The Boy from Harmony – I grew up in a rural farm country community in northwest New Jersey called “Harmony Township.”   While a 7^th grade student at Harmony Elementary School, my history teacher gave an assignment to select a battle of the Civil War and write a report about it. Since I had an older married sister living in Ellicott City, anything to do with Maryland was very, very cool to me … and “Antietam” sounded like a really cool name. So I chose this battle and enjoyed the assignment.

Soon after that, when visiting with my parents at my sister’s home, I talked my father and brother-in-law into driving me from Howard County out to this remote Western Maryland place called Sharpsburg. This was before Interstate 70 was built. It was a long ride up and down hills; the day was damp and dreary; but I was in my total element at Antietam … I loved it! My father thought I was nuts!

Last week I met up with a grandmother who was bringing her 7^th grade grandson to Antietam. He had expressed a big interest in Civil War history, and his grandmother (from Los Angeles) was going to fuel that flame. As he walks up to meet me, I notice he is wearing a shirt that says “Harmony Hornets” on it. No, he was not from New Jersey; rather, he attends a Harmony Middle School in Loudon County, Virginia. But it made me think of the boy in me that first came to this place 46 years ago.

The big family of little kids – Today as I was hosting a school group from St. Louis, I was engaged in conversation by a man at Bloody Lane. He had listened to some of my narrative and had a series of questions. I was not able to talk with him very long, but noted that he had his wife and young family with him – four girls, with the oldest being about age 7-8.

This reminded me of my second visit to Antietam when the fourth of my (then) four boys was just a baby (he will be a senior at UMD this year). Our oldest would have been age 8.  We had stayed in a motel the night before in Martinsburg, and the baby was rather sick and had made quite a mess of the hotel crib. We came to Antietam, and I was beginning the “tour” with the family – following the tour route – and before long we were at the Cornfield parking area. In the time it took for me to turn off the car and walk around to the other side and open the door, two more of the boys had gotten sick and thrown up. That was the end of the vacation trip, and we just went home to New Jersey as quickly as possible.

At neither occasion of visiting did I ever imagine a day would come when I would live in this area and have the opportunity to be a part of the educational/interpretive efforts at Antietam. But it has been an enriching experience, and I trust that on various occasions I’ve been able to pique some interest in some children and teens … that they will remember a fun time at Antietam and in subsequent years bring their families … and so on through the generations.

But living close to northern Virginia, I did choose to go on the actual middle day date of the Second Battle of Winchester. No crowds at all! In fact I never met another person at any stop except for one – where two re-enactors and a history person were preparing for an evening program.

There is a tourism visitor’s center on the south end of town, where I was able to pick up a driving tour brochure for the battle – noting also a similar document for the First Battles of Winchester and Kernstown. Some of the stops are remote, and several are in the middle of housing developments or on the edge of town. But it is not difficult to get a sense of what happened and how the original terrain appeared. The best stop is the Star Fort.

Battle Summary

The Army of Northern Virginia, having departed the Rappahannock, had gone west of the mountains and swung north through the Shenandoah Valley toward what would eventuate as the ultimate destination of Gettysburg. Screened by the Blue Ridge, the first significant force of the Union to be encountered was at Winchester – about 8,000-9,000 troops under Robert Milroy. The Confederates had about 12,000-13,000 in the Corps of Richard Ewell. (All of these numbers vary wildly in different accounts and resources, but it is certain that the Confederates had about 50% more on this occasion.)

Milroy entirely overestimated the strength of his position and fortifications, while entirely underestimating the possibility of a large force overwhelming him. He had three forts of various sizes to the north and west of the town. Early fighting on the south side of Winchester on the 13th drove the Union men back to the forts, while the Confederates swung a significant force to the west. Late in the afternoon of the 14^th, the Rebels surprised Milroy’s troops at the West Fort with a powerful advance supported by a significant amount of artillery. The Union men retreated to the east to Fort Milroy, while to the northeast at the Star Fort, the Baltimore Light Artillery pounded the Confederates at West Fort with accurate fire.

