civil war times - december 2015 usa
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THE VIOLENT,SEXY AND
BIZARRE DREAMSOF CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS
NIGHTTREMORS
THE MUDDY MISERY OFSPOTSYLVANIA
THAT’S ONE BIG GUNTHE GIANT RODMAN CANNON
CIVIL WAR APPS: FIGHT THE WAR ON YOUR TABLET
DECEMBER 2015
AVAILABLE WHEREVER BOOKS ARE SOLD and at nationalgeographic.com/books
Nat Geo Books @NatGeoBooks
© 2015 National Geographic Society
HEADLINES IN HISTORY
Acclaimed historian
James Robertson explores
the Civil War’s long shadow on
America and how deeply the war trans-
formed the country. Spotlighting 75 key
fi gures from Reconstruction and on, the
book reveals a fascinating view of the
post–Civil War period.
Best-selling author Winston Groom narrates a heart-rending portrayal of the Civil War’s fi rst great battle.
Dramatically illustrated, this book reveals the greatest stories never told of ordinary soldiers and war-weary civilians.
Scores of maps trace the battles, turmoil, and themes of America’s most violent and pivotal clash of arms.
Personal accounts, rare photographs, detailed maps, and period illustrations pack this extraordinary resource.
A Complete Library for Civil War Buffs
CIVIL WAR TIMESDECEMBER 2015
ABOVE: Spotsylvania’s Bloody Angle did not look this pleasant and tranquil in May 1864. ON THE COVER: An unidentified Union soldier poses in front of a flag tinted by the photographer.
32
FEATURES
DEPARTMENTS
26 In Their Heads By Jonathan W. White
Erotic dreams and violent nightmares haunted soldiers North and South
32 ‘Another Butchery’ By Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White
The last Federal assault on the ‘Bloody Angle’ did little more than swell casualty lists
40 Master Spy or Scoundrel? By Julia Bricklin
Vigilante-turned-sleuth Lafayette Baker inspired multiple scandals before he was finally kicked out of the White House
46 Rodman’s Big Gun By Andrew Masich
Thomas J. Rodman figured out how to build a ship-killing cannon, the war’s largest gun
54 Tablet Wars By Megan Kate Nelson
A young buff evaluates Civil War game apps
4 Editorial Island prison in Ohio
6 Letters Battle flag flap, Liberty Ship Longstreet
10 News ! Preserving Virginia slave quarters
14 Details U.S. Colored Troops with a garrison cannon
16 Insight Southern staff officers’ memoirs
20 Materiel 5 Confederate kepis
22 Interview Seminary Ridge Museum Director Daryl Black
58 Explore Battle of Cedar Creek
62 Reviews Engineering Victory: The Union Siege of Vicksburg
70 Etc. Sherman on vigilante justice
72 Sold ! Prized 12-pounder
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54
46
26
20
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4 CIVIL WAR TIMES
EDITORIAL
�MAJ. GEN. EDWARD “ALLEGHENY” JOHNSON was captured twice in 1864. The first time occurred on May 12 at Spotsylvania (P. 32). He was paroled, but recaptured at the December 16 Battle of Nashville. Johnson then made the long trek to Ohio and the Johnson’s Island Confederate prison camp, located on an island in Lake Erie’s Sandusky Bay, which was reserved for Rebel officers. Over 9,000 prisoners moved through the depot during the war. Development has taken over most of the island, and much of the prison is now gone, although an archaeological dig is being conducted on a portion of the site (johnsonsisland.heidelberg.edu). More than 200 Confederate prisoners are still there, however, interred in the Johnson’s Island Confederate Cemetery. This small spot of land is open to the public and very well maintained by the Johnson’s Island Preservation Society (johnsonsisland.org). During a recent visit, I was pleased to see a number of visitors touring the cemetery. It’s odd to contemplate the white marble headstones while pleasure boaters zip by just offshore, their recreational fun marking a sharp contrast to the confusion the POWs must have felt while facing death in that alien environment. We can’t say for sure what those men dreamed about during their last days (P. 28), but it was likely of a home far away.–D.B.S.
A LONG WAY FROM HOMESome Rebel prisoners never left Ohio
LAKESIDE RESTThis handsome iron
gate stands on the
east, or Lake Erie,
side of the cemetery.
A Moses Ezekiel
statue serves as a
centerpiece for the
burial ground.
EDITOR IN CHIEF ROGER L. VANCE
MICHAEL A. REINSTEIN CHAIRMAN & PUBLISHERDIONISIO LUCCHESI PRESIDENT
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SHENANDOAH SANCHEZ PHOTOGRAPHER AT LARGE
ADVISORY BOARDEdwin C. Bearss, Gabor Boritt, Catherine Clinton, William C. Davis,
Gary W. Gallagher, Lesley Gordon, D. Scott Hartwig, John Hennessy,
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CORPORATEDAVID STEINHAFEL DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS
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DECEMBER 2015 Vol. 54, No. 6
CIVIL WART I M E SONLINE
BRAXTON BRAGG RECONSIDEREDThe reviled Confederate general
(above) deserves more credit for his accomplishments
MARYLANDERS FOR DIXIEA photo portfolio of rare artifacts that
belonged to the Maryland “Band of Brothers” who fought for the South
IN SEARCH OF PRIVATE DAVIESA trip to Vicksburg brings a
Union veteran’s memories to life
VISITC I V I LWA RT I M E S .C OM
6 CIVIL WAR TIMES
LETTERS
THE BATTLE FLAGAs expected, our October cover story generated considerable feedback:
To those who make the argument that the Confederate flag celebrates a unique heritage in American history and not racism: You should be very angry. Symbols will be interpreted by those using them. When I see Confederate flags flying in upstate New York by those with no connection to the South, I feel it is a subtle message of white supremacy. When I see people at a rally using the flag in concert with swastikas, their message is much clearer. Keep in mind, the swastika was long a symbol of peace until appropriated by the Nazis. Supporters of the flag with no hatred in their heart need to steal it back from those who misuse it.Brandon M. O’ConnorGrand Island, N.Y.
Cancel my subscription. The article on the Confederate flag was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. Up to this issue I had always looked forward to reading the magazine from cover to cover. I believe that the two people you had in the article who gave their own opinion, Mr. Dabney and Mr. Prillaman, were a poor choice. Clearly Mr. Dabney had an ax to grind for his hatred of the flag and America itself and should not have been given this forum. Mr. Prillaman, who I assumed was to be the counterpoint of Mr. Dabney, came across weak and apologetic. One reason I had looked forward to reading the magazine was it was a source that was free of the political correctness that is contributing to the destruction of our society. Is nothing sacred? Nick Perko IIIHighland, Ind.
★ REAL REALITY TV: KEN BURNS’ THE CIVIL WAR ★
OCTOBER 2015
Michael Kelter:After 10 years I
will no longer be reading Civil War Times due to their policy of political correctness. You have killed my
interest.
Garry W. Roberts:Thanks for posting
this! This is one of the most informative, fair
and balanced articles on the flag I’ve seen everywhere. I
have two Civil War ancestors, both
were great-great-grandfathers, but
on opposing sides.
Garland Holt:Yes, this is very good. I like the
statement:“Studying the
flag’s full history also allows us to engage in a more
constructive dialogue about its proper place in the present and in the
future.”
Ivan Carter:Good, informative,
read. Keep that flag in museums where it belongs.
It’s a relic of history. If folks want to fly it on their property, bumper sticker
etc., so be it. Free country.
Shirley HollandGoss:
I have my Confederate
battle flag and I will fly it proudly!
Here’s a sample of commentary on the flag article from our Facebook page:
Apple and the Apple logo are trademarks of Apple Inc.,registered in the U.S. and other countries.App Store is a service mark of Apple Inc.
WILD WEASELS Hunter Killers Zero In on Missile Sites
HOT BATWillie Mays sets
home run record in ’65
GREEN BERET ASSAULT
COMMANDO TEAM OVERPOWERS VC JUNGLE STRONGHOLD
OPERATION LINEBACKER1 Pilot, 8 Days, 3 Medals AUGUST 2015
Justice in tombstone
Ghosts of sand creek
DEadly DOUBTFUL CANYON
On the run but ready to fightGeronimo
OCTOBER 2015
THE AMERICAN FRONTIERWAR ENDSVICTORY OVER JAPAN
Hellcats’ Last-Minute Fight to the DeathTruman Takes Charge | A Pilot’s-Eye View of Enola Gay
PLUS:The Man with Steel Teeth | Vesuvius Attacks
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LONGSTREET THE LIBERTY SHIPI very much enjoyed reading about Liberty Ships (October 2015), as I have long been interested in them and their history. Many years ago we used to visit Cape Cod for vacation, and there was what the locals called “the target ship in the bay” always prominent on the horizon. On April 25, 1945, the SS James Longstreet was deliberately sunk in Cape Cod Bay, to be used as a target ship by the U.S. Navy. This was discontinued in the early 1970s. The hulk of the Longstreet remained visible for many sub-sequent years, but storms and natural decay have finally relegated James Longstreet to memory only. Norman MartenBainbridge Island, Wash.
Always enjoy reading Civil War Times. After read-ing the article regarding Liberty Ship names from WWII in the October 2015 issue, I thought I’d drop a note about one such vessel. The SS James Longstreet was built and launched in Houston, Texas, on Octo-ber 31, 1942. She made three wartime voyages, car-rying various materials, but had somewhat hard luck and an undistinguished career. She ended up being towed to a mooring off the coast of North Eastham, on Cape Cod Bay in Massachusetts, on April 25, 1945, to serve as a target ship for airmen flying out of Otis Air Field on Cape Cod. That’s where her remains rest today, marked by Coast Guard hazard buoys, the namesake of one of Lee’s stalwart lieuten-ants rusting away in Northern waters.L. ByrneBrewster, Mass.
PHOTOGRAPHER IDENTIFIED I enjoyed your photograph of blacksmiths aboard the USS Lehigh in the October 2015 issue.
The box at the right of the image belonged to photographer Egbert Guy Fowx, who taught Andrew Russell the wet plate pro-cess. Fowx’s equipment appears in several of his wartime photos.
Robert Gray, Port Richey, Fla.
7 DEADLY SHELLSBefore a day’s yard-work in our Virginia sunshine, I’m enjoy-ing my August 2015 issue of Civil War Times, particularly the article “7 Deadly Shells.” I read USS Monitor crewman William F. Keeler’s diaries many years ago and have many times tried to visual-ize artillery projec-tiles. Thanks for the great photographs. John E. BishopVirginia Beach, Va.
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Columbus, Missippi, is home to three National Register Historic Districts that boast an impressive 676 properties. While other cities were ravaged during the Civil War, Colum-bus was a “hospital town,” leaving the antebellum and Vic-torian homes — along with their contents — spared. Tours of these architectural gems abound. Whether taking a guided walking tour or winding through the scenic area by car, visi-tors to “The Friendly City” are able to experience 19th century OLYLQJ�ÀUVW�KDQG�� Attractions include Waverley Plantation Mansion, a National Historic Landmark and one of the most photo-graphed homes of the South; Friendship Cemetery, the VLWH� RI� WKH� ÀUVW� 0HPRULDO� 'D\� FHOHEUDWLRQ� LQ� ������ DQG�the Mississippi University for Women, the oldest pub-lic college for women in the United States and home to 23 National Register properties.� )RXQGHG� LQ� ����� RQ� WKH� EDQNV� RI� WKH� 7RPELJEHH� 5LYHU��the town thrives on its rich heritage and Southern Charm. &ROXPEXV� R�HUV� DQ� H[WUDRUGLQDU\� PL[� RI� KLVWRU\�� QDWXUDO�beauty and culture. Situated on the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway (nick-QDPHG� WKH� 7HQQ�7RP��� &ROXPEXV� R�HUV� QXPHURXV� RSSRU-WXQLWLHV�IRU�RXWGRRU�UHFUHDWLRQ��2QH�RI�WKH�WRS�VSRUWV�ÀVKLQJ�spots in the nation, the Tenn-Tom is a 234-mile stretch that connects middle-America with the Gulf Coast. It is ideal for
scenic boat tours, water skiing or leisurely strolls down the newly-opened River Walk.
“Since being named one of the ‘Dozen Distinctive Destina-tions,’ we have seen our visitation increase tremendously,” said Nancy Carpenter, CEO and Executive Director of the Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau. “We hope to welcome thousands more to experience our authentic charm and Southern hospitality. Columbus really is the city that has it all!”
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ultimate Southern destination.
Columbus, Mississippi.
10 CIVIL WAR TIMES
C L ERM O NT FARM S LAVE QUART ERSRESTORATIONClermont Farm, just outside Berryville, Va., became the temporary home for Historicorps volunteers this past summer as they worked to rebuild slave quarters constructed in 1823. In addition to making foundation repairs, teams restored the
chimney, log framing, floor joists and sill logs, as well as exterior siding and the roof, windows and doors. In the process of those repairs as well as an archaeological dig, the staff uncovered the foundation of an additional slave quarters structure and a trove of Civil War–era artifacts. Clermont, which was established on land in the Shenandoah
Valley surveyed by George Washington in 1750, has remained a farm ever since that time. The property has been owned by just four families, remaining in the hands of the last
owners, the McCormick family, for 185 years. When the last private owner, McCormick descendant Elizabeth Rust Williams, died in 2004, she donated it to the Virginia
Department of Historic Resources, establishing the Clermont Foundation to manage the property. Thanks to her foresight, Clermont remains an active farm to this day—which also functions as a research and training facility for history, historic preservation and
agricultural programs. To find out more about the farm, see clermontfarm.org
NEWS!
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DECEMBER 2015 11
GENERALGEORGE G. MEADE
200th AnniversaryCELEBRATIONS
Army of the Potomac commander Maj. Gen. George Meade
may have been overshadowed by General Ulysses Grant
at Spotsylvania (see P. 32) in 1864, but members of the General
Meade Society of Philadelphia have been dedicated to “preserving
the memory of the architect of the Union victory at Gettysburg” since
the group’s founding in 1996. This fall and winter, to commemorate
the 200th anniversary of Meade’s birth in Cadiz, Spain, the society
is sponsoring a series of events—some including champagne toasts
(bubbly was reportedly Meade’s favorite tipple):
Amid ongoing national debate about the heritage value of Confederate sym-bols and monuments, conservators from Conservation Solutions Inc. are restoring the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cem etery. The United Daugh-ters of the Confederacy hired sculptor Moses Ezekiel—a Southern veteran—to create the 32-foot monument in 1910. The memorial, now surrounded by the graves of 482 Southern veterans and fam-ily members, was unveiled in 1914 before a crowd including both Union and Con-federate veterans. —Kim A. O’Connell
OCTOBER 3
Picnic on the grounds of the Meade Monument in Philadelphia
NOVEMBER 6
Anniversary dinner at the Union League of Philadelphia
NOVEMBER 20
Meade Symposium in Gettysburg
DECEMBER 31
Birthday Celebration at Philadelphia’s Laurel Hill Cemetery, where Meade was buried.
TO LEARN MORE, CHECK OUT GENERALMEADESOCIETY.ORG.
CONFEDERATE MEMORIAL
AT ARLINGTON
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They couldn’t hitan elephantat this distance
— Union Maj. Gen. John Sedgwick, exhorting his troops to ignore Rebel
sharpshooters while supervising artillery placement at Spotsylvania…
moments before he was shot dead.
Q U O T A B L E
12 CIVIL WAR TIMES
THE LONG ROAD HOME
In mid-April 1865, four Texans wearing tattered Confederate uniforms walked south from Appomattox Court House bearing freshly printed Fed-eral paroles promising free transportation and food, and the right to travel home unmolested. Two of those men, A.B. Green and Denis Rowe, had enlisted together in 1861. Green bore wounds from Second Manassas and the Wilderness, while Rowe was missing the middle finger of his right hand,
the result of an accidental shooting two springs before. John Calvert and John Wesley, who accompanied them, had waited until 1862 to enlist. Those four Texans were among thousands of Confederates who marched away from Appo-mattox and into obscurity, leaving very few records of their journey back home.
