★ HUGE CANNONS, DRAMATIC VIEWS: EXPLORE D.C.

’S FORTS ★

PLUS
LINCOLN’S
FUNERAL TRAIN
POWERFUL
IMAGES OF
1,700 MILES OF
MOURNING

‘I NEVER WANTED TO COME HOME SO BAD’

RELUCTANT
REBELS
ROBERT E. LEE’S TROUBLED ARMY
AFTER GETTYSBURG
BEDRIDDEN DIARIST
A YOUNG GEORGIAN
CHRONICLED THE SOUTH’S WAR October 2018
HistoryNet.com
CIVIL WAR TIMES
OCTOBER 2018

62
CITY STRONGHOLDS
The gate that allowed
access to Fort Ward was
built in 1865. Portions
of other bastions that
protected Washington, D.C.,
also survive.

ON THE COVER: 4th Georgia Private James Greer was not reluctant. He served until captured and survived the war.
  24
Features
Hunted Down
After Gettysburg
By Peter S. Carmichael
The hardships of North Carolina soldier John Futch
serve as a case study of war-sick Confederate troops.

32
Down East
to Down South
By Tom Huntington
Four green Maine regiments cut their fighting
54 teeth at the First Battle of Bull Run.

40
1,700 Miles
of Mourners
By Wendy J. Sotos
Abraham Lincoln’s somber funeral train
provided Americans an unprecedented way
to grieve a dead president.

54
‘ The Stench of
Rotten Yanks’
32 By Janet E. Croon and Theodore P. Savas
Invalid teenager LeRoy Gresham kept a
remarkable wartime diary from his Georgia sickbed.

 6
8
12
Departments
Letters Computer error mea culpa
News ! Incredible find at Manassas
Details Marching to a picnic
14 Rambling He digs Laurel Hill Cemetery
18 Insight Supreme sketch artists
20 Interview Reconstruction’s complexities
23 Editorial Sick in body and mind
40 62 Explore To keep Confederates out
68

 72
Reviews The epic Siege of Petersburg, Va.
Sold ! Weather resistant

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: MELISSA A. WINN; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; COURTESY OF THE GEORGE EASTMAN
MUSEUM; COVER: PRIVATE COLLECTION/PETER NEWARK MILITARY PICTURES/BRIDGEMAN IMAGES/PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY BRIAN WALKER
OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 3

MAINE MAN
Joshua Chamberlain’s letters home
to his wife during the Civil War
unveil the transformation of
a civilian to a heroic soldier.
http://bit.ly/chamberlainletters
LINCOLN’S LAST WITNESS
Civil War veteran James Tanner recorded
eyewitness accounts of the president’s
assassination while Lincoln lay dying nearby.
http://bit.ly/LincolnWitness
CONFEDERATE DISCONTENT
Worn out, hungry, and broke:
Why Lee’s men lost hope after Gettysburg.
http://bit.ly/csadiscontent

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CONFEDERATE HERO
GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE
150 years ago – with our nation divided over issues of slavery, states’ rights, and economic survival – the
southern states seceded from the Union to form the Confederate States of America. Like so many Americans
caught in the middle, Robert E. Lee, a respected Colonel in the Union Army, was forced to choose between
his nation and his state. Driven by duty and guided by honor, Lee declined command of the Union Army and
sided with his home state of Virginia. He soon rose to the rank of General and was given command over the
Army and Navy of Virginia. His dazzling military maneuvers brought about many victories for the outmanned
Confederate Army before succumbing to Union forces at Appomattox in 1865. Even in defeat, Lee served as
a symbol of courage and dignity, embodying the finest elements of a true Southern gentleman. After the war,
Lee set aside all animosity and urged the people of the South to work for the restoration of peace and harmony
in a united country.
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 Lonn’s scholarship by comparing it
to that of men from the same period.

STUCK IN When speaking of her work between

the 1920s and ’50s, Mr. Gallagher
wrote: “Very few men during the same

CYBERSPACE period, though in many instances better

known, matched, never mind exceeded,
her accomplishment.”
As a former federal Equal Employ-
ment Opportunity investigator, I
believe the value of women’s contri-
Editor’s note: The CWT team recently discovered that cwtletters@histo-
butions need not be measured by the
rynet.com had not been configured to send your comments to our inboxes.
yardstick of male achievement or lack
When that was fixed, 160 e-mails dating to 2016 poured into our computers. I apolo-
thereof: They stand on their own.
gize to everyone who wrote in during that time, and I am thrilled that we now receive
Perpetuating the idea that we must
your thoughtful comments. Some of the “misplaced” e-mails are printed below.
look at women by the light of what
men have done or not done drives a
wedge between the two genders.
1. A stuffed knapsack makes a
comfortable seat on the edge of
James J. Knights, FBI (Retired)
TIME AND PLACE
THIS IMAGE OF UNION SOLDIERS by Andrew Russell provides a cautionary tale in the use
a captured trench. Since Russell
noted that these men are New
Jersey troops, they likely belong
to the 1st Brigade of the VI Corps,
Butler, Pa.
of primary sources. When the National Archives purchased it from Mathew Brady’s studio in the mid-1870s, accompa- commanded by Colonel Henry
nying notes claimed that it showed the troops in the 1864 trenches of Petersburg, Va. The picture appeared in numerous Brown and which consisted
books for years identified as such. But a copy of the photograph at the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland entirely of New Jersey regiments.
includes Russell’s handwritten caption that explains these are New Jersey troops of Brig. Gen. William Brooks’ VI Corps
division in trenches along the Rappahannock River at Fredericksburg, Va., just prior to the May 3, 1863, Second Battle 2. Time for a snack. This smiling
of Fredericksburg. During that struggle, a portion of the Chancellorsville Campaign, the VI Corps applied pressure on soldier holds a cup in one hand
the right flank of the Army of Northern Virginia while fighting raged at the Chancellorsville crossroads to the west.
Historians have worked since the 1980s to correct the record, but Russell’s photograph still occasionally appears in
print with the wrong information. The remarkable picture was taken on the Rappahannock’s west bank within range of
Confederate guns. These men would join in the attack on Marye’s Heights and help conquer the high ground that had
defied the Army of the Potomac during the December 1862 Battle of Fredericksburg. Not long after Russell captured
and a piece of hardtack in the
other. The full haversacks visible
in the image indicate that the men
had been issued three days worth
of rations, which would have
“BEHIND THE BARRICADE”
The Scott Fink article “Behind the
their likenesses for posterity, the troops picked up their well-polished model 1861 rifle-muskets and went into battle. included 30 pieces of hardtack.

5 3. A number of men wear black

oilcloth “waterproof” covers on
their forage caps. The private-
purchase covers were supposed
to make the caps impervious to Barricade” in the June 2018 issue is the
6
rain. But nothing really could help
the odd forage caps protect their
wearers from the weather.

4. A quartermaster sergeant
wears the chevrons indicative
epitome of fine journalistic investiga-
tion. Your periodical shows respect for
of his rank. Every regiment was
authorized to have one of these
noncommissioned officers who
was responsible, among other
duties, for making sure rations
were received and issued. Is he
holding paperwork, a letter from
home or a newspaper? Two mus-
kets rest under his right leg.
both sides of the war, as is merited for
5. Two officers survey the
the bravery and sacrifice made by all.
2 3 Confederate positions defending
Fredericksburg, about 800–1,200

Keep it up!
yards away.

6. You can just make out the

4 sponge-rammers and cannon
barrels of an artillery battery in
the distance. Those guns might

1
have belonged to either Captain
William McCartney’s 1st Massa-
chusetts Battery or Captain James
Rigby’s Battery A, Maryland Light
B. Marc Mogil, J.D.
Artillery, which the 1st Brigade
supported during the fighting at
Second Fredericksburg. Sunny Isles Beach, Fla.

Scott Fink’s suggestion that the body of

the Devil’s Den “sharpshooter” is John
NOT POSSIBLE from Brady. The collection was stored R. Ash is inconclusive: 1) Claiming
As an employee of the National in various offices, including the War there is the same “widow’s peak” in the
Archives I feel compelled to point out Records Office and the War Depart- hair in both photos is overstating the
an error you made regarding my agency ment Library, until it was transferred to case. The prewar Ash photo has been
in the February 2017 issue. In your the Office of the Chief Signal Officer retouched, reducing its reliability. That
“Details” column about the frequently in 1921. The National Archives finally said, the hairlines are similar. 2) Ash’s
misidentified Andrew Russell photo- accessioned the collection, along with earlobes look more squared and less
graph of New Jersey troops at Freder- other Signal Corps records, in 1940. angular than the dead soldier’s. But the
icksburg in 1863 (above), it states that soldier bears signs of having originally
John P. Deeben
the National Archives purchased the lain on his ear, which could have mis-
Archivist, National Archives & Records
image from Mathew Brady’s studio in shaped the earlobe. 3) The supposed
Administration
the mid-1870s, but that is not possible numeral 2 on the haversack is not
as the National Archives did not exist centered, not upright, and on the back
as a federal agency until 1934. The War HER OWN ACCOMPLISHMENTS of the haversack: no place you would
Department purchased a large portion I read with interest Gary W. Galla- ever put a regimental number. I think
of Brady’s negatives in 1874 at public gher’s August 2018 article “Ahead of it is an abrasion or stain. Conclusion:
auction. The following year Congress Her Time,” about Ella Lonn. I was the dead soldier may be Ash; but there
authorized the War Department to disheartened, however, that Mr. Gal- is insufficient evidence to say that they
purchase additional plates directly lagher highlighted the significance of probably are the same person.
6 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018
 I have compiled more than 1,400
Confederate infantrymen images,
and I have never seen a uniform
exactly like the dead soldier’s. The
six-button front and the patch
pocket are extremely rare. I’ve seen
only two other Confederate infantry
tunics with such pockets: one worn
by William Jackson Haynie of the
3rd Battalion, Georgia Sharpshoot-
ers, and another worn by Charles
Send just $2.95 for shipping
Shouse of the 1st Battalion, North and guaranteed delivery.
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First Battle of Bull Run
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up their own loads, they too found
it useful to have a patch pocket on N ow you can preserve important history of the Civil War’s first major land
battle with this FREE enhanced US Half-Dollar.
The First Battle of Bull Run stunned the nation and changed the course of
their tunics. It makes you wonder
whether people have been too hasty history. Imagine owning this 150th anniversary commemorative coin – just send
in denying that the dead soldier was $2.95 for shipping and guaranteed delivery.
a sharpshooter. Reply today and you’ll also receive special collector’s information and other
interesting coins on approval. Limit one coin. Satisfaction guaranteed.
John Braden
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gazed upon the stony barricade in
Quick order at MysticAd.com/UM239
Devil’s Den? But how many had
thought of the identity of the dead Name ____________________________________________________________________________

Confederate soldier? I would like to Address __________________________________________________________________________

truly thank Scott Fink for his work
City/State/Zip _____________________________________________________________________
of humanity in researching the pho- NY State residents add sales tax.
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tograph. R Visa R MasterCard R AmExpress R Discover Exp. Date ___/___
Alfred Melchiorre
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Please send payment to: Mystic, Dept. UM239, 9700 Mill St., Camden, NY 13316-9111

CROSS KEYS
While reading in your June 2018
issue the very interesting article
by Peter Svenson, my emotions
ranged from elation to disappoint-
ment. More hallowed ground, this
time part of Cross Keys battlefield,
probably lost forever due to lack
of knowledge or caring, or down-
right disinterest. I want to join Mr.
Svenson in his plea to the Virginia
Outdoor Foundation, as well as the
current landowner, to do everything
possible to reverse this travesty.
Nancy Miville
Claremont, N.H.
WESTERN CONFEDERATES
I read with interest the column by
Gary Gallagher in the October 2017
issue (“Insight”) regarding books written
about the Confederacy’s main Western
army: The Army of the Mississippi/
Army of Tennessee.
While he is correct that initially the
scholarship was Eastern Theater–
dominated, the trend over the last 25
years has swung the pendulum into the
Western Theater corner with loads of
campaign, tactical battle studies, and
biographies of Western Confederate
generals, with more coming. Gallagher
could have mentioned Steven Wood-
worth’s book, Jefferson Davis and His
Generals: The Failure of Confederate Com-
mand in the West (1990), for example. It
is to the Army of Tennessee what Lee’s
Lieutenants is to the Army of Northern
Virginia.
Lastly, Gallagher mentions that there
are no novels that bring the Army of
Tennessee to life like Killer Angels, etc.
The biggest Civil War novel of all time,
however, is about the Atlanta Cam-
paign—Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With
The Wind. While not a central theme
of the book, the Army of Tennessee
defended the vital city of Atlanta.
Greg Biggs
Clarksville, Tenn.
OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 7
 DEAD MEN DO TELL TALES


In 2014, Manassas National Battlefield Park
employees digging a maintenance trench dis-
covered evidence of a burial pit. NPS experts, assisted by
Douglas Owsley and Kari Bruwelheide, forensic anthro-
pologists at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Nat-
ural History, excavated and studied the site in October
2015. Two complete sets of remains, 11 amputated par-
tial limbs, and several artifacts were recovered from the
burial site, associated with the location of a field hospi-
tal from the Second Battle of Bull Run. ¶ The complete
remains are from two Caucasian males, 25-34 years old.
One of the soldiers was found with an Enfield bullet
still lodged in his upper thigh bone, and three fired lead
buckshot were found with the other casualty. It is likely
that a field surgeon determined that both soldiers had
injuries too severe to be operated on successfully. “The
discovery tells us about the difficult decisions doctors
faced about who could be helped and who could not,”
8 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018
The remains of soldiers found in a surgeon’s burial pit
at Manassas National Battlefield Park laid out at the
Smithsonian Institution. This is the first time that a Civil
War surgeon’s pit has been excavated and studied.
said Brandon Bies, superintendent of MNBP. ¶ Several
clues indicate the men were Union soldiers. English-
made Enfield bullets were used almost exclusively by
MATT MCCLAIN/THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES
the Confederate army at Second Manassas, and Union
jacket buttons were found with the man who died from
buckshot wounds. In addition, it could be determined
that the soldiers were from Northeastern states based on
isotope analyses that showed they consumed food and
water from that region while their bones were forming.
¶ The two soldiers will be interred at Arlington National
Cemetery later this year in coffins constructed from a
downed tree from the battlefield, and will be the first
burials in the Millennium Expansion of the cemetery.

LEE’S NAME
STAYS
 the same
FOLLOWING THE 2015 murder
of nine black parishioners in Charleston,
S.C., by an avowed white supremacist, a
Washington and Lee University panel
LEFT: LUC NOVOVITCH/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; RIGHT: PHOTO BY BUDDY SECOR, COURTESY OF THE AMERICAN BATTLEFIELD TRUST
convened to make recommendations
regarding Confederate imagery at
the Lexington, Va.–based university,
where Robert E. Lee’s name and image
are prominent. In May, the panel
recommended keeping the school
name, but removing any images of Lee
in uniform and retaining only those
showing him when he was the college’s
president from 1865 to 1870, such as the
statue above. One of the most dramatic
recommendations involves the Lee
Chapel, where the general’s remains lie
in an above-ground coffin. The panel
recommended that the space, now used
to initiate incoming undergraduates, be
converted into a museum. Additional
recommendations included creation of
educational materials about the school’s
history and outreach to minorities.
the
mission
remains

s of May 8, 2018, the Civil War Trust has been brought
A under a new parent organization, the American Battlefield
Trust. The new entity also encompasses the preservation of
battlefields related to the Revolution and the War of 1812. In June, the
American Battlefield Trust honored Ed Bearss with the organization’s
first Lifetime Achievement Award at its annual conference, held this
year in Newport News, Va. The organization is also creating the Battle-
field Preservation Hall of Fame with Bearss as its first member. A gran-
ite marker honoring Bearss will be erected on the Vicksburg Battlefield
to recognize his deep research on the signif-
icance of that battle. Bearss served as the
National Park Service’s chief historian
from 1981 to 1994 and has long been
recognized for his engaging in-depth
battlefield tours. A veteran of World
War II, Bearss turned 95 in June.
The ABT also awarded the
Brian C. Pohanka Preservation
Organization Award to Civil War
Trails, a nonprofit that maintains
1,550 waysides in five states that
encourage heritage tourism, and to
the Save Historic Antietam Foun-
dation, a 501c3 organization that
has worked to keep that battlefield as
pristine as possible, preserving more
than 3,000 acres since 1986. Named for
the beloved Civil War historian who died
of cancer in 2005, the Pohanka award recog-
Semper Fi! Ed Bearss
nizes organizations that “Inspire Americans to served in the U.S.
experience our nation’s battlefields and historic Marine Corps during
sites.” Longtime preservationist Mark Perreault, World War II and was
current secretary of the Shenandoah Valley seriously wounded on
Battlefields, was also honored with an award. New Britain.
OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 9
 THE WAR ON THE NET
 digitalsc.lib.vt.edu/AmericanCivilWar

n May 1861, William S. Tippett Tech’s Special Collections Online,


the local provost guard strode around

I joined the 1st Virginia Infan-

try in Wheeling, Va. His enlist-
ment paralleled that of thousands of
Virginians that spring, but his was
a Union unit. When the regiment’s
three-month commitment was up,
Tippett continued his service in the
1st West Virginia Infantry and fought
for the duration of the war. He color-
fully explained in 1864 that, “one dont
like to quit when the war is most over.”
Tippett’s wartime diaries—six vol-
umes covering 1861 through 1864—are
held at the Library of Virginia and are
not available online. But one eight-
page letter that he wrote—regarded as
one of the most detailed descriptions
of Civil War prison life and food—has
been digitized and is available. Tip-
pett wrote it when he was about to be
paroled in the spring of 1864.
The letter, featured in Virginia
is rightly celebrated, but some will
be far more curious about the Union
service of this man from one of the
Confederacy’s most celebrated states.
Granted, he was in a heavily Union-
ist area when the war began, but he
may have been living in Bath County
in 1861, which remained part of Vir-
ginia and reminds us of the divided
nature of this region. Other readers,
though, may care more about his rela-
tionship to his wife, Maggie. What did
she endure, along with daughters Kate
and Anna, for more than three years
as a Union family in a divided region
with William far from home?
Virginia Tech’s “The American Civil
War” digital collection also includes
Confederate accounts, such as a
November 1863 letter that captures
Mima Brown’s frustration that her
brother was freezing in the field while
Pulaski, Va., in warm coats. Dozens
of other collections contain multiple
digitized items, and most of these
have been transcribed. The letters of
Milton and George Kuntz, along with
their cousin George Miller, reveal the
motivations and frustrations of the
Kuntz brothers and their relatives
while serving in Virginia units. Ten-
nessee widow and Unionist Eliza-
beth Hughes’ 1868 claim for damages
reminds us again of the divisions bor-
der state families endured.
This is a large online repository,
but remember that digital collections
are just the tip of the archival ice-
berg. If possible, always follow up
with an on-site visit. Still, Virginia
Tech’s digitized Civil War collection
is worthwhile for anyone who stud-
ies this endlessly fascinating conflict.
—Susannah J. Ural

On Wisconsin!
A Civil War–era flag takes center stage in Neville Public Museum in
QUI Z
Green Bay, Wis., thanks to a $10,000 preservation project. Distinguished by
a great star formed of 34 stars within the blue field, the 12- by 8-foot flag was
hand-sewn in 1861 by local resident Mattie Underwood. Script on one of the
stars reads “From Major Shaylor, Old Fort Howard during the War, 1865.”
From these details, museum curator Lisa Kain determined the flag flew at
Fort Howard, an 1861 recruiting center for Union troops. The 34 stars in the
canton represent the
LEFT: COURTESY OF THE NEVILLE PUBLIC MUSEUM; RIGHT: GOOGLE EARTH

states in the Union in

1859. The flag went
on display on May
30, 2018, the 200th
anniversary of the
creation of Brown
County, home to
Green Bay.
The Wisconsin flag retains
the vibrant colors that
enticed recruits in 1861.
10 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018
HOLDING THE LINE
Name this monument and send
your answer to dshoaf@historynet.com or
to 1919 Gallows Road, Suite 400, Vienna,
VA 22182-4038, marked “Thunderstorm.”
The first correct answer will win a book.
Congratulations to August issue winner
Mary Alice Pickett of New Port Richey,
Fla. She correctly identified the Washing-
ton Monument near Boonsboro, Md., that
Union troops used as a signal station
during the 1862 Maryland Campaign.
“To you, it’s the perfect lift chair. To me,
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3
1 2

THREE WEEKS OLD

THE 1ST MINNESOTA INFANTRY is most famous for its pyrrhic charge at Gettysburg
on July 2, 1863, when it rushed into the teeth of a much larger Confederate attack on Cemetery Ridge and suffered a
staggering 82 percent casualties. But when this image of the 1st Minnesota’s Company D was taken on May 21, 1861,
the men had been in Union service for only three weeks. They posed on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis just before
tramping across a bridge over the Mississippi River to a picnic on Nicollet Island. After Company D drilled for an
enthralled crowd, the men marched eight miles back to their training ground at Fort Snelling. Just one month later,
the 1st Minnesota fought at First Bull Run on July 21, 1861, and the regiment lost about 180 casualties—more than
MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY

any other Union unit at that fight. A survivor of the regiment remembered, “We were sweating profusely and suffering
from the heat—clothing torn and disordered—our faces were smeared with powder and dirt. We cared nothing for
looks just then….” The soldiers of Company D and their comrades had learned war was anything but a picnic. –D.B.S.
(Thanks to 1st Minnesota historians James Owens and Stephen E. Osman for their help with this article.)

