Capt. H.G. Gibson, 3d US Artillery, June 1862 (James F. Gibson, Library of Congress)

This is Regular Army Captain Gibson in the midst of his command in June 1862. It’s a detail from a stunning picture of the entire battery of six 3-inch ordnance rifles and the nearly 100 officers and men who were present on campaign. Gibson and many of these were in action from the Peninsula through Antietam and Gettysburg to Appomattox Courthouse with the Army of the Potomac.

Here’s the full image of the battery that summer:

Companies C and G, 3d US Artillery, June 1862, Fair Oaks, Va. (James F. Gibson, Library of Congress)

Motion has blurred just about everyone and everything except Gibson and objects immediately around him, which gives the picture a dramatic quality–as if the entire unit was placed to frame the commanding officer–an effect probably unintended by the photographer.

Notable also, is that all the men of the battery are mounted. This is what distinguishes the Horse or Flying Artillery from the other kind of horse-drawn light artillery of the period, in which most of the men walked. Flying artillery was well suited to accompany fast moving cavalry, which it did with great success in both American armies during the Civil War.

By the occasion of the picture, though, Horatio Gibson had been in US Army service nearly 19 years, since reporting as a cadet to the US Military Academy at West Point, NY, in July 1843. He graduated 17th in the Class of 1847, just behind AP Hill (15th) and ahead of AE Burnside (18th) and John Gibbon (20). He was briefly brevet 2nd Lieutenant in the 2nd Artillery, then commissioned 2nd Lieutenant, 3rd US Artillery for service in the Mexican War.

He was at Vera Cruz and in action at Puebla and Mexico City under the command of Captain Braxton Bragg, of whom he thought highly. If the reported fragging incidents are true, Gibson may have been nearly alone in admiring Bragg.

General Scott Entering Mexico City (W.H. Powell, Library of Congress)

After Mexico, like many of his brother officers, Gibson saw wide-ranging service on expeditions and garrisons in the American West. He was briefly stationed at Ft. Columbus, on Governor’s Island in NY Harbor in 1858, but from 1849 to 1851 he was on duty at the California posts of Monterrey and San Francisco.

He was promoted to First Lieutenant in May 1851 and subsequently served at Sonoma, and up the coast skirmishing with Native Americans on the Cocqille River and at Port Orford, Oregon Territory into 1852. After a short stint at Fort Sullivan, Maine, he was transferred to Jefferson Barracks, Missouri (1852-53), saw remote frontier duty at Forts Gibson and Washitain in the Indian Territory (later Oklahoma, 1853-54) and was back on the west coast at Fort Reading, California by 1855.

Lieutenant Williamson’s survey party at work near the entrance of Livermore Pass

From the post at Reading he set out as part of the escort for a “topographical party”–the Williamson Expedition–exploring the southern route for a proposed Pacific Railroad.

…The other coastal expedition set out from Sacramento with two goals. Led first by [Lieutenant Robert S.] Williamson and later [Lieutenant Henry L.] Abbot after Williamson took ill, the party sought a suitable crossing of the Sierra Nevada near the source of the Carson River. In addition, their orders called for a survey of possible routes to Oregon and Washington.

Because the Indians of northern California and Oregon were hostile, a large escort under Lieutenants John B. Hood, Philip Sheridan [cavalry], Horatio Gates Gibson [artillery], and George Crook [infantry], accompanied the topogs. Williamson and Abbot were in good company as they started north to Klamath Lake…

Later that year he was sent to Fort Lane, Oregon, the advanced base for action against the local Indian tribes–activity later known as the Rogue River Expedition–where he was severely wounded in action with Oregon Indians about 1 November 1855.

He returned to the San Fransisco Bay area at Benicia and The Presidio through 1856 and into 1857. In mid-1857 he and a small group of artillerymen and other soldiers from the Presidio were assigned to construct and man an Indian-control outpost in the Mendocino Reserve.

… when First Lieutenant Gibson established an Army post on the Mendocino Indian Reservation in northern California, he had no hesitation regarding a name. Colonel Bragg had left the Army in favor of the life of a Louisiana planter, confining his government service by 1856 to serving as his state’s Commissioner of Public Works. By naming the new camp after this hero of Buena Vista, Gibson felt that at least the Bragg name was back in the service of the Army.

For an artilleryman, the early days of Fort Bragg were especially trying. Men who had been recruited and trained as cannoneers of the 3d Artillery found themselves performing the age-old Army chores of artisans, masons, and hewers of wood.

“It is slow work, owing to the scarcity of proper tools,” reported Gibson on June 18, 1857, a week after officially establishing the post. “I do not expect to have all necessary buildings completed before the beginning of the rainy season…”

Fort Bragg was a year old when almost the entire garrison was suddenly rushed to eastern Washington for the Coeur d’Alene War. Gibson was sick when the call came. He ordered 15 of his men to respond to the call. Ten days later he followed them [in action 5-8 September 1858], placing a noncommissioned officer in temporary charge of the post.

Gibson returned to Bragg for a short time after the end of the Coeur d’Alene War, then moved on [15 November 1858] to be the quartermaster of his regiment …

Though briefly remaining at Fort Vancouver, Washington, and again tasked with missions into Northern California Indian Country thereafter, he and his battery were permanently assigned to the garrison at The Presidio from 1859 up to the outbreak of Civil War in Spring 1861. Due to absence or illness of the usual commander of the post, Captain Erasmus D. Keyes, 3d Artillery, Gibson was reported in command there over several periods, including 1 March - August 1856, 6 February - 19 May 1859, and June 30 - July 1859.

