Issue 20

A PICKETT’S CHARGE SURVIVOR P. 16 JEFFERSON DAVIS REVEALED P. 80 VOL. 6, NO. 2

{ a n e w l o o k a t a m e r i c a’s g r e a t e s t c o n f l i c t }

THE REDEMPTION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN The last century hasn’t been kind to the legacy of the Great Emancipator.

Is it time to set the record straight?

SUMMER 2016

H

$5.99

CIVILWARMONITOR.COM

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PHOTOGRAPH CREDIT HERE

ACWM.ORG

WHITE HOUSE OF THE CONFEDERACY 1201 E. Clay Street, Richmond VA

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HISTORIC TREDEGAR 500 Tredegar Street, Richmond VA

MUSEUM OF THE CONFEDERACY- APPOMATTOX Rte. 24 at Rte. 460, Appomattox VA

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Contents DEPARTMENTS

VOLUME 6, NUMBER 2 / SUMMER 2016

FEATURES

Salvo

{Facts, Figures & Items of Interest}

TRAVELS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 A Visit to Charleston

VOICES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 War Wisdom

FACES OF WAR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 A Pickett’s Charge Survivor

PRESERVATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Final Push at Perryville

FIGURES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Stride of a Giant

COST OF WAR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 A Battle-Tested Coat

IN FOCUS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Calm Before the Storm

Columns LINDSEY HARRIS; ISTOCKPHOTO; HARPER’S WEEKLY ; THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR MUSEUM

AMERICAN ILIAD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Little Mac Fauntleroy

LIVING HISTORY. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

The Redemption of Abraham Lincoln 30

The last century hasn’t been kind to the legacy of the Great Emancipator.

Is it time to set the record straight? by allen c. guelzo

Rebel Artist 40

The History Keeper

Books & Authors THE BOOKS THAT BUILT ME. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

BY GARY W. GALLAGHER

THE BUSINESS OF HISTORY BOOKS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

“ Quite a spirited little affair” 56

WITH THEODORE P. SAVAS

In Every Issue EDITORIAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Abe in the Crosshairs

PARTING SHOT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 Jefferson Davis Revealed

Scenes from the siege of Charleston, South Carolina, as painted by Confederate soldier Conrad Wise Chapman

The Second Battle of Rappahannock Station, Virginia, fought on November 7, 1863, saw General George G. Meade and the Army of the Potomac seize one opportunity—and let another slip away. by eric j. wittenberg

ON THE COVER:

Abraham Lincoln. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress; colorized by Mads Madsen of Colorized History

1

THE CIVIL WAR MONITOR SUMMER 2016

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editorial VOLUME 6, NUMBER 2 / SUMMER 2016

Terry A. Johnston Jr. EDITOR-IN-CHIEF TERRY@CIVILWARMONITOR.COM

Laura June Davis David Thomson Robert Poister Katie Brackett Fialka CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

judging by your feedback ,

our spring 2016 issue caused quite a stir. Some of you took issue with the cover, which, in keeping with historian George Rable’s lead story breaking down the many ways in which (and the many reasons why) southerners demonized their northern opponents, depicted a devilishly graffitied Abraham Lincoln. Others took offense with the article itself, upset that Rable focused only on southerners and their prejudices, not northerners. (See this issue’s “Dispatches” section on page 4 to read a sampling of readers’ reactions.)

One reader took a different tack, explaining why he believed southerners were justified in their disdain for Lincoln. “No one in this nation’s history was more deserving of contempt, with the possible exception of Benedict Arnold,” he wrote. “[Y]our hero Lincoln had no love for the black man. His issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation was nothing more than a political move, designed to keep England and France from entering the war on the side of the South. It wasn’t issued until 1863, and if it was such an act of kindness and mercy, why did it not free slaves held in the North?”

While extreme, these thoughts are not entirely out of line with the modern-day opinion of Lincoln, as Allen Guelzo demonstrates in this issue’s cover story, “The Redemption of Abraham Lincoln” (page 30). Why has Lincoln’s reputation—among all Americans—gradually eroded over the last century?

And should it have? Guelzo’s analysis is insightful—and sure to spur further letters to the editor. You can email them to letters@civilwarmonitor.com. finally, congratulations to University of Florida historian J. Matthew Gallman, author of the article “Duty & the Draft” in our winter 2015 issue.

He was recently named the winner of the inaugural Nau Book Prize for his latest work, Defining Duty in the Civil War: Personal Choice, Popular Culture, and the Union Home Front. The prize, issued by the University of Virginia’s John L. Nau III Center for Civil War History, carries a $25,000 award.

Nicely done, Matt!

Stephen Berry Patrick Brennan John Coski Judith Giesberg Allen C. Guelzo Amy Murrell Taylor Matthew C. Hulbert EDITORIAL ADVISORS

Jennifer Sturak Michele Huie COPY EDITORS

Brian Matthew Jordan BOOK REVIEW EDITOR BRIAN@CIVILWARMONITOR.COM

Katharine Dahlstrand SOCIAL MEDIA EDITOR

Patrick Mitchell CREATIVE DIRECTOR MODUS OPERANDI DESIGN (WWW.MODUSOP.NET)

Zethyn McKinley ADVERTISING & MARKETING DIRECTOR ADVERTISING@CIVILWARMONITOR.COM (559) 492 9236

Howard White CIRCULATION MANAGER HWHITEASSOC@COMCAST.NET website

www.CivilWarMonitor.com

M. Keith Harris Kevin M. Levin Robert H. Moore II Harry Smeltzer DIGITAL HISTORY ADVISORS SUBSCRIPTIONS & CUSTOMER SERVICE

Civil War Monitor / Circulation Dept.

P.O. Box 292336, Kettering, OH 45429 phone: 877-344-7409 EMAIL: CUSTOMERSERVICE@CIVILWARMONITOR.COM

The Civil War Monitor (issn 2163-0682/print, issn 21630690/online) is published quarterly by Bayshore History, llc, 8008 Bayshore Drive, Margate, NJ 08402. Periodicals postage paid at Atlantic City, NJ, and additional mailing offices. postmaster: Send address changes to The Civil War Monitor, P.O. Box 292336, Kettering, OH 45429.

Subscriptions: $21.95 for one year (4 issues) in the U.S., $31.95 per year in Canada, and $41.95 per year for overseas subscriptions (all U.S. funds). Views expressed by individual authors, unless expressly stated, do not necessarily represent those of The Civil War Monitor or Bayshore History, LLC. Letters to the editor become the property of The Civil War Monitor, and may be edited. The Civil War Monitor cannot assume responsibility for unsolicited materials. The contents of the magazine may not be reproduced in whole or part without the written consent of the publisher.

Copyright ©2016 by Bayshore History, llc

2 THE CIVIL WAR MONITOR SUMMER 2016

all rights reserved.

printed in the u.s.a.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JOHN DOE

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (COLORIZED BY MADS MADSEN OF COLORIZED HISTORY )

Abe in the Crosshairs

The Civil War In Color A SPECIAL COMMEMORATIVE ISSUE FROM THE EDITORS OF

Featuring a wide-ranging collection of rare black-and-white photographs that have been painstakingly colorized, The Civil War in Color illustrates the story of America’s greatest conflict in astonishing detail.

This is a true collectible that offers a fresh and modern perspective to history.

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5/23/16 6:20 PM

d i s pat c h e s

If your intent was to stir up even more controversy and further polarize Civil War followers, you certainly succeeded. The article was acceptable journalism; the cover was not. Count me among those who thought it was unnecessary. You have a great magazine, no need to stoop to juvenile levels.

Cover Issues

I have a great appreciation for the overall quality of your magazine and greatly look forward to receiving each issue. However, your choice of cover illustration for the spring 2016 issue was my first major disappointment. I was both surprised and offended that such an otherwise tasteful publication would choose to deface the visage of Abraham Lincoln on its cover, even if in keeping with the theme of one of its articles. I can only hope this decision represented a rare lapse in judgment rather than an intended provocation.

Chuck Pribbernow

I have no problem with the cover & I’m a huge Lincoln fan.‬ Walt Loveless

It was fine but it seemed like it was a little below your normal standards. But it did get your point across.‬

Jeremy Halperin

Mike Pierce

VIA EMAIL

* * * As a subscriber to your magazine and as someone who finds your articles outstanding, I must strongly object to your spring 2016 cover, which I find utterly distasteful. Three of my greatgreat uncles fought and died in the Union army for “Lincoln and Liberty.” I can think of no more noble cause than the preservation of our Union and the emancipation of millions of men, women, and children from slavery. I am deeply offended by such a portrayal of President Lincoln.

Robert C. Strangfeld

Great cover. Lincoln was a complex man whose views on slavery evolved over time. Certainly one of the most important presidents. theme of the issue’s cover story, which dealt with the ways in which southerners demonized their northern opponents, Lincoln chief among them. Here’s hoping our current cover, which also features Lincoln, is more to your liking. * * * ED. Our followers on Facebook also

had much to say about our spring cover. Below is a sampling of comments we received when we posted the image.

CLARKS SUMMIT, PENNSYLVANIA

ED. Thank you, Jeremy and Robert,

for your feedback. We certainly didn’t craft the cover with an eye toward offending any of our loyal readers. Indeed, as Jeremy suggests, we wanted to illustrate the

This transplanted “damn Yankee” and retired graphic designer thinks it’s a great cover.

We still demonize anyone who doesn’t think like us today. Some things never change.‬ Chuck Larsen

Shane Peterson

Loved it! It’s really an eye catcher.

Austen Wood

Letters to the editor: email us at letters@civilwarmonitor.com or write to The Civil War Monitor, P.O. Box 428, Longport, NJ 08403.

Damn Yankees

I found George C. Rable’s article, “Damn Yankees” [Vol. 6, No. 1], which highlighted the myriad ways southerners demonized northerners both before and during the war, to be both fascinating and alarming. Northerners also had many unkind things to say about southerners, and the end result was a bloodbath that tore the nation apart. This sadly has contemporary relevance, since all anyone needs to do is listen to talk radio or check the

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History, Competition & Camaraderie comments section of various blogs on the Internet dealing with political or social issues to find that there is no shortage of vicious, and often profane, attacks exchanged between liberals and secular progressives (largely Democrats) on the one hand and religious and traditional conservatives (largely Republicans) on the other. To say these two groups demonize each other with venom, slander, and hatred would be an understatement, and this intense polarization among Americans in 2016 does not bode well for the future of the Republic, given the fact that history has a nasty tendency to repeat itself.

The N-SSA is America’s oldest and largest Civil War shooting sports organization. Competitors shoot original or approved reproduction firearms as well as artillery. All teams represent a specific Civil War regiment or unit and wears the uniform they wore over 150 years ago. N-SSA is dedicated to preserving our history, period firearms competition and the camaraderie of team sports with friends and family.

For more information visit

www.n-ssa .org

Dennis Middlebrooks BROOKLYN, NEW YORK

* * *

and Park

I just finished reading the spring 2016 issue and was intrigued by the cover story, “Damn Yankees.” I am the descendant of several ancestors who fought for the Union in many of the Civil War’s major battles, from Antietam to Appomattox. I can’t imagine those ancestors or their brethren in arms embodied those horrid, prejudiced opinions expressed so vehemently by many southerners at the time. I hope that there will be a follow-up article to rebut those insinuations.

Erik Hauge VIA EMAIL

Plan your visit to America’s award-winning Civil War attraction at The Mariners’ Museum and Park Be a part of the action in our high-definition Battle Theater, walk the deck of the full-sized Monitor replica, see artifacts like the iconic revolving gun turret and more!

Just 20 minutes from the Historic Triangle of Jamestown, Williamsburg and Yorktown.

MarinersMuseum.org • (800) 581-SAIL (7245) Newport News, VA • I-64, Exit 258A

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agenda Your Guide to Civil War Events

SUMMER 2016

A recent photo taken on the Antietam battlefield by Pat Todd

LECTURE

The Terrible Reality: Photographing Antietam

Battle of Snoqualmie reenactment

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 7 P.M.

Using the images taken around Sharpsburg, Maryland, by photographer Alexander Gardner, Antietam National Battlefield Park employee Pat Todd explains how photography changed the way Americans viewed the world around them in general and the Civil War in particular. He will also demonstrate the wet plate collodion process using period tools and techniques.

FREE; FOR MORE INFORMATION: JACOB-ROHRBACHINN.COM or 301-432-5079.

JULY LIVING HISTORY

Civil War Weekend SATURDAY, JULY 9 – SUNDAY, JULY 10

JUNE

Heritage Village Museum SHARONVILLE, OHIO

LIVING HISTORY

Corbit’s Charge Encampment FRIDAY, JUNE 24 – SUNDAY, JUNE 26

Emerald Hill Park

WESTMINSTER, MARYLAND

Enjoy a variety of festivities during a threeday event to commemorate the Civil War in Westminster, including history presentations and lectures, military demonstrations, children’s activities, a guided tour of the town, a Friday night concert, and a Saturday night dance. Also included is a Saturday morning memorial ceremony to honor the men who fought in the little-known cavalry clash at Westminster, known as Corbit’s Charge, in the run-up to the Battle of Gettysburg.

FREE; FOR MORE INFORMATION: PIPECREEKCIVILWARROUNDTABLE.WEEBLY.COM/CORBITS-CHARGEENCAMPMENT.

Join the Heritage Village Museum for its annual Civil War Weekend. Reenactors depicting both civilian and military life (including drilling and combat), speakers, and a Saturday night dance are among the event’s many attractions. $8 ADULTS; $5 CHILDREN 5–11; CHILDREN UNDER 4 AND MUSEUM MEMBERS ARE FREE; FOR MORE INFORMATION: HERITAGEVILLAGECINCINNATI.ORG or 513-563-9484.

Reenactors at the Heritage Village Museum

Historic Church Tour of Gettysburg WEDNESDAY, JULY 13, 6 P.M.

Gettysburg Presbyterian Church GETTYSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA

Take a two-hour guided tour of four of Gettysburg’s historic churches—Prince of Peace Episcopal, St. Francis Xavier Roman Catholic, St. Paul’s AME Zion, and Christ Lutheran—each of which has an interesting Civil War-era connection, and two of which were used as hospitals after the epic July 1863 battle fought nearby. Please arrive 15 minutes before starting time. $5; CHILDREN 12 AND UNDER ARE FREE; FOR MORE INFORMATION: HISTORICCHURCHWALKINGTOURS. ORG or 717-337-1718.

EXCURSION

Monocacy River Guided Paddle Trip SATURDAY, JULY 23

Pinecliff Park

FREDERICK, MARYLAND

Have you ever wanted to take a canoe trip on the Monocacy River with a park ranger?

Monocacy National Battlefield and Frederick County Parks and Recreation are offering guided canoe tours that will allow paddlers to experience the Monocacy battlefield and surrounding historical areas in a unique way. Paddlers will likely also see a variety of wildlife. Bring your own lunch and weatherappropriate clothing. Children under 18 must be accompanied by an adult. Recreation staff reserve the right to cancel a canoe tour for any reason. Pre-registration required. $69 PER CANOE (CAPACITY OF TWO ADULTS AND A SMALL CHILD); FOR MORE INFORMATION, OR TO REGISTER: RECREATER.COM or 301-600-2936.

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COURTESY OF PAUL TIMMERMAN (TOP); WINCHESTER-FREDERICK COUNTY CVB

SHARPSBURG, MARYLAND

TOUR

COURTESY OF PAT TODD (LEFT); HERITAGE VILLAGE MUSEUM (CENTER)

Jacob Rohrbach Inn

LIVING HISTORY

the BAT T L E of

FRANKLIN

Come and see how a terrible battle became...

The historic Pritchard House

Civil War Lawn Party SAT., AUGUST 20, 10 A.M. – 4 P.M.

The Greatest Story of the Civil War

Kernstown Battlefield WINCHESTER, VIRGINIA

AUGUST LECTURE

From Belles to Battleaxes: Women of Civil War Richmond SATURDAY, AUGUST 13, 4 P.M.

Surratt House Museum

TOUR

From Civil War to Civil Rights

CLINTON, MARYLAND

The Museum of the Confederacy’s Kelly Hancock shares the stories of the daring spies, devoted nurses, star-crossed lovers, and captivating socialites of Civil War Richmond—women from across the South who all ended up in the capital of the Confederacy.

White House and Museum of the Confederacy

LIVING HISTORY

COURTESY OF PAUL TIMMERMAN (TOP); WINCHESTER-FREDERICK COUNTY CVB

FREE; FOR MORE INFORMATION: VISITWINCHESTERVA.COM/CIVIL-WAREVENTS or 540-542-1326.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 20, 10:30 A.M.

FREE; FOR MORE INFORMATION: SURRATTMUSEUM.ORG or 301-868-1121.