That evening, Milroy arranged for a retreat to abandon Winchester and head for Harpers Ferry. Anticipating this very movement, another Confederate flanking action to the east (the division of General Edward Johnson) cut off the retreating Federals at Stephenson’s Depot, capturing 4,000 men and considerable amounts of artillery and supplies. Lieutenant Colonel Richard Snowden Andrews commanded an artillery battalion, with the battery of two guns of C.S. Contee holding the center of the line at a bridge. The heavy fighting at that spot resulted in 13 of the 16 artillerists being killed or wounded. Lee called this stand at the bridge “the Thermoplae of my campaign.”

The Second Battle of Winchester was one of the finest hours of the war in terms of the well-timed and executed Confederate logistics and fighting. It was a disaster for Milroy and the Union. Lee’s invasion was off to a great start.

Photos

The Logan House in Old Town Winchester – the headquarters of Milroy – now a giant gift shop

West Fort location – I was there exactly to the hour – 150 years later – of the Confederate attack

The Richard Snowden Andrews monument to the NE of Winchester

But more often, Army or Marine groups come on their own with their own instructors. It is not at all a rare experience to see a busload or two of young adults experiencing the unique setting and landscape that is Antietam/Sharpsburg.

Just recently, as I was driving south on the old Hagerstown Turnpike, I happened upon two columns of marines beginning an exercise – moving in lines to the north on each side of the road. So I drove right down between them.

It was a rather warm and humid day, and they were fully equipped with gear and packs beyond the conditions of the day. So it was going to be a severe training exercise of the body as well as the mind.

I met a couple of the leaders in the visitor’s center who were not on the hike, and I learned from them that they were from Quantico and that the recruits were on a seven-mile hike with instructors teaching at varied locations.

Three hours later, as I was finishing with my guest, there they were at the Burnside Bridge. They had dropped their equipage, crossed the bridge, and were sitting in the shade of the witness tree – the giant sycamore – being instructed about the battle at that location. A number of them were taking off their boots and socks and dealing with some sore feet as the teaching was going on. And they had quite a walk yet remaining to get back to the visitor’s center area.

Seeing this reminded me again of the impressive nature of the way the Confederates in particular could cover so many miles – especially Stonewall Jackson’s men, who covered 57 miles in three days just a week before the battle. This was a march from Frederick to Harpers Ferry. And also, at the south end of the field, we are mindful of the impressive nature of A.P. Hill’s men who covered 17 miles in about seven hours to arrive just in time to save Lee from possible destruction. I suspect also that they were not nearly as well fed as our modern marines from Quantico.

On this date of June 12^th in 1863, President Lincoln wrote the first of two letters to New York and Ohio Democrats – letters reprinted in hundreds of newspapers and produced into a 500,000-copy pamphlet – discrediting the cause of Clement Vallandigham and the Copperhead faction in the mind and eye of the public. And the soon-to-come battlefield victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg sealed the deal.

There is a new movie coming out on June 28 called “Copperhead.”  It is produced by Ron Maxwell – the guy who produced “Gettysburg” and “Gods and Generals.”  There was always a desire to do the third of that Shaara trilogy … “The Last Full Measure,” but it is yet to be realized. Financing such a thing is the problem of course, and a loan/eventual repayment controversy in my home area here of Washington County, MD made for no small controversy over a period of years. I read the following in an online interview with Maxwell where he said of the third film, “We certainly hope to someday do it. ‘Copperhead’ has lot of scale and a lot of scope, but it has no battle scenes. Once you have battle scenes, such as the Wilderness campaign, you are talking about a lot of money. Perhaps, if we get lucky with ‘Copperhead,’ and it is a viable, commercial success at the box office, then the odds of making ‘The Last Full Measure’ are greatly enhanced.”  I hope the “Copperhead” film is a success and that the final of the trilogy can be accomplished as well.

