from a New York regimental dedication speech can serve as an example of these themes: When the 76th N.Y. Inf. monument was dedicated in July 1888, Benjamin Taylor wrote the following words which illustrate the notion of preserving through monuments the virtue of soldiers for future generations to emulate: It is the anniversary of our struggle at Gettysburg, a battle that in the history of the Nation is brilliant with the deeds of brave

men. Our mission and purpose here is a noble one, and how fitting are these services on this beautiful Sabbath day. Comrades, for those of us who took part in that struggle, it needs no monument to mark the resting place of our dead; but this monument which we dedicate today will speak to future generations of the bravery of our soldiers upon the battlefield and of the high respect in which the people hold the sacrifices they made…..May the recollection of their deeds be as lasting as the granite column that shall for many years stand as a silent guard over the grass covered graves…..For ages to come the people will tread the pathway that leads to this beautiful place, renowned in the history of this country.5 There were thousands of words spoken across the fields of Gettysburg in the 1880s celebrating the erection of hundreds of regimental markers by Union soldiers.

These noble words about cause, comrades, and camaraderie may seem to have a dreamy and nostalgic Henry V echo to them when read by us today, but this should not take anything away from the genuine feeling among Civil War veterans that their post war bond was valuable in representing the virtue in their lives and legacy, and that virtue and legacy ought to be preserved in stone as a reminder to us today of how that virtue and legacy mattered. For that generation, if you fought at Gettysburg, you were part of something much bigger than just an organization of soldiers; you were instead a direct participant in national destiny, an exhibitor of virtue through courage in personal but primarily collective ways, as well as sharing a post war connectedness with those of a similar experience. These are the themes that visitors to Gettysburg should understand. Those of us trusted with communicating the significance of monuments and the story of the Union soldier, can find rich testimony in the monument dedication speeches.

About Source Material: The brief excerpts utilized here are drawn from the speeches given when monuments were dedicated. I have edited some excerpts for brevity. The speeches for Pennsylvania and New York were published in the early twentieth century by those states as New York at Gettysburg and Pennsylvania at Gettysburg.

Both books are among the best batches of readily available primary source material on the topic of soldiers’ memory. Guides, Rangers, and other interpreters should use them often.

Endnotes: 1. Pennsylvania at Gettysburg, Ceremonies at the Dedication of the Monuments Erected by the Com-

monwealth of Pennsylvania, Volume II, (Harrisburg: Wm Stanley Ray, State Printer, 1914), pg. 771.

2. The number of monuments is agreed to be in the range of about 1,300 depending on the standard utilized to count them. Perhaps the most thorough recent study of this, by Frederick Hawthorne a Licensed Battlefield Guide, author, and noted historian of the park’s monuments, suggests 1,475.

3. I agree with the common view that the Battle of Gettysburg as a topic has become saturated with written works. The topic of Confederate high command plans and intentions has been particularly over-analyzed in my view.

Nevertheless, there continues to

5G be good new books and articles about the battle and campaign every year.

4. Kori Schake, Jim Mattis, ed., Warriors and Citizens: America’s Views of Our Military (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press) pg. 4.

5. New York Monuments Commission for the Battlefields of Gettysburg and Chattanooga Final Report on the Battlefield of Gettysburg, Volume II, (Albany: J.B. Lyon Company Printers, 1902), pg. 610.

Dave Weaver lives in Gettysburg where he works as a Licensed Battlefield Guide.

He served as an infantryman in Iraq and teaches history at Shippensburg University.

Victor of Gettysburg Tours the South

By Joan Wenner, J.D. Major General George Gordon Meade was sent on a post-War inspection tour of the South on commission of President Andrew Johnson. One report is “Report of Major General Meade’s Military Operations and Administration of Civil Affairs in the Third Military District and Dep’t of the South, for the Year 1868 with Accompanying Documents, published in Atlanta, Ga., Assistant Adjutant General’s Office, Department of the South, 1868.

In late 1865 by Senate Resolution and ordered by President Johnson, U.S. Grant made a brief inspection tour of Raleigh, Charleston, and Savannah and returned directly back to Washington. In a December 1865, report Grant advised Johnson he consulted with Department Commanders for much of his information. He then ordered Meade’s immediate departure from his then Philadelphia base to travel throughout the Carolinas and Georgia. These states were included in the Military Dept. of the Atlantic and Dept. of the South from 1865-1869. Meade was appointed head and given a newly leased headquarters in Atlanta from 1868-1869. (The original lease exists in the Atlanta History Center archives.) Railroad maps of the day help show his likeliest route.

Meade was a confidant of the President, who had great confidence in his ability, independence and integrity. Johnson sent him on the specific inspection and Reconstruction tour that resulted in the 1868 Report noted above.

In 1866 Meade traveled in the South as an observer and continued to do so in 1868-1869 as part of his being in command of the Third Military District. (In August 1868, the 2nd Military District and the 3rd Military District were consolidated—the 2nd District comprising North Carolina and South Carolina, and the

3rd District, Georgia, Alabama, Florida.)

The ‘Camilla affair’ During Meade’s command, the “Camilla affair” occurred in Georgia when Federal troops were requested by local officials to quell a “disturbance.” It was much more violent and bloody than a mere “disturbance.” The “affair resulted from rumors in the war-ravaged and economically destitute state that some 460,000 newly freed slaves would be given freeholds and plowing animals under Sherman’s oft-quoted Field Order No. 15 that ‘abandoned lands’ along the coast could be distributed. This order was temporary and most land was returned to the original owners, although some black families were able to lease or buy land from the government.

From June 1865 until 1871, the U.S. Army provided a measure of stability as political chaos reigned in the state General Assembly over who could hold office and black voting rights, a Freedmen’s Bureau that became active in mediating a contract-labor system, while a new state constitution was debated to fulfill provisions of the First Reconstruction Act. Troop numbers fluctuated greatly from around 9,000 in June 1865 to more than 15,000, but for most of the period totaled less than 1,000.

The confrontation referred to as the ”Camilla Massacre” erupted in the south Georgia town of Camilla in September 1868 preceding a black Republican rally.

As a result, there were calls to return to military rule. General Meade refused and the matter was resolved by other means. A full scale complement of Union soldiers would not again be deployed in Dixie.

Historian Lee Formwalt’s account originally appearing in the Fall 1987, Georgia Historical Quarterly 71.

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July 2017

Robert E. Lee, Gettysburg, and the Lost Cause

By Stephen Davis “False schools of present public opinion,” notes one writer, “political misrepresentations,” even “violent prejudices” swirl around discussion of the Confederate war. Because of these, it is hard to write about the Southern side of the American Civil War. We’re not citing an op-ed column in today’s newspaper. The writer of the above was Edward A. Pollard, wartime editor of the Richmond Examiner, writing in 1867 in a book he titled The Lost Cause.1 Since then, the myth of the Lost Cause has become even harder to sort through and explain. That shouldn’t keep us from trying, though.

Even before Appomattox, wartime Southerners cast their war as a struggle, not just for political independence, but for traditional American values of liberty, morality, and social progress. Of course, Northerners were saying the same thing about their war cause. James M. McPherson discerns this. “Both sides in the American Civil War professed to be fighting for freedom,” he observes. It’s just that they defined “freedom” differently.2 During the war, Southern propagandists cast their cause in the loftiest terms. Confederate soldiers were the heirs of America’s revolutionary heritage, “freedom’s sons,” battling “degenerate hordes” of barbarous Yankee invaders, according to one Southern wartime poet. “What! Shall this grovelling race, who cringe for gold,” he exclaimed about

the degenerate, materialistic Yankees, “make laws for Southern men, on Southern soil?”3 As it turned out, with Confederate defeat in 1865, Yankees would indeed “make laws for Southern men, on Southern soil.” Postwar Reconstruction is another story, but in those early years following Appomattox, Southerners had to grapple with the fact that their exalted cause had ended in bloody, heart-aching failure.

How? Southerners’ efforts to come to terms with their defeat and explain it did much to lay the ideological underpinning of what we today call the Lost Cause Myth.

General Robert E. Lee led the way in his farewell at Appomattox. “After four years of arduous service marked by unsurpassed courage and fortitude,” he consoled, “the Army of Northern Virginia has been compelled to yield to overwhelming numbers and resources.”4 The “numbers and resources” concept was a perfect salve to grieving Southerners, for it implied that no amount of valor or sacrifice by Confederates could have availed against the North’s well-supplied hosts. By such an argument, one could overlook the political, economic, and social weaknesses within the Confederacy and conclude that the South never stood a chance to vanquish the North. Hence the “lost cause” had truly been lost from the start; Confederate defeat had been determined all along. Southerners earned even greater laurels in history for having battled against such insuperable odds.

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If Johnny Reb’s valiant record against overpowering numbers were to be substantiated, it was important that future historians have access to accurate enlistment figures. In 1867, Edward P. Alexander, ex-Confederate brigadier general, took pride in noting that while Federal rosters included over 2,800,000 names, rough estimates placed Southern forces at a mere 600,000.5 Because they reflected well on heroic Confederates’ service, these figures were eagerly accepted by numerous Southern eulogists—conscientious ladies and all the political, religious, and civic figures who spoke at reunions and memorial ceremonies which began occurring in the 1880s. Again, it was General Lee who offered corroboration. After the war he considered composing a history of his campaigns because, as he said, “I want that the world shall know what my poor boys, with their small numbers and scant resources, succeeded in doing.”6 Later Jubal Early, one of Virginia’s leading “Lost Cause” apologists, publicized the general’s further statement that “it will be difficult to get the world to understand the odds against which we fought.” In 1895 Stephen D. Lee, former lieutenant general, concluded that no cause of failure need be cited other than Robert E. Lee’s remark that the Confederacy collapsed because of the “tremendous odds brought against us.”7 In the minds of most Southerners, documentation of these tremendous odds would confirm the Confederate soldier’s courage, endurance, and devotion. As Fitzhugh Lee put it, …when the numbers of those who opposed him, their munitions of war, the efficiency of their well-stored quartermaster, commissary and ordnance departments are contrasted with the great deficiency in the South of everything that mobilizes armies and contributes to their strength, the world wonders at what was accomplished.8 Nonetheless, the Confederacy had failed. For the religiousminded, this posed a profound moral problem. Providence had willed the South to lose the war.

“Our sins must have been great to have deserved such punishment,” concluded Kate Cumming, a wartime Confederate nurse.9 Some reasoned that the sin of slavery may have doomed their cause in the eyes of the Lord. Virginian Berkeley Minor wrestled with the problem for years, and concluded that failure to emancipate the slaves during the war led to the loss of

divine favor. “This conviction,” he wrote, “has been a comfort to my Christian faith, which failed for a time to see how He could suffer so good a cause, championed by such good men, to be overcome.”10 Others found a solution to the dilemma in the knowledge that Jehovah’s ways were often unknown to mortal men. “Man cannot know the purpose of God in defeat,” John W. Daniel (former editor of the Richmond Examiner) told an audience in 1890, “there may be a destiny yet unknown to all, the first workings of which may have only taken shape at the dread field of Appomattox.”11 Yet they had come so close.

Southerners pondered what might have happened had Stonewall Jackson lived. Then there was Gettysburg, perhaps the South’s greatest chance for victory.

Confederates lost that battle, Lost Cause apologists reasoned, but not because of the saint-like Lee. No, the culprit was James Longstreet, the corps commander who delayed the crucial attack of July 2, and proved a lessthan-willing director of the great frontal assault on the third day.

If Longstreet had but followed Lee’s orders, contended Jubal Early, “a decisive victory would have obtained, which perhaps would have secured our independence.”12 It did not help that Longstreet had cozied up to the Republicans in the postwar years. In the early 1870’s, Jubal Early, William N. Pendleton, and the Rev. J. William Jones, who were all devoted to Lee’s memory, began attacking Longstreet for his role at Gettysburg. In an address on Lee’s birthday in 1872 at Washington College, Early claimed that Longstreet’s dilatory behavior at Gettysburg cost the South victory in the battle and lost the nation’s eventual independence. “Because he was already seen as a Judas figure,” writes historian William Garrett Piston, “Longstreet made a perfect scapegoat for the Confederate defeat.”13 Longstreet’s culpability became a staple of the Lost Cause Myth as much as Lee’s saintliness. Gaines M. Foster, in Ghosts of the Confederacy, writes of Virginians in the 1870’s struggling to cope with the reality of Confederate defeat. The headquarters of the Southern Historical Society was moved to Richmond. In 1876 S.H.S. leaders Early, Jones and other Virginians established the Southern Historical Society Papers, a monthly journal dedicated to publishing and preserving the Southern perspective on the late war against the victorious Northerners’ version of events.

Gen. Robert E. Lee.

(Library of Congress)

The result of these efforts, as Professor Foster writes, meant that “the Virginians continually refought the war and obsessively battled the Yankees.” In their obsession, these eulogizers of the Confederacy fixated on the reason Southerners had lost their war for independence. “They seemed to be searching for some factor that would have changed the results of the war,” Foster writes.

But there was no denying that the Yankees had overwhelmed the valiant South by their sheer weight of numbers. And Gettysburg—General Lee’s one last battle to win the war—had been lost because Pete Longstreet had balked on the second day, delaying the attack which could have rolled up the enemy line and smashed Meade’s army. Robert E. Lee, who died in 1870, had by then become the revered hero of the Virginia memorializers.

“They appeared captivated by a dream of victory, a dream of a return to an undefeated Confederacy,” Foster writes of Early, Jones, and the other S.H.S. Virginians.

“If only they had not faced overwhelming numbers, if only Longstreet had been on time,” Foster posits, as he humorously likens the Confederate apologists to the 1890’s Plains Indians performing their Ghost Dance in the belief that with fervent faith and ritual motion they might will the disappearance of the white man. “Similarly, the Virginians seemed to believe that if they wrote their articles,” the professor muses, “the Yankees and all that had occurred after Appomattox would simply disappear.”

Thus we have Foster’s hilarious image of “Early and company, wearing their gray ghost shirts and clutching volumes of the SHSP that Jones promised would be impervious to the slings and arrows of northern slander.”

Formed in a circle about a statue of a recumbent Lee, the true believers dance in and back, chanting, on one foot, “overwhelmed by numbers,” and on the other, “betrayed by Long-

July 2017 street”—waiting for an undefeated, marble Lee to rise and lead them to victory.14 I’ve laughed about this uproarious vision ever since I read Gaines Foster’ book thirty years ago. Since then, talk about a Confederate “Lost Cause Myth” has become anything but comical in the current national conversation about the Civil War’s enduring meaning. As a Southerner, and as an American, I think it would be good for us to step back and take the long view eloquently expressed by Jeffry D. Wert, “The Lost Cause interpretation offered Southerners a comforting explanation for their sacrifices and the reality of their defeat.”15 Endnotes: 1. Edward A. Pollard, The Lost Cause (New York, 1867), iii.

2. James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom (New York, 1988), vii.

3. William G. Shepperson, ed., War Songs of the South (Richmond, 1862), 4.

4. Douglas Southall Freeman, R. E. Lee: A Biography (New York, 1935), vol. 4, 154.

5. The Land We Love, vol. IV, 154-55.

6. Freeman, R. E. Lee, vol. IV, 236.

7. J. A. Early, “The Relative Strength of the Armies of Generals Lee and Grant,” Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. II (1876), 16; “Why the Confederacy Failed,” Century, vol.

LIII (1896), 627.

8. Fitzhugh Lee, “The Confederate Soldier in the Civil War,” in Ben LaBree, ed., The Confederate Soldier in the Civil War (Louisville, 1895), 8.

9. Quoted in Thomas L. Connelly and Barbara L. Bellows, God and General Longstreet: The Lost Cause and the Southern Mind (Baton Rouge, 1982), 13.

10. Berkeley Minor, “If Lee Could Have Stood at the Helm,” pamphlet reprinted from the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Jan. 15, 1911.

11. “Fairfax Monument,” Southern Historical Society Papers, vol. 18 (1890), 129.

12. Quoted in Connelly and Bellows, God and General Longstreet, 35.

13. William Garrett Piston, Lee’s Tarnished Lieutenant: James Longstreet and His Place in Southern History (Athens, 1987), 119.

14. Gaines M. Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South 1865 to 1913 (New York, 1987), 60.

15. Jeffry D. Wert, “James Longstreet and the Lost Cause,” in Gary W. Gallagher and Alan T. Nolan eds., The Myth of the Lost Cause and Civil War History (Bloomington, 2000), 130.

Steve Davis of Atlanta is a regular contributor to Civil War News and is the Book Review Editor. His book, A Long and Bloody Task: The Atlanta Campaign from Dalton through Kennesaw Mountain to the Chattahoochee River May 5-July 18, 1864, was published as part of

Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section Savas Beatie’s Emerging Civil War paperback series.

The companion volume, All The Fighting They Want: The Atlanta

Campaign From Peachtree Creek To The City’s Surrender, July 18-September 2, 1864, has just been published this Spring.

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THE PRINCE’S GRAND BALL ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gettysburg, PA November 18, 2017 Please Join Us for this Very Special Event!

A Recreation of the 1860’s NY Ball held in Honor of HRH The Prince of Wales Formal Dinner Proceeding the Grand Ball Meet HRH The Prince of Wales

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Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section

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July 2017

14th Annual Civil War Preservation Ball HARRISBURG, PA.—The 14th Annual Civil War Preservation Ball was held in the rotunda of the Pennsylvania Capitol Building on Saturday, March 25.

Dancers came from Penn., Conn., Del., Md., N.J., N.Y., Ohio, Texas, Va., and W.Va., to “dance for preservation” of monuments at Gettysburg National Military Park (NMP).

This ball is the nation’s most elegant Civil War event. The rotunda of the Capitol Building provides a spectacular setting for a 1860s ball. The architecture and artwork provide a fitting background for the dancers, with ladies in hoop dresses and gentlemen in formal attire or military uniforms.

Dance instruction for the ball was provided by the Victorian Dance Ensemble, a performing troupe of the Civil War Dance Foundation. Lawrence KeenerFarley, Rebecca Kesler, and Gary Peyre-Ferry served as dance masters. Music was played by the Philadelphia Brigade Band under the direction of Richard Cummines.

Special guests included Christopher Gwinn, Chief of Interpretation at Gettysburg NMP; Dan Bringman, Chief Financial Officer of the Gettysburg Foundation; Barbara Mowery, President of the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association; State Representative Harry Readshaw, founder of the Penn. Gettysburg Monument Project; and State Representatives Dan Moul, Russ Diamond, and Bryan Barbin.