12 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018


4
1. Colonel Willis A. Gorman had the
1st Minnesota drilling up to 10 hours
a day at Fort Snelling. As directed by
drill manuals, the men line up with
the tallest men on the right of the
company, and the shortest on the left.
They stand with their weapons at
“parade rest.”
2. Second Lieutenant DeWitt Smith
poses in front of Company D, sans
sword and sword belt. Perhaps he
had not yet purchased them? Smith
suffered a serious wound at Antietam,
and later rejoined the ranks as a major
and paymaster in the Invalid Corps.
He was killed during an 1864 Rebel
guerrilla raid in Tennessee.
5
3. A color bearer holds the company
flag, a United States banner possibly
decorated with Company D’s
nickname, Lincoln Guards,or its letter
designation. Company colors were
quickly replaced very early in the war
in favor of just one national and one
regimental flag for each regiment.
4. Company D was one of the lucky
four companies of the 1st Minnesota
issued high-quality Model 1855,
.58-caliber rifle muskets and new
leather accoutrements from the state
armory. Other companies of the
regiment received older smoothbore
muskets.
5. Company D’s clothing was a mix
of civilian and military issue. All of the
soldiers seem to wear the dark blue
trousers they had been issued in early
May, but most of the men wear civilian
coats and hats. This man wears one of
the wool overshirts that were issued in
various colors to the regiment in late
April. They proved unpopular.
6. Minneapolis was on the rise in
1861, and had about 6,000 residents.
This block of Nicollet Avenue had
burned in 1860, so these buildings
are spanking new and reflect both
fashionable Italianate and Greek
Revival architectural styles. “The
Regulator” was a dry goods store.
OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 13
 RAMBLING
With John Banks

STONE SEEKER IN HIS ELEMENT

Russ Dodge at General George G. Meade’s
grave. The famous general’s simple marker
stands in contrast to his 1872 funeral
(right), described as an “imposing affair” by
a contemporary Philadelphia newspaper.

For years, Dodge had traveled to

cemeteries from Maine to Texas to visit
the final resting places of Civil War gen-
erals. His searches eventually led him
to Laurel Hill, where 47 Union gener-
als and one Confederate—vanquished
Vicksburg commander John Clifford
Pemberton—are buried. For the past 15
years, the 48-year-old has spent count-
less hours crawling around cemeter-
ies, an avocation fully supported by his
wife, who sometimes accompanies him
during his wanderings. Dodge, a dis-
patcher for a chemical trucking firm in
his day job, also is a senior administrator
for “Find A Grave,” a popular website of
cemetery records.
The grave of former Army of the

OF GRAVE Potomac commander George Meade,

“Old Snapping Turtle,” is the main
Civil War attraction at Laurel Hill, but

INTEREST
he is hardly the only notable buried
at this outdoor museum. Six hundred
known Civil War veterans rest at Lau-
rel Hill, and Dodge knows details about
many of an estimated 75,000 graves at
AT PHILADELPHIA’S HISTORIC a cemetery that’s also the eternal home
for other Philadelphia historical figures.
LAUREL HILL CEMETERY, RUSS DODGE At the pearl-white tombstone of
FEEDS HIS CIVIL WAR OBSESSION Thomas Simpson, set in the dark-
green grass dappled with yellow dan-
delions and purple wildflowers, Dodge
pays respects to the 81st Pennsylvania
LIKE A HARE ON AN ADRENALINE RUSH, Russ private, who was mortally wounded
Dodge bounds from grave to grave at historic Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia. at Boydton Plank Road in Virginia in
The clamor of distant traffic on highways along the Schuylkill River fails to distract 1864. He paid for the flag holder next to
the south New Jersey native as he delivers bursts of information about a Civil War the grave of the 19-year-old soldier, one
veteran at the well-manicured, 78-acre grounds. “Look at this place,” he says of the of 40 (at about $35 a pop) Dodge says
National Historic Landmark site, founded in 1836. “You could stand anywhere and he has purchased for Civil War veterans’
within 15 feet is a story.” graves at Laurel Hill.
Dodge is dressed in his typical cemetery tour guide attire: blue jeans, blue Villa- Within site of the river once used
nova University pullover, and funky red Converse sneakers. His shoulder-length hair to transport bodies by boats to the
JOHN BANKS

gives him a slight 1960s vibe. Intensely interested in American history and the Civil cemetery, Dodge stops at the grave of
War in particular, Dodge became a Laurel Hill tour guide in 2008. Union General Hector Tyndale. On

14 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018

 September 17, 1862, while com-
manding a 12th Corps brigade at
FROM TOP: GEN. MEADE SOCIETY OF PHILADELPHIA, WWW.GENERALMEADESOCIETY.ORG; FROM THE ARCHIVES OF LAUREL HILL CEMETERY
Antietam, he was wounded in the
head and hip and had three horses
shot out from under him. “For reso-
lute courage, conspicuous gallantry,
self-possession and judgment at
Antietam,” read words inscribed on
Tyndale’s tall, gray-granite marker.
In rapid-fire delivery, Dodge offers
two more nuggets about the Phil-
adelphia native: In 1859, Tyn-
dale accompanied John Brown’s
wife to Charles Town, Va., for her
husband’s hanging. He also escorted
Mary Ann Brown and the fiery abo-
litionist’s body north—Brown even-
tually was buried in North Elba, N.Y.
During a brief stop, Dodge points
out the gravestone of Colonel Ulric
Dahlgren, barely peeking above ground.
The officer was killed in 1864 during
an ill-fated, controversial cavalry raid
on Richmond, perhaps an attempt to
assassinate Jefferson Davis. Then he
The original burial card for Meade,
signed by Laurel Hill’s superintendent.
notes that Dahlgren’s body is missing
his right leg. Wounded during a July
1863 skirmish in Hagerstown, Md., the
son of Rear Admiral John Dahlgren was
taken to recover at his father’s house in
Washington, D.C. The wound festered,
and Ulric’s leg was amputated below
the knee and, oddly, buried in the wall
of the Washington Navy Yard foundry
building, then under construction. Most
of the building was torn down in 1915.
But the wall–with Ulric’s entombed
limb–remains, marked by a large
plaque to note its grim contents.
As he hustles through the
grounds, Dodge gestures to markers
and recounts details of the departed.
There’s the impressive grave of Wil-
liam Drayton, Dodge’s favorite. A
South Carolina native, Drayton had
sons on both sides of the conflict:
Percival was a captain in the Union
Navy and Thomas a Confederate
brigadier general. He also points out
the marker for photography pioneer
Robert Cornelius, who shot a daguerre-
otype self-portrait in 1839, nearly 170
years before the invention of the iPhone
turned millions into selfie masters.
In a cool touch, the cemetery affixed
an image of Cornelius to the back
of his tombstone. There’s a weather-
worn, white marker for beloved nurse
Louise E. Claghorn, a key figure in the
U.S. Christian Commission that aided
soldiers throughout the Civil War. “A
OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 15
 RAMBLING
With John Banks

large number of boys from the Meade’s friend and roommate

Northern Home,” a Civil War at West Point lived a mostly
veterans’ home, “attired in charmed life. “Through perils
deep mourning” were present of the storm and stress of bat-
at her funeral in 1898, a Phil- tle,” Pemberton’s obituary in
adelphia newspaper reported. the Philadelphia Times noted
Dodge makes his way to about the Confederate lieu-
the grave of Meade, which has tenant general, “he seemed to
an impressive, sweeping view bear immunity from harm....
of the Schuylkill River. An in the front and midst of the
unabashed admirer of Meade, fray through some of the most
he recalls his reaction the first disastrous affrays he passed
time he visited the gener- unscathed.”
al’s gravesite in March 1997: But the loss of Vicksburg
“Really, that’s it?” Unlike the “so stirred up the popular
“humungous” grave for Union
REAPER RECORDS In a cramped vault inside the cemetery feeling of the South against
General George McClellan in visitor’s center, ancient burial records sit on a shelf. [Pemberton],” the Times re-
nearby Trenton, N.J., Meade’s ported after his death on
resting place is marked by a simple white Phil Sheridan, Winfield Hancock, and July 13, 1881, “that he never had the
stone inscribed with his name, final mil- William Sherman were among the opportunity to retrieve the disaster….”
itary rank, place and date of birth and mourners. The city had “never witnessed Decades after the war, Pemberton was,
death and nine words: “He did his work such a representation of the power and the paper reported, “still the subject of
bravely and is at rest.” greatness and genius of the nation, as controversy among ex-Confederate
“He was professional and hum- that which assembled within its limits officials.” Coverage of his death in local
ble,” Dodge says of Meade, “although today, to pay the last tribute of honor newspapers was scant, and Meade’s
he apparently did not like reporters.” and respect to the memory of Major- family wanted to kill plans for Pember-
During the Overland Campaign in Gen. George Gordon Meade,” The New ton’s burial at Laurel Hill, considering
1864, the general became incensed by a York Times reported. it an affront to the Union veterans who
report in the Philadelphia Inquirer that Meade’s coffin was taken from his rest there. Perhaps it’s best then that
implied Meade wanted to retreat fol- house for a service at St. Mark’s Church, the down-on-his-luck Pemberton was
lowing the Battle of the Wilderness. and the route along the funeral proces- buried elsewhere, a zip code away from
To punish Edward Crapsey, Meade sion “took nearly an hour to pass a given Meade at Laurel Hill.
ordered the reporter placed on a mule point,” a Pittsburgh newspaper noted. Before departing the cemetery
backward with a sign around his neck In civilian dress, Grant rode in an open grounds, Dodge marvels at its vastness.
carriage while Sherman and Sheridan “Look at this place,” he says. “You could


THOUSANDS
LINED THE
appeared in full uniform. Even “Old
Baldy,” Meade’s beloved horse, was
part of the procession. Meade’s cof-
fin, draped
STREETS TO SAY riage pulled by six horses. Since 1996, Hill
with an American
a wreath, was carried on a gun car-
flag

GOODBYE the General Meade Society has held a “Absolutely,” he says without hesitation.
and
spend hours and hours here and not
see a 1/10 of it.” Clearly, this cemetery
reporter relishes the dead beat. Asked
if he would like to be buried in Laurel
when the Grim Reaper taps him
on the shoulder, Dodge leaves no doubt.

TO ‘THE HERO ceremony at its namesake’s plot every “It’s almost a given that’s where my wife
OF GETTYSBURG’ New Year’s Eve, the anniversary of the and I will be.” ✯


that read “Libeler of the press.”
On November 11, 1872, five days
after Meade died of pneumonia in his
house at 1836 Delancey Street, thou-
sands lined the streets to say goodbye to
general’s birth in Cadiz, Spain, in 1815.
Dodge has attended eight such remem-
brance services for Meade, whose grave
he often gently taps as a sign of respect
for the officer.
After the visit to Meade’s final
resting place, conversation shifts to
Pemberton. Born in Philadelphia, he
Visiting Laurel Hill Cemetery
Hours: Open weekdays (8 a.m.-4:30
p.m.) and weekends (9:30 a.m.-4 p.m.).
Closed some holidays.
Admission: Free.
Laurel Hill offers guided tours for a
fee, which supports the upkeep of the
JOHN BANKS

what one newspaper called “the hero of married a Virginia woman and moved cemetery. For more information, visit
Gettysburg.” President Ulysses Grant, south before the rebellion. In war, thelaurelhillcemetery.org.

16 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018

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BRITISH INVASION
Both Frank Vizetelly
(left) and Alfred Waud
(right) were natives
of England who
chronicled the Civil
War with on-the-spot
artwork.

During the remainder of the conflict,

EVERY SKETCH he produced a large body of first-hand

illustrative evidence relating to the
incipient slaveholding republic.

TELLS A Alfred Waud’s sketches, many of

them published as engravings in Harp-
er’s Weekly, include numerous iconic

STORY
Civil War images. His rendering of
Union soldiers carrying comrades away
from menacing fires during the Bat-
tle of the Wilderness brilliantly con-
veys the horror of combat. One soldier
crawls toward safety, another raises his
TWO TALENTED FIELD ARTISTS PRODUCED A arm in hopes of securing help, and two
TREASURE TROVE OF ACTION-PACKED SKETCHES of the four principals, with a wounded
man slung in a blanket held by two
muskets, look over their shoulders
toward the encroaching flames.
TECHNOLOGICAL LIMITS prevented Civil War-era pho- Equally effective is Waud’s spare
tographers from capturing subjects in motion, and sketch artists provided the drawing of the moment when Confed-
most dramatic images of many memorable incidents. London-born Alfred R. erate infantry overran a Union battery
Waud stood out among a talented group that included Winslow Homer, Waud’s at Gaines’ Mill, Va., on June 27, 1862.
brother William, Edwin Forbes, and many others whose works found a large Attackers emerge from dark woods
audience in the loyal states. The relative absence of major illustrated weeklies in the in the background, approaching open
Confederacy (The Southern Illustrated News paled in comparison to Harper’s Weekly ground littered with dead and dying
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2)

or Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper), among other factors, created a much less horses while artillery shells explode.
dynamic market for sketch artists in the Rebel states. Another Englishman named The Confederates appear mostly as an
Frank Vizetelly, sent in 1861 by the Illustrated London News to cover the conflict indistinct mass, yet the drawing pulses
from the Union side, decided in mid-1862 to change his base to the Confederacy. with movement and power.