Clement Laird Vallandigham

The Vallandigham affair is a bit complicated, but broadly understanding it will serve as a good basic foundation for enjoying the upcoming film. Let me attempt to put it into bullet points:

• Clement Vallandigham was an Ohio member of the US House of Representatives, having been elected in 1858 and 1860. He was the leader of the antiwar Peace Democrats – the Copperheads.
• Vallandigham gave a speech to the House on February 20, 1861 entitled “The Great American Revolution” in which he described the Republican Party as “belligerent” … stating that the country faced the “choice of peaceable disunion upon the one hand, or Union through adjustment and conciliation upon the other.”
• Vallandigham particularly espoused the themes of Copperhead thinking in a January 14, 1863 speech to the House, along with a speaking tour soon after, upon the end of his term of office. Hoping to achieve the governorship of Ohio that year, he proclaimed that the Lincoln administration was fighting more for abolition than Union. He stated that he could see more barbarism and sin by a thousand times in the continuance of the war and the enslavement of the white race by debt and taxes than could be seen in black slavery.
  

  General Burnside

• General Ambrose Burnside, upon his departure from the Army of the Potomac, had been appointed Commander of the Department of the Ohio. There, he issued General Order Number 38 in April of 1863, warning that the “habit of declaring sympathies for the enemy” would not be tolerated in the Military District of Ohio. On May 1, Vallandigham gave a major speech than again rehearsed the theme about the war being fought not to save the Union but to free the slaves by sacrificing the liberty of all Americans to “King Lincoln” … encouraging desertions and an end to the war. Burnside also suppressed circulation of the Chicago Times.
• Vallandigham was arrested on May 5^th and tried by a military court on May 6 and 7. Lincoln commuted the sentence from imprisonment to expulsion to the Confederacy, where Vallandigham was banished under a flag of truce in to the Confederate  lines in Tennessee. He escaped the Southern states on a blockade-runner and settled for a time in Canada. The Democrats in Ohio nominated him for Governor, though he would ultimately lose the election.
• The Lincoln letter of June 12, 1863 was one of several such occasions where he would take his case on a particular issue to the American people. The more wily President would refer to Vallandigham as a “wily agitator.”  Lincoln argued well for the merits of his decision and of the guilt of the whacky Ohioan, using one of his colloquialisms by writing, “Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, whilst I must not touch the hair of a wily agitator who induces him to desert?”

Vallandigham actually appeared at the 1864 Democratic Convention. He supported McClellan, but was no asset for the party. After the war, the wily agitator would be unsuccessful in several runs for congress.

Vallandigham would die in 1871 in a way that is so bizarre, one feels like when writing about it that you have to say, “I’m not making this up!”  As a lawyer defending a man for a murder charge against another man in a barroom fight, Vallandigham demonstrated with a quickly drawn pistol that the victim had in fact killed himself. Not realizing the pistol was loaded, he accidentally shot himself fatally in the process – though it did get the guy acquitted!

The Confederate cavalry commanded by JEB Stuart consisted of five brigades under such notable leadership as Rooney Lee, Grumble Jones, Thomas Munford, and Wade Hampton. Two recent cavalry reviews had taken place: the first for the ladies, the press, and Stuart’s enjoyment, and the second involving Robert E. Lee on the 8^th.

Lee’s plans for the cavalry were to cross the Rappahannock to the north to screen the recent movements of Ewell’s and Longstreet’s infantry, now marching to the west and north – ultimately to travel up the Shenandoah (meaning down the valley to the north).

But before Stuart could get started, Hooker sent Alfred Pleasonton and the Union cavalry on a movement to cross to the south of the Rappahannock, engaging the Confederate cavalry near Brandy Station in a preemptive raid in order to “disperse and destroy.”  The Yankee cavalry would cross at Beverly Ford two miles to the northeast , as well as six miles to the southeast at Kelly’s Ford.

John Buford’s Union Cavalry did indeed achieve quite a surprise, crossing the Beverly Ford at about 4:30 a.m. The Confederates rallied quickly, some of them half-dressed and riding bareback. Nearby horse artillery set back the Northern advance and gave more time for the Rebels to organize.

