Touch the Elbow - Blogging the Civil War

Touch the Elbow - Blogging the Civil War http://www.18thmass.com/blog/ Blogging the Civil War en-us Nucleus CMS v3.61 © Weblog http://backend.userland.com/rss http://www.18thmass.com/blog//nucleus/nucleus2.gif Touch the Elbow - Blogging the Civil War http://www.18thmass.com/blog/ "Down With The Traitors" - Monday, February 4, 1862 http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1080 The February 1st edition of the weekly Middleboro Gazette reached camp and all feasted their eyes on a story featuring Second Lieutenant George M. Barnard, Jr. of Co. C. Members of his Company were more than delighted with the gift of stockings that had flown off the knitting needles of Massachusetts women and were distributed equally among their numbers.]]> Adventures in Research http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1080 Sat, 4 Feb 2012 05:00:00 -0500 "Down With The Traitors" - Sunday, February 3, 1862 http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1079 In the midst of a "Noreaster" that swept through the area Captain Joseph Collingwood regretfully explained in a letter to his wife Rebecca that, after settling his camp and Plymouth, MA debts, he could only send her ten dollars from his pay. As if to ease his guilt he also included a gold dollar for each of his four children. For his part, 2nd Lt. Stephen Minot Weld, Jr. of Co. B, whose father had used his political connections to arrange a commission for his son, was taking leave of the 18th Massachusetts for good, having been detailed for duty as a member of Fitz-John Porter's staff.

A priviledged child from one of Boston's elite Brahman families and conversely a Harvard graduate, Weld would go on to command the 56th Massachusetts Infantry, serve a stint as a prisoner of war, and then launch into a successful post-war career as a banker and railway owner. As with so many others the war left its indelible mark. In 1904, six years after the death of his first wife, Weld and his new bride, Susan Waterbury, a former governess to his children, toured Civil War battlefields on their honeymoon, while letters and diaries written and kept during his military service were published in 1912.

For more information on Weld check out this article on Wikipedia and his very own Facebook page.

]]> Adventures in Research http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1079 Fri, 3 Feb 2012 05:00:00 -0500 "Down With The Traitors" - Saturday, February 2, 1862 http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1077
While the mud outside tents grew ever deeper, officers met as a group and voted resolutions and written condolences to the Hodges family, in which they lamented the passing of the late Adjutant.

During the reading of General Order No. 57 Colonel James Barnes reminded everyone assembled that George F. Hodges (died Jan. 30th), Michael Vaughn (died Jan. 3rd), George F. Booth (died Jan. 4th), Samuel Mellon (died Jan. 10th), Gustavus Jacobs (died Jan. 12th), Thomas Hatch (died Jan. 21st), and George Campbell (died Jan. 29th) were:

"No less entitled to the grateful acknowledgements of his country than he who more fortunately perhaps, encounters the dangers of the field of Battle. Let due respect therefore be always rendered to his memory."

After being dismissed and returning to their tents, Austin Williams promised his mother a "dygarotype," while Private Martin Flinn enclosed fifteen dollars of his pay in a letter to his father Patrick and also requested he thank Ellen Terry of Taunton, MA for the knit stockings.]]> Adventures in Research http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1077 Thu, 2 Feb 2012 05:00:00 -0500 "Down With The Traitors" - Friday, February 1, 1862 http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1073 Sometimes you come across an idea, have one of those V-8 moments, and say to yourself, "Why didn't I think of that." Although Touch the Elbow in its three incarnations has very occasionally done something along the lines of "A Day in the Life..." this new series found its impetus in Duxbury in the Civil War's launching of a Facebook page featuring daily diary entries of the 18th Massachusetts' own David Chessley Meacham, a Private in Co. E. While my friend Steve commented that the Meechan page was the best utilization of Facebook he had ever seen, our "Down With the Traitors" series, not to be redunant, will provide a mixed bag roundup of the excitement, drudgery, boredom, and yippie yi yeahs the Regiment faced as a whole in those thrilling days of yesteryear. Hi ho, Silver! Away!

Friday, February 1, 1862

The 18th Mass. began its fourth month encamped at Camp Barnes on Halls Hill in Arlington, Virginia. Whereas the regiment had previously been fortunate in escaping serious and widespread outbreaks of disease, losing only three from September to December, seven men had died in January alone, almost all from Typhoid Fever, including its Adjutant, George Foster Hodges on the 30th. While his unexpected death sent ripples of shock throughout the camp and 1st Lieutenant George M. Barnard, Jr. railed against the Regiment's surgeons, whose "incompetence" he felt certain was entirely to blame for Hodge's death, four of John Graham's tent mates in Company C were carted off to the hospital tent on this day suffering from a variety of ailments including mumps, fever, and pleurisy. Too, after nearly three weeks of inclement weather filled with snow, rain, hail and wind, there were few who didn't have at least a case of the sniffles. In spite of nearly everyone feeling under the weather they all queued up to the Paymaster's table to receive two months pay.