18 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018

 Two memorable sketches of the Bat-
tle of Fredericksburg confirm Waud’s
artistic gifts. For the charge of Andrew
A. Humphreys’ division against Con-
federates at Marye’s Heights on the
afternoon of December 13, 1862,
Waud left figures in the main body of
the division indistinct while highlight-
ing Humphreys, mounted and waving
his hat, against a cloud of smoke ema-
nating from Rebel infantrymen firing
from behind the famous stone wall.
An engraving of the sketch appeared
in Harper’s Weekly on January 10, 1863,
and, though engraver Henry L. Ste-
phens did an admirable job, a compar-
ison of the two shows how published
versions often lost much of the drama
and immediacy of the originals. The
second sketch depicts soldiers of the
50th New York Engineers building
the upper pontoon bridge across the
Rappahannock River under fire from
William Barksdale’s Mississippians on
December 11. The men’s vulnerabil-
ity and sense of purpose seem equally
evident in Waud’s gripping treatment.
Away from the battlefield, Waud
sketched many prominent figures and
episodes of the war. On the afternoon
of April 9, 1865, he waited in the yard
of Wilmer McLean’s house at Appo-
mattox Court House. Inside, Ulysses S.
Grant and Robert E. Lee labored over
details regarding the surrender of the
Army of Northern Virginia.
Lee appeared on the front porch
between 3:30 and 4 p.m., called for
an orderly to bring him his horse, and
TOP: MS AM 1585. HOUGHTON LIBRARY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY; BOTTOM: LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
a visual image of Lee shortly after he
signed a document that essentially
ended the four-year conflict.
Although Vizetelly’s sketches don’t
match Waud’s in artistic quality and his-
torical impact, they provide an invaluable
glimpse of the war from a Confederate
perspective. Some deal with combat,
including a sketch of the Federal bom-
bardment of Fort Fisher on January
15, 1865. Amid shell bursts above and
inside the fort, Confederate gunners
work their guns. Vizetelly’s notes on the
sketch describe “An officer + two men
killed by fragments of shell” in the left
foreground and “a few dead” in the mid-
dle of the fort. “The exposed position of
the men,” he wrote of the day’s action
in Illustrated London News (March 18,
1865), “with shells...exploding in the
midst of them, is terribly apparent in
our illustration.” Vizetelly also sketched
the attack on Fort Wagner on July 18,
1863, and described the burial of Union
dead in language that aligns well with
the final scene in the film Glory: “In the
ditch they lay piled, negroes and whites,
four or five deep on each other....”
Subjects unrelated to battles also
drew Vizetelly’s interest. These include
J.E.B. Stuart and some of his staff and
subordinates in autumn 1862; the pris-
oner of war camp on Belle Isle in the
James River at Richmond; white ref-
ugees in the woods near Vicksburg in
1863, and a Federal shell exploding
in the streets of Charleston in 1863.
Vizetelly accompanied Jefferson Davis’
small party as it made its way south-
ward after the fall of Richmond in
1865. Several sketches show the group
in flight, including one of Davis “sign-
ing acts of government by the roadside.”
For a fuller appreciation of Waud
and Vizetelly, readers should con-
sult Frederic E. Ray’s Alfred R. Waud:
Civil War Artist (1974) and W. Stanley
Hoole’s Vizetelly Covers the Confederacy
(1957). Both books offer an array of
the artists’ work, though the quality of
the reproductions in Hoole’s volume is
less than ideal. ✯

mounted Traveller. Waud watched the

scene intently. Of the many things he
had witnessed, none exceeded in impor-
tance or interest this dramatic moment.
Waud rapidly captured the action as
Lee departed. Two figures dominate his
study—a grim-visaged Lee on Travel-
ler and, trailing slightly behind, Colo-
nel Charles Marshall of the general’s
staff. Waud’s eyewitness sketch would
be reproduced in numerous books, and
a more polished version appeared as an
engraving in the Century Company’s
famous “Battles and Leaders” series. ACTION SHOTS A Vizetelly sketch, at top, portays Confederate troops watching the
Because of Waud’s presence at Appo- blockade runner Hansa steaming by Fort Fisher’s protective guns. Above, Waud depicts Maj.
mattox, generations of readers formed Gen. A.A. Humphreys leading his division’s attack at Fredericksburg on December 13, 1862.
OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 19
 with Allen Guelzo
RECONSTRUCTION’S
LOST CAUSE
ALLEN GUELZO, director of
the Civil War Era Studies Program at
Gettysburg College (allenguelzo.com), is
the author of six Civil War histories and his
most recent book, Reconstruction: A Concise
History, details the problems afflicting
the reintegration of the Confederacy into
the Union. Optimism in the North was
strong at first, he says. While reading
John Greenleaf Whittier’s 1866 narrative
poem Snowbound, he realized that the
poet’s celebrated New England rural
life was a template for Reconstruction. Many Northerners believed
that creating a capitalist economy in the South was the first priority
and felt, naively, that racial and political problems arising from
emancipation would solve themselves.”
20 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018
WAS THEIR HOPE REALIZED?
An 1866 depiction of an African
American school in Charleston,
S.C. Many such programs, however,
failed to last or were cut short
when Reconstruction ended.
CWT: What was the goal of Reconstruction?
AG: There are four options: 1) Occupy large
FROM TOP: EVERETT COLLECTION/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; COURTESY OF ALLEN GUELZO
portions of the South, and wipe out whatever
was there. The problem is there is absolutely
no constitutional authority for that. 2) Terri-
torialization: Reduce the former states of the
Confederacy to the level of federal territories,
supervise the creation of their new regimes, and
then readmit them to the Union. That would
have conceded the legitimacy of secession,
which Abraham Lincoln opposed until the day
he died. 3) Seize the land of those involved in
the rebellion and redistribute it to the freed
slaves. The Constitution stands in the way of
that, and all the legislation and all the juris-
prudence after the war marches in the opposite
direction. 4) Resettle the freed slaves in the
West. The difficulty is that not every-
body who was a freed slave wanted to
be relocated to the West, and Southern
whites wanted the black labor force to
stay where it was.
CWT: Even the North was divided.
AG: The Northern Democratic Party
is dead set against any of these notions
because they are thirsting for the return
to power and that won’t happen until
their Southern Democratic brethren
are fully restored to Congress. They’re
not going to go along, and they will
fight it tooth and nail, which they do.
CWT: What are the Democrats’ tools?
AG: After secession, you have a hiatus
where Republicans find themselves the
majority. They pass all kinds of legis-
lation during the war years—national
banking, tariff legislation, and put in
place the old American system Henry
Clay had been promoting 20 years
before as leader of the Whig Party.
After the war, the Southern states can
come back into the Union, and you
have the possibility of a Democratic
majority that can repeal all that war-
time legislation. Now the war is over,
slavery has been abolished and each
black is now going to be counted as
5/5ths, not 3/5ths, of a person for the
purpose of representation in Congress,
without a single one of those South-
ern states conceding the vote to the
freed slaves. So you have the prospect
of Southern Democrats coming back
more powerful than ever on the basis
of a black population—because none
of the Southern states will permit them
to vote.
CWT: What happens then?
AG: When the roll is called in the
opening session in December 1865,
the clerks of the House and Senate
exercise Congress’ right to decide who
to seat and omit the names of those
who have been elected from Southern
states. Lyman Trumbull from Illinois
develops a civil rights bill to recognize
citizenship and voting rights for freed
slaves. You have an attempt to invert
the situation. Disenfranchise the ex-

THE WAR’S IMPACT
ON THE SOUTH IS
THREE OR FOUR
GREAT
DEPRESSIONS
PUT TOGETHER

Confederate leadership and enfranchise
the newly freed slaves. That will be the
beginning of a completely new political
world. Now does it work? That is what
becomes the story of Reconstruction.
CWT: Rebuild the South without
reinvigorating the Confederacy?
AG: Trumbull’s civil rights bill passes,
and a Freedmen’s Bureau is created
to give immediate assistance to freed
slaves. But something more permanent
is needed. That’s when the move-
ment takes place for the 14th and
15th amendments. Together the two
amendments establish the definition
of citizenship that includes the freed
slaves and secures federal voting rights
for them. Then there are four Recon-
struction Acts in 1867 that Congress
passes with new provisions for electing
state governments, the first time we
create voter registration lists. They exist
in the Reconstruction South to identify
black slaves who can vote and to bar
former Confederates.
CWT: Does it have a chance to work?
AG: At first. The optimism in the
first several years of Reconstruction is
almost palpable, not only political opti-
mism but economic optimism. Here’s
a story that has really been missed in
Reconstruction. Northerners, these
carpetbaggers as they were known by a
snarky epithet, really came as investors
to re-create capitalism in the South.
These bourgeois virtues of competition,
of meritocracy, are what the Northern-
ers want to transplant.
CWT: What happened?
AG: It doesn’t work because of the
physical destruction and the elimination
of capital. The impact of the Civil War
on the South is like three or four Great
Depressions put together. But you find
that the people who owned property in
the South at the beginning of the war
own the same amounts of property in
the 1870 census. If you can’t budge the
economic order, you’re not going to be
able to budge the political order.
CWT: But there was education reform?
AG: The new Southern regimes
formed under the Reconstruction
Acts move to create large systems of
public education, but unfortunately
that requires tax rates that those states
have never experienced before and the
tax burden falls most heavily on poor
whites. The old landowners come to
the poor whites and say, ‘See these new
regimes are taxing your life away and
all for the benefit of blacks.’ That’s
what recruits the poor whites to the
KKK and the Knights of the White
Camelia and the side of the landown-
ers. Otherwise they have everything in
common with the poor blacks.
CWT: You write that Reconstruction
was overthrown. How?
AG: The oligarchs pull the strings, but
the poor whites, who see themselves
as victims of the taxation needed for
schools and public works projects,
perform the actual work of terror.
Reconstruction doesn’t fail, it is an
attempt at a capitalist democratic order
overthrown by a oligarchy that con-
signs the South to yet another 80 years
of what amounts to feudal economics.
I don’t think abolitionist Wendell Phil-
lips was exaggerating when he said to
make Reconstruction work we needed
a 40-year military occupation. Ulysses
Grant reaches something of the same
conclusion. ✯
Interview conducted by Senior Editor
Sarah Richardson
OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 21
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 DAYDREAM
Conrad Wise Chapman, a
Confederate soldier art-
ist, painted this picket
lost in deep thought.

WHAT AILED THEM

ONE COULDN’T LEAVE HIS HOME,
ONE COULDN’T GET BACK

THE FIRST TIME I READ the absorbing diary entries of the young, ill Georgian
LeRoy Gresham (P. 54), I was amused by his numerous references to fruit, jarringly and randomly inserted
into his serious musings about the war. But his sweet nonsequiturs were another indication of his suffering, as
he anticipated the seasonal delights that brought him fleeting escape from his misery. The war also brought
him diversion and allowed him to mentally break free from his bedridden state and the confining walls of his
THE VALENTINE MUSEUM, RICHMOND

house as he fretted over commanders and strategy. To Tar Heel John Futch, on the other hand, home and the
war meant very different things (P. 24). Futch would have done anything to get back to the confining walls of
his home, but he couldn’t. He, too, was sick and weary, but the war was the cause of his illness, not a diversion
from it. These two Southerners from very different backgrounds did have one sad thing in common—their
untimely deaths. But the boy with the withered body and the soldier with the disquiet mind would have both
agreed, I think, that life is short, so enjoy every peach. –D.B.S.

OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 23

 KILLED BY COMRADES
This image portrays the
unfortunate end for a Union
deserter, but the same
firing squad fate awaited
John Futch, a poor 3rd
North Carolina soldier who
deserted, sick of war and
desperate for home.

24 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018

 Hunted Down
AFTER Gettysburg
I I
An illiterate North Carolina soldier
paid the ultimate price for
deserting the Confederate state

B Y P E T E R S. C A R MI C H A E L

ARMSTEAD AND WHITE/LIBRARY OF CONGRESS/CORBIS/VCG VIA GETTY IMAGES OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 25

On August 20, 1863, in the
middle of the night, Private John Futch
and 12 other veteran soldiers from
the 3rd North Carolina Infantry slung
on their ammunition-packed cartridge
boxes and escaped into the woods, hop-
ing they would eventually reach their
North Carolina homes. In five days,
Futch and his comrades, all from four

counties in the eastern part of North
Carolina, covered a little more than 30
miles. As the band neared the banks of
the James River, a squad from the 46th
North Carolina suddenly sprang out of
the woods with their rifles leveled, and
their commander, Richardson Mallet,
screaming at the fugitives to surrender. ¶
It appears that one of the deserters fired
a bullet into Mallet’s chest, setting off
a heated gun battle of some 30 shots.
During the chaos at least one deserter
was killed, another was wounded, and
one man likely escaped. The remaining
10 soldiers surrendered while Mallet
lay on the ground with a fatal wound. ¶
The deserters were soon incarcerated in
Richmond’s notorious Castle Thunder,
and the severity of the crime ensured
that no possible deviation from mili-
tary law would prevent the army from
carrying out the death penalty. When
the court was eventually called to order,
guilt was presumed. ¶ The Confedera-

cy’s court-martial records were either
destroyed or lost during the 1865 evac-
uation of Richmond, Va., but military
service records prove that the deserters
from the 3rd were not repeat offend-
ers when it came to unauthorized leave.
Four were previously wounded in battle
and one was noted for bravery in several
engagements. Two had been captured
and exchanged, and three were con-
scripts. Only one soldier had a record of
previously being absent without leave.
They were all seasoned veterans who
understood the penalties for desertion,
and who needed to plan, deliberate, and
organize their escape prior to August 20.
J
ohn Futch was functionally illiterate, but in letters dictated
to other comrades, many of whom were barely literate
themselves, Futch gave subtle indications to his wife, Mar-
tha, that he was returning to North Carolina with or with-
out a furlough. On August 16, he told his wife, “I want to
come home the worst I Ever Did in my Life.” Futch could
not say much more to Martha, because “it is Said our
Letters is Broke open and red.” Four days later, on August 20,
Futch nearly stated his true intentions, hinting that his days
in the army were numbered. As he dictated this final letter, he
must have known that he would be vanishing from the army
that night. “I expect to bea home before long,” he promised.
A New Hanover County resident, Futch had enlisted in
the 3rd North Carolina in early 1862. His brother Charley
and a cousin had been serving in that regiment since summer
1861. Within a few weeks of joing the army, Futch fell ill
with an undisclosed ailment that kept him in military hospi-
tals until early 1863, when a physician cleared him to return
to the ranks. Futch boarded a train that took him past the
Goldsboro hospital, where Martha had often been at his bed-
side, nursing him back to health. The scene was emotionally
wrenching for the North Carolinian, “Oh I thought of old
times when [I] passed Goldsboro...,” he dictated, “[and] when
I looked at that old hospital I all most Cryed.”
When Futch rejoined his regiment, snow, howling winds,
and meager rations enervated his already weakened body, and
he spent most of his time secluded in his tent, dictating let-
ters about his poor health and the army’s indifference to his
worsening condition. He continued to lobby his captain for a
discharge. “My health is so bad and it is so cold here that I am
perfectly miserable,” he explained shortly after his arrival, “and
I am doing my Country no good and myself a great harm.”
Futch’s wife urged her husband to leverage his feeble health
to secure a military discharge. “Dear husband,” Martha wrote
on March 29, 1863, “i learn that you have not goin before
the [Medical] bord and i want you to go….[I]f you wanted
to come home as bad as i do want you to come you would go
before it every day and i want you to do it and tri to git home.”
Futch followed her pointed advice, pressuring his officers to
give him an interview with the board of surgeons.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Castle Thunder was a Richmond tobacco
warehouse converted to a prison. Deserters, spies,
and political prisoners were some of its inmates.
 In spring 1863, when it became INTO THE MAELSTROM By the end of May, Futch had
apparent that a medical discharge Private John Futch’s 3rd North Carolina was in the dictated five letters of varying
was out of reach, Futch faced the middle of the second line of Lt. Gen. “Stonewall” lengths to his wife. His language—as
reality of service until the war’s con- Jackson’s flank attack at Chancellorsville on recorded by his comrades—lacks the
clusion. He did not want to be any- popular figurative expressions such
May 2, 1863. Futch found no glory in the victory.
where except by the side of his wife, as “sublime bravery,” “fearlessness,”
whose letters to him were by turns or “everyone faced to the front” used
distressing and affectionate. She did not spare John bad news, by so many Civil War soldiers to convey an exaggerated pic-
telling him of thieving bandits, of the difficulties in receiv- ture of unity. Rather, Futch admitted to his wife that many in
ing financial assistance from the county, of husbands abusing his regiment ran away from the firing line, including one ter-
their wives, and of Union raids. ribly frightened man who defecated in his pants while under
Futch’s wife planned to visit the army that spring with enemy fire. Futch, in dictating his letters, spoke candidly with
provisions and clothes for her needy husband. On April 14 his comrade about the physical and emotional breakdowns of
she wrote, “i never in dured so much trubles in my life be fore their fellow soldiers. The openness between the two veterans
it semes lik it will kill me if i dont see you one more time dear suggests that not all Civil War soldiers retreated into them-
husban i want to no how you air feren and if you have worm selves after a battle, seemingly lost in traumatic thoughts and
close and slep worm.” unable to admit feeling, terrorized by fear.
The reunion did not take place, however, due to the open-
NORTH WIND PICTURE ARCHIVES/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

F
ing of the Chancellorsville Campaign. John worried that he
would be killed, leaving his wife to face the world alone with
their infant child. It was the first time that Futch had fought,
and he later told his wife that as the bullets started flying, he
felt certain that “I had seen you for the last time.”
Futch sought refuge in a hospital to calm his fatigued
mind. A few days later, with his spirits restored, he dictated,
“I never saw the like of the dead never in my life.” In his soul
Futch knew that “God brought me though saft.”
utch hoped that the summer campaign would bring the
war to a conclusion, but any optimism he felt was washed
away when he forded the Potomac River. “I Crosed over
the river yesterday,” he reported on June 19. “I didant
Want to Com by any means Nor I Dont like this state.”
As he moved into the heart of Pennsylvania, Futch
became more discouraged. Worn down with worry and
unable to rid himself of the haunting memories of Chancel-
lorsville, Futch sensed that the next battle would be his last.

OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 27

“You must take the best Cear of your self you Can mah [Mar-
tha],” he wrote, as he was losing hope that “I will get home
some time before I Dy.
John and Charley had been able to turn to each other for
counsel and comfort, but on July 2, the brothers advanced up
Culp’s Hill and a Yankee bullet sliced into the top of Charley’s
head. Futch carried his fatally wounded brother to the banks
of Rock Creek, and stayed by Charley’s side. At 2 a.m. July 3,
Charley died, but for John, the ordeal continued.
“Charley never spoke after he get wonded and he wanted
to go home Mity bad before he died,” John recounted to a
comrade. “He was kild at gettiesburg PV pore felar he got kild
a long wase from home I was very sary that I codent get a
cofen to bearey him but I breared him the best I cod it was
something that I never expected to haft to do but we dont
know what we will do til he gets in the ware it.”
For John, there was no consolation in giving a brother to
the Confederate cause, no sense that a higher purpose had
been served. Charley’s departure from this world of trials and
tribulations was the only solace for Futch. “I beleav he is hapy,”
he told his family, “and no doubt far better off than any of us.”
After Robert E. Lee’s army retreated to Virginia, con-
stant marching continued to the beginning of August. Many
of Lee’s veterans described themselves as broken down from
heat exhaustion, hunger, and mental fatigue in what historian
28 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018
Joseph Glatthaar describes as a logistical and discipline crisis
that endangered the very existence of the Army of Northern
Virginia. Futch’s shoes were in tatters, forcing him to march in
bare feet that eventually callused over with painful sores. “Yet i
hast to go bearfooted the botom of My foot is as thick...[with]
sores that i ever had.”
The procession of mournful letters Futch dictated during
the Gettysburg retreat reveal a man convulsed in utter despair.
Futch made no attempt to hide his desolation from the com-
rades who wrote down his words. “Since the Death of Char-
ley I am so lonesome I do not know what to do,” he dictated.
Throughout his correspondence, Futch’s dictations do not fit
into the code of Southern honor that pushed men to project a
mastery of emotional control. White Southern men were not
supposed to acknowledge their frailty and look helpless. No
self-respecting man could earn community acceptance with-
out projecting mental and emotional toughness.
NIDAY PICTURE LIBRARY/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
Futch, however, told those in the ranks and at home that he
was drowning in the depths of depression. “I don’t want noth-
ing to eat hardly for I am all most sick all the time and half
crazy,” he confessed to a comrade on July 19. “I never wanted
to come home so bad in my life.” Futch’s exceptional letters
suggest that military life did not necessarily wrap the soldiers
in an emotional cocoon. In fact, they could and did open up
about the dangers of battle, a longing for home, their love of