The event raised over seven thousand dollars for the Penn.

Gettysburg Monuments Project, which provides much-needed funds for the repair and maintenance of monuments placed on the battlefield by the veterans.

The fourteen year total for the balls has now surpassed $98,000.

This year marked the 20th anniversary of the Project, fondly known as “Readshaw’s Raiders.”

Since 1997, thousands of individuals and dozens of organizations have joined the effort to raise money for the monuments. To celebrate the anniversary, Readshaw cut a special cake with an original Civil War sword.

Readshaw thanked the event sponsors for supporting preservation: PNC Bank, Gmerek Government Relations, Inc., Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania, Malady & Wooten LLP, Pennsylvania American Water, Eckert-Seamans, Cranmer Associates, Pennsylvania Chamber of Business & Industry, Roaring Spring Water, and Giant Foods.

Next year’s ball will be held on March 10, 2018. For more info visit www.CivilWarDance.org

The fifes and drums of Boy Scout Venture Crew 1861 greeted arriving guests on the steps of the Capitol Building and later joined in the dancing at the ball.

Giavanna DiBiase, a member of the Victorian Dance Ensemble, celebrated her fifteenth birthday at the ball by dancing with her grandfather, John Kesler.

Cutting the 20th anniversary cake for the Pennsylvania Gettysburg Monuments Project (left to right) Richard Cummines, Director of the Philadelphia Brigade Band, Barbara Mowery, President of the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association, State Representative Daniel Moul, State Representative Harry Readshaw, and Annette Keener-Farley, President of the Civil War Dance Foundation.

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Michael and Angie Natt came all the way from Arlington, Texas, to attend the ball. Guests came from nine other states to dance.

July 2017

Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section

Black Powder, White Smoke

By Joe Bilby The First Shot The publisher of Civil War News asked me to write something Gettysburg related to complement our July Gettysburg issue. I chose some excerpts from my book, Small Arms at Gettysburg (Yardley, Pa.: Westholme Publishing, 2008).

Second lieutenant Marcellus E. Jones would remember that moment for the rest of his life— and so would the nation. It was around 7 a.m. when Privates Elisha S. Kelley and James O. Hale, the advanced vedette of Co. E. 8th Ill. Cav., saw Rebels in the distance, marching straight at them astride the Chambersburg Pike. Kelley spurred his horse back to the picket reserve post to spread the word. His breakfast interrupted, Lt. Jones led the rest of his detachment forward and deployed them as skirmishers.

Jones, convinced that a big fight was about to begin, borrowed Sgt. Levi S. Shafer’s carbine, rested it on a fence rail, aimed at a mounted Confederate officer some 600 yards distant, and squeezed the trigger. The gun bucked and roared and sped a bullet on its way, which landed somewhere between the lieutenant and the enemy. Jones, who probably forgot to estimate range and raise his rear sight, hadn’t hit his mark, but he had done what he had set out to do; secure his place in history. It was July 1, 1863, and Marcellus E. Jones was sure he had just fired the first shot of the Battle of Gettysburg.

The instrument of Jones’ fame, a .52 caliber Model 1859 Sharps, was considered the best carbine in Union service at mid-war. The first privately mass-produced

Sgt. Levi S. Shafer.

Closeup of the Sharps carbine showing its unique design.

U.S. Model 1859 .52 caliber Sharps carbine.

Reverend Henry Ward Beecher.

(Library of Congress)

breechloading weapon of the era, the Sharps had been steadily improved since its invention

by Christian Sharps in 1848 and would assume a central place among the legendary arms of the American Iliad.

Before the war came, in the turbulent 1850s, Sharps carbines were cited by abolitionist leader Reverend Henry Ward Beecher as more efficacious instruments than prayer in preventing the spread of and bringing an end to

(Jack Melton)

Battlefield of Gettysburg, July 1863. Woods on left of Chambersburg Pike in which Archers Brigade was captured. (Also called the Wheat Field). Brady the photographer is shown in the photograph.

(Library of Congress)

John Brown photographed by Black and Bachelder in 1859.

(Library of Congress)

slavery. As a result, they gained the nickname ‘Beecher’s Bibles.”

The Sharps played an important part in the mini-civil war that erupted in “Bleeding Kansas” and also in John Brown’s 1859 abortive raid on Harper’s Ferry, rehearsals for the events of 1861 that would eventually lead two great armies down dusty roads to meet at a small Pennsylvania crossroads town.

The Sharps was one of a large variety of firearms that saw serious action in the hands of Civil War horse soldiers. By 1863, diversity of armament had long been a United States Cavalry tradition. The first permanent American mounted force, the Regiment of Dragoons, was organized in 1833. Frontier patrol units capable of fighting on foot or horseback, the dragoons were initially armed with pistols, sabers, and short barreled muzzleloading carbines, or “musketoons,” with ramrods attached by swivels to prevent loss in mounted combat.

The vast majority of small arms had, to that date, always been muzzleloaders, but the concept of guns that could be rapidly reloaded at the breech was almost as old as the weapons themselves, and the idea was an attractive one for a number or reasons to men in mounted forces. At one point the reliable Sharps seemed the answer to the question.

In retrospect (there were good guesses but no one knew for sure at the time), Gettysburg witnessed the high water mark not only of the Confederacy, but also of the old cavalry carbine. Buford’s fight west of town was the last great stand of breechloaders invented during the previous decade. Although the results achieved by Spencer rifles in the hands of Custer’s Michigan horsemen on July 3

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were inconclusive, largely due to the fact that no tactical doctrine yet existed for their employment, the new repeater and its metallic cartridge were in the war to stay.

The Yankee mounted arm, which began the Civil War as an ad hoc force armed with a hodgepodge of obsolete muzzleloaders, obsolescent breechloaders and axe handles was, by the time Lieutenant Jones fired his shot at Gettysburg, on its way to becoming perhaps the most powerful mounted force the world had ever seen. The cavalry not only fired the first shots at Gettysburg on July 1, but two days later, when the horse soldiers of the 5th and 6th Mich. Cav. blazed away with their Spencers at the stalwart 34th Va. Cav. Bn., launched the first shots of modern warfare as well.

By the mid-20th century, Gettysburg had become more than a battle. It had become a symbol of the war and what came after it.

Politicians, including Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt, who spoke at the last two Gettysburg reunions, praised the aged veterans as exemplars of a reunified United States, although final settlement of the basic issues raised by the Civil War and set aside in the interest of reconciliation in the early 20th century would await another generation for resolution.

Before that final step on the long national journey the war had begun, however, the veterans were gone. Many of the guns they carried on those three days in July still endure, but they, like their former owners, now keep their tales of endurance, heroism, and horror to themselves.

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 20 books and over 400 articles on NJ and military history and firearms, and as publications editor for the NJ Civil War 150 Committee edited the award winning New Jersey Goes to War. He has received an award for contributions to Monmouth County (NJ) history and an Award of Merit from the NJ Historical Commission for contributions to the state’s military history. He can be contacted by email at jgbilby44@aol.com

U.S. Model 1860 .52 caliber Spencer rifle.

(Jack Melton)

Civil War News

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July 2017

Ranks, Grades, Abbreviations; Foreign Terms, Pronunciations; Miscellaneous Opinionations

By Gould Hagler Most readers of the Civil War News are familiar with military terminology—ranks, the structural units of armies, naval terms, names of weapons, and terms related to equipment, tactics, fortifications and the like. Often these terms are abbreviated. In most cases the abbreviations we see in Civil War records, books, and articles are well-known or easy to understand from their context.

Still, some review may be in order. Let’s start with the easiest part, army ranks. We will go in ascending order rather than alphabetically. It’s easier for the writer.

Private Pvt. Corporal Cpl. Sergeant Sgt. Lieutenant Lt. Captain Capt.

Major Maj. Colonel Col. Brigadier General Brig. Gen. General Gen. As I say, easy. I won’t insult the reader by giving the abbreviations for Lieutenant Colonel, Major General, etc.

You can figure that out on your own, I know.

If we steam over to the navy we find it less simple, and many readers will not be as familiar with naval terminology as they are with military terms. The Confederate and United States navies had the following grades. Again we go from bottom to top.

Boys (Yep. There was and is such a grade.)

Landsmen Coalheavers Ordinary seamen Second class firemen Seamen Petty officers Appointed officers Warrant officers Commissioned officers Those in the last grade named are obviously the brass.

They were commissioned by Congress, either the one in Washington City or the other one 90 miles to the south.

Here are the ranks of these commissioned officers in the Union Navy.

Ensign Captain Master Commodore Lieutenant Rear Admiral Lieutenant Commander Vice Admiral Commander Admiral The Confederate ranks differed from this and changed over time. Here is the list as it was finally developed: Midshipman Passed midshipman Master Lieutenant Commander

Captain Flag officer Rear Admiral Vice Admiral Admiral

These are the sea officers. There were also medical officers, pay officers, constructors and engineering officers.

Some of today’s abbreviations for these ranks are: MIDN ENS LIEUT CAPT COMO

LCDR CDR RADM VADM ADM

These are taken from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. They have a modern, bureaucratic look—all caps, no periods. We won’t see this usage in Civil War writing.

My naval consultants (Bill and Joe) tell me there were no official abbreviations back in the day, but as we read about

Civil War navies we will probably will see Midn., Ens. Lieut. or Lt., Capt., Lt. Cdr., Cdr., and Adm. Moving down in the pecking order, we next encounter the warrant officer. Warrant officers are named by the Navy Department—either the one in Richmond or the one 90 miles to the north. Warrant officers included pilots, boatswains, gunners, carpenters, sail makers and master’s mates.

Appointed officers were put in their positions by commissioned officers, and had roles such as paymaster and clerk. Then we have petty officers, lots of petty officers.

Some better known ones are boatswain’s mate, gunner’s mate, cockswain (or coxswain) and quartermaster. Also in this category are armorers, coopers, painters and masters of band. It goes on and on and on. These have modern abbreviations but we are not likely to encounter any such thing as a C of H or a CPTR in Civil War books and articles.

I am sure everyone knows that naval terms often don’t sound like they spell. For example, boatswain has several unused letters, and is pronounced “bos’n.” Cockswain is “cox’n.” Forecastle is “focs’l.” Everybody knows that.

And foretopgallant is “fo’ta’gant.” Just kidding, but it is NOT pronounced fore-top-gall-ant.

Let’s get back to the army!

You can’t tell the players without a program and you can’t follow a battle unless you know something of the building blocks of the army. In ascending order: Company Co. Battery Btry. (the Art. equiv. to a Co.) Troop Trp. (the Cav. equiv. to a Co.) Battalion Batn. (one of several abbreviations) Regiment Reg. or Regt.

Brigade Brig. (or sometimes Bde.) Division Div. Corps, like June or July, needs no abbrev. Union corps were identified by Roman numerals while the Confederates initially used the commander’s name. This was later changed to a numerical designation.

There were variations in the ranks of the officers in charge of each of these, but in general we go in this order: captain for a company, battery or troop; lieutenant colonel for a battalion; colonel for a regiment; brigadier general for brigade (makes sense); major generals for divisions (and corps too in the U.S. Army); and lieutenant generals for Confederate corps.

In the army some march, some ride, some use bigger guns than others.

Infantry Inf. Cavalry Cav. Artillery Art. or Arty.

Then there are the abbreviations for military jobs that can be filled by officers of various ranks.

Aide-de-camp ADC or Aide Adjutant Adj. Commissary of Subsistence Comm. Sub. Paymaster Pay M. Quartermaster Q.M. I am not sure how important the aide-de-camp and adjutant were to the common soldier, but the last three were essential for those who wanted to eat, get paid, and have guns and ammo.

Let’s look now at a few more that are less common terms, including some post war organizations. Readers will encounter most of these with some regularity.

Artificer Art. Chaplain Chap.

Colored Troops CT, USCT

Drummer Drum.

Farrier Far. Grand Army of the Republic GAR Ladies Memorial Association LMA Musician Mus. Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States MOLLUS Sons of Confederate Veterans SCV Sons of Union Veterans SUV United Confederate Veterans UCV United Daughters of the Confederacy UDC Waggoner Wag. Some readers may have to look up farrier. (Hint: you could also abbrev. this as “blksmth” but the farrier was more like a horse mechanic.)

I am sure most CWN readers peruse Civil War correspondence from time to time. They usually conclude with phrases like “I remain yr. most obdt. Servant.” Ever notice these three abbreviations inside the letters?

Inst.

Prox.

Ult. They stand for instant, proximo and ultimo, meaning this month, last month and next month.

We often abbreviate the names of states, even the four letter ones. However, unless one is mailing a letter the capital two-letter period-less abbreviations should not be used. These are sovereign states not postal codes! It’s Tenn., not TN, Wisc., not WI. Besides, who can remember if MI is Michigan, Minnesota or Mississippi?

This is off topic, but have you ever seen old records that abbreviate the name John? Odd isn’t it? Just four letters, like months 6 and 7, so why bother? Odder still is the way the name is shortened: Jno. I don’t understand this at all.

It is like abbreviating July as Jyl. Let’s move on. English is a beautiful language, Germanic in its structure and most of its everyday vocabulary, but with many words, over half our total lexicon, taken from Latin, Greek and French. Many of our military terms are borrowed from French and a few from other tongues.

Here are some with definitions (and pronunciations when necessary).

French

Abatis: (It’s ab uh tee if you want to sound French. Say the S is you want. The plural, in English, is abatises, ab uh tis iz.) An abatis is an obstacle of felled trees or other kind of barricade directed toward the enemy.

Barbette: A platform from which guns are fired over a parapet.

Bastion: The French borrowed this term from the Italians.

A projecting portion of a rampart attached to the main work.

Camouflet: (Cam oo flay) An underground mine used to combat enemy miners tunneling under fortifications.

Chevaux-de-frise: (Shuh voh duh freez) This term has had several meanings as military technology and tactics evolved. In the Civil War the term meant a kind of field obstruction made to block an advancing enemy force. The singular is cheval-de-frise. Different form, but same function as abatis.

Coup-de-main: (coo duh man. The underlined N means it is not pronounced like our N. It is the nasal sound used in French but not in English.) A surprise attack.

Defilade: An obstacle or protection from horizontal fire or observation by the enemy. Also a verb meaning to create such a shield.

Embrasure: An opening through which guns or cannon are fired.

Enfilade: A position which subjects a force to enemy fire from the flank. Also a verb meaning to fire at down the enemy’s line from such a position.

July 2017 Fascine: (fa seen) A bundle of sticks bound together for use in earthworks and for strengthening ramparts.

Hors-de-combat: (oar duh conbah) Out of action; disabled.

Lunette: A two- or three-sided or crescent-shaped field fort open in the rear.

Mamelon: A small, rounded hill.

Materiel: (Pronounced with stress on the last syllable.) Don’t ask me why we don’t just say “material.”

Nom-de-guerre: An assumed name under which one fights. As in Stonewall Jackson or Fighting Joe Hooker.

Point d’appui: (I won’t even take a try at the French pronunciation.) A base or a rallying point for a military unit.

Prolonge: (Proh lonj) A long, thick rope with a metal eye in the center and a hook at one end, used to maneuver an unlimbered gun. It is stored on top of the trail.

Rampart: A broad elevation or mound of earth raised as a fortification.

Redan: A V-shaped work projecting from a fortified line.

Redoubt: (borrowed from the Italians) An isolated work used to defend a prominent point.

Revetment: A facing of masonry or other material used to protect an embankment.

Sortie: (sor tee or plain old sorty) A rapid movement from a fortified place to attack a besieging force.

Traverse: An adaptation to a trench to provide further protection for troops occupying the trench. The traverse can be a variation of the direction of the trench or sandbags or similar material in the trench. A traverse trench is a trench dug perpendicular to the

Civil War News 23rd Civil Annual War News Gettysburg Section main trench.

Vidette: (more from the Italians) A mounted sentry outpost.

Voltigeurs: Companies trained to fight as skirmishers.

Italian Gabion: A cylinder of wickerwork filled with earth.

Parapet: A defensive wall or an elevation raised above a main wall or rampart.

Ravelin: A V-shaped work outside a main ditch.

(If the reader will pardon another digression: Malta was known as the ravelin of Europe, back when Christian Europe was engaged in a long struggle with the Ottomans. The ravelin of Europe. I like that.)

Gould Hagler is the author of Georgia’s Confederate Monuments: In Honor of a Fallen Nation (Mercer University Press, 2014). His new book on Alabama’s Confederate monuments is to be published by Indiana University Press.

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Berm: A horizontal surface between the exterior slope of a rampart and a moat.

AN ELEGANT AND ‘ROYAL’ EVENT

Dutch has given us more naval terms that military terms. Ship, skipper, deck, buoy, yacht freebooter, keelhaul and many other salty words have Dutch roots.

Finally, from English we have plain old sap roller, a large wicker basket filled with dirt moved along to protect lead sappers as they dug.

People interested in the Civil War may want to look up some of these terms and look at some illustrations. This could deepen our understanding of some aspects of the war.

In conclusion, I have a question that I hope someone can answer.

What does CSDVA stand for? It appears on a memorial arch in

Carl Sell will be at the Gettysburg Heritage Center on July 1, 2 and 3 Unpublished letters with each sale!

“Who Were Those Other Heroes With Armistead At The Guns”

by Carl L. Sell, Jr.

“Taking Battery A” - John Paul Strain

Alabama along with CSA and I have not been able to identify the organization.

And thanks to Bill Dyer and Joe Jordan for helping with the naval items.

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Another insight into Gettysburg’s final attack by some of those who survived

“Thank God He Survived Pickett’s Charge”

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Association of Licensed Battlefield Guides “The Nation’s Oldest Professional Guide Service” The Gettysburg National Military Park recently announced that they will be offering an examination for guide candidates in December 2017. In preparation for this event we are pleased to announce registration is open for:

"2017 GUIDE ACADEMY" • • • •

Are you interested in earning a guide license for the GNMP? Are you curious about the new guide licensing process?

Would you like to know exactly what the profession of guiding is all about?

Would you simply like to know more about this fascinating period of our nation’s history?

Then check out our Guide Academy program starting this July!

Classes are held Saturdays in Gettysburg from July through November.

Participants can opt to take certain classes or sign up for the entire sixteen session package.