For the most part, we know little of the soldiers’ thoughts about defeat or surrender, or what routes they took. “The Long Road Home” was designed to shed light on this brief but significant phase of postwar history by mapping the travels of veterans of John Bell Hood’s Texas Brigade from the moment they received their paroles on April 13, 1865, until they reached Texas and Arkansas. Visitors to the site can slide the timeline bar (left click and hold, scroll to the right or left) to watch the journey. It’s also possible to zoom out from the open-ing view of the map (an 1870 railroad map overlaid on a modern Google map), but don’t zoom out so far that you miss the details. Each veteran or group of
URAL ON URLS: THE WAR ON THE NET
a l l a nb r a n s t it e r. n e t / L o n g R o a d H o m e /
n e at l i n e /f u l l s c r e e n /s a mp l e
NEWS!
veterans has a colored arrow indicat-ing their path. Click on the colored arrows or the colored bars in the timeline to read the veterans’ stories. While Neatline does not allow for an entirely smooth viewing experience, it offers one of the best opportunities we have found to map the routes taken by Confederate veterans on their long road home.
Some notable trends emerge from the men’s writings. None mention the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, for example. Perhaps they could focus on nothing but their own misery—or maybe they worried a journal might be seized and accusa-tions made against them by Union forces. Then too, most veterans cut far south toward Atlanta and then moved westward, rather than traveling through east Tennessee, a more direct route. Perhaps they feared tensions in Unionist Eastern Tennessee, an issue that surfaced for the two men who bucked the trend and followed that route. None of the men mentioned continuing the fight with Confeder-ates in North Carolina. Lee’s veterans were done with the war. Finally, Rebel veterans’ attitudes toward Union troops varied. Some interacted with Federals and sought food or protec-tion from soldiers bent on revenge. But other Texas Brigade veterans went out of their way to avoid contact with their old foes.
To be clear, one of my doctoral students, E. Allan Branstiter, and I created this website. Yes, it seems a bit odd to write about myself in this column. But there is a wealth of work that needs to be done to document the months that followed the war’s end, and I hope this project can inspire others to embark on similar undertakings. —Susannah J. Ural
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DECEMBER 2015 13
NAME THE LOCATION of this small but important fight that triggered a congressional investigation and send your
answer via e-mail to [email protected] or via regular mail (19300 Promenade Dr., Leesburg, VA 20176) marked “Small Fight.” The first correct answer will win a book.
Congratulations to last issue’s winners, Stephen Borsh of Lusby, Md., (e-mail), and Gerald Smith of Homeland, Calif. (mail), who correctly identified the August 1862 Chantilly battlefield in Chantilly, Va.
QUIZ: SMALL FIGHT
Corporal John McBride survived the war, but was shot 20 years later during a squabble over stray cattle at a California ranch. His grave—along with the tiny town of Playto that he once called home—was inundated in 1965 by what would be known as Lake San Antonio. A cemetery for townsfolk of the ghost town of Playto had been relocated, but since McBride’s grave was off by itself and no descendants could be found, the consensus was to let the Civil War veteran rest where he was.
McBride would doubtless have been forgotten to history were it not for climate change—or whatever forces are behind the drought that has drawn down state reservoirs, including Lake San Antonio. According to the San Jose Mercury News, a passing camper discov-ered McBride’s headstone. Joseph Botts Jr., a retired park ranger familiar with the gravesite, conjectured that McBride had probably ended up in Playto as “an unemployed soldier looking for a quiet way of life in a peaceful valley.”
Harrisburg Magazine recently announced that the National Civil War Museum had earned its 2015 Readers Choice Award. Though such a tribute—generated by voting readers—would
always be welcome, the public recognition was especially significant at a time when the NCWM has been caught up in political crossfire in Pennsylvania’s capital, due to a conflict between current Harrisburg Mayor Eric Papenfuse and former Mayor Stephen Reed.
Acknowledging the Harrisburg Magazine award, Museum CEO Wayne Motts said, “All of us here are humbled and honored” by the recognition by Harrisburg area readers. He added, “As a national and international destination of choice for so many travelers from around the globe, to be honored on the home front is truly gratifying.”
The travel website TripAdvisor.com also currently lists top marks for the NCWM, describing it as “Not only a great museum for Harris-burg” but also the top “Civil War museum in the country.”
NATIONAL CIVIL WAR MUSEUM EARNS HONORS
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DroughtExposesSoldier’sGrave
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DETAILS
At EaseTHIS REMARKABLE IMAGE recently became part of the Liljenquist Collection at the Library of Congress. It shows Lieutenant Samuel K. Thompson and soldiers of his 54th United States Colored Troops posed next to a monstrous garrison cannon. Unlike in many stiffly composed photographs of soldiers during the war, the men seem relaxed and at ease with one another—a snapshot, if you will, of the march of racial progress. There is also a bit of mystery connected with this photo. The 54th USCT, not to be confused with the 54th Massachusetts of the movie Glory fame, served in the Indian Territory and Arkansas, and garrisoned posts like Fort Gibson and Fort Smith. But the armament and brickwork visible in this photograph are more indicative of a large seacoast fort.
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4
5
1. Lieutenant Thompson is smartly turned out in a straw boater hat and white private-purchase trousers.
2. Rodman cannons, developed by U.S. ordnance officer Thomas Rodman just before the war (see P. 46), were usually reserved for seacoast forts.
3. The massive cannon, which appears to be a 10- or 15-inch, sits on a swiveling cast-iron carriage. A rod was inserted through the ratchet mechanism at the breech to elevate the barrel.
5. A “photobomber” stands atop the ramparts, which are made of brick-reinforced earth. Also note that this image is beautifully tinted.
4. Most of the men in the 54th USCT were freed slaves. The regiment entered service in September 1863 as the 2nd Regiment, Arkansas Volunteer Infantry (African Descent), but was redesignated the 54th in March 1864.
DECEMBER 2015 15
16 CIVIL WAR TIMES
STUDENTS OF THE ARMY OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA know that staff officers left a great deal of wonderful testimony about prominent generals, less famous officers, and the campaigns and battles in which they participated. Any list of essential works on the army would include Jedediah Hotchkiss’ Make Me a Map of the Valley: The Civil War Journal of Stonewall Jackson’s Topographer (edited by Archie P. McDonald), which includes indispensable material on the Second Corps; Thomas J. Goree’s Longstreet’s Aide: The Civil War Letters of Major Thomas J. Goree (edited by Thomas W. Cutrer), a collection that includes wartime and postwar let-ters relating to Goree’s Confederate service; and Walter H. Taylor’s Lee’s Adjutant: The Wartime Letters of Colonel Walter Herron Taylor, 1862-1865
‘MAKE ME A MAP’Jedediah Hotchkiss,
Stonewall Jackson’s
topographer, created this
sketch of Chancellorsville,
Salem Church and
Fredericksburg.
By Gary W. Gallagher
INSIGHT
RIGHT-HAND MENConfederate staff officers had
a unique view of the war
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(edited by R. Lockwood Tower), a major source on Lee and the army’s headquarters.
The best memoirs include G. Moxley Sor-rel’s Recollections of a Confederate Staff Officer, an unusually literate and revealing source on James Longstreet and the First Corps; Henry B. McClellan’s The Life and Campaigns of Major-General J.E.B. Stuart, which remains the best published source on the cavalry and its colorful commander; and Walter Taylor’s Four Years With General Lee and General Lee: His Campaigns in Virginia, 1861-1865, two titles that supplement Taylor’s letters. Other fre-quently cited postwar accounts by staff officers include Henry Kyd Douglas’ dramatic but often unreliable I Rode With Stonewall, Heros von Borcke’s equally exaggerated account of cavalry affairs titled Memoirs of the Confederate War for Independence and William Willis Blackford’s highly engaging War Years With Jeb Stuart.
Friction of the frontier between Europeans and the Native peoples increased as more and more settlers moved westward clearing fi elds and building permanent communities. Disputes on issues ranged from personal insults, unfair trade or regional policy and often became violent. Few communities were close to the small military outposts that dotted the wilderness, and travel on the crude roads and trails could take days for any organized force to react to a threat.
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18 CIVIL WAR TIMES
number of less well-known staff officers also wrote memoirs that merit serious attention, including George Campbell Brown, Francis W. Dawson
and Joseph Lancaster Brent. Brown’s memoir, edited by Terry L. Jones as Campbell Brown’s Civil War: With Ewell and the Army of Northern Virginia (LSU Press, 2001), takes readers into the company of one of the army’s great characters. The son of Richard S. Ewell’s wife Lizinka, Campbell, as he was known, chronicled his stepfather’s operations from First Manassas through Sailor’s Creek (the Ewells were married in May 1863). Brown’s memoir does much to humanize Ewell, who appears in many other accounts—especially Richard Taylor’s widely quoted Destruction and Reconstruction—as a deeply eccentric character, more comic relief than serious soldier among the high command of Lee’s army.
Brown served alongside Ewell at Gettysburg and during the first three weeks of the Overland Campaign, a period when Robert E. Lee decided Jubal A. Early would do a better job as head of the Second Corps. Bitter and despondent after Lee broke the news, Ewell believed that Early and perhaps others had conspired to force him out. Campbell Brown, who remained at Second Corps headquarters after Early took over, shared the general’s anger. “Old Early did not ask me how you were,” Brown wrote Ewell on June 13, “but I made my speech so that he will hear it….I intend seeing little of Early—& will get along finely. He looks at me like a sheep-stealing dog, out of the corner of his eye.”
Dawson’s Reminiscences of Confederate Service was first published in an edition of 100 copies in 1882 and reprinted by Louisiana State Univer-sity Press with an introduction by Bell I. Wiley in 1980. An Englishman who began his Confederate career in the Navy, Dawson joined Long-street’s staff as a lieutenant of ordnance in 1862, served with “Old Pete” for roughly two years and later transferred to Fitzhugh Lee’s staff in the cavalry. Dawson’s portrait of Longstreet combines praise with fairly strong criticism. “The reputation that Longstreet had as a fighting man was unquestionably deserved, and when in action, there was no lack of energy or quickness of perception,” wrote the Englishman, “but he was somewhat sluggish by nature, and I saw nothing in him to make me believe that his capacity went beyond the power to conduct a square hard fight.”
Dawson’s book includes memorable accounts of several famous inci-dents—including Robert E. Lee’s reaction to news that Longstreet had been grievously wounded in the Wilderness on May 6, 1864. “We lifted Longstreet from the saddle, and laid him on the side of the road,” Daw-son recalled of the moments after his chief was struck down: “It seemed that he had not many minutes to live.” But Longstreet rallied, and as
A his staff accompanied the general’s ambulance away from the battlefield they met Lee. “I shall not soon forget the sadness in his face,” Dawson observed, “and the almost despairing movement of his hands, when he was told that Longstreet had fallen.”
Joseph Lancaster Brent, a native of Mary-land who spent much of his antebellum career in California, served as chief of ordnance on John Bankhead Magruder’s staff during the Peninsula Campaign and the Seven Days’ Bat-tles. Brent’s Memoirs of the War Between the States, published in a limited private edition in 1940 and never reprinted, contains invalu-able ma terial about Magruder’s actions during the spring and early summer of 1862. Sympa-thetic to his superior, whom he described as “a most energetic commander” who prepared “with care and precision for the contingencies which so often decide battles,” Brent none-theless sketched Magruder as an officer who suffered serious physical and mental lapses at crucial moments. The morning of the Battle of Glendale showed Magruder at his worst: “General Magruder was on horseback, gallop-ing here and there with great rapidity,” remem-bered Brent. “He seemed to me to be under a nervous excitement that strangely afflicted him.” Brent asked the general if he was well, to which Magruder replied that he “was feel-ing horribly” due to a lack of sleep and the effects of ingesting medicine containing mor-phine. According to Brent, Magruder thanked him for his concern and “strove to assume his ordinary deportment.” Brent’s depiction of Magruder provides an instructive comparison to the many accounts of “Stonewall” Jackson’s poor perform ance during the Seven Days’.
Readers looking for published primary material on Lee’s army would do well to set aside a shelf for staff officers—and to reserve space on that shelf for Brown, Dawson and Brent as well as their more famous comrades. ✯
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SARTORIAL SPLENDOR
The gunners of the Washington Artillery of New Orleans, a unit made up of the scions of the Crescent City’s upper class, might have worn the best-looking cover of the war. This example retains its “W.A.” and crossed cannons.
MOST REBELS preferred wide-brimmed “slouch,” hats, but the Confed- eracy also issued kepis to its troops, hats inspired by headgear worn in the French army since the 1830s. Southern officers in particular liked to customize their caps, coats and trousers. Rebel kepis and their derivatives came in assorted colors and varied in quality of cloth and construction.
5
TALL TOPPER
This is a forage cap, the kepi’s taller, floppier cousin. Made of “jean cloth,” a blend of cotton and wool woven in a Southern mill, this officer’s hat is set off by a black band, bullion tape and an embroidered infantry bugle.
CONFEDERATECAPS
MATERIEL
DECEMBER 2015 21
WAR SOUVENIR
A Union soldier reportedly brought home this tall kepi variant, sometimes called a “chasseur” cap, after those worn by French light infantry units. The badge on the front of the officer’s cap consists of a wreath enclosing “SC,” perhaps for South Carolina. Its fine blue wool was likely imported from Europe.
SPARE NO EXPENSE
Maj. Gen. John B. Magruder was nicknamed “Prince John” for, as a fellow Rebel officer put it, the “splendor of his appearance.” This braid-encrusted kepi made
in Paris helped the prince live up to his reputation.
FADE AWAY
The officer who wore this kepi would have cut a dashing figure, with all that gold bullion and the elaborate quatrefoil on its top. Though this cap has faded to what is sometimes referred to as “butternut,” it was likely dyed a shade of gray originally.
22 CIVIL WAR TIMES
INTERVIEW
DURING THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG, the Lutheran Theological Seminary was used as a Union observation post and later as a field hospital for both Federals and Confederates. In 2013 the Seminary opened that historic building as a museum to showcase military and medical perspectives on the engagement as well as explore religion and race in antebellum history. Daryl Black, the museum’s new director, points out that the Seminary also has ties to the tragedy at Emanuel Church
in Charleston, where nine members were murdered on June 17, 2015. Daniel Alexander Payne, a free black man from Charleston, attended LTS for his doctorate in divinity because he could not get an education at the seminary in Charleston. After the war ended, Payne returned to Charleston to reestab-lish Emanuel Church, which had been meeting in secret since 1834.
Gettysburg artifacts fill the museum.
Visitors can tour the Seminary’s cupola.
STEP INSIDE A
GETTYSBURGRELIC
�
�
CWT: What are the Lutheran Theological Seminary’s origins?DB: It’s a seminary where abolition-ists, ministers and scholars taught classes and thought about the issues that were dividing the country. Samuel Schmucker, who founded the seminary in 1826, was an abolitionist, and that part of the story brings in human interest, in addition to mili-tary history and the moral and ethical questions surrounding the conflict.
CWT: Why should visitors come to your museum?DB: This is where the fight starts. The Seminary’s cupola is where John Buford envisions the positioning of his cavalry that brings the battle on. It’s where infantry forces became entangled in the struggle that spreads beyond the imagination of anybody, frankly. This institution interprets the battle at a high level, tells the story well and then gives the orientation for what happened here on McPherson’s Ridge and with the U.S. Army’s I Corps. In a larger sense, this institution sits in the middle of a graduate Lutheran seminary, a professional graduate school. We want to make this a place where scholars and the public can come together to think about religion and the war—a fairly understudied area in Civil War history. We want to help lead the expansion of the study of religion in the war.
CWT: What do you showcase that people won’t see elsewhere?DB: The museum is organized to show the stories of medical history and the Civil War side by side. I think that visitors will be surprised by the treatment in terms of thinking about what the costs of war are, while also getting an explanation of what happened to the men on the fields around the building, in addition to exploring race and abolitionism.
CWT: How is the museum organized?DB: Visitors start at the fourth floor,
DECEMBER 2015 23
with the story of the first day’s battle. We want them to think about what was going on here before this became the most famous small town in America. On the night of June 30, Buford’s cavalry troops begin to de- ploy around the building, and the Seminary itself becomes an observa-tion spot for the Union army. Visitors can take a cupola tour—go up and stand where Buford stood and take in the view that gave the Union a strategic advantage on June 30 and July 1. It shows how the initial contact shaped the battle’s dynamic. We want visitors to think about what happened on the first day—the sacrifices made by John Reynolds’ I Corps, for example: They march into the battle with 9,500 men or so, and 6,500 or so are wounded or killed or missing in action. That fight was about buying an hour or two hours at the end of the day to give Winfield Hancock the opportunity to put together the line on Cemetery Ridge. It’s a really compelling story.