their wives and children, and their desire for the killing to stop.
In five letters to his family dictated from July 19 to August 6,
Futch repeatedly talked about his brother’s agonizing death. He
needed to escape for his own sanity and for his family’s survival,
in contrast to scores of other Confederates who, as historian
Aaron Sheehan-Dean has argued, “increasingly explained their
participation in the war in terms of protection of their loved
ones. The result was a new masculinity, one that required both
affection and hostility, the former directed toward one’s family
and the latter directed toward its enemies.” By the end of the
Gettysburg Campaign, Futch reached the conclusion that the
army did not offer the best protection for his home. This was not
an issue of weak morale or a question of nationalism for Futch,
but of interests that were at odds with Confederate authority.
He finally reached the momentous decision to desert, which
can only be interpreted as a powerful assertion of political
motivation and a decision born of desperation. The previous
February he had seen a comrade get his head shaved and then
drummed out of camp for cowardice. “I dont want this to Be
my case,” he insisted at the time. But by the end of July, Futch
could stand it no longer, and he told a comrade to let his family
know that he was bound for North Carolina even if the army
said no: “I am going to come before long if I have to Runaway
to do it….Let me know how the times is in old Hanover for I
want to be there so Bad I can taste it.”
A CRIPPLING FAMILY LOSS
John Futch and his brother Charley attacked together at
Gettysburg on the night of July 2, 1863, while fighting on Culp’s
Hill. The 3rd North Carolina had only 548 men in the ranks, and
40 percent of the regiment became casualties, including Charley.
A
lmost a month would pass before Futch fulfilled
his promise to desert. A focused examination of
the Army of Northern Virginia during that time is
instructive, for it offers insight into the ways the press,
the government, and the Confederate Army collabo-
rated to discipline the rank and file. To scare, cajole,
inspire, and force Lee’s men to do their duty, a rhetor-
ical campaign appealed to Confederate veterans as Christian
soldiers who stood as the last line of defense between their
families and maniacal Yankee hordes and vengeful African
Americans. Jefferson Davis’ proclamation to all Confederate
troops on August 1 lays out the interlocking ideas about race,
manliness, and soldierly duties employed to direct the politi-
cal behavior of Southern enlisted men. “Fellow-citizens,” the
president announced, “no alternative is left you but victory
or subjugation, slavery, and the utter ruin of yourselves, your
families, and your country.” Davis insisted that Union armies
were intent on elevating blacks over white men.
Lee praised the executive declaration as an “earnest and
beautiful appeal.” Lee’s response rested on cultural and class
assumptions that prevented him from fully appreciating how
inequities in power and resources were contributing to his
army’s near-implosion. Morality, character, and courage,
the general stressed, were the critical issues when reforming
deserters. “Our people have only to be true and united, to
bear manfully the misfortunes incident to war, and all will
come right in the end,” Lee concluded in a letter to Davis.
Less than two weeks before the president’s proclamation, Lee
issued the following plea to the troops: “To remain at home in
the hour of our country’s need, is unworthy of the manhood
of a Southern soldier.”
The Confederate press essentially allied itself with Davis
and Lee in turning desertion into a problem of individual
character and manliness and, in effect, burying any questions
of how political and military decisions were responsible for
discouraged Confederates. Southern papers frequently ran
stories that were purportedly from soldiers. After Gettysburg
numerous Southern papers published the popular article, “A
Deserter’s Confession.” A Georgia deserter named “James”
supposedly narrates the piece. On arriving home, James con-
fesses that he had run away. “Oh! James!...” his wife exclaims,
“What will the neighbors say? What will General Lee think?”
James did not have an answer until he read Jefferson Davis’
August proclamation. He was so touched by the president’s
exhortations of a potential race war that he “sat down and
cried like a child.” After this cathartic experience, James left
for Virginia, promising never to desert again.
The political purpose of “A Deserter’s Confession” is
ridiculously transparent, but we know little about how less-
privileged Confederate soldiers critically read and responded
to the dominant message from the press, the pulpit, and the
OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 29
government. We cannot assume that soldiers accepted elit-
ist messages uncritically, nor should we assert that the men
rejected the words of elites as outright propaganda. We do
have evidence of a skepticism on the front lines that would
sometimes descend into cynicism. Soldiers knew that their
officers and politicians, in collaboration with the press, were
intent on controlling their behavior and shaping their beliefs.
In the chaotic two months that followed Gettysburg,
the press called for punitive measures against deserters; Lee
backed military executions; and Davis warned of an aboli-
tionist enemy. All of those actions helped form the backdrop
behind the trial of Futch and the nine other captured desert-
ers who were convicted of murder and desertion. In a horrible
miscarriage of justice, there would be no chance for an appeal,
no chance to ask for clemency, and no opportunity to alert
loved ones of their fates.
Major General Edward Johnson’s divisional headquarters
informed Futch’s brigade commander, Brig. Gen. George
H. Steuart, on September 4, 1863, that the deserters would
be shot at 4 p.m. the following day. “The proceedings of the
Court & Gen Order No. 62 from these Hd. Qrs. will not
be read to the prisoners until day light to-morrow morning,”
the orders stated. “You will take all possible means to secure
them, handcuffing or tying them & keep the matter secret
until the proceedings are read to the prisoners.”
No letters from Futch from this time survive, nor do the
court-martial transcripts. Although we lose touch with Futch,
we do have access to the Confederate elites who possessed the
power to use violence against their own citizens and could
shape the public understanding of the killing.
T
he 10 condemned Confederates were manacled and
escorted by an armed guard through Richmond to
board the 6:30 a.m. train for Gordonsville, probably not
knowing they were returning to the Army of North-
ern Virginia so that their comrades could carry out
the court-martial’s death sentence. As dusk settled, the
party reached the provost guard tent of Johnson’s Divi-
sion. The heavy guard remained, and anyone trying to com-
municate with the prisoners was pushed away. Early the next
morning, 3rd North Carolina Chaplain George Patterson, an
Episcopal priest, conferred with Futch and his comrades.
Patterson spoke to them about the need to prepare for
30 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018
the afterlife, and the newspaper accounts agree that Futch
and his comrades found Jesus for this first time. Whether
this spiritual awakening actually took place is hard to say,
though it is clear from his correspondence that Futch had
long ago accepted Christ as his savior. In fact, he even drew
a pair of hands, forefingers pointing up to the heavens, at the
end of one of his letters. It also seems unlikely that the mili-
tary would have given correspondents access to the prisoners.
But the truthfulness of the story is secondary to the intent
of the authors, who portrayed the North Carolinians as men
who were capable of committing a crime because they did not
believe they answered to God. In a sense, the press was actu-
ally suggesting that the Confederate army, in taking the lives
of these men, was actually saving their souls.
The veterans of Johnson’s Division were ordered to the
drill ground on September 5 with the explicit instruction to
leave their muskets in camp. Once the men were in place,
General Johnson and his staff rode into the center of the
square carrying a small national flag. The Confederate flag
visually reinforced the primacy of the national government
and the dire consequences of dishonoring that banner. Twenty
minutes passed until the afternoon stillness was broken by
the methodically slow beat of the death march. Suddenly the
ranks parted and the doomed soldiers appeared, marching in
step to the grim cadence. They were halted at the spot where
they would lose their lives. The executioners appeared next,
120 men with fixed bayonets.
When the column halted in front of the stakes, the pris-
oners were forced to stand and face their executioners while
the officer of the day read the sentence. The Rev. Patterson
stepped forward next to deliver what one observer described
as a prayer of “great feeling.” Patterson’s prominent place in
the procession sanctified the killings as a divinely ordained
moment of justice, not just a raw exercise of man’s power.
After Patterson finished his prayer, two guards escorted each
prisoner to a stake and made them kneel as their arms were
tied behind them to a plank attached to the top of the stake.
The guards bandaged the eyes of the condemned and made
sure that their hats rested over the bandages. A hushed silence
momentarily prevailed until the cries of the condemned
pierced the air: “‘Lord have mercy!’ ‘Oh, my poor mother!’ and
‘Oh save me, save me!’” yelled the soldiers in disarrayed tones.
Whether Futch was one of those men pleading for his life, we
will never know.
While the condemned begged for mercy,
the executioners quickly formed squads of 10
men. Five carried loaded muskets; the other
five had blanks in their rifles. They stood
just 14 feet away from Futch and his com-
rades. As soon as the officer of the day yelled
“ready, aim, fire,” a ragged volley ripped into
MOURNFUL PARTING John carried his
wounded brother, Charley, to the banks of
Rock Creek at the base of Culp’s Hill. The head
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
wound proved fatal, and John buried him in
a rude grave, a trauma that accelerated his
disenchantment with the Army.
 BROKEN DREAM
Artist Henry Mosler’s 1868
painting, The Lost Cause,
depicts a poor white Southern
soldier of John Futch’s social
class returning to his ruined
cabin. Had Futch managed to
make it home, his prospects
might have been as bleak.

men who just two months earlier had faced enemy shells on
the slopes of Culp’s Hill. When the smoke cleared, it was dis-
covered that a few of the North Carolinians were gasping for
air, their bodies still shaking with life. Twenty members of the
reserve squad were quickly ordered forward, and they fired
repeatedly into the wounded survivors. To impress upon the
witnesses the finality of the punishment and the future risks
HENRY MOSLER, ATTRIBUTED, THE LOST CAUSE, 1869. OIL ON CANVAS. MORRIS MUSEUM OF ART, AUGUSTA, GEORGIA
and after they were shot we then were marched by them,” he
recounted. “This was done to have a good affect on the men
but I doubt its doing much good for our soldiers are hardened
to such scenes. And they all say that they ought to have been
imprisoned and there work for the government—I think this
would have been better myself.” Yet even soldiers critical of the
execution could not ignore the warning of this death ritual:

of deserting, Johnson’s entire division, regiment by regiment, The military establishment would not be a benevolent mas-
marched in silence past the lifeless bodies. The march was ter toward runaways. And when John Futch disappeared from
deliberately completed in slow time, some 70 steps a minute, camp on August 20, it was near-collapse of Lee’s army that
so that the soldiers were subjected to the military’s absolute enabled him to act upon his own conception of what an hon-
control over the bodies of the living as well as the dead. orable Christian soldier should do, when suffering and loss—
Most soldiers were not overcome by a renewed sense of both at home and in the ranks—became so unbearable that
patriotism when they saw comrades shoot their own. The the act of desertion appeared to be the only road to survival.
ghastly sight sickened patriotic soldiers, but they were also
quick to justify military executions as an unfortunate neces-
sity in preserving order in camp and discipline in battle. Less
ardent soldiers had a more difficult time reconciling themselves
to the death penalty. “It was a terrible sight, and God grant
that I may not be called to see anything of this kind again,”
wrote North Carolinian Thomas Armstrong a day after the
execution. “Most of them were good soldiers and brave men,”
Armstrong added. “This being their first act of disobedience.”
Another North Carolinian thought the execution was a
senseless act that would ultimately turn more men against

Peter S. Carmichael is the Fluhrer Professor of History and
the director of the Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College.
This article is adapted from his new 2018 book, The War for
the Common Soldier: How Men Thought, Fought and
Survived in Civil War Armies, which will be published by the
University of North Carolina Press. Used by the permission of
the Confederacy. “We formed a square so that all could see the publisher, www.uncpress.org.

OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 31

 AS WAR CLOUDS GATHERED OVER
AMERICA, Israel Washburn, Maine’s newly
elected governor, downplayed the danger to the
republic in his inaugural address on January 3,
1861. “We are told that the slave States, or a

DOWN
portion of them, will withdraw from the Union,”
he said. “No, they will not. They cannot go, and
in the end will not want to go…they will not
pass the brink of the precipice....”
Washburn, of course, was overly optimis-
tic, and Maine, like the rest of the Union, was

EAST
unready for the unfortunate conflict. “The bom-
bardment of Fort Sumter at Charleston…found
Maine as little prepared to furnish troops for
maintaining the integrity of the Union as it is
possible to conceive,” reported John Hodsdon,
the state’s adjutant general.
Governor Washburn called together a spe-
cial session of the legislature on April 22 and

 TO the lawmakers authorized raising $1 million and

enlisting 10,000 men to fill 10 regiments. Four
of them would be ready to fight at Bull Run, Va.,
the first major battle of the war. The 2nd Maine,

DOWN
commanded by Colonel Charles Jameson,
became the first regiment to leave the state. West

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: COLLECTIONS OF MAINE HISTORICAL SOCIETY; MAINE STATE ARCHIVES, CIVIL WAR CARTE DE VISITES COLLECTION (4); COLLECTIONS OF BELFAST HISTORICAL SOCIETY;
Point graduate Oliver Otis Howard took com-

MAINE STATE ARCHIVES, CIVIL WAR CARTE DE VISITES COLLECTION (2); COLLECTIONS OF MAINE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY; RECRUITMENT AD: COLLECTIONS OF BELFAST HISTORICAL SOCIETY
mand of the 3rd Maine. The commander of the
5th Maine was Mark H. Dunnell of Portland, a
lawyer and a one-time legislator. When the war

SOUTH
H
began, Dunnell was the U.S. consul in Veracruz,
Mexico. His patriotism aroused, he received per-
mission to return home, where he helped raise
the regiment and was elected colonel.
The 4th Maine was commanded by Hiram
Berry, from the harbor town of Rockland. At
a public meeting to raise men for the 4th on
April 23, someone tossed a $20 gold coin on the
floor and said it would go to the first man who
volunteered. Stephen H. Chapman, a strapping
FOUR GREEN 6-foot-plus tall, picked up the coin. He later
became Berry’s sergeant major.
MAINE When the 4th Maine left Rockland on Fri-
day, June 17, 1861, enthusiastic throngs of citi-
REGIMENTS zens cheered the soldiers as they marched down
to the town wharf in their new gray uniforms.
FOUGHT AT Crowds greeted them in Boston and when
they reached New York. The troops marched
THE FIRST up Broadway and the Sons and Daughters of
Maine, natives of the state residing in New York,
BATTLE OF provided a reception and presented flags.

BULL RUN MAINE’S CONTRIBUTION An 1861 recruiting

poster for the 4th Maine overlays cartes de visite
 BY TOM HUNTINGTON
 of soldiers who volunteered in that regiment and
the 3rd and 5th Maine. All of those regiments
fought at the First Battle of Bull Run.

32 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018

 Then it was on to Philadelphia. “The pretty
waiting maids were very attentive to the wants
of the boys from Maine, who were ready to
affirm that the girls of Philadelphia could not be
excelled except by those of the Pine Tree State,”
wrote Berry’s biographer.
Baltimore, a hotbed of secessionism, offered a
cooler reception. Berry distributed ammunition
to his men just in case. The 4th Maine made it
peacefully through the city, but Berry noted that
“dark and sullen” men lined the streets.
Oliver Otis Howard and the 3rd Maine had
a reasonably uneventful trip from Augusta to
Washington, D.C. The soldiers disembarked
from a steamer in New York City in a pour-
ing rain. Members of the Sons and Daughters
of Maine waited at the dock to escort them up
Broadway to the armory on White Street, and
presented the regiment with a flag. Howard

colonel
howard
reasoned that his
regiment must be
DRILLED
and made ready
FOR WAR
34 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018
GOING IN GREEN A newspaper engraving depicts an orderly Union battle line at
First Bull Run. In reality, however, the fight was characterized by confusion and
friendly fire as inexperienced units on both sides experienced the shock of war.
received his first war wound during the ceremony. The surging crowd jos-
tled him off the gun carriage he had been using as a speaking platform and
his heavy saber crushed his big toenail when he hit the ground.
George Rollins enlisted in Company G as a private when he was only
17, and he was having a grand adventure so far. “I had the best time in
Boston,” he wrote to his father. “I never saw so many people before. From
the depot to the Common the streets were so crowded that the policemen
could hardly make way for us….[I]t was a vast sea of faces.” In New York,
though, Rollins experienced the differences between the officers and the
enlisted men. The officers were taken to dinner at the Astor House, while
the enlisted men were left to fend for themselves. “We made ourselves as
merry as possible but there were some sour looks,” Rollins said.
Like other regimental commanders who had come before him, How-
ard had his men load their weapons when they reached Baltimore. He was
surprised to find that the people there seemed cheerful as they watched his
men march by, although he did notice there were no U.S. flags flying from
any of the public buildings.
In Washington, Howard picked up the tab (50 cents apiece) for break-
fast for his men at the Willard Hotel, and reported to General Joseph
Mansfield, who commanded the Department of Washington. That night,
Howard remembered, in their camp on Meridian Hill, one soldier badly
injured himself when his own musket discharged.
Corporal Abner Small, however, claimed that Howard had forgotten to
have the regiment unload its weapons after leaving Baltimore, and one sol-
UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES
dier accidentally shot the man in front of him. When Howard then had his
men discharge their weapons into the air, a number of their bullets riddled
tents of the nearby 2nd Maine, fortunately without injury. No matter how
the incident evolved, it was a sign that the soldiers were green.
Howard also had to get his independent-minded soldiers to submit
to military discipline. “One moment we were free men to go and come as
we pleased, and the next saw us amenable to all the arbitrary and despotic
rules of the war department,” remembered one soldier. After learning that

THREE COMMANDERS Colonel Oliver Otis Howard, top left, went on to
command the Union 11th Corps. Colonel Hiram Berry, top right, became a major
general and was killed at Chancellorsville. Regular Army Brig. Gen. Samuel P.
Heintzelman, seen above with his staff after his spring 1862 promotion to major
general, commanded Colonel Howard’s division. On July 6, 1861, Heintzelman called
out, “Colonel, you have a fine regiment, they march well and give promise for the
future, but you are not well drilled—poor officers, but good-looking men!”
some of his free-spirited men violated their furloughs, Howard stopped
issuing passes. “The regiment must be drilled, disciplined, and made ready
for war,” he reasoned.
The Rebels weren’t the only enemy these new soldiers had to combat.
Disease was an ever-present danger. Fortunately for the 3rd Maine, one of
the people traveling with the regiment was Sarah Sampson of Bath, the
wife of Charles A.L. Sampson, the captain of Company D. Mrs. Sampson
had decided to “devote herself to the welfare of the sick without any assur-
ance of recompense.” At the end of June, Howard fell seriously ill with
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (3)
cholera and for a time lay at death’s door, with Sarah Sampson caring for
him. Once he recovered, Howard learned that he would be commanding
a brigade made up of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Maine and the 2nd Vermont.
Major Henry Staples of Augusta took command of the regiment.

