June 2009

Coming Attraction SDCWRT

May 19:     Mike Schooling “Heritage Defence: Sons of Confederate Veterans.”

June 16:     Mary B. Townsend (Author) “The Unknown General.”

July 21:       Larry Tagg (Author) “The Unpopular Mr. Lincoin.” This program will be held

                        outdoors in the Amphitheater.

Aug. 18:        Barbara Hemmingsen “Chattanooga.”

Sept. 15:          Mark Shapiro “Antebellum Fear: Nat Turner’s Uprising”

Oct. 20:        Rich Marcell “Another Look at Robert E. Lee.”

Nov. 17:       Pedro Garcia “Men Really Do Go Mad: Slavery, Secession, Seward & Sumpter.”

Dec. 15:        Chraistmas Party and Round Table Social

June Program

THE UNPOPULAR MR. LINCOLN By Larry Tagg          

Abraham Lincoln

On Wednesday June 17, 2009 at 7:30 pm the SDCWRT will hold its 274th meeting at Palisades Presbyterian Church, 6301 Birchwood St. San Diego, CA 92120.

“The most revered American president was, during his four years in office, the most reviled. The story of Abraham Lincoln’s presidency is a classic underdog story: a review of Civil War diaries, letters, editorials and recollected remarks reveals an intensity of venom toward Lincoln that is startling, even to a modern reader steeped in the political milieu of Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.”

Larry Tagg was born in Lincoln, Illinois; he graduated from the University of Texas at Austin. A bass player/singer of world renown, and was co-founded and enjoyed substantial commercial success with “Bourgeois Tagg” in the mid-1980s. He went on to play bass for Todd Rundgren, Hall and Oates, and other acts. He currently teaches high school English and drama in Sacramento, California. Larry’s latest book is The Unpopular Mr. Lincoln. He is also the author of The Generals of Gettysburg, a selection of the Military Book Club.

May Meeting by Travis Fuqua

Gene Armistead

Gene Armistead presented Equines in the Civil War on May 20, 2009. This month’s presentation was about the roles that equines—horses, mules, and donkeys—played in the Civil War from the cavalry charge to the quartermaster’s wagon train. When we think of horses and war, we often think of romantic and daring cavalry charges, but equines played a far more important role in the war. The Civil War, of course, took place in the days before automobiles, trucks, and tanks, and thus everything that could not be moved on the limited railroad network had to be moved by equines. Men had to charge into battle on the backs of horses.

As mentioned before, the most famous image of equines is that of the cavalry. The cavalry in the Civil War was harsh as the horses and the men were constantly in the line of fire. Generals often had more than one horse to ensure that a fresh one was always ready for him. Sometimes, an officer lost a horse in battle and had to find a replacement and sometimes, he could even loose several horses in battle. The life of cavalry horses was very harsh and their survival rate was only about four months. Given this and the number of cavalry regiments, there was a need for almost two and a half million cavalry horses during the war.

Another important use of horses in the war was that of artillery horse. Some artillery horses pulled the artillery pieces to the field of battle and the others pulled the supplies necessary for the field pieces. Artillery horses often found themselves under fire as it was a sure method to cripple the enemy’s artillery by immobilizing it. Artillery horses fared better than their cavalry counterparts and lasted an average of seven and a half months. Given this expectancy and the number of artillery units on both sides, there was a need for almost a half a million artillery horses.

Gene Armistead talking Civil War equines up

Perhaps the most important use of equines in the war was in supplying the army. The quartermaster needed tremendous numbers of mules to supply the armies and the ratio of mules to men varied depending on the roads and the severity of the campaign, but by 1864, the Federal army overall needed one animal for every two men. The horses themselves also had great supply needs for feed and water. Mules were found to be better than horses as they could work better with cheaper and less feed. Horses were also used to pull ambulances and pharmacies and mules were even used to carry wounded soldiers when an ambulance was unavailable or inconvenient. The Civil War created a need for almost four million horses and mules. This is compared to the combined Federal and Confederate army of three and a quarter million men.