For additional details or to register visit:

http://gettysburgtourguides.org/the-lbg-academy

Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section

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July 2017

Forum XXII to Feature Prize-Winning Biographers

Ron Chernow and Annette Gordon-Reed on Presidents Who Followed Lincoln in White House Two of the most honored and renowned historians of our time—Ron Chernow and Annette Gordon-Reed—head the list of scholars who will appear at the 22nd annual Lincoln Forum Symposium in Gettysburg November 16-18, 2017. Best-known for their works on the Colonial era, Hamilton biographer Chernow and Jefferson biographer Gordon-Reed, each of whom has won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, will join a stellar faculty roster to examine the theme, “Lincoln and His Contemporaries: Friends, Enemies, and Successors.”

Focusing on the decidedly different men who succeeded Lincoln in the White House during Reconstruction a centuryand-a-half ago, Chernow will speak on his eagerly anticipated new biography of Generalturned-President Ulysses S. Grant. Gordon-Reed will return to a subject she addressed in a book published in 2011: Lincoln’s vice president and immediate successor, Andrew Johnson of Tennessee.

In addition, James B. Conroy, co-winner of the 2017 Lincoln Prize, will return for his second Forum appearance to discuss life in Lincoln’s White House, the subject of his own riveting new book. Charles B. Stormier will make his Forum debut to speak on his extraordinary 2016 volume exploring Lincoln’s close friendship with his Springfield roommate Joshua Fry Speed.

Purdue historian Caroline E. Janney makes her own first Forum appearance to explore the 1865 demobilization of Robert E. Lee’s enormous Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. The prolific young scholar Jonathan

W. White of Christopher Newport University returns to speak on his brand-new book about Civil War soldiers’ dreams. Florida-based scholar Stephen D. Engle discusses his award-winning new book on Lincoln-era war governors. Finally, journalist and author Melanie Kirkpatrick makes her Forum debut to discuss a seasonal topic never before addressed at our symposia: Lincoln and Thanksgiving, the national holiday he all but invented, and the subject of her latest book.

And William Seward biographer Walter Stahr will return to the Forum to introduce his latest book, Stanton: Lincoln’s War Secretary.

In a return engagement by popular demand, the acclaimed U.S. Army Chorus will pay a second visit to the Lincoln Forum to perform another stirring program of Civil War-era songs.

“We are pleased and proud to be welcoming one of the most distinguished and appealing rosters of historians in the entire history of the Forum,” said Chairman Frank J. Williams in announcing the 2017 schedule.

“We have chosen the best of the best from a list that just keeps expanding. So much new scholarship is emerging; so many new themes are being addressed, and so many standard beliefs reconsidered and upended that one can only conclude that the golden age of Lincoln and Civil War scholarship is continuing as robustly as ever. Most important of all, many of the leading thinkers and writers of this era clearly continue to think the Forum—and its participatory membership—to be among the best audiences in the country. We cannot wait to both introduce and welcome back the accomplished, provocative, and

renowned writers who will be heading to Gettysburg to grace Forum XXII.” As customary, the 2017 Forum will also feature presentations of both the Richard Nelson Current Award for lifelong individual achievement in the history field, and the Wendy Allen Award for institutional excellence. The program will also include the traditional recitations by leading Lincoln reenactor George Buss, panel discussions led by Forum chairman and vice chairman Frank Williams and Harold Holzer. One session is on “Lincoln’s Friends;” the other on “Lincoln’s Enemies.” Participants include, among others, Forum favorites Catherine Clinton and Edna Greene Medford.; There will be small breakout sessions featuring several of the visiting historians along with special extra guests— including Forum favorites Craig Symonds and John Marszalek, leading bibliophile Daniel Weinberg of Chicago’s renowned Abraham Lincoln Book Shop (on the state of Lincoln collecting), and veteran Forum member Mel Maurer presenting his own Lincoln dramatization. Chairman Williams will offer yet another of his beloved cooking classes.

Once again, teachers and students from around the country will be awarded scholarships to attend the entire three-day program.

Annette Gordon-Reed is the Charles Warren Professor of Legal History at Harvard University where she also serves as the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School who began her career at a major New York

Gettysburg College Special Collections and College Archives Musselman Library Exhibit “Right to Serve, Right to Lead: Lives and Legacies of the USCT” January 2017 – December 2017 Display of original artifacts, documents, and photographs significant to the story of the United States Colored Troops during and after the Civil War. Visit http://www.gettysburg.edu/special_collections Open during the school year Jan-May and Sept-Dec Mon-Fri 1-5 PM plus Tues-Weds evenings 6-9 PM Summer Hours: June-Aug Wed-Thurs-Fri 1-4 PM Exhibit also open by appointment Please call 717-337-7002 _______________________________________________________________

law firm and in city government, she authored the groundbreaking 1997 study, Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy, followed in 2008

by The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, which won the Pulitzer Prize plus an astonishing 15 additional major awards, making it one of the most honored works of non-fiction ever published. Notably, she was the first African-American to win a Pulitzer for History. In her critically acclaimed 2011 book, Andrew Johnson, Professor Gordon-Reed argued that much of the deprivation suffered by Artisan-Americans after the Civil War—and for generations to come­—might well have been avoided had Lincoln’s White House successor pursued a policy granting land to the former enslaved people of the South.

In 2016, Professor GordonReed returned to the Jefferson theme with Most Blessed of the Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination, co-authored with Peter Onuf.

Among her many awards, she has also won the Frederick Douglass Prize, the George Washington Book Prize, a MacArthur Foundation “genius award,” and, in 2010, the National Humanities Medal from President Barack Obama.

Best-selling, prize-winning biographer Ron Chernow is perhaps best-known as the author of the 2004 book, Alexander Hamilton. The book was adopted in 2015 for the fabulously successful, Tony-sweeping LinManuel Miranda Broadway musical, Hamilton, for which Chernow served as historical consultant. Chernow’s other triumphs have included The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance (1990; National Book Award); The Warburgs: The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of a Remarkable Jewish Family (1993; Columbia Business School award for excellence in economic writing); Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller Sr. (1998; nominee for the National Book Critics Circle Award); and George Washington (2010; Pulitzer Prize for Biography and the American History Book Prize). His eagerly anticipated new biography of Ulysses S. Grant—a project Chernow has described as a natural “progression” following his book on Washington—has been six years in the making and will be published in October. In 2013, Chernow won the Biographers International Organization “BIO” Award for advancing the art

and craft of biography. In 2015 President Obama awarded him the National Humanities Medal.

Several of his books have inspired TV documentaries in which Mr. Chernow has often appeared as an on-screen commentator.

The 2017 Forum roster is filled with additional award-winners. Professor Engle, for one, won the most recent Barondess Award from New York’s Civil War Round Table for his 2015 Gathering to Save a Nation: Lincoln’s Presidency and Civil War America. Conroy shares the 2017 Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize for his second book, Lincoln’s White House: The People’s House in Wartime. Professor White won the 2015 Abraham Lincoln Institute Book Prize and was a 2015 Lincoln Prize finalist for his Emancipation, the Union Army, and the Re-Election of Abraham Lincoln. Craig L. Symonds, who returns for a November 18 breakout session, is also a Lincoln Prize laureate, as is Vice Chairman and Panel Moderator Harold Holzer, who also won a 2008 National Humanities Medal. Marszalek’s awards include a recent citation for his collection of The Best Writings of Ulysses S. Grant.

“We are pleased to be presenting scholars who have been honored so often by so many,” commented Vice Chairman Holzer.

“We are confident that they will discover in our Lincoln Forum Family an audience passionate about Lincoln and the Civil War era, eager to learn more about these subjects, and fully prepared to engage with America’s greatest historians even as they renew friendships founded in a shared reverence for history.”

Once again the Forum will be headquartered at the Wyndham Hotel Gettysburg. Housing will include three dinners (November 16, 17, and 18), two lunches, and two breakfasts. As always, the program leads up to the annual November 19 observances of the anniversary of Lincoln’s greatest oration, the Gettysburg Address.

The event is marked each year by open-to-the-public ceremonies at the Soldiers National Cemetery a few miles from the Wyndham, and followed by the annual meeting of the Lincoln Fellowship of Pennsylvania.

Registration will be open soon, on a first-come, first-served basis—and is expected to fill quickly in response to the outstanding 2017 Faculty. Only active Lincoln Forum members will be eligible to participate.

For information on registration, consult the Forum website at www.thelincolnforum.org.

Preservation

EDUCATION Friends of Gettysburg members get involved

in the hands-on preservation of the battlefield through volunteer work days, fundraising projects, and educational tours and events.

Inspiration!

The Rupp House History Center is a free, interactive museum that teaches the civilian experience of the battle of Gettysburg. The Center offers family-friendly programming— like Civil War quilting demonstrations and encampments—during the battle anniversary and every weekend during the season.

Recruit members (ages 18–38) preserve history through service projects, like their Seedling to Cider initiative which uses battlefield apples to craft hard cider. Cider sales proceeds benefit battlefield preservation.

Join us and find YOUR place in history.

For more information about becoming a member, visit gettysburgfoundation.org or call 717.339.2159.

Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section

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The Source

By Michael K. Shaffer

The Bachelder Papers Journeying to Gettysburg this month, thousands of folks will walk the battlefield, attend various seminars, visit local shops, and attempt to reconnect with the three days of fighting there in July 1863. Almost as soon as the roar of muskets and artillery died down, another man did likewise. “At the commencement of the war I determined to attach myself to the army and wait for the great battle which would naturally decide the contest; study its topography on the field, and learn its details from the actors themselves, and eventually prepare its written and illustrated history.” The thoughts of John Badger Bachelder, prewar artist and a man on a mission!

Arriving within days after the fighting, Bachelder began touring the battlefield and used his artistic talent to sketch the different sectors, which played host to battle. His resultant work produced a highly detailed map, which the National Park Service continues to use today as a guide in the ongoing restoration efforts at the Gettysburg

The Bachelder Papers.

Battlefield National Military Park (GBNMP).

However, Bachelder’s map, (created in isometric, or birds-eye view style) or reprints sectioned into many large-scale maps, do not serve as the focus of this article. Instead, we will turn our attention to Bachelder’s other work; after all, spending 84 days in Gettysburg

Bachelder and his wife on the battlefield at Gettysburg.

should have produced fascinating accounts. So thought Bachelder as he made his way first to hospitals housing wounded and captured Confederate soldiers.

He interviewed them with a focus on the exact location of their respective regiments during the battle. Later, catching up with the Army of the Potomac at Brandy Station—site of their 1863-64 winter encampment— he questioned various Federal officers about the spots where their commands had engaged.

After amassing a tremendous amount of information, Bachelder obtained funding from Congress in 1880, to produce the definitive account of the war’s great battle.

During a time of reconciliation, Bachelder chose to withhold his accounts as obtained from those he interviewed. Instead, he opted to extract information from the Official Records—volumes in production at the time—and include this evidence in his written history of Gettysburg. Congress had no desire for a mere rehashing of material published in the O.R. Bachelder’s work went unpublished.

Fast-forward to the late 1950s and historian Edwin B. Coddington. Working on his narrative of the battle—and with an eye for primary source material, especially documents unknown or little used—Coddington began the search for additional information on Bachelder after spotting a reference to the New Hampshire Historical Society on an illustration mentioning Bachelder. Coddington the sleuth went to work.

Upon contacting the society, he learned they indeed had boxes of Bachelder’s papers, and the folks in New Hampshire told Coddington no other historians had ever used the source. Bingo!

Coddington became the first to mine the thousands of documents written to the ‘Colonel,’ a prewar title Bachelder held while serving in a militia unit in Pennsylvania.

Coddington’s 1968 narrative, The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command, marked the first book to reference the Bachelder collection as a source. Thanks to the efforts of David and Audrey Ladd, who served as editors, and Morningside, who published the three-volume collection, this set now exists for those interested in learning more about the fighting at the crossroads town.

Issued in 1994 and 1995, with a subtitle The Bachelder Papers: Gettysburg in their Own Words, the volumes contain various letters of correspondence between the Colonel and former Federal and Confederate officers.

The communication continued until Bachelder’s death in 1894.

Many of the letters detail the location and action of each writer’s respective command

July 2017

Sample page; a letter from Joshua Chamberlain.

during the battle, while others wrote to critique the placement of various monuments on the battlefield; Bachelder served as a director of the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association.

Some wrote to comment on Bachelder’s map, offering words of praise or suggesting corrections. Regardless of the topic, researchers can locate these various documents within the pages of The Bachelder Papers.

The editors arranged the papers in chronological order. Volume one covers Jan. 5, 1863 (a couple of letters before Gettysburg, the rest after the battle) through July 27, 1880. In the second volume, readers will find Bachelder’s letters from Sept. 6, 1880, through April 12, 1886; the last volume contains letters from April 12, 1886, until Dec. 22, 1894, along with five appendices presenting additional Bachelder material held in different repositories across the country. Each volume has an index, and the final volume provides a master index for all 2,081, continuously-numbered pages. Researchers seeking printed copies can obtain them from various online bookstores, and remember to check WorldCat http://www.worldcat.org for help in finding the collection in a local library.

Scott Hartwig, a former

historian at GBNMP, recently commented on the significance of The Bachelder Papers. “Next to the Official Records, this is the most important collection of papers about the Battle of Gettysburg and the early years of what became the Gettysburg Battlefield National Military Park, that is in existence.”

Remember Bachelder while visiting Gettysburg for this year’s commemoration of the battle.

Visit the local bookstores, and you might even locate a copy of his work!

Please keep suggestions for future ‘The Source’ columns coming; send them to the e-mail address shown below. Continued good luck in researching the Civil War! Michael K. Shaffer is a Civil War historian, author, lecturer, and instructor, who remains a member of the Society of Civil War Historians, Historians of the Civil War Western Theater, and the Georgia Association of Historians. 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.

July 2017

Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section

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Civil War Bullet Holes Still Mark Battle Sites In Town

By Carl L. Sell Jr. Surrounded by vicious fighting at various sites on all sides on July 1, 2 and 3, 1863, the town of Gettysburg itself was a constant battlefield all three days. The town was occupied by Confederate troops from the afternoon of July 1 until the southern army began its retreat three days later.

Fighting began on McPherson’s Ridge north and west of town on the morning of July 1. Despite stubborn resistance, Union troops were pushed south through the town until they regrouped on Cemetery Ridge that evening. As the fighting began in the morning of the first day, Gettysburg citizens either evacuated the town of 2,400 for the safety of nearby farms or barricaded themselves in their houses and hunkered down for the duration.

Quick thinking by Brig. Gen. Adolph von Steinwehr, who organized a defensive line just south of town at the start of Cemetery Ridge, saved the day for the beleaguered Union army. The tired Confederates halted their advance and gave a large body of Union troops time to move onto the field from positions nine miles south near Taneytown, Md. The entire Army of the Potomac would arrive the next day.

In recognition of von Steinwehr’s heroics, in 1890 the Borough of Gettysburg named the portion of U.S. Route 15 from the battlefield to its intersection with Baltimore Street in his honor. An engineer by training, von Steinwehr understood the importance of using the start of the ridge line to blunt the enemy’s advance.

Residents and animals scattered as the Confederates fought their way through town, often facing house-to-house resistance. After overwhelming the defenses at McPherson’s Ridge, they moved past Pennsylvania College (now Gettysburg College), through the town square and down Baltimore Street to the foot of Cemetery Ridge where Baltimore intersects with what was then known as the Emmitsburg Road (now Steinwehr Avenue).

It wasn’t the first time Confederates had been in Gettysburg. On June 26, Captain Elijah (Lige) White’s Thirty-Fifth Va. Cav. Battalion occupied the town square for the better part of the day. During that time, White’s troopers shot and killed a member of the home guard on the Baltimore Pike south of town in what would become the first fatality at Gettysburg.

White then moved on with Maj. Gen. Jubal Early’s Division of Lt. Gen. Richard Ewell’s Second Corps toward the Susquehanna River. Ewell would be called

back to Gettysburg when it became evident the town would be the site of a major battle.

White arrived on July 2, but saw little action while protecting the flank of Maj. Gen. Jeb Stuart’s cavalry east of town.

The battlefield’s Hallowed Ground outside town on McPherson’s Ridge, Cemetery Ridge, Seminary Ridge, Culp’s Hill, Little Round Top, Big Round Top, Devil’s Den, the Wheatfield, and the Peach Orchard appear serene today, marked by scores of monuments to those who fought and died there. Inside the town, there are many visual reminders of the war. The new visitor’s center and the Seminary Ridge Museum can’t tell the town’s story like the town itself!

After the stalemate at the foot of Cemetery Ridge on July 1, sharpshooters on both sides kept up a continuous barrage on enemy positions. The Sweeny House (now the Farnsworth House Inn) at 401 Baltimore Street is pock marked with 150 bullet holes on the side facing Cemetery Ridge.

The target was a garret window where Confederates quickly took aim and fired at their adversaries.

In his Official Report of the Battle of Gettysburg, Gen. Steinwehr said his Second Brigade suffered over 300 men killed and wounded, principally the Seventy-Third Ohio Vols., by enemy sharpshooters who fired from several town buildings at a great distance.

Across the street, both the existing Winebrenner House and the McCreary House site were in the line of fire. Louisiana Corporal William H. Poole was killed while attempting to fire on Union troops from a balcony doorway at the rear of the McCreary House.

Poole apparently had removed the oak door and was using it to steady his aim when a bullet crashed through the wood and killed him instantly. The McCreary family later buried the Confederate in the back yard.

The McCreary House site fronts Unity Park, which features a series of panels that provide information about field music and its role in the Civil War. Also included are small monuments and flags of states that sent soldiers to Gettysburg. The park is overlooked by a large statue of a drummer boy. The concept for the project was initiated by young Andrew Adam from Mechanicsburg, Penn., who took it on as an Eagle Scout project. A reenactor who portrays a Union drummer boy, Andrew noticed the lack of information about Civil War music during a visit during the 2013 Battle of Gettysburg Sesquicentennial. The park was

dedicated two years later.

Amazingly, only one Gettysburg civilian was killed during the three days of the battle, but the story is a tragic one. Mary Virginia (Jennie) Wade was helping her sister, Georgeanna McClellan, who had given birth to a son a few days earlier. Jennie was shot dead on July 3 through a door, apparently by a Confederate sharpshooter firing at Union soldiers outside the home at 548 Baltimore Street.