before the war
mcdowell
never commanded
more than eight
soldiers.
now he had to
handle an army of
35,ooo
oward’s brigade belonged to the divi-
H sion commanded by plain-spoken
Colonel Samuel P. Heintzelman.
Howard’s soldiers were green, but certainly not
the only ones unready for war, as Brig. Gen.
Irvin McDowell knew only too well. McDowell
was the general who would lead the new Union
army—christened the Army of Northeastern
Virginia—in the first major battle of the war.
Before the war he had never commanded
more than eight soldiers in the field; now he
had to handle an army of 35,000. In addition,
McDowell lacked the necessary equipment and
transportation to get his army into the field in a
condition necessary for combat. It didn’t mat-
ter. There was a growing popular clamor for the
Federal army to put an end to the crisis. On July
16, after some delays, the reluctant McDowell
began moving forward. That day George Rol-
lins wrote, “I am about to go off on a march,
and have a few moments time to write,” he said.
“Our Div. (the second) is getting together and
are going on to Richmond, that is eventually—
but have got to clear the way first.”
McDowell’s target was a force calling itself
the Army of the Potomac, under the command
of General Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard.
Its 22,000 men held positions near the impor-
tant rail junction of Manassas, about 22 miles
from Washington and behind a wandering
creek called Bull Run. McDowell’s army set out
on a slow progress toward battle in four sepa-
rate columns. Brigadier General Daniel Tyler’s
division, which included the 2nd Maine, was to
the north, where it would pass through Vienna;
Colonel David Hunter was south of Tyler, aim-
ing straight toward Fairfax Court House; Colo-
nel Dixon Miles’ division turned farther south to
follow the Braddock Road toward Centreville.
Heintzelman, the farthest south, followed a road
OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 35
that roughly paralleled the Orange & Alexandria Railroad.
One of Howard’s men was mortally wounded when he grasped his
loaded musket by the muzzle so he could knock an apple from a tree. The
pious Howard also fretted because he thought his men swore too much. “I
wish we had men who had more respect for the Lord,” he wrote to his wife
on July 18. “We might then expect his blessing.” He had other problems
with his men, too. Unaccustomed to long marches in the hot sun with all
their heavy equipment, they began to fall out of the ranks and straggle.
Some left their formations to pillage the homes they passed.
In addition, the Union forces had to clear obstructions that the retreat-
ing Rebels had left in the roads, further slowing things, while the untried
commanders feared ambushes and moved “as timidly as old maids eating
shad in the dark,” as Abner Small put it. The result was a slow, disorganized
approach toward Manassas that gave Beauregard plenty of time to prepare.
In the meantime, General Robert Patterson was supposed to prevent
the Confederates in the Shenandoah Valley under Joseph Johnston from
reinforcing Beauregard. But Johnston managed to slip away from Pat-
terson, and his men began arriving in Manassas by railroad on July 20.
McDowell’s plans were already starting to unravel.
Hiram Berry, commanding the 4th Maine in Howard’s division,
scratched out a letter home on July 18. “We are now only eight miles from
Manassas Gap, and bound thither, enemy in front all the way, trees across
the roads, bridges all burned, etc. Hard labor to clear the way.”

t was still dark the morning of July 21 when the Union forces broke

I camp for their offensive. The divisions began to get into each other’s
way almost immediately, creating gridlock on the roads. Howard’s
brigade, in the rear of Heintzelman’s division, did not lurch into motion
until long past daybreak. Before long, men were falling out of ranks to sit
down by the side of the road and rest. Later that morning, Heintzelman
selected Howard’s men to serve as a reserve force. Waiting behind the lines
for their first taste of combat, they could hear the sounds of battle growing
in volume. “I cannot forget how I was affected by the sounds of the mus-
ketry and the roar of the cannon as I stood near my horse ready to mount
at the first call from McDowell; for a few moments weakness seemed to
overcome me and I felt a sense of shame on account of it,” Howard recalled.
“Then I lifted my soul and my heart and cried: ‘O God! enable me to do
my duty.’ From that time the singular feeling left me and never returned.”
An aide from McDowell arrived with orders for Howard to advance,
and he moved out at the double-quick. “The blankets began to fall, and
everything impeding the progress of the men was cast aside as worthless,”
remembered George Rollins. More and more soldiers collapsed. “Men
seemed to fall in squads by the roadside, some sun-struck, some bleeding
at nose, mouth, ears; others wind-broken, while others were exhausted to
such a degree, that the threatening muzzle of the officers’ pistol, failed to
induce them a step further,” wrote a soldier in the 5th Maine.
“We kept hearing that our men were gaining the day and we would be

untried
there just in time to give the Rebels a farewell shot but...as we came upon
the field we met our men in retreat,” wrote Rollins. “All this didn’t stop us,
commanders
but on we went. Shells began to burst about us and cannonballs served to feared ambushes and
UNIVERSAL HISTORY ARCHIVE/UIG VIA GETTY IMAGES

make us dodge a little but not to stop our progress for we hadn’t had a shot
at the enemy yet.” moved as ‘timidly as
At the far right of the Union lines, on a rise called Chinn Ridge, How-
ard formed his brigade into two lines, the Vermont regiment and the 4th OLD MAIDS
Maine in front, the 3rd and 5th Maine following. Howard, on horseback,
watched his men as they went into battle. “Most were pale and thoughtful,” eating shad
he recalled. “Many looked up into my face and smiled.”
It was around 2 o’clock on the sweltering July afternoon when Berry IN THE DARK’
received Howard’s order to move the 4th Maine forward. The men who

36 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018

 DESPERATE FOR SAFETY
A 5th Maine survivor remembered the panicked Union
scramble to Washington at the end of the First Battle of Bull
Run. “All discipline was at an end. Our regiment, like every
other, was entirely broken up....Cavalry and artillery came
tearing down the road, infantry, here, there, and everywhere.”

remained after the punishing march formed a line of battle and were
immediately raked by enemy fire. The first man to fall was Sgt. Maj. Ste-
ven H. Chapman, who had picked up the gold coin at the meeting in
Rockland. “Tell my wife I am shot—God bless her,” he murmured. Then
he died, leaving five children fatherless.
Berry felt surprisingly calm during his first experience of combat. He
did not believe he would be hit, and didn’t worry about it. Even as men fell
to his left and right, he remained focused on his command responsibilities.
When Chapman dropped, Berry took up the flag and held it. Bullets tore
his clothing, and at some point one hit his horse.
Howard brought up his second line, the 3rd and 5th Maine. “The next
thing we knew, we were in the field on the hill and facing the enemy,”
wrote Small of the 3rd. “I can only recall that we stood there and blazed
away. There was a wild uproar of shouting and firing. The faces near me
were inhuman.” Small saw a piece of solid shot kill one of his close friends,
David Bates. “It was a hot place,” Howard wrote. “Every hostile battery shot
produced confusion, and as a rule our enemy could not be seen.” Remain-
ing on Chinn Ridge was obviously futile, and
Howard ordered a retreat.
“We made a stand and fought the best we
could with that battery raking us on the right
and musketry playing upon us in front,” George
Rollins told his parents. “Our men fought well
and stood fire like heroes but it was of no use.
All the other troops had left, and the Rebels
were coming upon us in overpowering numbers
so the order to retreat was given and we turned
our back to the enemy. I don’t wish to say any-
thing of what I saw on the field. God grant that
I may never see the same again. Our retreat was
all confusion and turmoil.”
The retreat turned into something just short
of a rout. “Confusion, disorder seized us at
once,” wrote the 5th Maine’s George Bicknell.

OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 37


TWO BRAVE
BROTHERS
The 5th Maine suffered its initial casualty at the First Battle of Bull
Run when a cannonball struck Sergeant Alonzo Stinson, a baby-
faced sergeant in Company H. His brother Harry, a private in the
same company, remained with the dying Alonzo and was later taken
prisoner. Alonzo’s body was never recovered, and the location of his
remains is unknown. On July 4, 1908, Alonzo’s hometown of Portland
dedicated a monument in Eastern Cemetery to commemorate him as
the first soldier from the city killed during the Civil War. The image
above is from the monument’s dedication ceremony, which was
attended by Maine’s arguably most famous Civil War veteran, Joshua
Chamberlain. The monument is in the shape of a hardpack knapsack
with a blanket rolled on top, and is decorated with a bronze bas-relief
sculpture of Stinson and a bronze
tablet explaining his service and sac-
rifice. The memorial was cleaned and
rededicated on June 2, 2001, Alonzo’s
TOO YOUNG 5th Maine
159th birthday.
Harry Stinson was exchanged after
Bull Run, and served as Oliver O.
Howard’s aide de camp. On May 27,
1864, at the Battle of Pickett’s Mill,
Ga., Captain Stinson stepped into the
open to observe Confederate move-
ments and was shot through the body.
He returned to active duty in a few
months, but died from the wound’s
effects in 1866. Howard referred to
Sergeant Alonzo Stinson was Stinson as “good, true, and faithful
only 19 when he was killed and brave,” in an 1863 letter, and in
on July 21, 1861, and became 1869 he named his firstborn son Harry
one of the Union’s 2,896 Stinson Howard to honor his former
First Bull Run casualties. aide and friend.
38 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018

berry
did not believe
he would be hit.
he remained
FOCUSED
on his command
RESPONSIBILITIES
“How we traveled! Nobody tired now. Every one
for himself, and having a due regard for individ-
uality, each gave special attention to the rapid
momentum of his legs.”
Captain William S. Heath of Waterville,
captain of the 3rd Maine’s Company H, walked
alongside Howard’s horse in tears because
his men would not obey his orders. At some
point Heintzelman rode by, wearing a sling for
a wounded arm, and swore at Howard for not
keeping control of his men. Heintzelman must
have sworn at many officers that day. Howard,
of course, did not swear, and he simply tried to
spread word that the brigade should fall back to
its old campsite at Centreville. From there they
made their way back to Alexandria.
Back on July 12, Private George Rollins of
the 3rd Maine had written to his parents that
he was “going to visit Jeff D. at his residence”
and give the rebels “a stern rebuke.” Instead, the
fighting at Bull Run had served Rollins and his
fellow soldiers a cold dose of reality. “I don’t
hope to get home now til the three years are up,”
Rollins wrote to his parents afterward. “I have
yet to see many more battles and endure many
hardships before this war is brought to a close.”

Adapted from Tom Huntington’s book, Maine
Roads to Gettysburg: How Joshua Cham-
berlain, Oliver Howard, and 4,000 men from
the Pine Tree State helped win the Civil War’s
Bloodiest Battle (Stackpole Books).
COLLECTIONS OF MAINE HISTORICAL SOCIETY (2)
BLOODY AFTERNOON Colonel Oliver O. Howard’s
Maine regiments missed the worst of the morning’s
fighting, but got into the thick of it during their
afternoon attack and repulse on Chinn Ridge.
1,700 
MILES OF
MOURNERS


Abraham Lincoln’s
funeral train traveled
across seven states

B Y WENDY J. SOTOS 
40 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
 SERIOUS DUTY
The handsome locomo-
tive “Nashville” of the
Cleveland, Columbus &
Cincinnati Railroad is
decorated with black
mourning drape and
a picture of Abraham
Lincoln. The engine pulled
the funeral train from
Cleveland to Columbus,
Ohio.

OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 41

 “I kept on until I arrived at the East Room…before me was a catafalque on which was
a form wrapped in funeral vestments. Around it were stationed soldiers…there was a
throng of people…weeping pitifully. ‘Who is dead in the White House?’ I demanded…
‘The President…killed by an assassin…’ A loud burst of grief…woke me from my dream.”
–Abraham Lincoln, recounting a dream shortly before his assassination in 1865.

BECAUSE OF THE TELEGRAPH, news of President Abraham Lin-

coln’s shooting on April 14, 1865, and death on the 15th spread quickly, and the country—both in the North
and South—was in shock. The nation and government turned to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton who agreed
to run the nation until Vice President Andrew Johnson was sworn in. He met with an assembly from Illinois that pleaded
Lincoln be laid to rest in Springfield, his “adopted home” in the first state to recognize his “greatness.” Stanton then appointed
a Committee of Arrangements (made up of Illinois citizens) to determine the transportation of President Lincoln’s remains
from Washington, D.C., to their final resting place. ¶ Distraught, Mary Todd Lincoln also turned to Stanton and the nation
for her husband’s burial. Her only request was that Willie Lincoln, who had died in the White House in 1862, at the age of 12,
be disinterred and make the trip home with his father and be buried beside him. ¶ George Harrington, assistant Secretary of
the Treasury, was in charge of the funeral preparations, commencing with the building of the catafalque—a raised platform on
which a deceased person lies in state. In disregard to expense, Commissioner of Public Buildings Benjamin B. French designed
the catafalque and erected it in the East Room of the White House. ¶ As foreshadowed in his dream, Lincoln lay in state in
the East Room of the presidential mansion until the official funeral ceremony for family and government officials. Among
those attending the service were the president’s personal cavalry escort; the leaders of the Northern Army and Navy—Lt. Gen.
CONGRESS, COURTESY OF THE WHITE HOUSE HISTORICAL SOCIETY; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Ulysses S. Grant and Admiral David Farragut; members of the Cabinet and Supreme Court; President Johnson; and former
Vice President Hannibal Hamlin. Mary Lincoln and Secretary of State William Seward, convalescing from an attempted
THIS PAGE: BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES; OPPOSITE PAGE: FROM TOP: LIBRARY OF

assassination also on April 14, were absent. ¶ At the conclusion of the April 19 funeral, Lincoln left the White House for the
final time. ¶ Simultaneously throughout the country, both North and South, 25 million mourners would hear sermons about
Lincoln delivered by local ministers. ¶ The Veteran Reserve Corps, composed of men who were no longer physically able to
serve in front line positions, served as the official pallbearers for Lincoln’s coffin until it reached its final resting place. The sol-
diers lifted the flag-draped casket and placed it on a horse-drawn caisson. Arranged by Lincoln’s confidante Ward Hill Lamon,
the slain president’s last procession was led by white horses and a detachment of United States Colored Troops. It proceeded up
Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol “amidst the tolling bells and the firing of minute guns.” A riderless horse followed the cas-
ket with boots reversed in the stirrups. This was the first presidential funeral to feature such a horse, and it came to symbolize a
warrior who would never ride again. The coffin was carried up the steps of the Capitol, beneath the very spot where six weeks
earlier Lincoln had delivered his notable and inspiring Second Inaugural Address. Upon arrival at the Capitol, a brief service
was given. Then Lincoln belonged to the people. He was the first president to lie in state at the Rotunda. ¶ On April 21, at
7 a.m., an honor guard escorted Lincoln’s and Willie’s coffins to the train station. At approximately 12:30 p.m., the nine-car
train pulled out, never traveling above 20 miles per hour to lend dignity to the mournful journey to Springfield.

42 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018

 WASHINGTON
On Friday, April 21, 1865,
the Lincoln Special—as
the train was known—
draped in black garland and
accompanied by an honor
guard, left the Baltimore
& Ohio Railroad depot in
Washington, D.C., bound for
Baltimore, 38 miles away.
It was preceded by a pilot
engine, to ensure the track
was clear and to announce
the arrival of Lincoln’s train.
Both engines had portraits
of Lincoln attached to their
cowcatchers.

A NEW NATION
A crowd of soldiers and
civilians, both black and white,
lines Pennsylvania Avenue in
Washington, D.C., to watch
President Lincoln’s casket pass.


BALTIMORE
At Baltimore, a steady rain fell
as approximately 10,000 people
paid their respects to Lincoln’s
body at the Merchant Exchange
Building during a three-hour
public viewing.

TRAIN CONVERSATIONS
A sodden crowd in Baltimore awaits
the arrival of Lincoln’s funeral
train at Camden Station. The black
umbrellas add an even more somber
tone to the scene.

OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 43

 
LINCOLN’S FUNERAL TRAIN IN HARRISBURG; MG-218, THE GENERAL PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTION; COURTESY OF PENNSYLVANIA
HARRISBURG

HISTORICAL AND MUSEUM COMMISSION, PENNSYLVANIA STATE ARCHIVES; C. BURNITE PICTURE HISTORY/NEWSCOM
A violent thunderstorm canceled the funeral
procession in the Pennsylvania capital on April 21,
and Lincoln was carried to the state house for an
evening viewing. A viewing also took place the
next morning. About 25,000 people saw the coffin
in Harrisburg, and a crowd of 40,000 watched the
hearse carried back to the depot.

FIRST STOP IN THE KEYSTONE STATE

Above: Lincoln’s funeral train idles in the
Pennsylvania Railroad station in Harrisburg. Right:
The clerk’s desk and the speaker’s stand at the
Pennsylvania state house are draped in black in
preparation for the arrival of the president’s coffin.

44 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018

 DECLARATION OF GRIEF Lincoln’s horse-drawn casket could
barely make its way from the train station to Independence Hall
through the crowds that choked Philadelphia’s Broad Street.


PHILADELPHIA
More than 30,000 mourners viewed the president’s
body in the east wing of Independence Hall, where the
Declaration of Independence had been signed. The first
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

night’s viewing was by invitation only, and as the special

guests departed, mourners were already gathering for the
public viewing. For some, the wait lasted up to five hours.

OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 45

A CHILD’S EYES
Eight-year-old Julian DeVaux
O’Brien created this sketch of
Lincoln’s funeral procession
as it passed through his SAD ACCEPTANCE
hometown of Albany, N.Y. Although a large portion of
New York City’s residents
had Southern sympathies
during the war, the banner
and mourning decorations
on City Hall show a public
united in sorrow.

NEW YORK
CITY
The clock at the train
station in Jersey City, N.J.,

TOP: ABRAHAM LINCOLN’S FUNERAL PROCESSION IN ALBANY, NEW YORK, JULIAN DEVAUX O’BRIEN (1856-1929), 1865, PENCIL ON PAPER, ALBANY INSTITUTE
had been stopped at 7:20

OF HISTORY & ART, GIFT OF J. KING ROSENDALE, 1998.27; BOTTOM: COURTESY OF THE GEORGE EASTMAN MUSEUM, GIFT OF FREDERICK HILL MESERVE
a.m.—the approximate time
of Lincoln’s death—but the
train arrived on schedule at
10 a.m. Monday, April 24.
The coffin was transported
by ferry across the Hudson
River to New York City and
brought to City Hall. Viewing
began at 1 p.m., and more
than 50,000 people lined
up to catch a glimpse of
Lincoln’s remains. For four
hours the next afternoon,
16 horses pulled a majestic
14-foot-long car carrying the
coffin through the streets,
as 75,000 citizens marched
solemnly behind. Windows
along the route were rented
for viewing at up to $100
a person, and 6-year-old
Theodore Roosevelt watched
with his grandfather from
one of those windows near
Union Square.

46 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018

  ALBANY
As the train made its way up the Hudson River Valley to Albany, 141 miles from New York City, torches and
lanterns lighted the train tracks. Entire populations of small towns gathered, no matter what the hour, to
say goodbye and sing to their beloved president as his train rolled past. After arriving in Albany, the coffin
was moved to the state house for public viewing, where locals offered their last respects. The next morning,
newspapers brought word that assassin John Wilkes Booth had been tracked down and killed on April 26.