General David Gregg’s wing of the Union cavalry crossed the Kelly Ford at a later time, joining the battle also at a later moment … but like Buford, catching the Confederates by surprise for the second time. Sweeping in from the east and southeast, the Federal Cavalry displayed their best day of the War so far with charges and counter-charges. Given the great surprise of it all, the Confederates managed to make a reasonable defense out of the situation.

After 10 hours, Pleasonton ordered a general retreat back to the north side of the Rappahannock, feeling he had accomplished his purposes. Actual Confederate losses were not terribly high, all things considered – in the 500s … with Union losses in the 900s (less than 100 killed). The greater loss for Stuart was in the Southern press, which was very hard on him and the entire cavalry for the surprise nature of the attack. This played out as a factor in Stuart’s motivations and decisions for the circuitous ride of the cavalry in the Gettysburg campaign.

For the Union, this was a day of arrival and maturity for the boys on horse. No more was heard the expression, “Who ever saw a dead cavalryman?”

At a time when the political climate of the country involving the unpopular nature of the draft and the Vallandigham affair (check back here in 5 days for details!) were causing hostility towards the whole issue of slavery and emancipation, African-American troops would make a significant contribution as combatants at Milliken’s Bend. Colonel Hermann Lieb with the African Brigade and two companies of the 10th Illinois Cavalry were driven into Milliken’s Bend from a reconnaissance by the Confederate forces of Maj. Gen. Richard Taylor – specifically a division of Texans under John Walker, known as Walker’s Greyhounds.

Even as the Rebels were getting the best of the battle by flanking and laying down an enfilading fire, the Union gunboats Choctaw and Lexington appeared and fired upon the Rebels. Fierce fighting continued for a time, with the Confederates ultimately retreating and unsuccessful in their primary effort. However, the Union casualties were about 650 to less than 200 for the Rebels (though I have seen widely varied casualty counts for the latter). But among the Union dead and wounded were many colored troops. Assistant Secretary of War Charles A. Dana wrote, “The bravery of the blacks completely revolutionized the sentiment of the army with regard to the employment of negro troops.”

And a Captain M.M. Miller wrote, “I never more wish to hear the expression, ‘The niggers won’t fight.’ Come with me 100 yards from where I sit and I can show you the wounds that cover the bodies of 16 as brave, loyal, and patriotic soldiers as ever drew bead on a rebel.”

Guelzo is the author of the recently released “Gettysburg: The Final Invasion.” As the Henry R. Luce III Professor of the Civil War Era, and Director of Civil War Era Studies at Gettysburg College, he is particularly well-positioned to pen this most recent summary work on the 1863 invasion of Pennsylvania.

The book is especially commendable because of its excellent summaries – not only of the complex actions on the three days of the Battle proper, but also of the many varied themes leading up to this critical point of the War. Guelzo maintains a balanced and thoughtful approach throughout, deftly walking through the decades-old controversies, while reasonably and dispassionately rendering best opinions and analyses upon the time and placements of events.

Though our mutual time in college only overlapped one year, and though we have never been connected in any way beyond the most distant acquaintance, I do remember Allen as a colorful college personality – oft on display in the dining room. This too I have observed in lectures in recent years, where his humor and mordant dry wit rise to the surface. The written expression of this trait makes the pages turn more easily and provides something much beyond yet another recitation of the most studied and researched battle of the Civil War. By way of illustration, consider his initial description of my favorite general Abner Doubleday (of whom I’ve researched and written much) as a man “with a large Johnsonian face that sagged like a sinking battleship …”  I could be offended and take a defensive posture about my beloved biographical character, or I could simply admit that the statement is hilariously true!  But this is actually less demeaning than the description of the Confederate General Richard Ewell, a fellow “with a peculiar pop-eyed look and a bald, domelike head which gave him something of the appearance of a nervous pigeon.”  (See picture for the apt description!)  I could jocularly point out that Guelzo himself looks like some sort of library-incarcerated professor of Civil War studies at a historic institution of higher learning, but in the rare event that he might actually read this and retaliate with his more creative verbiage, I’ll stop there!