On the third floor visitors are con-fronted with the cost of battle. What does the aftermath look and feel like, when men have been standing up in fields, shooting and clubbing each other and shooting mortars and cannons at each other? What does that do to the body physically? That is part of the war that sometimes gets overlooked. Then consider the organizational technology, the Union hospital service, and the ways that Dr. Jonathan Letterman put together this complex system of hospitals, as well as triage and the treatment of the wounded on the battlefield. It’s a sobering moment for a lot of people.
CWT: Where do you address the causes of the war?DB: The museum’s second floor takes you back to a much broader pro-gram—to look at the conditions that caused the war to break out. There’s abolitionism, and the proslavery religion developing in the South. A wonderful interactive exhibit asks you
to think through the dilemmas facing Ameri cans of the 1840s and 1850s, and try to put yourself in the place of people making those decisions. It helps us understand that people have made decisions in the past that shape the way we are today, shape the people we can become—that we hope to become. The second floor exhibits also include treatment of the African-American community. About 220 African Americans lived in Gettysburg during the conflict. Their experience is instructive in thinking about the war’s causes—the tenuous position that free people had here, on the border of slavery and freedom.
CWT: Is there a particular artifact or feature you like most?DB: There’s a letter by an Alabama soldier in one of the rooms of a house here that says: “we might be gone now and remember that our families homes are being destroyed now. Yours may be standing now but maybe next year it won’t be.” What’s happening to many Southern farmers and Southern families is something we need to take very seriously. That raises all kinds of dilemmas regarding the way we think about morality and the war’s effects. Other favorites include one of John Burns’ guns, the original barn door with bullet holes from the McPher-son Farm, chairs from Thaddeus Stevens’ office in Gettysburg, and a surgeon’s kit. The great thing about museums is they put you physically in the presence of objects from the past in ways that nothing else does.
CWT: What about the tour of the grounds?DB: As a part of the rehabilitation of Schmucker Hall and the museum’s creation, the Seminary invested in a walking trail—one mile around the seminary grounds. It tells the semi-nary’s history and also takes you to interesting parts of the battlefield that are kind of difficult to get to. It’s particularly instructive to get up in the cupola and then go down onto
the battlefield. That famous swale between Seminary Ridge and Ceme-tery Ridge—from a distance it doesn’t seem like much of a terrain feature, but when you actually get down in it you realize how quickly it swallows up people—a vast open space, with very constricted sightlines. It’s a great way for visitors to begin thinking about how eyesight shaped the battle, how this landscape affected the men deciding where to put soldiers.
CWT: What is the museum’s position on the current controversy over Con-federate monuments and flags? DB: We want to help facilitate a conversation about Confederate sym-bolism as it relates to the battle flag. A museum is the perfect environment to speak to these issues. The fight over the flag says a lot about where we are now as a nation. Perhaps the fight about symbolism is obscuring broader questions in Ameri can social and cultural life where discussion is long overdue. The talk needs to move beyond discussing the flag and focus on real history, and the real lives affected by the conflict. The unfin-ished business of the Civil War is very present in everyday life today.
Interview conducted by Senior Editor Sarah Richardson
WE WANTTO MAKE THISA PLACE WHERE
SCHOLARSAND THE
PUBLICCAN COMETOGETHERTO THINK ABOUTRELIGIONAND THECIVIL WAR
THE CIVIL WAR IN
GEORGIARINGGOLD Th e Civil War’s impact on Georgia was greater than any other event in
the state’s history. Home to more than 400 Civil War sites, Georgia has a wealth of battlefi elds, cemeteries, arsenals, museums, mansions,
trains, towns and parks, all with fascinating stories to tell!
From Chickamauga, the largest national military park and the second-bloodiest battle of the Civil War, to the escape and
capture of Jeff erson Davis, arguably the last major event of the war, Georgia Civil War Audio Tours off er visitors
the opportunity to hear stories about all facets of the war in Georgia.
Visit GaCivilWar.org to hear the tours today!
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THE GREAT LOCOMOTIVE CHASEFollow this play-by-play audio tour for one of the most legendary events in Civil War history and Hollywood: the April 12, 1862, Great Locomotive Chase across Georgia.
THE CHICKAMAUGA CAMPAIGNDiscover why Chickamauga, in northwest Georgia, was the location for the second-bloodiest battle in the Civil War.
Experience Georgia’s Civil War Audio Tours Follow the action on GaCivilWar.org/audio-tours
THE ATLANTA CAMPAIGNRetrace soldiers’ steps along the I-75 corridor as they battle to claim their ultimate prize: Atlanta, the transportation and manufacturing hub of the Deep South.
GENERAL WILSON’S RAIDHear about Union General Wilson’s raid through Alabama and western Georgia that led to the capture of the last Confederate fort and tested LaGrange’s all-female militia.
SHERMAN’S MARCH TO THE SEAFollow Union forces as they cut a destructive swath across Georgia in 1864 and carry out Gen. William T. Sherman’s strategy to cripple the South’s ability to wage war.
JEFFERSON DAVIS’ ESCAPEListen to true accounts of Confederate President Jeff erson Davis’ escape path through Georgia as he tried to evade capture after the war.
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IN THEIRHEADS
26 CIVIL WAR TIMES
HOMECOMING FANTASYA sleeping warrior dreams of returning to his family, in an illustration for sheet music of Cornelius Everest’s 1862 song “The Soldier’s Vision.”
SOLDIERS DREAMED OFBATTLE, LOVED ONES AND INFIDELITY. AND CHEESE
By Jonathan W. White
DECEMBER 2015 27
PRINTS, ENGRAVINGS and postal covers abounded with titles like The Soldier’s Dream of Home, The Soldier’s Dream of Peace or The American Patriot’s Dream during the war. The images in them were similar: A sleeping warrior, dreaming of home. Sentimental depictions like these were especially popular with troops, as they captured the kinds of dreams so many young men experienced. “Is not this beautiful,” enthused one Ohio soldier to his fiancée in April 1862, referring to the poem “The Soldier’s Dream.” A Confederate man wrote his wife: “Did you ever see a picture called the soldiers dream? I have seen it somewhere, possibly in an old magazine. The artist had certainly seen life in camps and had a wife and baby.”
28 CIVIL WAR TIMES
oldiers and their families not only found solace and comfort in such poems and prints, they also relished sharing their own dreams—sometimes even when doing so meant divulging insecurities or secrets. In some cases this may have contributed to the sense of closeness that endured between men and their families despite long separations.
Home was the most common dream theme for soldiers both North and South. For example, one New York soldier wrote his wife, “Last night I dreamed of being at home as I often do and sweet were the kisses what I took all around.” A 36-year-old Virginia man told his 16-year-old sweetheart, “I dream about you som times three or four nights in succession.”
But sometimes rather than dwelling on loved ones, troops dreamed about things they missed. In 1864 Private Chauncey H. Cooke of Wisconsin, camped in Georgia’s pine woods, wrote his mother, “I dreamed last night about the cheese which you wrote about in the letter I got three days ago,” and how much “I would like a taste of it.”
Pleasant dreams often turned to disappoint-ment when the soldiers woke. “I dreamed of huging and kissing you all night last night,” one Indiana man wrote his wife. “Oh, how happy I was but how bad I did feel this morning.” After having a dream that “I am hugging you to my heart,” one Connecticut volunteer told his wife, “then I awaken and find myself lying in this damd place. it makes me swear some, but that does no good.” A private from Georgia wrote, “Dear Malinda, I dream of you often and oh, what pleasure it is to be with you but when I awake [and] find its all a dream, how sad I feel.”
Dreams could also lead to awkward situa-tions. One Georgia soldier wrote his wife that he “dream[ed] of hugging you” but woke up “hugging the boys” in his tent. After dreaming that his wedding day had finally arrived, Lieu-
tenant John V. Hadley of Indiana “awoke and found nothing but the rough touch of Captain Banta.”
Dreams often revealed soldiers’ anxieties. One Virginia man was plagued by nightmares about his pregnant wife until he received news that mother and baby were fine. “I have dreamed about you several times lately,” Captain Jacob Ritner wrote his wife in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa. “I dreamed the other night that I had you in my arms and was kissing you. I thought you were just as pretty and sweet as ever, but that you looked pale and thin, like you had been sick for a long time,” adding, “I hope you have taken medicine and got over that bad cough.”
Guilt and anxiety frequently haunted dreamers. Men feared their wives or sweet-hearts might lose hope that they would return
TAKE FIVEBandsmen of
the 4th Vermont Infantry take
a break to read, write
and daydream in a Virginia encampment.
S
DECEMBER 2015 29
home, and some soldiers became convinced their lovers had abandoned them. A few soldiers were remarkably candid about fears of abandonment. Captain Thomas Jefferson Hyatt of the 126th Ohio Infantry related that he’d had sev-eral “very queer” dreams one night. “First I dreamed that we had been married some years, and the time had run out and we were about arranging another term,” he wrote his wife. But then “I dreamed you had abandoned me and had or was about to form an alliance with Lt. [ Joseph C.] Watson of this Regt.” At first, Hyatt went on, he was con-tent with this new arrangement, “as I supposed I was free to go where I chose.” But soon he “began to feel very badly, and could not think of the separation.” His wife seemed “offish,” he said, and he grew jealous of how she looked at Lieutenant Watson. But eventually she began “to regret the steps you had taken and began to think I was a little better than your second choice.” He added, “I just then awoke, and behold it was all a dream, and I was very glad of it.”
In some cases, abandonment dreams were very explicit. With-out a letter from his wife for almost two months, Wisconsin soldier Miles Butterfield had a “very strange Dream” that he had gone home to his wife and baby, but she would not “take any notice of me.” Eventually he learned that she “did not intend to live with me anymore.” He pleaded with her to no avail, then walked to town and saw several friends, including one named Cram, who said that “all knew that you was going to leave me and they all looked at me so that I did not know what to do and then Cram told me that he had been living with you about 3 weeks and that he was not the only one that had been with you, but he was the one that you was going off with.” Butterfield told his wife he could “forgive all and live with you as before,” but again she rejected him, and left town on a train. “I was going to wait until the next train come along and I would put an end to my Miserable life by lying down on the track and letting the cars run over me, for now I had nothing to live for as you and the Baby was gone, but I began to think how you had been acting, and concluded that I would go back and let you go, and thought that it was a good thing that you had gone as I did with one once before as you know.” Butterfield concluded by pleading with his wife to write more often.
Some dreams were filled with violence. On September 4, 1861, William Harris Hardy dreamed that when he re-turned home to Mississippi, his wife Sallie “received me cooly.” He watched her get into “a buggy with a young man and left in a gay and fastidious manner,” then followed them to a party, where he now saw her “in a fine glee, entertained by two nice-looking gentlemen.” Sallie still ignored Wil-liam, so that his “heart sunk, and the tears gushed forth from
my eyes.” She chastised him and “rejoined your two favorite beaux.” At this point Hardy “became enraged and deter-mined to settle the matter. I got my double barrel shotgun heavily loaded, and after killing both the young men, I drew a dagger and determined to terminate your life and my own with the same knife at the same time.” But before he could execute “this horrible deed, I awoke.” Hardy attributed his nightmare to having heard that a comrade’s wife had been
unfaithful, in addition to being “tired and worn down, completely exhaust-ed from a long and tedious drill.”
Women were also haunted by fears of infidelity. Knowing their partners were surrounded by other women—including nurses and prostitutes—wives and sweethearts worried the men might give in to temptation. When an Irishwoman in New York dreamed her husband left her and married “a nigger winch,” he play-fully replied, “i am not as yet i dunt now howe soon i may get one the[y] are [as] plnty [as] cattle around.” He closed by saying, “give my love to the children and a bushil of kisses to each one and 2 bushil for your self.” A New Hampshire soldier reassured his wife: “I hardly know what to say to your dream. I will not say you was silly to tell me of it, but you was silly to dream any such things about your
husband who loves you better than all the rest of the world.”Sometimes such fears resulted in bizarre imaginings.
Emma Crutcher of Natchez, Miss., wrote to her husband, Will, telling him of the “maximized joy” she felt when she dreamed he had been shot in the leg and had it amputated. “Now, thought I, he will never leave me again, for he will be of no use, in the army, and—if I die, he will never marry again, for no one but me would love a lame man—he is mine now.” When she awoke, she breathed a sigh of relief that “it was not reality, lameness and all,” but assured him, “I had rather take you now, lamed for life, than wait for months and maybe years longer, with the chance of [not] having you back with me.” At least Will could rest assured of Emma’s abiding faithfulness. Of course, dreamers like these might have been trying to urge their spouses to remain faithful by sharing their night visions. But it seems ironic that, even as husbands and wives suffered from doubts about faithfulness, they were still inclined to share their insecurities.
Not all soldiers were monogamous in their dreams. One Rebel officer dreamed of visiting a Miss Sallie. “She was standing on [the] porch,” he wrote. “I was coming in on side-way….I cried out to Miss S., ‘Here comes your sweet-heart.[’] She ran in the house. Met me at door. Went in and was having a nice time when awoke & ’twas all a dream.” Two nights later he dreamed of a different girl: “Suddenly Miss Kate opened the door and came in looking beautiful as an angel. I spoke to her. Told me, she congratulated me
Guilt andanxiety
often haunteddreamers,especially
when it came
30 CIVIL WAR TIMES
on being married. Told the miss she was mis-taken, but if she was willing I’d soon be. Don’t remember her answer.” And four days later he dreamed that he was about to “pop the ques-tion” to a “Miss Frances.”
Some dreams were just incomprehensible. A South Carolinian dreamed that when he went to visit a former love interest, he found her father “perfectly nude—scabs, scales, and dirt covered his entire body, and in this predicament he ushered me into the presence of his daughter.” A Wisconsin soldier dreamed “there was a million angels in rebel uniforms,
poaching eggs for me.” After eating “poor quality” ginger cakes, a Georgia infantryman reported a series of dreams to his wife. First he was an instructor at a female military academy, then a member of the Confederate Congress, then an army surgeon, then he saw British minister Lord Lyons, and finally he went home and impregnated his wife.
As might be expected, combat was frequently a part of soldiers’ dreams. Some had recurring nightmares of battles, perhaps due to guilt for having survived when others had not. Captain Henry T. Owen of the 18th Virginia
FAMILY TIESPrivate Edward A. Cary of the 44th Virginia Infantry posed for a wartime portrait with his sister, Emma. Soldiers most commonly dreamed of the loved ones they left behind.
DECEMBER 2015 31
Infantry wrote his wife in December 1863 about a dream of Gettysburg that tormented him night after night. Standing amid a long line of troops and looking off into the distance, he “saw the dim outlines of lofty hills, broken rocks and frightful precipices which resembled Gettysburg.” He and his men marched forward, “fighting that great battle over again.” But in his dreams something was different: A “thin shaddow” kept appearing between Owen and the Union troops amassed along Cemetery Ridge. No matter how he tried to get around it, it kept getting in front of him. “Nobody else seemed to see or notice the shaddow which looked as thin as smoke, and did not prevent my seeing the enemy distinctly thru’ it.” When the guns ceased firing, the shadow spoke to him, saying: “I am the angel that protected you. I will never leave nor forsake you.” Owen reported that he awoke and “burst into tears,” wondering why he should be protected while so many of his comrades had perished.
One night when an 8th Vermont soldier yelled in his sleep, “The rebels are coming!” the entire camp fell into a panic. His regiment formed and waited 30 minutes for a Confederate attack while the colonel investigated. In the 12th Wisconsin Infantry’s camp, two bellowing oxen led a soldier to dream the camp was encircled by Rebels. After he shouted, “My God! we’re all surrounded!” his comrades began “a hurried search for trousers, and a seizing of guns.”
Battle dreams could be intense, even for those who had never come close to combat. In September 1864, after read-ing about General William T. Sherman’s capture of Atlanta, a Philadelphia woman dreamed she was in a hotel fighting several armed Confederates. “I was lying on the floor to pre-vent their bullets striking me,” she wrote. “I know I expected to be killed and I wondered if I would be much missed. I was just as cool as you please and wondered if everyone was as cool when in action.”