COURTESY OF PAT TODD (LEFT); HERITAGE VILLAGE MUSEUM (CENTER)

Pack your picnic basket and enjoy a relaxing day at a Civil War lawn party on the Kernstown Battlefield, part of the Winchester/ Frederick County Civil War Weekend. Attendees can mingle with civilian reenactors and play croquet, lawn bowling, and horseshoes on the grounds of the historic Pritchard House.

Battle of Snoqualmie Civil War Reenactment SATURDAY, AUGUST 13 – SUNDAY, SAT., AUG. 13 – SUN., AUG. 14

Meadowbrook Farm

SNOQUALMIE, WASHINGTON

Tour Union and Confederate infantry, cavalry, and artillery camps, visit period sutlers, watch a hospital demonstration, and take in a battle reenactment during this two-day event sponsored by the Washington Civil War Association. $10 ADULTS; $7 MILITARY; $5 CHILDREN 10–18; CHILDREN UNDER 10 ARE FREE; FOR MORE INFORMATION: BATTLEOFSNOQUALMIE.COM or 509280-5608.

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www.boft.org

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

One of America’s oldest cities, Richmond has a rich and diverse history that spans more than 275 years. During this 90-minute walking tour, travel back in time to uncover the city’s past as a major slave-trading center, the Confederate capital, and a battleground for civil rights. Along the two-mile route, see the Egyptian Building, First African Baptist Church, Lumpkin’s Jail, Farmers Market, Reconciliation Statue, Virginia State Capitol, and more. Reservations required by August 19. $15; $5 FOR MUSEUM MEMBERS; FOR MORE INFORMATION: ACWM.ORG or 804-649-1861.

Share Your Event Have an upcoming event you’d like featured in this space?

Let us know: events@ civilwarmonitor.com

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s a lv o s a lv o

{

FA C T S , F I G U R E S & I T E M S O F I N T E R E S T

}

In this lithograph by Currier & Ives, secessionist shore batteries fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, South Carolina, in mid-April 1861. After being bombarded for 34 hours, the fort’s outgunned Union garrison agreed to evacuate, ending the Civil War’s opening engagement. FOR MORE ON CHARLESTON, TURN THE PAGE ☛

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IN THIS SECTION Travels

A VISIT TO CHARLESTON . . . . 10 Voices

WAR WISDOM . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Faces of War

A PICKETT’S CHARGE SURVIVOR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Preservation

FINAL PUSH AT PERRYVILLE . . 18 Figures

STRIDE OF A GIANT . . . . . . . . 20 Cost of War

A BATTLE-TESTED COAT . . . . 22 In Focus

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

CALM BEFORE THE STORM . . 24

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CHARLESTON SOUTH CAROLINA at 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861, a mortar commanded by secessionist forces at Charleston, South Carolina, fired a single shell toward Fort Sumter, the formidable bastion in Charleston Harbor occupied

by U.S. troops. It was the opening shot of the Civil War, the culmination of years of sectional discord that had accelerated the previous fall with the election of Abraham Lincoln as U.S. president and the subsequent secession of South Carolina from the Union. After 34 hours of bombardment by several thousand coastal guns, the fort’s defenders could hold out no longer and surrendered. For the next four years, Charleston would remain a focal point of Union attention, as northern forces determined to capture the city they held responsible for the outbreak of the war. Yet despite a U.S. blockade and several major operations, Charleston remained in Confederate control until February 1865, only two months before war’s end, when the approach of General William T. Sherman’s Union army forced its evacuation. ¶ Interested in visiting Charleston?

To help make the most of your trip, we’ve enlisted two experts on the area—Richard Hatcher III and Tony Youmans—to offer suggestions for what to see and do in and around the historic city.

Fort Moultrie

1

CAN’T MISS

Fort Moultrie (1214 Middle St.; 843-883-3123), on Sullivan’s Island, tells the story of the nation’s coastal defense history from 1776 to 1947. The first fort there, completed during the American Revolution, successfully turned back a British naval attack on June 28, 1776, one of the colonists’ first major victories in the conflict. It fell into disrepair after the Revolution, and its 1798 replacement was destroyed by a hurricane in 1804. The third Fort Moultrie, completed in 1809, played a major role in the Civil War and was used as a U.S. Army post until 1947. Also worth a visit are the remains of Fort Johnson (217 Fort Johnson Rd.; 843-953-9360), from which the Civil War’s first shot was fired. Located at the state Marine Resources Center on James Island, the bastion’s brick powder magazine and fresh water cisterns are open to visitors, who can also walk to the shoreline for a nice view of Fort Sumter. rh A short drive from Charleston is Colonial Dorchester State Historic Site (300 State Park Rd., Summerville; 843-873-1740). Situated along the upper waters of the Ashley River where the town of Dorchester once stood, the site offers picnic areas, a self-guided walking tour, lots of history (including a relatively undisturbed oyster-shell tabby fort built during the French and Indian War), and plenty of natural beauty. ty

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY LINDSEY HARRIS

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The Old Exchange & Provost Dungeon

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BEST KEPT SECRET

The South Carolina Aquarium

Charleston’s historic district, with its parks and historic houses, is a great place to explore on foot. Make sure to tour the Old Exchange & Provost Dungeon (122 E. Bay St.; 843727-2165), which was completed in 1771 and served as a customs house, public meeting place, and jail during the American Revolution. Restored in the early 1980s, it’s now owned and operated by the Daughters of the American Revolution. rh To gain a sense of Charleston’s rich history and beauty, take a stroll through Waterfront Park (along the Cooper River, between Vendue Range and Adger’s Wharf; 843724-7321). Recently renamed after the city’s longtime mayor, Joseph P. Riley Jr., the 12-acre site—replete with walkways, park benches, a large lawn, impressive floral displays, two fountains, and a wide, wooden pier—offers the finest vantage point to view historic Charleston Harbor. ty Waterfront Park

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BEST FAMILY ACTIVITY

The South Carolina Aquarium (100 Aquarium Wharf; 843-577-3474) highlights the state’s animals and plants, from the mountains to the Atlantic. Another good option for kids is Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum (40 Patriots Point Rd., Mt. Pleasant; 843-884-2727), which is home to three museum ships, including a submarine, a destroyer, and USS Yorktown, a World War II aircraft carrier that was decommissioned in 1970. Its Medal of Honor Museum tells the stories of Americans who have received the nation’s highest military award, from the Civil War through the present day. rh It’s easy to recommend Charles Towne Landing (1500 Old Towne Rd.; 843-852-4200), which, simply put, is our Jamestown. This state site offers acres of walking, biking, and great vistas. You start at an amazing museum and gift shop, then walk or take a tram to the replica cargo vessel Adventure, an indentured servant’s house, or a zoo highlighting native animals.

If you visit on the third Saturday of the month, don’t miss the cannon demonstration by militia in colonial clothing. ty

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The Fort Sumter Visitors Center at Liberty Square

Edmund’s Oast

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BEST CIVIL WAR SPOT

Fort Sumter (nps.gov/fosu; 843883-3123) is a must-see. In addition to being the place where the conflict began, it was the focal point of the siege of Charleston from July 1863 to February 1865, during which Union forces fired approximately 7 million pounds of artillery, making it the most heavily bombarded 2.5 acres of the war. The trip to and from the fort is made on a comfortable, three-deck boat. While tours are self-guided, National Park Service staff are on site to answer questions. Also consider a visit to the Warren Lasch Conservation Center in North Charleston (1250 Supply St.; 843-743-4865 x10), home of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley, which sank in the waters off Charleston Harbor in February 1864 after its successful torpedo attack on the Union blockading ship USS Housatonic. Scientists have been working on Hunley’s conservation since its raising in 2000. Note that the center is open for tours on weekends only. rh Without a doubt, Fort Sumter. I love being able to walk its grounds, touch its brick walls, and see the cannon.

Also check out the fort’s visitors center at the Liberty Square ferry dock (340 Concord St.; 843-5770242) for exhibits detailing the secession crisis and the outbreak of the war. ty

Home Team BBQ

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BEST EATS

The daily breakfast at Toast (155 Meeting St.; 843-534-0043) provides a variety of choices at reasonable prices. Locally owned East Bay Deli (334 E. Bay St.; 843-723-1234) is a great casual lunch spot with generous and delicious sandwiches. For dinner, try Sullivan’s Restaurant (2019 Middle St., Sullivan’s Island; 843-883-3222). Located on Sullivan’s Island, it’s a family-friendly spot with good seafood. I’m particularly fond of their fried shrimp. rh On most mornings I eat breakfast at a small bistro called Bakehouse (160 E. Bay St.; 843-5772180), where the staff is friendly, the food is made fresh on site, and the frittatas are terrific. For the best Sunday brunch around, visit The Mills House Wyndham Grand Hotel (115 Meeting St.; 843-577-2400). The buffet includes fresh fruit, made-to-order omelets, baked goodies, and more. For lunch, I’d suggest a tavern called The Griffon (18 Vendue Range; 843-723-1700) for the best club sandwiches, burgers, and pot roast. The service is great, and the prices are affordable. There are so many good dinner options. The Peninsula Grill (112 N. Market St.; 843-7230700), located in Planters Inn, is one of the best fine-dining options in the city; Edmund’s Oast (1081 Morrison Dr.; 843-727-1145) is a new restaurant that offers a tasty menu and craft beers; and Home Team BBQ (126 Williman St.; 843-225-7427 x4) serves delicious barbecued pork or beef in a casual and comfortable setting. ty

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PHOTOGRAPHS BY LINDSEY HARRIS

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Jacob Rohrbach Inn Bed & Breakfast at the Antietam Battlefield

The Mills House Wyndham Grand Hotel

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138 W. Main St. Sharpsburg, MD 21782 301-432-5079

BEST SLEEP

Belmond Charleston Place (205 Meeting St.; 843-722-4900) is an upscale hotel across from the City Market, one of the nation’s oldest public markets and among the most visited venues in the city. While Charleston Place boasts its own restaurants and shops, it’s also within easy striking distance of a variety of dining and shopping options. rh To gain a sense of Charleston’s present and past, make every effort to stay downtown.

Two good options are Planters Inn (112 N. Market St.; 843-722-2345), located in a beautifully restored antebellum building, and The Mills House Wyndham Grand Hotel, which dates to 1853 but offers all the modern comforts, including a great bar and swimming pool. ty

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www.jacob-rohrbach-inn.com

The Ultimate Source on Confederate Uniforms

BEST BOOK

Many believe the only major events to take place in Charleston between 1860 and 1865 were South Carolina’s secession and the bombardment of Fort Sumter. E. Milby Burton’s Siege of Charleston, 1861-1865 (1970) shows that there were many more, including the 1863 assault on Battery Wagner (depicted in the movie Glory) and the story of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley. rh Robert N. Rosen’s Confederate Charleston: An Illustrated History of the City and the People During the Civil War (1994) is written in a style that’s clear and descriptive, and its many illustrations help the reader understand the devastating impact of the conflict in the city. ty

ABOUT OUR EXPERTS

Richard Hatcher III, who began his career with the National Park Service in 1970, held the position of historian at Fort Sumter National Monument from 1992–2015.

Tony Youmans has been the director of Charleston’s Old Exchange & Provost Dungeon since 2004.

Organized chronologically and by region, The Soldier’s Words brings together a variety of first-hand accounts about what Confederate soldiers actually wore.

Even the most knowledgeable Civil War uniform researcher will learn something new.

Available on Kindle and Amazon.com, BooksaMillion.com & BarnesandNoble.com

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voices

/ WAR WISDOM

“ The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on.”

UNION GENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT, AS QUOTED

BY MAJOR JOHN H. BRINTON

“War is very uncertain in its results, and often when affairs look most desperate “ MA’AM, I they suddenly GOT THERE assume a more FIRST WITH hopeful state.”

THE MOST MEN.”

CONFEDERATE GENERAL NATHAN BEDFORD FORREST (ABOVE), ANSWERING A WOMAN WHO ASKED HIM THE SECRET TO HIS SUCCESS ON THE BATTLEFIELD

UNION GENERAL GEORGE G. MEADE, JUNE 11, 1863, 17 DAYS BEFORE HE WAS APPOINTED COMMANDER OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC

“ ALWAYS MYSTIFY, MISLEAD, AND SURPRISE THE ENEMY, IF POSSIBLE; AND WHEN YOU STRIKE AND OVERCOME HIM, NEVER LET UP IN THE PURSUIT SO LONG AS YOUR MEN HAVE STRENGTH TO FOLLOW; FOR AN ARMY ROUTED, IF HOTLY PURSUED, BECOMES PANICSTRICKEN, AND CAN THEN BE DESTROYED BY HALF THEIR NUMBER.” CONFEDERATE GENERAL THOMAS J. “STONEWALL” JACKSON, AS HEARD BY FELLOW GENERAL JOHN D. IMBODEN DURING “THE EARLY PART OF THE WAR”

SOURCES: THE NEW YORK TIMES, MAY 28, 1918; LLOYD LEWIS, SHERMAN: FIGHTING PROFIT (1932); BATTLES AND LEADERS OF THE CIVIL WAR VOL. 2 (1887); PERSONAL MEMOIRS OF JOHN H. BRINTON (1914); THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF GEORGE GORDON MEADE VOL. 1 (1913); MOSBY’S WAR REMINISCENCES (1887).

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2), COLORIZED BY MADS MADSEN OF COLORIZED HISTORY

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“ WAR LOSES A GREAT DEAL OF ITS ROMANCE AFTER A SOLDIER HAS SEEN HIS FIRST BATTLE.” CONFEDERATE COLONEL JOHN S. MOSBY, IN HIS MEMOIRS

“ War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueler it is, the sooner it will be over.”

UNION GENERAL WILLIAM TECUMSEH SHERMAN (RIGHT), IN RESPONSE TO A WOMAN WHO ALLEGED HIS SOLDIERS HAD STOLEN FROM LOCAL FARMERS WHILE ON CAMPAIGN IN TENNESSEE, DECEMBER 1863

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make his day.

It’s incredible. The photos are absolutely breathtaking, and I love the pull-out poster-sized maps. ~ K r i s t a S.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2), COLORIZED BY MADS MADSEN OF COLORIZED HISTORY

This book is wonderful! What an incredible project.

You have done a great job incorporating the thoughts, words, emotions of the soldiers with some spectacular photography. It is a book I will treasure. Makes me want to take another trip to Gettysburg. ~ R i c k L .

A masterpiece. The depiction of carnage on the battlefield is both jarring and fascinating—it’s about time someone had the guts to show what kind of hell those poor boys went through. ~ J o h n W . ★

★

★

Sets the Gettysburg battle stage so seamlessly, yet eloquently. I feel your intended purpose of humanizing the conflict succeeds brilliantly. The cornucopia of diaries and letters place Gettysburg in a perspective that renders and reduces the typical history book to little more than a baseball box score. ~ J o n O.

The book I ordered for my husband arrived yesterday and he was very pleased. What an amazing job you did! Thank you so much. ~ L i n d a S . ★

★

★

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Here’s the p er fe ct g ift for your histor y-buff Dad at the p er fe ct pr ice: $ 7 5 plus shipping. Special signed limited editions are $250.

Order this spectacular new Civil War book Gettysburg 1863—Seething Hell online at www.newgettysburgbook.com or telephone toll-free 866-278-1994

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fa c e s o f wa r

by ronald s . coddington publisher, military images

AMONG THE approximately 6,500 Confederate casualties suffered during Pickett’s Charge—the failed infantry assault ordered by Robert E. Lee on the Battle of Gettysburg’s third day—was Virginia native Zachariah Angel Blanton. A tobacconist before the war, Blanton enlisted as a sergeant in the Farmville Guards, a company that would become part of the 18th Virginia Infantry, only days after the bombardment of Fort Sumter.

(The photo shown here was taken shortly afterward.) By the time of the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, Blanton had attained the rank of captain. While leading his company forward during Pickett’s Charge, a Union bullet hit him in the face and badly damaged his jaw and tongue. Captured on the field, Blanton spent the next 10 months as a prisoner before being exchanged in mid-1864. He resigned from the service due to his wounds and returned to his prewar occupation. Blanton married in 1868; he and his wife would have three children. The former soldier died in 1893 at age 60.

CHARLES DARDEN COLLECTION

A PICKETT’S CHARGE SURVIVOR

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CLoSE oUT SALE Limited edition CoLLeCtors PLates Commemorating The Sesquicentennial of the Civil War, 1861–1865

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Each 6" diameter plate arrives in a custom presentation box, perfect for safekeeping, making this a unique and historic gift.

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by o . james lighthizer president, civil war trust

p r e s e r vat i o n

E

Final Push at Perryville

decisive influence on a campaign and a direct impact on the course of the war.”