She was buried in the back yard the next day and later was moved to nearby Evergreen Cemetery.

But the story didn’t end with Jennie’s death. Her apparent boyfriend and neighbor, Johnston (Jack) Hastings Skelly, had been mortally wounded on June 15, 1863, at the Battle of Second Winchester, by troops under the command of General Ewell. He would die on July 12 and was buried near Jennie in Evergreen Cemetery.

Adding to the unique story is the fact that Wesley Culp, a friend and neighbor to both Jennie and Jack in Gettysburg, was a member of the Second Va. Inf., part of the famed Stonewall Brigade. He had left Gettysburg to relocate as a harness maker in Shepherdstown, Va., before the war broke out. Wesley found his friend Jack in a Winchester hospital and promised to deliver a message to Jack’s family about his injury. Speculation is that Jack intended to tell his mother he and Jennie would be married as soon as he could obtain a furlough. Wesley made it to Gettysburg and did visit a sister, but was killed on Culp’s Hill (named for a family member) on July 2, 1863.

It is not known for sure where he is buried.

Wesley also had a brother, William, who fought for the Union and survived the war. There is a marker to the Culp brothers in a plaza adjacent to the Gettysburg Heritage Center at 297 Steinwehr Avenue. William was a lieutenant in the Eighty-Seventh Penn. Inf. The memorial to both Culp brothers was erected in 2013 by the John Wesley Culp Camp #1961, Sons of Confederate Veterans.

The Baltimore Street/Steinwehr Avenue corridors include numerous stops, within walking distance of each other. Included is the Rupp House, the home of the Gettysburg Foundation, at the intersection of the two streets.

John Rupp and his family lived there during the battle. Events are regularly scheduled at the house and the large adjoining lawn.

Visit the Dobbin House, built in 1776 and named after a Methodist minister, on Steinwehr Avenue and the Pierce House on

Baltimore Street, where young Tillie Pierce wrote about her experiences during the battle.

Union Brig. Gen. William Schimmelfennig of the Eleventh Corps spent three days hiding in the Garlach House backyard at 319 Baltimore Street when he was cut off by Confederates.

Catharine Garlach provided food and water as he hid behind a wood shed next to a hog pen. Her husband, Henry, was trapped on Cemetery Ridge, where he had

gone to view the battle.

The night before he delivered his famous Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln told a crowd at the college clamoring for a speech that, “I do not appear before you for the purpose of making a speech for several substantial reasons. The most substantial of these is that I have no speech to give.” The next day, November 19, 1863, Lincoln walked down Baltimore Street for the dedication of the National Cemetery.

Bullet scars surround the sharpshooter’s window at the Sweeny House (Farnsworth Inn).

Vin Caponi

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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.

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Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section

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July 2017

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Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section

Images of a Gettysburg Photographer – Buddy Secor July 2017

First Minnesota Vol. Inf. Reg. monument, Gettysburg.

Little Round Top, Gettysburg.

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The Angle at Gettysburg.

East Cemetery Hill.

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Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section

General Warren on Little Round Top.

July 2017

Buddy Secor is a photo enthusiast who specializes in modern day Civil War battlefield imagery. He became interested in 2010 in the Civil War when he found that his newly purchased home in the Stafford, Va. area was built on the site of an artillery redoubt. Being fascinated by this, he wanted to take some photos of the cannon so that he could hang them as conversation pieces in his entry foyer. He took his first image of a cannon on the Chancellorsville battlefield, and it won the Grand Prize in the Civil War Trust’s annual photo contest.

Gettysburg and Vicksburg are two of his favorite battlefield sites for photography.

He shared all of his images with the National Park Service who put him to work as a volunteer photographer at events covering the 150th Sesquicentennial. That led to him volunteering for the Civil War Trust, The Center for Civil War Photography, George Washington’s Mount Vernon, and many other non-profit organizations. His photographs have been published in books, novels, magazines, and newspapers, both nationally and worldwide. Battlefield photography is his passion.

His advice to anyone wanting striking imagery of the battlefields is to do the following: • Research the history and know about the battlefield you are photographing • Research what others have photographed and learn best what you want to shoot before you go • Take photos early or late at sunrise and sunset to capture the best light and mood • Use good quality equipment, lenses and use a tripod for stability • Try to capture something that is special to you, take your time and have fun Buddy Secor can be followed on Facebook at Ninja Pix and ninjapix@verizon.net.

Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section

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July 2017

Home, Headquarters, Hospital: The Daniel Lady Farm

By Larry Weatherford Before the first of July, 1863, Rebecca and Daniel Lady could never have imagined that thousands of Union and Confederate troops would pass by their home, cross their fields, and sleep on their ground. They certainly couldn’t have comprehended that an entire Confederate division would claim their farm as headquarters, position artillery pieces just west of their barn, form battle lines on their property, and march off to a bloody fight on Henry Culp’s farm. It never crossed their minds that the roar of cannon fire would literally shake the soil that had grown their family’s food, and there is no way they could have pictured the chilling sight of wounded and dying soldiers being treated in their house, barn, and other buildings that were serving as a field hospital.

The Daniel Lady Farm is located east of Gettysburg on Hanover Road just past Benner’s Hill. Its rolling hills, bright red barn, and 1830’s era stone farmhouse look much as they did during those three days in the summer of 1863 that made “a little place called Gettysburg” known around the world. Daniel Lady’s father, Jacob, purchased the property in 1841, and transferred it to his son in 1853.

On June 26, 1863, the quartermaster of the 35th Va.

Cav. Bn. stopped at the Lady Farm to purchase grain. The 35th had just dispensed with some local militia and cavalry. The first casualty at Gettysburg had occurred during that encounter.

Two days later, a 5th Mich. Cav. officer bought a horse for $150 from Mr. Lady. These men were the first of thousands who would set foot on the Lady Farm and the other family farms surrounding it in the next few days.

Large numbers of both Union and Confederate soldiers were on the Lady Farm beginning on July 1. At least two brigades of Slocum’s Division of the Federal XII Corps came around Wolf’s Hill, marched west on Hanover Road a short distance and then turned down a farm lane into the Lady’s field across the road from the house. General Alpheus Williams and Gen. Thomas Ruger were observing the countryside hoping to find a way to aid the XI Corps which was being battered on the other side of town.

Almost thirty-five hundred XII Corps soldiers moved into battle lines in front of Wolf’s Hill. There were regiments from Indiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Wisconsin, New York, Maryland, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania. From the Lady’s front yard, the lines of soldiers in blue would have been quite a sight with their regimental flags waving in the wind.

Mounted Confederates were spotted at the top of Benner’s Hill to the west, and, as the infantry waited for orders, Federal artillery was placed halfway up a hill east of the Lady Farm. The Confederates were from the 35th Va. Cav. Bn. They were soon joined by the 49th Va. Inf. As XII Corps skirmishers pushed forward across the fields on both sides of the road, word came that the XI Corps had already started to withdraw. The orders came to pull back just as the Union soldiers were reaching the top of the hill.

The XII Corps regiments retraced their steps back toward Baltimore Pike where they spent the night.

During the evening of July 1, Gen. Edward Johnson’s Confederate Division made its way onto the Wolf and Lady farms. These men had marched more than twenty-five miles since morning.

With all the talk over the years about Confederates coming to Gettysburg for new shoes, it’s interesting to note that some of this division’s soldiers did indeed have new shoes at the battle. General Johnson had ordered some captured Pennsylvania militiamen to give up their new “shoes and stockings” to the Confederates. The shoeless soldiers in blue were then paroled and sent on their way.

On the night of July 1, Johnson’s Division “slept on their

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Daniel Lady Farm’s historic barn.

arms.” That meant that there were no tents and the troops were lying on the ground with their weapons close by in their battle lines. There were fourteen regiments from Virginia, five from Louisiana, two from North Carolina and one battalion from Maryland. The brigade commanders were Gen. John M. Jones, George H. Steuart, James Walker and Col. Jesse M. Williams who was commanding Nicholls’ Brigade.

The southern soldiers were anticipating a fight, and seemed anxious to move out, but Gen. Lee’s plan for a coordinated attack didn’t materialize until late in the day on July 2.

In the meantime, Gen. Johnson’s troops moved forward closer to Hanover Road. Church services were conducted for troops in Steuart’s Bde. on the rise behind the Lady’s farmhouse.

The famed First Rockbridge Arty. under Capt. Archibald Graham took their position on the “eminence” behind Benner’s Hill north of the road. Graham’s Btry. consisted of four 20-pounder Parrott rifled guns. Two of those weapons had been captured a couple of weeks earlier at the Second Battle of Winchester.

Corporal Edward “Ned” Moore, one of Graham’s young artillerymen, reported that he was in place on the morning of July 2, when he saw Gen. Ewell and his staff inspecting the countryside. Ewell’s aidede-camp, Lt. Col. Alexander S. “Sandie” Pendleton, rode over and delivered two letters that he had for the corporal. The two young men had known each other since early in the war, when both were members of the battery.

Moore was impressed though that his mail was “delivered by the Commanding General and his staff.”

Around 4 p.m., after several officers had surveyed the area for a good artillery position and could find none, Snowden Andrews’ Arty. Bn., commanded by

(Jack Melton)

19 year-old “Boy Major” Joseph Latimer moved into place in the open field atop Benner’s Hill. According to Ned Moore, they were “200 yards to our left, and nearer the enemy.” Two of Latimer’s 20-pounder Parrotts belonging to Raines’ Btry. were located next to the Rockbridge Btry. closer to the road.

As the military activity increased around Gettysburg, some residents decided that it was a good time to leave for a few days.

Rebecca and Daniel Lady were among those who chose to take their children and visit family a few miles away, even though that meant leaving their home, crops, and livestock.

In the late afternoon of July 2, the Lady Farm became not only the headquarters for Johnson’s Division, but it was also turned into a 2nd Corps field hospital.

After almost two hours of intense firing, the situation on Benner’s Hill became untenable for the Confederates as their guns were in the open and outnumbered two to one. One Union commander on Cemetery Hill, Col. Charles S. Wainwright said that Latimer’s barrage was “the most accurate fire I have yet seen from their artillery.” Major Latimer received permission to withdraw all but one battery to a safer location. As he was riding behind Dement’s Btry., a Federal shell exploded above the young officer and sent shards of metal flying into the artillery commander and his horse. It is believed that his arm amputation took place in the Daniel Lady farmhouse. The young major survived the surgery, but died of gangrene less than a month later.

At the Daniel Lady Farm, artillery fire from the Federals was fierce. Major William Goldsborough of the First Md. Bn. in Steuart’s Brig. said, “The air is filled with exploding, crashing, screaming shells. ‘Lay Down’ is the command, and every man was flat on his face.” A Louisiana

July 2017 soldier in Nicholls’ Bde. said, “Perhaps nothing in battle is so trying to an infantryman’s nerves and patience as the preliminary artillery fire.”

Shortly before the cannon fire silenced on July 2, the division’s more than 5,500 infantrymen were ordered toward Culp’s Hill.

As Walker’s Stonewall Brigade was preparing for that one mile march, Federal Cavalry and Infantry were noticed to the east, and sharpshooters were still firing on the brigade from a nearby wheat field. General Walker sent word to Gen. Johnson that since Jenkins’ Cavalry had not yet arrived, perhaps his brigade should remain behind to protect the flank and rear before joining the others.

As Johnson’s other three brigades moved out, Walker shifted his men into position. Colonel John Nadenbousch’s 2nd Va. Inf. was ordered toward Brinkerhoff’s Ridge and pushed back the 3rd Pa. Inf. and 10th N.Y. Cav., as Gen. J.E.B. Stuart and his staff watched. Confederates wounded in that action were treated at the Lady Farm hospital. Union prisoners were also taken to the Lady Farm. Captured Capt. Benjamin F. Lownsbury of the 10th N.Y. Cav. was brought to Gen. Walker and likely had his “slight wound to the leg” treated.

Jones, Nicholls, and Steuart went into action against the Federal troops at Culp’s Hill around 7:30 p.m.

This fighting marked an increase in the medical work done on the Lady Farm as wounded soldiers from Culp’s Hill joined those injured in the artillery barrage. The wounded were first taken to the Christian Benner Farm, located on the south side of Hanover Road, before being sent by ambulance to field hospitals. Even those who weren’t taken to the hospital at

Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section division headquarters traveled in ambulances across the roads and fields of the Lady and Wolf Farms to their destination.

The fighting into the night of July 2, ended late and resumed before daylight the next morning, as the Confederates again doggedly headed up that stony, wooded hill. The first three brigades had now been joined by Walker’s Stonewall Brigade along with Daniels’ and O’Neal’s Bdes. from Rodes’ Division and William “Extra Billy” Smith’s Bde. from Early’s Division.

On the morning of July 3, Lt. Randolph McKim, an aide to Gen. Steuart, returned to the Lady Farm as the brigade was running low on ammunition. He and three North Carolina soldiers used blankets to carry back ammunition from wagons parked at division headquarters. They were cited for bravery by the general.

By late morning, the attack up the hill was ending. But the battle wasn’t over for the artillery on the Lady and Wolf farms. Captain Dance’s official report read, “Captain Graham remained in position on the left during the 2nd and 3rd, and firing upon the enemy with good effect.” The four 20-pounders fired almost 440 rounds over the two days. Private Robert Bell describes July 2 and 3, “Warm. Went into position early in the morning, sections separated – changed position evening under a very hot fire; heavy infantry firing and charged the Yankees position and was repulsed with serious loss. Heaviest cannonading of the war occurred about 100 (1:00 p.m. July 3) – Fired about 57 rounds from last position.”

Raine’s two 20-pounder Parrotts also participated in the July 3 cannonade and were joined

by Lieutenant Colonel William Nelson’s Arty. Bn. as they fired

Confederate 20-pounder Parrott rifle manufactured by J.R. Anderson & Co., Tredegar Foundry. This cannon is located near the entrance to Evergreen Cemetery in Gettysburg.

(Jack Melton)

on the Federal artillery placed on Cemetery Hill. Colonel E. Porter Alexander’s message to Gen. Longstreet read, “For God’s sake, come quick, the 18 guns are gone” was in response to the Federals quickly moving the guns to silence the artillery in the direction of the Lady and Wolf farms so the artillery action of Graham, Raines and Nelson helped influence the timing of the Pickett-Pettigrew-Trimble charge.

Daniel Lady said that he returned on July 4 to find his farm in shambles. Neighbor and friend, Christian Benner said, “his buildings were used for hospital purposes, …wounded soldiers were in the house and dead bodies were lying around which they were obliged to bury.” It was also said that wounded soldiers remained on the farm for several days after the battle. Daniel Lady filed a claim in the amount of $1,461.97, and eventually received compensation for damages to his property.

The Daniel Lady Farmhouse and Barn are open for tours.

Bloodstains are still apparent on the floors of the house, which is set up to show how the home

Daniel Lady Farm House with the barn in the background.

(Peggy Melton)

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“44 VA” and “JB” are dug into the wood.

would have looked around the time of the battle.

The Lady’s red barn contains some initials carved into the wood just inside the front entrance. It’s believed that the initials B.A.R. 23 VA belong to Benjamin A. Roberts of the 23rd Va. Inf. and the A.B.E. 3NC are those of Aaron B. Eubanks of the 3rd N.C. Inf. Roberts returned more than once after the war, and each time supposedly carved his initials on the barn exterior stones. An intriguing set of initials are in the westernmost rear window sill, where “44 VA” and “JB” are dug into the wood.

There are several soldiers with the initials J.B. in the regiment at Gettysburg, but only one with no middle initial. Joseph Behan was wounded at Culp’s Hill and died in early July. Was it him? Interesting to think about, but still speculation. A Masonic symbol is also carved into that window sill.

You can also see an artillery shell fragment in a beam near the front of the barn’s west side.

Many well-known individuals in addition to those already mentioned were at the Lady Farm during those three 1863 days.

They included Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, Maj. Henry Kyd Douglas, Pvt. John Wesley Culp, and many of Gen. Lee’s staff. Whether Gen. Lee visited the Lady Farm may never be answered definitively, but some reliable sources

(Jack Melton)

indicate he was there. Some people also believe that the barn served as Gen. Ewell’s temporary headquarters.

The Daniel Lady Farm is owned and operated by the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association, a group formed in 1959. The Lady Farm was purchased by the GBPA at auction in 1999. Since then, extensive restoration and preservation efforts have been undertaken and continue. The Farm is open for public tours and living history events, and is a popular campground for Boy Scouts. It is also home base for Boy Scout Venture Crew 1861 Fife and Drum Corps. The GBPA President is Barb Mowery at president@gbpa.org.

Larry Weatherford is a living history presenter, speaker, historian, and radio station owner.

One of three programs that he presented at last year’s Battle of Gettysburg Anniversary reenactment was focused on the Historic Daniel Lady Farm.

He is President of the Ward Hill Lamon Civil War Roundtable, and the Illiana Civil War Historical Society. Those groups conducted a 125th Anniversary Rededication ceremony for the Illinois Monuments on the Gettysburg Battlefield last September.

Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section

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July 2017

The 26th North Carolina at Gettysburg: July 1, 1863

By Eric Lindblade, Licensed Battlefield Guide When the 26th N.C. Inf. embarked on what became the Gettysburg Campaign, it numbered over 900 men in the ranks making it the largest regiment in Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, but the history of the regiment dates to 1861. The ten companies that comprised the regiment were formed between May and July 1861 and hailed from central and western North Carolina. On August 27, 1861, the 26th North Carolina was officially organized and soon after ordered to the North Carolina coast of to defend it from an expected invasion by Union forces.

The regiment saw combat for the first time at the Battle of New Bern on March 14, 1862. Later it was ordered to Virginia as part of Robert Ransom’s N.C. Bde. where it fought at King’s School House and Malvern Hill as part of the Seven Days Campaign in June and July of 1862.

In August 1862, Zebulon Vance, who served as the first colonel of the 26th, was elected governor of North Carolina and resigned from the regiment to assume his duties as the state’s chief executive. The expected promotion of twenty-year old Lt. Col. Henry King Burgwyn Jr. caused quite a bit of consternation in the mind of brigade commander Robert Ransom who remarked that he did not want any “boy colonels” in his command.

The 26th N.C. was transferred from Ransom’s Bde. to a newly formed North Carolina brigade under the command of Brig. Gen. James J. Pettigrew.