His last pre-war forays were to find combat on the Truckee River and the skirmish on Pyramid Lake, June, 1860 and a stint at Ft. Churchill, Nevada nearby.

On 14 May 1861 he was promoted Captain, 3d Artillery, and summoned East as the Federal Army prepared for war. We’ll get to all that and the rest of his career in Part 2.
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Notes

The 1862 James F. Gibson photograph is from the US Library of Congress, and all his digitized works are easy to find in the online catalog to their Prints and Photographs collection.

The illustration above of Scott entering Mexico City is by William Henry Powell (1823-1879) and is reproduced online in a US Army publication on the Occupation of Mexico (pg. 36). Powell is listed in Appleton’s, online from Google.

The details of Horatio Gibson’s military service are from Cullum (Vol 2, Pt. 2 pg. 316-) –his number is 1347.

The quote about the Williamson Expedition and accompanying illustration are from Chapter Six of Dr. Frank N. Schubert’s Vanguard OF Expansion: Army Engineers in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1819-1879 (USACoE, 1980), posted online by the US Army Corps of Engineers.

Erasmus Keyes’ memoirs are in Fifty Years’ Observations of Men and Events, Civil and Military (1884), online from GoogleBooks, and contain more details about service at the Presidio and combat with Indians in the 1850s. Lt. Gibson is briefly mentioned at several points.

The story of the naming of Fort Bragg and link to the Coeur d’Alene War are quoted from Colonel Hart’s history page hosted by the California State Military Museum. The plaque photo is from the Fort Tours page about the site of the fort.

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Addendum button-counting

In a comment below, Craig noticed that the third gun from the bottom in the Battery picture above looked more like a Napoleon than an Ordnance Rifle. See if you don’t agree:

Canned condensed milk under the Eagle brand was first offered in 1856 by Gail Borden as answer to lack of refrigeration or other effective means to preserve whole milk. It was sold in large quantities during the Civil War, which made Borden a famous name [borden history]. As early as 1861 the US Army was buying it for the troops.

So the cooking technique I’m going to show you–and the resulting magic elixir–may have been available to soldiers at Antietam in 1862.

Or not …

My friend Mike sold me on the idea of boiling a can of the sweetened condensed milk you can still buy today, and promised a pudding-like treat would result. I thought I remembered something like this from when I was very small, so what the heck, I gave it a try.

the Can

Caution: the label instructions expressly warn you not to heat an unopened can. Please do not actually do this. It’s not safe. Enough said.

Preparation was easy: I submerged the unopened can in enough boiling water to cover it, and kept on the boil for 50 minutes. Removed can from heat. Cooled overnight in the refrigerator.

the Can, opened after cooling

When opened, the can revealed a golden nectar the consistency of honey, though creamier: a goop of thicker viscosity but with texture of melted butter. No, not quite that either.

My descriptions are feeble. But pudding this wasn’t. More like caramel ice cream topping .

the goop in a bowl

And caramel is essentially what it tastes like. Except that caramel pales in comparison. This stuff is tremendously rich. Overwhelming to the taste buds. A very small amount will go a very long way.

I lapped-up about a quarter-cup as seen here. That was enough of the straight stuff alone.

I’ve since used it as a topping: it’s was perfect over butter-pecan ice cream. It also makes the most fantastic desert drink when added liberally to very strong coffee. I wonder how espresso would work …

The glorious charge of the 23rd and 12th Ohio Volunteers …(1864, Library of Congress)

There are a pair of interpretive signs, two monuments, and a regimental tribute at the spot where the road crosses the Gap, noting the combat there on 14 September 1862. But that’s all there is to see as one arrives.

There was no one else there when I pulled up. It was blessedly quiet. I took a couple of snapshots to bring some of the place home with me.

The battlefield of Fox’s Gap consists of an otherwise unremarkable meadow and patch of woods covering about half a mile of the crest of South Mountain. In among the trees is the dramatic North Carolina monument [picture, more] erected in October 2003.

Having just come from Antietam and the specific site of the 17th Michigan Infantry’s adventures there on 17 September 1862, it was destiny, I guess, that I should come upon that unit again at Fox’s.

Along the road is this tablet put up in 1986 by reenactors of the 17th Michigan, who have been active in preserving and noting their unit’s history. They’ve also scanned and posted a fair copy of the CWPT map of the battle at Fox’s Gap.

Somewhat older is this large obelisk placed in 1889 by veterans of the Federal IX Corps to mark the spot where their commander Major General Jesse Reno was mortally wounded in action.

North face, Reno Monument: 9th ARMY CORPS, September 14, 1862 RENO

The text on the other three sides read:

West:

This monument marks the spot where Major Gen. Jesse Lee Reno Commanding 9th Army Corps, U.S. Vol’s was killed in battle Sept. 14, 1862

South:

Battles
Vera Cruz - Cerro Gordo
Cantreras - Churubusco
Chapul Tepec - Roanoke Island
New Berne
Camden - Bull Run
Chantilly and South Mountain

East:

Erected by the survivors of the 9th Army Corps to their Commander and Comrade September 14, 1889

Added to the landscape at Fox’s Gap more than 100 years later in 1993, this modest headstone-sized marker remembers the other General officer killed here, Confederate Brigadier Samuel Garland.