The road to this critical battle began in the summer of 1862, when Confederate general Braxton Bragg launched an invasion of Kentucky, hoping to divert Union attention from southern strongholds at Vicksburg and Chattanooga. The Kentucky Campaign did draw northern forces out of northern Alabama and Middle Tennessee, ground it would take Union troops almost a year to regain. The Battle of Perryville was a Confederate tac-

tical victory, though the heavy fighting and bloodshed forced Bragg to retreat into Tennessee.

After the battle, Abraham Lincoln was reportedly overheard to have said, “I’d like to have God on our side, but I must have Kentucky.”

The Civil War Trust, too, decided it must have Perryville.

Before the Trust got involved, only 98 acres of the battlefield had been saved. In 2007, we preserved an additional 96 acres, allowing interpretation of the entire length of Confederate general William Hardee’s assault. In

LOOK FOR REGULAR PRESERVATION NEWS AND UPDATES FROM THE CIVIL WAR TRUST IN FUTURE ISSUES. TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION AND HOW YOU CAN HELP, VISIT CIVILWAR.ORG

2010, we acquired 54 acres on the southeastern side, the site of an attack against the Union center.

And two years later, for the 150th anniversary of the battle, the Trust announced the preservation of nearly 600 acres containing several important sites: the antebellum Walker House, on the National Register of Historic Places and the spot where Confederate general Benjamin Cheatham massed his troops to launch the battle’s first attack; the site of Henry Bottom’s “burning barn”; and the Slaughter Pen, where 65 percent of the 22nd Indiana Infantry sustained casualties, the highest of any regiment at Perryville.

Our latest fundraising effort, launched in February 2016, aims to save 70 acres that represent one of the last pieces of the Perryville battlefield yet to be preserved. Find out more at Civilwar. org/Perryville2016.

The Civil War Trust’s current push is to preserve one of the last unprotected pieces of land over which the Battle of Perryville, Kentucky, was fought in October 1862. Shown here is a portion of the battlefield known as the Slaughter Pen, saved by the Trust in 2012.

CIVIL WAR TRUST

the battle of perryville, fought on October 8, 1862, was Kentucky’s bloodiest and most significant Civil War engagement. Its 7,600 casualties were more than those of First Manassas, Brandy Station, or Kennesaw Mountain, and its results ensured that Kentucky, a strategically important border state, remained solidly in northern control for the remainder of the war. For more than 10 years, the Trust has contributed to preservation victories at Perryville, and our latest fundraising effort has helped us reach an amazing milestone: 1,000 acres of core battlefield land saved. ¶ As far back as 1993, a federal report that surveyed 384 Civil War battlefields named Perryville one of the 11 most endangered and called the Battle of Perryville one of only 45 engagements with “a

B

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© R I “

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Excerpt from Book II

Battle at Harper’s Ferry September 15, 1862 Boilin up sweet breakfast coffee ~ burnin tobacco in m’ bowl On a Shenandoah Ridge ~ return to solace fer m’ soul Shroud o’ mist a liftin ~ underneath the thin smoke screen New Yorkers twen’y days in uniform and summer apple green Kids left shepherdless ‘n charged to fortify the hills A warm mornin! all frozen up in mortifyin chills Sad scene so pathetic, tryin not to be amused Abandoned in the thicket by the tired old ewes Wolfpack on the double quick ‘n spreadin ‘round the path So close to hear ‘em call and cuss and joke and laugh to hear the grey dogs yip near causin me to smile Scamprin under cover ~ comin at ‘em injun style Cool headed vet’ran marksmen get a gift and grin in glee Lambs exposed alone or cowerin three to every tree Brave lieutenant turns to rally! refusin to meet disgrace ‘n he set a fine example til a reb blew off his face Thought o’ tradin in my shovel for a tomahawk As the mountains come alive! and Parrotts start to talk Fools follow fools commands ‘n put us all in peril Sent a ringed around in woods like fish stuffed in a barrel Over ten thousand armed men drawn in the lucky lot Given up to scroungy mutts ~ no chance to fire a shot Our colonel sends out surrender ~ blamin duty for his folly A southern gunner chanced to blast ‘im with a final volley And so, ol’ mousy Miles retires ~ earnin his eternal nap † Leavin his entire army with their tails tight in a trap

CIVIL WAR TRUST

† Union Colonel Miles was mortally wounded by an errant projectile at the close of the battle.

©2004 Postlethwaite Publishing.

RHawk61@gmail.com Illustrations and design by DM Designs, LLC. Video Production by OddBox Studios.

“Red Hawk” The Battle of Gettysburg Narrative online at www.youtu.be/rOTiew8ziVA

ODDBOX STUDIOS

Books & Illustration Note Cards at Turn The Page Bookstore Boonsboro, Md. www.RHJournal.com and www.TTPbooks.com CWM20-FOB-Preservation.indd 19

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figures

115,355

Mean number of Union troops present on the Peninsula during the campaign

3,000

Approximate number of wagons that accompanied the army

27,000

Approximate number of mules and horses, including cavalry mounts, with the army

Stride of a Giant

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

“To take up an army of over one hundred thousand men, transport it and all its immense material by water, and plant it down on a new theatre of operations near two hundred miles distant, is an enterprise the details of which must be studied ere its colossal magnitude can be adequately apprehended.” So wrote William Swinton, a wartime reporter for The New York Times, of the initial phase of the Peninsula Campaign, Union general George B. McClellan’s attempt to capture Richmond in the spring and summer of 1862. McClellan’s plan was as simple as it was bold: Convey his Army of the Potomac by sea from the vicinity of Washington, D.C., to Fort Monroe on the tip of the Virginia Peninsula, then advance on foot northwest toward the Confederate capital, defeating any southern troops in his path. While ultimately unsuccessful militarily—Union forces would be turned back from the outskirts of Richmond by Confederates commanded by Robert E. Lee—McClellan’s effort was an impressive logistical accomplishment, one that saw his massive force transported to Fort Monroe in only approximately 30 days. The initial movement was, in the words of an Englishman who observed it, “the stride of a giant.” Shown here is a Union supply depot at Yorktown, one of several established by McClellan’s forces during the campaign, in May 1862.

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389

Number of vessels that transported the men and materiel of the Army of the Potomac to Fort Monroe (113 steamers, 188 schooners, 88 barges)

86,000

Approximate tonnage of the assembled transport fleet

350

Approximate number of ambulances that accompanied the army

9

Number of vessels (all barges) lost to storm during the process

3

Weight, in pounds, of a soldier’s daily ration

23

Weight, in pounds, of a mule’s daily fodder

26

Weight, in pounds, of a horse’s daily fodder

500+

Number of artillery batteries (representing 299 guns) that accompanied the army

100

Weight, in tons, of “other necessary supplies,” including ammunition, required daily by the army

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Weight, in tons, of rations and fodder required daily by the army

52

SOURCES: WILLIAM SWINTON, CAMPAIGNS OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC (1866); STEPHEN W. SEARS, TO THE GATES OF RICHMOND: THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN (1992); WILLIAM J. MILLER, “SCARCELY ANY PARALLEL IN HISTORY: LOGISTICS, FRICTION AND MCCLELLAN’S STRATEGY FOR THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN,” IN WILLIAM J. MILLER, ED., THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN OF 1862, VOL. 2 (1995); O.E. HUNT, “THE FEDERAL ARTILLERY AND ARTILLERYMEN,” IN FRANCIS T. MILLER, ED., THE PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR, VOL. 5 (1911); UNITED STATES WAR DEPARTMENT, THE WAR OF THE REBELLION: A COMPILATION OF THE THE CIVIL WAR MONITOR OFFICIAL RECORDS 129 VOLS. (WASHINGTON, 1880-1901), SERIES I, VOL. 11, PT. 1.

21

SUMMER 2016

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p p o

c o s t o f wa r

$18,000 A BATTLE-TESTED COAT FETCHES A SUBSTANTIAL SUM THE ARTIFACT

The frock coat worn by William B. Chapman, 2nd Independent Battery, Ohio Light Artillery, during his Civil War service

In addition to a hole on the left hip, the coat shows signs of wear and moth damage on the chest, shoulders, sleeves, collars, lining, and back.

DETAILS

Shortly after Chapman, age 34, left his law practice to enlist in the 2nd Independent Battery, Ohio Light Artillery, as a first lieutenant on July 20, 1861, the citizens of his hometown, Conneaut, Ohio, presented him with a new frock coat. In October, after a brief stint of duty in St. Louis, Chapman and the 2nd were attached to the Army of the Southwest for field service. By the time they participated in the Battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, in March 1862—Union general Samuel Curtis’ successful attempt to drive Confederate forces from Missouri and northern Arkansas—Lieutenant Chapman was in command of the 2nd. During the fighting, Chapman, while attempting to repel

Confederates who were advancing on his position, was struck in the left hip by a spent musket ball. It had enough residual force to knock him down—and sever the lower button on his frock coat. “As the coat was a gift,” noted a subsequent account of his actions, “he thought he had better try and retrieve the missing button.

While looking for it, he spied the musket ball that had struck him still rolling on the ground. He picked up the ball and the button.” Chapman, who was promoted to captain three months later, left the army in October 1862 “on account of physical disability from wounds.”

After his return to civilian life, Chapman moved his family to Pennsylvania, resumed the practice of law, and became active in the largest Union veterans organization, the Grand Army of the Republic. He died on October 28, 1895, after a passing carriage ran him down on the street. His remains were returned to Conneaut, Ohio, for burial.

H

EXTRAS

In addition to the frock coat, the collection included the musket ball that caused Chapman’s Pea Ridge wound and the button he retrieved after being shot; a scrapbook, kept by one of Chapman’s five children, containing newspaper clippings about his service (some of which excerpt his wartime letters home) and a July 1861 photo of Chapman in his coat; and photocopies of Chapman’s military records.

VALUE QUOTABLE

Two days after the Battle of Pea Ridge, Chapman wrote to his family about his wound. “When the last charge was made I was struck with... [a] round ball, just above the hip bone, on the left side…. I have the ball, and will bring it home when I come.”

$18,000 (price realized at Cowan’s Auctions Inc. in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 2014). “This is a remarkable and historic uniform, one of a few known and documented that shows the effect of a battlefield wound,” noted Wes Cowan, founder and owner of Cowan’s Auctions, at the time of the sale.

COWAN’S AUCTIONS INC. (COWANAUCTIONS.COM)

CONDITION

22 THE CIVIL WAR MONITOR SUMMER 2016

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in focus

by tktktktktktk

Calm Before the Storm in mid-july 1861, as they advanced into Virginia to engage Confederate forces at Manassas, in what would be the Civil War’s first major battle, Union soldiers were convinced they’d mop up the Rebs and end the southern insurrection in a matter of weeks. This confident, bordering on cocky, attitude is amply displayed in this photograph, taken on or about July 16, after the army reached Fairfax Court House, about 17 miles east of their destination. Union soldiers, dressed in the variety of uniforms still in use then, mill about the courthouse, some readying to fill their canteens at a nearby well while others pose on the building’s roof.

Recently, Center for Civil War Photography member Steve Woolf not only helped pin down the correct date for the image (the National Archives had previously labeled it June 1863) but also discovered the presence of Mathew Brady among the group. The famed photographer, shown standing third from right, in white hat, and his assistants had accompanied Union forces into Virginia, determined to document the conflict in images. At the battle fought at Manassas less than a week later, Brady would fare little better than the Union army. Caught up in the panicked retreat of Union forces after their decisive—and humiliating—defeat, Brady returned to Washington without any images of the campaign save this and another shot of Fairfax Court House.

by bob zeller president , center for civil war photography

THE CENTER FOR CIVIL WAR PHOTOGRAPHY IS A NON-PROFIT ORGANIZATION DEVOTED TO COLLECTING, PRESERVING, AND DIGITIZING CIVIL WAR IMAGES FOR THE PUBLIC BENEFIT. TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE CCWP AND ITS MISSION, VISIT CIVILWARPHOTOGRAPHY.ORG

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NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION, WASHINGTON, D.C.

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american iliad

WHY GEORGE McCLELLAN IS THE GENERAL WE LOVE TO LOATHE BY MARK GRIMSLEY

y column in the winter 2015 issue of the Monitor focused on the vexed relationship between Abraham Lincoln and Major General George B. McClellan, Lincoln’s most important commander during the war’s early years. Ninety percent of the column was devoted to retelling the standard story of that relationship: the patient, forbearing Lincoln vs. the arrogant, incompetent McClellan. In the remaining 10 percent, I suggested that this interpretation might be overblown. I reminded readers that General Robert E. Lee considered McClellan his most formidable opponent, suggested some reasons that Lee likely thought so, and cautioned, “It’s one thing to be critical of McClellan.

It’s another to get so carried away in our derision that we foreclose rational analysis.”1 But even this tepid “defense” of McClellan drew fire from several readers. (Two of their letters appeared in the “Dispatches” section of the spring 2016 issue; another, sent to me directly, declared McClellan the worst general in American history.) It made me realize that I should probably write further about the purpose of this American Iliad series, which is not intended as a typical analysis of Civil War figures and events. Instead, as I explained in my maiden column, I want to examine how the Civil War functions as a national myth.

We’re critical of many Civil War generals. The outsized vitriol leveled at McClellan, however, goes beyond mere criticism. It’s one thing to find fault with McClellan. It’s another to loathe him. Yet loathe him most of us do. And more than that, we insist upon loathing him. Why might this be?

Recurring archetypes—universal character types like the Hero or the Trickster—are common in mythology, as scholars including psychologist Carl Jung have long noted. They’re also a feature of almost all effective storytelling, a fact that will not surprise fans of George Lucas, who consciously used mythical archetypes when creating the Star Wars franchise.2 Looking through this lens, we can start to understand the animosity that McClellan seems to inspire.

McClellan’s ceaseless calls for reinforcements are one of the best-known aspects of his generalship.

To view this article’s reference notes, turn to page 78.

Most Civil War buffs are familiar with this jibe by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton: “If he [McClellan] had a million men, he would swear the enemy had two millions, and then he would sit down in the mud and yell for three.”3 The quote irresistibly conjures the image of McClellan as a demanding brat and corresponds to an archetype that psychologist Robert Moore and mythologist Douglas Gillette, both disciples of Jung, term the “High Chair Tyrant.” This archetype, they explain, “is epitomized by the image of Little Lord Fauntleroy sitting in his high chair, banging his food on a tray, and screaming for his mother to feed him, kiss him, and attend him.... But when the food comes, it often does not meet his specifications; it is not good enough.... If he becomes sufficiently self-righteous, no food,

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ANNE S.K. BROWN MILITARY COLLECTION, BROWN UNIVERSITY (OPPOSITE);LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

M

Little Mac Fauntleroy

ANNE S.K. BROWN MILITARY COLLECTION, BROWN UNIVERSITY (OPPOSITE);LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

no matter how hungry he is, will be adequate.”4 Arrogance, childishness, and irresponsibility—hallmarks of the High Chair Tyrant—are traits invariably assigned to McClellan.

They are vividly on display in his reaction to the defeat at Gaines’ Mill at the outset of the Seven Days’ Battles around Richmond in the summer of 1862. Forced to abandon his bid to capture the Confederate capital, McClellan blames the Lincoln administration instead of himself. “You have done your best to sacrifice this army,” he accuses in a telegram to Stanton reporting the defeat.5 Students of the war well know what happens next: McClellan makes a craven retreat that he calls a “change of base,” and continues pulling back even though Lee’s pursuing army botches every attempt to bring him to bay.

On this, as on so many occasions,

The popular image of George McClellan (shown above, center, in 1861) today is dominated by the notion that the general was demanding, arrogant, and timid. Early in the Civil War, the northern public thought much more highly of the general, who was often depicted (as in the 1861 lithograph on the opposite page) as the dashing “Young Napoleon.”

he displays his timidity. Although basking in his public image as the dashing “Young Napoleon”— a term the fawning press devised for him soon after he first came to Washington—he is in fact a moral coward who constantly lets his Confederate adversaries dominate him. He overestimates their numbers, falls for their deceptions, and exaggerates their prowess. This image of McClellan corresponds to a second archetype closely related to the first: the “Weakling King.”