The 26th provided a veteran regiment for the brigade which consisted of the inexperienced 11th, 44th, 47th, and 52nd N.C. regiments. With the transfer the 26th left the Army of Northern Virginia and thus missed the heavy campaigning between August 1862 and May 1863. During that period the regiment served in southeastern Virginia and eastern North Carolina, participating in

a number of engagements. After the reorganization of the Army of Northern Virginia in May 1863, the men of Pettigrew’s Bde. were assigned to the division of Maj. Gen. Henry Heth in the newly created Third Corps under Lt. Gen. Ambrose Powell Hill.

On June 15 the 26th N.C., along with Pettigrew’s Bde. (minus the 44th N.C. left behind at Hanover Junction, Va.), left their positions along the Rappahannock River and joined the rest of the Army of Northern Virginia as it moved north. By late June the regiment had entered the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. On June 29 the Third Corps was ordered to cross the South Mountains and move toward Cashtown. The next day the 26th advanced to the western edges of Gettysburg with portions of Pettigrew’s Bde. before withdrawing after the appearance of Gen. John Buford’s Union cavalry.

The regiment was detailed for picket duty near Marsh Creek, approximately three miles west of Gettysburg. In command of the picket line was Lt. Col. John Lane a farmer from Chatham County.

Lane entered Confederate service in June 1861 as a corporal of “The Chatham Boys” which became Co. G of the 26th N.C. Inf. Well respected by men in the ranks, Lane was quickly promoted, first to captain of Co. G in September 1861 and then lieutenant colonel in August 1862. After the war Lane recalled that two women, “much distressed and alarmed, because they were cut off from their houses,” approached him.

The lieutenant colonel assured the ladies that Confederates did not make war on females and then advanced his picket line beyond their houses and allowed the women to reach their homes.

That evening the men of the 26th N.C. were described as “all worn out and broken down” after days of hard marching and picket duty. The next day would test the resolve of the regiment unlike any others.

As July 1 dawned the 26th

Monument of the 26th North Carolina looking towards the monument of the 24th Michigan.

withdrew their picket lines and fell in behind Heth’s Division as they advanced east towards Gettysburg.

Around 7:30 a.m. fighting began between dismounted Union cavalry and the lead brigades of Heth’s Division under Brig. Gen. James Archer and Joseph Davis. Despite stubborn resistance by Buford’s troops, they were ultimately pushed back to McPherson’s Ridge, where they were relieved by the arrival of the infantry of the Union First Corps. Private William Edwards of Co. E, 26th N.C. wrote that, “but a few miles had we gon when we hird the sound of Artillery just before us on the turn pike Road we soon come to the place whear it was when it first fired.” The artillery that Edwards heard was the sound of fighting on each side of the Chambersburg Pike that was growing in intensity which each minute. While the men of the 26th could hear the morning fighting, it is unlikely that any of the regiment’s men actually saw it unfold in the fields west of Gettysburg.

Major John T. Jones reported after the battle that, “when within about 2 1/2 miles of the town, we deployed to the left of the pike, but soon crossed over to the right, other regiments of the division having been engaged for some time. We took up our position in rear of our batteries after we moved to the right.” This initial position was on the reverse western slope of Herr’s Ridge where the regiment was held during the morning action. Major Jones later continued in his report that, “after remaining in this position about half an hour, exposed to a random fire from the enemy’s guns, losing probably a dozen men killed and wounded, we received orders to advance. We moved forward about half a mile, and halted in a skirt of woods.”

The “skirt of woods” Jones noted was about half way between Herr’s Ridge to the west and Willoughby’s Run on the east. The 26th North Carolina remained in this position during a lull that settled over the battlefield after Confederate forces had been repulsed in their morning attacks. Major Jones noted “skirmishers being thrown out, we remained in line of battle until 2 p.m., when orders to advance were received.” With the arrival of Lieutenant Gen. Richard Ewell’s Second Corps, Gen. Robert E. Lee ordered the rest of Heth’s Division and that of Maj. Gen. William Dorsey Pender to attack in conjunction with Ewell’s troops. One soldier later described the feelings in the ranks and noted that the men “knew the desperateness of the charge”

The monument to the 26th North Carolina along Meredith Avenue. It was placed at this location in 1985 by the State of North Carolina.

that lay ahead. The officers of the regiment moved through the ranks giving encouragement and at times joking with the men before they moved out. Lieutenant Colonel Lane recalled that the 26th could see the large body of Confederate troops north of the Chambersburg Pike advancing towards Union positions on Oak Ridge. Lane stated “Never was a grander sight beheld. The lines extended more than a mile, all directly visible to us.”

Soon Col. Burgwyn ordered the colors to the front and the regiment prepared to advance.

Companies E and F were on each side of the color guard and companies A and G near the center of the line. These companies would suffer terribly as the fighting progressed. At 2:30 p.m. the 26th N.C. moved forward toward the Union line in Herbst Woods and the 496 men of the 24th Mich.

Inf. of the famed Iron Brigade.

Colonel Henry K. Burgwyn of the 26th NC. “The Boy Colonel” was mortally wounded in action against the 24th MI on July 1.

John T.C. Hood of Company F wrote that as the regiment advanced the Federal lines were “then in full view. I say lines as there was at least three distinct lines visible, and probably more.”

The first line that Hood saw was likely the 24th Mich.’s skirmish line of along Willoughby’s Run, the second being the 24th’s main

line east of the run. The third was Col. Chapman Biddle’s Bde. along western McPherson’s Ridge. Hood continued, “One thing occurred at this time that drew my attention particularly. At the command to charge Corporal S.P. Philyaw ran out in front and fired his gun which, I think drew the fire from the Federal lines, the whole volley striking the ground about 15 paces in front of us. The next volley striking the ground about 15 paces in front of us.

The next volley passes over us.

As we were on the double quick we had advantage nearer and in the open field, the Federals got a better range and volleys of deadly missiles were sent into our ranks, which mowed us down like wheat before a sickle.” Private Edwards of Co. E recalled “the Federals commenced firing, their balls striking the ground before us thick as grasshoppers in a meadow in the fall of the year.”

Lieutenant Colonel Lane remembered “The enemy at once opened fire, killing and wounding some, but their aim was rather too high to be effective. All kept the step and made as pretty and perfect line as a regiment ever made, every man endeavoring to keep dressed on the colors. We opened fire on the enemy. On, on we went, our men yet in perfect line, until we reached the branch.” The reeds, briers, and undergrowth along the banks of Willoughby’s Run was a temporary obstacle as the 26th N.C. crossed under fire.

The regiment was soon across and reformed their lines on the eastern bank and then advanced up the ridge toward the 24th Mich.

As the 26th advanced, Lt. Thomas Cureton of Co. B wrote “about half way up the hill we encountered another (2nd) line where a desperate engagement took place.” Major Jones noted “on this second line, the fighting was terrible - our men advancing, the enemy stubbornly resisting, until the two lines were pouring volleys into each other

July 2017

Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section

The location along Willoughby’s Run where the 26th NC crossed under fire from the 24th Michigan.

at a distance not greater than 20 paces.” Private Edwards of Co. E attested to the close nature of the fighting when he wrote “no halt but fired and loaded advancing until we got in 30 yds. of them.”

One soldier in the 26th stated that the “bullets were as thick as hailstones in a storm.” A member of the 24th Mich. recalled that the 26th came on yelling “like demons.”

As the Carolinians closed within 20-40 paces of the 24th, it came to a halt due to the severe musket fire in their front. Heavy losses were already being suffered in the ranks as Co. B’s Lt. Cureton remembered, “there I first became aware of our heavy loss by Capt Louis G. Young of Gen’l J Johnston Pettigew’s staff (who was riding cooly along in rear of my company) ordering me to close my company (B) to the right to the colors and when I looked to right where Company F would have been there was only two or three men, all the rest were killed or wounded.”

At a critical moment of the attack the colors of the 26th North Carolina fell to the ground and the line momentarily hesitated.

The 26th looked close to faltering after a “murderous fire” from the enemy. Colonel Burgwyn grabbed the colors to rally the regiment, despite knowing the terrible toll inflicted on those who had carried them. As Burgwyn turned to hand the colors to a Co. B soldier he was hit in his side with the musket ball passing through both lungs. It proved to be a mortal wound; a few hours after being stuck the twenty-one year old “Boy Colonel” passed away. Lieutenant Colonel Lane quickly assumed command and

with it the task of getting the regiment moving again.

Lane quickly ordered the men to close ranks and push on. Lane found the colors still down and grabbed them. Lieutenant Milton Blair of Co. I rushed to Lane and yelled “no man can take these colors and live.” Lane calmly responded “it is my time to take them now. Lane began advancing the colors of the 26th N.C. and shouted at the top of his lungs, “Twenty-sixth, follow me!” It was said the men answered with a yell and pressed forward.

As the 26th surged forward, the 19th Ind. Inf. to the 24th Mich.’s left was forced back by the 11th N.C. Inf. With their left flank exposed, and the 26th in their front, the 24th Mich. was compelled to fall back. Private Edwards of Co. E wrote of this running fight that “they ran though they did not go off fast but slow testing evry [sic] inch of the ground as they went.

By this time I was wounded and went to the rear. I there found my comrades lying almost in piles some dead some dying & others mortally and slightly wounded.

Some would halt me and tell me they was bound to die.”

The 151st Penn. of Biddle’s Bde. covered the Iron Brigade’s retreat.

Lieutenant Colonel Lane was still carrying the colors as his men closed on this new line of Union troops. The men of the 151st were soon overwhelmed by a combined attack of the 26th N.C. in their front and the 11th N.C. on their flank. One participant in the fight recalled “volleys of musketry are fast thinning out those left and only a skeleton line now remains. To add to the horrors of the scene, the battle

Lt. Col. John R. Lane assumed command of the 26th NC after the mortal wounding of Burgwyn.

He was the third and last colonel of the 26th.

smoke has settled down over the combatants making it almost as dark as night. With a cheer the men obey the order to advance, and rush on and upwards to the summit of the hill, when the last line of the enemy gives way and sullenly retires.” Despite suffering heavy casualties, the 151st Penn.’s heroic rear guard action bought needed time for Union forces to fall back to a new line being formed on Seminary Ridge. Before they also retreated to Seminary Ridge, a member of the 151st fired a shot that severely wounded Lt. Col. Lane and for the fourteenth time that day the 26th N.C.’s colors fell to the ground.

Major Jones assumed command. As Union forces reformed on Seminary Ridge the 26th N.C. was halted; those left in the ranks ordered to support Pender’s Division as it advanced and ultimately drove the Union First Corps back towards Cemetery Hill.

Writing to his father on July 9, 1863, while recovering from three

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wounds suffered during the battle, Lt. John McGilvary of Co. H wrote that, “The battle was grand, sublime, and awful. The enemy were strewn in piles – some in rows just as they were standing when they fell – the ground was literally blue. Our brigade, (Pettigrew’s) that day was opposed to the Iron Brigade – never having been repulsed before (so I heard some of the prisoners say) but said they “we were compelled to yield this time.” One asked “what men fought them that day” in a certain part of the line, being answered “North Carolinians,” he said, “I don’t want to fight them again.” Lieutenant Cureton of Co. B spoke to the horrific scenes of carnage left in the wake of the fighting in Herbst Woods and recalled, “after remaining there a short time, we were ordered back to the woods near the place where we started to make the charge from, going over the same ground. There it was we saw the sickening horrors of war, a great many of our wounded had not yet been carried to the hospital.

The enemy’s dead and wounded lay mixed with their wounded crying piteously for water which we freely gave what we had. Our dead were lying where they had fallen, but the “battlefield rob-

bers” had been there plundering the “dead,” they seemed to have respected neither the enemy’s or our own dead.”

The 26th N.C. Inf. entered the fighting on the afternoon of July 1 with around 900 men in the ranks. The regiment suffered approximately 675 casualties in about a half hour of combat.

Union losses were just as severe as the 24th Mich. lost 363 of their 496. In their brief stand at the edge of Herbst Woods, the 151st Penn. lost 367 out of 478 fighting against the 11th and 26th N.C. The staggering losses are a grim testament to the ferocity of the combat that afternoon.

The 26th and the rest of Pettigrew’s Bde. were held out of action on July 2 as they recovered as best they could. Later that evening they moved to positions on Seminary Ridge; on the afternoon of July 3 took part in the tragic assault on Cemetery Ridge.

Eric Lindblade is a native North Carolinian and has worked as a Licensed Battlefield Guide at Gettysburg National Military Park since 2016. He is the author of Fight As Long As Possible: The Battle of Newport Barracks (2010) and is currently finishing up work on a regimental history of the 26th North Carolina.

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The monument to the 151st PA near the intersection of Meredith and Reynolds Avenues near Herbst Woods. The 151st fought a desperate delaying action against Pettigrew’s Brigade on the afternoon of July 1.

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Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section

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July 2017

An Axe to Grind: One Soldier’s Shot at Redemption

By Joseph F. Wilson While marching constantly under a scorching hot summer sun, a canteen filled with water can be a soldier’s best friend.

Choking on the dust kicked up by hundreds of boots plodding along the dry road bed demanded a full supply to quench the inevitable thirst. But orders came down through the ranks to march with great haste without stopping to reach the coming fight. In the small hamlet of Gettysburg, Penn., a battle taking shape could decide the fate of the Union.

Among the marchers suffering along the dirt road was a regiment of Vermont Volunteers. A place in history awaited one Vermonter on the fields of Gettysburg.

Stephen Brown proudly enlisted as a private on Sept.

12, 1862, in his home state of Vermont when President Lincoln called for more volunteers.

Patriotism ran deep in the Brown family as his brother also joined the army and even his middle aged father shouldered a musket

Stephen Flavius Brown, Union Army officer, Chicago attorney.

(History of Franklin and Grand Isle Counties, Vermont. 1891.

After page 196.)

a year earlier. A host of leadership qualities made the former teacher an obvious choice to serve as an officer. Before long, Brown was elected 1st Lieutenant in Co. K, 13th Vt. Inf. Lessons turned from reading and writing to loading and firing a musket.

A nine month regiment, the Green Mountain boys of the 13th saw little action until Gettysburg. With mustering out only three weeks away in mid-July, it seemed their soldiering wouldn’t expand beyond guarding railroads and manning forts. In a few short weeks most thought they’d be reading about the war back home in Vermont resting comfortably by their firesides.

None in the regiment expected to be participants in the greatest battle ever fought on the North American continent, but fate led the regiment to Gettysburg. For those seeking to make some kind of mark on history, a deadly confrontation with the storied Army of Northern Virginia awaited. In a few days the short timers would find themselves in the thick of the fight during the decisive three day battle.

Lieutenant Brown’s unblemished record reflected the service of an excellent soldier. With the same care he bestowed on students back home, Stephen Brown looked after the young men in Co. K. On the march to Gettysburg, compassion for his boys brought an unfair stain upon that record.

Always thinking of the welfare of the company, the caring officer disobeyed the standing order forbidding any stopping along

Top Ten at Gettysburg

The monument to the 13th Vermont Volunteer Infantry 1862-1863. Located on the Gettysburg National Military Park, Penn.

the route.

A forced march of 120 miles in six days proved taxing even for the youngest in the regiment. An intense June sun beating down on the advancing troops caused great difficulty for many to keep pace. Little difference separated a soldier rendered useless by a lack of water from one felled by a musket ball. A soldier succumbing to sunstroke and dehydration did little to bolster the army.

Heeding the pleas of the parched and sun baked marchers, Lt. Brown pushed aside sentries posted at a nearby well. The thirsty soldiers rushed to the well to fill their canteens.

Punishment came quickly from brigade commander, Gen. George J. Stannard. For showing compassion to his ailing charges, Brown was promptly arrested, stripped of his sword, and had his sidearm confiscated. Due to the impending threat at Gettysburg, Brown wasn’t taken into custody, but remained with the regiment.

The 13th Vt., commanded by Colonel Francis Randall, arrived at Gettysburg on the evening of July 1st and took up a position on Cemetery Hill. Eager to redeem himself, the disgraced Brown looked to the upcoming battle to reclaim his lost honor. On July 2, Brown and Co. K, along with

Gen. George J. Stannard.

(Library of Congress)

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Print based on the painting called “Hancock at Gettysburg” by Thure de Thulstrup. Shows Major General Winfield S. Hancock riding along the Union lines during the Confederate bombardment prior to Pickett’s Charge. (Library of Congress)

July 2017

Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section

several other companies of the regiment, supported the artillery on Cemetery Ridge. Col. Randall took the rest of the regiment to retrieve a captured artillery battery’s cannon at the request of Gen. Winfield Hancock. The disappointed lieutenant watched from the ridge as the rest of the regiment went into action. A chance to rectify his tarnished reputation was gone for now.

The next day, July 3, Gen. James Longstreet ordered Gen. George Pickett to assemble 14,000 men to smash the center of the Union line defending Cemetery Ridge. Waiting on the ridge, the Vermonters watched as the gray tide rolled forward straight toward them. Adrenaline pulsed through the Vermonters, but none more so than the anxious Stephen Brown. Half the regiment, including Brown, still had never been in combat. When the rebel hordes performed a left oblique toward the copse of trees, Col. Randall wheeled the regiment forward and delivered an enfilading fire that devastated the right flank of Pickett’s Division. The withering musket fire left Gen. Kemper’s Bde. in total confusion.

Seeing the turmoil in the Confederate ranks, Col. Randall ordered the 13th Vt. to charge the Southern attackers’ flank. Lt. Brown’s shot at redemption had finally presented itself.

Although still lacking a sword, the officer’s ultimate symbol of authority, the opening at hand wasn’t to be squandered.

Brown’s confiscated sword and pistol were with the wagon train, safely in Westminster, Md. The boys of Co. K still looked to Brown for direction, regardless of his impounded sword being tucked away in a baggage wagon 30 miles away.

Excitement surged through the agitated Lieutenant. When the order came to charge, Brown spotted a camp axe lying on the ground not far away. Still believing his duty to command, Brown grabbed the axe, held it high for all to see, and signaled Co. K to follow the unorthodox symbol into battle. The soldiers of the 13th let out a raucous cheer and eagerly charged behind the admired Brown toward the disorganized Virginians in Pickett’s Division. All the companies in the Vermont regiment marveled at the pluck displayed by the animated young officer. Soldiers looked on with amazement at the odd sight of an officer wielding an ordinary camp axe, going in battle in what had to be the first and last demonstration of its kind in the entire war.