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I wonder, though …

How does one go about putting up a monument on a Civil War battlefield, as has been done fairly recently with the 17th Michigan marker, Garland stone and North Carolina Monument? When is it not a good idea? Remember the flap of 2005 about putting additional unit memorials on the field at Antietam?

I’d appreciate hearing from those in the know about the legal and ethical dimensions.
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Notes

The original of the somewhat stylized portrayal of the battle at Fox’s Gap, reproduced above, is from the collection of the Library of Congress. The full text at the bottom reads:

The glorious charge of the 23rd and 12th Ohio Volunteers (Col Scammon) against the 23rd and 12th North Carolina, under the rebel Gen. Garland, who was killed in the battle.

For more about the history of Fox’s Gap, see the online home of A Gap in Time, a 2002 archaeological project of the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. For even deeper study, find their results, along with recommendations for further preservation and interpretation.

There’s something Michigan in the air this week.  Harry’s just connected with the Stonewall Regiment from another angle, too. For the visually challenged, the 17th Michigan sign bears the following fine print at the bottom:

Bureau of History, Michigan Department of State
Registered State Site No. 580
Property of the State of Michigan, 1986

The Garland monument was placed by the Garland-Rodes SCV Camp #409, Lynchburg, Virginia.

All of the modern installations were made under the auspices of the Central Maryland Heritage League, who’ve also posted a summary page on the battle.

And, by the way, Reno’s son Jesse W. was the inventor of the escalator. Garland’s wife and son Samuel, however, tragically preceded him in death in 1861.

I was glad to be part of a small group of SHAF volunteers and Park Natural Resources guys planting tree seedlings along Antietam Creek yesterday.

It was in a part of the Park I’d never visited before: a strip of low land along the west side of the stream running north from where the Burnside Bridge Road crosses about one-quarter mile above Burnside Bridge.

A new forest of green tubes (looking northeast, creek to the right)

A larger team of about 35 people had been nearby planting the weekend before, during the Park Work Day. Between us, then, we’d planted hackberry, tulip poplar, and maple (others?) three and four deep along a half-mile of creek bank. These are all native species likely to do well in that location.

These trees and the grassy field adjacent will form a riparian buffer to protect the stream and its banks. The seedlings themselves are protected and nurtured by those ‘greenhouse’ sleeves and stakes.

view back across Antietam Creek from west bank

On the afternoon of 17 September 1862 this ground was the province of the troops of Colonel Benjamin Christ’s Brigade (First Brigade, First Division) of the Federal Ninth Corps.

They had crossed the stone bridge to the west bank about 2pm and followed it north to this meadow. About 3pm they formed in line of battle here preparatory to advancing toward the town of Sharpsburg [map]. In order south to north (l to r) , behind the 79th New York Infantry as skirmishers, these were the 17th Michigan, 28th Massachusetts, and Christ’s own 50th Pennsylvania regiments.

bluff west of Antietam Creek, north of bridge road

With their backs to the creek, they faced a stiff climb up that steep slope.

… after the formation of the Corps line, the Brigade advanced, under a heavy fire from Cemetery Hill and the high ground west of the road, to within a few yards of this point where it was checked. After a short delay the 79th New York advanced as skirmishers and compelled the Confederate Artillery to retire. The Brigade was about to move forward, when the attack of A.P. Hill on the left of the Corps obliged it to fall back to the Antietam …
(from War Department tablet no. 63 [map])

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Thanks to Tom Clemens and SHAF for sponsoring the planting, the Natural Resource Rangers for doing what they always do: take such fine care of our Park, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) for the young trees, and to the other volunteers for getting muddy with me.
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For related photos–including one of Christ’s Brigade’s tablet–see a lovely page from Tom Shay created on the 100th anniversary of the raising of the monuments to 48th and 50th Pennsylvania regiments at Antietam in 2004.

Proof?

How many blogs are there with “Antietam” in the name? Well now there are two.

Man-about-Sharpsburg Stephen Recker has begun his own in conjunction with his Virtual Antietam site.

Among his many other connections to the battle, Stephen is an infamous collector of related photographs and reunion ephemera. He’s posted a couple of pieces already, among them this ribbon from the 1891 reunion of the 130th Pennsylvania Infantry at Sharpsburg. I’m looking forward to more!

Sorry to take so long to find your new blog Stephen, and welcome to the ’sphere. If I had known you were coming, I’d have baked a cake.

finally ready, officially, to launch my effort to restore the 48th PA Monument at Antietam by replacing the sword missing from the statue of General Nagle

Get the details from the supporting A Monumental Task blog, and find your way to help this righteous project succeed, won’t you?

Happy birthday, General.

I hope young Patrick felt as good as his expression suggests … his wound looks awful in this vivid image. He was painted propped up in a bed at Mount Pleasant Hospital in Washington DC in January 1863 shortly before his discharge from Army service. It had been about 4 months since he’d been shot through the head at the Battle of Antietam. There, a Confederate minie ball had bored through the top of his skull and exited from the back, leaving gruesome-looking wounds, but surprisingly little long-term damage.