Paying for and supplying the animals was another question. Most horses and mules ranged in price form about one hundred dollars to two hundred. Sometimes, wartime inflation and the fame of the horse could drive the price as high as $4,600, which was the appraised price of General Lee’s famous horse, Traveller. By the end of the war, the Federal Army had spent 130 million dollars on horses and mules. Each side always needed more horses than it could ever hope to obtain. There were no specific breeding programs given the sudden nature of the war and neither side was particular about the breed of horse it required, although certain units specified certain colors or types of horses, but mostly for a dramatic effect.

The Federal government set up six horse depots throughout the country to obtain and distribute horses, but there were notorious cases of corruption and incompetence and many horses that were acquired by the Federal government were unusable. When the supply depots could not manage, men often had to scour the countryside and take whatever equines they could find. Confederate forces had even more difficulty given that Confederate officers were supposed to supply their own horses in addition to the general lack of resources in the Confederacy. Whenever Confederate forces were in the north and took northern farm animals, they found that they were better suited for pulling plows rather than riding.

Bill Cooper presenting Appreciation Certificate to Gene Armistead

Many horses and men in the war developed a relationship and other horses became almost as famous as their masters. The aforementioned horse, Traveller, of General Lee began its life before the war named after a Mississippi Congressmen by the name of Jefferson Davis. “Jeff Davis” later ended up with Lee after a series of owners and was renamed Traveller. He died in 1871 and his skeleton was placed on display before being buried in the 1970s. Some other general’s horses from both sides of the war have either been entirely stuffed or have had parts stuffed and are currently on display. One could argue that these stuffed remains are the last survivors of the Civil War. The horses that served in the war were in some ways equally as brave as those who rode them into the field of battle.

Feature Article

(submitted by SDCWRT member

Curtis Dryer – family papers )

BY

ALBERT WILLIAM BACHELER

Part II

Libby Prison, Richmond VA

It would be quite unlikely that men in circumstances like these should fail to discuss, in subdued tones but ever deepening interest, the chances of escape and the means for accomplishing it.  One of the men captured with me was Ben Thompson, a native of Wolfeborough, NH.  He was one of the best specimens of the traditional Yankee, —shrewd as a lawyer, keen at trade as a Jew, full of resources, and plucky.  He lacked all reverence for dignity or rank, and would always succeed in worming his way into the confidence of officers with appearing intrusive.

         The following story told at Ben’s expense, just before our capture, illustrates his character better than any words of mine.  Ben had been detailed for picket duty one day, and scenting a chance to turn a honest shekel, he filled his haversack with commissary coffee, and watching his opportunity traded it off during the day with the “Johnnies” for tobacco and papers.  Next day Ben was sick, “unfit for service”, so the surgeon said, and was missing from sight for some hours.  Everybody supposed he was asleep in his tent.  Nothing of the sort.  With his surgeon’s release from duty in his pocket, and his haversack on his shoulder, Ben struck for the James, hired a darkly to row him across in his dugout, and turned up late in the forenoon at Dutch Gap canal, then two thirds dug across the narrow tongue of land where Butler was cutting off a seven mile reach of the river.  For two hours Ben drove a thriving trade, and found the troops at work in the canal, hungry for both news and weed.  He was nearly done with this traffic, and had begun to congratulate himself on the generous pile of greenbacks in his possession, when General Butler, with an orderly or two at his heels, made his way on foot into the “big ditch”.  Thompson failed to see the General until he was close upon him, and knowing that he had been driving a contraband trade, he naturally feared a confiscation of his gains.  However, drawing a bunch of choice Havana’s from the depth of his haversack, a reserve fund apparently provided for an emergency, he ran up to the General with, “Good morning, General, I’ve been trying to find you for a week, for I did want you to try some of my fresh cigars, and I hope you’ll do me the honor to accept them with my complements”.  Before the General could refuse or accept the proffer, a ten-inch bomb from one of their mortars was dropped by the “Johnnies” in somewhat anxious proximity to the group.  Exploding as it buried itself in the ground, it did not further damage than to cover the General and his escort with mud.  But Ben, taking advantage of the exciting moment, cried out, “Good God, General, if that’s the manners you show a kindly disposed person like myself, the sooner I’m out of this, the better!” and with the words he ran like mad out of the canal, and was soon lost to view around a bend of the river.  