Richard Ewell

The narrative is especially enlivened by Guelzo through the device of embedding a plethora of actual words of veterans in a majority of all sentences. This is not a rare historical writing modality, though I’ve never seen it so universally deployed, and the result is an energetic authenticity. Portraying the pinnacle moment of Pickett’s Charge, “To James Crocker, in the 9^th Virginia, it seemed as though ‘men fell like ten-pins in a ten-strike.’ The thickening banks of powder smoke darkened the air ‘with sulphurous clouds,’ and even the sun, ‘lately so glaring, is itself obscured.’ Garnett’s brigade ‘had to climb three high post-and-rail fences,’ or else crowd through ‘at the openings where the fences had been thrown down,’ temporarily making superb targets for Union cannoneers. In the 53^rd Virginia, “every man of Company F’ was ‘thrown flat to the earth by the explosion of a shell from Round Top,’ and the 19^th Virginia was struck end-on by shells ‘which enfiladed nearly our entire line with fearful effect …’”  (Forgive me for especially liking quotes with “enfilading” in the sentence!)

The abundance of snippets and quotes also adds a continual human element to the drama, lifting the script above being just another detailed manual of battlefield logistics. The same 9^th Virginia fellow – James Crocker – returns to the narrative near the end in a description of the Battle’s aftermath. Captured and but slightly wounded in the final charge, he strangely obtained a pass and walked into Gettysburg unattended. As an actual graduate of the Pennsylvania College, he was visiting his old college town and happened upon the son the school’s president Dr. Henry Baugher, amazingly receiving an invitation to dinner. Guelzo writes, “Given that ‘old Dr. Baugher’ had buried another son in the Evergreen Cemetery who died of wounds at Shiloh, the unannounced appearance of an unrepentant Confederate might have made for a highly indigestible meal. But <quoting Crocker> ‘the venerable Doctor saw before him only his old student, recalled only the old days, and their dear memories.’”

Here now with less than four weeks until the sesquicentennial of the Battle of Gettysburg, I strongly commend Guelzo’s book that provides either a refreshing and vivid view for veteran Civil War enthusiasts, or an accessible, yet detailed study for those delving into this Campaign for a first time. And it is important to understand and honor this history of the preservation of the Union and the emancipation of American slaves, for as Guelzo writes in his Acknowledgements, “neither would be possible without the triumph of the Union armies. And Gettysburg would be the place where the armies of the Union would receive their greatest test, and the Union its last invasion.”

It is not that General Lee decided at this time that he was going to begin a large-scale movement with a target of Gettysburg, PA as the ultimate site for a decisive battle. Rather, it was Lee’s strong belief that fighting a defensive war in the South was a losing proposition. He believed the only way to ultimately win against such superior resources was to break the will of the Northern people to sustain the effort at retaining the Union.

Just four days before this breaking of camp, Robert E. Lee had reorganized the Army of Northern Virginia into three corps under his three ranking officers: James Longstreet, A.P. Hill, and Richard Ewell. Previously, it had consisted of Jackson and Longstreet. But with the loss of Stonewall, along with a force now in excess of 75,000 men, Lee did some reshuffling of veterans and additions of new troops into a three-corps structure. Longstreet would be retained, but choosing the other two was a less-clear, more-complicated matter.

Though A.P. Hill had the sufficient fighting credentials, Allen Guelzo (in his recently released book, “Gettysburg: The Final Invasion”) describes him as “a nervous, wiry man with a persistent chip of underappreciation on his shoulder and a bevy of chronic illnesses when under stress <and who> had managed to antagonize nearly everyone else in Jackson’s corps, including Jackson himself, whom Hill denounced as ‘that crazy old Presbyterian fool.’”

Richard Ewell

The third command would go to Richard Ewell – himself a less than stellar candidate, being more than a bit lacking in confidence after having his leg previously amputated from the 2^nd Battle of Manassas. Similarly, Guelzo writes of him, “a queer character, very eccentric, with a peculiar pop-eyed look and a bald, domelike head which gave him something of the appearance of a nervous pigeon.”

But apart from a few dapper fellows like JEB Stuart, George Custer, and George Pickett, Confederate officers were not much selected for their fine appearance – including Lee himself, who never dressed in a manner befitting his rank. But they could fight and lead men into a fight, and such a movement toward such a result was now underway.