Perhaps no one suffered more from wartime stresses than POWs. Not surprisingly, undernourished prisoners often dreamed of sumptuous meals. A starving POW from Michigan, incarcerated at the notorious Belle Isle camp in Richmond, recorded in his diary: “Dream continually nights about something good to eat.” At Andersonville, Ga., months later, the same man wrote, “In our dreams we see and eat bountiful repasts, and awake to the other extreme.”
A Pennsylvania cavalryman at Belle Isle remembered after the war that his “hours of slumber were full of dreams, and the burden of these visions was food—food!” In his dreams the cavalryman “was always sitting down to tables that groaned under the choicest viands, and, although I appeared to partake freely of these, I never seemed to be surfeited.” But when morning came, “everlasting hunger was [still] upon me, from which there was no escape.” According to
another Belle Isle prisoner, several of his comrades “often dreamed of eating and woke up to go through the motions frothing at the mouth.”
POWs also dreamed repeatedly of escaping or prisoner exchanges, as well as giant lice and death. After spending three months at Andersonville, Corporal Samuel J. Gibson of the 103rd Pennsylvania reported a recurring dream. “I thought I was in a steamboat in a deep & muddy river, the
water ran wildly,” he wrote. “I thought the Boat I was on was sinking & I sprang from the Hurricane deck upon the hurricane deck of another Boat, which to my horror I found was also sinking, springing from this upon some pieces of broken wreck, I got safely to shore dry shod, while many of my comrades went under.” A few weeks later, while suffering from scurvy, Gibson mused that he hoped he would “outlive this misfortune of being a Prisoner but I am not made of iron; still I consider myself pretty tough.” Then, referring to his dream, he wrote that he would “try to keep my head ‘Above water’ but I am seeing my dream verified every day; by seeing scores of my fellows carried out dead.” True to his dream,
Gibson survived the war, but he witnessed the burials of many comrades.
Confederate POWs at Point Lookout, Md., clamored for images of soldiers dreaming of home. Prisoner James T. Wells of the 2nd South Carolina Infantry recalled, “There were many portrait and landscape painters, and many fine pictures were produced there. One, ‘The Prisoner’s Dream of Home,’ was greatly admired and coveted by many, but money could not purchase it from the owner.” Perhaps in response, prisoner John Jacob Omenhausser of the 46th Virginia painted several copies of a colorful scene he called “The Rebel’s Dream in Prison.” Omenhausser found ea-ger buyers for his work among fellow prisoners—as well as their guards.
As illustrated by Omenhausser’s success at Point Look-out, soldiers from North and South were fascinated by their dreams, as were the loved ones back home. Nighttime visions were part of the experience of war shared by both Unionists and Confederates alike. ✯
Jonathan W. White teaches at Christopher Newport University and is the author of several books, including Emancipation, the Union Army, and the Reelection of Abraham Lincoln, which won the Abraham Lincoln Institute’s 2015 book prize and was also a finalist for both the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize and Jefferson Davis Prize. He is writing a history of dreams during the Civil War. Check out his website: jonathanwhite.org.
Not surprisingly,undernourished
prisonersdreamed ofsumptuous
meals
32 CIVIL WAR TIMES
RAIN HAD SOAKED THE GROUND FOR 5½ DAYS, and the stench rising out of the gore-tinged Virginia mud on May 18, 1864, “was so sickening and terrible that many of the men and officers became deathly sick from it,” said William Mitchell, a staff member for II Corps commander Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock. “[B]lack, bloated bodies were sitting up and reaching out from the earth,” wrote one Pennsylvanian. Those were the remains of men who had fallen on May 12, 1864, when for 22 consecutive hours in pouring rain the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia slugged it out in mud up to their knees near Spotsylvania Court House—the war’s most sustained hand-to-hand combat. Now, six days later, the Federal troops were assembling for another attack on the stretch of earthworks known as the “Bloody Angle.”
Hancock’s battered corps had been Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s hammer of choice, and Grant intended to swing it again across the bloody landscape to strike a Confederate position that he believed was too weak to resist. General Robert E. Lee, meanwhile, needed to remain the unmovable object—an ironic task considering his
army’s superior maneuverability over the previous two weeks.The road to Spotsylvania began on May 5 some 12 miles to the
northwest, in the Wilderness of Orange and Spotsylvania counties. That 70 square miles of second-growth forest was so thick it was a “wil-derness in the most forbidding sense of the word,” said one of Grant’s aides. The Union commander brought 123,000 men with him into the campaign, while Lee countered with 66,000. From May 5-7, 2½ days of stalemate bled some 30,000 men out of the armies. Grant decided to try to maneuver Lee out of position to bring the Confederates to battle on ground more favorable to the larger Union army. “Where Lee goes,
‘THE THIRD AND FINAL
UNION ATTACK ON SPOTSYLVANIA’S
‘BLOODY ANGLE’ ACCOMPLISHED LITTLE ASIDE FROM SWELLING
CASUALTY LISTSby Chris Mackowski
and Kristopher D. White
FACE TO FACEN.C. Wyeth’s grim painting
The Bloody Angle depicts
the brutal struggle at
Spotsylvania’s Mule Shoe.
34 CIVIL WAR TIMES
you shall go too,” Grant ordered Army of the Potomac commander Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade.
This reflected a significant shift in strategy. Formerly, Union armies had tried to capture Richmond and force the Southern government to capitulate. Grant instead intended to use his superior numbers to “hammer continuously against the armed force of the enemy and his resources, until by mere attrition if in no other way, there should be nothing left to him....”
Grant sidestepped Lee with a May 7–8 over-night march, but Lee ordered his men to march twice as far as the Federals and block the road to the key junction of Spotsylvania Court House. By 7:30 a.m. on May 8, Confederates filed into place just in time to block the Union V Corps, which then sent piecemeal attacks across Sarah Spindle’s farm in a vain attempt to dislodge them.
Undeterred, Grant looked for ways to push through to Spotsylvania Court House. The Confederates took advantage of the topography to extend their line and stymie him. The Confederate position had one weakness, though: a salient that resembled and was nicknamed the “Mule Shoe,” which bulged forward from the main line in order to encircle and prevent the Federals from occupying a piece of high ground.
Grant launched major assaults against the Mule Shoe salient on May 10 using techniques developed by a VI Corps officer, Colonel Emory Upton. His plan called for forming an attack column—rather than a tra-ditional line of battle—and punching through the Confederate position using speed and surprise. On May 10, his 7,000-man assault pierced the Mule Shoe, but was thrown back because of lack of support. Grant tried the tactic again on May 12 with Hancock’s entire 20,000-man corps, supported by the 20,000 troops of Maj. Gen. Horatio Wright’s VI Corps.
That assault split the Confederate position wide open, and Lee had to lead desperate countercharges to plug the gaping half-mile wound. By the morning of May 13, Lee’s men had pulled back into a new defensive
position that closed off the base of the Mule Shoe, and artillery fire discouraged any Federal pursuit. Despite 9,000 casualties—compared to 8,000 Confederate casualties—Grant had little to show for his efforts.
He remained set on his course, however. “I intend to fight it out along this line if it takes all summer,” he had de- clared, a comment that made headlines across the country. He had said there would be “no turn-ing back,” and he began planning another attack.
But miserable, muddy roads hampered Federal
maneuvering. “The roads were simply awful, rained continuously and mud was almost knee deep in places,” wrote Captain George Bowen of the 12th New Jersey. Rain, in fact, had been a miserable accompaniment to nearly all the fighting at Spotsylvania. “The whole country is a sea of mud,” a Federal artillerist muttered.
On May 17, a Federal reconnaissance probed down the Fredericksburg Road, which ran into Spotsylvania from the northeast. Grant had hope to find a weak spot south of the Mule Shoe and launch a successful assault into the town along the road that would split Lee’s army in two and make the Spotsylva-nia line untenable for the Confederates. The 3rd and 10th Vermont, both of the VI Corps, found the Rebels too well positioned, however.
MISERY ON MANY LEVELS Rain soaks Union troops waiting their turn to attack the Mule Shoe salient on May 12, 1864.
Alfred Waud, who sketched this scene, wrote on the back of his drawing that the engagement was the “toughest f ight yet.”
‘MUD WAS ALMOST
KNEE DEEP’WROTE CAPTAINGEORGE BOWEN
DECEMBER 2015 35
With the Fredericks-burg Road no lon-ger a vi able option, Grant looked back to the old battlefield on May 10 and 12.
If Lee’s right and center were strong,
the Union leader rea-soned, Lee must have
stripped his line some-where. He targeted Lee’s left,
anchored on ground where the base of the Mule Shoe had been, which had already gained the nickname the Bloody Angle.
“The Second and Sixth Corps are to return to the old ground on the right and pitch in there,” one Federal soldier learned. “[G]reat things are hoped from it by Grant. I fear he will not find Lee asleep.”
In a letter to his wife, Meade expressed a degree of relief after days of fruitless marching. “To-morrow we shall begin fighting again, with, I trust, some decided result,” he wrote, “for it is hardly natural to expect men to maintain without the limit the exhaustion of
OPPONENTSMaj. Gen. Winf ield
Scott Hancock (seated
above) and his
division commanders,
from left to right,
Generals Francis
Barlow, David
Birney and John
Gibbon. Confederate
Brig. Gen. Armistead
Long (left) massed
artillery pieces that
shattered Hancock’s
May 18 attack.
such a protracted struggle as we have been carrying on.”
As the Union troops slipped in and swore at the mud, the Confederate Second Corps had been settling into its new defensive line south of the Edgar Harrison Farm with a kind of mad zeal. They cut logs to hold up the earthen walls of their trenches and provide themselves extra protection. They dug traverses—lines perpendicular to the main line—that pro-vided additional cover and, if necessary, defen-sive positions in the event of a breakthrough. Sharpshooters even built small towers to shoot from. “I never saw any like them,” one of Meade’s staffers recalled.
In front of their position, Confederates cleared open fields of fire all the way to the plateau of the Neil McCoull Farm, half a mile in front of them. That open landscape, roll-ing with small swales and knolls, eventually dropped into a marshy lowland before ascend-ing back toward the Confederate position. Confederates had littered the ground with abatis, sharpened logs and stakes, to slow any Federal advance. Twenty-nine artillery pieces commanded by Brig. Gen. Armistead L. Long,
36 CIVIL WAR TIMES
a practiced hand with a good eye, bolstered the Rebel position. The Army of the Potomac was preparing to attack the strongest field fortifications yet seen in the Eastern Theater.
To get his men into place for a dawn assault, Grant had to swing the II Corps and the VI Corps from the extreme left of the army’s position to the extreme right. It looked easy on paper, but the muddy roads mired the movement from the start. Complicating matters was the fact that Hancock’s II Corps had moved farther out of position than Grant realized; unaware of Grant’s new plan, Hancock had still been moving into a position assigned in previous orders. He had to double back, compounding the delay.
Wright was ordered to the far right, stacking up his divisions in massive assault columns similar to the tactic proposed by Upton a week earlier. Brig. Gen. David A. Russell would be on the far right, Brig. Gen. James A. Ricketts in the center and Brig. Gen. Thomas H. Neill on the left. Next to Neill, Hancock would line up his divisions in traditional lines of battle. Brig. Gen. John Gibbon would be on the right, linking up with Neill. On Gibbon’s left, Brig. Gen. Francis Barlow’s division would advance in sup-port. Brig. Gen. Robert O. Tyler’s newly formed division would protect the left flank, and Brig. Gen. David Bell Birney’s division would hang back as the reserve. Neill got into place, but Ricketts didn’t show. Neither did Russell. Both divisions had been swallowed by the darkness and mud.
To Neill’s left, however, two of Hancock’s divisions had formed up—
Gibbon’s and Barlow’s. The II Corps men lined up along a sunken lane that led to a farm owned by Willis Landrum. They were positioned to cross over the same ground they had crossed only six days earlier, nearly to the hour. “The troops were in position before day light,” Brig.
Gen. Phillippe Régis De Trobriand of Hancock’s corps recalled. “It was hoped to surprise the enemy sleeping: but he had his eyes open, and was protected by acres of impenetrable abatis.”
Days of war had transformed the agrarian landscape into fields of devastation “strewn with
clothing, knapsacks, canteens, muskets, dead horses and broken artillery caissons, and the trees were riddled with bullet, shot, and shell,” recalled a drummer boy with the 2nd New York Heavy Artillery, who had recently been added to Hancock’s corps from the Wash-ington Defenses. Grant had called for some 30,000 reinforcements from the capital to replace his mounting casualties, and the heavy artillerists—trained as infantrymen to protect and support the massive guns of D.C.’s defen-sive works—had just begun arriving.
At 4 a.m., off to the left the boom of artil-lery announced the start of Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside’s diversionary attack. Hancock and Wright dared not send their own men forward yet, though—not without the missing Ricketts and Russell. Finally, by 4:20, unable to wait any longer for fear of completely losing the element of surprise, the corps commanders sent their men forward.
“Early on the morning of Wednesday, May 18, the whizzing of shells announced that the second great battle of Spottsylvania [sic] Court House had been commenced,” wrote VI Corps surgeon W.G.T. Morton. Under the cover of “tremendous artillery fire,” said James Bowen of the 37th Massachusetts, “the devoted lines moved forward to the assault.” And with that, one Rhode Islander wrote, “another butchery has begun.”
“Smoke and mist hung pale, heavy and motionless over the troops” as the infantry advanced, Morton said. Federal pieces moved up close behind them to offer as much support as they could. Long’s artillery, protected in its bunkers, responded. It was the largest bom-
Below, an image of the Mule Shoe salient. Salients are problematic because they jut out in front of the main line. Defenders shooting outward have a difficult time con-centrating their firepower, while attackers can focus their gunfire on one spot, or bear down on the salient from three directions at the same time. Plus a breakthrough at any one spot puts attackers in the rear of nearly all the defenders, making a position untenable once breached.
THE PROBLEM WITH SALIENTS
DAYS OF WAR HADTRANSFORMED THE
AGRARIANLANDSCAPE INTOFIELDS OF
DESTRUCTION
DECEMBER 2015 37
bardment in the East since Pickett’s Charge and the most effective use of artillery since the two armies had entered the Wilderness two weeks earlier.
From the Confederate line, fog shrouded the oncoming wave, but skirmishers, falling back, signaled the Federal approach. Confederate artillery commander Major Wilfred Cutshaw, who knew the effect his artillery would have, was stunned. “All were astonished,” he said, “and could not believe a serious attempt would be made to assail such a line as [General Richard] Ewell had, in open day, over such a distance.”
Once the Confederate skirmishers fell back, “the restrained tempest broke forth, and with shriek and scream and hissing, poured its death blast in the faces of the Union soldiers,” said Captain George Bowen of the 12th New Jer-sey. The Federals were only 300 yards away as Long’s artillery poured canister and case shot into them. “[T]heir artillery cut our men down in heaps,” reported one member of the 2nd Rhode Island.
Hancock’s men pushed forward as far as they could, but the Confederate abatis tangled them midway between the McCoull Farm and the new Confederate position. Barlow reported to Hancock that the abatis was impenetrable. By Barlow’s estimates it was 100 yards deep in
WAR’S HORRORSThousands died in the Spotsyl vania f ighting,
including this Confederate soldier shot dead
on May 19. Union troops hurled muskets
with f ixed bayonets at the Rebels during the
horrif ic Mule Shoe battle.
places, and had been pre-sighted by Confeder-ate gunners.
From that position, though, Barlow’s men attempted several runs at the Confederate works—only to be blasted back to the for-mer Confederate trenches. As it was the only available cover in the open field, they hunkered down and reversed the works. “Many brilliant efforts were made to penetrate the enemy lines, but without success,” one II Corps officer said.
Less brilliant were the actions of the vet-eran Philadelphia Brigade in John Gibbon’s division. Brig. Gen. Joshua T. Owen refused to advance his men into the maelstrom, although in the confusion Gibbon hadn’t even noticed they were missing until Hancock called it to Gibbon’s attention. Embarrassed and angry, Gibbon ordered Owen forward, but Owen made only a half-hearted go of it before decid-ing the situation was too dangerous. His dis-obedience would eventually lead to charges that resulted in his dismissal.
New arrivals to the army tried to show their mettle to the veterans. Colonel Matthew Murphy’s brigade of four New York regiments anchored the left of Gibbon’s division. These recent additions, coupled with Tyler’s heavy artillery regiments, increased the II Corps’ numbers by nearly 8,000 rifles. Despite the
38 CIVIL WAR TIMES
DECEMBER 2015 39
weight of their numbers and bravado, they too came to grief assaulting Ewell’s heavily fortified line.