Seeing Ben in a brown study one day, a fortnight after we reached Libby, I inquired what he was thinking about.  Instead of any direct reply, he asked if I knew anything about shoemaking, and on my reply in the affirmative, he told me of a chance turnkey Pryor had offered him to make shoes for the Confederacy.  “And who knows,” said he, “but there’ll be a chance for us to skedaddle out of this, if once we get into the shop.”  Next morning thirty of us were detailed as shoemakers, and found ourselves in a building adjoining the main prison hard at work on shoes for the rebel army.  There was a partial division of labor among the gangs that brought the stitching to me and the fitting of the soles to Thompson.  Early in our work I noticed Ben went through a curious process of cutting deeply across the outer sole of every shoe, on the reverse die at the front, where hank and heal meet.  Of course it ruined the shoe, which would do well if it served the wearer while he was walking away from the quartermaster’s.  “That’s my mark,” said Ben, at my inquiry.  “Escape valve, you know, for the guilty conscience of a fellow at work aiding and abetting the enemies of his country.”  Neither of us ever met a “Johnnie” afterwards, but we ached to ask him if he had ever worn any of the patent brands manufactured by the Yanks at Libby.

Across Water Street from our shop was a large warehouse used for any overflow of prisoners, but empty at the time we were there, on the second floor of which, is a small room, old Pryor kept a variety store.  It was a sort of perquisite to his office as prison keeper, and aided in eking out a scanty salary.  Pryor was accustomed almost daily to conduct squads of half dozen prisoners to this store, and sell them bread, apples, and other eatables.  His prices were outrageous, fifty cents for an apple, one dollar a loaf for bread, two dollars for apple-pie baked in an ordinary saucer.  This process of sale was thought altogether safe, as the warehouse was within prison enclosure and always surrounded by the line of sentries.  When Ben and I had studied the situation and formed our plans for escape, we broached the matter to our fellow-shoemakers and endeavored to induce some of them to join us.  But the danger of recapture and the terrors of Castle Thunder proved stronger than our arguments.  It was fortunate for us that they were so, for we learned by experience that the smaller the number in an escaping parties the less likely were the rebs to pursue and retake them.  However, nearly the entire shop wrote anonymous letters to their friends, and these we agreed to deliver to the mails within a reasonable time, Ben remarking that if anything happened to that particular penny-post he should bring suit in the court of claims against the Southern Confederacy.

December 12, the day we had chosen for out attempt, was dark and stormy.  Holding off as late in the afternoon as we dared, we informed Pryor that we needed something to eat, and with four other comrades who were in our secret were taken over the street to the store.  Thompson and I made our purchase first, and then stepping aside, our companions engaged the keeper’s attention while we noiselessly crept up a second flight of stairs to the third story.  There we were fortunate enough to find an immense pile of condemned tent-cloth, much of it with the stamp of the United States upon it.  Working our way deep into the pile, we anxiously waited for any sounds that would indicate we had been missed.  Comrades have since told me that Pryor at once inquired for us, but on being assured that we had returned to the shop seemed satisfied and returned the remainder without further questions.  Six hours of weary waiting followed, for we had agreed to wait for midnight, as the safest hour for our attempt.  Nothing broke the dull monotony of the time save the sleepy “Post No. 1, all’s well!” of the drowsy sentinels, carried in turn around the prison by each succeeding sentry.  Soon after twelve we were astir.  Cutting the tent-cloth into long strips we braided a triple strand into a passably strong rope of some thirty feet I length.  Fastening one end to a table we had found near by, we dropped the other end from a window.  It was short by ten feet, but we had no difficulty in dropping that height.  Thomson slid down first and I followed.  Once at the bottom we found ourselves inside a board fence fifteen feet high, with the smooth side next the prison.  Luckily, however, there were lying about the remains of the boards and timbers of which the fence had been built, and having piled these up cob-house fashion, I mounted the pile, and Ben mounted my shoulders.  He could just reach the fence top, and being muscular he was over in a twinkling, and had dropped me apiece of the tent-cloth and pulled me to the top.  We found ourselves in the back yard of a private dwelling, and working our way toward the street were attacked by a ferocious bull-dog, whose howling alarmed us even more than his bite.  The cur quickly yielded to Ben’s suavity and caresses and left us for his mat on the doorstep.  In glancing over the front fence we were startled to see a sentry standing with his piece at order arms only a few feet away on the brick sidewalk!  There was nothing for it but to put a bold face on the matter and leap the fence.  Hastily agreeing to meet at a neighboring street light, Thompson was first and coolly walked away whistling.  In ten minutes I followed without the whistle, and shortly rejoined Ben at the appointed place.  Just why that “Johnny” failed to challenge us we never knew, but the probability in that overcome by drowsiness he was stealing a nap over his gun.  As neither of us had more than a general knowledge of the streets, such as we could gain by our first march through them, or by our study from the prison windows, we tramped on with only the vague notion of reaching the suburbs and concealing ourselves until the succeeding night.  Now and then we passed a watchman or some belated traveler, but the pieces of tent-cloth we had brought along so completely disguised us that no one asked any questions.  As hour’s hard tramping found us bewildered, and once more in the heart of the city.  Affairs took a serious turn.