Private Hughes’ story offers some small insight into Civil War medicine and gives me a chance to give the soldier and his unit a little air time.

I found two Patrick Hughes in the Federal Census of 1860 for New York City, both laborers born in Ireland, so it seems reasonable to expect that was our soldier’s background. I don’t know when he enlisted in Company K of the 4th New York Infantry, but do know he and the Regiment joined General French’s Third Division of Edwin Sumner’s Second Army Corps, Army of the Potomac immediately before the battle of Antietam. They had previously seen only non-combat duty.

So Patrick and his mates were still combat rookies when they crested the rise overlooking the sunken road at the far side of the Roulette Farm at about 9 in the morning of 17 September. The 4th New York were at the left front of the Division in line of battle, and were among the first to run into the concentrated fire of the North Carolina regiments of Anderson’s Brigade, hunkered down in the natural trench of that road. It was probably there that Patrick Hughes was shot.

Although dazed and in shock, bleeding heavily from the scalp, he dragged himself to the rear and received first aid from the regiment’s surgeon, Dr. George W Lovejoy, who reported his “patient was conscious and answered questions rationally.” He was then carried to a barn in Keedysville. He lay there until 20 September, when he was moved to a hospital in Hagerstown.

Otherwise very detailed, his medical history mentions no treatment in those first few days after the battle. Few men survived a serious head wound like his, so he may simply have been expected to die, and not been due any special treatment.

But he was still alive and recovering on 25 September when he was again moved, this time to the Mount Pleasant Hospital in Washington DC.

P. Hughes, 1863 (Lithographs after Stauch in The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, 1870)

On arrival, Assistant Surgeon Thomas Carroll, in charge of his case, reported:

The general condition of the patient was good; suppuration had commenced; no febrile action existed, the pulse was regular, sleep not materially disturbed, mind clear and manifesting no signs of compression of the brain, or inflammation of its membranes. Little, if any, change was perceptible for several days, when the swelling of the scalp and tissues subsided, leaving a prominence nearly, if not altogether, one inch in height, and two and a half or three inches in length of brain substance, in which the pulsation of the arteries could be distinctly observed…

By December, hospital director C. A. McCall, (Assistant Surgeon, USA) noted Private Hughes

… was able to sit up and walk about the ward, and was never afterwards much confined to bed. This protuberance now began to subside, and was soon reduced nearly to a level with the skull; numerous pieces of bone were removed as they became detached from the tissues, leaving a complete channel in the cranium from the point where the ball entered to where it emerged.

He was discharged from the army on 26 January 1863 and went to Newcastle, Delaware on a disability pension of four dollars a month. In 1869 it was doubled to $8, when the examining physician, Dr Maull declared him totally disabled, though Hughes later worked as a “paddler” in an iron foundry, a physically demanding occupation.

We have some fine follow-up information from a pair of Philadelphia doctors who examined Patrick in December 1870, just over 8 years after Antietam, They observed that

His memory is quite good, but by no means so good as before the injury. He is rather easily bothered and confused, and more irritable than formerly. The sight of his right eye, he thinks, is poor. Whisky affects him as usual. Sexual power undiminished. He has no paralysis. The wound of entrance is marked by a slight depression in the bone, the wound of exit by a hollow two and a half by two inches, and one inch deep. No bone has closed this open­ing, but the scalp and hair dip down into the hollow. The arterial pulsations are barely perceptible.

Remarkably, they had a photograph made of the back of their patient’s head. It’s been preserved in this etching which clearly shows the permanent damage to his skull.

P. Hughes (The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, 1870)

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Private Patrick’s Hughes’ unit was the Fourth Regiment, New York State Volunteers.

One of the first units organized at the outset of the Civil War, most of the men were recruited in New York City proper, except for Company E, from Brooklyn. The 4th were nicknamed the First Scott Life Guard in honor of hero-General Winfield Scott, and began their Federal service in early May 1861 for a term of two years.

Flank Marker, 4th NY Infantry (NYSMM)

The regiment was on rear-echelon duty at Newport News (Va - June and July 1861), around Baltimore (Md - to June 1862), and at Suffolk (Va - to September) before seeing their first action on the Maryland Campaign. They were in combat again at Fredericksburg in December, and were present, though not engaged, at Chancellorsville in May 1863.

The troops mustered out and were honorably discharged May 25, 1863 at New York City at the end of their agreed-upon term of service.

Phisterer’s chart shows the regiment’s losses in action:

Not as fortunate as Private Hughes, two officers of the Fourth were killed at Antietam.

These are research subjects for a future project, surely, but here’s what I have on them as a first look:

CAPTAIN JOHN S. DOWNS, killed September 17, 1862, in action at Antietam,
Md. Age 32 years; enrolled April 22, 1861, at New York city to serve two years; appointed First Lieutenant, Company G, April 25, 1861; mustered in as such, May 7, 1861; as Captain, Company B, May 26, 1861 (vice Captain May, resigned).

SECOND LIEUTENANT HENRY K. CHAPMAN, died September 17, 1862, of wounds received in action at Antietam, Md. Age 32 years; enrolled April 22, 1861, at New York City to serve two years; mustered in as First Sergeant, Company B, May 9, 1861 ; as Second Lieutenant, December 7, 1861 (vice Lieutenant Thornton, promoted); transferred to Company C, August 15, 1862.