]]> Adventures in Research http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1073 Wed, 1 Feb 2012 05:01:00 -0500 Their Home Away from Home - Hall's Hill, in Arlington, Virginia http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1085
After arriving in Washington, DC in the early evening on August 29, 1861, the 18th Massachusetts would make camp the following day about a mile and a quarter from the U.S. Capitol building and remain there for four days when they crossed over by bridge into Virginia and pitched their tents within wind aided spitting distance of Ft. Corcoran and Robert E. Lee's Arlington estate. A week later, on September 10th, they were moved to Hall's Hill, a place that would become just like home for the next six months, or until Gen. George B. McClellan put his Peninsula campaign into motion; a master plan of the grandest porportions designed to bring Varina Davis and the rest of those Southern belles, the very heart and soul of the rebellion, to their knees.

Bazil Hall was the originator of Hall's Hill in what is now Arlington, Virginia. According to the 1850 Census he was born circa 1813 in Massachusetts. However, there's information contradicting that which states he was born ca. 1806 in Washington, DC, the son of Ignatius and Elizabeth (Harp) Hall. Regardless of his origin, Hall married Elizabeth Winner in San Francisco, California in August 1846. The daughter of George K. and Hannah Winner, she was born September 24, 1828 in Dover, New Jersey,. Bazil and Elizabeth were the parents of Ignatius, born in San Francisco in 1848, and the following children born in Alexandria, including Bazil in July 1850, Elvira in May 1854, and Celina in July 1855.

Hall, reputed to have been a whaling Captain, purchased 327 acres, in what was then Alexandria, Virginia, from the estate of John Peter Van Ness in 1852. Hall's plantation, maintained by a small number of slaves, featured orchards, livestock, timber, and crops such as corn. He built a house, estimated to have cost $3,000, atop the 400 foot summit of his property. In 1857 his wife Elizabeth was attacked and killed by one of their slaves. Three years later Hall married for a second time to 23-year-old Frances Ann Harrison, a relation to President William Henry Harrison. Children born to the second marriage included Walter, Edward, Lavinia, and Louise.

The 1860 Slave Schedule recorded on July 29th, lists Hall as owning a 47-year-old male, a 22-year-old female, four males ages 8,6, 5, and 3, and a 6-month-old mulatto female. One could assume the slaves may have comprised a family and that Bazil Hall may have been the father of the youngest. In 1860 Hall's farm was valued at $10,000 and his personal effects at $15,000, or the equivalent of $235,000 and $354,000 respectively.

Hall was by politics a staunch Unionist and former Whig. At the outbreak of the Civil War his property became of mutual interest to both Confederate and Union forces, but for entirely different reasons. Confederate troops moved into what is now Arlington County in August 1861 and set fire to Hall's home on August 31st in an attack launched from neighboring Upton's Hill. A subsequent push by Union troops into the county led to their occupation of not only Halls Hill but the adjacent hills. Camps stretched for miles and Hall's Hill, in particular, presented Union troops with an almost unimpeded view of Washington and the surrounding geographical area.

Union occupation of Hall's Hill continued throughout 1861 and 1862. During that time the plantation was virtually stripped of all timber and fencing and troops early on confiscated Hall's livestock, most of which became food to feed troops. His property was considered an ideal campsite due to the abundance of timber and availability of water from a stream and wells.

A year after the final guns of war fell silent Hall began dividing his land among relatives, but also sold one acre lots to freed slaves at below market prices. In 1870 the value of his estate was appraised at $6,400, while his personal effects were valued at $30.00. He filed a $42,000 claim with the Southern Claims Commission for losses incurred during the war and was eventually awarded a settlement of $10,700 in June 1872.

Both Hall and his wife Frances died in 1888 and were interred in the family cemetery, where his first wife Elizabeth was also buried. The cemetery was believed to have been located behind Trinity Presbyterian Church. In 1939 the Hall family members buried there were relocated to Oakwood Cemetery in Falls Church. Curiosity took me to Oakwood Cemetery one very hot summer afternoon a couple of years ago, but unfortunately I couldn't find the graves.

The modern day Hall's Hill neighborhood in Arlington is bounded on the north by Lee Highway, to the east by North Glebe Road, 17th Street on the south, and North George Mason Drive on the west.

