Civil War Times April 2019

Visit historic Fort Morgan and travel back in time when the thundering booms of cannons protected the turquoise waterways. And imagine the shout of Admiral David Farragut, “Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead!” as he led his troops into battle across the sugar-white sand. The fort was built between 1819 and 1823 and is a site not to be missed. Another historical point of interest is the Mobile Bay Civil War Trail that highlights famous Civil War battles. Drive the impressive, historic trail that stretches from the Gulf of Mexico to north Mobile County. Tour the many unique, historical museums and sites throughout Alabama’s Gulf Coast including Native American museums and mounds, lighthouses, plantations and antebellum mansions, military history, maritime and railroad museums, agricultural and cultural museums, and much more. Visit GulfShores.com…

THE BATTLE OF BAYLOR’S FARM, which A. Wilson Greene mentioned in the opening of his article on Petersburg in the December 2018 issue, was the subject of André Castaigne’s epic painting “Charge of the 22nd Negro Regiment,” seen above, which is now at the West Point Museum in New York. That painting is often mistaken for other actions in the Petersburg Campaign, but it depicts the inaugural clash with Confederates on the morning of June 15, 1864, a few miles outside Petersburg on the road from City Point. That painting has fascinated me since it was posted in my sixth-grade classroom, early in the Civil War centennial. After consulting the Official Records, a letter from Surgeon Charles Merrill of the 22nd USCT in Yale’s Sterling Library, and a very helpful Christopher…

We posted this image of the notorious Sunken Road at Fredericksburg on the December 2018 anniversary of the 1862 battle there, and reader Everett Rice commented: Perhaps the saddest note to the whole fight at the Sunken Road was that it was only supposed to be a demonstration to hold Confederate troops in place while the main attack took place farther down river. An attack that might well have succeeded had [Burnside] not refused to commit his troops to reinforce Meade’s break-through at the one weak point in the Confederate line.…

Nearly 400 acres of Kentucky’s Camp Nelson, a Union camp built on the bluffs overlooking the Kentucky River was named a national monument by President Donald Trump on October 26, 2018. The site, near Nicholasville, Ky., served as a staging site for goods and hospital services for Union campaigns in Tennessee and Virginia. ¶ In addition, the American Battlefield Trust purchased six parcels of land totaling 276 acres in and around Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, most of it located on the ridge near Clover Hill Village where Union troops gathered to surround Robert E. Lee’s troops during the Appomattox fighting in April 1865. The purchase brings to 557 the number of acres purchased on the Appomattox Court House and Appomattox Station battlefields since 2000. ¶ The ABT and…

A NEAR-PRISTINE bill issued in 1890 and bearing the image of Maj. Gen. George Gordon Meade sold for $2.04 million at Stack’s Bowers Galleries in Baltimore, Md., on October 25, 2018. Collectors know this extremely rare bill as the “Grand Watermelon” because of the large green and striped zeros that make up the numeral 1,000. Only seven are known to remain extant, including three held in private collections. Civil War aficionados can take particular interest in the signature of the Register of the Treasury: W.S. Rosecrans, the former Union general who served in that role from 1885 to 1893. The bill remains legal tender. In 2014, another “Grand Watermelon” sold for $3.2 million.…

Much-needed repairs are underway for the iconic Elkhorn Tavern at Pea Ridge National Military Park, near Bentonville, Ark. Financed through a Federal grant, the repairs will provide Elkhorn Tavern with a new front porch and cedar-shingled roof, and wooden siding replacements. A stone chimney and portions of the basements will receive new mortar to prevent crumbling. The tavern’s inside will be accessible for public viewing and feature a variety of exhibits on local 19th-century civilian life, the Trail of Tears, and the Buffalo Overland Stage Line, which once passed by the tavern. Handicap access to the porch and entrance will be installed. The tavern’s famed elk antlers, affixed prominently to the roof, will be replaced. According to Park Ranger Kevin Eads, “We hope to be open by March 7, 2019,…