Not long after charging into the storm of the rebel attack, a Confederate officer came under the threat of Brown’s raised axe. The

confronted Confederate officer swiftly surrendered his sword to Brown without hesitation. The history making axe fell to the ground. Stephen Brown not only captured a sword but finally recaptured his good name. All who witnessed the extraordinary incident repeated the story for many years after the war.

First Lieutenant Stephen Brown carried the Confederate sword for the remainder of his service until mustered out for disability in August 1864. After the war, Brown donated his sword to the Vermont Historical Society. The more famous axe faded into history. Besides the rebel officer, the 13th Vt. captured 242 prisoners, mostly from Kemper’s Bde. The 13th lost 22 killed and 80 wounded at Gettysburg. Not surprisingly, the charges against Brown quietly died after the battle.

After completing his nine month enlistment, the now famous Vermont lieutenant reenlisted in the 17th Vt. Inf. and achieved the rank of captain.

Bravery marked Brown’s service until wounded in the arm at the Battle of the Wilderness in May 1864. Eventually the arm had to be amputated. The army lost a brave and noble soldier. For the remainder of his life, Brown practiced law in Chicago.

The men of the 13th Vt. Inf. never forgot the heroics

of Stephen Brown. When the time came to design and place a monument at Gettysburg in 1899, all agreed the likeness of the gallant Lt. Brown should grace the top of the monument.

One can only wonder what Col. Randall’s family thought when the honor usually reserved for the commander of a regiment went to Brown. Colonel Francis Randall died in 1885. The men showed their love for Randall by erecting a monument to their colonel in 1893 at his gravesite in Elmwood Cemetery in Vermont.

The original design for the monument at Gettysburg had Brown holding the legendary axe in his hand just as he did in battle, but the design didn’t pass muster with the officials in charge.

Thinking the axe celebrated an act of disobedience to orders, they disallowed the design, but they did allow inclusion of the axe on the monument. Today, the monument to the 13th Vt. Inf. on the battlefield along Hancock Avenue depicts Brown holding the captured Confederate’s sword. At his feet, the axe that brought him fame lies mostly undetected. Few visitors to the battlefield even notice the axe or know the story.

Lt. Stephen Brown, along with the rest of the 13th, achieved lasting fame on July 3rd, 1863, for their part in repulsing one of the

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most celebrated charges in history. Had a camp axe not been within sight of Brown when Pickett’s men breached the ridge, the much sought after opportunity for Lt. Stephen Brown to restore his good name and honor would have to wait until the Vermonter stood in line of battle once again before Lee’s Army.

Joseph F. Wilson is the writer and producer of the new film documentaries, “Civil War Prisons – An American Tragedy,” and “Remarkable Tales of the Civil War.” He also lectures on Civil War topics and offers authentic Civil War artifact displays. Contact Joseph F. Wilson at joef21@ aol.com or 856 627-5401.

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Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section

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July 2017

An Opinioned Roster for Some Good and Glorious Gettysburg Campaign Books, For the Casual Reader, Serious Researcher and Battlefield Rambler

By Marc Ramsey and Roger Semplak When asked to write an article a while back on why some books have value, as a dealer in historical volumes, this came fairly easily. The process itself is rather a straight forward analysis of the individual book’s qualities, including the author’s writing style, the rarity of the volume, the volume’s condition, and the subject matter. Additionally, one needs to consider whether or not the book is signed by the author, has its original dust jacket, what is its condition, and was it ever owned, signed or inscribed by a veteran of the war and, if so, does it also have personal annotations or observations; briefly, Content, Quantity, and Condition.

However, when asked to evaluate books on a specific subject, the challenge becomes less objective and far more subjective, as in this case of looking at books focusing on the Battle of Gettysburg. Of all the American Civil War engagements, Gettysburg is perhaps the one battle where the number of books on that single event comes close to equaling, if not exceeding, the total of all other battle books combined. So when asked to add my opinion to the mix, I felt much less secure and more like the soldier who has been told that he is in a minefield without a map. That said, with the help of one of the most avid readers of Civil War literature that it has been my honor to know, I’ve decided to look at the published works we both have found meaningful and enjoyable from a number of distinct categories, in order to try and give the reader a little guidance about what we consider some of the better reads.

To begin with let’s look at post-war regimental histories and veteran’s memoirs. A nine month Rhode Island Regiment published possibly the first real regimental history in 1863. The Gettysburg Campaign had its first written regimental history published in 1864. The majority of regimental histories that include the Gettysburg Campaign began to appear in the 1870’s. All have strengths and weaknesses due to the fact that they are focused on that specific regiment and therefore somewhat rather limited in scope and perspectives. They also usually cover the regiment’s entire history so the Gettysburg campaign will only fill a limited portion of the account. Here are some potentially rewarding reads in this category, in no particular order.

1. John William – Life in Camp: A history of the nine months’

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

service of the Fourteenth Vermont – Oct 21, 1862 through July 21, 1863 – published in 1864. This nine month regiment fought at Gettysburg and played a major role in the flanking attack against Pickett’s Charge on July Samuel Toombs – New Jersey Troops in the Gettysburg Campaign published in 1888, covers all New Jersey organizations that participated in the action and is unique in that it contains the entire state’s participation in one volume.

John Storrs – The Twentieth Connecticut – published in 1886, intersperses individual short diary entries to support the author’s regimental narrative.

Robert Stiles – Four Years with Marse Robert – published in 1903, provides insight into General Lee by a very articulate member of the Richmond Howitzers, however, the informative and entertaining narratives actually improve after the Gettysburg Campaign.

Franklin Aretas Haskell – The Battle of Gettysburg, first edition – published in 1898, is a classic eyewitness account by a Federal officer at the epicenter of Gettysburg. It should be noted that the later addition published

by Houghton Mifflin in 1958 was edited and therefore has lost some of its usefulness.

Jacob Hoke – The Great Invasion of 1863: or, General Lee in Pennsylvania – published in 1887, is a civilian perspective of the campaign providing useful information from a noncombatant perspective.

Helen D. Longstreet – Lee and Longstreet at High Tide: Gettysburg in the Light of the Official Records – published in 1904, is a controversial look at Longstreet’s conduct at Gettysburg, and in many respects presents a convincing if somewhat overzealous defense by his wife.

John M. Vanderslice – Gettysburg Then and Now the Field of American Valor… – published in 1899, is a regiment by regiment description of the battle.

Jesse B. Young – The Battle of Gettysburg: a Comprehensive Narrative … – published in 1913. The author, an officer who served in the campaign provides a clear study including valuable biographical sketches of all officers

above regimental command.

10. Samuel Harris – Personal Reminiscences of Samuel Harris published in 1897, provides insight into the camp life and service of the 5th Mich. Cav. with emphasis on the Gettysburg Campaign.

11. E.P. Alexander – Military Memoirs of a Confederate, a Critical Narrative published in 1907, or even better, the updated version with much additional material called Fighting for the Confederacy, expertly edited by Gary Gallagher, and published in 1989, is one of our favorite books of all time.

12. William C. Oates – The War Between the Union and the Confederacy and its Lost Opportunities… – published in 1905. Oates was commander of the 15th Ala. Inf., and his account of the regiment’s storming of little Round Top is riveting.

13. Oliver W. Norton – The Attack and Defense of Little Round Top, published in 1913, is an exhaustive evaluation of the fight by a veteran of the 83rd Penn. Inf. This next segment looks at what we call the tried and true histories related to the Gettysburg Campaign. Many of these have been around for years and have become staples or foundation blocks in many a good library dealing with this subject and, as with the previous section, there is no particular order of importance or hierarchy implied in this listing.

1. Edwin Coddington – The Gettysburg Campaign; A Study in Command published in 1968. This volume has been referred to by many historians as the gold standard for its comprehensive study of the campaign.

2. Harry W. Pfanz – Gettysburg the Second Day – published in 1987, is a detailed tactical study of the second day and the struggle for Little Round Top and the Union Army’s position on Cemetery Ridge.

The author has written two additional offerings: Gettysburg; The First Day and Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Hill on July 1-3 which should also be considered.

3. Kent M. Brown – Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics and the Pennsylvania Campaign – published in 2005. This is the first detailed description of the Confederate withdrawal and the material that they were able to

gather that supplied the Army of Northern Virginia for the remainder of 1863.

4. David G. Martin – Gettysburg, July 1 – published in 1995, is a detailed account of the first day’s battle with excellent maps to help clarify the action being described.

5. Carol Reardon – Pickett’s Charge in History and Memory – published in 1997, looks at this event and how it has become part of the misunderstood memory of the battle.

6. Earl J. Hess – Pickett’s Charge: The Last Attack at Gettysburg – published in 2001, is a typically solid Hess offering with a strongly detailed analysis of both sides during the final major attack of the battle.

7. Eric Wittenberg and J. David Petruzzi – Plenty of Blame to Go Around: Jeb Stuart’s Controversial Ride to Gettysburg – published in 2006, is an in-depth tactical look at Confederate cavalry actions during the Gettysburg Campaign. The large number of primary sources allows the reader to better understand that during a military campaign many variables impact the outcome, and placing blame for failures is generally not an easy task.

8. Stephen W. Sears – Gettysburg – published in 2003, is a well written overview narrative of the battle.

9. Bill Hyde – The Union Generals Speak; The Meade Hearings on the Battle of Gettysburg – published in 2003, describes how the Committee on the Conduct of the War looked at the battle and campaign from the testimony provided by various senior officers in the Army of the Potomac.

10. George Stewart – Pickett’s Charge, published in 1965, is a beautifully written, minute by minute account of one of the most famous moments in American history.

11. Clifford Dowdey, Death of a Nation. The Story of Lee and His Men at Gettysburg, published in 1958, is still perhaps one of our favorite single volume histories of the battle that we have been studying and visiting since we were Cub Scouts.

12. Allen C. Guelzo – Gettysburg, The Last Invasion, published 2013, is a superb account and analysis, and one of the better single volumes on the campaign to appear in recent years.

The third area to consider consists of books that were published by local residents who were impacted by the battle. The town of Gettysburg had about 2,500 residents at the time of the battle and many who stayed in the area were deeply affected by the activities of the two armies. Their suffering began a week before the actual battle with the arrival of Confederate Gen. Early’s Division passing through on their way east, and continued through the following year after the battle when things in the area finally begin to return to some semblance of normalcy.

Their stories appear in some of the following titles.

1. Tillie Pierce Alleman – At Gettysburg or What a Girl Saw and Heard of the Battle: A True Narrative – published in 1889, is a summation of the battle’s events and impact for her family.

2. Sarah Broadhead – The Diary of a Lady of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, from June 13 to July 15, 1863 – published in 1863 by the U.S. Sanitary Commission to bring awareness to the plight of the area.

3. Gregory A. Coco – A Strange and Blighted Land; Gettysburg, The Aftermath of a Battle – published in 1995, details the area around Gettysburg, the local people and how their lives and livelihood were impacted by the carnage of the battle and the aftermath of the devastation when the armies left the area.

4. F. Conklin – Women at Gettysburg 1863 published in 1993, takes a detailed look at about 35 female residents and how the battle directly and indirectly impacted their lives.

5. Michael Jacobs – Notes on the Rebel Invasion of Maryland and Pennsylvania and the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1st, 2nd and 3rd, 1863 – published in 1863, is one of the first looks at the battle from a civilian point of view.

Thanks to Professor Jacobs’s inclusion of the Smithsonian Institution’s weather data collection system, historians have been able to tap his weather observations for a better understanding of how weather may have impacted the events.

6. Gerard A. Patterson – Debris of Battle: The Wounded of Gettysburg – published in 1997, deals with the casualties left after the battle and how their numbers impacted recovery of the area for many months after the armies had left.

July 2017 7. Sarah S. Rodgers – The Ties of the Past; The Gettysburg Diaries of Salome Myers Stewart 1854-1922 – published in 1996, tells the story of Salome Myers and how the war directly impacted her life.

8. William G. Williams – Days of Darkness; The Gettysburg Civilians – published in 1986, deals with the impacts of the battle and aftermath on the local population.

Our final area of exploration will provide guidance to some of the more recent releases. Beginning in 2008, the Gettysburg Civil War Roundtable has been reviewing the many books published each year with a focus on the campaign and battle, and then giving an annual award to what they consider the best book published that year dealing with Gettysburg. The Round Table has recently shared this information with Civil War News.

1. Steve French – Imboden’s Brigade in the Gettysburg Campaign – published in 2008, details the activities of this often maligned command and how they both got Lee’s wounded soldiers back to Falling Waters, Md., and then successfully established the defensive positions for what has been called the Waggoneer’s Fight.

2. Robert J. Wynstra – The Rashness of That Hour; Politics, Gettysburg, and the Downfall of Confederate Brigadier General Alfred Iverson – published in 2009, is a detailed look at the rise and fall of Alfred Iverson’s military career and how his actions at the Battle of Gettysburg sealed his fate.

3. James Hessler – Sickles at Gettysburg: The Controversial Civil War General who Committed Murder, Abandoned Little Round Top, and Declared Himself the Hero of Gettysburg – published in 2010, is an even-handed study of this unique Civil War character and his impact on both the battle and the congressional perceptions of the events.

4. John and Travis Busey – Union Casualties at Gettysburg: A Comprehensive Record – published in 2011.

This three volume work chronicles and categorizes the over 23,000 Union casualties from the battle by rank, unit, states, cemeteries, and hospitals.

5. William D. Hewitt, Lt. Col., USAR – The Campaign of Gettysburg Command Decisions published in 2012, is a study of tactical, operational

Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section and strategic analysis of the commanders throughout the campaign.

6. Carol Reardon and Tom Vossler – A Field Guide to Gettysburg: Experiencing the Battlefield through its History, Places and People – published in 2013, takes the reader over the battle field and, for the first time, includes the civilians who were living on and were directly impacted by the conflict on their property.

7. Eric J. Wittenberg – The Devil’s to Pay: John Buford at Gettysburg, A History and Walking Tour – published in 2014, is a comprehensive expansion on the Union cavalry’s involvement in the battle that is generally limited to the early first day delaying actions including the protection of the army’s flanks throughout the remainder of that day’s evening and second day activities.

8. Thomas J. Ryan – Spies, Scouts and Secrets in the Gettysburg Campaign – published in 2015, deals with the much underserved element of military intelligence and how each side acquired, analyzed and used this information to influence the outcome of the Campaign.

With the Gettysburg Civil War Roundtable announcing their choice picks each year, we would like to suggest that, from a Civil War reader’s or book dealer’s perspective, it would be very helpful if they would also begin to mention the top contenders, similar to the Pulitzer Prize book awards. This would give the reading public more insight and options, and since this battle has been blessed with historians looking at multiple and varied perspectives, it would broaden the field of excellent books for a reader to consider.

If the above has not satisfied your initial reading hunger there are two additional offerings of primary source material that should be considered.

1. The War of the Rebellion a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies – originally published by the Government Printing Office in 1889 and reprinted in 1985

by Historical Times, Inc. Series I Vol 27 Parts 1 through 3, Serial Number 43 - 45.

This publication has collected the vast majority of all official reports made by both armies during the campaign.

2. The Bachelder Papers, Gettysburg in Their Own Words, Volume 1 through 3 – Transcribed, Edited and

Annotated by David and Audrey Ladd – published in 1994, is the work of John Bachelder who corresponded with as many of the leaders as possible to get a better understanding of this complicated and prolonged battle and to facilitate the appropriate marking of the battlefield. The major shortfall is that it lacks an index. [see page 16G] As we bring this article to a close, we are well aware of and will be standing by to watch the blogosphere now light up with multitudinous comments and queries as to why a certain book is mentioned over another, or why have certain favorites been left out entirely. However, these differing opinions are among the many fascinations that we can all associate with the Battle of Gettysburg and why there continue to be so many books crafted on this rich subject. Many excellent works were not included, not because they weren’t worthy but rather due to time, space and the limitations of our poor memories as we were exploring each section of this report. Unfortunately for the reading public there are also as many good books as there are bad on the Gettysburg Campaign, so be sure to look for those works

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that come highly recommended or that are associated with your particular area of interest. Fortunately for the Gettysburg reader there is broad coverage and the number of offerings continues to expand as new material is uncovered, consolidated, presented, and interpreted, looking at different elements of the campaign or offering fresh “what ifs.” There is no other event in American history, and no other battlefield park anywhere, that can equal Gettysburg. You can take it as gospel from two life-long Gettysburg Geeks that the interest in this subject will never wane, and that there will never be a shortage of great books, new and old, dealing with this sacred ground and the “Last full measure of devotion.”

Marc Ramsey is co-owner of Owens and Ramsey Historical Booksellers with his lovely wife Jill, who, for the past 22 years plus, have specialized in the buying, selling and trading of rare and collectible Civil War books.

They also provide appraisals for charitable deductions or insurance purposes, and love making recommendations to readers looking to develop or expand their Civil War Libraries.

They have an open shop at 2728 Tinsley Drive, in Richmond, Virginia, 23235, and once or

twice a month can be seen at many Civil War shows and conferences throughout the East.

They put out a monthly catalog of at least 200 of the best titles in stock, and can be found on line, at the bookstore, or by the good old traditional land line. Contact Marc at 804-272-8888, www. owensandramsey.com R.A. Semplak is a close friend and consultant to the Ramsey operation, and often times provides insight and critiques of certain Civil War books, new or antiquarian. An avid reader and collector of many things Civil War, as well as a strong proponent of battlefield preservation, Roger can often be found at the Owens & Ramsey tables. This is especially true for the larger events, such as the summer Gettysburg Civil War show, where he is often tasked with book sales whose proceeds are earmarked for preservation efforts.

Digital Issues of Civil War News are available by subscription alone or with print plus CWN archives at CivilWarNews.com

Accessible and engaging works of original, peer-reviewed scholarship concerning the battle and campaign of Gettysburg. Includes maps, historical and contemporary photography, and book reviews.

Two issues of the magazine are now available as free samples online.

Read them at bit.ly/GM_MUSE (muse.jhu.edu/journal/670) Just a few of the free articles you’ll find there:

In Issue 52

Want more?

Subscribe to Gettysburg Magazine. Go to nebraskapress.unl.

Location Verification: Siting Tyson’s 1863 Photograph of edu and click on “Journals” or call 402-472-8536. You can buy Camp Letterman back issues there, too.