A number of sources were utilized to compile information on Bazil Hall, including: The Black Heritage Museum of Arlington, Virginia; Genealogy.com; Ancestry.com; and the Tara-Leeway Heights Neighborhood Conservation Plan. Lastly we leave you with the sights, but not necessarily the sounds on the summit of Hall's Hill

]]> Adventures in Research http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1085 Wed, 1 Feb 2012 05:00:00 -0500 Visual Acuity http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1070

Harper's Ferry (from "Old Pictures": www.oldpictures.com)

Two weeks after licking their wounds from the mauling they encountered at Second Bull Run, which had left more than half the Regiment who fought there either dead or wounded, the 18th Massachusetts entered Maryland through a portal at Rockville on September 13, 1862. Four days later they and the rest of the Fifth Corps would be mere spectators to a carnival of death that raged along the seemingly placid waters of Antietam Creek. But Plymouth and Norfolk County blood would flow again, when on the 20th of September the 18th briefly touched the soles of their brogans on the "Sacred Soil" at Shepherdstown, where fifteen of their numbers would fall, before they waded back across the Potomac.

For the rest of month and on into late October, when temperatures and spirits began to drop, they stood picket and in the absence of tents were exposed to the elements round the clock, covering themselves with woolen and rubber blankets when they closed their eyes in the night, alternately slumbering in fitful and restless sleep. Stationary for far too long, the rumblings of discontent surfaced. McClellan's oft cited brilliance began to tarnish in the eyes of many in the ranks, for what was an army's purpose if not to fight.

Movement came at last on October 30th when the 18th was told to pack up and fall in, little knowing it was the beginning of a rendezvous with destiny at Fredericksburg. Herein follows four comparative accounts of men on the march, each with eyes wide open to the same exact surroundings.

Diary of Corp. Harrison O. Thomas, Co. D, dated October 31, 1862

[Friday] 31st – After lunching from rations in haversacks, and making coffee, marched to the Maryland side of Harper’s ferry and cross the Potomac into town on the pontoon bridge, passing on across the Shenandoah to the valley about four miles from the place. Moved very slowly, on account of Army trains in our front. I have always had a strong desire to visit this region, and I might devote pages to the description of the interesting scenery, natural fortifications, etc., in this vicinity.

Letter from Capt. Joseph W. Collingwood, Co. H, to his wife Rebecca

Camp at Snickers Gap, Va Nov 4th 1862

My Dear Wife,
Once more on the sacred soil of Va and now I must tell you how we got here. Last Thursday night I recieved [sic] notice [while on Provost Guard duty at Keedysville, MD] that our Corps had marched for Berlin. So I comenced [sic] packing up and started early Friday morning, arrived at Berlin at 4 PM and bivouaced [sic] for the night. In the morning I ascertained that the troops had crossed the river at Harpers Ferry, so we started again after breakfast, crossed the Ferry (a wild looking place it is) and at 3 PM joined our Regt. some 3 miles in advance encamped between the mountains.

Letter from Corp. Richard H. Holmes, Co. D

Camp of the 18th Mass Regt., November 10, 1862
Near Warrenton, Virginia

Dear Mother,
I received your kind letter of the third day before yesterday. We left Sharpsburg October 30 at sunset, and arrived at Maryland Heights at about 10 o’clock in the evening, where we remained during the night. The next morning we started on again, crossing the Potomac at Harpers Ferry, we went on beyond the ferry about four miles, and camped for the night.

Letter from Pvt. Thomas H. Mann, Co. I, in camp near Snickersville Gap, Va. Nov. 5th [1862]

Friday morning we took up the line of march for Harpers Ferry. We were soon among the mountains that I so much love. At times we climbed steep ascents and then filed round almost at the mountain's top where the road was hewn from solid rock, a precipice below and above the rock overhanging us, the road barely wide enough for five men to walk abreast. Soon we would descend the mountainside by a winding road graded as much as possible yet in some places steep enough for one to roll down. We passed large quarries where building stone was blasted and hewn out, the stone being of a bluish color with the same grain as limestone. There was also soapstone quarries where many of our slate pencils come from, the best kind.

