Civil War Times April 2018

John Banks’ February 2018 article on Private Oliver Dart’s ghastly facial wound struck me as perhaps the ultimate example of the horror of Civil War combat. In October 1862, barely two months prior to Private Dart’s wounding at Fredericksburg, Mathew Brady opened the public exhibition of “The Dead of Antietam” in his New York photography gallery. For the first time the American public could view photographic images of the horror of combat. And while the images increased the public’s awareness of the horrible nature of Civil War combat, the photos still had a certain remoteness about them. I believe that the very real horror of war would be brought home the next year, when the disfigured casualties of the 1862 battles were released from hospitals and discharged from the service to return…

The one limitation of the Sharps and Spencer rifles was the amount of ammunition the troops would go through. The army logistics system was not capable of supplying an army completely equipped with repeaters. There were not enough wagons or supply troops, and the dirt roads prevalent dissolved into gumbo in any combination of rain and heavy use.... Regular officers, expecting that the green troops everyone started the war with would not learn fire discipline fast enough, feared that units would be overrun after having burnt through all of their ammo.... The 13th Pennsylvania “Bucktails” with Sharps rifles, and Brig. Gen. John Wilder’s “Lightning Brigade” with Spencers, made very effective use of their superior weapons. Wilder’s Brigade arguably saved the Union Army at Chickamauga. Dai Chaplin “The Yankees load on Sunday and fire…

On September 14, 1862, Maj. Gen. William Buell Franklin’s 6th Corps marched westward through Maryland’s rolling countryside, hoping to relieve Harpers Ferry’s garrison. But Confederate troops blocked Franklin at Crampton’s Gap in South Mountain, and the general established his headquarters east of the gap, near Burkittsville on the Martin Shafer Farm. From there he watched his soldiers attack the mountain cleft during the Battle of Crampton’s Gap, an important prelude to the Battle of Antietam. The Shafer farmhouse and several outbuildings still stand, and the recently formed Burkittsville Preservation Association (BPA) has made major strides to restore the property after years of neglect and abuse by vandals. The property was donated to BPA in September 2016 by a relative of its last owner. ¶ In October 2017, the National Park…

A community group in Athens, Ala., is working to reconstruct Fort Henderson, which was built in 1863 by the 110th U.S. Colored Troops and notable for its 18-foot-deep moat. Nathan Bedford Forrest briefly seized the five-sided earthen fort and its 900-man garrison in September 1864, but Union troops recaptured it after Forrest pressed north. Years after the war, Trinity School was constructed nearby and the fort’s moat was filled in. Reconstruction of Fort Henderson is estimated to cost $200,000, and the Sons of Confederate Veterans have already contributed $2,000. Richard Martin, vice-president of the board of the Athens-Limestone Community Association (ALCA) spearheading the project, would like to list the names of slaves who served in the 110th and the plantations they came from. To donate to ALCA, visit www.gofundme.com/alcatrinityproject or…

ON DECEMBER 6, 2017, Virginia Governor Terry Mc- Auliffe announced the preservation of 19.8 acres of the Upperville Battlefield in northern Virginia along Route 50, a site that includes the stunning four-arch Goose Creek bridge. On June 21, 1863, shellfire thundered over the 220-foot span, dating from 1802, as J.E.B. Stuart’s troopers held off pursuing Federal cavalry and infantry during the Gettysburg Campaign. Jim Lighthizer, president of the Civil War Trust, noted that efforts to protect the site began nearly 60 years ago. Virginia Secretary of Natural Resources Molly Ward also noted direct environmental benefits: “By preserving the land where these Civil War battles occurred, we are not only protecting Virginia’s unique history, but we are also conserving environmental features….and protecting the vital Chesapeake Bay watershed.”…

www.libguides.usd.edu/civilwardiary In June 1861, a young man traveled to Chatfield, Minn., to volunteer in the U.S. Army, as he put it, “because I feel my duty to my adopted Country calls me.” He enlisted in the 2nd Minnesota Volunteer Infantry on June 26. He noted in his diary that it was a day that would “never be forgotten.” What has been forgotten, however, is the man’s identity. His diary is available online thanks to the University of South Dakota (USD), and it includes scans and transcriptions of each page. USD archivists contextualized the diary with a link to a digitized history of the 2nd Minnesota and other resources and lesson plans. The diary covers his enlistment through the summer of 1863, and documents his growing war-weariness. He discusses discipline problems, “[August] 12…