In Issue 53 Pick up recent issues at stores Of Myths and Men: Rethinking the Legend of Little around Gettysburg. A bookRound Top store near you may also carry Gettysburg Day One: Taking Cemetery Hill and Culp’s Hill the most recent issue.

Lee: In Search of the Decisive Battle at Gettysburg

Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section

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Through The Lens

By Stephanie Hagiwara

Running the Gauntlet “[It was] running the gauntlet in the strict sense of the word.

The bullets were flying from each side in a perfect shower. The air seemed so filled that it seemed almost impossible to breathe without inhaling them. Some one fell beside me almost every step,” Lt. Wilbur Judd, 97th N.Y. Inf. In 1863, the building known today as “General Lee’s Headquarters” at Gettysburg, Penn., shot to fame after Matthew Brady’s photograph appeared in Harper’s Weekly. The stone home of 69-year-old (Widow) Mary Thompson was located between four key landmarks of the first day of fighting; Seminary Ridge, Oak Ridge, the Chambersburg Pike, and the unfinished railroad locals used as an alternate roadway to avoid paying the toll. If walls could tell tales, the bloody fighting in the vicinity could be the photo caption, not the gathering place of Confederate generals.

On July 1, at 7:30 a.m., the Battle of Gettysburg began. By 3:30 p.m., the entire Union position began to crumble. To support the infantry, artillery was placed on the ridge. “Just a few yards west of the Widow Thompson’s house were the six Napoleons of Battery B, 4th United States Artillery

under the direction of Lt. James Stewart. Three of the guns, under the command of Lt. James Davison, were positioned between the Chambersburg Pike and the railroad cut. The other three were positioned north of the cut in front of the Railroad Woods, and were commanded by Lt. Stewart himself. Just south of these and across the pike from the stone house were the two three-inch rifles of Lt. Benjamin W. Wilber’s section of Battery L, 1st NY Light Artillery. South of these guns were the six Napoleons of Cpt. Greenlief T. Stevens’ 5th ME Battery, and three three-inch rifles of Cpt. James Cooper’s Battery B, 1st PA Light Artillery.”

As the U.S. soldiers retreated towards the protection of the artillery, Confederates followed, “yelling like demons, in a mad charge for our guns. … Almost at the same moment, as if every lanyard was pulled by the same hand, this line of artillery opened, and Seminary Ridge blazed with a solid sheet of flame, and the missiles of death that swept its western slopes no human beings could endure…. After we had ceased firing and the smoke of battle had lifted, we looked again, but the charging Confederates were not there. Only the dead and

dying remained on the bloody slopes of Seminary Ridge,” wrote Cpl. Robert Beecham of the 2nd Wisc. Inf. Still, the Rebel line continued to move forward. Ordered to retreat, Lt. Col. Rufus Dawes of the 6th Wisc. Inf. realized that, “If we had desired to attack [C.S. Gen. Richard] Ewell’s twenty thousand men with our two hundred, we could not have moved more directly toward them. We knew nothing about a Cemetery Hill. We could see only that the on-coming lines of the enemy were encircling us in a horseshoe.”

The men fought to move the artillery. Stewart relates how the pintle hook broke on a third piece. “As this happened, a party of rebels came running out of the timber adjoining, shouting: ‘Halt that piece!’ We were all completely surprised, but one of the men was fully equal to the occasion, and shouted back: ‘Don’t you see that the piece is halted?’ … During all this time the enemy were firing upon us at not more than one hundred yards; and just as we got the gun out of the [railroad] cut, the enemy made a dash, this time getting within fifty or sixty yards, killing one driver and seriously wounding the wheel driver and two horses, which again caused delay. Seeing his predicament, the 88th Penn. “made a determined stand to save Stewart’s Battery.”

Stewart rode back to check on Davison’s guns. The enemy, spotting him “shouted, ‘Surrender!’ but as I had not gone there for that purpose, I wheeled my horse and started him off as fast as he could go. … I started across the field,

Headquarters of Robert E. Lee, Gettysburg, PA July 1863; Colorization © 2012 civilwarincolor.com courtesy civilwarincolor.com/cwn (Library of Congress)

when the first thing I observed in front of me was a high fence, and as I could not go either to the right or left without being made a prisoner, I headed my horse for it, and he took the leap in splendid style. As he was making the jump I was struck on the thigh with a piece of shell. The shock was terrible, and I thought at first my leg was broken, but after feeling it I found the bone all right.”

Others were not as fortunate.

Noticing that the fleeing Yankees were using the railroad cut as an escape route, C.S. Gen. Stephen Ramseur ordered a battery to throw shells into the cut. The fleeing men had to choose between surrender or “running the gauntlet.”

As his men chased the Federals through the town, C.S. Gen. Robert E. Lee arrived at the Thompson house on his “well-bred iron gray, Traveler.” Once selected as Lee’s Headquarters, four guards were placed around the house and “half dozen tents” were set up nearby. The stone building offered an elevated position with a view of the enemy that could be seen with a field glass. Lee may not have realized it, but at the end of the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, the Army of Northern Virginia may have captured as many as 5,000 men.

During the battle, the Widow Thompson with her daughter-in law Mary huddled in the basement as the roar of combat engulfed her home. Previously, on June 30, Mary gave birth to her second child, Jane Meade Thompson. Furthermore, the wounded who could made their way to any building seeking help.

Her neighbor, Catherine Foster recounted: “[Thompson’s] house and lot were filled with wounded and dying during the first day; she remained to care for them, and had a daughter [Hannah] living at the foot of the hill, who baked up a barrel of flour into bread, which she carried up the hill to the wounded, and refused to cease doing so during the three days...until her clothes were perforated with bullets and yet she would not be dissuaded, said, ‘In God is my trust.’ All her clothes and bedding except those on her person were used in dressing the wounded and her carpets in wrapping the dead for burial. An empty stone house and fenceless yard were all that was left the widow of seventy years.”

Throughout the next few days, the house was a beehive of activity as incoming messages came for Lee and artillery was moved into position nearby. Worse, the firing of the guns before Pickett’s Charge sounded, “as if the heavens and earth were crashing together.”

After the Battle, Lee’s Army crossed back over the Potomac

July 2017

Lt. Col. Rufus Dawes of the 6th Wisconsin; Colorization © 2017 civilwarincolor.com courtesy civilwarincolor.com/cwn

(Library of Congress)

River and the Union Army followed. Negative rumors of Lee’s personal conduct began to swirl.

To get to the truth, Dr. Junkin of the Sunday School Times went to interview Thompson. The interview appeared in the Lutheran and Missionary, a Philadelphia newspaper on Sept. 24, 1863.

Thompson stated that, “she never heard any profane or improper language from him [Lee]. General [J.E.B.] Stuart was with him part of the time. The impression which she had of him was not favorable, Stuart wanted to enter Gettysburg, and burn and make an indiscriminate plunder of all property, but to this Gen. Lee would not consent. She thought Stuart was a bad man: but Lee expressed himself and acted like a humane man showing much feeling on account of the sufferings and the horrors of War.” Sources: • • • • • •

•

Timothy H. Smith, The Story of Lee’s Headquarters Robert K. Beecham, The Pivotal Battle of the Civil War James Stewart, Battery B Fourth United States Artillery At Gettysburg Rufus R. Dawes, Service with the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers Wilbur Judd, Herkimer County Journal, July 25, 1863 Foster, Complier; Battle of Gettysburg, A Citizen’s Eyewitness Account by Catherine Mary White Foster John W. Busey and David G. Martin, Regimental Strengths and Losses at Gettysburg

Stephanie Hagiwara is the editor for Civil War in Color.com and Civil War in 3D.com. She also writes a weekly 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.

Join us June 30th - July 4th... ... And Later Book Talks

Tom McMillan, Ralph Peters, Tom Vossler, & Carol Reardon - just to name a few

Special Guest

Ted Chamberlain, a direct descendant of the General Joshua Chamberlain will be speaking

Author Signings

Museum & Theater

Featuring the Cellar Experience and the “Gettysburg Animated Map,” (a Civil War Trust production) showing the overall battle

Living History

Offered most weekends April through October

Saturday Spotlight (Fee Charged)

Frank Varney, Jim Gindlesperger, Joe Miec- Offered most Saturdays from Memorial Day zowski, John Archer, Lisa Shower, & many through Labor Day showcasing a different aspect of the Civil War more

Hair Flower Workshop (Fee Charged) Tours Lucy Cadwallader will show you how to make your own hair flower. Materials are provided.

History Nerds, inSite iPad tours, and the Victorian Carriage Company all provide tours out of our convenient location.

Open Daily 9am - 9pm 297 Steinwehr Avenue, Gettysburg, PA 17325 • 717-334-6245 • www.GettysburgMuseum.com

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Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section

July 2017

Keeping Our History Alive Lest we forget one of the most turbulent times of our nation’s history, our groups remember, study, portray and honor the brave soldiers, sailors and civilians of America’s Civil War. The Ward Hill Lamon Civil War Roundtable delves into the study and scholarship of the War, and the Illiana Civil War Historical Society focuses on Living History and Reenactment presentations.

We salute all the living history presenters, reenactors, Civil War Roundtables, study groups and individuals who do the same to portray and honor Civil War men & women. Both groups have a special love and reverence for Gettysburg. Among our activities in the past year, we rededicated the three Illinois Monuments at the Gettysburg National Military Park on the hour and minute of their original ceremony 125 years before. Our efforts also continue to mark and maintain the gravestones of soldiers on both sides of the War.

The Ward Hill Lamon Civil War Roundtable and the Illiana Civil War Historical Society www.illianacivilwar.net, Illiana Civil War Historical Society and Ward Hill Lamon CWRT on facebook.

July 2017

Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section

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After the Battle of Gettysburg

By Joe Mieczkowski At the conclusion of the Battle of Gettysburg on July 3, 1863, the Army of the Potomac, led by Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade had won the Union’s first undeniable victory in the East. After the battle, Lee was able to retreat back into Virginia.

With Gettysburg’s effect magnified by news of Grant’s capture of Vicksburg, Miss., on July 4, the Confederacy was left with no realistic chance of winning the war militarily. The Confederate government in Richmond could only hope for a negotiated settlement.

Terrified just days before, Washington responded to Meade’s upset victory by criticizing him for not destroying Lee’s army—an army with plenty of punch left in it, as the next two years would show. The gratitude of politicians was as negligible then as it is today.

our other late successes, have ended the war. As it is, the war will be prolonged indefinitely.”

Ending the war, however, was very much on the mind of the commanding general of the Army of the Potomac as he pursued and attempted to close upon Lee during the remainder of the year.

Meade organized the pursuit of Lee as quickly as he could, slowed by his own severe losses, the tens of thousands of wounded left on the field, and troops who were out of food and ammunition. Storms that began the day after the battle defined much of the coming action. They added a layer of misery to a scene few would have thought could have gotten any worse. “There was so many wounded that it was impossible to attend to all of them,” Sgt. Calvin Haynes of the 125th New York Infantry wrote his wife. For days, the intermittent rains came down in sheets, turning roads to mush,

Gallant charge by two companies of the 6th Michigan on Tuesday morning on the rebel rearguard, near Falling Waters, where part of the rebel army crossed the Potomac.

(Library of Congress)

Pursuit of Lee’s army. Scene on the road near Emmitsburg - marching through the rain / Edwin Forbes.

(Library of Congress)

On July 14, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln wrote, but never sent, a letter to General Meade following Robert E. Lee’s retreat from Gettysburg.

The letter read: “Again, my dear general, I do not believe you appreciate the magnitude of the misfortune involved in Lee’s escape. He was within your easy grasp, and to have closed upon him would, in connection with

saturating and souring woolen clothes and blankets and raising the level of the Potomac River, an obstacle the Rebels would need to negotiate if they were to return safely to their home turf. Despite Meade’s efforts and difficult pursuit, rain and thunder helped drown the sound of Lee’s men and wagons as they splashed into fords and over hastily erected pontoon bridges crossing the

Potomac River on July 14th - the Army of Northern Virginia had once again eluded the Federals’ grip.

He had just done the impossible and was damned for not doing the impossible twice in a row.

Meade continued to command his army during the Bristoe Station and Mine Run campaigns, but both proved indecisive. Still, Meade did not lose the Battle of Gettysburg—if he had, the results General Robert E. Lee’s army retreats from Gettysburg across the (Library of Congress) would have been ruinous for the Potomac River. Painting by Edwin Forbes.

Union, even with the offsetting fall of Vicksburg on July 4. Yet Junction, Va., to board trains. into Pennsylvania in June 1863.

By October 12, the USMRR Whether or not Meade could have he allowed his own instinct for risk aversion to keep him from and civilian railroads completed made the wound he had inflicted turning it into a complete victory. the movement of both corps to a mortal one remains one of the In the fall of 1863 the Confed- participate in fighting to relieve great unanswerable questions of eracy used their interior lines of the Army of the Cumberland at the war. communication to transfer two Chattanooga.

No photographers were on divisions and an artillery batFrom November 27 to Decem- hand to record Lee’s retreat after talion of Lieutenant Gen. James ber 3, 1863, Confederate troops Gettysburg. It was through the Longstreet’s I Corps, Army of under Gen. James Longstreet lay work of Civil War artists that the Northern Virginia, by railroad siege to the city of Knoxville held people of the United States were from Virginia to Georgia to re- by Union forces under Gen. Am- given a picture of the miserable inforce Gen. Braxton Bragg’s brose Burnside. Longstreet at- rain swept conditions in which Army of Tennessee. The troops tacked on November 30 but was Lee’s suffering Army retreated. began arriving at the Catoosa repulsed with heavy losses. The One artist was Edwin Forbes who Platform, Ga., on September 19, arrival of Union reinforcements worked for Frank Leslie’s Illushaving begun their journey from forced him to withdraw to Green- trated Newspaper. Examples of Virginia on September 9. Ulti- eville, Tenn., where his corps his work appear here. mately only 5 of Longstreet’s 10 spent the winter.

In the spring of 1864, Ulysses Joe Mieczkowski is a Licensed infantry brigades arrived in time to participate in the Confederate S. Grant, the newly appointed Battlefield Guide at The Gettysvictory at Chickamauga. lieutenant general and gener- burg National Military Park. Joe Following their defeat, the al-in-chief of Union forces, made is on the faculty of the Lincoln troops of Maj. Gen. William his headquarters with the Army Leadership Institute in GettysRosecrans’ Army of the Cum- of the Potomac. Although Me- burg, Penn. He is also the past berland fell back to Chattanooga, ade was technically in charge of President of the Gettysburg Civil Tenn., where they were surround- the Army of the Potomac, Grant War Roundtable. ed by Confederates who occupied made all command decisions reHis most recent book is After heights surrounding the town. garding movement of the army. Gettysburg: Lee retreats, Meade On the evening of September Still, Meade would be the only pursues. He is also the creator 23, 1863, Secretary of War Ed- commander of the Army of the of the acclaimed program win Stanton convened a meet- Potomac never dismissed. He “Gettysburg in sight and sound” ing with President Lincoln, Maj. would serve until the last victory. which showcases over 200 pieces Gen. Henry Halleck, Secretary of Those who mattered most knew of artwork on the Gettysburg State William Seward and Trea- his worth.

Campaign. sury Secretary Salmon Chase The Battle of Gettysburg was to review plans to reinforce and a major defeat for the South.

Find us on relieve the Army of the Cum- Lee’s army, dangerous as it berland with troops from other was until the very last, would Facebook Union departments. never again have the power - in Major General Meade, the numbers, morale, quality and Army of the Potomac’s com- quantity of officers—that it took facebook.com/CivilWarNews mander, was directed to prepare the XI and XII Corps for movement beginning September 25. At the time the XII Corps’ two divisions were on picket duty along We handle the Best Antique Bowie Knifes, the Rappahannock River and had Civil War Swords, Confederate D-guards, to be relieved by the I Corps beAntique Firearms, Bowie Knifes, Buckles & Belts, Identified Relics, Letters, Documents, fore it could move to the railroad.

Images, Currency, Uniforms, Head Gear & The XI Corps’ remaining two Flags.

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Meade initially ordered the XII Corps to march to Brandy Station, but the corps was directed to march 10 miles further up the railroad to Bealeton where there Allen Wandling were better arrangements for (618) 789-5751 • awandling1@gmail.com loading the trains. The XI Corps infantry moved to Manassas MidWestCivilWarRelics.com

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Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section

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July 2017

Gettysburg Veterans, Civilians and the Cyclorama – 1913

By Mike Shovlin A fiftieth anniversary of any event can be a major draw for celebration. When the anniversary event is the Battle of Gettysburg, it becomes one of tremendous proportions. Thousands of Civil War veterans made plans to gather together with the men they struggled with side by side, traverse the grounds they fought on and break bread with the men they engaged on those three days in July 1863.

The Pennsylvania Legislature set forth to ensure that the reunion would take place. The Act of April 17, 1913, provided for transportation to and from Gettysburg of every surviving Pennsylvanian soldier who participated in the Civil War, and set apart $165,000 for this object.1 The United States Congress directed the Secretary of War to create and maintain a camp for visiting veterans during the celebration, on condition that Pennsylvania should bear half of the expense; by the Act of April 17, 1913, the state appropriated $195,000 for the purpose.2 Months of planning for food, shelter, and events for the returning veterans were made by the organizers. Just the thought of 40,000 veterans attending was

overwhelming. The town was tasked with the number of visitors who would make the trip and all the provisions they required.

A plea by the grocers was written in a Gettysburg Compiler article: “Our citizens can help by buying their provisions early in June and enough to last until the celebration is over. Order them now so your grocers can replace them and have as big a stock as he can carry when the celebration strikes the town.”3 There was another section of the population who would

be reliving a life-changing occurrence. This group knew that the battle of Gettysburg was not a three day event in their life.

The men and women who lived through the anticipation of what might occur in 1863, the battle itself, and the horrible aftermath remembered that their lives were changed forever. For many civilians, the anniversary might bring closure. Questions could be answered of the memories burnt into their minds as children during the battle.

The citizens were preparing for

Pennsylvania monument on the Gettysburg battlefield. (Jack Melton)

visitors to swarm into the town to view all the activities. Questions that arose: Where will they all be able to find rooms? What will be needed to entertain the visitors during the nonevent hours? How will transportation of visitors be handled with thousands of veterans entering the town?