We reached Harpers Ferry soon after noon coming upon or rather descending upon it rather unexpectedly. I had wished to see Harpers Ferry but ideas of the place were more than realized. As I said we came upon it suddenly, that is we descended from Maryland Heights a winding road. steep within some places high overhanging rocks on either side, and came upon the river through almost an aron like entering a barrel through the bunghole. If you remember the village is on the Va. side of the river. We marched a half mile along the river bank, the ever perpetual rock towering 300 feet above our heads and in some places hanging over us. The village is entirely out of sight of the world situated on the point of land formed by the Potomac and Shenendore [sic] rivers. The bridge had been destroyed by the rebels and we had to cross by means of a pontoon bridge into the village. I saw the depot where John Brown, the celebrated, fought and the old arsenal or rather the remains of it. We marched through the place and crossed the Shenendore upon a pontoon, then marched down the Potomac nearly a mile and finally turned abruptly to the right. We left the place as we came with the exception that we are now on the sacred soil instead of "My Maryland."
]]> Adventures in Research http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1070 Sun, 29 Jan 2012 05:00:00 -0500 Say "Cheese!" http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1068
About five years back I discovered this wood engraving of some unidentified members of the 18th Massachusetts Infantry in a book titled "Stories of Our Soldiers," an 1893 compilation of articles edited by Charles Carleton Coffin which were first serialized in the Boston Journal. Coffin was a renowned Civil War newspaper correspondent who gained an additional semblance of fame for his non-fiction books on the Civil War, including a series aimed at a juvenile audience, most popular of which was "My Days and Nights on the Battlefield." "Stories" was his own localized attempt to cash in on the popularity of Century Magazine's "Battles and Leaders," an effort that was duplicated by other mid-sized and large city newspapers when Civil War memoirs were at the height of their popularity.

The engraving "From an Army Tintype" clued me to the fact that once upon a time there was an original photograph floating around and the likelihood that some of the subjects in the picture had sent it home to their families. But as Paul Newman asked Robert Redford in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: "Who are those guys?"

Everyone has seen them being auctioned on eBay: a CDV of an unidentified Civil War soldier, offered sometimes at a reasonable and other times a not so reasonable price. I've often wondered what would possess someone to spend five hundred dollars or more on the likeness of an unidentified soldier. I don't know the odds of being able to id a picture 150 years on, when the only clue is the photographer's back mark, but they have to be astronomical. You probably have a better chance betting the Vikings to win the 2013 Super Bowl.

However, all that said, I semi-defied the odds with the wood engraving. There was an additional clue provided when, believe it not, I stumbled across the original photo posted on the Duxbury in the Civil War blog on January 11, 2012. There for all the world to see was the notation that the gentleman on the right was "Duxbury native" Preston Soule. Although the notation was incorrect, Preston having been born and raised in Middleboro, Mass., that singular piece of information allowed me zero in on the identities of the other three men.

I owe it all to Erastus Everson, then First Sergeant in Co. H of our favorite little Regiment, who, in a February 23. 1862 letter to his mother, wrote:

"Having an opportunity of sending home some things in a valise with my associate Sergt. [Melvin] Leach by one of our men whom we have discharged for inability, I thought I would put in among my letters some degueratypes I have in my possession. The one enclosed in this sheet is taken under rather peculiar circumstances. It was taken yesterday Washington’s birthday. I went down to my friend Doane’s in the rear of our camp and as we sat talking we all proposed that each should have a picture just as we sat. I have never seen one which conveys all the little things so perfect. The man standing behind me is Ezra K. Bly of New Bedford, Sergt. in Co. I and one if the old 3 months boys. Oat knows him. The citizen with whom I am talking is Doane of Boston, a particular friend of mine, and the artist here in camp. The other Orderly Sergt. is Preston Soule of Middleboro, son of a minister, and 1st Sergt. of Company I. You will see by studying the picture that all the little things in the tent appear, the frying pan above my head, the stove and spit box, and my "pipe." I am in fatigue uniform, Soule has on the dress [uniform], just as we chanced to meet you know."

]]> Adventures in Research http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1068 Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:00:00 -0500 Finding Private Anderson - Part Four http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1066 Sometimes coincidences work in combination like tumblers on a padlock and really do leave one wondering about the possibility of a shadowy paranormal universe existing on the fringes of time, space, and dimension. But shelving the Rod Serlingesque script for a moment, ten days before the Veteran's Day ceremony in Dighton, Massachusetts honoring Frederick Anderson, I stumbled across this snippet from a 1996 edition of Forbes Magazine posted on the Web:

"[The flag of the 27th South Carolina Infantry which was captured] by Union Private Frederick C. Anderson (who won a Medal of Honor) for this action) was auctioned off at Lancaster, Pa. for $73,700. The buyer, Pamplin Park Civil War Site, is currently displaying the flag at its museum in Petersburg."

Approximately a week before seeing the reference to the flag my friend Lynn had emailed pictures of the actual Medal of Honor awarded to Anderson, which had passed through generations of Anderson descendants and now rests in the possession of his niece Cecilia. If you've read Parts One through Three of the Anderson saga there's no need to write anything more about the misty shadow of tumblers.