The Weakling King is the polar opposite of the confident “King in His Fullness” archetype. While clinging to an image of himself as powerful, write Moore and Gillette, the Weakling King actually projects that power onto another, “allowing any forceful personality that comes along to bully and control him.”6 Forceful personalities like Robert E. Lee, for instance. Lee famously regretted McClellan’s removal

from command of the Army of the Potomac in November 1862. “We always understood each other so well. I fear they may continue to make these changes till they find some one whom I don’t understand.”7 Or, as one of the letter writers responding to my winter column declared, “Lee read McClellan like a book and played him for a fool.”8 A letter from Lincoln to McClellan, written three weeks before he sacked the general, is redolent of someone trying to cajole a Weakling King. “Are you not over-cautious when you assume that you cannot do what the enemy is constantly doing?” the president asks. “Should you not claim to be at least his equal in prowess, and act upon the claim?” Lincoln goes on to point out that McClellan is at that moment closer to Richmond than Lee. “Why can you not reach there before him, ☛ } CONT. ON P. 74

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living history

F

The History Keeper CURATOR CATHY WRIGHT ON CHOOSING ARTIFACTS TO TELL COMPLEX STORIES BY JENNY JOHNSTON

or more than a century, the Richmond, Virginiabased Museum of the Confederacy has been a mecca for tourists and Civil War buffs eager to learn more about the conflict from the southern perspective.

First opened in 1896, the museum boasts the largest collection of Confederate artifacts in the world—some 15,000 objects and 100,000 documents—now housed or displayed at three sites: its downtown headquarters, the adjacent White House of the Confederacy, and a satellite site in Appomattox.

But big change is brewing for the museum. In late 2013, it merged with the city’s smaller American Civil War Center to become the newly dubbed American Civil War Museum. And with that merger comes a major shift in focus. Rather than center on the Confederacy, the museum—moving to a new main location in early 2018—will have the more 21st-century mission of “[exploring] the war and its legacy from multiple perspectives: Union and Confederate, enslaved and free African Americans, soldiers and civilians.”

So how do you take a predominantly—and even preeminently—Confederate collection and use it to tell a more holistic and inclusive story of the Civil War? “By appreciating that most artifacts have multiple stories they can tell, if you look at them from different angles,” says Cathy Wright, the curator heading the team that is creating the new museum’s main exhibit. Just 34 years old, Wright is already a veteran of her field, an expert at bringing history to life through the thoughtful selection and display of physical objects. Few know the museum’s vast holdings better than Wright. If anyone can help bring the museum into a new era, it’s her. “The challenge,” she says, “is figuring out how these artifacts as individual parts of a constellation will help to tell a larger story.”

It helps that Wright has been enthralled with history for most of her life. She grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, not far from the starting points of the Oregon and Santa Fe trails—a proximity that spurred a childhood love of wagon trains and Western history. Later, her history interests expanded to include the Middle Ages, ancient Egypt, the Old South, and everything

“ I’VE JUST ALWAYS BEEN MORE FASCINATED WITH THE PAST THAN WITH THE PRESENT OR THE IDEA OF THE FUTURE.” American Civil War Museum curator Cathy Wright

in between. “I’ve just always been more fascinated with the past than with the present or the idea of the future,” she explains.

Wright thought she’d become an English professor and write historical fiction, but in college she felt pulled toward history as a career. During her sophomore year at Truman State University, she saw a flier for an internship at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum, just outside Kansas City. She spent that summer removing rusty staples and paper clips from stacks of Truman’s papers and photocopying the pages onto acid-free paper. She also manned the reference desk—fielding queries about the former president’s mysterious middle initial—and roamed the exhibits looking for burned-out light bulbs. “It was just a really nice overall look at the back end of making history,” says Wright.

Those experiences, plus seeing visitors engage not just with artifacts but with the stories they told, inspired a new career plan.

After college, Wright headed to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro for a master’s in American history with a concentration in museum studies. Once again, proximity had its influence. Her closeness to Bentonville Battlefield and other historic sites from that era sparked a fascination with the Civil War. “It seemed like the most pivotal time period in all of American history, something

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that everything prior was leading toward and everything after has been dealing with,” she says.

In 2006 Wright was hired as curator of the Stonewall Jackson House in Lexington, Virginia— an incredible job for a 24-year-old fresh out of school. It was there that she got her first hands-on experience with “historical housekeeping,” caring for artifacts in open exhibits inside a house that is itself historic. In addition to planning exhibits and programs, she spent countless hours dusting the house and all of the objects within it. “You can’t just go in and start cleaning with Windex,” explains Wright. “You can’t spray insect repellent around all the artifacts, either.” Each month she would set new sticky traps, counting the ants stuck in the old ones to make sure there was no infestation. (“I caught a snake once, which was a little startling.”) Having her office on the second floor made her feel

American Civil War Museum curator Cathy Wright holds one of the approximately 300 Civil War swords preserved in the museum’s artifact storage vault.

even more immersed in Jackson’s house and its history. “At one point, it occurred to me that I probably spent more time in that house than he did,” says Wright.

In 2008, the Museum of the Confederacy was looking for a collections manager who could also care for the White House of the Confederacy, the wartime home of Confederate president Jefferson Davis and his family. They hired Wright, and soon she was spending more time in Davis’ house than he had, too. Getting to know details about every object in the house and hundreds more in storage was a routine part of her work. But the job also had its unusual moments. One time, while overseeing some latenight work, she wound up sleeping on an air mattress in one of the parlors. “I woke up in the middle of the night and looked toward the window,” she recalls. “There’s this bust of Jefferson Davis sitting on a pedestal, and I just saw this

head outlined. For a half second, I thought it might be his ghost.”

Before long Wright was promoted to curator, and her fascination with the museum’s holdings only heightened. Many items in the museum’s collection—donated directly by Confederate veterans and their families starting in the 1890s—are accompanied by “amazing stories that you could only get from the person who had made or used that object,” says Wright. And while visitors tend to gravitate toward the iconic artifacts—like Major General J.E.B. Stuart’s plumed hat or the sword that General Robert E. Lee carried during the surrender at Appomattox—Wright finds the everyday objects equally compelling. “We have a simple homespun dress that was made here in Virginia,” she says. “It’s nothing elaborate, but it speaks volumes to the work that went into making things and making do, as well ☛ } CONT. ON P. 74

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BY ALLEN C. GUELZO

ISTOCKPHOTO

THE LAST CENTURY HASN’T BEEN KIND TO THE LEGACY OF THE GREAT EMANCIPATOR. IS IT TIME TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT?

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We want to know something about him. He was a hero. He spoke with a voice of thunder; he laughed like the sunrise and his deeds were strong as the rock and as sweet as the fragrance of roses. The angels appeared to his mother and predicted that the son whom she would conceive would become the greatest the stars had ever seen. He was so great that he even forgave the crimes of his greatest enemies and shook brotherly hands with those who had plotted against his life. His name was Lincoln.... Tell us of that man.2

It might be difficult to identify a Muslim chieftain today willing to endorse an American president in such glowing terms. What is more surprising is how difficult it would be to find Lincoln embraced in the same fashion by many Americans, too. Even if we grant that all historical reputations have a shelf life, it is extraordinary to see how precipitously Lincoln’s reputation has shrunk in the half-century since the Civil War centennial, and even since the 1920s. Both Merrill Peterson, in 1994’s Lincoln in American Memory, and Barry Schwartz, in two books charting the long arc of Lincoln’s image since 1865, find the apex of Lincoln’s prestige in the 1930s. Since then, Lincoln has remained at the top of polls asking Americans to identify the “greatest” U.S. president. But the percentage of Americans picking Lincoln as “great” have declined by more than a third since 1956. In the 1930s, The New York Times could be expected to print an average of 58

Lincoln-related articles a year; by 2002, it was printing just two. Visitation at historic places connected with Lincoln, such as his birthplace in Kentucky or his home in Illinois, fell by half from the 1960s to the 2000s.3 None of this backsliding from Lincoln is quite as remarkable as the collapse of Lincoln’s prestige among African Americans, who once uniformly idolized him as the Great Emancipator.

Between 1956 and 1999, black opinion of Lincoln as a “great” president skidded from 48% to just 28%. The “black power” advocate Julius Lester captured this shift as it was happening when he daringly announced in 1968 that:

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (POSTER); THE GEORGE F. LANDEGGER COLLECTION OF DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PHOTOGRAPHS IN CAROL M. HIGHSMITH’S AMERICA, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION

the editor of the Chicago Tribune, John Locke Scripps, wrote to Lincoln’s law partner, William Henry Herndon. Scripps, a loyal promoter of the president and author of an 1860 campaign biography, was full of sadness over the president’s murder, and his mind was already turning to Lincoln’s reputation in the future. “In certain showy, and what is said to be, most desirable endowments, how many Americans have surpassed him,” Scripps exclaimed. “Yet how he looms above them now!” Lincoln would be, Scripps predicted, “for all time to come the great American Man—the grand central figure in American (perhaps the World’s) History.”1 Scripps did not miss the mark by much. No other American name is so easily recognizable around the world as that of Abraham Lincoln.

Even in the mountains of North Caucasus, the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy was confronted decades after Lincoln’s death by a Muslim tribal chieftain who was curious to hear about the “greatest general and greatest ruler of the world.”

One of the bigger lies that America has given the world is that Lincoln freed the slaves, and that blacks should be grateful from can to can’t because Mr. Lincoln was so generous.… It is not true that Lincoln did so out of the goodness of his heart or that we have to be grateful to him.… The black school-child … grows up feeling half-guilty for even thinking about cussing out a white man, because he’s been taught that it was a white man who gave us freedom.… What is the catechism the black child learns from Grade One on? “Class, what did Abraham Lincoln do?” “Lincoln freed the slaves,” and the point is driven home that you’d still be down on Mr. Charlie’s plantation working from can to can’t if Mr. Lincoln hadn’t done your great-great-grandmother a favor.4

That same year, the editor of Ebony magazine, Lerone Bennett, published a sensational denunciation of Lincoln, questioning even more acidly why blacks should revere Lincoln. Taught in his childhood to regard Lincoln as the deliverer and redeemer of the slaves, Bennett was aghast at finally reading Lincoln’s opening remarks during the fourth Lincoln-Douglas debate—“I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races”—and from that moment (as he told C-SPAN’s Brian Lamb in 2000), he could no longer view Lincoln as “the greatest apostle of … brotherhood in the United States of America.” Instead, “Lincoln must be seen as the embodiment, not the transcendence, of the American tradition, which is, as we all know, a racist tradition.”5 Bennett speaks for a generation of middle-class To view this article’s reference notes, turn to page 78.

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PHOTOGRAPH CREDIT HERE

Three weeks after Abraham Lincoln’s assassination,

PHOTOGRAPH CREDIT HERE

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (POSTER); THE GEORGE F. LANDEGGER COLLECTION OF DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA PHOTOGRAPHS IN CAROL M. HIGHSMITH’S AMERICA, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, PRINTS AND PHOTOGRAPHS DIVISION

Abraham Lincoln’s reputation in America peaked in the 1930s, a time when respect for his wartime actions and his presidency remained high. Left: The Emancipation Memorial, erected in 1876, in Washington’s Lincoln Park. Opposite page: A poster for a Lincolnthemed play staged by the Federal Theatre Project in Illinois in 1936.

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“ As an African-American … I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator.”

SENATOR BARACK OBAMA, 2005

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

African Americans who do not understand why they should render homage to a white man who now seems so far below the level of their own expectations. In a noteworthy essay on why he could not enter into modern celebrations of emancipation, African-American linguistics scholar John McWhorter complained, “I just can’t wrap my head around celebrating the fact that someone else freed my ancestors,” much less that “freedom happened partly as the result of whites making other whites see the error of their ways…. I am always more interested in what we did rather than what somebody did to us.” Even Barack Obama, then a United States senator, conceded in 2005 that “as an African-American … I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator.”6 There are three reasons why Lincoln has taken such a beating over the last 50 years. One is that emancipation, from the perspective of 150 years, seems so unremarkable, or even inevitable, that it no longer impresses the average American with the frightening novelty it had in 1863. Another is that few people, apart from technical constitutional scholars, understand today that Lincoln took a tremendous legal risk by invoking the “war powers” of the presidency as his justification for the Emancipation Proclamation, a notion that had never been recognized in 1863 and is still controversial.

The third reason, however, has less to do with Lincoln, and more to do with the nature of modern culture, which is suspicious of celebrating any past accomplishment if it might somehow obscure the horrors of present-day oppression.

Left: Lincoln is shown prominently in this patriotic 1880s chromolithograph featuring the text of the Emancipation Proclamation.

In recent decades, the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator has taken a hit among African Americans and others.

being as far removed as we are from the ground game of the Civil War, the actual mechanisms of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation— its numerous exemptions (including the slaves in the border states), its use of “military necessity” as a justification, its disenchanted and legalistic language, the long delay between the outbreak of war and the proclamation itself—seem inexplicable. Puzzled by this political and legal zigzagging and by the apparent slowness of Lincoln’s movements, our impulse is to discount the purity of Lincoln’s motives and look for darker, more ignoble impulses in the proclamation—recruiting blacks as soldiers, for instance, or warding off foreign intervention.

When this viewpoint is pushed to its extreme, Lincoln seems so tardy and unenthusiastic an emancipator that the emancipation laurel is finally

pulled entirely from his head and awarded instead to bolder spirits—the abolitionists, the Radical Republicans, and ultimately the slaves themselves. In this “self-emancipation” scenario, slaves seize on the opportunity provided by the outbreak of the Civil War to run away and then force Lincoln to formulate policies that reflect the self-emancipated reality. Slaves, as author David Williams writes, “were not waiting for Lincoln. They would start the war themselves” rather than “simply waiting for either the Lord or the Yankees to give them freedom,” until “by 1863, there was a full-blown inner civil war going on within the South.”7 This is fantasy. There were no “pressures” on Lincoln to emancipate anyone—the abolitionists were never a political constituency large enough to be worth factoring with, and the Radicals’ record of accomplishment once they had their hands on power after Lincoln’s death does not suggest that they had very clear ideas of what they were doing.

Above all, we have no idea what numbers of fugitive slaves fled into Union lines, so it is strange to suggest that they exercised any influence in the white North, much less on its president. For selfemancipated slaves to have “pushed the nation toward legal emancipation,” they would have needed to constitute at least a critical political mass, but even if we grant Secretary of State William Henry Seward’s offhand estimate in 1865 that 200,000 slaves had found refuge with the Union armies, that is still less than 5 percent of the total enslaved population of the Confederate states. If anything, the presence of such “contrabands” on northern soil generated serious racist reaction in the North, so any pressure they exerted was just as liable to move in the opposite direction from emancipation.8 But there is also a legal catch lurking behind the self-emancipation thesis, one that can be called the “Shawshank illusion.” The closing scene of the 1994 movie The Shawshank Redemption shows Morgan Freeman, whose character has jumped the terms of his probation, striding happily on a Mexican beach toward his prison-inmate friend, played by Tim Robbins, who has just completed one of the more sensational cinematic jailbreaks. They are apparently gloriously and happily free in Zihuatanejo. But in real life, they would be simply fugitives. They could be arrested, extradited, and re-imprisoned at will. They could not own property or enjoy civil standing in their own names.

Fugitive slaves were, likewise, free only de facto.

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A group of fugitive slaves fords the Rappahannock River in August 1862 in search of the safety of Union lines. While slaves undeniably played a significant part in securing their own freedom during the Civil War, the modern-day notion that Lincoln had virtually no role in the process is fantasy.

In law, they remained fugitives, and would have done so till the end of their days without Lincoln’s proclamation. And if the Civil War had ended in some form of negotiated settlement (after the hypothetical election of George McClellan, for instance), it is difficult to believe that southern negotiators would not have demanded rendition of their fugitives (that suggestion was, in fact, made to Lincoln in August 1864), and equally difficult to believe that war-weary northern whites would not have colluded in such rendition if that would bring peace.

What was needed was a de jure declaration of freedom that legally terminated the slaves’ status as chattels, and that could come from only two sources—the legislatures of the slave states (which preferred secession and war to emancipation) or from the president of the United States acting under the umbrella of his “war powers” in a national emergency.

If Lincoln felt any pressure or “influence” on the subject of emancipation, it pushed in the opposite direction, from border-state whites (like Kentucky’s retired chief justice, George Robertson) who instituted suits to recover runaway slaves under the Fugitive Slave Act even when those freedom-seekers had taken refuge in Union army camps; from northern Democrats threatening to force Lincoln into peace talks; and perhaps even from truculent army officers who advocated a military coup. That none of these things happened does not mean that Lincoln was not obliged to reckon with them; if anything, it means that his strategy in emancipation was wiser than the serpent’s, even as it now appears to have been as harmless as the dove’s. In 1865, Washington-based journalist Lois Bryan Adams reminded those who “are devoutly praying that President Lincoln may have faith to move mountains” of “the little hills that beset and block up his way to the mountains” and of “the miserable dripping, drizzling rains that pelt and blind and chill him every step he takes!”9 That is the backdrop that our overfamiliarity with the fact of emancipation causes us to miss.

Let us not, at the same time, fall off the other side of our horse, and lapse into the notion that the slaves did nothing to secure their own freedom.