There were about 1,000 houses in town. Gettysburg people stated that 15,000 was about the limit of the town’s capacity. It is likely that this total will be exceeded by several thousand with every public place open and available.4 Advertisements placed in local papers by H.G. Williams informed the local population that he was the appointed Secretary of the Bureau of Information and that all available places for lease needed to provide him the type of available accommodation.5 The fear of congestion and shortages of food caused many who engaged rooms to decide to stay away.6 Throngs expected to accompany the old soldiers failed to materialize.7 The lack of tourists was offset by the number of veterans who attended. 40,000 veterans were expected, 53,407 came.8 Many veterans wanted to see again the citizens who played an important part in their lives during the time

they spent in Gettysburg. The organizers did a few things to bring these veterans and citizens together. The cavalry division that entered Gettysburg on June 30, 1862, told stories about the young girls singing to them as they rode though the town. Fifty years later, veterans of the Union and Confederate cavalry units gathered at the big assembly tent to greet six pleasant faced, gray-haired, “girls of 63;” Mrs. Jennie Weaver, Mrs. Amanda Rupp, Mrs. William Tawney, Mrs. Salome M. Stewart, Miss Carrie Young , and Mrs. Sally Hearns.9 John C. Clevenger, first duty sergeant of Co. L, 1st N.J. Cav., Gen. Sedgwick’s orderly, returned, he said, “for the purpose [of seeing] young woman who appeared in the line of fire at Sedgwick’s headquarters, on the afternoon of July 3”. He noticed she was covered with powder smoke and her dress was in rags from bullet holes. Clevenger escorted her to the hospital where it was discovered she was not wounded. She thereupon started nursing and was lost to the sergeant.10 Former Army nurses also returned to visit. Mrs. Clarissa Dye, of Philadelphia; Miss Cornelia Hancock, of Atlantic City;

YANKEES SKEDADDLE AT GETTYSBURG Six hundred Union soldiers ran, or hid, or deserted, or straggled in and around the great battle. For the author seeking a new Gettysburg subject, their court-martials are listed by state, regiment, name, and crime, a database available nowhere else than in this book.

But there are other stories. In 1859, George Pickett nearly got the US into open war with Great Britain, with a series of military and diplomatic blunders so bone-headed as to challenge belief. In another chapter, on mistreatment of horses, George McClellan waxes eloquent on the relationship of man and beast. A study of forty-six court-martialed Union chaplains reveals that most were Methodists. And George Pickett again, hanging two pairs of brothers on the same gallows, at Kinston, North Carolina.

Another little-known story concerns Lincoln’s podiatrist, who was also a spy. Many long-forgotten units see the light of day again: the Dry Pond Dixies; the Dismal Swamp Rangers; the Hell Roaring Horse; the Norway Bear Hunters; the Tredway Pumas; and the Volcano Blues. Two-hundred twenty-six units in all. Thirty-five chapters fully document nearly unknown stories of the Civil War, covering 998 individuals.

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July 2017 Mrs. Lucretia Davis, of Washington; Mrs. Margaret Hamilton and Mrs. Stevens of Massachusetts spent the week in town.11 Over the years many veterans had returned to Gettysburg for dedicating monuments for their regiments. During these periods many stories of the interactions of these men and the town’s citizens showed how they bonded during the battle. The 1st Mass.

Inf. was fighting in the area of the Rodgers’ Farm. Living at the farm was 27 year old Josephine Miller. During the afternoon of July 2, Josephine prepared food for the soldiers and helped to treat the wounded.

In October 1863 Josephine married William Slyder and shortly moved to Ohio. In preparation for dedicating their monument on the Gettysburg battlefield, veterans of the 1st Mass. learned of her whereabouts and paid her expenses to return to Gettysburg for the event.12 The morning of July 1 the men of the 1st Mass. regt. dedicated their monument on the Emmittsburg Road, near

Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section the Rogers’ buildings, and it was then transferred to the battlefield memorial association.13 The men included her in the group photograph at the dedication. They also removed the stove Josephine used in the farmhouse and placed it beside the monument for her to pose for another picture.

This is an example of the bond the veterans of the battle and the citizens of 1863 formed during the terror of the battle and the horror of the aftermath. This bond would continue for the future reunions. Not only would veterans of the battle come to view the ground they fought on and the men they fought with, but also to spend time with the citizens who shared what little they had during the aftermath.

The author can only imagine the civilians and the veterans glancing at each other in passing, trying to see some sign of recognition. Was this one of the men who were in our home or barn recovering from a wound?

Could this be the young girl who reminded me of my daughter or

The monument to the 1st Massachusetts Infantry is located on the south of Gettysburg on Emmitsburg Road. Photographed by William H. Tipton.

Gettysburg Compiler Office on Baltimore Street, Gettysburg. (c. 1900) Photographed by Gettysburg resident William H. Tipton.

sister and gave me the will to survive to get home to see them again?

Early in 1910 options were purchased to construct a building on the corner of Chambersburg and South Washington so the cyclorama of the Battle of Gettysburg would have a permanent home.14 This building never came to be. This version of the painting was on display in New York City and had a value of $100,000.15 The painting was moved to Washington, D.C., where it was noticed by C.O. Howard, the son of General O.O. Howard, who suggested that it should be permanently displayed in Gettysburg.16 A new site was picked on Baltimore Street and the Gettysburg Battle Picture Association was granted a charter

by Pennsylvania to construct the building.17 The goal was to have the building finished by May 1, 1913.18 An entrance fee of 25 cents will be charged and considerable revenue is expected.19 The Battle of Gettysburg Cyclorama has been viewed by many veterans since 1883. Letters written by viewers to other veterans proclaim its beauty in capturing the moment.

Now with the cyclorama in Gettysburg we have the ability for veterans of the battle and civilians who lived in town during the battle to view it together.

One can conceive a citizen glancing at the painting and not only see the glory of the fight, but also the destruction of their farms and the aftermath they suffered. It is impossible to view the painting and not see the dead, the wounded, the broken equipment and the bodies of the horses.

Did the viewing bring back memories of the stench or the cries of the wounded? That stench was something most survivors could never forget. “The stench on the battlefield was something indescribable. It would come up as if in waves and at its worse the breath would stop in the throat: the lungs could not take it in, and a sense of suffocation would be experienced.”20 About 21,000 wounded were left in the Gettysburg area and 4,000 of the wounded subsequently died from their wounds.21 The actions of the Gettysburg civilians in providing shelter and nursing care aided in the survival of many.

Now many could have the opportunity to thank the locals for all they did to help the wounded. These families shared their homes, barns, churches, and schools until Camp Letterman was established on July 20, 1863.

By July 25, 16,125 wounded had been sent away from Gettysburg, and approximately 4,217 remained because they were unfit to travel.22 This period after the

battle would bring the citizens of the town and the men of both armies together in a bond that would not be forgotten.

I like to think that a veteran, while viewing the cyclorama, would overhear a woman in her 60’s point out to her grandchildren that the building in the painting was her home. The veteran would then realize that location was used by his corps as a hospital. The grandmother may be the girl who came to help at the hospital and perhaps read to him or wrote letters home to his family. Maybe he could recall hearing her sing as she did her chores.

How many times in his life did he close his eyes and think of the sweet sounds of her voice? It was soothing and took his mind away from the tragic wounds he and his comrades experienced.

The brilliance of Paul Philippoteaux captured not only the scene of the charge the afternoon of July 3, but also scenes of the aftermath. The civilians looking at the painting would see the discarded armaments that killed and maimed so many, the wounded they treated and the dead who were buried in their fields.

An example of soldiers and civilians becoming attached occurred in one home used by the wounded. A young woman by the name of Sarah Miller nursed a Confederate soldier who allegedly developed affection for her.

A proposal of marriage left him rejected, though, because Sarah, who had two brothers fighting for the Union, “couldn’t find it in her heart to give herself to a Confederate.” She did give him a lock of her hair, however. Twenty-five years later a lawyer sent back the lock of hair, along with a check for several thousands of dollars.

The ex-soldier had died, and “his last wishes” had included returning to her the hair along with the money. She lived in Brooklyn, N.Y., and he in New Orleans, but he had tracked her all his life.23 This is one of many stories that newspapers picked up and shared for their readers. Sadly, many of these are just stories. Aside from the newspaper story there is no record of this happening. No court records verify the tale.

Although the previous story is embellished, it does show how the interaction of civilians and soldiers had a lasting effect. Many more exist in prints that have been exaggerated. Somewhere in these stories is the basic truth that the civilians and the troops formed a bond that will exist for the remaining years of their lives.

Viewing the Cyclorama would enhance the memories of the civilians.

At least 29 farms can be seen in the painting. Each farm was affected by the battle. Many were used as hospitals, some as

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headquarters, and some as rest stops for the cavalry. Many buried bodies remained for eight to ten years. The civilians knew the battle of Gettysburg was not just three days in July; it was the first days of the rest of their lives.

Endnotes: 1. “50th Anniversary Report of the Pennsylvania commission 12/31/13”, William Stanley Ray, state printer, Harrisburg. Revised Edition April 1915. Page IX. 2. Ibid.

3. “Our Citizens can help”, Gettysburg Compiler May 28, 19134. Gettysburg Compiler, July 2nd 1913.

4. Gettysburg Compiler, July 2nd 1913 5. Gettysburg Times, June 27, 1913.

6. “Many Cancel Reservations”, Gettysburg Times, June 26, 1913.

7. “Veterans Here But Few Others”, Gettysburg Times, July 1, 1913.

8. Harry Stokes “Gettysburg Peace jubilee” Gettysburg compiler 1988 Commemorative Edition (Gettysburg: Times & News Pub. Co., 1988) pp 42-43.

9. “Gettysburg Honor to Girls of ‘63,” New York Times, July 1, 1913.

10. “Hunting Woman”, Gettysburg Times, July 1, 1913.

11. “Army Nurses Here”, Gettysburg Times, July 1, 1913.

12. Timothy H. Smith “Farms at Gettysburg The Fields of Battle”, Thomas Publications, Gettysburg, Pa. 2007.

Page 18.

13. “First and Sixteenth Massachusetts Regimental Monuments Dedicated”, The Philadelphia Inquirer, July 2, 1886.

14. “To Bring the Big Cyclorama to Gettysburg”, The Gettysburg Times, March 19, 1910.

15. “Cyclorama in New York City”, Adams County News, July 15, 1911.

16. Sue Boardman & Kathryn Porch, The Battle of Gettysburg Cyclorama: A history & Guide Thomas Publications, Gettysburg, Pa. 2008 pg 37.

17. Ibid.

18. “Will Complete the Cyclorama”, The Gettysburg Times, March 10, 1913.

19. “Battle Picture is brought here” Adams County News, May 10, 1913.

20. Joseph Wendel Muffly, ed. A Story Of Our Regiment: A History of the 148th Pennsylvania Volunteers (Des Moines, Iowa: The Kenton Printing and Mfg. Co. 1904) Pg. 466.

21. James McPherson, Hallowed Ground, Crown Publishers New York 2003. Pg. 132.

22. Gregory A. Coco, A Vast Sea of Misery. Thomas Publications, Gettysburg, Pa. 1988. Pg 167.

23. Leeds/Aughinbaugh, “Personal Experiences,” The Star and Sentinel, September 11, 1888.

Mike Shovlin is a graduate of Westminster College where he majored in history. He is currently employed by the Gettysburg Foundation as the lead Assistant at the Rupp House History Center.

Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section

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July 2017

Virtual Reality at Gettysburg, 1863-style

By Garry Adelman

Gettysburg was one of few Civil War battlefields to be extensively photographed in the aftermath of battle. At least eight distinct photographers documented the field within the nineteen weeks after the fighting. Using the high-resolution scans available at the Library of Congress in conjunction with the pinpointing of historic camera locations and angles by William A. Frassanito, Gettysburg historians and enthusiasts have an unparalleled opportunity to see and better understand the 1863 battlefield. Through the

work of the Center for Civil War Photography’s Bob Zeller and John Richter, most of these images can be seen the way that the photographers intended--in the full glory of 3-D. And combining all of this with the battlefield we know today, we can come to spatially know the 1863 landscape, hopping from scene to scene in the footsteps of the early photographers and thereby enter an 1863 form of virtual reality—in this case at some of Gettysburg’s most popular places.

You can continue this journey

yourselves—just pick up one of Frassanito’s Gettysburg books or search www.loc.gov for Gettysburg photographs and make more connections. You can virtually travel all around the 1863 battlefield in this fashion. And that’s just the beginning. Take your favorite historic photo books out to a Civil War site and you’re bound to make connections. Places like Antietam, Nashville, Richmond, Petersburg, Chattanooga, Charleston, and others have numerous opportunities. If you really have the photo-bug, come

to the Image of War Seminar, an annual battlefield photography seminar which I run under the auspices of the Center for Civil War Photography. Information on this year’s seminar in Charleston can be found at www.imageofwar.com.

Garry Adelman is director of history and education at the Civil War Trust, vice president of the Center for Civil War Photography and a longtime licensed battlefield guide at Gettysburg.

This boulder-strewn terrain along the banks of Plum Run between Devil’s Den and Big Round Top is known as the Slaughter Pen, the scene of heavy fighting on July 2, 1863 and where more than 15 dead soldiers were photographed. All 15 corpses can be connected visually in 1863 photographs. In the tight photo detail at top left, several features confirm that the lone soldier at bottom left—probably a Georgia or Alabama soldier—was photographed amidst the rocks in the center of the photo at right. A small portion of his coat is visible in both. Note the Plum Run Pond at lower left in the right photo. Both photos (and detail) by Alexander Gardner, July 6 or 7, 1863, courtesy Library of Congress.

Using the Plum Run Pond as a connector, we can now move to the edge of the Slaughter Pen, closer to Devil’s Den. Here, at left, two soldiers lay near a giant boulder at the Pond’s edge. In the photo at right, this boulder forms the backdrop of one of the soldiers, who had been shot in the right temple. Beyond the “Pond boulder” a boulder with a small tree protruding from it is visible in the Valley of Death. The monument to the 4th Maine Regiment sits atop this latter boulder today. Both photos by Alexander Gardner, July 6 or 7, 1863, courtesy Library of Congress.

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Civil War News 23rd Annual Gettysburg Section

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Moving atop the largest rock formation at Devil’s Den we can zoom out and see both the boulders referred to in the previous photo set. Incredibly, and as first detailed by William Frassanito, two different photographers placed their cameras at the same place, four months apart, and recorded scenes that can be combined to form a summer-fall 1863 panorama. This panorama connects visually the Slaughter Pen scenes with those recorded in the Valley of Death and on Little Round Top. Left: P.S. Weaver, November 11, 1863; right: Alexander Gardner, July 6 or 7, 1863. Both photos courtesy Library of Congress.

Now, the camera is located below the massive Devil’s Den boulder on ground level, next to today’s Sickles Avenue. This detail, part of a two-plate panorama which also shows both the Pond boulder and the breastworks boulder, offers a view of Little Round Top that Confederate soldiers would have had, after capturing Devil’s Den. Alexander Gardner, July 6 or 7, 1863, courtesy Library of Congress.

The “breastworks tree” is visible in many Little Round Top photos, including two here: at upper left from near the Wheatfield Road and showing part of the Valley of Death, and at upper right, from atop the northern slope of Little Round Top looking toward Big Round Top. In the latter photograph, some distinctive tree branches helped me to discover the location of the rather nondescript photo at bottom right, recorded from nearly the opposite direction. Top left and right: Mathew Brady, mid-July 1863; bottom right: Alexander Gardner, July 6 or 7, 1863. All photos courtesy Library of Congress.

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Extraordinary Firearms Auction | October 31, November 1 & 2, 2017 | Fairfield, Maine

Julia’s is now soliciting rare Civil War and Confederate items for our upcoming late October auction. The sale will include the outstanding estate collection of Confederate arms of Mr. Morris Racker. Julia’s is the undisputed world auction leader in sales of high-end, rare and valuable Civil War and Confederate items. Since January 2016 we have sold approx. $4.8 Million of Confederate items in 3 auctions with an incredible average sale price per lot of $33,000 each!! We have established world records in many areas of Civil War and Confederate arms. Not only do we get strong results, our advertised seller’s commission rate is the lowest in the industry at 0%. Below is a sampling of some of our past successes and some of the fine items to be offered in October. Whether you have one item or an entire collection, we are extremely interested. The James D. Julia firearms division is the leader in the world today for all high-end, rare and valuable firearms whether it be fine, high-art sporting arms, rare Class-3, Bowie knives, Artillery, historical items, Colts, Winchesters, Military and more. Contact us today!

Some Recent Past Successes for our Consignors Gen. Beauregard’s Personal LeMat SN 8 (Bryan Coll.) (est: $200,000-$300,000)

“Sisterdale Texas” Dragoon Army (Bryan Coll.) (est. $150-250,000)

Sold for $224,250

Highest Price Attained for Confederate Firearm Sold at Auction

Sold for $253,000

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We Offer 1) Nearly 50 years experience 2) Sterling reputation for honesty and fair dealing 3) One of the most aggressive marketing campaigns in the business

Seller’s Commission on expensive items

Oct. Sale Includes The Confederate

Finest Known Cofer Percussion Revolver SN 11 (Racker Coll.)

Rare Dance Dragoon with SN 14.

One of the Finest Great Collection History (Racker Coll.)

Rare Confed. New Orleans 12 lb Cannon (est. $200,000-250,000) World Auction Record for Most Expensive Piece of American Artillery and Most Expensive Confederate Arm Sold of Any Variety

4) Expertise 5) Reputation for consistently strong and sometimes record prices.

6) Lowest Advertised Seller’s Commission in the Industry

Collection of Morris Racker

Ex. Rare Confederate “2nd Quality” Sharpshooter’s Rifle w/scope, SN C544.

Impeccable History (Racker Coll.)

Gen. Custer’s Historic Deringer. Direct Family Descent from Brice Custer (Racker Coll.)

Sold for $350,750

Fine & Rare “North & Cheney” First American Contract Pistol (Racker Coll.)

One of Only Two Known Complete 1st Mod Spiller & Burrs Atlanta, Georgia, Very Fine, SN 13 (Racker Coll.)

Contact John Sexton | firearms@jamesdjulia.com | (207) 453-7125 | jamesdjulia.com Fairfield, Maine | Auctioneer: James D. Julia | Lic#: ME: AR83 | NH: 2511 05-19-17gettysburginsert.indd 1

5/30/17 1:42 PM