Another person of further research interest, the Regimental Surgeon at Antietam, was

GEORGE W. LOVEJOY, age ? years; enrolled May 27, 1861, at New York City
to serve two years; mustered in as Assistant Surgeon, May 27, 1861 ; promoted
Surgeon, June 14, 1862 (vice Surgeon Wainwright, discharged); mustered out with regiment, May 25, 1863, at New York City;

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Notes

Our story follows–after pulling a couple of link-threads–from a February post by Public Historian Suzanne Fischer. Thanks to her for the pointer to the images of the NMHM which led to this depiction of carnage.

Hughes’ medical story is found in The Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion, produced under the direction of Surgeon General of the US Army, Joseph K. Barnes in 1870. Hughes’ case is found in Part I, Volume II, pp. 206-7. All 6 volumes of this monumental work have been digitized and posted online at the Internet Archives from originals donated by the National Museum of Health and Medicine (NMHM), Armed Forces Institute of Pathology. Warning: these are huge digital files and can be difficult to work with.

Artist Edward Stauch painted Hughes and other wounded soldiers in Washington DC (under contract?) for the War Department during the Civil War. He is well represented in the Medical and Surgical History. Known as a sculptor and modeler, he was born in Saxe-Coburg, Germany. Stauch was commissioned [c. 1860] to prepare medals for the United States Mint. (From a US Mint kid’s page)

Shortly before the patient’s discharge from Mount Pleasant, an excellent picture of the aspect of the injury at that time was made in water color, under the direction of Surgeon J. H. Brinton, U. S. V., who was then in charge of the Division of Surgical Records of the Surgeon General’s Office, and had secured the services of an artist, Mr. Stanch [sic], whose admirable drawing and coloring have furnished some of the best illustrations of this book. The figure on the right of the chrome-lithograph opposite [second image from top of this post] is a good copy of Mr. Stanch’s water-color drawing [opening painting]. (from Hughes’ case in the History)

Basic information about Hughes’ 4th New York Infantry and the image of the flank marker above are from the NY State Military Museum.

For more about the regiment, I consulted the best single source on New York in the War, Frederick Phisterer’s New York in the War of the Rebellion (3d Ed., Albany: J. B. Lyon Company, 1909-12), also online in its entirety from the IA. The Fourth is found in Volume 2, beginning at page 1738.

If you, like me, take New York in the War of the Rebellion for granted, here’s a photo and tidbit about the compiler to help bring him home:

PHISTERER, FREDERICK (1836-1909)

Medal of Honor Citation
Rank and organization: First Lieutenant, 18th U.S. Infantry.
Place and date: At Stone River, Tenn., 31 December 1862.
Entered service at: Medina County, Ohio.
Birth: Germany.
Date of issue: 12 December 1894.
Citation: Voluntarily conveyed, under a heavy fire, information to the commander of a battalion of regular troops by which the battalion was saved from capture or annihilation.

This year’s Endangered Battlefield Report from the Civil War Preservation Trust leads off with the story of a planned cellphone tower for Antietam. If you read newspapers you’ve seen many lead paragraphs like that above from USA Today March 12.

Liberty Towers LLC says the 120-foot structure - it would extend 30 feet above the treeline to the west - would be disguised as a farm silo to blend in with the rolling farmlands of Western Maryland. But opponents say it would overwhelm a battlefield seen nationally as a model of historic preservation.

“One of the reasons that Antietam is so well-known and so well-respected is the fact that here, when you stand on the battlefield, what you see is a very rural environment that hasn’t been impacted by commercial development,” said John Howard, superintendent of Antietam National Battlefield…

Mike Hofe, president and chief operating officer of Liberty Towers, has described the structure as a “stealth tower” that would have minimal impact on battlefield vistas. He says the proposal remains in the “early planning stages”; Liberty has yet to file for permits … (Baltimore Sun, March 14)

Dr Tom Clemens, President of Save Historic Antietam Foundation (SHAF) noted that the threat of a cell tower has been seen before near Sharpsburg, and

I observed the test for this tower back in early January [2008]. They put up a balloon to the height of the proposed tower and it was awful. You could see it from all over the place. Not just from the battlfield, but all over Sharpsburg. SHAF
wrote a letter protesting the tower, as did the NPS [National Park Service] … no reply yet to either of us.

The Hagerstown Herald-Mail story adds:

National Park Service officials were notified in December 2007 of a proposal to erect a stealth cell tower south of the battlefield off Mondale Road in Sharpsburg, park Superintendent John Howard said Thursday.

“Any modern intrusion on it really detracts,” Howard said.

Can you help? Contact:

The Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT)
Save Historic Antietam Foundation (SHAF)
And let your US Representative or Senator know you want them to bring pressure to bear to protect the Battlefield.

Notable lately have been contributions from Morrisons and a Lewis. Look in comments more recently, too, for insights from descendents of Weisiger and Clark. Old mysteries solved, but new avenues opened as well, so please jump in if you can help.

The many of the Morrison Clan who have stopped in to add information have driven the comment count on last year’s piece on patriarch Robert Hall Morrison to first place all-time. I’m amazed by the rich detail these family historians have brought to the story, and recommend you get caught up if you’ve not been following the threads there.

Anne Morrison Garber also seeks help locating Morrison scholar Sarah Marie Eye’s new email address … anyone?