The enthusiasm with which the slaves greeted even the rumor of emancipation surpassed any jubilation Union soldiers had ever seen, and the covert and subversive aids they offered to the Union armies were valuable adjuncts to the Union war effort. “Those who had hitherto regarded the relation of master and slave as one of mutual affection,” warned the surgeon of the 77th New York Infantry, “had only to witness these unique demonstrations of rejoicing at our approach, and the seemingly certain destruction of the slave owners, to be convinced that the happiness and contentment claimed for those in servitude was but a

worthless fiction.” He continued: Great numbers of negroes flocked to the roadside, to welcome the Union army…. All hoped that we would shortly overtake and destroy the rebel army, their masters included.… Gathering in crowds along the way side, [they] would grasp the hands of the Union soldiers, calling down all manner of blessing upon them, and leaping and dancing in their frantic delight.

One gray-haired old patriarch … exclaimed, in a loud voice, “bress de Lord! I’se been praying for yous all to come all dis time; and now I’se glad yous got so far; and I pray de Lord dat yous may keep on, and conquer def and hell and de grave!”10

Once the recruitment of black soldiers began in 1863, Lincoln reminded a mass meeting in his hometown of Springfield that “commanders of our armies in the field who have given us our most important successes, believe the emancipation policy, and the use of colored troops, constitute the heaviest blow yet dealt to the rebellion; and that at least one of those important successes, could not have been achieved when it was, but for the aid of black soldiers.”11

that lincoln chose to use “military necessity,” rather than an appeal to “justice,” as his rationale for emancipation sounds less than morally uplifting to our ears. But presidents are not elected to do justice; they are elected to execute the laws. Any presidential proclamation that went unclothed in the constitutional armor of “military necessity,” or that failed to recognize that “military necessity” had no application to border states where no war had ever existed, was begging to be destroyed in a federal court system whose head was, at that moment, Roger Brooke Taney, the same chief justice who had authored Dred Scott v. Sandford.

It cannot be repeated too often that slavery existed as a legal condition in the United States because of state enactments, not federal ones. The federal Constitution had deliberately skirted any explicit mention of slavery in 1787, permitting the arrest and rendition of fugitive slaves only under the same provisions that applied to the apprehension and extradition of other sorts of fugitives. In our times, when federal authorities set standards for school lunches, it is difficult to appreciate the impenetrable firewall that separated federal and state authorities. But it was very real in Lincoln’s era, when the federal government did hardly more than deliver the mail. It was, in fact, real enough that slaveholders sheltered themselves legally behind that firewall and howled at anything that looked like federal intervention (as they did over tariffs and railroads), while antislavery activists insisted that the firewall proved that slavery was

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“ Lincoln was not a very social man. He was not spontaneous in his feelings; was, as some said, rather cold.” of slavery from the beginning. The whole essence of the thing is a studied purpose to degrade and stamp out the liberties of a race. It is the old spirit of slavery, and nothing else.”13 The wonder is not why Lincoln didn’t do more for emancipation, but, given the constitutional minefield, that he managed to do anything at all.

But even after finally perceiving the constitutional and legal cords that bound Lincoln, it is still unlikely that there will be any return to the adulation the Great Emancipator once enjoyed, among blacks or whites. Abraham Lincoln was very much a man of the Enlightenment—his most formative reading came from Tom Paine, Constantin Volney, and John Stuart Mill—and he possessed few of the motivations that modern Americans prize as virtues. There was very little of passion in Lincoln, and much of reason; very little of sensitivity, and much of logic; almost nothing of spontaneity or relaxation, and much of calculation. “It is thought by some men that Mr. Lincoln was a very warm hearted man, spontaneous and impulsive,” reflected Herndon. “This is not the exact truth.”

On a day-to-day basis, “Lincoln was not a very social man. He was not spontaneous in his feelings; was, as some said, rather cold.”

In his 14 years of law practice with Lincoln, Herndon came to see him as a man with “relatively no imagination and no fancy” and “purely logical,” whose “perceptions were slow, cold, precise, and exact” and who “followed his conclusions to the ultimate end, though the world perished.” It would be, for Abraham Lincoln, a “Happy day, when, all appetites controlled, all passions subdued, all matters subjected, mind, all conquering mind, shall live and move the monarch of the world.”14 Use Lincoln as a looking glass, and you will not see a modern man in the reflection.

Lincoln was wary of enthusiasm, and especially the enthusiasm that responded to the wrongs of slavery with the prescription fiat justitia ruat caelum—do right though the heavens fall. Years before, Lincoln had rejected the idea that people should do their duty and leave the consequences to God as “an excuse for taking a course that they were not able to maintain by a fair and full argument.” If there was no place in political morality “for judgment, we might as well be made without intellect.” Consequently, he could not merely take up the pen to emancipate without at the same time counting the cost. “Lincoln’s whole life,” said his longtime legal associate Leonard Swett, “was a calculation of the law of forces, ☛ } CONT. ON P. 74

Right: John Sartain’s 1866 engraving, “Abraham Lincoln, the Martyr, Victorious,” depicts Lincoln greeted in heaven by the spirit of George Washington and a host of angels. Such adulation of the 16th president seems unlikely to return. Above: Roger Taney, the chief justice of the Supreme Court for the Civil War’s first three years, who many feared might act against the Emancipation Proclamation.

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PHOTOGRAPH CREDIT HERE

purely a local institution that had no call on national authority for its preservation.

The agency that stood as the guardian of the firewall was the federal courts, and at a time when federal courts had little else to do, patrolling its perimeters was the major responsibility of the courts.

John Marshall, as chief justice of the Supreme Court, set the example in 1819, ensuring that state governments had no power to encroach on federal authority (in McCulloch v. Maryland), nor state authorities to rewrite private contracts (in Dartmouth College v. Woodward). Roger Taney had something of the same zeal concerning slavery. Although Taney had freed his own slaves years before the war, he was no friend of abolition, and not even the Emancipation Proclamation would necessarily be exempt from Taney’s judicial veto. “Nobody expects,” warned Orestes Brownson, the New Yorkbased editor of Brownson’s Quarterly Review, “that the Supreme Court will sustain the freedom of slaves under the proclamation,” particularly since, as radical abolitionist Wendell Phillips sneered, Chief Justice Taney would read the proclamation “filtered through the secessionist heart of a man whose body was in Baltimore and whose soul was in Richmond.”12 Lincoln’s assertion of “war powers” that were beyond the states’ and the Supreme Court’s control (and with them, the general suspension by 1862 of the writ of habeas corpus) silenced much of what the court might have tried to do in asserting its will. But the appointment of a new chief justice to succeed Taney in 1864, and the end of hostilities seven months later, let down the bars, and within a year the Supreme Court, starting with ex parte Milligan, had once more begun drawing lines around executive and legislative authority. The primary intention of the court may have been magnifying its office, or at least minimizing the role in Reconstruction exercised by the national legislature; nevertheless, the subsidiary result was to strike down executive and legislative initiatives on behalf of the freed people. “We have been, as a class, grievously wounded, wounded in the house of our friends,” declared Frederick Douglass after Civil Rights Cases, an 1883 Supreme Court ruling on a group of five cases that overturned the Civil Rights Act of 1875 and handed enforcement of the “privileges and immunities” of the Constitution back to the southern states. “I look upon it as one more shocking development of that moral weakness in high places which has attended the conflict between the spirit of liberty and the spirit

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2)

WILLIAM HERNDON, LINCOLN’S LAW PARTNER

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Rebel Artist shortly after assuming command of the Confederate Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida in September 1862, General P.G.T. Beauregard began strengthening and extending the defenses in and around Charleston, a city then under continual threat of attack by Union forces. Between April 1863, when a squadron of ironclads commanded

by Rear Admiral Samuel F. DuPont attacked the Confederate defenses near the entrance to Charleston Harbor, and February 1865, when Confederate forces evacuated the city under threat from General William Tecumseh Sherman’s advancing army, Charleston and its defenses would remain under near constant bombardment by Union gunboats and land batteries. ¶ One eyewitness to the late-war struggle for Charleston was Conrad Wise Chapman. Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in Europe, Chapman had trained as an artist before leaving Rome for America in 1861 at age 19 to enlist in the Confederate army. In the fall of 1863 Chapman and his unit were transferred to Charleston, where the young soldier-artist would soon be commissioned by Brigadier General Thomas Jordan, Beauregard’s chief of staff, to document the city’s defenses by sketching them. Between September 1863 and March 1864, Chapman made 31 sketches, frequently while exposed to enemy fire. “Often he sat on the ramparts of Sumter [and] other forts under a heavy cannonade, while painting these pictures,” remembered a fellow Confederate soldier, “and those who saw him, said he minded it no more than if he had been listening to the Post band.” ¶ Chapman was granted a furlough in April 1864 and left for Rome, where he visited family and created 25 paintings based on his Charleston sketches. The war ended before he was able to return. Chapman died in Virginia in 1910 at age 68, having continued as an artist but never achieving the commercial success that his talents warranted. ¶ About a decade before his death, Chapman sold his Charleston paintings, eight of which are featured on the following pages, to the Confederate Memorial Literary Society, now part of The American Civil War Museum in Richmond, where they reside today.

Chapman’s painting of Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, as seen from Fort Moultrie on nearby Sullivan’s Island, was based on a sketch he made in November 1863. Chapman included a shell exploding above it, and would later note that he “never looked in the direction of Fort Sumter that he did not see a shell bursting over it.”

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Of this painting, which depicts the Confederate battery on the eastern end of Charleston’s White Point Garden as it appeared in December 1863, Chapman would later write: “This shows the whole harbor, and is an exact reproduction. There can be seen Castle Pickney; Fort Moultrie; Fort Sumter; Fort Johnson; and the Yankee batteries off Johnson Island; also a wooden fort, somewhat resembling a ship, in the harbor. General Beauregard may be seen, with one of the Engineers going over the plans. Two big guns were brought to Charleston, at great expense, from England; one exploded, and the other is shown in the picture; it was always referred to as ‘the big gun,’ and although it often ploughed up the water, the damage done by it, if any, was very slight.”

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On October 10, 1863, Chapman made the sketch upon which he based this painting.

The subject is Fort Johnson on James Island, from which the shot that began the secessionist bombardment of Fort Sumter, seen in the background, was fired in April 1861. Of this painting, Chapman later noted, “The four guns displayed were very effective and considered as good as any to be had in those days; they could carry almost to the opposite side of the river.” He added: “Observe the effect of the flag against the dark sky. Preparations are being made to dispatch a boat to Fort Sumter.”

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“The three large guns shown in this picture commanded the only point in the harbor that was out of reach from Fort Moultrie on one side, and Fort Johnson on the other,” wrote Chapman of his rendition of the interior of Fort Sumter. “The Yankees were entirely unaware of the existence of these three guns, and when the United States ship ‘Keokuk’ attempted to pass through the channel which could not be reached by the guns from the forts above mentioned, she was sunk by the shots from these three guns.”

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On February 25, 1864, Chapman visited Battery Simkins, on James Island, as its Confederate garrison traded fire with a distant Union artillery position.

Of the action he captured, Chapman simply noted, “Men may be seen coming up with ammunition.”

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Among Chapman’s better-known works is his painting of H.L. Hunley, which he sketched while the Confederate submarine was on a wharf near Mt. Pleasant to receive repairs in December 1863. The following February, the nearly 40-foot vessel, whose eight-man crew operated it by handcranked propeller, used its spar-mounted torpedo to sink USS Housatonic, one of the Union ships blockading Charleston Harbor. Hunley sank shortly thereafter, taking all on board to their deaths.

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Chapman sketched this Union battery on Morris Island on February 12, 1864, from the top of St. Michael’s Church in Charleston “by means of a telescope.” He later noted of the scene, “There is a gun-boat out in the harbor; every time there was a flash, ... the Yankee soldiers in the batteries would disappear as by magic.”

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All images courtesy of The American Civil War Museum, Richmond, Virginia. SOURCES: Ben L. Bassham, Conrad Wise Chapman, Artist & Soldier of the Confederacy (1998); “Chapman Paintings Portfolio,” chapmans.acwm.org/portfolio.

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Chapman left only a brief description of his depiction of a lone Confederate flag flying atop a battered Fort Sumter on October 20, 1863: “Shows sketch taken at about sun-down. In the distance may be seen Morris Island and the [Union] blockading fleet.”

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HARPER’S WEEKLY

In this sketch from Harper’s Weekly, Union and Confederate troops engage in hand-to-hand combat during the fighting at Rappahannock Station, Virginia, on November 7, 1863.

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“Quite a Spirited Little Affair”

HARPER’S WEEKLY

The Second Battle of Rappahannock Station, Virginia, fought on November 7, 1863, saw General George G. Meade and the Army of the Potomac seize one opportunity— and let another slip away. BY ERIC J. WITTENBERG

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (3)

On December 15, 1862, two days after its crushing defeat at the hands of Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at the Battle of Fredericksburg, Major General Ambrose E. Burnside pulled his Army of the Potomac across the Rappahannock River. The battered army soon established its winter encampment in Stafford County, Virginia, with the Rappahannock acting as the demarcation line between Burnside’s and Lee’s forces. This boundary, which would remain for the better part of a year, became known as the DareMark Line.

In his excellent study of the numerous actions fought along the Rappahannock during the Civil War, historian Daniel E. Sutherland observed that in order for the Union to win the war, “a Federal army had to penetrate and establish itself south of” the Rappahannock, where Richmond and many of the “food resources and railroads of northern Virginia, all vital to Rebel success, … rested securely.” Most importantly, Sutherland noted, “the Army of Northern Virginia … resided below the Rappahannock” and “dared the Yankees to cross its river.”1 The Union high command had made its attempts, namely Burnside’s failed advance at Fredericksburg and his aborted “Mud March” follow-up in January 1863, when his army was thwarted by bad weather before it could cross the Rappahannock as intended. About three months later, Major General Joseph Hooker, who succeeded Burnside in command of the Army of the Potomac in late January, tried again during the Chancellorsville Campaign. It started promisingly—Union forces stole a march across the Rappahannock at Kelly’s Ford and got around Lee’s flank in the Wilderness to the west of Fredericksburg—but the campaign similarly ended in failure. That summer, after the end of the Gettysburg Campaign, which had removed the war from that part of Virginia for about six weeks, the armies again ended up staring at each other

across the Rappahannock River. This time, Lee’s Confederates were daring Major General George G. Meade, the latest commander of the Army of the Potomac, to cross the line and try once more to drive them off.2 After Lee’s brief and unsuccessful foray north of the Rappahannock in October—his army’s Third Corps was defeated by Union forces at Bristoe Station—he resumed his position along the river’s southern bank, intending to spend the winter of 1863–1864 in Culpeper County. Lee knew there was a chance that Meade might make one more attempt to defeat the Army of Northern Virginia before the turn of the year. “Genl. Meade … I presume will come on again,” he wrote to his wife, Mary, on October 28. “If I could only get some shoes & clothes for the army, I would save him the trouble.”3 Lee was right. He would not have long to wait.

On November 6, Meade set the entire Army of the Potomac—60,000-men strong—in motion.

The left wing of the Union army, commanded by Major General William H. French and consisting of the I, II, and III Corps, would march for Kelly’s Ford, accompanied by Meade and his staff. The right wing of the army, commanded by Major General John Sedgwick and consisting of the V and VI Corps, was to take up a position at Rappahannock Station, a stop along the Orange and Alexandria Railroad just north of the river, and extend from Beverly’s Ford on the right to connect with French’s troops near Kelly’s Ford. All of the Army of the Potomac’s artillery would accompany the advance. Although the two wings were to operate separately, the army’s entire front would extend for about six miles.4 Meade ordered Sedgwick “to drive the enemy from his positions there on this and the other side of the river, and to move toward Brandy Station, between which locality, Culpeper Court-House, and Stevensburg the main force of the enemy is now collected, the crossing at Rappahannock Station and Kelly’s Ford being held in force by him with infantry, and probably artillery….” Meade additionally directed that should Sedgwick reach “Rappahannock Station before sunset [on the 7th], the enemy should, if practicable, be driven from this side of the river at once, and the operations against their position on the opposite bank be commenced.”5 Meade instructed French to “effect a crossing of the river at Kelly’s Ford, a lodgment on the heights overlooking the crossing, and then … assist the operations of the right column, under General Sedgwick, in dislodging the enemy from To view this article’s reference notes, turn to page 78.

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (3)

General George G. Meade’s planned offensive against the Army of Northern Virginia in November 1863 was the latest in a string of Union attempts to advance across the Rappahannock River and defeat the enemy. Above: A scene from Union general Ambrose Burnside’s Rappahannock campaign, which launched the previous January and became known as the “Mud March” after bogging down in bad weather.