We dared not inquire of those we me, nor at the houses, but hurrying on at our best pace found ourselves in another hour climbing the parapets of the third or inner line of works surrounding the city of the north.  We saw no troops, as most of the rebels were with Lee guarding the Petersburg front.  The ditch in front of the works was deep and half-filled with water, but creeping along in the darkness we soon reached a log laid over the chasm for the use of their troops.  Over this we were threading our dizzy way, when Ben, who was ahead, slipped and tumbled in.  He disappeared for a moment, but soon came up puffing to the surface.  I ran along the bank and dropping him my canvas soon fished him out to terra firma.  Every rag of clothing on him was saturated, and the bread in his pockets converted into mush.  Faint streaks of dawn now showing themselves admonished us to be pushing on, and despite Ben’s condition we hurried away for something that looked like woods in the distance.  We found the woods a swamp, thick grown with trees and underbrush.  Exhausted and faint, we found a spot somewhat more solid that the rest, where we lay down in the shelter of a large cottonwood tree.  After an hour’s sleep we both woke shivering and chilled to the very marrow.  Ben was the worse off; the result of his morning’s dunking.  To add to our discomfort a drizzling rain set in, and I was soon as badly off as my companion.  We dared not light a fire even if we had the means; the most we could venture on was to rise occasionally to our feet, stretch our benumbed and aching limbs, and return quietly to our drenched beds on the ground.  Soon after noon the sky cleared somewhat, and sounds of voices began to be heard; these indicated the presence of a camp on the opposite side of the swamp.  Not long after, the men seemed to start a hunt, and some dogs had evidently treed an animal.  Soon we heard the clip of axes, the tree was felled, and then dogs and men pushed on for the interior of the swamp.  Nearer and nearer they drew to our hiding place, and in a moment I saw the gray squirrel they were after dart into a hollow oak not three rods from us.  Three dogs and fifteen or twenty men were close behind.  We fugitives instinctively hug the sod beneath us.  Foiled in the chase, the men gather sticks and dry grass or bark and started a fire in the hollow but.  The smoke soon force the squirrel from his retreat, and with a leap he took to the nearest trees; the dogs rushed over in hot chase, but failed to molest us; the men taking a shorter cut avoided us altogether, and in a few moments we knew by their shouts that they had bagged their game and were on there way to camp.  In was a narrow chance, and Ben remarked, as we began to recover breath, that if that was a specimen of what we were to encounter the probabilities of our escape were slim.  Darkness, or best friend, came at last, and we crept out of our hiding place as fast as our chilled and stiffened limbs allowed.  With the pole star as guide we steered northward, in order if possible to cross the Chickahominy and put that stream between us and any pursuers that might be on our track.  Carefully avoiding the roads, except when it was necessary to cross them, we tramped on through the weary hours of the night, startled now and then by the snapping of a twig or the movement of some animal more frightened than ourselves.  At times we were up to the knees in mud and water, and again were climbing steep banks, or working our painful way through thickets and underbrush where we suffered severely from the thorns and briers.  Near dawn we crossed a second and less pretentious line of parapets and were rejoiced to find these, like the last, unoccupied by troops.  Soon after, we crept up to the Negro quarters of a Virginia plantation and stealthily pushing in the door we entered.  At one end of the room was a large fireplace, and stretched on the floor of unbaked clay, in a half-circle, were the dusky forms of half a dozen slaves, with heads turned toward the fire that was smoldering low on the hearth.  After some vigorous shaking we succeeded in rousing the sleepers, and begged for a chance to dry and warm ourselves.  