Enoch Lewis’ descendent Annie Lewis teases of connections to the US Military Academy at West Point in a new comment. Do please speak up if you know where that hint leads. Captain Lewis’ case is still a tangle of unanswered questions of politics and motivation to me.

Oh for more time to research …

The Crater (c. 1866, J. Elder)

The Fourth Battalion as it left Petersburg on the 20th of April, 1861, was made up of the flower of the manhood of the Cockade City. After four years of service it had been so decimated by disease, by death, by promotion, and by transfer that it showed scarcely more than a skeleton of the original body. It was the nucleus upon which was formed the famous Twelfth Virginia Regiment, whose banner bore the device of almost every field on which the Army of Northern Virginia grappled with the enemy, from Seven Pines to Appomattox, and whose flag, stained with the smoke of battle and shredded by ball and shell, was never surrendered, but torn into slips and buried in the bosoms, right over the hearts, of the veteran survivors.

That original Battalion was organized from standing militia companies at Petersburg in January 1861, Major D.A. Weisiger, commanding. Once built to a full regiment, Weisiger became Colonel, and they were brigaded with the 6th, 16th, and 41st Virginia regiments under General William Mahone, late of the 6th. These proud units would serve together for the duration of the War.

Colonel D.A. Weisiger, 12th Virginia Infantry (Alabama State Archives)

In August 1862, by then veteran of Seven Pines and Malvern Hill, the 12th was ordered up from duty at Richmond, taking the cars on the Virginia Central RR on 17 August to re-join the ANV. They were in time for furious combat at Second Manassas.

General Mahone was wounded there, as was Colonel Weisiger–severely–after taking command of the brigade in relief of Mahone. On the same day, 30 August, at least 8 of the 10 Captains commanding companies in the 12th were killed or wounded, Major John May was mortally wounded, and Lieutenant Colonel Fielding Taylor was seriously ill. The senior leadership were all down.

Major J.P. May, 12th Va Infantry, (c. 1862, National Archives)

There weren’t many soldiers left to answer to the colors, either. From full strength near 1,000 officers and men in 1861, the Regiment was at about 800 present for duty on 1 June 1862, but only 150 on the first of September just before the Army crossed the Potomac.

Mahone’s Brigade entered Maryland across White’s Ford above Leesburg, Virginia, on 6 September in the charge of Colonel William Parham of the 41st Virginia Infantry with something between 400 and 500 troops. The 12th Virginia was under the nominal command of Captain Richard Jones of Company I, senior officer present. He shared leadership with Captain Everard Feild, Company F, to 13 September.

Captain R.W. Jones, 12th Virginia Infantry (c.1862, War Talks)

The Brigade was rear-guard of the McLaws-Anderson force which departed Frederick, Maryland on 10 September and closed on Harpers Ferry from the east by way of Middletown, Burkittsville, Pleasant Valley and the Maryland Heights. On the 14th, Colonel Parham rushed his men back to Crampton’s Gap on South Mountain to help hold off the approaching Federals of Franklin’s Corps. JEB Stuart later summarized the Brigade’s action there:

Colonel Parham, commanding Mahone’s brigade, soon after arrived with the Sixth and Twelfth [and 16th] Virginia Infantry, scarcely numbering in all 300 men, and this small force for at least three hours maintained their position and held the enemy in check…

The event was of considerably more significance to the men of the 12th Virginia, as described later by then-Sergeant George Bernard of Company I:

Upon the tattered battle-flags of three of the regiments of Mahone’s old brigade, the Sixth, Twelfth and Sixteenth, there was inscribed a name to which their ragged followers were wont to point with pride, as representing one of its most glorious achievements. Although overwhelmed by numbers at Crampton’s Gap, on the 14th day of September, 1862, and compelled to retreat, the participants in that action were characterized as ‘a band of heroes’ who had accomplished all and more than was expected of them. Their defence of the pass contributed in great degree to the capture of Harper’s Ferry, a prize which richly repaid all it had cost.

Battle of Crampton’s Gap (A. Waud, Harper’s Weekly, 25 October 1862)

On that day Col. Munford with about two hundred cavalry, who was picketing the Gap and the village of Birkettsville [sic], beyond, gave notice of the approach of the enemy. Under the impression that the advancing force was merely a body of cavalry, Mahone’s old brigade, commanded by Col. [Wm] Allen Parham, of the Forty-First, then bivouacked near Braunsvllle [sic], in Pleasant Valley, was dispatched to the Gap to hold them in check. With his accustomed daring, as soon as he arrived on the spot. Col. Parham deployed his men, numbering 520 [?] all told, behind an old worm fence at the foot of the mountain, with a narrow field in front of them. The attenuated line was supported by two sections of Grimes’ battery, of Portsmouth, posted on the mountain in the rear, which during the battle did most effective execution.