Opposite page: Generals John Sedgwick (top) and Jubal Early, whose Union and Confederate troops would oppose each other at Rappahannock Station in November 1863.

his position near Rappahannock Station. Should this be effected, the two columns will move forward to Brandy Station. In the event of General Sedgwick not being able to dislodge the enemy from his position at Rappahannock Station, his column will be withdrawn and thrown across the river at Kelly’s Ford, to support you in the movement to Brandy Station.”6 Sedgwick’s force would be advancing against Major General Jubal A. Early’s division of the Army of Northern Virginia’s Second Corps, which held the area around Rappahannock Station. Early took advantage of commanding high ground on the north side of the river, where he placed Brigadier General Harry T. Hays’ famed Louisiana Tigers. Brigadier General Robert F. Hoke’s North Carolina brigade, temporarily commanded by Colonel Archibald Godwin of the 57th North Carolina in Hoke’s absence, supported Hays’ men, as did the four guns of Captain Charles A. Green’s veteran Louisiana Guard Artillery. A lone pon-

toon bridge connected Early’s isolated outpost with the rest of the Confederate army on the river’s opposite bank.

Meade provided Sedgwick a detailed description of Early’s position in his orders: “[H]e holds a small redoubt on this side [of the river], near the railroad bridge, with rifle-pits, the redoubt and rifle-pit on the hill on the opposite bank on the right of the road, and the wooded hill on the left of the railroad, which commands the level ground on this side of the river and on the line of the railroad on the other.” The Union commander continued, “This hill extends a considerable distance nearly parallel with the line of railroad. Upon this hill and others on the right of the railroad, it is highly probable that defensive works have been thrown up. There is some high ground upon this side the river, near Normans Ford, which, it is understood, will admit of several batteries being placed in position against the wooded hill on the opposite bank.”7

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The Army of the Potomac left its camps near Warrenton the morning of November 7 and marched toward the Rappahannock River. Sedgwick’s wing arrived in the vicinity of Rappahannock Station around noon. When they drew close to the Rappahannock, Major General Horatio G. Wright, commanding the VI Corps, formed his troops—from left to right, the First, Third, and Second Divisions—into two lines of battle, with the First’s left resting on the Orange and Alexandria Railroad. About 900 men of Major General George Sykes’ V Corps and some artillery were already in position on the left of the road.10 The Union plan was for the V Corps to hold the riverbank to the left of the railroad to prevent the Confederates from escaping or attacking downriver (which was indeed Lee’s plan), while the VI Corps would seize a ridge occupied by Confeder-

ate infantry about a mile north of the tête de pont, establish its artillery there, and then to try to drive the enemy from the tête de pont with concentrated fire.

About 3 p.m., Early and Lee rode to the pontoon bridge to assess the situation at the front.

Early clattered across the bridge and into the tête de pont. “I ascertained that a heavy force was in line something like a mile or more in front, and extending some distance both to the right and left,” he later wrote. “This force, preceded by a heavy line of skirmishers, was gradually, but slowly and very cautiously, moving up toward our position.

Our skirmishers were then some distance out to the front and on the right and left, and the trenches were occupied by the remainder of [the Louisiana Tigers], which, however, was manifestly too small for the length of the works.”11 Brigadier General Joseph Bartlett’s First Division, V Corps, began its assault minutes later.

Union skirmishers steadily advanced, driving in their Confederate counterparts as they went. The blue-clad troops soon occupied and held the bank of the Rappahannock from Norman’s Ford on their left to within a few yards of the tête de pont.

“From this point to a second, about 100 yards on the right of the railroad, the line was close to the redoubt,” wrote General Sykes, “and did excellent service in annoying the gunners and in a measure silencing the guns therein posted.” The result was to give Bartlett’s troops a position squarely on the right flank of the tête de pont.12 Meanwhile, Brigadier General Albion P. Howe’s Second Division, VI Corps, now reinforced by Brigadier General Alexander Shaler’s brigade of the Third Division and two batteries of rifled guns, pushed forward, driving the Confederates off the ridge. Howe planted his batteries there, and they opened on the tête de pont. The heavy Union artillery fire slowed the Confederate guns, but failed to drive off them or the gray-clad infantry.13 Artillery alone would not accomplish the goal.

Realizing the danger he now faced, Early began reinforcing the tête de pont. Wright responded by ordering his troops to advance to a position near the tête de pont, where they would be ready to attack if the artillery failed to drive the southerners away. “The movement of this force over open ground for nearly a mile, under the fierce fire of the enemy’s batteries, was handsomely effected, and, fortunately, with little loss,” recalled Wright.

The infantry was partially protected by the ridge held by the Union guns.14 It grew dark early that November afternoon, so the Federals would have to attack in the gloaming if they were to assault the tête de pont.

The prospect of such an assault gave some Union soldiers pause. “An advance of our lines could only be made in full view of the enemy,”

General Horatio G. Wright, whose VI Corps troops made up the bulk of the Union force that attacked the Confederate tête de pont on the north bank of the Rappahannock River.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

Early recognized that the defenses his men occupied were lacking. “The works on the north side of the river were, in my judgment, very inadequate, and not judiciously laid out or constructed,” he later wrote. “They consisted of a rifle trench on the right, circling round to the river; then the inclosed redoubt spoken of, which was constructed by the enemy to be used against a force approaching on the south side, which had been turned, but sloped toward the enemy; then there was another short rifle trench, then the open work spoken of, the curtain and flanks of which were pierced with four embrasures near the angles, and with such narrow splays as to admit of a very limited fire.”8 This tête de pont—a work thrown up at the end of a bridge nearest the enemy, for covering communications across a river—was especially vulnerable.9 The detachment of Confederate infantrymen holding the tête de pont was alone and exposed, with a river to their backs.

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THE SECOND BATTLE OF RAPPAHANNOCK STATION

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RAPPAHANNOCK STATION, VIRGINIA

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N O V E M B E R 7, 1 8 6 3

In the fall of 1863, General George G. Meade, determined to succeed where previous commanders of the Army of the Potomac had failed, looked to drive Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia from its position south of the Rappahannock River, which had long served as the demarcation line between the opposing forces. On November 7 at Rappahannock Station, the right wing of his force, consisting of the V and VI Corps, succeeded in pushing back Confederates commanded by General Jubal Early in a brisk but brief attack, while the army’s left wing experienced similar success at Kelly’s Ford to the south. Meade failed to follow up his victory in the following days, however, allowing the balance of Lee’s army to escape a decisive—and possibly devastating—battle.

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and underbrush.”19 “But over every hinderance, in face of a heavy fire of musketry and artillery, the storming party pressed on with bayonets fixed and never pausing to fire a shot,” continued Ellmaker. A portion of the 20th Maine Infantry of Colonel Joshua L. Chamberlain’s V Corps brigade was on the left of Ellmaker’s men. Learning that Ellmaker’s troops were to attack the enemy’s works, the 20th’s Captain Walter G. Morrill “voluntarily joined the storming party with about 50 men of his regiment, and by his dash and gallantry rendered effective service in the assault.” The addition of Morrill’s men extended the Union left and further stretched the Confederate defenses. Then, as Ellmaker put it, “A desperate hand-to-hand struggle ensued, the foe was overpowered and the works were ours.”20 The intrepid Captain Morrill earned a Medal of Honor for his actions.21 About dusk, Russell ordered Colonel Emory Upton, the brilliant 24-year-old West Point graduate who commanded Russell’s Second Brigade, to dispatch two regiments to help hold the works already captured by Ellmaker. Upton sent the 5th Maine and the 121st New York forward. He ordered the two regiments to load their weapons as they marched. Once they finished loading, they advanced at the double-quick, and soon arrived near the works.22 Russell then directed Upton to dislodge the

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2)

noted a soldier in the 5th Maine Infantry, “and if he so chose, under his fire. To move across that plain under cannon and musketry a full mile, seemed to us to court all the opportunities to secure death and disaster possible. As we contemplated the position, I do not think any hearts were very light or buoyant, nor did it add to assurances of success when we saw that our artillery would be of little or no avail in case we made a demonstration. It did seem to us that if we did attempt an advance, it must be with our eyes wide open to the certainty of a defeat.”15 “Under most circumstances I should have hesitated in ordering the assault of so strong a position, and believed its success hopeless,” Wright later declared. But he recognized an opportunity—with the V Corps’ seizure of the riverbank, plus the presence of Howe’s artillery on the Confederate flank—to launch a successful frontal assault on the tête de pont. Also realizing that “the works to be assaulted would mainly cover the advancing column against the enemy’s fire from the opposite bank,” Wright became “convinced” that “the works could be carried by moving up in the angle between the fires of our batteries and those of the Fifth Corps.”16 And so began what a Union officer in the VI Corps remembered as a contest that “raged until long after dark…. It was quite a spirited little affair for a couple of hours.”17 Wright ordered his batteries to maintain a rapid fire until the assaulting column reached the Confederate works. He sent a note to Sykes advising him of the pending assault, with a request that Sykes give similar orders to his artillery. Wright then directed Brigadier General David A. Russell to make the attack with his division, holding back part of his force to reinforce the storming party.

“The darkness, which was fast approaching, was favorable to the attack. The remaining daylight enabled the troops to see what they had to do before reaching the works, while the succeeding darkness would prevent the enemy on the opposite bank from firing where they could not distinguish friend from foe,” recalled Wright.18 Russell’s Third Brigade—commanded by Colonel Peter C. Ellmaker and composed of the 6th Maine, 5th Wisconsin, 49th Pennsylvania, and 119th Pennsylvania—led Russell’s attack. Five companies of the 6th Maine advanced as skirmishers while the remaining companies of the 6th Maine and the 5th Wisconsin formed the brigade’s first line of battle. The two regiments of Keystone Staters made up the brigade’s second battle line. “Upon the command forward, double-quick, the skirmish line, with their support, dashed on in a style never surpassed by any troops,” declared Ellmaker. His men had to deal with Tinpot Run, a tributary of the Rappahannock, as well as an open plain “filled with stumps

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2)

Above: Alfred R. Waud’s sketch of the fighting at Rappahannock Station on which the Harper’s Weekly image on pages 56-57 was based. After Union forces breached the Confederate defenses at the river, Colonel Emory Upton (opposite page) sent two regiments from his command to help secure the remaining works.

enemy from the rifle pit to the west of the redoubt, where the Confederates were maintaining an enfilading fire on the attacking Union troops.

“Their banners could be plainly seen outstanding against the sky, while their saucy heads appearing everywhere above the parapets forewarned us how deadly might be our task,” Upton later recounted in a letter to his sister.23 Under cover of darkness, the two regiments formed their line of battle a mere 100 yards from the enemy, unslung their knapsacks, and fixed bayonets. Upton gave strict orders for his men not to fire. Once all was ready, the line advanced to within 30 yards of the works in front of Colonel Archibald Godwin’s position. The order to charge rang out, and the “work was carried at the point of the bayonet, and without firing a shot,” reported Upton. “The enemy fought stubbornly over their colors, but being overpowered soon surrendered.”24 Sergeant Otis O. Roberts of the 5th Maine was the first Union soldier to enter the Confederate works. “Being alone,” an account of his actions later noted, “he was ordered to surrender, and had just laid his rifle down when in jumped a score or more of his comrades. Quick as lightning he took up his piece, dashed up to a tall color-sergeant, snatched the flag from his hand, and bore it off in triumph,” a feat that earned Roberts a Medal of Honor. “Another man took an officer prisoner, and became so enthusiastic that he felt a dis-

gust for the prisoner he had to guard. At last his anxiety to join in the melee became so great that he caught his prisoner by the collar and kicked and pushed him over the ramparts of the fort.”

The Maine men captured two battle flags and the Empire Staters seized another two in the overwhelming attack.25 When Godwin realized that the Union attacks had driven Hays’ Louisiana Tigers from their trenches, he decided to send a portion of his brigade to try to reinforce the Confederate position, but Upton’s concerted attack prevented it. Godwin then recognized that he had been cut off from the pontoon bridge, so he tried to fight his way through to the bridge.26 The 5th Maine and 121st New York reformed inside the enemy rifle pits. Upton learned that their attack had rattled Godwin’s units to their right, and that the Confederates were pulling back. He ordered a portion of his brigade to try to cut off the Confederate line of retreat and directed part of the 5th Maine and the 121st New York to charge the enemy at the double-quick without firing, while holding the rest of his brigade in reserve.27 After seizing the works, Colonel Clark S. Edwards of the 5th Maine grabbed a few men from Company G of his regiment and pressed on, hoping to capture more enemy soldiers before they could escape across the river in the inky dark-

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through the Confederate works and gotten behind them. Spotting the pontoon bridge, Corporal Henry B. Minnichan and 18 men rushed the site and secured the north end. Shortly after, Major Andrew Mather of the 121st New York, sent by Upton to hold the bridge, arrived and asked who was in command. “Here I am,” answered Minnichan. “You!” answered Mather, shocked to find a corporal in command of such a critical position.

“Yes sir, me and the bridge is safe,” replied Minnichan. Mather then declared, “Well, Corporal, I will relieve you.”29 Meanwhile, Louisiana Tiger brigade commander Brigadier General Harry Hays was surrounded and about to surrender when his horse spooked and ran off, and as the startled Federals opened fire on him, he headed for the pontoon bridge. Although he ran a gauntlet to do so, Hays escaped across the bridge unharmed. However, the rest of his command was not so fortunate.30 Russell’s bold and overwhelming attack had resulted in the capture of six colors, one color lance, 103 commissioned officers, 1,500 enlisted men, and 1,225 stands of arms, as well as all four guns of Green’s battery.31 It was the worst defeat suffered by Stonewall Jackson’s old command during the entire war.

While the fighting raged at Rappahannock Station, the III Corps advanced to Kelly’s Ford.

The arrival of the blue-clad soldiers just after noon caught the infantry of Major General Rob-

The Union attack upon the tête de pont overwhelmed the Confederates who manned the position. Among those fortunate not to be captured was Brigadier General Harry Hays (above), who ran a gauntlet of Union fire to cross the lone pontoon bridge that spanned the Rappahannock River. Top: Union soldiers survey some of the Confederate battle flags captured during the fighting.

FRANCIS MILLER, THE PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR (HAYS); LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

ness. Edwards followed the line of fortifications down to the river and spotted a long line of Confederate troops in front of him. He decided to put on a bold face. “Where is the officer in command of these troops?” demanded Edwards.

“Here,” responded Godwin, “and who are you, sir?”

“My name is Col. Edwards, of the 5th Maine, and I demand you to surrender your command.”

“I will confer with my officers, first,” replied the Rebel officer.

“Not a moment will I allow, sir,” said Edwards. “Don’t you see my columns advancing?”

He pointed to a large body of men moving over the hill, hoping Godwin would not recognize them as Rebel prisoners being marched to the rear. “Your forces on the right have all been captured, and your retreat is cut off.” As Godwin hesitated, Edwards cried out, “Forward! 5th Maine and 121st New York!”

“I surrender sir,” responded Godwin. “Will you allow me the courtesy of retaining a sword that has never been dishonored?”

“Yes, sir,” replied Edwards, “but I will take the swords of those officers,” pointing to the other officers by his side, who handed their swords to the Mainer. “Now, order your men to lay down their arms, and pass to the rear, with this guard.” Edwards and about a dozen men soon completed the capture of Godwin and his North Carolinians.28 Ellmaker’s 49th Pennsylvania had pushed

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FRANCIS MILLER, THE PHOTOGRAPHIC HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR (HAYS); LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

ert Rodes’ division by surprise. Rodes rushed forward reinforcements at about 12:15 p.m., and Union artillery opened fire a few minutes later.

Colonel Philippe Regis de Trobriand’s Union brigade forced its way across the Rappahannock about 1:30 p.m., capturing the Confederate pickets in the lead rifle pits and in and around the hamlet of Kellysville. About 3:30 p.m., an entire division of III Corps troops waded into the frigid, waist-deep waters of the Rappahannock, securing the opposite bank so that pontoon bridges could be laid. Once they were, the rest of the left wing crossed the river that night and early the next morning. French’s force had achieved its objective at Kelly’s Ford, driving the Confederate infantry from the critical crossing, with almost no losses.32 In response to the Union advance, Robert E. Lee pulled the entire Army of Northern Virginia back from the Rappahannock River line and took up a defensive position extending nearly five miles, from Pony Mountain to Chestnut Fork.33 It was far from an ideal position for the Confederates to make a stand, and Lee knew it, but he needed a sufficient show of force to buy enough time to evacuate his supplies and his wounded across the Rapidan River in Orange County.