On the drive to Petersburg I passed Ft. A.P. Hill and then later, close by the entrance to Pamplin Park Historical Park, historical marker S49, which read: "In the field a short distance north of this road, the Confederate General A.P. Hill was killed, April 2, 1865...." Two and a half years earlier than the date recorded on the sign, Frederick Anderson and the 18th Massachusetts Infantry had squared off against Little Powell's Division at Shepherdstown, after which Powell wrote of the Potomac running red with the blood of Union soldiers.

If you can apply significance to and know the history of an artifact on display in a museum it takes on a completely different quality. The artifact becomes more than a curiosity, more than an inanimate object from the distant past. It takes on form, substance, and becomes a living, breathing testimonial. I was transfixed by the flag, studying every small hole, every tear in its fabric, seemingly every thread in the four foot square cloth; its red triangles, its blue cross, and its now browned borders and stars. I ran a movie in my head of a field hard by a railroad track on a late August afternoon in 1864 shrouded in a fog of smoke from discharged muskets, of men shouting, screaming, running, advancing, retreating, falling, standing still, and of one man in blue closing distance on another in gray, the latter at the head of his decimated South Carolina regiment lifting his staff skyward, waving it from side to side, trying to rally those not yet fallen, trying to rally those who had, until hands that had tilled soil in Raynham, Massachusetts tore the wooden pole from his grasp and leveled a gun barrel at his chest.

Mine has been a full circle journey in a universe of time, space, and dimension; a full circle journey that accompanies me on a short drive to a field hard by a railroad track; a full circle journey that has led me to a medal for gallantry and ultimately to a grave of one that I've never known, yet, at the same time, have known all my life.

Photo courtesy of Cecilia Miles

]]> Chasing the Dead http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1066 Sun, 22 Jan 2012 05:00:00 -0500 Finding Private Anderson - Part Three http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1064 For a town founded in 1672 and with a current population a shade over 7,000 residents, Dighton, Massachusetts has an incredible number of cemeteries, 54 to be exact. Compare that to New York City, which has an estimated 33, and you’ll understand why trying to figure out where Civil War Medal of Honor recipient Frederick C. Anderson was interred was such a daunting task. According to one town official that task was the proverbial “needle in a haystack.”

How and why Anderson came to buried in Dighton, which had a historically long run as a nautical import-export hub before its evolution into a Boston and Providence bedroom community, is pure guess work, but the most probable explanation as to why his remains lie in a Unitarian cemetery is, according to a church member who doubles as the cemetery's caregiver, Anderson's membership in the Dighton Community Church. There’s speculation, too, that an illegitimate daughter, who preceded Anderson in death, lies two headstones away from his.

Gathering at the Dighton Town Hall on Veteran’s Day, a small group, including a videographer from the Boston Globe, heard Charlie Mogayzel relate first hand his efforts to find Anderson’s grave, while Dighton officials, in turn, spoke of the honor descended upon their town for having a bonafide, albeit deceased and heretofore undiscovered, hero in their midst.

Anderson’s grave is marked by a standard issue government headstone supplied by Sheldon & Sons of West Rutland, Vermont some six years after his death. There was a report of efforts to have his headstone upgraded by the Veteran’s Administration so that Anderson’s status as a Medal of Honor recipient would be displayed. The V.A., being the good bureaucratic agency that it is, responded that as Anderson already had a grave marker they could not justify issuing another. There is a real possibility, however, that funding from the town and private donations may result in an appropriate tribute.

I’ll skip the part where I was called upon to talk about the 18th Massachusetts Infantry, simply because I can’t remember much, if anything, of what I said, although I have some dim recollection of saying we, meaning Tom Churchill, Steve McManus, and myself, had been chasing “Our Dead Guys” for a long time and instead fast forward to the ceremony that took place at the cemetery.

Filming in a cemetery in which burials date from one year prior to the outbreak of the American Revolution, Boston Globe Videographer Darren Durlach captured the essence of the tribute to one ordinary citizen soldier who went above and beyond, as did legions of comrades in blue, white and black, to ensure we remained as an nation, though flawed, indivisible.

To watch Darren's video click here.

]]> Chasing the Dead http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1064 Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:00:00 -0500 They Could Not Take Your Pride http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1061
1963

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."

Alabama 1955

"We are determined here in Montgomery to work and fight until justice runs "down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

Alabama 1965

"We must come to see that the end we seek is a society at peace with itself, a society that can live with its conscience."

]]> Random Thoughts http://www.18thmass.com/blog/index.php?itemid=1061 Mon, 16 Jan 2012 05:00:00 -0500