The line had scarcely been formed when the enemy advanced, and instead of a small force of cavalry, it was found that an entire corps (Slocum’s) of the Federal army was present. Franklin’s division was pushed forward and made several fruitless attempts to cross the narrow plateau, which was swept by a destructive fire. For two hours and forty minutes did the little band sustain the shock, but their ammunition becoming exhausted their fire slackened, and a final advance, made by the whole corps of the enemy, was successful in driving the Confederates from their indefensible position, and gaining possession of the entrance to the Gap, Cobb’s Legion, of Georgia, which had been sent forward as a reinforcement, made its appearance at this time, fired one volley and scattered to the four winds, losing its battle-flag and a large number of prisoners…

Leading the 12th in that action was Captain John R. Lewellen of Company K, who had only just returned to duty that day having been injured at Manassas. Sergeant Bernard noted …

… the gallant bearing of Capt. Lewellen at the time when our regiment formed its line of battle on the slope of the mountain and began to descend to the road and fence at its foot was conspicuous. Drawing his sword, and I think waving it over his head, he placed himself a few paces to the front and right of the regiment, and in this position went forward with it …

The Regiment paid heavily in its defense of the Gap that day. Lieutenant Colonel Taylor, though too ill to command, was with his men and was mortally wounded. Captain Llewellyn was seriously wounded and carried from the field. Our narrator, George Bernard, was also wounded and left behind to be captured. Of just over 100 men of the Twelfth present at Crampton’s Gap, some 60 were casualties: killed, wounded or made prisoner.

Following the surrender of the Federal garrison on 15 September, the 12th Virginia and the rest of Anderson’s Division passed through Harpers Ferry on the 16th , and marched to Sharpsburg early on 17 September. Arriving between 8 and 9 o’clock, they were sent to the aid of General DH Hill’s troops in the Sunken Road, but–with the other defenders of the Confederate Center–were soon driven back. Private Joseph Spotswood of Сompany Е later described how few of the soldiers were left:

Our brigade, under the command of Colonel Parham, went into battle at Sharpsburg with only seventy men rank and file, of whom twenty-three belonged to the 12th Va. regiment … This was the result of the hard marching and fighting through which the brigade had been, and of much straggling due to so many being bare-footed.

The remnants returned to Virginia on the night of 18-19 September. Like the rest of the Army of Northern Virginia, the 12th Virginia Infantry gathered its stragglers, rested, recuperated from wounds, and regained strength to fight another day.

General Mahone, Colonel Weisiger, Surgeon Claiborne, Captain Lewellen, and many of the Twelfth are buried in Blandford Church graveyard and cemetery, Petersburg. Among about 30,000 other Confederate soldiers. By the Civil War this already elderly church building had been abandoned and gutted, as can be seen in this 1865 photograph.

Blandford Church, Petersburg (April 1865, O’Sullivan, Library of Congress)

Restored around the turn of the 20th Century, the building is today a shrine to the States of the Confederacy with magnificent stained glass windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany (c. 1909).

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dramatis personae of the Twelfth Regiment, in order of appearance

Surgeon John Herbert Claiborne (1829-1905)
Educated at Randolph-Macon, the University of Virginia, and Jefferson (Philadelphia) Medical College, he had moved to Petersburg in 1851. He had a pre-War career in politics in the state House of Delegates and Senate as an “avid secessionist” before enlisting as Surgeon of the 12th Infantry in April 1861. He resigned his commission briefly and took a seat in the State Senate 12/1861 - 2/1862, but returned to service as Surgeon, CSA, and had charge of Petersburg military hospitals for the duration. He returned to medicine afterward, and was prominent in professional associations and frequent contributor to the journals.

Colonel David Addison Weisiger (1818-1899)
… served in the Mexican War and was officer of the day at the execution of abolitionist John Brown before entering the Confederate Army after Virginia seceded. He fought at Seven Pines and in the Seven Days’ and Second Bull Run campaigns where he was seriously injured at the latter. After almost a year recuperation, he commanded again at Spotsylvania and Cold Harbor. He was wounded again at the Battle of the Crater where he received a promotion to brigadier general for his performance. At Appomattox, he was wounded three times and had two horses shot from under him before surrendering. After the war, he worked as a bank cashier in Petersburg, Virginia, and later moved to Richmond. (Bio sketch from the Alexandria, Virginia library accompanying a copy of the CDV like the one above)

Major John Pegram May (1829 - 1862)
One of five May brothers in the Twelfth, all sons of wealthy Petersburg lawyer David May, John was himself a well-situated attorney with 6 children by 1861. He enlisted on 19 April of that year as Captain, Company A, and was promoted Major of the Regiment in May 1862. He was buried in an unmarked grave where he fell on the battlefield at Manassas.

Lieutenant Colonel Fielding Lewis Taylor (1825-1862)
He had attended Washington (now Washington & Lee) College, and was commissioned a Lieutenant Colonel in the Virginia State forces in April 1861. He was assigned at that rank to the Twelfth Regiment in June. Wounded at Crampton’s Gap on 14 September, he died at Charles Town, Virginia (now W. Va.) on 3 October, and is buried in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond. His wife, the former Elizabeth Farley Fauntleroy (b. 1825) also died in 1862. His son Fielding, Junior (1849-1923), was a Virginia Military Institute cadet by May 1864–class of 1868–and may have fought at Newmarket.

Captain Richard Watson Jones, Jr (1837-1914)
Born into landowning privilege, he was thoroughly educated in mathematics and sciences at Randolph-Macon and Virginia by 1861. He enlisted as Captain of Company I in February 1862, and was promoted Major in July 1864. He was in command of the Regiment as senior officer present at Appomattox in April 1865. He had a considerable academic career after the War with stints as professor or administrator at Randolph-Macon, Petersburg Female College , University of Mississippi, MS College, MS Industrial Institute, and Emory and Henry. A later portrait–reminiscent of the image above–is posted online, and a bio sketch of Jones appeared in History of Education in Mississippi (1899, US Bureau of Education).