Murphy advanced toward the Bloody Angle, but his brigade became separated due to botched orders from Gibbon’s staff. His soldiers made it to within a few hundred yards of the Confederate line, but wither-ing small-arms fire, mainly from Brig. Ben. Clement Evans’ all-Georgia Brigade and the Stonewall Brigade, pinned them down. Confederate artillery, positioned on Mur-phy’s right and left flank, swept the Union position with a deadly crossfire. Hunkered down, all the New Yorkers could do was call for help.
To Hancock’s right, Wright’s attack met similar results. Neill’s VI Corps division had not stepped off in concert with Gibbon’s men, nor had they caught up. Brig. Gen. Frank Wheaton’s lead bri-gade marched along the eastern face of the old salient, scarred with deep trenches that wrecked its formation. In slight disarray, they swept down into a swale that offered cover—but from which they could not advance.
Their predicament resulted in an unfortunate chain reaction. Colonel Oliver Edwards’ brigade got backed up as a result, and that stacked up Brig. Gen. Daniel Bidwell’s brigade. The Vermont brigade of Colonel Lewis Grant, nearly bled-out weeks earlier at the Wilderness, were supposed to bring up the rear, but the traffic jam forced them to the front. “We soon overtook the front line and were kindly permitted to take the front,” a survivor noted wryly. The “bursting shell and rattling musketry” also pinned them down.
Confederates began slipping around the flank of the trapped brigades, triggering an unsteady retreat by first Edwards’ men and then by Neill’s entire division. Their retreat took them “through the tempest of fire,” one soldier said, back to “the sheltering earthworks from which it had come.” There, they found Ricketts’ division finally in place at its intended jump-ing-off point—but watching the carnage on the field, they in no way intended to jump off. Meanwhile Russell never showed at all.
To the east, Burnside’s diversion hit a heavily fortified Confederate position called Heth’s Salient, where the Federals never stood a chance of success. Grant, keeping tabs on the stalemate, finally conceded by 10 a.m. that his grand assault was a failure and sent word to his corps com-manders to call it off.
“This morning, we advanced...over essentially the same ground we did on the 12th without accomplishing anything except to meet with very considerable loss,” groused Captain George Bowen. Indeed, North-ern losses exceeded 1,500 dead, wounded and missing. Southerners, by contrast, suffered only 250 casualties. “We went it, lost some men and came out again,” one Federal lamented matter-of-factly, “that is all there was to it!”
For the second time in the span of a week, the land surrounding
the Mule Shoe salient had become a killing ground. “After the fight, the battle field pre-sented a horrible spectacle, some having their heads and limbs torn away from their bodies,” said one Confederate artillerist, whose work on the guns had contributed to that horror.
Dr. Morton, writing years later, recalled a sulphurous scene. “The smoke of battle of more than two hundred thousand men destroying each other...filled the valleys, and rested on the hills of all this wilderness, hung in lurid haze
all around the horizon, and built a dense canopy overhead,” he wrote.
Grant had finally had enough. After weeks of stalemate, unable to break through or out-flank the Confederate position, he decided again to move left and south in an attempt to maneuver Lee out of position. That afternoon he cut orders for a with-drawal, set to begin on the evening of May 19. But Lee’s Second Corps would delay that depar-ture by mounting a raid on the Federal rear near
the Harris Farm, along Grant’s vital line of supply, the Fredericksburg Road. The fight would prove to be a bigger bite than Ewell’s men could chew, however; after nearly getting overpowered, they managed to withdraw after dark to the safety of their fortifications.
And so the fighting around Spotsylvania Court House drew to a close. Grant kept his word, fighting along the line that summer. But the exhausting warfare kept going into the fall and winter, leading inexorably to Appomattox the following April. ✯
Chris Mackowski, a former historian at Fred-ericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, teaches at St. Bonaventure University. Kristopher D. White is a former staff historian at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania NMP and an instructor at the Community College of Allegheny County. Co-founders of the blog “Emerging Civil War” (emergingcivilwar.com), they have collabo-rated on numerous books and articles.
THREE STRIKES On May 10, Brig. Gen. Emory Upton’s attack pierced
the Mule Shoe, but he eventually had to turn back. Two days later
Hancock’s II Corps collapsed the salient, but the Confederates sealed off
the break. After fruitless, miserable countermarching on muddy roads,
Hancock’s men lined up for one last attack on May 18. It too failed.
THE LANDSURROUNDING THE
MULESHOESALIENTHAD BECOME A
KILLINGGROUND
SHADY SLEUTHVigilante-turned-
detective Lafayette
C. Baker assembled a
force of spies to help
eradicate rebellion in
Washington, D.C.
40 CIVIL WAR TIMES
DECEMBER 2015 41
LAFAYETTE BAKER, THE NATION’S FIRST FEDERAL
POLICE CHIEF, PLAYED ROUGH AND DIRTYby Julia Bricklin
?MASTER SPYSCOUNDREL
Among the many colorful characters thrust into the national spotlight during the war, few have as checkered—and confusing—a story as Lafay-
ette C. Baker, the vigilante-turned-detective appointed by Winfield Scott to head
spying operations for the North. That agency, known as the National Detective
Bureau, was the federal government’s first formal intelligence-gathering operation,
and Baker had free rein in deciding how agents went about spying for the North
and rooting out Confederate sympathizers. ¶ Fast forward a century to the 1960s,
and Baker takes center stage in a controversial theory about a conspiracy to assas-
sinate Abraham Lincoln, headed by Secretary of State Edwin Stanton. Evidence
of such a scheme was based on a welter of details and documents, with the core
evidence being two coded messages in invisible ink—supposedly in Baker’s hand—
alluding to the plot and expressing fears for his life (see sidebar, P. 43). How
might such a theory, now discredited, emerge? Consider the duplicitous tac-
tics Baker employed throughout his life.¶ Baker’s Washington, D.C., career began
after Lincoln appointed Stanton secretary of war and Stanton hired the sleuth as a
special provost marshal. Stanton, who shared Secretary of State William Seward’s
passion for rooting out subversives, funded Baker in assembling a force to eradicate
rebellion in the capital. But Stanton’s staunch anti-subversive stance and Baker’s
thirst for respect and political power would prove to be an unhealthy union.
OR��
42 CIVIL WAR TIMES
L AFE” BAKER was born on October 13, 1826, in Genessee
County, N.Y., to Remember and Cynthia Baker. Baker’s grandfather, also named Remember, was a cousin of Ethan Allan who helped capture Fort Ticonderoga with Allan and the other “Green Mountain Boys” in 1775. Lafayette’s father served as an officer to General Winfield Scott during the War of 1812, and it seems likely that Baker used that family connection to secure an interview with Scott when the Civil War broke out. When Baker was a teen, the family moved to Lansing, Mich. As a young adult, he traveled to New York and then Philadelphia to establish a mercantile business.
In 1853 Baker decided to try his luck selling goods to gold prospectors in California. He worked as a paper mill machinist to pay the bills, eventually setting up a mercantile agency with a real estate agent and newspaper distrib-utor. The two also served as consultants for merchants interested in advertis-ing in San Francisco papers. Later “Baker & Hoogs” advertised their services as debt collectors, “prepared to make Collections or demands of any nature,” throughout the Western states, territories and British Columbia. This taught Baker how to shape stories for the press, and also enabled him to hone his strong-arm tactics, always executed in the name of the “public good.”
It’s not surprising that Baker soon enlisted in what became one of the West’s most successful vigilante organizations. In the mid-1850s, San Francisco was plagued by vice, corruption and crime. The San Francisco Committee of Vigilance, organized on June 14, 1851, enrolled more than 700 members and maintained a headquarters where suspects were incarcerated, interrogated and tried without counsel and due process. By the time it disbanded that September, the Committee had arrested hundreds and executed four men.
In 1856 the Committee reorganized with a vengeance, partially in response to the murder of a local newspaper editor, but largely because its officers—many of whom had headed the 1851 committee—saw an opportunity to cleanse the city of Democratic Party influence and incorpo-rate its own “People’s Party.” The Committee of 1856 enrolled about 5,000 men who patrolled the streets, conducted investigations, held trials without benefit for the accused, deported citi-zens and defied writs of habeas corpus.
Jacob Mogelever, author of Death to Traitors: The Story of General Lafayette C. Baker, Lincoln’s Forgotten Secret Service Chief, writes: “Baker gloried in his service as a Vigilante. It gave him a sense of power even though he never achieved a higher rank than that of private….He ran with the pack, but he learned the twin arts of disguise and deception.” Mogelever also notes that Baker thought a brain was better than a gun, perhaps a kind nod toward Baker’s later avoidance of combat in the war.
“
The 1856 Committee of Vigilance dis- banded in August, mostly because its members had managed to get one of their own, James Curtis, elected chief of police. That December, when the city reor-ganized its law-enforcement forces, Baker made the cut. For two years he immersed himself in crime-fighting.
By July 1857, Officer Baker routinely appeared as a prosecution witness in City Court. That August Curtis made him a detective. On December 18, 1857, Baker testified for the prosecution in the rape case of 12-year-old Margaret Taylor, but he did not support or refute either side. Instead he suggested a third scenario, in which the youngster had been violated by a different person, whom he testified to having seen taking the girl for buggy rides away from public eye “at least ten times.” The detective was apparently not sanctioned at all when the rape story turned out to be completely fictional—the girl’s father had made a false accusation against her stepfather, in retaliation for not handing over money and property.
Baker sometimes followed would-be criminals around for days, retrofitting information to make himself look bril-liant. On March 21, 1858, for example,
the Daily Alta reported how Baker nabbed shoplifters at
a boot store: “Detective Baker, who has had his suspicions of certain well known thieves, took it
into his head yesterday to secrete himself into a room next to theirs, and boring a hole in the intervening wall, awaited with his usual patience their arrival.” When the alleged thieves
arrived, they apparently de -tailed the entire theft ring to
each other, but implicated some-one else entirely, one John Smith,
alias “Old Man.” Baker subsequently arrested Smith who, he said, was the cul-prit he had suspected all along.
On April 29, 1858, Baker resigned for reasons that are unclear, though they might have had something to do with increasing scrutiny of Curtis’ department, which was accused of profiting from reward money handed out by insurance companies and banks. That summer Baker drifted, seem-ingly unable to shed his cloak-and-dagger
SILVERSHIELDAs head of the U.S.
Military Detectives in
1865, Baker helped track
down John Wilkes Booth
and Dr. Samuel Mudd.
DECEMBER 2015 43
routine, and even telling the Sacramento Bee that he had been hiding in a Nevada prison, disguised as an inmate so he could gain further particulars from three men accused of robbing a Wells Fargo stagecoach.
That August Yuba County officials arrested Baker for receiving stolen property, though the charges were ulti-mately dropped. The ex-officer tried desperately to hold onto his law-and-order image in civilian life, setting up a telegraph office in downtown San Francisco and delivering what he deemed interesting updates to the newspapers.
Baker sailed for New York on the ship Golden Age on January 1, 1861. He later claimed he had planned to attend to some mercantile business back east for a short period. But Mrs. Baker accompanied her husband. Regardless of his actual purpose, according to Edwin C. Fischel, author of The Secret War of the Union, Baker entered the service in February 1861, perhaps as a detective for Charles P. Stone, the new inspector general of Washington, D.C., under Scott.
Initially, Baker was responsible only for helping secure Lincoln’s safety in and around the capital. Even after the inauguration and the commencement of war that April, his duties were fairly mundane: recovering government horses, and securing shipping depots, train stations and abandoned Confederate property in Virginia. But meanwhile Scott formed the National Detective Bureau, and on February 15, 1862, Secretary of State William H. Seward transferred the Bureau to the War Department, then under Edwin M. Stanton. Baker brought nearly 60 subordinate detectives with him when he moved to the War Department.
C. Wyatt Evans, who has examined Secret Service accounts and written numerous articles on Baker, says the detective’s extensive travels and ability to hire so many sub-ordinates so quickly were likely part of Seward’s efforts to establish a network of agents in the major cities, ports of entry and along the Canadian border. On March 30, 1862, Baker was appointed a special agent of the War Depart-ment, and the expenses paid to him and his network reveal he was aggressively tracking down and arresting individuals deemed disloyal—numbering in the hundreds.
But as the war continued, reports of Baker’s alleged solicitation of bribes and unsubstantiated finger-point-ing started to appear in the newspapers. Perhaps officials would have continued to look the other way—after all, the spies and contraband-movers flitting in and out of Wash-ington needed to be tracked—but he started to become a real nuisance. Baker’s men repeatedly ran afoul of military officers, according to Edwin Fischel. Brig. Gen. Marsena Patrick finally complained to Maj. Gen. Daniel Butterfield, saying, “[Baker’s] detectives have systematically robbed the officers and men of this Army of Clothing, subsistence, mess & other stores and necessaries.” He added, “…from my knowledge of their Chief ‘Baker’ I believe him to be capable of making any statement however false, & of com-mitting any act, however criminal and damaging the Public Service to gratify his own passions.” Maj. Gens. Ambrose Burnside and Joseph Hooker reportedly looked the other way at Baker’s intrusions because the detective was aware of their own indiscretions, involving prostitutes and gambling.
LAFAYETTE BAKER CONSPIRACYTHEORIST
Did Edwin Stanton engineer President Lincoln’s assassination, as part of a plot to seize control of the U.S. government?
Was Lafayette C. Baker, former chief of Stanton’s National Detective Police Force, poisoned to ensure his silence
about that bizarre scheme?
THOSE QUESTIONS were raised by Robert H. Fowler, then editor of Civil War Times Illustrated.
Fowler went so far as to devote his entire August 1961 issue to sensational theories
based on research by Ray Neff, an Indiana State University professor and Civil War buff who claimed to have discovered two ciphered messages by Baker in an 1864 volume of Colburn’s
United Secret Service Magazine. According to theories promulgated by
Neff and others during the 1960s, the plot came about because Stanton, as well as Vice President Andrew Johnson and Congres sional Radicals, had been furious that Lincoln planned to treat the South leniently during Reconstruction—so they enlisted Baker and Assistant Secretary of State Major Thomas Eckert to recruit a presidential assassin.
In the ciphers supposedly discovered by Neff, written in invisible ink and resurrected using tannic acid, Baker detailed how Stanton plotted Lincoln’s murder, conspiring with at least 11 members of Congress as well as a governor. Baker also wrote of “constantly being followed” and expressed fear for his life before dying in 1868. Conspiracy theorists seized on this story to speculate that Baker had actually died of arsenic poisoning rather than succumbing to meningitis, as certified by his doctors.
The provenance of Neff’s ciphers has never been confirmed, and numerous historians later criticized both Neff and Fowler for promoting unfounded con-spiracy theories in the magazine. And 20 years later William C. Davis, a subsequent Civil War Times Illus-trated editor, ran a series of editorials about the 1961 article, effectively debunking many of the outlandish claims that had been promoted via the story.
44 CIVIL WAR TIMES
O N NOVEMBER 10, 1863, the Washington Evening Star
reported Baker’s provost marshal position had been eliminated. There were rumors that the detective had attempted to gather intelligence on his own boss, Stanton, by tapping telegraph wires—but it could also be that Bak-er’s force was seen as superfluous. Baker himself was still paid by Stanton subordinates for various duties, and he even headed his own “First District Calvary” for awhile, though he was paid on an ad-hoc basis.
Shortly after Baker’s formal separation from the War Department, he was indicted for trespass, as well as libel and false imprisonment of Treasury employee Dr. Stewart Gwynne, whom he had accused of stealing and put in Old Capitol penitentiary for three months. What Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase had intended to be a perfunctory audit, under pressure from New York Congressman James Brooks, turned out to be a disaster; Baker interviewed and harassed the Treasury staff for weeks on end. According to several newspapers, including the Chicago Times, Baker even hired prostitutes to testify that they had participated in orgies with Treasury employees.
A congressional committee chaired by James A. Garfield that investigated those charges in June 1864 found Baker was very active during the whole investigation in assisting Brooks to find testimony, and that “nearly every wit-ness summoned to prove the alleged immoralities in the Treasury was previ-ously manipulated by him…a written abstract was made by him of what the testimony would be.”