ANOTHER VIEWING ENDS

Mourners endured a hot
sun—and, as in many other
cities along the route, gangs of

BUFFALO
aggressive pickpockets—as six In Buffalo, the coffin
horses pulled Lincoln’s body was transported to
back to Buffalo’s train station. St. James Hall on a
catafalque drawn
by six white horses
in black harnesses.
Former President
Millard Fillmore
and future President
Grover Cleveland
were among 100,000
mourners to file past
the coffin. Unlike the
previous stops, no
formal procession
took place since
the city had already
conducted a mock
funeral and procession
on April 19, not then
knowing Buffalo was to
be a scheduled stop.
PICTURE HISTORY/NEWSCOM

OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 47

 
CLEVELAND
When Lincoln’s coffin arrived in Cleveland on April 28, it had been a full week since the
Lincoln Special had bid farewell to Washington. It was carried from the Euclid Street Station to
Public Square, and the outdoor venue allowed Cleveland’s leaders to erect a viewing pavilion.
Despite torrents of rain, 180 mourners per minute filed past President Lincoln’s body. A
visitor who had attended every funeral thus far claimed that the one in Cleveland was “by far
the most magnificent.” Much like the small towns on the way to Albany, those across Ohio
also presented heartfelt and poignant scenes. Recalled one newspaper account: “The flow of
bonfires, torches and lanterns was common…people turned out en masse…heads uncovered
and with saddened faces, gazing with awe upon the train…most of the coach and sleeping car
lamps were extinguished, but the funeral car was fully lit…piercing the night as it passed by.”

SIX WHITE HORSES The image above of Lincoln’s coffin in Cleveland’s Monument
Square provides a good view of the six handsome horses with black harnesses
that pulled Lincoln’s coffin in most of the cities along the route. Cleveland had the
pavilion built expressly to help residents pay their respects to Lincoln.
 
COLUMBUS
UNIQUE TRIBUTES
At Columbus, the usual throngs greeted Lincoln’s casket (top).
The city’s catafalque (below) was unique, however, and battle flags
were added to the typical black drape that decorated City Hall.
In Columbus, the train pulled
LIBRARY AND INDIANA STATE MUSEUM; THIS PAGE: FROM TOP: HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS; PICTURE HISTORY/NEWSCOM
OPPOSITE PAGE: FROM THE LINCOLN FINANCIAL FOUNDATION COLLECTION, COURTESY OF THE ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC

in promptly at 7:30 a.m. on

Saturday, April 29. As was now
customary, the coffin was taken
off the train for a procession and
public viewing. The viewing in
Columbus was at the rotunda
inside the state capitol. The
catafalque differed from all
the others on the journey in
that it lacked both columns
and a canopy. Instead of lying
in black velvet, it sank into a
bed of flowers and low moss.
In addition, carpet covered the
floor to deaden the “shuffling
and clicking of leather shoes.” By
evening, the train had departed
Ohio, headed for Indianapolis.

OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 49

 
INDIANAPOLIS
Torrential rain doused the
Lincoln Special upon its arrival in
Indianapolis, forcing government
officials to cancel a scheduled
procession and devote the entire
day of April 30 to a viewing at the
Indiana State House. Late in the
evening the train left for Chicago.

HEAVY TRAFFIC
In Indianapolis, an estimated
155 people per minute passed
by Lincoln’s casket during
the public viewing period.

‘A MARTYR FOR JUSTICE’

On May 1, Lincoln’s hearse, accompanied


CHICAGO
by a procession of “young ladies in
white,” passed beneath an arch across
Chicago’s 12th Street. Among tributes on
the arch were “First in Peace,” “Noble
On May 18, 1860, Lincoln
Soul,” and “A Martyr for Justice.”
was in Chicago when he
won the nomination for
president. When his body
returned nearly five years
later, Chicago’s farewell
was comparable in size,
length, and grandeur
to New York City’s. The
procession along packed
streets wove around FROM TOP: FROM THE LINCOLN FINANCIAL FOUNDATION COLLECTION, COURTESY OF THE
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY AND INDIANA STATE MUSEUM; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Chicago’s most prominent
buildings, arriving at the
courthouse four hours
later. At 6 p.m. the doors
were opened to the public
for viewing throughout the
night and the following
day. Approximately 7,000
people passed by the coffin
per hour. At 8 p.m., by
the light of 3,000 torches,
eight black horses drew the
hearse back to the depot.

50 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018

 BACK HOME
The funeral procession
in Springfield passed by
Lincoln’s home, where
friends and associates of
the family were paying
their respects.


SPRINGFIELD
On May 4, the nation’s 16th president would
finally be laid to rest in his beloved hometown.
The previous day, he had lain in state in the
same state house room where he had recited his
immortal “House Divided” speech in June 1858.
Shortly before 10 a.m., the doors were opened for
public viewing. Others gathered at the president’s
FROM TOP: ABRAHAM LINCOLN PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY & MUSEUM (ALPLM); LIBRARY OF CONGRESS (2)

home, where his horse, Old Bob (top left), and his
dog, Fido, had been brought from Washington.
For the funeral, the city of St. Louis lent
Springfield the exquisite hearse (bottom left),
finished in gold, silver, and crystal. Major
General Joseph Hooker led the final procession
to Oak Ridge Cemetery, where Lincoln’s coffin
would be placed on a marble slab inside the
tomb, along with that of his deceased son Willie.
Lincoln’s eldest son, Robert, and his cousin
John Hanks represented the president’s family.
(Mary, back in Washington, D.C., was still too
distraught to attend.) Bishop Simpson delivered
an eloquent funeral address and the Rev. Dr. P.D.
Gurley read the benediction. At the end of the
service, the tomb’s iron gates and heavy wooden
doors were locked, with Robert given the keys.

OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 51

 ➡
ROUTE OF LINCOLN’S FUNERAL TRAIN

LEFT: HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS; RIGHT: FROM THE LINCOLN FINANCIAL FOUNDATION COLLECTION,
SOLEMN TRIBUTE Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train procession left Washington, D.C., on April 21, 1865, arriving on May 2 at its final
destination of Springfield, Ill.—where Lincoln would be buried alongside his deceased son, Willie. The train, the so-called Lincoln Special,
followed essentially in reverse the route that Lincoln had traveled in February 1861 from Springfield to Washington for his first
inauguration. Included stops on the somber 1,700-mile-long trip home, were the capital cities of six of the seven states traversed.
COURTESY OF THE ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY AND INDIANA STATE MUSEUM

“I AM LEAVING YOU on an errand of national importance, attended, as you are aware,

with considerable difficulties,” President-elect Abraham Lincoln told a zealous crowd on February 12, 1861,
as he prepared to leave his adopted home state of Illinois by train, en route to his first inauguration in
Washington, D.C. “Let us believe, as some poet expressed it, ‘Behind the cloud the sun is shining still.’ I bid you an affectionate
farewell.” For the next four years, Lincoln did all he could do to keep a fractured nation together, tormented that nearly 700,000
soldiers on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line would die in the process. Lincoln would never return alive to Illinois or his
hometown of Springfield, slain by an assassin’s bullet on April 15, 1865. Throughout the 11-day funeral procession by train
back to Springfield, where Lincoln was to be buried, clouds and rain were a constant reminder of the occasion’s solemnity for
hordes of mourners along the way. But behind those clouds and rain, the sun did shine. There was hope at least that the United
States, once on the verge of being torn in two, could begin to heal.

52 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018

 MOURNING
ATTIRE AND
MEMORABILIA

President Lincoln’s sudden death abruptly interrupted the country’s
sigh of relief at the Civil War’s end just days before, and quickly turned
celebrants into mourners. His assassination was “an electric shock to my
soul,” wrote one woman who had escaped from slavery. As a collective
whole, the nation wept, and many citizens sought to express their sorrow
with ornaments of grief such as mourning ribbons and badges.
Others sought to commemorate the occasion with paraphernalia.

TORTURED TIME
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: HERITAGE AUCTIONS, DALLAS (2); DIVISION OF POLITICAL HISTORY, NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN

Mary Todd Lincoln never recovered

from the untimely deaths of so
HISTORY, SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, GIFT OF LINCOLN ISHAM; PHOTO BY GARY ERSKINE, COURTESY OF FORD’S THEATRE

RECYCLED RIBBON many of her loved ones and used

Manufacturers of novelties for Lincoln’s second- this black onyx mourning watch
term presidential campaign added black and as her personal timepiece for the
white rosettes and ribbon to campaign pins to remainder of her life.
create mourning badges like this one.

SOUVENIRS Assassination medals, above, a mourning

ribbon, above right, and an invite to Lincoln’s White
House funeral, right, were tucked away as keepsakes
to share with future generations.

OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 53

 The war n their words

HOMEBOUND CHRONICLER
This image of LeRoy W. Gresham
was taken circa 1857-58 after
an accident had crushed his leg
and left him an invalid.
His healthy mind, however,
could not be confined.
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

54 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018

AN INVALID GEORGIA TEENAGER
KEPT A REMARKABLE,
INSIGHTFUL DIARY ABOUT
THE WAR. . . AND FRUIT

BY JANET E. CROON AND THEODORE P. SAVAS

lmost no one had ever heard of LeRoy Wiley Gresham until the Library of
Congress featured his “little-known diary” in 2012. LeRoy was an invalid
teenager from a wealthy slave-holding family in Macon, Ga., crippled
when a chimney collapsed and crushed his left leg in 1856. In 1860, his
mother, Mary, gave the 12-year-old a blank journal to record his experi-
ences with his father, John Gresham, on their trip to Philadelphia to see
a medical specialist. Sadly, the doctor could not help him. ¶ Once home he continued writing,
putting pen to paper with a vim and often tongue-in-cheek vigor that impresses even now.
LeRoy was a voracious reader who debated social and military topics with his parents, older
brother Thomas, and friends. A slave his own age pulled him in a small custom-built wagon
for brief trips out of his sickbed. ¶ He wrote nearly every day, and could be termed a “19th-cen-
tury blogger” for the way he discusses and analyzes the Civil War. He handled major events
concisely and crisply, and learned to temper his hopes because initial military reports were
often wrong. The Gresham family had everything at stake when the war began. His grand-
mother had six sons fighting in the war. His father was a plantation owner. His older brother
served in the Army of Northern Virginia. ¶ LeRoy also offers readers a horrifying account of
his daily suffering. Surgeon Dennis Rasbach studied the diary and private letters and believes
LeRoy suffered from pulmonary tuberculosis that spread to his spine. His condition worsened
with each passing year. Unbeknownst to LeRoy, he was chronicling his own slow and painful
descent toward death in tandem with the demise of the Confederacy. ¶ The last diary entry was
June 8, 1865, when he wrote, “I have read nothing at all for the last ten days and con-
sequently know little of the outside world….” LeRoy died eight days later at age 17.

OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 55

 Gresham led off his final diary with a Confederate 3rd National Flag illustration.
THE FOLLOWING SELECTED ENTRIES
from the spring and summer of 1863 exemplify
LeRoy’s keen interest in the war (and sweet seasonal


fruit that temporarily diverted him from his pain),
and illustrate the rise and fall of his hopes based on
battlefield events. It is clear he was a remarkably
well-informed and intelligent young man. For a full
review of publisher Savas Beatie’s edited version of
his diary, go to http://bit.ly/greshamreview. Some
of LeRoy’s passages in this article have been short-
ened, as indicated by ellipses, and the format of the
datelines has been standardized. Otherwise, they are
reprinted as he wrote them. There is no other pub-
lished account remotely like this in the Civil War field.
May
TUESDAY, MAY 5: Clear and warm. Suffered a great deal
till after midnight when Mother + Father got up, removed
the poultice + dressed my back. After that I was a great
deal more comfortable. The news is that a great fight has
been fought at Fredericksburg. Gen Lee telegraphs “that
Almighty God had given us another victory. Stonewall
Jackson + A.P. Hill wounded. General Paxton killed. Heath
wounded. I am so sorry about Gen Jackson. Hooker flanked
us or rather turned our position and in doing so got himself
into a bad position. Jackson as usual got into his rear and
two of Longstreet’s divisions in front. The fight lasted two
days. Hooker at last accts was retreating across the river…
The new Flag is the “Battleflag for the Union.” White field
without bars. O Horrid….
56 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018
WEDNESDAY, MAY 6: …Gen Lee says the Battle occurred at
Chancellorsville. Gen Jackson’s left arm has been amputated
below the shoulder. Gen Sedgwick attempted to come up in
our rear [at Fredericksburg] but was handsomely repulsed by
McLaws and afterwards driven across the river by Gen Lee
himself. Mother has gone down town. It is a great bother to
dress my back and takes 2 to do it.
FRIDAY, MAY 8: …List of killed + wounded in the Macon
Volunteers. 1700 nasty, stinkin’ Yankee raiders have arrived
in Atlanta. The Yanks made a raid and came within sight of
Richmond. No authentic account of the Battle of Chancel-
lorsville. The Yankee loss was 3 to our 1, “mostly foreigners.”
It was a very bloody fight.
SATURDAY, MAY 9: Very cool. Slept well. The bloody fight
is over. Hooker is repulsed, but Stonewall Jackson, the pride
and the glory of the people, is disabled and worst of all by
his own command. He and his staff rode out unknown to
the men to reconnoiter and, being taken for Yankees, was
fired upon; 1 of his staff killed, 1 wounded. 1 ball shattered
the Gen’s left arm and another passed through his right
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS; BERYL PETERS COLLECTION/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO
hand. 9 men were wounded in the Macon Volunteers, only 1
killed out right....
SUNDAY, MAY 10: …My abscess on the right ran a little.
Lincoln has called out 5000000 men! Our loss at Chancel-
lorsville was 8 or 10000. I don’t think the Yankees lost less
than 30000 for we took 8000 prisoners. The Yankees are
very proud of their escape. The attack was well planned. A
terrible storm prevented pursuit. I hope Gen Lee will cross
the river himself as soon as the 28 regiments whose term is
out leave for home. The army of Tennessee is reported on
the advance?? Nary time. Gen Lee has issued congratulatory
orders and this is a day of thanksgiving in the army. Gen
 LOCAL BOYS This photograph was taken at Macon’s Camp Oglethorpe in 1861, and
shows Company D, composed of troops from the town, of the 1st Georgia Infantry.
The regiment served for one year, but many of its men enlisted in other units.
Below, Gresham lamented the death of “brave, gallant Stonewall Jackson.”

Van Dorn has been murdered by a Dr. Peters out west.
A personal affair entirely.
MONDAY, MAY 11: Clear + pleasant. Had strawberries for
dinner… Brave, gallant Stonewall Jackson is dead. He, the
pride of the nation, is gone. Dearly was the victory won
at such a price. He died from the combined effect of his
wounds + an attack of pneumonia. As a commander, it may
be said that he never committed an error!...I never in my life
saw peaches so defective wormy + rotten everywhere the hail
hit them....
FROM TOP: COURTESY OF GEORGIA ARCHIVES, VANISHING GEORGIA; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
MONDAY, MAY 18: Clear and pleasant. Jackson, Miss. is in
the enemy’s hands and gloomy forebodings are entertained
for Vicksburg. Gen Joe Johnston was cut off this side. We
fought all day. The 46th Ga. was in the fight. Gloomy times
certain. I am quite unwell. Took paregoric last night. Had
strawberries for dinner....
TUESDAY, MAY 19: Clear and pleasant. The news from the
west is bad. The Yanks after sacking Jackson have evacuated
it marching towards Vicksburg. Gen Johnston with 9000
men fought 20000 all day and then being overpowered fell
back to Canton. Port Hudson has been attacked! Heavy fir-

ing; no other particulars. Halleck has gone down to overlook

Hooker. Gen Tilghman is killed. Had dewberries for din-
ner….The itching of my back at times is intolerable. If the
Yanks ain’t working us now, you may take my hat. All looks
threatening and dark around us. I wish Gen Pemberton was
in Guinea or anywhere else but in the place he is. Minnie
lost a ring. Hooker’s loss in Stragglers, deserters, killed, and
wounded is not estimated at less than 40000. They acknowl-
edge officially only 17000. Our loss was about 9000. They
captured about 1500 of our men.

FRIDAY, MAY 22: The news is poor. Vicksburg is closely

invested and will probably fall. The news is unsatisfactory in
the extreme. Thomas arrived in the evening. Ate a wormy
ripe plum, the first of the season.

OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 57

 MISSISSIPPI FRETTING Gresham kept tabs on all
theaters of the war, and understood the importance of
Vicksburg and the Mississippi River to the Confederacy.
This lithograph shows a May 14, 1863, Union attack at
Jackson, Miss., during the Vicksburg Campaign.
SATURDAY, MAY 23: …Not a drop of news....I hope its so
that Gen Johnston has put Old Pemberton under arrest and
taken away his sword....
SUNDAY, MAY 24: Clear and warm Vicksburg had not fallen
at last accts and the condition, though extremely critical,
was not at all desperate, and I am strongly in hopes that
Grant will yet meet with a stunning defeat. He it is stated
was repulsed in 3 attacks on Vicksburg and “Jo Johnston”
is pushing in his rear and constantly receiving reinforce-
ments....
MONDAY, MAY 25: Clear and warm. Had strawberries, cus-
tard, + cake, for dinner. No news. The anxiety about our army
out West and doubt is freely expressed of Pemberton’s loy-
alty....Recd relic from battlefield sent by Uncle Dick: a fancy
roll of the Burnside Guards, a company of the 124th Pa.
TUESDAY, MAY 26: Cloudy and cool. The news is a drop
58 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018
more encouraging from Vicksburg. The Yanks have been
repulsed 6 times and with very heavy loss. Grant says he has
taken the first line of entrenchments. Johnson is fortifying at
Jackson. Breckinridge + Bragg have come to an open rupture
and the former has called a court of inquiry. [Governor Joe]
Brown is announced for a 4th term and there will be no
opposition. Howard returned with Allen....Mrs. Hug[uenin]
sent me honey, butter and sug berries.
FRIDAY, MAY 29: …The situation is gloomy in the extreme.
Vicksburg is one. It is said that the Yanks have lost heavier
than in any previous battle. Rotten Yankees are piled up in
such numbers before our intrenchments that the effluvia
[smell] is awful. Tar is burnt to prevent sickness....Banks is
crossing the Mississippi to aid Grant. Farragut is bombard-
ing Port Hudson. Gunboats have passed Vicksburg going up.
They’ll take it certain. No news of Gen Johnston. Father has
no hope of our holding out longer than a week. It is awful.
SATURDAY, MAY 30: … Nothing definite from the west.
Grant’s loss must be enormous. Pemberton’s address to the
army is received. I can but hope. Grant can get any amount
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
of reinforcements + supplies. Yazoo River and all our river
batteries are in their hands. Our Warrenton batteries also. Up
to the 27th, our men were cheerful and hopeful. On the 27th,
The Feds made a grand attack + were repulsed with loss....
 June
TUESDAY, JUNE 2: Clear and warm. The news is
on the whole encouraging. Vicksburg holds out
heroically! Gen Grant demanded a surrender,
but Pemberton replied that he would die in the
trenches. There are some heavy rumors. One is
that the enemy made a grand assault and were
mown down by thousands, nearly all of them
killed or captured. The Yankees say we rolled
shells down the hill at them causing immense
havoc....If Vicksburg does pass this fiery ordeal in
safety, how thankful we ought to be!....The college
girls have formed a company and drill regularly....
It is rumored and credited that Lee’s army is in
motion. Had strawberries for dinner.