At 9:30 p.m., a jubilant Meade reported his success to Henry W. Halleck, general-in-chief of the Union army. “I advanced to-day with the army to the Rappahannock. Major-General Sedgwick, in command of the Fifth and Sixth Corps, advanced to the railroad crossing, where he drove the enemy to the river, assaulted and captured two redoubts with artillery on this side, taking a number of prisoners,” wrote Meade. “Major-General French, commanding the Third, Second, and part of the First Corps, advanced to Kelly’s Ford, driving the enemy in small force across the river, secured a lodgment on the other side, and captured several hundred prisoners at the ford.”34 A crestfallen Robert E. Lee likewise reported the misfortune that befell his command. “The enemy advanced to-day to the Rappahannock and made an attack at Kelly’s Ford, followed soon after by a demonstration in large force at Rappahannock Station. He forced a passage at the former place, and has laid down a pontoon bridge over which force has crossed, to be followed, I presume, by his main body,” wrote Lee to Confederate Secretary of War James Seddon. “After some skirmishing and quite a heavy cannonade at the station, he advanced after sunset in overwhelming numbers on the troops on the north side of the river guarding our tete-de-pont, and succeeded in capturing the greater part of the two brigades there stationed (those of Hoke and Hays) and four pieces of artillery.”35 At 11:30 p.m., Meade directed Sedgwick to

resume the advance of his right wing the next morning. Sykes and the V Corps, followed by two brigades of the VI Corps, were to march to Kelly’s Ford at 4 a.m. and prepare to cross the river.36 At the same time, French and the left wing were to advance from Kelly’s Ford in the direction of Brandy Station, about four miles away. In short, Meade had issued orders for the entire Army of the Potomac to advance into Culpeper County along an eight-mile front in the hope of engaging the Army of Northern Virginia in a decisive battle.

The following morning, French’s III Corps drove off the Confederate troops in its front, turned northwest, and headed to Brandy Station, where Lee had formed his army in line of battle and prepared to receive an attack. Sedgwick’s men soon joined the III Corps for what appeared might be a climactic battle. Little more than skirmishing between the Union and Confederate forces ensued, however, as a suddenly cautious Meade chose not to press his advantage and attack in force.37 A critical opportunity to bring Lee to battle on ground of Meade’s choosing slipped away.

The fighting at Rappahannock Station followed Gettysburg and Bristoe Station as the third consecutive victory won by Meade and the Army of the Potomac over Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia. Confederate losses were about 2,000— 1,600 or so at the tête de pont and another 400 at Kelly’s Ford—including 1,826 taken as prisoners.

By contrast, the Army of the Potomac had fewer than 400 casualties.38 It was a beating that the Army of Northern Virginia never should have taken. Although Lee claimed that he had intended to use the tête de pont to strike the Federals if Meade attempted to use either Beverly’s Ford or Kelly’s Ford, it was no excuse for manning the exposed outpost and leaving Early’s troops so vulnerable. ☛ } CONT. ON P. 76

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WINNER OF THE SOCIETY OF CIVIL WAR HISTORIANS’ TOM WATSON BROWN BOOK AWARD

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BOOKS & AUTHORS

The Books That Built Me

BY GARY W. GALLAGHER

i first encountered the Civil War in the April 1961 issue of National Geographic. As a 10-year-old, I especially enjoyed the sketches by Frank Vizetelly, a British artist and correspondent, and the large, two-sided military map inserted into that issue. A few months later, I bought The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War (1960) and became captivated by the war’s characters and events. I pored over the book’s array of war-

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Gary W. Gallagher, age 14, poses in Devil’s Den while on a visit to Gettysburg National Military Park in 1965.

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DAN ADDISON

time photographs, artwork, cartoons, and broadsides; modern photographs of historic places; and, most impressive to me, David Greenspan’s 18 bird’s-eye “picture maps” of battlefields and campaigns. As I read and reread the book, I gained greater admiration for Bruce Catton’s economical yet engrossing text. I spent so much time with the volume that I procured a second copy to keep in pristine condition while continuing to consult the increasingly shabby original.

Two other titles soon became cornerstones of my growing Civil War bookshelf.

The American Heritage Picture History led me to Catton’s Army of the Potomac trilogy, and The Columbia Encyclopedia’s recommended readings on Confederate generals pointed me toward Douglas Southall Freeman’s Lee’s Lieutenants: A Study in Command (1942–1944). My grandmother purchased both sets for me when I was 11 or 12, and between them, Catton and Freeman showed me the power of good analytical narratives and biographical development. I logged untold hours with these books, returning to some chapters so many times I almost committed them to memory. I had no idea—and would not until I began graduate school, really— that Freeman embraced a number of Lost Cause conventions. Historical memory as a scholarly field lay many years in the future, though I certainly appreciated that Catton wrote from a Union and Freeman from a Confederate perspective.

Because it was the era of the Civil War centennial, I found many ways to supplement my library. Readily available were Fawcett Publications’ Premier Civil War Classics (a list of inexpensive paperbacks), Indiana University Press’ Civil War Centennial Series (reprints of influential older titles featuring introductions by David Donald and Allan Nevins, among others), McCowat-Mercer Press reprints of firsthand Confederate accounts (Bell I. Wiley served as general editor), and publisher Thomas Yoseloff’s reprints of many sets first published in the 19th or early 20th century. By the time I gradu-

GARY W. GALLAGHER

B&A

“ By the time I graduated from high school in 1968, more than 250 books crowded one wall of my bedroom, including the memoirs of William Tecumseh Sherman, Jubal A. Early, James Longstreet, U.S. Grant, Jefferson Davis, Phoebe Yates Pember, and E.P. Alexander....”

DAN ADDISON

GARY W. GALLAGHER

GARY W. GALLAGHER (BELOW)

ated from high school in 1968, more than 250 books crowded one wall of my bedroom, including the memoirs of William Tecumseh Sherman, Jubal A. Early, James Longstreet, U.S. Grant, Jefferson Davis, Phoebe Yates Pember, and E.P. Alexander, as well as multivolume sets such as Roy P. Basler’s The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln (1953); Nevins’ Ordeal of the Union (six of the eight volumes were in print by then); Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, edited by Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel; and Frederick H. Dyer’s A Compendium of the War of the Rebellion (the last two titles in Yoseloff editions).

During my first year at Adams State College in Colorado, I bought Civil War Books: A Critical Bibliography (1967, 1969), and for the next several years it shaped my reading and collecting. This two-volume set, edited by Nevins, Wiley, and James I. Robertson Jr., supplied short assessments and Library of Congress pub-

lishing data for nearly 6,000 titles. Civil War Books helped me navigate the sometimes impenetrable thickets of Civil War historiography, while also affording a good deal of sheer fun.

I was fortunate to have Norma Lois Peterson and John E. McDaniel Jr. as undergraduate professors. Their own personal libraries ran to many thousands of titles, and they encouraged my bibliophilic tendencies. Peterson, whose course on the Civil War included less than 15 minutes devoted to the kind of military topics that had preoccupied my youthful reading, assigned the book that most influenced me as an undergraduate: James G. Randall and David Donald’s The Civil War and Reconstruction (1969). A revision of Randall’s influential textbook with Donald’s lengthy “Bibliographical Note,” which ran to more than 130 pages, it presented the field as constituted in 1970. I almost never underline anything in books—it seems a form of desecration to me. But I broke that rule with The Civil War and Reconstruction. My copy is filled with marginal comments, numbers inserted to highlight sequential points made in paragraphs, and occasional exclamation points.

Randall and Donald, as the book inevitably was called, offered a detailed narrative marked by expository clarity. I knew long before I left Adams State that I wanted to be a professional historian, and Donald’s bibliographical essay also served me very well through graduate school at the University of Texas. I doubt that any other book has helped me understand so many facets of the Civil War era—though, inevitably, its contents reflected the state of the field before social history, memory, gender, and, more recently, cultural and environmental history expanded and enriched the literature.

I will close with a few words about David M. Potter, whose work has influenced me throughout my professional career. When I began graduate school, I came under the tutelage of Barnes Fletcher Lathrop, who had been good friends with

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B&A

GARY W. GALLAGHER, THE JOHN L. NAU III PROFESSOR OF HISTORY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, PREVIOUSLY TAUGHT AT PENN STATE UNIVERSITY. THE AUTHOR OF 8 BOOKS AND EDITOR AND CO-AUTHOR OF MORE THAN 30 OTHERS, HE MOST RECENTLY HAS PUBLISHED THE UNION WAR (2011), BECOMING CONFEDERATES: PATHS TO A NEW NATIONAL LOYALTY (2013), AND THE AMERICAN WAR: A HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR ERA (CO-AUTHORED WITH JOAN WAUGH, 2015). ACTIVE AS AN EDITOR AT UNC PRESS FOR NEARLY 30 YEARS, HE HAS WORKED WITH MORE THAN 130 TITLES PUBLISHED IN THREE SERIES—CIVIL WAR AMERICA, MILITARY CAMPAIGNS OF THE CIVIL WAR, AND THE LITTLEFIELD HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR ERA.

{The B&A Q&A}

The Business of History Books WITH THEODORE P. SAVAS since 2004, California-based Savas Beatie LLC has been among the most prolific publishers of original books about military history in general, and the Civil War in particular. Recently, we sat down with Theodore P. Savas, SB’s majority partner and managing director, and asked him about the current—and future—state of historical publishing.

Tells us a bit about yourself. Have books and history always been passions of yours?

Some of my earliest recollections include making short “books” with my mom—I wrote a few pages of story and we designed cardboard fronts and backs for them. Who knew?

I have a B.A. in American history and a minor in European history, and finished about one-third of a master’s in American history waiting to get into the University of Iowa law school. I graduated and set up shop in 1986 in Silicon Valley, California, and ran a very active private practice for about 13 years. With David Woodbury, I started the quarterly journal Civil War Regiments, which began publishing in 1990 and is now being revived in digital form, and then Savas Woodbury Publishers, which became Savas Publishing in 1995 and was sold in 2001. I started Savas Beatie with my late partner, Russel H. “Cap” Beatie, in early 2004. And here we are.

Music is another passion. I am a classically trained pianist and played keyboards and bass in many rock bands in the Midwest. I started playing again in

a heavy metal project called Arminius a couple years ago, and it is a lot of fun.

I wish I could do it every day. My other passion is scuba/wreck diving, which I have done in many countries and continue to do.

Why did you get into publishing?

I remember the day back in the early 1990s when I first started giving serious thought about entering the publishing world. I bought a book I was so happy to have learned about, and nearly threw it across the room after laboring through the first 30 pages. It was poorly designed—wrong font, leading too tight, margins all wrong, etc.—the writing was abysmal, and there were a handful of hand-drawn maps that I would have been embarrassed to show anyone, let alone publish for the world to see.

I firmly believed someone had to at least try to turn out better books.

What makes a good history book?

I look for two things: originality and deep research. Does it cover something few have done well before? Does it offer fresh thinking? Is it grounded in archival and other firsthand research? Once those criteria are checked off, I look at the authors—whether they will help market the book, and whether they fit in with what I call the Savas Beatie TOC (“team-oriented culture”). We form relationships with our authors; we don’t just publish their books.

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THEODORE P. SAVAS

Potter. Lathrop told me to read Lincoln and His Party in the Secession Crisis (revised edition, 1962); The South and the Sectional Conflict (1968), which included a version of Potter’s brilliant “The Historian’s Use of Nationalism and Vice Versa”; and, when it appeared in 1976, the posthumous classic The Impending Crisis, 1848–1861, a volume in the New American Nation series completed by Don E. Fehrenbacher.

Potter taught me many lessons, two of which I will mention here. The first, laid out in the early pages of Lincoln and His Party, is “the fallacy of reading history backward.” I call this fallacy the “Appomattox syndrome,” the phenomenon of beginning with the end of a historical story firmly in mind, and then reading backward in the evidence to understand what happened. That approach almost always obscures at least as much as it reveals and usually imposes the kind of teleological framework historians typically disdain. The second lesson, which came from the essay on nationalism, is the need to assume complexity beyond any simplistic—and often beguiling—dichotomy when dealing with such things as human motivation and loyalty.

It makes me smile to think about my relationship with crucial books during the many years I have been engaged with the Civil War. I hope my current students at the University of Virgina are developing their own lists of favorite titles.

“ I firmly believed someone had to at least try to turn out better books.”

THEODORE P. SAVAS, ON HIS MOTIVATION FOR ENTERING THE BOOK PUBLISHING BUSINESS

THEODORE P. SAVAS

Theodore P. Savas (center) with Savas Beatie authors Ed Alexander (left) and Dave Shultz at the 2015 West Coast Civil War Conference

Lastly, I have to determine whether we can turn a profit. Savas Beatie is an independent trade publisher. We live and labor in the reality of having to actually produce and sell a good product people want to purchase. There is no grant money or endowment waiting to line our coffers next year. And frankly, that makes me very happy. The hunt and challenge is what gets me out of bed.

What are your readers looking for in a Civil War book?

We have done a lot of market research on this, both anecdotally and formally. The message is clear and consistent: Our readers want original, well-researched books. And they want them nicely designed, well written and well edited, and produced with quality materials. SB readers also love good and

plentiful maps, placed close to the action depicted upon them. And footnotes—they love footnotes. It is much harder and more expensive to format and edit a book with footnotes, but I personally love them, and so we do all we can to provide them for our readers.

As for a particular subject, that’s easy: battle studies. Our readers really appreciate good strategic and tactical studies—

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B&A that is where the plentiful original maps come in—and of course, the main seller inside that niche remains Gettysburg.

Nothing else comes remotely close. It is a topic of undying interest and it is still giving up its secrets.

Theodore P. Savas (center) performing with his band Arminius

I thought the prediction was baloney then and I still do. The demise was not about the interest in the message, but in the form the message would be conveyed: print vs. digital.

Publishing has radically changed in the past decade. Businesses have to change with the times or fail. Look around at all the publishing houses that have folded their tents. Many refused to see that they needed to digitize their work. Few took

the time to open new sales channels, change marketing strategies, educate their customers as to their product line, expand their Internet presence and social media use, and so forth. We saw this early, and we shifted gears into the digital realm fast and hard at the end of 2007. It was the right thing to do.

Digital sales have flattened and have

And the future for Savas Beatie?

I think the future of Civil War publishing is bright. I wrote recently that we are in the “Golden Age” of Civil War publishing now. The best books, the best research, the best authors, are all working now.

The next decade should be outstanding in every way.

PHOTOGRAPH CREDIT HERE

Folks have been predicting the demise of the printed book for years. Where do you see the industry heading in the next decade?

even fallen a bit this past year, but they are a significant portion of our overall gross and have opened up foreign markets for us. Our print sales have increased, overall, year over year. If you work it right, digital does not cannibalize print; rather, it helps support print.

We also market our books by branding our authors. We have two in-house media specialists whose only function is to service our authors by booking them for signing events, tours, and radio or TV interviews.

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as to these larger human stories of how people make meaning and the things that they treasure.”

Sometimes an artifact’s story is still to be discovered, sending Wright on a hunt for details. A few years ago, she worked with conservators to safely retrieve a piece of paper sealed for more than 150 years inside a small glass bottle. The coded message they uncurled had to be cracked by cryptologists. It was penned the day before the fall of Vicksburg by Confederate general John G. Walker. “He was writing to General [John C.] Pemberton inside of Vicksburg, basically saying that he could not come to Pemberton’s aid,” says Wright. “General Walker would have had no knowledge that Pemberton was meeting with Union general [Ulysses S.] Grant to negotiate the terms of surrender.”

Those are the kinds of stories that Wright revels in sharing with visitors— some 50,000 people each year, and perhaps many more once the brand-new American Civil War Museum facility, located near Richmond’s historic Tredegar Iron Works, opens to the public (the White House of the Confederacy and Appomattox location will remain open).

The new building has nearly twice the square footage of the museum’s current facility, where more than 90 percent of its collection remains in storage. Yet the museum’s new mission, more than the available space, will determine which objects emerge from the vault. Wright says the museum’s stored collection in-

American Civil War Museum curator Cathy Wright at work

JENNY JOHNSTON IS A WRITER AND EDITOR BASED IN SAN FRANCISCO.

AMERICAN ILIAD CONTINUED FROM P. 27

unless you admit that he is more than your equal on a march.... It is all easy if our troops march as well as the enemy, and it is unmanly to say they cannot do it.”9 I do not say that these archetypes apply to the actual McClellan. In my view as a historian, that’s too simplistic. But in my view as a storyteller, these archetypes so thoroughly dominate the popular view of McClellan that I doubt they can ever be dislodged. In all likelihood, they will always characterize his image in the American Iliad.

MARK GRIMSLEY, A HISTORY PROFESSOR AT THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY, IS THE AUTHOR OF SEVERAL BOOKS, INCLUDING AND KEEP MOVING ON: THE VIRGINIA CAMPAIGN, MAY-JUNE 1864 (2002) AND THE HARD HAND OF WAR: UNION MILITARY POLICY TOWARD SOUTHERN CIVILIANS, 1861-1865 (1995).