At one point just before Baker arrested Gwynne, he reportedly “arrested a funeral procession, took from the coffin the corpse a young lady, late an employee of the Treasury Department, charging that she had died in an attempt to procure an abortion, the result of immoralities in the Treasury Department.” Not surprisingly, Chase and Stanton did not lend any support to Baker when that episode came to light. But Baker was not punished—other than being fined $1.
The court of public opinion turned against Baker after those revelations. The once admiring San Francisco Bulletin reported: “He is sharp, shrewd, unscrupulous. He was for awhile our municipal police, while Curtis was Chief, but was expelled for what particular offense we do not remember. During his service, his house “was robbed” just as he had collected $1,000 of license money.” The article went on to say that Baker’s mercantile business had solicited funds from businessmen and placed them on the “exchange in New York, which turned out to be utterly worthless.” The paper also invited “the Administration” to look no further than San Francisco if it needed more testimony to his wickedness or untrustworthiness.
Baker’s public career might have ended then had it not been for Lincoln’s murder. Desperate times call for desperate measures, however; Stanton recalled Baker, who used his network to help corner John Wilkes Booth at Richard Garrett’s farm. Baker was promoted to brigadier general as a result.
It is in connection with the assassination that the conspiracy theories involving Baker, Booth, Stanton, Seward and others later surfaced. One story is that Baker’s men actually killed a fellow named Boyd, rather than Booth, but succeeded in passing Boyd’s corpse off as the presidential assassin’s. The myriad details of that plot are hard to follow, but it’s easy to see that Baker’s
bizarre behavior in other cases could have supported such theories. It’s also worth noting that Baker pursued a prolonged fight for the bulk of the reward money for capturing Booth in the press and with a congressional committee, and this public fracas undid any goodwill he had earned with Booth’s capture. The resulting noto-riety also led to speculation the detective had produced a corpse in order to obtain the lion’s share of the reward.
Baker’s subsequent escapades provided the newspapers with even more fodder. On November 16, 1865, a grand jury in the District of Columbia indicted him for
FORT VIGILANCE During Baker’s membership in the San
Francisco Committee of Vigilance, the
vigilantes incarcerated and interrogated
suspects inside this converted warehouse
on Sacramento Street.
DECEMBER 2015 45
unlawfully imprisoning Joseph Cobb on charges of pardon brokering, and robbing Lucy, Cobb’s wife. On March 28, 1866, Baker was found guilty of some of those charges, but once again was fined only $1 plus costs. That same month he informed newspapers that he suspected Andersonville prison chief Henry Wirz would try to take his own life to martyr himself for the South. Then Baker claimed he had prevented Mrs. Wirz from slipping her husband a dose of strychnine while giving him a kiss in his Old Capitol cell. But Mrs. Wirz’s attorney produced affidavits from wit-nesses who swore that she had actually been hundreds of miles away at the time.
The War Department eventually stopped paying Baker’s expenses. And in January 1866, President Andrew Johnson had Baker escorted from the White House, after discover-ing that the former detective had been spying on him too.
Baker moved back to Philadelphia sometime before May 1867 and began working on a book of his “remembrances” with the Rev. J.T. Headly, and probably a few others. During many of his final days the former detective was often fever-ish and bedridden. He died on July 3, 1868, at age 42, of what his physician specified was meningitis.
Mrs. Baker would try for years to get her widow’s pen-
sion increased. In the process, she had various doctors write affidavits stressing virtually the same thing—that her hus-band had not been “afflicted with any mental aberration of the mind” between his discharge from service and his death. Yet she simultaneously sought to connect his death to “mental excitement to which he was subjected while in the service.” In retrospect, both types of testimonials seem to suggest that her late husband might not have been a very stable individual.
The question remains: Did the former chief of detectives write ciphers in a detective manual that was penned after his dismissal, alluding to a government conspiracy against Abraham Lincoln? Maybe, maybe not. But it is all too plausible, given the many enemies he had made during his career, that Baker believed government agents wanted to kill him. If there was anyone in Civil War history who was likely to make up such a story, it was Lafayette C. Baker—and he would have believed his own words. ✯
Julia Bricklin last contributed to CWT in December 2013, when she profiled Thomas Brigham Bishop, “The Music Man.”
A MASSIVE NEW UNION WEAPON
COULD SINK A SHIP WITH A SINGLE SHELL,
BUT WAS NEVER FIRED IN ANGER BY Andrew Masich
BIG GUNRODMAN’S
SLOW SPINThomas Rodman’s
huge 20-inch
cannon rests atop an
equally huge lathe
in the Fort Pitt
Foundry. Foundry
superintendent Joseph
Kaye sits at right.
48 CIVIL WAR TIMES
HE MASSIVE CANNON belched smoke and
flame, hurtling a 10,080-pound shell from its
barrel at more than 1,700 feet per second—nearly
twice the velocity of a Minié ball fired from a rifle.
Nearby windows rattled and broke as the shock
wave traveled from Fort Hamilton over Brooklyn,
N.Y. Then the gun crew reloaded the behemoth,
lowering the barrel to an elevation of 25 degrees.
This time the 20-inch ball hurtled through the air for a full 24 seconds,
splashing into the water 3½ miles away. Thomas J. Rodman’s ship-
killing cannon, the largest gun made during the Civil War, had spoken.
TVIP MISADVENTUREA 12-inch wrought-iron
cannon explodes (above)
during a February 1844
demonstration aboard
USS Princeton. That
horrif ic accident spurred
Lieutenant Thomas
Rodman to experiment
with a “water-core” casting
method (illustrated in the
patent drawing, opposite).
DECEMBER 2015 49
The genesis of that gun and the new gen-eration of armament it inspired was rooted in a tragic mishap on February 28, 1844, when Commodore Robert Stockton hosted a who’s who of Washington society. He had invited some 400 guests for a Potomac River cruise aboard USS Princeton, including President John Tyler, Secretary of State Abel Upshur, Navy Secretary Thomas Gilmer, Senator Thomas Hart Benton and former First Lady Dolley Madison. The VIPs were to be treated to a demonstration of the fleet’s most powerful cannon, dubbed the “Peacemaker,” a 12-inch wrought-iron gun with a reinforcing band shrunk onto its breech, designed by John Erics-son. Though skilled British workers had forged a prototype to Ericsson’s exacting specifica-tions, the Peacemaker commissioned by Com-modore Stockton was an American-made copy that did not measure up to those standards.
When the gun captain pulled the lanyard aboard Princeton, an explosion rocked the ship, killing six people and seriously wounding another 20. The gun had been blown to pieces, along with the closest dignitaries, including Upshur and Gilmer.
Ordnance Department Lieutenant Thomas Jackson Rodman, then only three years out of West Point, set out to get to the root of the accident. He would focus his considerable tal-ents on finding a solution to the problem of catastrophic failure in large-caliber guns. Rod-man recognized that wrought-iron and bronze weapons could not withstand the high stresses demanded of Columbiads—America’s largest class of guns, introduced by Colonel George Bomford in 1811 for seacoast defense—and warship cannons. Though iron had been used to manufacture cannons for hundreds of years, large-caliber guns made of that metal had earned a reputation for blowing up.
Rodman theorized, however, that the fault lay not with the iron itself but the casting process. As a newly cast cannon cooled in its mold, it hardened from the outside, until the molten core finally set up. The gun was then laboriously bored to the desired caliber and finished on the outside. Raised rings known as reinforces, positioned where the gun telescoped from the thickest part of the breech down to the narrowest part at the muzzle, were believed to strengthen the weapon. Speculating that air-cooling made the guns harder and denser on the outside and left them relatively soft and weak in the center, Rodman found he could drive a cold chisel its entire length into the cast-iron core as easily as if it were wood.
He opted instead to cool the casting from
the inside out. He would cast the guns hollow, pouring molten metal into a mold around a hollow iron core, an iron pipe through which air and cold water could be pumped, to cool the casting from the inside.
But when Rodman explained his proposed manufacturing method at Pittsburgh’s Allegheny Arsenal, where he was stationed, and also to then Chief of Ordnance Colonel Bomford and General George Talcott, there was little interest. The lieutenant was told that the Army was not inter-ested in his idea—though he was free to pursue it on his own.
ON AUGUST 14, 1847, Rodman was awarded Patent No. 5,236 for his cannon. By 1849, he had worked out a partnership with Pittsburgh’s Charles Knapp and William Totten, owners of the Fort Pitt Foundry, assigning his patent to them. In exchange for their funded research and development of his weapon, they agreed to pay him a half cent per pound for every finished cannon cast using his system. The foundry soon cast a prototype 8-inch Columbiad on Rodman’s principle, followed by 10-inch Columbiads. Finding that cracks usually occurred at any spots where a
50 CIVIL WAR TIMES
gun’s exterior contour abruptly changed, Rod-man eliminated any reinforces. His cannons took on the smooth “soda bottle” shape that became their most distinguishing character-istic. Testing with double charges and double shots, followed by repeated firing with service loads, demonstrated the design’s efficacy. A solid-core gun cast from the same batch of iron burst after only 74 test rounds, while Rodman’s “water-core” gun showed no discernable wear to the bore, chamber or vent after 1,300 rounds.
By 1860, the Ordnance Department had ordered 8- and 10-inch Columbiads, as well as a 15-inch version with a 16-foot-long bar-rel weighing nearly 50,000 pounds. The largest gun cast in America to that time, it was dubbed the “Union Gun” and sent to Fort Monroe, Va., for further testing in March 1860.
As Southern states began seceding from the Union in 1861, the War Department ordered Rodman guns in 8-, 10- and 15-inch calibers. On April 15, soon after Confederate guns blasted Fort Sumter into submission, Rod-man signaled that he could cast an even bigger weapon—weighing more than 100,000 pounds and capable of hurling a 20-inch, half-ton iron ball up to five miles and destroying a ship with a single shot. But initially the need for 8-, 10- and 15-inch weapons to protect cities—including Washington—and seacoast defenses took precedence over the 20-inch project.
BY LATE 1863, Rodman’s hollow-casting technique was standard for Model 1860 Co-lumbiads of his own design as well as other cannons, including Admiral John A. Dahl-gren’s 9-, 11- and 13-inch naval shell guns. Though Fort Pitt Foundry was still producing most of the big guns, the West Point Foundry in New York, Boston’s Cyrus Alger works and Seyfert, McManus & Co. in Reading, Pa., also began manufacturing siege guns, mortars, naval guns and Columbiads using Rodman’s process.
When Rodman was finally authorized to create a 20-inch weapon, Charles Knapp and new partner H.F. Rudd supervised 280 work-ers at the Fort Pitt Foundry who excavated a casting pit so deep that it had to be shored up and lined, to prevent the water table from filling it. The pit was engineered to accommodate a multi-piece iron flask containing a sand mold formed on an oversized wooden model measuring 6 feet, at it widest point, by 25 feet. Five fur-naces burned for five hours to melt the 105 tons of “Juniata” pig iron needed for the continuous pour. Two smaller furnaces stood by as back-ups, while the three primary furnaces were connected by troughs, to pool their molten streams in a clay-lined collector before the molten metal was funneled into the mold.
On February 11, 1864, Rodman joined ordnance officers and observ-ers from England and Italy to watch as the red-hot metal began flowing
into the mold at 10 a.m. The foundry men pumped water down through the core at a rate of 60 gallons per minute, then captured the heated water as it returned to the top through flutes scored into the fire clay coating that sur-rounded the core barrel. Two days later the water was shut off and cold air was forced through the core. Four days after that, cranes hoisted the cooled casting from the pit and moved it to the boring machine, which enlarged the bore from 17 to 20 inches. A mammoth
Thomas Jackson Rodman was born in 1816 near Salem, Ind., the son of James Rodman and his Virginian wife, Elizabeth Burton. Entering the U.S. Military Academy in West Point in 1837, Thomas would graduate seventh of 52 cadets, and in 1841 was appointed a brevet second lieutenant in the U.S. Army Ordnance Department.
At Pittsburgh’s Allegheny Arsenal, Rodman built the first machine capable of making Minié balls and other bullets by compression rather than casting molten lead. He received patents for hollow casting large cannons as well improvements in cartridges for breech-loading small arms. His progressive-burning perforated cake gun powder for seacoast and naval artillery is still used today.
Rodman spent most of the war years commanding the Watertown Arsenal in Massachusetts, and his inspector’s initials can be seen stamped on the muzzles of U.S. ordnance ranging in size from the diminutive 12-pounder mountain howitzer to the largest Rodman Columbiads. By the war’s end, he was still an “unconfirmed major,” according to his own testimony before Senator Ben Wade’s Joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War, which was investigating charges of war profiteering and disloyalty.
Suspicions about Rodman likely resulted from jealousy within the Army over royalties (a half cent per pound) he supposedly received for the guns cast using his hollow-casting method. But enemies and competitors questioned his loyalty when he failed to fire salutes at the war’s end—and the fact his mother was a Virginian could also have raised concerns (she may have been a relative of Confederate chief of armories James H. Burton). Though admired for his work in the Ordnance Department, Rodman spent many years defending his conduct. He ended his career as commander of the Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois, where he died in 1871.
ThomasJacksonRodman
DECEMBER 2015 51
‘FORGE OF THE UNION’Vignettes published in Harper’s Weekly in 1862
show Fort Pitt Foundry’s skilled workers at a
number of their tasks. From right: Ironworkers
f inish the trunnions that attach the barrel to
a carriage; molten iron pours into a vertical
cannon mold and a huge lathe slowly rotates
a Rodman tube as it is bored out. The last
illustration shows the molds used in casting one
of USS Monitor’s Dahlgren cannons.
52 CIVIL WAR TIMES
lathe then turned and smoothed the 80-ton casting into a finished gun more than 20 feet long and weighing 116,497 pounds.Twen-ty-four horses and an army of foundry workers maneuvered the barrel to a railroad spur, where two flatcars with double trucks (iron wheels) waited. The journey to Brooklyn’s Fort Hamil-ton took nearly a month, moving at a crawl, to avoid excessive friction on the rails.
Rodman had an 18-ton, front pintle, iron barbette carriage fabricated at the Watertown Arsenal that was placed at Fort Hamilton’s lower battery, alongside the 15-inch Rodmans overlooking the mouth of the Hudson River. The upper portion of the riveted iron carriage that would cradle the gun was designed to slide on rails pitched at a 15-degree angle, but the huge barrel was expected to absorb most of the recoil. Rodman was so confident the powder charges would not budge the barrel from its balance point that the oversized pivoting trun-nions were not even capped.
THE BIG GUN would be fired only six times during the war, using charges of slower-burn-ing gunpowder (each grain measured nearly an inch across)—also designed by Rodman—varying from 50 to 150 pounds (regular can-non powder was too fine-grained and would burn too rapidly, creating dangerously high pressures even for Rodman’s guns). To make the powder burn more thoroughly and pre-dictably, the inventor formed cylindrical and hexa gonal cakes of compressed powder, pierced with wires: perforated cake powder that would burn progressively, to ensure internal pressures remained within the safe range while impart-ing maximum propellant force to the projectile.
Secretary of War Edwin Stanton attended the test firing, as a nine-man crew loaded the gun with a 100-pound blank charge. The first shot was a misfire, since the standard friction primer was not strong enough to send a flame the full 24-inch length of the vent hole drilled through the cannon’s thick iron breech, known as the “preponderance.” Once the charge was pulled and the vent cleared by a volunteer, who crawled 20 feet down the bore and con-firmed the primer flash had been inadequate, the gun was reloaded and its vent filled with fine-grained powder. The roar was deafening when the lanyard was yanked this time, report-edly breaking windows in Brooklyn. The bar-rel remained in the iron cheeks, but the entire upper carriage recoiled 6 feet 10 inches, sliding back along the iron rails as envisioned.
Once they saw Rodman’s big gun worked, however, officials apparently lost interest. Fur-
Well, to be fair, it’s actually a copy of the original, but still majestic. In 2013, the LF Creative Group created a styrofoam model, reinforced with steel and coated with black fiberglass, of Thomas Rodman’s enormous 20-inch cannon that was placed on display at the Senator John Heinz Regional History Cen-ter (heinzhistorycenter.org) in downtown Pittsburgh. The massive barbette carriage that supported the gun was also re-created. Together the repro-duction items weigh an impres-sive 18,000 pounds.