(continued next month)

Letters to the Editor

Subj: View Our New Battlefield Preservation Opportunities

From: cwpt@civilwar.org

3 Great New Battlefield Preservation Opportunities

As the nation’s leading Civil War battlefield preservation organization we have remained busy looking for new opportunities to save our historic battlefields throughout the country.

We are excited to announce that we have, not one, but three new opportunities for you to consider:

• Save Tupelo
  
• Save Natural Bridge
  
• Save Parker’s Cross Roads

Parker’s Cross Roads, Tennessee

On December 31, 1862, Nathan Bedford Forrest, after surrounding a smaller Union force near Parker’s Cross Roads is suddenly confronted with a new threat to his rear. “General Forrest, what shall we do? “Charge ‘em both ways!”  Help us add another 4.5 acres to this historic Tennessee battlefield  $2 to $1 match on all donations

Tupelo, Mississippi

At the Tupelo, Mississippi, 14,000 marauding Yankees would face repeated assaults by Forrest’s cavalrymen and Stephen D. Lee’s infantry. With great ferocity each assault was beaten back with heavy casualties… one of them being Nathan Bedford Forrest himself.  Help us save 12 acres of the Second Day battlefield     $2 to $1 match on all donations

Natural Bridge, Florida

March 6, 1865: In a day-long engagement, the Confederates under Major General Samuel Jones repulsed three major attacks by USCT troops near the crossing at Natural Bridge and forced the Union expedition to return to its fleet. Thus, the state capital of Tallahassee was kept out of Union hands. Help us save 55 acres at this Florida Civil War battlefield   Every donated dollar is matched $170 to $1 (that’s no typo)

As always, we are grateful for every dollar you can donate in these difficult times.  More Than 25,000 Acres Save

CIVIL WAR PRESERVATION TRUST,  1331 H Street N.W., Suite 1001, Washington D.C. 2005 | phone (202) 367-1861, www.civilwar.org | Change newsletter preferences/unsubscribe

Book Review -A book review by Diane and David Clark

“We thrashed our way out of the thicket atop a promontory many rods short of the cow path.  From there, we could see a mass of our men, pushed by advancing fire to the very brow of the bluff. They hesitated there, and then, of a sudden, seemed to move as one, like a herd of beasts stampeded. Men rolled, leaped, stumbled over the edge. The drop is steep: some ninety feet of staggered scarps plunging to the river…. I crawled to the edge of the promontory and dangled from my hands before dropping hard onto a narrow ledge all covered with black walnuts.” –Mr. March’s description of Ball’s Bluff, October 21, 1861.

If you’ve read or even seen a film version of the much beloved classic American novel Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, you know that it is, among other things, the story of the impact of the Civil War on a tight-knit New England family. You may have wondered what the literary family’s high-minded father was doing when “Marmee” is unexpectedly called away to Washington DC with news of her husband’s grave illness. Well, wonder no more, Geraldine Brooks has answered that question in her brilliant novel, entitled March, the name of the father of the famous “little women”.

March is the story of a New England abolitionist, vegetarian and chaplain, who on October 21, 1861 finds himself barely surviving the horrendous defeat at Ball’s Bluff, when the Union troops are forced off the cliffs and into the cold swift currents of the Potomac by the Confederates. As Ms Brooks says, “I choose to put Mr. March in the battle of Ball’s Bluff simply because the terrain of that small but terrible engagement lies just a few miles from my Virginia home, and because many soldiers from Massachusetts first ‘saw the elephant’ there.”