THURSDAY, JUNE 4: …Vicksburg is still ours.

Grant is heavily reinforced. Pemberton’s address to
his troops is a defense of himself, not a harangue
to the troops. The Yanks have had it captured
twice....Higgelty pigglety pop! O La.

FRIDAY, JUNE 5: …The “Situation” is on the whole

encouraging….Grant may yet skedadle. It says
Banks has been handsomely thrashed by Gen
Gardner near to Port Hudson and that Kirby
Smith is opposite ready to cross. Gen Johnston
is on the move to cut off Grant. Grant is moving
to prevent it and a great fight is pending on the
Yazoo. The stench of rotten Yanks can be smelt 6
miles off. Pemberton calls on Grant to bury them.
Contrabands were put in the front of the fight on
every occasion. It is rumored Rosencrans is falling
GENERALLY CRITICAL This is a fanciful depiction of Union Maj.
back [in Tenn]....I eat June apples every eve and Gen. Ulysses S. Grant leading an attack at Vicksburg. Gresham
they are very nice + ripe. seemed to sense, however, that Grant posed a real threat to Southern
fortunes, and he had no problems criticizing Grant’s Pennsylvania-
SATURDAY, JUNE 6: Rained nearly all night and it born opponent, Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton.
is still cloudy. Read The Laird of Norlan. Banks
was not in the fight at Port Hudson. Sherman
commanded and was killed. Out of a regiment of 900 “nigs” enjoyed it very much. Received a letter from Uncle Richard.
LEFT: BERYL PETERS COLLECTION/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; HARPER’S WEEKLY, JUNE 13, 1863

only 100 escaped. “Bully for that.” A great fight is ere this
going on between Johnston + Grant. “Terrific firing heard,”
and it must be them. Now we must wait patiently for news,
but if we don’t lick them – well....Father arrived at dinner-
time sick and weary. He brought some apples for pies and
about half-bushel of plums....My strawberries + a little bottle
of May cherries arrived from Athens.
SUNDAY, JUNE 7: Clear and warm....Had strawberries for
dinner. Cherry preserves I mean, and they were real splen-
did....Prayer meeting for Vicksburg in the eve.
MONDAY, JUNE 8: …Bought Whortleberries at 50 cents a
quart. My back runs a great deal now. Willis came up bring-
ing Dewberries....Had the first apple pie of the season and
He is in A. P. Hill’s 3d army corps.
THURSDAY, JUNE 11: …Well, if things do not look gloomy
at Vicksburg, there a’int no snakes. Grant has called for
50000 reinforcements and he will get them. Alas! We have
none to send without exposing an important point. So as
it has come to a question of reinforcements, we are gone....
Father thinks it. It is a gloomy prospect. There are some wild
rumors too. One is that you can walk on dead yankees for 10
acres and not touch the earth. Another says that the blood
is shoe deep!! The slain are 60 + 70,000. Ours 600. Another
says Pemberton boasts he can hold Vicksburg indefinitely
and tells Johnston to take his time. The Yanky exaggeration’s
are equally wild. They say Pemberton has been hung by our
men....I did not sleep well. I had such a binding pain across

OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 59

 LEFT TO REMEMBER Postwar images of John and Mary Gresham, LeRoy’s parents. John was a cotton planter and an attorney
who served a term as Macon’s mayor. Their handsome Greek Revival home still stands and is a bed and breakfast ( 1842inn.com ).
the chest and I think it comes from overexertion. My leg
distresses me greatly and worse than all, folks say it’s my own
fault, I can straiten it if I would try. Well~~…Fried apples are
good and so is pig. There has been a heavy cavalry fight on
the Rappahannock. Gen Lee says “Gen Stuart after a ‘severe
contest’ of 12 hrs. drove the Yanks ‘across the river.’” I reckon
it was a hard fight.
FRIDAY, JUNE 12: …Gen Lee is moving but in what direction
no one knows. Our loss was 400 in the late cavalry fight. We
got the new stove up and it is very nice....
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 17: …Early’s division has stormed the
entrenchments at Winchester and in the language of Gen
Lee, God has again crowned the Valor of our troops with
success....
SATURDAY, JUNE 20: Clear and warm. Ewell’s victory at
“Winchester” is confirmed. 7000 prisoners + 3000 horses.
It is rumored that our army is pushing into Maryland. The
Yankees are under the influence of a grand scare or “upris-
ings.” Lincoln calls for 100000 6 months men and the Gov-
[ernor]s are calling too. Our loss at Brandy Station was 483;
Yanks twice that....
TUESDAY, JUNE 23: …The June apples are love to the sight
and pleasant to the taste. The Yanks have made a cavalry
raid into E. Tenn. and after burning a factory and damaging
60 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018
the R.R. were repulsed by the 54th Va. at Knoxville—Gen-
eral Ewell is in Mld. Hooker is near Bull run and “Manassas
Plains.” Where the grand collision will occur or whither Gen
Lee intends to fight, no one knows. I can’t see what object
we can have in entering Maryland except to get provision or
attract attention from Vicksburg. I feel confident that our
army can whip Hooker’s anywhere—Blackberries do not fall
below 25 cents a quart....
THURSDAY, JUNE 25: …Peaches are getting ripe but they are
watery and mean on acct of so much rain. The movements
of Gen Lee are shrouded in complete mystery as are Gen
Johnston’s [in Mississippi]. Hooker is over the Potomac and
the fight will be in Mld....
FRIDAY, JUNE 26: Clear and hot. Last night was the warmest
of the season....Gen Longstreet has crossed the Potomac at
Leesburg; Ewell at Harpers Ferry. A.P. Hill is behind....
TUESDAY, JUNE 30: …The Yanks have made a raid around
Richmond, kicked up a dust! Captured Gen W.H. Lee +
left. Richmond is menaced by a large force via the Peninsula.
Confident is felt as to our ability to repulse them. No Gen-
COURTESY OF THE 1842 INN (2)
eral engagement is anticipated in Tennessee. 2 [rail] car-loads
of wounded in the late skirmish have come down to Chatt[a-
nooga]. Commencement day at the college. Thomas had to
dress my back. The “new un” [abscess] has not run a drop in a
day and night. I hope it’ll heal up.
 July
THURSDAY, JULY 2: …Gen Ewell is reported in “Harrisburg”
[Pa.]! Battle imminent in Tenn. “Vicksburg is gone,” some
people say; others think it not so bad as that.

FRIDAY, JULY 3 …I have felt inexpressibly weary all day, and

have had a slight pain in my leg too. Rosencrans, it is said,
has flanked our right and Bragg is retreating. Before he is
done I reckon we’ll be at Chattanooga again. D.H. Hill is in
Richmond and Gen Dix is advancing on the city.

SATURDAY, JULY 4: Hot and clear. Well! Well! This is the

glorious but “played out” 4th....3 years ago I laid down and
it has not done me any good. My left leg is worse drawn up
than ever....Father is desponding about Vicksburg.

TUESDAY, JULY 7: …The most sanguinary battle of the

war has been fought at Gettysburg, Pa. Barksdale, Kemper,
Garnett, Armistead, Semmes Killed. Hood, Trimble, Pickett,
Pender—Hampton, Anderson, Robinson, Jenkins, Jones,
Heth, Scales, Pettigrew +c. 50 field officers besides these
disabled; our whole loss probably 15000 in killed, wounded,
and prisoners, certainly not less for nearly all our wounded,
who were not able to move or be carried, were left behind.
General Lee’s army is crossing the Potomac at Williams-
port where a severe fight is probably going on with our rear
guard. The Potomac is very high and our men are crossing
in flats. The loss is appalling and for nothing too. What a
host of men have been slain at just such an affair; at Shiloh,
EXTINGUISHED LIGHT On LeRoy’s Rose Hill Cemetery
Murfreesboro + Sharpsburg! Our army went into Maryland
headstone in Macon, the inscription notes he was the “light
declaring themselves invincible and with an utter contempt of the home circle, lovely and endearing in nature,
for the foe they had so often whipped....Every officer in the he was purified by suffering, sanctified by grace....”
[Macon] Volunteers was disabled....
General Hooker has been superceded by Gen “G.G.
Meade” a “brave and accomplished officer” which is a cap- THURSDAY, JULY 9: …An official dispatch says—“Vicks-
ital thing for us. Gens Wadsworth + Reynolds U.S.A. are burg capitulated on the 4th inst. The men were immediately
reported killed. Our army is reported as living “in clover.” paroled; the officers retaining their side arms + baggage.”
When a town is entered, a contribution of supplies is levied. The cause of the surrender was famine. General Grant had
Gen Ewell forbids all individual interference with private a boatload of provisions brought for our poor men. We had
property. When our cavalry comes across fine horses, they only 7000 effective men. The “Victory” in Pa. grows beauti-
take them and put their jaded ones in their place.... fully less....
BERYL PETERS COLLECTION/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; COURTESY OF THE 1842 INN

WEDNESDAY, JULY 8: …Great and glorious news! Grand

defeat of the Yankees. 40000 prisoners. All of both sides
engaged. The Yankees massed their forces and attacked Gen
Hill in the centre. He fell back and the enemy following our
wings under Longstreet and Ewell closed on them, and thus
completely defeated them, killing it is said Gens Meade,
Wadsworth, Reynolds, Barlow, + Meredith. The prisoners
refused to be paroled and Pickett’s division was guarding
them to Martinsburg. Our loss it is supposed is tremendous.

Janet E. Croon is a retired teacher living in northern Virginia.
The War Outside My Window is her first book. Theodore
P. Savas is the owner and managing director of Savas Beatie
publishing company.

Young LeRoy Gresham’s remarkable, 155,000-word, 7-volume

Vicksburg is taken....I hope that Gen Lee will take Washing- diary was recently published as The War Outside My Window:
ton. I cannot believe that heroic little Vicksburg is actually The Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham, 1860-1865
gone, but “lack-a-day.” I reckon it is so.... (Savas Beatie, 2018).

OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 61

 STOPPED “OLD JUBE”
Fort Stevens’ earthworks
and embrasures, now rebuilt,
saved the U.S. capital.

A CAPITAL
DEFENSE

BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR, Washington, D.C., was vulnerable from nearly all sides.
The only major fortification was Fort Washington, an early 19th-century brick and stone structure located on
the Potomac River 12 miles to the south (now a national park site). When the war began, President Lincoln
moved quickly to buttress the lightly defended capital. By the summer of 1861, Union troops had occupied the
high bluffs and hills on the river’s Virginia side to develop a system of fortifications, under the direction of
the U.S. Army Chief Engineer John G. Barnard, that would encircle the city. By war’s end, that system
numbered 68 enclosed forts and batteries, as well as nearly 100 other unenclosed batteries and more
WA S H I N GT O N ,
D. C . than 30 miles of new military roads. So formidable were the defenses that they saw only one battle—
at Fort Stevens in July 1864—where Lincoln himself came dangerously close to the action. Today,
although several fortifications have been lost to time and development, remembered only by historical
markers, nearly two dozen forts and related sites remain viewable in Maryland, D.C., and Virginia, mostly
under the care of the National Park Service (NPS). Remnants of high, thick earthworks, rifle pits, and sturdy
MELISSA A. WINN

bombproofs give you a sense of how seriously the Union took the threat against the capital. Because of them,
the center held, proving that wars aren’t won just on the battlefield. Be sure to visit the NPS website about the
Civil War defenses of Washington for maps and other information, at www.nps.gov/cwdw. –Kim O’Connell

62 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018


Interpretive signage at
Fort Ethan Allen

Fort Marcy cannon
‘YOU DAMN FOOL!’
MELISSA A. WINN (4); ARTIFACTS LOCATED AT CITY OF ALEXANDRIA FORT WARD MUSEUM & HISTORIC SITE
At Fort Stevens on July 11 and
12, 1864, Jubal Early’s troops
fired at Union soldiers in Fort
Stevens. Lincoln had gone to the
fort to observe the action when
he reportedly came under fire.
According to legend, Union officer
and future Supreme Court Justice
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. yelled
to the president, “Get down, you
damn fool!” While the story is
probably apocryphal, it is likely
that someone told the president to
take cover during the skirmishing.
THE VIRGINIA HIGHLANDS
At the outbreak of the war, the
hills of present-day Arlington
SMALL BUT
HALLOWED
A half-mile north
of Fort Stevens sits
Battleground National
Cemetery, where 41
Union soldiers who
fought at the fort are
buried. At one acre, it
is one of the smallest
national cemeteries in
the country, dedicated
by Lincoln himself.
Fort C.F. Smith’s entrance
County, Va., provided crucial high
ground for a trio of forts that
protected the Chain Bridge and
Leesburg Pike, which remain key
approaches to the capital: Forts
Marcy, Ethan Allen, and C.F.
Smith. All are interpreted and
located either directly on or near
the George Washington Memorial
Parkway.
GUN CARE
Owned by the NPS, Fort
Marcy was built by New York and
Pennsylvania troops, including the
famous Iron Brigade, as well as
several hundred contrabands. Forts HEAVY ARTILLERY UNITS
Ethan Allen and C.F. Smith, both served in the D.C. forts. These artillery
owned and managed by Arling- buckets, for water to clean barrels (left),
ton County, also preserve visible and axle grease (right), are just two of the
4,000 artifacts at the Fort Ward Museum.
earthworks and offer interpretative
OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 63
 “The extensive fortifications erected by the
labor of our troops enable a small garrison
to hold it against a numerous army.”
Union Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, in a report to Secretary of War Edwin Stanton

trails and a peace garden. Visit parks.arlingtonva.us and

THIS PAGE: MELISSA A. WINN (3); OPPOSITE PAGE: FAR RIGHT: TOP: EDWARD DO PHOTOGRAPHY/ALAMY STOCK PHOTO; BOTTOM: BUDDY SECOR, NINJA PIX PHOTOGRAPHY
Fort Ward Museum search by fort name.
Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, the military post
adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery, was the Civil
War site of Forts Cass and Whipple.

ALEXANDRIA’S SENTINEL
Owned by the city of Alexandria, Fort Ward contains a
meticulously restored cannon battery as well as a perim-
eter dry moat and defensive abatis, a distinctive white
entrance gate, and a small but well curated museum with
rotating exhibits. The fort regularly hosts living histories,
lectures, kids’ camps, and other special events.
alexandriava.gov/FortWard

THE FORT CIRCLE TRAIL

Back across the Potomac, outdoor enthusiasts can opt to
tour several fort sites on the seven-mile Fort Circle Park
Hiker-Biker Trail that winds through largely forested
land connecting Fort Mahan to the north and Fort
Stanton to the south, passing by the sites of Forts Chap-
lin, Dupont, Davis, and Ricketts. Fort Dupont Park is
located at about the center point of the trail and includes
an outdoor stage, picnic areas, and parking.
15-inch Rodman
at Fort Foote THE BIG GUNS
Just south of the District of Columbia, Fort Foote in
Fort Washington, Md., offers both Potomac River views
and a chance to get up close to intimidating 15-inch

64 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018

 Fort Stanton offers this fascinating
northwestward view of the capital
that few tourists take advantage of.
The panorama also gives one an idea
of how the forts were engineered to
provide sweeping views of the country.

Rodman cannons. At 25 tons apiece, the cannons could

send a 440-pound round shell sailing over three miles. In
February 1864, a sizable crowd of civilians came to the LOCAL COLOR
fort just to witness the firing of one of the massive guns.

CONTRABAND COMMUNITIES
Many forts protected so-called “contrabands” during
the war, escaped slaves who were often employed to
construct and maintain these fortifications. The NPS
and American University have embarked on an effort
to interview current community members who have
discovered ancestors who worked on the Civil War
defenses. Visit www.nps.gov and search “civil war
descendants” to learn more.

MR. LINCOLN’S FORTS

Mr. Lincoln’s Forts: A Guide
to the Civil War Defenses of
Washington, by Benjamin
Franklin Cooling III and Marked by a giant Ferris wheel, National Harbor
Walton H. Owen is the is a shopping and dining district on the Potomac
definitive guide to D.C.’s forts.
River that is close to several forts in Maryland and D.C.,
The deeply researched book
and just across the river from Alexandria. A must-see
offers histories of each of the
forts, engineering drawings, is “The Awakening,” a 70-foot five-part statue by sculp-
and other rich details about tor Seward Johnson of a giant emerging from the earth.
these defenses. Climbing on the giant’s hand, beard, or foot is encouraged!