The images above show the re-created barrel being installed and displayed. The Heinz History Center is located very close to the original location of the Fort Pitt Foundry, a source of local
pride for Pittsburghers during the Civil War. Some residents were even concerned that General Robert E. Lee’s 1863 Pennsylva-nia campaign might turn toward Pittsburgh in an effort to destroy its military industry. Their fears, of course, were unfounded.
Current residents and visitors to the museum can share in that sense of pride when they take in the stunning size of the cannon exhibit. As author Andy Masich, who is also the president and CEO of the Heinz History Cen-ter, said in an interview when the facsimilie went on display, “Pittsburgh was the arsenal for the Union, and factories here could do things that could not be done anywhere else in the world. Nothing epitomizes that better than a 20-inch Rodman cannon.”
Rodman’s Huge cannonreturns to Pittsburgh
DECEMBER 2015 53
ther testing was not carried out until 1867, when—loaded with 200-pounds of Rodman’s improved cake powder—the half-ton ball flew nearly five miles, obliterating a target ship. Rodman went on to design devices to more accurately measure projectile velocities (1,735 feet per second), and the internal and exter-nal forces exerted by his weapons. Though his 20-inch gun was never deployed against an enemy—and only two of the giant cannons were cast—Rodman’s guns were regarded as a potent symbol of the North’s industrial might.
IN 1876, when America celebrated its cen-tennial with an exposition in Philadelphia, one of every Rodman weapon was exhibited, including one of the 20-inch guns, which had formerly guarded Norfolk, Va., and Hampton Roads. Getting the biggest gun to the expo-sition was no easy task. The 100-ton ship on which it was loaded nearly capsized when the crane operator failed to center the big gun on the deck. The big gun was the hit of the expo-sition. Displayed with it were the 20-foot long rammers and hook-shaped winch used to hoist
CELEBRITY ORDNANCE The big Rodman commanded attention for
years after the Civil War. This image shows it at the 1876 Centennial
International Exposition in Philadelphia. The loading crane holds a
1,080-pound solid shot, which the cannon could f ire as far as 4½ miles.
the ball and load the gun, as well as a variety of 20-inch rounds: explosive shells (each capable of holding a 25-pound bursting charge), solid shot (weighing 1,080 pounds each) and “cored shot” (with a small hollow cavity to reduce weight and extend the gun’s range).
The Ordnance Board eventually tried to upgrade the big smooth-bores by reducing the bore diameter with inserted rifled sleeves, creating elongated projectiles and designing more easily traversed gun carriages, but by the 1880s most ordnance experts realized that built-up guns fab-ricated from steel were the future.
Though Rodman’s mammoth guns never fired a shot in anger, they were spared the scrap drives occasioned by subsequent wars. The largest iron cannons ever cast, they can still be seen today at Fort Hamilton and across the Narrows at Sandy Hook, N.J. ✯
Andrew Masich is president and CEO of the Sena tor John Heinz History Center, the largest history museum in Pennsylvania, and chairman of the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.
54 CIVIL WAR TIMES
There are several different kinds of Civil War apps out there. Mostly they fall into four categories:
TABLET WARS
That last category of apps interested me most, as single and
multi-player games seem to be the most creative use of app
technology for (potentially) historical purposes, with the
widest audience appeal. So on a dreary Saturday in March I
sat down on a couch with a 10-year-old boy named Caleb and handed him my
iPhone. I would not do this in the ordinary course, you understand. But I am not
what one would call a “gamer,” and I needed an expert in such matters—who
also happens to be a pint-sized Civil War buff—to try three different game apps,
which I downloaded from the Apple App store. Caleb agreed to help out, and we
settled in for the greater part of the afternoon.
CIVIL WAR APPS LET YOUENTER THE FIGHT FROM THE
COMFORT OF YOUR COUCH
review by Megan Kate Nelson
BATTLEFIELD GUIDESDownload these before a visit to a battlefield park, and the app provides an interactive 3D map and guide.
EDUCATIONAL TOOLSWant to test your own knowledge about the war? Or need an intuitive app to help your kid study for a history test? These are the apps for you.
RANDOM CONTENTDELIVERY SYSTEMSThere are several of these. I downloaded one: a Civil War Photographs app, which launched into a very basic interface displaying more than 50 images (likely cribbed from the Library of Congress website). They are organized into thematic sections but include no citations, context or actual historical content.
GAMESSurprisingly few and far between, Civil War game apps put the player “on the ground” in a series of battles. They require multiple tasks, but mostly the player moves troops around and shoots to kill.
1 3 4
2
56 CIVIL WAR TIMES
First up was Cannon Shooter: American Civil War (Onteca Ltd., 2014), a simple, single-shooter game in which the player is an artilleryman, adjusting the cannon’s height and
direction in order to blow away groups of enemy soldiers approaching from all directions.
The game did not get off to a good start; yellow boxes appeared where I presume text or images should have been. We could only guess that these were options for battle sites and situations. Caleb: “I’m already not liking this much.”
After some random pressing and swiping on different boxes, we were suddenly in the action. The battery was on a low ridge overlooking a valley, with a high railroad bridge soaring up over it in the far left distance. Caleb figured out how to play the game pretty quickly and proceeded to take out groups of enemy soldiers. When the shells landed, the explosions catapulted the digital bodies into the air. Some never returned, others landed with an audible thud on the ground. The player must keep sweeping the area, as enemy combatants continue to appear. You accumulate points with kills, of course. But we are not sure how the game comes to a natural end, for ours ended with a pop-up ad.
Next we uploaded Civil War: 1864 (Free version, Hunted Cow Stu-dios Ltd., 2014), a game that’s
much more complicated than Cannon Shooter. We also moved from the iPhone to my com-puter, although this game is probably ideal for an iPad. There’s martial music from the start (heavy on the trumpet and drums) and sophis-ticated graphics. And there is some attempt to bring actual history into it—although you have to click through to the Game Summary and “1864” to read a very short explanation of the events during that year. The summary emphasizes Grant’s war of attrition, Sherman’s campaign in Georgia and the fact that at this point “the Confederacy was ultimately fight-ing and losing a defensive war.”
Civil War: 1864 is a tactical game in which the player moves infantry, cavalry and artillery around in order to defeat the enemy on an unspecified battlefield. The fights are in close quarters, with massed troops of only about 100 soldiers on each side.
First the player chooses a side, Union or Confederate. Caleb clicked on “Union” without hesitation. He had no explanation for his choice, but it was likely because he is a Massachusetts boy, born and bred.
Next the player chooses a cam-paign—but actually there is no choice if you don’t want to pay. You can play “Division” for free but must purchase the right to play “Cold Steel,” “Duty and Pride,” and “Blockade.” The free play offers four different games; Caleb
chose the first on the list, probably for expedi-ency’s sake. This one is called “Ascension,” for no apparent reason. Finally, the player chooses to make the game “easy,” “standard,” or “hard.” Caleb chose “easy,” as it was his first time.
In this initial foray into the game, however, he did not bother with the tutorials. This led to some nice surprises as the game unfolded, and as he figured out how to move his troops around and fire guns and artillery. The player has only a certain amount of time to do this; then the “enemy” (the program) takes its turn. Note that the screen did not capture the entire battlefield, so every now and again an enemy unit popped up, seemingly out of nowhere.
Caleb: “Whoa! What was that? Man!”It did not take him very long to get wise
to these tactics, though, and he scanned the battlefield whenever he wasn’t moving troops
CANNONSHOOTER:
AMERICANCIVIL WAR
CIVIL WAR:1864
“Easy to control, but the game is
hard because there are
time limits.”
“The graphics are really bad. The shooting
itself was too easy.”
DECEMBER 2015 57
or firing on Confederates, guessing where the next group of enemy infantry would appear. Most of the time he was right—and he started talking back to the game: “I did NOT see that coming! BOOM! Neither. Did. They.”
The player can win Civil War: 1864 in several different ways: by completely elimi-
nating all of the enemy’s soldiers; by killing the opposing general; or by protecting the majority of his own troops by the time the game reaches its 20th “turn.” Caleb lost the first game—an artillery assault took out his general—and that stoked the fire. “I want to try again,” he said. “This game is more like it.”
ULTIMATEGENERAL:
GETTYSBURG
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Ultimate General:
Gettysburg:5 out of 5 stars
“Great. Amazing. Greatazing.”
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Civil War: 1864:3 out of 5 stars
“Not a totalnightmare.”
★ ★ ★ ★ ★ Cannon Shooter:
American Civil War: 0 out of 5 stars
“Horrible. Don’t buy it, even if it’s free.”
RECAP
The final game of the day was Ultimate General: Gettysburg (version 1.1.2; Gamelabs LLC,
2015). You must pay for this game, and it’s pricey: $14.99, and downloadable to your computer or iPad. The graphics and music are impressive. The map of the town of Gettys-burg and the battlefield are incredibly detailed and look to be accurate. As in Civil War: 1864, first the player chooses a side. In Ultimate General: Gettysburg, though, there are expla-nations:
“The Union deploys efficient artillery, bet-ter drilled infantry, and better equip-ment….However, most Union generals are uninspir-ing comparing [sic] to the Confederate army leaders. This causes poor performance in close contact and average morale.”
“Confederate soldiers are universally high spirited and courageous. They are able to sus-tain heavy fire without breaking and are hard, experienced troops. Confederate equipment is though [sic] less advanced and they lack pro-fessional military training, leading to disad-vantages in prolonged engagements at range.”
There are many sweeping generalizations in these descriptions, and they hew quite closely to the tenets of the Lost Cause narrative. Based on these portrayals, I think the programmers are steering you toward the Confederates. But once again Caleb chose the Union. Why?
�
�
“Because I feel like it,” he said with a shrug.Next up: difficulty level. The options here
are nuanced and offer a range of strategic attitudes, from “cunning” to “dynamic” to “bal-anced.” Caleb chose “cautious,” again because it was his first game. He also skipped the tuto-rials and went straight to the game; therefore, it took a little while for him to figure out how to move his troops in and out of position. Me: “How are you doing that?” Caleb: “I have no idea.”
But moving troops around—and learning from your mistakes—is the entire point of the game. The player controls several differ-ent units on the battlefield, enabling them to charge or fall back, firing rifles or artillery. The game progresses in something approximat-ing real time: about 10 seconds of game per minute of battle, on either July 1, 2 or 3. There is a clock running, and a bar in the upper left corner of the screen keeps tabs on casualties, troop morale and ammunition availability. Other updates appear in pop-ups: “9:52 a.m. General Wadsworth’s division has arrived from the south. The Iron Brigade will teach the Rebels a good lesson!”
There are no points to accumulate in Ultimate General: Gettysburg, no real way of comparing your tactical skill to John Buford’s or George Meade’s. The player’s actions and achievements depend on the side, the day (and time of day), and the portion of the battlefield. On the morning of July 1, Caleb’s job was to delay the Confederate advance and protect his reinforcement and supply line. He was transfixed.
When the first part of the game came to an end (around noon on July 1), he frowned. “I really like this one! I want to keep going!” His parents let him play into the afternoon of the 1st and he blissed out, using the track pad to trace arrows on the battlefield, directing regiments back and forth, yelling periodically. When dusk ended the battle for the day (both digitally and in real life), it was time for me to shut down the game, pack up my laptop and go. Caleb was mournful. “I’m sad to have it leave,” he said. ✯
“A ton easier to control, graphics are great.”“There are no turns,
everybody is moving all the time, like a real battle.”
58 CIVIL WAR TIMES
REBEL CROSSINGMaj. Gen. Joseph Kershaw’s
Confederate division splashed
across Bowman’s Mill Ford on
Cedar Creek during its night
march to surprise the Union army.
THE OCTOBER 19, 1864, Battle of Cedar Creek was one of the war’s great seesaw affairs. Lt. Gen. Jubal Early’s Army of the Valley boiled out of the early-morning darkness and slammed into Maj. Gen. Philip Sheridan’s Army of the Shenandoah, camped across high ground above Cedar Creek, a picturesque Shenandoah Valley stream just south of Middletown, Va., routing the Union troops. But by mid-morning Sheridan, who had been away in Washington, arrived from Winchester in time to rally his troops for a counterattack that carried the day for the Union. That victory came three weeks before the Northern presidential contest and helped secure Lincoln’s reelection. The battle was a sprawling affair that traversed some eight miles of ground along the Valley Pike, on which Middletown sits, and which today is known as Route 11. Despite the site’s significance, not a lot of the land was protected until 1988, when the Cedar Creek Battlefield Foundation bought a section of the core battlefield. Several organizations now partner to protect the Cedar Creek battlefield, with more acreage saved every year. Despite being located just 20 minutes south of Winchester and near the intersection of busy Interstates 81 and 66, Middletown re mains a quaint town with one stoplight, great mountain views and restaurants to reenergize battlefield explorers.
CEDAR CREEKDesperate Struggle in a Beautiful Place
�
EXPLORE
BELLE GROVE Before the battle, Sheridan pitched his headquarters tents at the stately home that Isaac Hite Jr. and his wife Nelly, James Madison’s sister, built in 1797 out of local limestone—with features inspired by Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. Newspaper correspondent and sketch artist James E. Taylor recalled that by 1864, “ruthless war had already made a waste of the ornate grounds.” Things got worse on October 19, when the Confederate attack tore through the XIX Corps camps on Belle Grove’s front lawn. The National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Belle Grove Plantation Foundation have restored the home to its former glory. The view of Massanutten Mountain is magnificent, but also remember to look for the bullet-struck column at the mansion’s front entrance. bellegrove.org
NPS VISITOR STATIONStart your visit at the National Park Service Visitor Contact Station for the Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park located at 7712 Main Street in Middletown. A narrated electric map explains the course of the October 1864 battle. Pick up the park’s excellent driving tour of the battle and accompanying CD narration here. It takes you on twisting gravel roads past areas of heavy fighting, beautiful antebellum farms and along the scenic Cedar Creek and the North Fork of the Shenandoah River. (nps.gov/cebe)
Maj. Gen. Stephen Dodson Ramseur, one of Jubal Early’s division commanders, was
mortally wounded during the Union’s afternoon counterattack at Cedar Creek. Federal cavalrymen captured Ramseur’s ambulance and brought him
back to Belle Grove. A number of Northern friends from his days at West Point, including George
Custer, came to pay their respects before he died, a scene depicted by James Taylor.
Sheridan’s incredible ride to regroup his army
was glorified in song and poem in the North. If you
visit the Smithsonian National Museum of American
History in Washington, D.C., you can see the stuffed
hide of the steed that made it possible.
Sheridan changed Rienzi’s name to
Winchester after their famous ride.
SHERIDAN’S TRUSTY(and stuffed) STEED
RIENZI KNOLL ROADA Route 11 highway marker on the north end of Middletown marks the spot where General Sheridan arrived from Winchester riding his black horse Rienzi at about 10:30 in the morning. He rode down the adjacent farm lane to a knoll where he conferred with his officers and then set off on his famous ride to rally his retreating troops. The Civil War Trust preserved 64 1/2 acres on the west side of the Valley Pike at this location that is leased for farming and open for special tours and events. (civilwar.org)
DECEMBER 2015 59
60 CIVIL WAR TIMES
Massanutten Mountain rises from the Valley floor south of Middletown. Early and his generals observed the Union lines and planned their attack from Signal Knob, on the mountain’s north end.
Today Signal Knob is part of the 1.1-million-acre George Washington National Forest. If you’re up for a strenuous 10-mile hike, you too can enjoy the vantage point’s stunning views from its heights. hikingupward.com/GWNF/SignalKnob
CEMETERY STRONGHOLDDespite withering artillery fire and Confederate at tacks, a beleaguered Union division command- ed by Brig. Gen. George W. Getty held onto high ground occupied by Mt. Carmel Cemetery, on the northwest corner of Middletown, to stop the Rebels’ morning advance. Mt. Carmel is still an active cemetery; please respect fu- neral services during visits.
HUPP’S HILLThe Cedar Creek Battle-field Foundation operates the Hupp’s Hill Civil War Park and Cedar Creek Museum, located south of Middletown. The museum interprets the 1864 Valley Campaign and features a large topographic map of the area. Union earthworks built after Cedar Creek to prevent another rout are preserved on the grounds. (ccbf.us)
END OF THE LINEThe 128th New York monument, on the west side of Route 11 south of Belle Grove, honors the regiment
that held the left end of the XIX Corps line. The Cedar Creek Battlefield Foundation preserves 123 acres behind the monument that feature original XIX Corps trenches. Passes for touring the site
are available at the CCBF headquarters.