Activity, planning, and preparation was afoot everywhere, along with tension and trepidation. Leaving Boston on May 28^th of 1863 was the first Negro regiment from the North. The 54^th Massachusetts Volunteers depart for Hilton Head, SC where they will achieve fame in the July 18 attack upon Fort Wagner (check back then!), depicted of course in the movie “Glory.”  The regiment was led by Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, along with officers largely from abolitionist families. Speaking of Shaw, in my Abner Doubleday research I came across a letter from Robert Shaw written to his mother from Charles Town, VA (now WV) on July 18, of 1861 where he mentions that he had the opportunity to meet Major Doubleday. In that this was very early in the War and but months after Fort Sumter, Doubleday was well-known as one of the officers involved in that initial affair, and was hence a person of notice in a way that he would not be later.

Even as we live in a time where political scandal and controversy are dominant in the press, so also did such dominate the news 150 years ago – including the order of General Burnside (6/1/63) to shut down an anti-Lincoln Administration paper, saying, “On account of the repeated expression of disloyal and incendiary sentiments, the publication of the newspaper known as the Chicago Times is hereby suppressed.”  He also referred to their journalism as “rank treason.”  This engendered a protest in the streets that evening of 20,000 people, and three days later the Times reopened as Lincoln recommended to Secretary of War Stanton that Burnside suspend the order.

Another controversy that dominated news at this time surrounded the Ohio Democratic leader of the Copperhead faction – Clement Laird Vallandigham. Again it was Burnside in May who had him arrested, tried, and sent over to the South for treason. Lincoln’s major written statement on the justification of this action would be on June 12^th – and on that date I’ll make a post about the entire affair.

Though the situation is soon about to change, the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia had been staring at one another across the Rappahannock River in the Fredericksburg area. Odd behavior and communications with General Hooker had Lincoln scratching his head yet again.

It is all going to get much more interesting!

Something that caught my ear today was the teacher telling me that there is a custodian at the school who is a Civil War enthusiast – apparently much involved as a re-enactor. He is a reference for the teachers and students on their studies in this realm. This took me back in my memory exactly 50 years to when I was an elementary student in Harmony Township, Warren County, NJ.  The school custodian was a man named Carl Morrison, and he was REALLY into the Civil War – having travelled many dozens of times particularly to Gettysburg. I guarantee you that every person that went to that elementary school would first think of this man when the subject of the Civil War is brought up – even all these decades later. He knew so much more about it than any of the teachers, that when the topic came up in history class, it was a foregone conclusion that Mr. Morrison would be summoned from whatever he was cleaning at the time to drop it all and come teach. He was very interesting, and I probably owe much of my original interest to this very, very kind man.

As a kid, every adult seems old to you. I remember him as a latter-middle-aged fellow. And now with the internet, one can research anything … so I found his death notice in the local NJ paper from 1990, where it said he was age 79 upon his passing. It also said simply this:  “He was a custodian for the Harmony Consolidated School for 20 years before retiring in 1976. He also lectured there on the Civil War.”  He sure did! So he would have been age 53 when I was the same age as the kids I saw today. And since I’m age 58, these kids probably looked at me as an old dried-up raisin ready for the grave!

One of the little girls told me quite a story at the Burnside Bridge. She said something like, “Burnside’s first name was Ambrose, right?”  And she went on to say that he was an ancestor in her family … I got lost at about the 7^th great-grandfather on one or the other side. But in any event, she was related to that handsome fellow of the 19^th century. So I took her picture on the bridge named after her famous forefather.

I really do love kid groups, and I hope I can be a sort of “Mr. Morrison” character for them and plant a seed that might grow into something else. I know my old school janitor would love to see what I’m doing, and I’m sure he would have never missed anything I write were he to have been able to see it.

It would be accurate to say that we are all “custodians” – not in the janitorial sense, but in the preservation/generational sense – passing through for a time, with reflections upon those who went before, that those who come behind us may also be thankful for their sacrifices.