OCTOBER 2018 CIVIL WAR TIMES 65

HERITAGE TRAVEL &
LIFESTYLE SHOWCASE
Home to more than 400 sites, the Civil
War’s impact on Georgia was greater
than any other event in the state’s
history. Visit www.gacivilwar.org to
learn more.
Greeneville, TN
Founded in 1783, Greeneville has a rich
historical background as the home for
such important igures as Davy Crocket
and President Andrew Johnson.
Plan your visit now!
Richmond,
Kentucky
“Part of the One and Only Bluegrass!”
Visit National Historic Landmark,
National Civil War Trust tour, historic
ferry, and the third largest planetarium
of its kind in the world!
Are you a history and culture buf?
here are many museums and
atractions, Civil War, and Civil Rights
sites just for you in Jackson, Mississippi.
Fayeteville/Cumberland County, North
Carolina is steeped in history and patri-
otic traditions. Take a tour highlighting
our military ties, status as a transporta-
tion hub, and our Civil War story.
Explore Maryland with once-in-a-
lifetime commemorations—all at one
destination. Create your family history
by exploring ours. Go to visitmaryland.
org to plan your trip today.
Walk where Civil War soldiers fought
and died. A short trip from Nashville and
a long journey into America’s history!
Call (800) 716-7560.
ReadySetRutherford.com
North Litle Rock, Arkansas, is one of
only two places to have two vessels that
bookend World War II: tugboat USS
Hoga and submarine USS Razorback.
www.AIMMuseum.org
Experience living history for
he Batles of Marieta Georgia,
featuring reenactments, tours and
a recreation of 1864 Marieta.
www.marietacivilwar.com
H I S T O R I C
Roswell, Georgia
Whether you love history, culture, the
peacefulness of the great outdoors, or the
excitement of entertainment, Roswell
ofers a wide selection of atractions and
tours. www.visitroswellga.com
here’s no other place that embodies
the heart and soul of the True South
in all its rich and varied expressions—
Mississippi. Find Your True South.
Join us for our Civil War Anniversary
Commemoration including
atractions and tours, exhibitions,
memorials and a selection of artifacts
from Fort Fisher.
A vacation in Georgia means
great family experiences that can
only be described as prety sweet.
Explore Georgia’s Magnolia Midlands.
Experience the Old West in action with
a trip through Southwest Montana.
For more information on our 15 ghost
towns, visit southwestmt.com or
call 800-879-1159, ext 1501.
Over 650 grand historic homes in three
National Register Historic Districts.
Birthplace of America’s greatest play-
wright, Tennessee Williams. he ultimate
Southern destination—Columbus, MS.
To discover more about Tennessee and
to order your free oicial Tennessee
Vacation Guide, visit:
TNVACATION.COM
or call 1-800-GO2-TENN
Lebanon, KY is home to the Lebanon
National Cemetery, its own
Civil War Park, and it’s part of the
John Hunt Morgan Trail.
VisitLebanonKY.com today.
Experience the Civil War in Jacksonville
at the Museum of Military History.
Relive one of Arkansas’ irst stands at
the Reed’s Bridge Batleield.
jacksonvillesoars.com/museum.php
he Mississippi Hills National Heritage
Area highlights the historic, cultural,
natural, scenic and recreational treasures
of this distinctive region.
www.mississippihills.org
Six major batles took place in Winchester
and Frederick County, and the town
changed hands approximately 72 times—
more than any other town in the country!
www.visitwinchesterva.com
Known for sublime natural beauty,
captivating history and heritage and
warm hospitality, West Virginia really
is the great escape. Start planning your
getaway today.
History lives in Tupelo, Mississippi.
Visit Brice’s Crossroads National
Batleield, Natchez Trace Parkway,
Tupelo National Batleield, Mississippi
Hills Exhibit Center and more.
Explore the past in Baltimore during
two commemorative events: the War of
1812 Bicentennial and Civil War 150.
Plan your trip at Baltimore.org.
Once Georgia’s last frontier outpost,
now its third largest city, Columbus is
a true destination of choice. History,
theater, arts and sports—Columbus
has it all.
Tishomingo County, MS
With a variety of historic atractions
and outdoor adventures,
Tishomingo County is a perfect
destination for lovers of history
and nature alike.
 History surrounds Cartersville, GA,
including Allatoona Pass, where a ierce
batle took place, and Cooper’s Furnace,
the only remnant of the bustling
industrial town of Etowah.
Harrodsburg, KY—The Coolest Place
in History! Explore 3000 acres of
discovery at Shaker Village of Pleasant
Hill and 1774 at Old Fort Harrod State
Park. www.HarrodsburgKy.com
Cleveland, TN
Near Chatanooga, ind glorious
mountain scenery and heart-pounding
white-water rafting. Walk in the footsteps
of the Cherokee and discover a charming
historic downtown.
If you’re looking for an easy stroll
through a century of ine architecture or
a trek down dusty roads along the Blues
Trail, you’ve come to the right place.
www. visitgreenwood.com
Vicksburg, Mississippi is a great place
to bring your family to learn American
history, enjoy educational museums and
check out the mighty Mississippi River.
Prestonsburg, KY - Civil War &
history atractions, and reenactment
dates at PrestonsburgKY.org. Home to
Jenny Wiley State Park, country music
entertainment & Dewey Lake.
Relive history in Hopkinsville,
Kentucky and explore Jeferson
Davis’ birthplace, the Trail of Tears
Commemorative Park and the vigilante
rebellion of the Black Patch Tobacco War.
Williamson County, Tennessee, is rich in
Civil War history. Here, you can visit the
Lotz House, Carnton Plantation, Carter
House, Fort Granger and Winstead Hill
Park, among other historic locations.
Charismatic Union General Hugh
Judson Kilpatrick had legions of
admirers during the war. He just wasn’t
much of a general, as his men often
learned with their lives.
Southern hospitality at its inest, the
Classic South, Georgia, ofers visitors a
combination of history and charm mixed
with excursion options for everyone
from outdoorsmen to museum-goers.
Follow the Civil War Trail in Meridian,
Mississippi, where you’ll experience
history irst-hand, including Merrehope
Mansion, Marion Confederate Cemetery
and more. www.visitmeridian.com.
Search over 10,000 images and primary
documents relating to the Civil War Batle
of Hampton Roads, now available in he
Mariners’ Museum Library Online Catalog!
www.marinersmuseum.org/catalogs
Seven museums, an 1890 railroad, a
British fort and an ancient trade path can
be found on the Furs to Factories Trail
in the Tennessee Overhill, located in the
corner of Southeast Tennessee.
Explore the Natchez Trace. Discover
America. Journey along this 444-mile
National Scenic Byway stretching
from the Mississippi River in Natchez
through Alabama and then Tennessee.
Sandy Springs, Georgia, is the perfect
hub for exploring Metro Atlanta’s Civil
War sites. Conveniently located near
major highways, you’ll see everything
from Sandy Springs!
Alabama’s
Gulf Coast
Relive the rich history of the Alabama
Gulf Coast at Fort Morgan, Fort Gaines,
the USS Alabama Batleship, and the
area’s many museums.
Fort-Morgan.org • 888-666-9252
Fitzgerald, Georgia...100 years of bring-
ing people together. Learn more about
our story and the commemoration of the
150th anniversary of the Civil War’s
conclusion at www.itzgeraldga.org.
Historic Bardstown, Kentucky
History, bourbon, shopping, sightseeing
and relaxing—whatever you enjoy,
you’re sure to ind it in beautiful
Bardstown, KY. Plan your visit today.
www.visitbardstown.com
hrough personal stories, interactive
exhibits and a 360° movie, the Civil War
Museum focuses on the war from the
perspective of the Upper Middle West.
www.thecivilwarmuseum.org
Come to Helena, Arkansas and see
the Civil War like you’ve never seen
it before. Plan your trip today!
www.CivilWarHelena.com
www.VisitHelenaAR.com
Treat yourself to Southern Kentucky
hospitality in London and Laurel
County! Atractions include the Levi
Jackson Wilderness Road State Park and
Camp Wildcat Civil War Batleield.
Just 15 miles south of downtown
Atlanta lies the heart of the true
South: Clayton County, Georgia,
where heritage comes alive!
CIVIL WAR MUSEUM
of the Western Theater
Hundreds of authentic artifacts.
Voted fourth inest in U.S. by North &
South Magazine. Located in historic
Bardstown, Kentucky.
www.civil-war-museum.org
London, KY–he reenactment of the Batle
of Camp Wildcat, Camp Wildcat Historic
Site, Wilderness Road Trail & Boones Trace
Trail, & antique and lea market shopping.
www.LaurelKyTourism.com
here’s a place where a leisurely stroll
might lead to an extraordinary historic
home, a beautiful monastery or a lush
peach orchard. hat place is Georgia.
ExploreGeorgia.org/HistoricHeartland
Join us as we commemorate the 150th
anniversary of Knoxville’s Civil War
forts. Plan your trip today!
www.knoxcivilwar.org
Hip and historic Frederick County,
Maryland is home to the National
Museum of Civil War Medicine, unique
shopping, dining covered bridges and
outdoor recreation. www.visitfrederick.org
St. Mary’s County, Maryland. Visit Point
Lookout, site of the war’s largest prison
camp, plus Confederate and USCT
monuments. A short drive from the
nation’s capital.
Come to Cleveland, Mississippi—the
birthplace of the blues. Here, you’ll ind
such legendary destinations as Dockery
Farms and Po’ Monkey’s Juke Joint.
www.visitclevelandms.com
Dstination
Jessamine, KY
STEP BACK IN TIME at Camp Nelson
Civil War Heritage Park, a Union Army
supply depot and African American
refugee camp. Museum, Civil War
Library, Interpretive Trails and more.
 HARD,
HOT,
GRUELING
WAR
REVIEWED BY ETHAN S. RAFUSE

T
HE CAMPAIGN THAT Union forces
under the overall direction of Ulysses S.
Grant conducted against Richmond and
Petersburg in 1864-65 was unquestionably
one of the most important of the entire Civil
War. When it began, Robert E. Lee’s and P.G.T. Beaure-
gard’s commands, though bearing scars from a campaign that
began in May 1864 and carried the war to the banks of the
James River, were still capable of giving as good as they got.
Ten months later, the Confederate high command had no
choice but to abandon its capital and shortly thereafter, after a
doomed attempt to escape Grant’s clutches, Lee surrendered
his army. The campaign for Richmond and Petersburg was a
very complicated affair. As A. Wilson Greene chronicles in
the massive first entry in his eagerly anticipated three-volume
study of the campaign, the first two months of fighting saw
one of the war’s great operational maneuvers in the Federal
move to the James—and great disappointment regarding the
failure of the Union army to capitalize on it. Greene surveys
the overly ambitious effort to extend Union lines all the way
around Petersburg, the desultory Wilson-Kautz cavalry raid,
and, of course, the offensives north and south of the James in
July that culminated in ignoble tragedy at the Crater.
Greene’s decades with the National Park Service, his years
as a popular lecturer, tour leader, acclaimed author of numer-
ous essays and monographs on the war, and, above all, the role
his leadership played in shaping Pamplin Historical Park into
a must-see site related to the Siege of Petersburg have made
him one of the true giants in the field. Thus, it will come as no
surprise that his command of the extensive body of published
and unpublished primary sources related to the campaign,
ability to clearly and thoroughly describe events, and the skill
A Campaign of Giants:
The Battle for Petersburg—
Volume One: From the Crossing
of the James to the Crater
A. Wilson Greene
University of North Carolina Press
2018, $45

with which he weighs the evidence in addressing controver-
sies over what exactly happened in the first seven months of
1864 are all on full display here. While he naturally devotes
considerable attention to the decisions and actions of (and
friction within) the Union and Confederate high commands,
enthusiasts of history from the “bottom up” will especially
appreciate Greene’s superb treatment of the experiences of
local civilians and the men on the front lines as they struggled
to endure the opening nine weeks of what would be perhaps
the most grueling campaign of the entire war.
Greene presents all of this in compelling, and at times ele-
gant, prose with plenty of clear, well-drawn, and informative
maps to help readers follow the action. These, in combina-
tion with the work’s other fine qualities, ensure that Civil War
enthusiasts will finish this book eagerly anticipating the next
volume in what is clearly shaping up to be one of the great
campaign studies in modern Civil War literature.

68 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018

 Vicksburg: The Bloody Siege that citations to sources and did command a cavalry
Turned the Tide of the Civil War attention to research as brigade at the time of
Samuel W. Mitcham Jr. well, in order to avoid the Battle of Shiloh, but
Regnery History, 2018, $29.99 errors in fact. There is it was not present at the

R
 REVIEWED BY
STUART MCCLUNG
eviewers generally prefer not
to denigrate an author’s work.
slightly more than an
average of one footnote
for every two pages of
text and the vast major-
ity are informational,
and perhaps only nine
could be considered as
having any reference to
battle, as the text seems
to indicate. Gardner
was at Shiloh, however,
serving as a volunteer
aide-de-camp to Gen-
eral Braxton Bragg.
The maps are some-
what crudely drawn,
There are publications, however, when a source. One is left to and only two have a
that is necessary. This monograph has ponder the specific source of much of scale designation. The order of bat-
a number of problems that need to be the information in the text. tle lists three numerically designated
delineated for the edification of the There are factual errors. Stephen artillery batteries, but the Confederate
reading public. Mallory was not the Confederate sec- Army almost invariably went by the
The author states his purpose is retary of War, but secretary of the Navy, battery commander’s name.
to cover the Confederate perspective and no appointee in the former posi- Samuel W. Mitcham Jr. is a univer-
of the Vicksburg Campaign. There is tion served in that role throughout the sity professor and also teaches at the
nothing wrong with that. When writ- war as Mallory did in his. Also, Lincoln U.S. Military Academy at West Point.
ing nonfiction history, though, there are did not “fire” Winfield Scott. He retired He is the author of books about World
certain standards to which one should from being general-in-chief. Lastly, War II, but he seems to be out of his
adhere. These include proper footnote Confederate General Franklin Gardner element with the Civil War.

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himself a player at Ford’s Theater at one
of the most crucial events in American
history. I Held Lincoln could be REVIEWED BY TOM CLEMENS
The Conspirator’s prequel.”—Webster Stone

T
here is an old saying I like: “It is wise to occasionally re-
examine how you know what you think you know.” In the
case of Dennis E. Frye’s new book Antietam Shadows, that
phrase is more than appropriate—it is a metaphor for the entire book.
Frye is perpetually and proudly provocative, and this book is, in a way, a
story of his personal journey from benignly accepting the works of pre-
vious authors on the Maryland Campaign to an almost complete rejec-
tion of their interpretations. His book is not, however, simply revisionism
for revisionism’s sake, but rather a well-researched and well-thought-out
examination of the long-cherished lore of the events in western Mary-
land in the waning days of summer 1862.
Broken up into short, easily digested chapters, Frye takes on topics
that appear radical to many traditionalists. He argues that Maj. Gen.
George B. McClellan outsmarted General Robert E. Lee during the
campaign and thus forced the failure of the efforts of Lee and his army
to invade Pennsylvania. He also suggests that the impact of finding a lost
copy of Special Orders No. 191
$24.95 • HARDCOVER on September 13, the Confed-
erate dispatches that described
Potomac Books
An imprint of the University of Nebraska Press
the Army of Northern Virginia’s
positions, did not greatly affect
nebraskapress.unl.edu/potomac
the campaign; that McClellan
did not “telegraph his attack” by
positioning troops on Lee’s left
★ BIG GUNS OF GETTYSBURG ★ FREEDOM BY HATCHET ★
flank on September 16; and that
he did not unnecessarily delay
his attack on Lee at Sharpsburg.
Perhaps most radically, Frye sug-
PLUS
REVEALING
gests that McClellan was not the
QUOTES
FROM
GRANT’S
plodding, bumbling fool por-
MEMOIRS
trayed by previous studies.
GOODBYE TO THE
While many of these inter-
‘BUTCHER’ pretations have been advanced
before, this is the first real syn-
GRANT thesis of the challenges to the
REDEFINED “standard” story. In pursuing
BATTLEFIELD TRAMPER
FRED CROSS EXPLORED ANTIETAM’S
HALLOWED GROUND BEFORE IT WAS COOL
this theme, Frye especially chal- Antietam Shadows: Mystery,
August 2018
HistoryNet.com
MISSING STONEWALL
TAR HEEL’S GETTYSBURG LETTERS lenges the studies of Francis Myth and Machination
CWTP-180800-COVER-DIGITAL-BW.indd 1 4/27/18 11:04 AM
Palfrey’s The Antietam & Fred- By Dennis E. Frye
ericksburg Campaigns; James
Antietam Rest Publishing
Murfin’s Gleam of Bayonets; and 2018, $19.95
Stephen Sears’ Landscape Turned
Red. The personal side of Frye’s
journey is evident throughout
the book as he begins by chal-

lenging history itself, and often admits his own “blinkered” views in the
past. In fact, that language is used in one of his chapter titles! He tempers
his “conversion” by declaring that he still doesn’t “like” McClellan, but
acknowledges the general’s success during the Maryland Campaign.
This book is a quick and easy read, full of lively language, argumen-
tative and provocative. Those attributes, plus a modest price, make this
book a must-read for anyone interested in the Maryland Campaign.
 V I S I T Kentucky’s
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Five for Freedom:
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The African American
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Brown’s Army
Eugene L. Meyer
Lawrence Hill Books, 2018,


REVIEWED BY
$26.99

FRANK J. WILLIAMS

J ohn Brown and a

squad of 18 raiders
descended on Harpers Ferry
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Among Brown’s con-
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Shields Green, Dangerfield Visit DanvilleKentucky.com for more information.
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they were born and raised
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 ROUGH WEATHER
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IMAGE COURTESY SKINNER INC., WWW.SKINNERINC.COM

rubberized groundsheets and ponchos. Confederate enlisted men had

to capture the coveted items or make use of less effective tarred
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patent” balaklava, sold by Skinner Auctions, and Stonewall Jackson
was wearing a rubberized raincoat when he was mortally wounded
at Chancellorsville. There are some storms you can’t prepare for. 2

72 CIVIL WAR TIMES OCTOBER 2018

History’s All Around You in Clarksville, Tenn.
C
larksville, Tennessee is first and foremost
a river city. The Cumberland and Red
Rivers merge in the heart of the town, very
near where the city was founded in 1784, 12 years
before Tennessee became the nation’s 16th state.
Today, a fully-developed Cumberland RiverWalk
adorns this significant juncture, and an enclosed
RiverCenter tells Clarksville’s history from that very
vantage point.
Clarksville’s rich military history spans from
the Civil War era through modern conflicts. The
community’s 24-site Civil War Journey through-
out Montgomery County may enlighten your
understanding of this turbulent era. A highlight
of the trek is the remarkably well-preserved Fort
Defiance Park & Interpretive Center, just across
the river from downtown. Located on a 200-foot
bluff over the Cumberland, the defensive fort
was constructed in 1861 by Confederate troops to
control the river approach to Clarksville.
Anchoring Clarksville’s historic and quaint
downtown are two captivating structures. The
Customs House Museum & Cultural Center was
constructed in 1898 as a post office and customs
house to accommodate the region’s booming
tobacco trade. Its eclectic style incorporates Stick,
Queen Anne, Italianate, Romanesque, Flemish
and Gothic architecture. In 1984 the local museum
began operating in the building, and now boasts
more than 35,000 square feet of exhibit space,
showcasing local and regional lore, art, science
and hands-on activities. Kids of all ages will enjoy
one of the largest model train displays in the
region, along with the ever-popular Bubble Cave.
You’ll also learn about famous Clarksvillians like
Olympic Gold Medalist Wilma Rudolph, the
first woman from the United States to receive
three gold medals in a single Olympic Games.
Two blocks from the Customs House on
Franklin Street, the crux for downtown retail and
restaurants, visitors can enjoy live professional
productions in the 1947 art deco Roxy Regional
Theatre. Since 1983, the Roxy has produced over
500 mainstage productions plus alternative
theatre.
A refreshing 30-minute drive into rural Mont-
gomery County transports visitors to a mid-19th
Century settlement at Historic Collinsville. This
pioneer museum on 40 rolling acres features 18
authentically restored log houses and outbuild-
ings dating from 1830–1870. Each structure has
been restored to its original condition and is
authentically furnished. Historic Collinsville is open
seasonally from mid-May through mid-October.
Dunbar Cave, at over eight miles in length, is
one of the largest caves in Montgomery County.
Part of a 110-acre state park, the cave’s archaeo-
logical markings and excavations revealed that
the cave has been used by man for thousands of
years. The entrance to Dunbar Cave is 58 degrees
year-round which was a popular attraction
during the summer months and by the 1930s, the
cave became a hotspot for local bands and other
entertainment. In 1948, country music legend
Roy Acuff bought the property and staged his
Saturday Night Radio Dance Broadcast from the
site. The cave’s popularity declined in the 1950s
when indoor air-conditioning became common in
households.
A short drive northwest of Nashville along
I-24, Clarksville’s central location makes an ideal
weekend getaway for travelers looking for a mix
of history, education, outdoor adventure, great
food, wine and breweries, as well as outstanding
cultural opportunities. Customize your trip at
visitclarksvilletn.com with our online itinerary
builder, or download the new VisitClarksvilleTN
app.