HE HAS ALSO WRITTEN MORE THAN 50 ARTICLES AND ESSAYS.

LINCOLN

CONTINUED FROM P. 38

and ultimate results.” The forces might be unjust, and everyone might know that they were unjust, but there they were.

The world to him was a question of cause and effect. He believed the results to which certain causes tended, would surely follow; he did not believe that those results could be materially hastened, or impeded. His whole political history, especially since the agitation of the Slavery question, has been based upon this theory.

We live in a world in which all heroic narratives have come up empty and all political history is judged by the sole criterion of egalitarianism. Given how difficult equality is to achieve, it becomes irresistible to embark upon a compensating search for flaws in the nation’s heroes on which those difficulties can be blamed.

Everything that was once deemed honorable is sooner or later discounted as inauthentic, as prejudicial, and as artificially constructed. It is on this basis that we are often told that the Civil War is irrelevant, that it was waged to preserve the Union

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

CONTINUED FROM P. 29

PENELOPE CARRINGTON WALLACE

LIVING HISTORY

cludes a fair number of Union and African-American objects. They will also likely borrow artifacts from other museums to help round out their exhibits and add voices that speak to wider experiences of the war.

“We are also looking at ways we can tell complex stories with our Confederate artifacts,” notes Wright. Among the Confederate battle flags held by the museum is one captured by members of the United States Colored Troops at the Battle of the Crater in Petersburg in 1864.

“This particular flag would have been a point of great pride for those soldiers, and it invites people to perhaps look past some of their preconceived notions of what this flag might mean,” Wright explains. “When you first see the flag, you might have certain thoughts or feelings about it, but then there’s this whole unexpected story behind it. That’s the kind of thing we are trying to bring to light.”

In the meantime, Wright spends much of her day searching and sorting through artifacts, looking for ways to tell broader stories about the war while still honoring the smaller and more personal stories held by each item. When the new building opens, she hopes that visitors will continue to find points of connection with the museum’s artifacts and exhibits, perhaps stopping in front of that homespun dress, that Confederate flag, that message in a bottle, or, indeed, a Union uniform—and taking in a new story. “It does become something of a craft or an art,” says Wright, “to learn how to intrigue people into wanting to pause and learn more.”

INTRODUCING Abraham Lincoln receives the thanks of a grateful slave in this lithograph published shortly after the president issued the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in September 1862.

BEHIND THE LINES O U R V I D E O I N T E R V I E W S E R I E S F E AT U R I N G C O N V E R SAT I O N S W I T H P R O M I N E N T M E M B E R S O F T H E A M E R I CA N C I V I L WA R C O M M U N I T Y

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

PENELOPE CARRINGTON WALLACE

PRESENTED BY

and not for black freedom, that the full bill for what Lincoln described as “the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil” has not yet been paid, and that Abraham Lincoln was a racist. It has now become common to hear that northerners in the Civil War were fighting only for the Union and not against slavery—as if their deaths didn’t count in the balances that finally tipped against slavery.

In our world, we self-emancipate, we bridle at co-dependency, we will do for ourselves what needs to be done. We repudiate not only Lincoln, but the Union, and the Union dead, and in the long run, the all-controlling Providence that hung in the background of Lincoln’s mental geography. Our world, which has become so conscious of itself, has grown self-confident to the point where we may all get along perfectly well in all questions of importance without

fathers and mothers, without communities, without people whom we do not like or do not wish to acknowledge. We balk at the notion that we owe anything to others, lest we should become as little children. We do not like to be reminded of what we owe others and owe our past; this denies us agency, and keeps us from autonomy. We do not merely discover Lincoln the half-heart, or Lincoln the racist; we actually prefer him, for the freedom it gives to us.

But humility is the handmaid of justice, and especially justice that must come in the company of war. History, if it is capable of teaching anything, teaches humility. And only in the humility that pays its debts can we avoid drowning in our sea of organization, greed, and hedonism.

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Stay connected with The Civil War Monitor wherever you are!

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CONTINUED FROM P. 65

The lopsided battle had far-reaching effects on both armies. In addition to the heavy losses sustained by Early’s division, the Army of Northern Virginia lost its carefully selected winter encampment site in resource-rich Culpeper County, leaving them to suffer a long and demoralizing winter of privation.

For the Army of the Potomac, the innovative tactics of Colonel Emory Upton would later be implemented on a larger scale. Upton, a rising star in the Army of the Potomac who was leading a brigade for the first time at Rappahannock Station, massed two regiments of his brigade and sent them forward in a compact formation with orders to rush the enemy without firing a shot. They overwhelmed the Confederate defenders in their front. The following May at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, Upton used an entire brigade in the same way and punched a significant hole in the Confederate line, one that was closed only because Upton’s attack was not supported. Upton’s suc-

cess so impressed Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant that he employed the maneuver on an even grander scale the next day and nearly shattered the entire Confederate line at the Mule Shoe Salient. The Second Battle of Rappahannock Station marked the testing ground for Upton’s theories, although nobody could have known it then.39 On the night of November 9, 1863, Lee, uncomfortable with his precarious position in the wake of the defeat at Rappahannock Station, elected to withdraw across the Rapidan River and establish a new defensive line along the river’s south bank in Orange County.

The Dare Mark Line had been not only breached, but utterly broken, and would never again serve as the boundary between the two armies.

ERIC J. WITTENBERG, AN ATTORNEY IN COLUMBUS, OHIO, IS THE AUTHOR OF 19 BOOKS ON THE CIVIL WAR, INCLUDING “THE DEVIL’S TO PAY”: JOHN BUFORD AT GETTYSBURG. A HISTORY AND WALKING TOUR (2014) AND (WITH SCOTT MINGUS) THE SECOND BATTLE OF WINCHESTER: THE CONFEDERATE VICTORY THAT OPENED THE DOOR TO GETTYSBURG (SAVAS-BEATIE, 2016).

The innovative tactics employed

by Colonel Emory Upton at Rappahannock Station would be used on a larger scale the following year during the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House (pictured here).

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Grand Army Men

Live the Kentucky Campaign through Blake's Story, Revenge and Forgiveness, 2nd edition

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

written by J. Arthur Moore and Bryson B. Brodzinski created by Bryson B. Brodzinski

When his father is killed at Shiloh, Blake decides to go to the war and kill the soldier who killed his father.

But it's not as simple as he thinks.

Entering the war during the Kentucky Campaign of 1862 with the 2nd Tennessee, he later finds himself with the 31st Indiana when he falls at Perryville.

Young Blake comes face to face with the gut-wrenching destruction and aftermath of battle with its loss of life and of friends, wounded and killed. He no longer wants to kill Yanks. He just wants to go home. Friendship with an enemy soldier has unexpected consequences.

Experience the Civil War with Duane Kinkade in Journey Into Darkness, a novel in four parts, 2nd edition written by J. Arthur Moore

just released in its own full color 2nd edition with expanded references

Duane Kinkade was ten years old in the summer of 1861 when raiders struck his farm after his pa had gone to the war; eleven the following spring when he left in search of his father and became a part of the war himself; thirteen the summer he returned home, a veteran soldier, after two and a half years of army life and battlefield experience from Tennessee/Kentucky to Pennsylvania to Virginia.

Published in full color by LitFire Publishing 508 pages, hardback [$47.99], softback [$33.00], & eBook [$2.99] .

Published in full color by

LitFire Publishing

177 pages, hardback [$30.00], softback [$20.00], & eBook [$2.99]

Nominated for the Freedoms Foundation Award both books are

Available through Ingram Distribution, independent book stores, www.acrossthevalleytodarkness.com and www.upfromcorinth.com and www.litfirepublishing.com, www.xlibris.com, www.amazon.com, The regiments and their histories in these stories are real, the events did happen

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Legal History of the Civil War (Cambridge, 2010), 148-149; Jonathan W. White, “The Strangely Insignificant Role of the U.S. Supreme Court during the Civil War,” Journal of the Civil War Era 3 (June 2013): 211-238; Brownson, “Third Annual Message of President Lincoln to both Houses of Congress,” Brownson’s Quarterly Review 1 (January 1864): 94; “Wendell Phillips at Cooper Institute,” The New York Times (December 23, 1863).

SOURCES & CITATIONS FROM THIS ISSUE’S ARTICLES

AMERICAN ILIAD (Pages 26–27, 74) 1

Mark Grimsley, “Lincoln and Little Mac,” The Civil War Monitor 6/4 (Winter 2015): 72.

2 Joseph Campbell with Bill Moyers, The Power of Myth (New York, 1988); “The Mythology of Star Wars With George Lucas,” Bill Moyers’ Journal (1999), available online at youtube. com/watch?v=YpiEk42_O_Q (Retrieved April 30, 2016); Stuart Voytilla, Myth and the Movies: Discovering the Mythic Structure of 50 Unforgettable Films (Studio City, CA, 1999); Victoria Lynn Schmidt, Forty-five Master Characters: Mythic Models for Creating Original Characters (Cincinnati, 2001); Christopher Vogler, The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, 3rd ed. (Studio City, CA, 2007).

3 John G. Nicolay and John Hay, Abraham Lincoln: A History 10 vols. (New York, 1886), vol. 5, 366.

4 Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette, King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine (New York, 1990), 23.

5 McClellan to Edwin M. Stanton, June 27, 1862, in Stephen W. Sears, ed., The Civil War Papers of George B. McClellan: Selected Correspondence, 1860-1865 (New York, 1989), 323.

6 Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette, The King Within: Accessing the King in the Male Psyche (New York, 1992), 171.

7 James Longstreet, “The Battle of Fredericksburg,” Robert U. Johnson and Clarence C. Buel, eds., Battles and Leaders of the Civil War 4 vols. (New York, 1887), vol. 3, 70.

8 The writer, Edward H. Bonekemper, is the author of McClellan and Failure: A Study of Civil War Fear, Incompetence and Worse (Jefferson, NC, 2007).

9 Lincoln to McClellan, October 13, 1862, in Roy P. Basler, ed., The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln 8 vols. (New Brunswick, NJ, 1953), vol.

5, 460, 461.

THE REDEMPTION OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN (Pages 30-39, 74-75) 1

Scripps to Herndon (May 9, 1865), in Herndon’s Informants: Letters, Interviews and Statements about Abraham Lincoln, eds.

Rodney O. Davis and Douglas L. Wilson (Urbana, IL, 1998), 3.

2 “Tolstoi Holds Lincoln World’s Greatest Hero” (New York World, February 7, 1909), in The Lincoln Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Legacy from 1860 to Now, ed. Harold Holzer (New York, 2009), 388.

13 Douglass, “The Supreme Court Decision” (October 22, 1883), in Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings ed. Philip Foner (Chicago, 1999), 686.

14 W.H. Herndon to Gillespie (February 20, 1866), Joseph Gillespie Papers, Chicago Historical Society; Lincoln, “Temperance Address” (February 22, 1842), in Collected Works, 1:279; Herndon (January 15, 1874 and November 24, 1882) and Herndon to C.O. Poole (January 5, 1886), and “Lincoln the Individual,” in The Hidden Lincoln, from the Letters and Papers of William H. Herndon, ed.

Emmanuel Hertz (New York, 1938), 83, 89, 121, 415.

3 Barry Schwartz, Abraham Lincoln in the PostHeroic Era: History and Memory in Late Twentieth-Century America (Chicago, 2008), 20, 147, 151, 153, 169.

4 Lester, Look Out, Whitey! Black Power’s Gon’ Get Your Mama! (New York, 1968), 37.

5 “Was Abe Lincoln a White Supremacist?”

Ebony Magazine, February 1968, 35-42; Lamb’s interview of Bennett for BookNotes (September 10, 2000) at Booknotes: 800 Non-Fiction Authors in Hour-Long Interviews, April 1989-December 2004, booknotes.org/ Watch/158187-1/Lerone+Bennett.aspx.

6 John McWhorter, “Why Juneteenth’s Not My Thing,” The Root (June 19, 2008). Obama, “What I See in Lincoln’s Eyes,” Time (June 26, 2005), time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1077287,00.html.

7 David Williams, I Freed Myself: African American Self-Emancipation in the Civil War Era (New York, 2014), 19, 56, 86; David Roediger, Seizing Freedom: Slave Emancipation and Liberty for All (New York, 2014), 8-11.

8 John Goode, “The Peace Conference in Hampton Roads,” Southern Historical Society Papers 29 (January-December 1901): 188.

9 Adams (January 2, 1865), Letter from Washington, 1863-1865, ed. Evelyn Leasher (Detroit, 1999), 224.

10 George T. Stevens, Three Years in the Sixth Corps (Albany, 1866), 59.

11 Lincoln, “To James C. Conkling” (August 31, 1863), in Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, ed. Roy P. Basler (New Brunswick, NJ, 1953), 6:423. Lincoln was quoting a letter he had received from Ulysses S. Grant in which Grant described emancipation and “arming the negro” as “the heavyest blow yet given the Confederacy.” Sherman, “Old Shady, With a Moral,” North American Review 147 (October 1888): 368.

12 Stephen C. Neff, Justice in Blue and Gray: A

RAPPAHANNOCK STATION (Pages 56-65, 76) 1

Daniel E. Sutherland, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville: The Dare Mark Campaign (Omaha, 1998), 1.

2 For an excellent discussion of the Dare-Mark Line, see Clark B. Hall, “Upper Rappahannock River Front: The Dare Mark Line,” accessed at: fauquiercivilwar.com/Assets/downloads/article_rappahannock_front.pdf.

3 Clifford Dowdy and Louis H. Manarin, The Wartime Papers of R.E. Lee (New York, 1961), 615-616.

4 The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, 128 vols. (Washington, D.C.,, 1889), Series I, Vol. 29, pt. 2, 425-426 (hereinafter referred to as OR. All further references are to Series I unless otherwise noted). It is important to note that the XI and XII Corps had been detached from the Army of the Potomac and transferred to Chattanooga on September 24, 1863. These units never returned to the Army of the Potomac. They would eventually merge to form the XX Corps of the Army of the Tennessee.

5 Ibid., 427.

6 Ibid., 426.

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7 Ibid., 428.

8 Ibid., 619.

9 Tête de pont literally translates to “bridgehead” from the French.

10 OR, Vol. 29, 1:584-585.

11 Ibid., 2:619.

12 Ibid., 1:577.

13 Ibid., 585.

14 Ibid.

15 George W. Bicknell, History of the Fifth Regiment Maine Volunteers, Comprising Brief Descriptions of its Marches, Engagements, and General Services from the Date of its Muster In, June 24, 1861, to the Time of its Muster Out, July 27, 1864 (Portland, 1871), 264.

16 OR, Vol. 29, 1:585.

17 Mason Whiting Tyler, Recollections of the Civil War with Many Original Diary Entries and Letters Written from the Seat of War, and with Annotated References, William S. Tyler, ed. (New York, 1912), 123.

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18 OR, Vol. 29, 1:586.

19 Ibid., 588.

20 Ibid., 588-589.

21 Walter G. Morrill Medal of Honor File, RG 94, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C. 22 OR, Vol. 29, 1:592.

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23 Peter S. Michie, ed., The Life and Letters of Emory Upton, Colonel of the Fourth Regiment of Artillery, and Brevet Major-General, U.S. Army (New York, 1885), 84.

24 OR, Vol. 29, 1:592.

25 Washington Evening Star, November 8, 1863.

26 OR, Vol. 29, 2:623.

27 Ibid., 1:592.

28 “Yankee Trick,” Lamoille News Dealer [Hyde Park, VT], December 23, 1863.

29 Robert S. Westbrook, History of the 49th Pennsylvania Volunteers (Altoona, PA, 1898), 170.

30 OR, Vol. 29, 2:623.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid., 1:556.

33 See Lee’s sketch of this battle line, OR, Vol. 29, 1:614.

34 Ibid., 2:429.

35 Ibid., 609.

36 Ibid., 435.

37 Ibid., 437.

38 The New York Times, November 9, 1863.

39 For a detailed description of these events, see Gordon C. Rhea, The Battles for Spotsylvania Court House and the Road to Yellow Tavern, May 7–12, 1864 (Chapel Hill, 1997).

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pa r t i n g shot

Jefferson Davis Revealed make it easy to visualize what President Abraham Lincoln looked like during the Civil War. Until recently, the same could not be said of his Confederate counterpart, Jefferson Davis. Any surviving images of Davis dated either from a few years before the war or well after it—until collector John O’Brien made public the image shown here, which he acquired in 1980 from an agent of the descendants of Gideon Welles, Lincoln’s secretary of the navy. Welles’ son, a Union staff officer, had obtained it from the Confederate White House as a souvenir at war’s end. The image, likely taken in late 1860 or early 1861, shows Davis as he appeared on the eve of the conflict. He wears a tired, even troubled, expression, one that seems to foreshadow the four long years of bloody conflict to come.

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