DOWN THE ROADStrasburg, just down the road from Middletown and Hupp’s Hill, also has Civil War sites, as well as antique shops, cafes and lodging. It’s well worth a visit, and will be the subject of a future “Explore.”
VALLEY THUNDERThe Cedar Creek Bat-tlefield Foundation hosts the largest reenactment in Virginia every October on a weekend close to the anniversary of the battle. Thousands of reenactors participate each year to reenact Cedar Creek on a portion of the original ground that borders Route 11, one of the first tracts of land bought by the foundation.
SAD TALEThe Heater House, owned by Solomon and Caroline Heater during the war, still stands on the ground where the reenactment occurs.
SIGNAL KNOB
DECEMBER 2015 61
Middletown’s Wayside Inn, founded in 1797, claims to be one of the oldest continually operating inns in the United States. Don’t miss the small monument to Brig. Gen. Charles Russell Lowell III, an esteemed Union officer who was mortally wounded at Cedar Creek, that stands in front of the inn. (waysideinn1797.com)
Nana’s Irish Pub, also located in Middletown, serves local craft brews and gets great Yelp reviews for its fish and chips. Both restaurants are excellent bets for historic travelers in need of sustenance between battlefield visits in the Valley.
TAKE ABREAK
Nana’s Irish Pub
Wayside Inn
Solomon sided with Vir-ginia, while Caroline was a Unionist. Two of their three sons served in the 7th Virginia Cavalry, and both died while fighting for the Confederacy.
PARTNERS IN PRESERVATIONA number of partners have banded together to own and protect portions of this sprawling battle site. They include the National Park Service, the Cedar Creek Battlefield Foundation, the Civil War Trust, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Belle Grove Inc., and the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Asso-ciation (shenandoahatwar.org). Thousands of acres still remain unprotected, however, many of them in areas that are vulnerable to ongoing development. Continued vigilance and oversight in this entire area of the Valley is vital.
Confederate General
JOHN B. GORDON
describes the
Battle of Cedar Creek
in his 1903 memoirs:
“Other days during our war witnessed a brilliant triumph or a crushing defeat for the one army or the other; but no other single day saw each of the contending armies victorious and vanquished on the same field and between the rising
and setting of the same sun.”
�
62 CIVIL WAR TIMES
REVIEWS
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Reviewed by Timothy B. Smith
The Western Theater remains underrepresented in both academic and popular thought, but at least Vicksburg has recently received significant attention—only fitting, because it was one of the war’s most decisive campaigns. But in such a long and
complex campaign, certain events still get short shrift, and the Union siege of Vicksburg itself is one of those often-overlooked events. Most historians prefer to analyze the thrilling lead-up to the siege rather than detailing the mundane watching-and-waiting of that midsummer standoff.
In Engineering Victory, Justin Solonick has produced a first-rate piece of scholarship that focuses on the engineering aspects of the Union’s siege against Vicksburg. He argues that many factors influenced the siege, including terrain, the West Point training of the engineers attached to the Army of the Tennessee, and the western soldiers’ ingenuity. He explains how the siege moved from one step to the other in theoretical manner, augmented by the ingenuity of nonprofessionals, and concludes that engineering efforts, not a lack of food or other factors, really doomed Vicksburg. Though there is some repetition to be found, it serves to drive Solonick’s point home.
It is curious that Solonick chooses to use George McClellan’s “quasi-siege” as a contextual example leading up to Vicksburg when much better examples could perhaps have been found in the attempts to hem in and approach Confederate lines at Fort Donelson and Corinth, where Grant and many of the officers with him in 1862 dealt with some of the same problems facing them the next year at Vicksburg. Those concerns aside, Solonick should be congratulated for crafting a unique study that is both fascinating and educational. One hopes he will now turn his attention to writing a corresponding volume on Confederate siege activities at Vicksburg.
Reviewed by Gordon Berg
The Sesquicentennial’s last year has spawned
a tsunami of books covering 1865. Some focus on particu-lar theaters of conflict or spe-cific armies, while others try to capture the chaos, death and destruction of those final four months. Joe Wheelan has produced one of the most readable accounts of the latter type by describing the major events of each month, ending with the demobiliza-tion of more than a million
men in the Union’s armies. General Orders No. 35 of June 28, 1865, issued by Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, suc-cinctly stated the reality: “By virtue of Special Orders No. 339, current series, from the Adjutant-General’s Office, this army, as an organization, ceases to exist.”
But even as the conflict wound down, the bloodlet-ting continued. Wheelan’s analysis of the March 19-21 Battle of Bentonville, the largest engagement fought in North Carolina, is a textbook
example of how to analyze a complicated action in engag-ing yet incisive prose. After months of dodging Gen-eral William T. Sherman’s juggernaut through three states, Rebel General Joseph Johnston gamely turned and blocked the Goldsboro Road, attacking part of Sherman’s XIV Corps. Johnston suffered 2,606 casualties, about 1,000 more than Sherman. While the Confederates slipped away, Sherman’s bummers foraged the countryside on their way into Goldsboro.
Their Last Full Measure: The Final
Days of the Civil WarJoseph WheelanDa Capo Press,
$26.99
Engineering Victory: The Union Siege
of VicksburgJustin S. Solonick Southern Illinois University Press,
$37.50
Slow But Steady Wins
The Final Four Months
Available at: amazon.com (US)
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66 CIVIL WAR TIMES
Wheelan rightly includes events behind the battle lines, like the Hamp-ton Roads peace initiative in February and the last conference among President Lincoln, his military leaders and Con-federate emissaries, held on March 28 aboard the steamer River Queen. At the March conference, for example, Lincoln asked Sherman and asked the general if he knew why the president “took a shine to Grant and you.” Then he added, “Well, you never found fault with me.”
The Confederate home front gets equal billing, as when Wheelan describes the evacuation of Richmond and Petersburg during the night of April 2: “The tread of marching men, the clatter of cavalry horses, and the creak of wagons, filled the streets of Richmond and Petersburg as the long-suffering Army of Northern Virginia converged on the bridges over the James and Appomattox Rivers.”
Good works of historical synthesis rarely get the accolades they deserve. At best, they can engage specialists and general readers alike. The root of “his-tory” remains the “story”—and Wheelan tells a good one.
Reviewed by Louis P. Masur
The Lincoln Forum, an annual No-vember gathering in Gettysburg,
has been going strong for 20 years. In Exploring Lincoln, Harold Holzer and Frank J. Williams, two of the founders, and Craig L. Symonds, a regular par-ticipant, gather some of the work pre-sented over the past few years.
Many of the essays serve as précis for notable books that have since been published by the authors (Eric Foner’s The Fiery Trial; Amanda Foreman’s A World on Fire; and Craig Symonds’ Lin-coln and His Admirals). Others discuss such issues as the alleged Baltimore plot to assassinate President-elect Lin-coln in February 1861, the origins of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and the personal losses suffered by both Lincoln and Jefferson Davis.
Especially valuable are pieces that discuss Lincoln’s relationship to peo-ple and places. Walter Stahr shines a light on Lincoln and William Seward, exposing as myth the story that the two shared a hotel room in Worcester, Mass., in 1848 after they first met while campaigning for Zachary Taylor. It would be 12 years before they met again. Seward, of course, would serve as secretary of state, and though the two dis-agreed on such issues as compromise and Fort Sumter at the war’s beginning, their working relationship was so close that it engendered jealousy among other Cabinet members.
John C. Waugh focuses on Lincoln’s relationship with George B. McClel-lan, a self-made man who, as John Bright once quipped in another context, worshipped his creator. McClellan dismissed Lincoln as a “well meaning baboon,” and in November 1862, after more than a year of frustration with the recalcitrant general, Lincoln dismissed McClellan. Waugh cites several reasons for McClellan’s failure—he was pedantic, misjudged Northern opin-ion and treated Lincoln as an enemy. Some, including Robert E. Lee, judged him a great general, but most people then as now side with Ulysses S. Grant’s assessment: “McClellan to me is one of the mysteries of the war.”
Holzer explores a different kind of relationship in “Lincoln and New York,” calling the connection “complex and curiously conflicted.” The reasons were political, as New York City voted Democratic whereas upstate New York endorsed the Republican Party. In 1863 both the Draft Riots and Democratic opposition in Albany to military arrests caused Lincoln concern. The latter elicited one of his finest letters, to Erastus Corning. In it Lincoln asked: “Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch the hair of a wiley [sic] agitator who induces him to desert? I think that in such a case, to silence the agitator, and save the boy, is not only constitutional but a great mercy.” A year later, he sent the Albany Fair the manuscript of his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln’s Coop er Union Address on February 27, 1860, had helped make him president; on April 24, 1865, Lincoln’s casket arrived in New York, and the city that had opposed him now draped itself in mourning black.
Essays on Greatness
Exploring Lincoln: Great Historians Reappraise Our Greatest President
Edited by Harold Holzer, Craig L. Symonds and
Frank J. WilliamsFordham University Press,
$21.29
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68 CIVIL WAR TIMES
Reviewed by Gordon Berg
In World War II Casablanca, everyone came to Rick’s
nightclub. In Civil War New York, artists, actors, writers and journal-ists congregated at Pfaff ’s Restau-rant and Lager Bier Saloon, hidden underground at 647 Broadway. There, Henry Clapp Jr. sought to re-create la vie Boheme.
Justin Martin’s descriptions of Pfaff ’s denizens—including Fitz Hugh Ludlow, author of The Hasheesh Eater; “actresses” Adah Isaacs Menken and Ada Clare; journalist Fitz-James O’Brien; comic Artemus Ward and poet Walt Whitman—paint a picture of intellectual life in Manhattan. The war, Martin maintains, pushed these eclectic personalities “in unexpected directions.” He also describes how these outsized per-sonalities carried “the Bohemianism forged in that underground saloon out across the land.”
Readers seeking incisive literary analysis or prescient cultural insights in Martin’s book should probably look elsewhere. These would be antithetical to the irrev-erent wraiths that might very well still haunt the basement recesses of the woman’s shoe store which now occupies Pfaff ’s former premises. Martin has clearly heard those American originals whispering, and through the pages of Rebel Souls he invites readers to eavesdrop on their lively repartee.
A Bohemian Revolution
Rebel Souls: Walt Whitman and America’s First BohemiansJustin MartinDa Capo Press, $27.99
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70 CIVIL WAR TIMES
STILL AROUND
Fortunately, Thomas Rodman’s two massive 20-inch cannons (P. 46) were never thrown on the scrap heap. Today the barrel pictured above is located in Fort Hamilton Park in Brooklyn, N.Y., keeping watch over the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. “No. 1, FORT PITT, PA.,
S.C.L., 1864, 116497 lbs.,” is stamped on its muzzle. “S.C.L.” are the ini-tials of Stephen Carr Lyford, an inspecting ordnance officer who served at the arsenal. The second Rodman 20-inch cannon, which was cast in 1869, not long after the war, can be seen at Fort Hancock, in Sandy Hook, N.J. It’s shocking to think that these barrels each weighed about 60 tons, which is nearly the same weight as a modern M1 Abrams tank.
Civil War Times’ first color cover, April 1962, featured Thure de Thulstrup’s painting of the Mule Shoe at Spotsylvania (P. 32).
CREDITS Cover: Library of Congress; P. 2: Shenandoah Sanchez; P. 3: From Top: Library of Congress; Heritage Auctions, Dallas, TX; Jennifer E. Berry;
Cowan’s Auctions, Cincinnati, OH; Library of Congress; P. 4: Counselman Collection; P. 5: Library of Congress; P. 8: Library of Congress; P. 10: Sarah J. Mock (2);
P. 11: From Left: Tim Evanson; Brian Hunt & Pennsylvania Capitol Preservation Committee; P. 12: Courtesy Long Road Home; P. 13: From Top: National Civil War Museum;
Google Earth; P. 14-15: Library of Congress; P. 16-18: Library of Congress (2); P. 20-21: From Top Right: Museum of the Confederacy, Richmond, VA; Heritage Auctions,
Dallas, TX (4); P. 22: Courtesy of the Seminary Ridge Museum (3); P. 26-31: Library of Congress (3); P. 33: N. C. Wyeth (1882-1945), The Bloody Angle, 1912, oil on canvas,
46 1/4 x 33 1/4 inches, Brandywine River Museum of Art, Gift of Charles S. Crompton, Jr., in memory of his wife, Milbrey Dean Crompton, 2014; P. 34-35: Library of Congress (3);
P. 36: Library of Congress; P. 37: From Top: Library of Congress; Missouri History Museum; P. 40: Cowan’s Auctions, Cincinnati, OH; P. 42: Heritage Auction, Dallas, TX;
P. 43: Library of Congress; P. 45: San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library; P. 46-47: Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Department; P. 48: Library
of Congress; P. 49: National Archives; P. 50: Harper’s Weekly, November 19, 1864; P. 51: Harper’s Weekly, August 23, 1862; P. 52: Courtesy of the Heinz History Center (2);
P. 53: Free Library of Philadelphia/Bridgeman Images; P. 55: Jennifer E. Berry; P. 56: Courtesy HexWar Games Ltd; P. 58: Sarah J. Mock; P. 59: From Top Left: Sarah J. Mock;
Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, OH; National Museum of American History/Smithsonian Institution; P. 60: Sarah J. Mock (2); P. 61: Clockwise from Top: Library
of Congress; Courtesy of Nana’s Irish Pub; Courtesy of Wayside Inn; P. 70: Left: Leonard Zhukovsky/123RF; P. 72: Courtesy of Skinner Auctions, www.skinnerinc.com
Union General William T. Sherman witnessed the San Francisco vigilante
movement described in the Lafayette Baker story on P. 40. Sherman, who distrusted the vigilantes, wrote in his memoirs that
“the world generally gives them the credit of having purged San Francisco of rowdies
and roughs; but their success has given great stimulus to a dangerous principle, that would at any time justify the mob in seizing all the power of government; and who is to say that the Vigilance Committee may not be composed of the worst, instead of the
best, elements of a community?”
ETC.
� �
�Vigilante Critic
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The Union government purchased or produced 1,674,163 projecticles for smoothbore cannons like the 12-pounder case shot pictured here, which would have been fired by a bronze Napoleon cannon. The Confederacy used hundreds of thousands more. Though surviving examples of these bombs are relatively common, this one, which came from the Gettysburg battlefield, was beautifully engraved with the name and year of the battle, greatly increasing its value.
72 CIVIL WAR TIMES
SOLD!
at bookstores or 800-848-6224 www.uncpress.unc.edu uncpressblog.comthe university of north carolina press
“A detailed and fascinating analytical narrative. . . . A model of well- written Civil War History.” —Library Journal
“This should be considered the definitive biography on Stanton . . . Incredibly researched, amazingly written and packed to the seams with information, it should be on the shelf of every Civil War historian.” —Gettysburg Chronicle
“Filled with impressive research and superb writing, this book provides wholly new perspectives on Grant’s Overland campaign and stands as a vital contribution to our under-standing of the Civil War.” —Steven E. Woodworth, Texas Christian University
“Reads like a staff ride organized by an officer intimately familiar with the area’s topography. . . . Hess makes a convincing case for the importance of this still unappreciated battle.” —Civil War Times
“An extremely useful resource for making one’s way intelligently across the battleground as well as a stirring account of the battle and its varied meanings in the past and present. . . . no matter how limited or extensive one’s Civil War library, it deserves a special place on the shelf.” —Civil War Monitor
“Captain Hinrich’s character sketches of the legion of Southern generals whom he came to know intimately are among the most penetrating I have ever read. This book is sure to become a Confederate classic.” —Peter Cozzens, author of Shenandoah 1862
“This is the best published recollec-tions we have of a Virginia artillery commander. Superbly edited, this book is a necessary source for any study of the Army of Northern Virginia.” —James I. Robertson Jr., author of Stonewall Jackson
“Offers compelling and important ideas that challenge our assumptions about post–Civil War America. An exceptional work.” —Aaron Sheehan-Dean, author of Why Confederates Fought
Best-selling books in one convenient Ebook. Visit www.uncpress.unc.edu and search for Omnibus.
OmnibusThe official journal of the
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Journal of theCivil War Era
visit journalofthecivilwarera.orgUNC Press books are now available through Books @ JSTOR and Project Muse – and North Carolina Scholarship Online
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Most UNC Press books are also available as E-Books.
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