The character of Mr. March is based on Louisa May Alcott’s father, the transcendentalist philosopher, A. Bronson Alcott.  As Louisa May Alcott modeled the March girls on herself (she, of course is Jo), so Geraldine Brooks employed the journals, letters and biographies of Alcott’s father Bronson as a basis for the main character in her novel. In flashbacks there are scenes from before the War, with Thoreau, Emerson and the New England Underground Railroad. The March house and Marmee are the driving force in one of the stops on the way to Canada and freedom for escaped slaves. This activity was against the law and a very dangerous game to play, with armed bounty hunters coming north to reclaim their “property.”

Bronson Alcott was a radical, even by the yardstick of nineteenth century New England, which was a hotbed of new ideas, from reappraising the nature of God to the dietary benefits of graham crackers.  Our Mr. March is a stubborn idealist and radical who often finds himself in opposition to the Union soldiers to whom he is chaplain.

One of the most striking sections of the book takes place at Oak Landing, a historical experiment in privately leased cotton plantations that employed former slaves, “contrabands”, to raise cotton in the Deep South. This portion of the book is based on Thomas W. Knox’s Camp-Fire and Cotton Field, with its tragic ending of a raid and destruction by outlaw Confederate raiders.

Well researched, March is a fascinating read and the author has used many primary sources to present a realistic and compelling novel of the Civil War. Geraldine Brooks became interested in the Civil War while exploring battlefields large and small with her husband, Tony Horowitz. Horowitz is the author of the well-known memoir Confederates in the Attic, and an extreme Civil War buff.

How Do I Pronounce this word

(Source: Civil War Spoken Here by Robert D. Quigley)

Finis -( FIE-nis ) as in Jefferson Finis Davis, President of the Confederate States of America. 

Jefferson Davis was born in Kentucky in June 1808, the tenth child of Samuel and Jane Davis. The oldest child, Joseph, was already in college when Jefferson Davis was born. Jane Davis was forty-seven years old at the time of the birth, and it was perhaps a combination of whimsy and resolve that prompted Samuel to give the child the middle name “Finis.” Finis in Latin means “the end,” “the conclusion.” Samuel chose Jefferson for the boy’s first name, in honor of Thomas Jefferson, who was then serving in the White House.

Many people upon seeing this peculiar middle name pronounce it FEE-NEE. This is probably because they’ve seen a few foreign films made in France. When a French motion picture finally concludes (quite often with the enthusiastic support of its American audience) the word “finis” appears on the screen, or at least it used to. “Finis” in French means the same thing it does in Latin, the language they borrowed it from. However, the French pronounce it their own inimitable way. Since we are much more exposed to French, a language still in wide use, than to spoken Latin (even the Catholic Church dropped it), we automatically assume the “finis” is pronounced with a silent’s.’ Had we all been exposed to motion pictures with a Latin soundtrack this problem would not exist! But even a Latin soundtrack would not help with Jefferson Davis’ middle name. In Latin the name Finis would be pronounced FEE-nis. The traditional Southern pronunciation of the name, however, makes it part of a language all its own.

Classified Ads

Bill Hanchett has a number of issues of Civil War Times Illustrated and other magazines….Please contact Dave Tooley if interested. 

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Daughters of Union Veterans of the Civil War, 1861-1865 – Nancy Hanks Lincoln Tent No. 5. Congressionally Chartered. Direct lineal descendent of a union veteran required. Age 8 and up. Contact Pres. Louise Jefferis at 858/274-3790, ajefferis@compuserve.com or Marilyn Steber at 619/222-6493, marilynsteber@yahoo.com.

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Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War (SUVCW) – Sgt. William Pittenger Camp 21. Direct or collateral descent from a Union veteran. Associate members welcome. Contact David E. Allyn, 619-561-8581, email svrsuvcw@yahoo.com

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Sons of Confederate Veterans of the Civil War (SCVCW) - Father A. J. Ryan Camp 302. Direct or collateral descent from a Confederate veteran.  Contact Adjutant Stu Hoffman at 619/447-7619.

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United Daughters of the Confederacy, Stonewall Jackson Chapter #476, accepts members whose ancestors (direct or collateral) fought for the Confederate States of America and any other Ladies with Southern Sympathies. For more information, call Davenia Cray at 619-444-3878.

Officers