Captain Everard Meade Feild (1831-1915)
Feild was a grocer in his native Greensville County, Virginia before he married a Pennsylvania woman in 1852, at which time he took up farming. In that year he also joined the Petersburg City Guard–a local militia unit–and was Captain by 1855. He enlisted in June 1861 as Captain of Company F of the Twelfth. He was promoted to Major immediately after Sharpsburg (to date from May’s death in August) and Lieutenant Colonel in October. He was thereafter in command of the Regiment at many of its most significant engagements including Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Spottsylvania (May 1864) where he received the severe thigh wound that effectively ended his military career. After the War he farmed for another five years, then worked for the Atlantic Mississippi & Ohio and Norfolk & Western railroads, was Deputy US Collector of Internal Revenue, and a lumber inspector.

Sergeant George S Bernard (1837-1912)
A student at the University of Virginia, teacher in Essex County, and lawyer before the War, Bernard enlisted as Sergeant in Company I in February 1862. After capture at Crampton’s Gap, he was treated at the US Second Corps hospital in Burkittsville and at Fort McHenry, Baltimore, before he was exchanged through Fort Monroe sometime after 14 October 1862. After recovering, he transferred to Company E–voluntarily reduced to Private–for full duty by September 1863. He was again wounded at Hatcher’s Run (Va) in February 1865. After the War he worked for the Petersburg Daily Express, married ex-Governor John Rutherford’s daughter Fannie, and held elected office on the school board, in the House of Delegates, and as Commonwealth Attorney.

Captain John Richard Lewellen (1822-1886)
A Mexican War veteran, he was running a religious newspaper, The Conductor, at Petersburg before the War. He entered service in Company K–formerly the (F.W.) Archer Rifles–on 4 May 1861 as First Lieutenant, and was promoted Captain on 1 July. Llewellyn was in hospitals recovering from his wound for most of the remainder of 1862, and on light duty, detached on conscription service for all of 1863. He was promoted Major 3 October 1862. He rejoined his unit in the field in January 1864, commanded it in combat that year, and was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in February 1865 (to rank from July ‘64). He spent the last two months of the War sick in hospital. After the War he was a farmer and politician, and was editor of the Danville Register. His name is sometimes spelled Llewellyn in the records, as it is on his headstone.

Private Joseph Edwin Spottswood (1829-1907)
A clerk in a Petersburg lumber dealer before the War, he enlisted in Company B in April 1861 and transferred soon after to Company E. He was wounded at Sharpsburg, one of only three men present at that battle from his company. From December 1862 through July 1863 he was “detached to enroll conscripts” - presumably on light duty due to his wound, but he returned to be promoted Regimental Quartermaster Sergeant in September 1863. He was among those who surrendered at Appomattox. His stone, too, is at Blandford Cemetery.
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Notes

Though George Bernard touts Crampton’s Gap as representing one of [the Regiment’s] most glorious achievements, his volume of War Talks is probably far better known today as a reference to the Battle of the Crater, fought near the Regiment’s hometown of Petersburg on 30 July 1864.

Some background on the Crater painting at the top of this post is offered by Barbara Crookshanks, Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star:

Elder was a member of Caskie’s Battery of Artillery at the Battle of the Crater before Petersburg. And the next day he made sketches of the topography and military positions of the scene.

The large painting Elder made from these sketches was on display at Woodhouse & Parham Bookstore in Richmond, but was destroyed by the fire which swept the city in 1865. Also destroyed was the first copy of his Scout’s Prize. Elder repeated both on larger canvases. They were purchased on the easel by Confederate General William Mahone and have a permanent home in the Commonwealth Club in Richmond.

It apparently shows the counter-attack of Mahone’s Brigade, possibly the 12th Virginia in particular. See also Kevin Levin’s thoughts about it from November 2005.

The quote about the the “flower of the manhood of the Cockade City” is from Dr. J.H. Claiborne, late Surgeon of the Regiment from Seventy-five Years in Old Virginia (1904), available online courtesy GoogleBooks.

George S. Bernard (c. 1892, from War Talks)

G.S. Bernard’s seminal contribution to history on the regiment and the Battle of the Crater is his compiled War Talks of Confederate Veterans (1892), being addresses “delivered before A.P.Hill Camp of Confederate Veterans, of Petersburg, Va., with addenda giving statements of participants, eyewitnesses and others, in respect to campaigns, battles, prison life and other war experiences.” It’s also online. GoogleBooks yet again.

Sharp-eyed readers will notice some factual problems with brother Bernard’s narratives quoted here, notably confusion between Federal Corps and Divisions, but these hardly detract.

A good general reference for the Regiment is W. E. Henderson’s 12th Virginia Infantry (Lynchburg: H.E. Howard, 1982). It’s particularly valuable for its exhaustive roster and biographical detail. It’s also the source for the picture of Major May used here.

Information for Fielding Lewis Taylor, Jr. and more on his father is to be found in Merrow Egerton Sorley’s Lewis of Warner Hall (1934, pp. 105-6, excepts online from Google Books) - Mr. Sorley’s a little weak on the War, however.