Civil War Times December 2018

“Hunted Down After Gettysburg,” in the October 2018 issue, brought to mind my great-great-grandfather, Z.P. Carder, of Co. F, 17th Virginia Cavalry. By July 25, 1863, he and his comrades—having survived Gettysburg—made it to Winchester, Va. They received their pay, and then Z.P. and four others left camp forever. He was 31 years of age and had a wife and four small children back home in Jackson County, in what was by then the state of West Virginia. As one in rebellion, he had forfeited his farm for failure to pay his taxes in person. A family history states that Z.P. said he just had had enough of war. Thankfully, he did not suffer the same fate as Private John Futch. He returned to West Virginia after a sojourn in Indiana,…

Established in 1890, Antietam National Battlefield has nearly doubled in acreage since 1992, and the National Park Service recently announced its plan for improving access and interpretation at the site. The plan maintains existing roadways and signage, but a new tour stop will be added to the East Woods; the Cornfield will gain an interpretive plaza and additional parking; and the stop for the Mumma Farm will be moved closer to the Mumma farmstead. Improving trails in the park is another focus. Currently the park has 13 miles of trails. Six miles of new trail will be added, and 2.6 miles of existing trails will be removed and restored to resemble the original landscape. ¶ When the new plan is implemented, visitors will be able to hike an 11-mile trail…

A PANORAMIC PAINTING of the Battle of Gettysburg, previously on loan to Spartanburg County Public Library in South Carolina, has been given to the facility. James Walker, an English immigrant, completed the painting in 1870 in collaboration with John Batchelder, a photographer and topographic artist who had worked as an illustrator during the war. In the years following the war, Batchelder researched and wrote a 2,500-page history of Gettysburg, and commissioned Walker to paint a monumental 7-foot-high, 20-foot-long canvas that focuses on the repulse of the Confederate July 3, 1863, assault on the Union position on Cemetery Ridge. In 1870 the painting was exhibited in Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington. Later it was the subject of a 14½- by 35½-inch engraving that sold more than 1,000 copies. Susu and George Dean…

Civil War Photo Sleuth (CWPS) became available to researchers this past August. The online platform (civilwarphotosleuth.com) uses facial recognition software and crowdsourcing to help identify images of Civil War soldiers. To search for a match to an unidentified photo, users can upload an image and tag the photograph for any identifying information such as rank, unit, photographer details, etc. Then search the face against tens of thousands of identified photos in the online archive. The facial recognition software analyzes dozens of unique reference points per face to compare and even allows for matches to be made when a soldier’s facial hair has changed, or if a different view of him is in the archive. Users are also encouraged to upload their identified solider images and add them to the searchable…

The remains of two unidentified Union Civil War soldiers were buried at Arlington National Cemetery on September 6, 2018. First discovered during digging for utility work at Manassas National Battlefield Park in 2014, forensic studies determined that the bodies were white men aged 25-34, who died from mortal gunshot wounds during the Second Battle of Bull Run in August 1862. The burials took place in a newly expanded part of the cemetery. The site where the remains were found also contained 11 partial limbs, marking it as a battlefield surgeon’s pit.…

altchive.org/private-voices In January 1862, a scuffle broke out in the camp of the 6th North Carolina Infantry, which was part of the Confederacy’s blockade of the Potomac River. The Carolinians had been skirmishing with Federal defenders on the Maryland side of the river. After one of those small clashes, North Carolina Private Mark Wimbly accused Private Quinton Hudson with “skiddadling in the time of the fight.” The disagreement accelerated when Wimbly stabbed Hudson in the hip, inflicting a deep wound that “bled powerful,” fellow Private G.T. Beavers observed. “I recon you hav hird what he was in the guard hous for,” Beavers related to family at home. “Mark rote that he was in for skiddadling in the time of the fight here which was so[.] Quinton has been in ever sence…