Civil War Times Winter 2023

TIMID TAYLOR? In the Miscellany section of the Autumn 2022 issue, you state that Walter Taylor was “in the room when his commander surrendered to Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant”. Taylor was not in the room; he wimped out, claiming that he couldn’t bear the humiliation, thus leaving his beloved commander to bear that humiliation alone. It was Charles Marshall who accompanied Lee to meet with General Grant in Wilmer McLean’s parlor. Janet McCabe Crofton, Md. HEAT AND HUMIDITY Just wanted to compliment Jeffrey Harding and his associates on their research for his excellent article “Death By Dew Point” from the Autumn 2022 issue. While exact conditions can never be known for sure, Harding’s data and models demonstrate that the suffering of the troops cannot be overstated. Anyone who has ever experienced such extremes of…

On September 17, 2022, the 160th anniversary of the Battle of Antietam, or Sharpsburg, the Rebel Yell and thundering artillery once again rent the air as the Liberty Rifles and the 1st Section reenactment units re-created the 4th Texas Infantry and Virginia’s Bedford Light Artillery for public demonstrations. The Reel Farm is located southwest of the main park entrance, on the west side of the modern road leading to Hagerstown, Md. The expansive farm was a Confederate staging area and the barn served as a hospital. Preserved by the Conservation Fund in 1988, the property was later transferred to the American Battlefield Trust, which provided special access to the farm and hosted the large-scale living history event. Roughly 260 living historians portrayed the 4th Texas, slightly more men than were in the…

THE CONGRESSIONAL COMMISSION authorized in 2020 to review Confederate commemoration and symbolism on Department of Defense holdings recently submitted two reports. Recommendations in an August report included removing the Lee name from a road, a barracks, and a gate at West Point, as well as renaming Naval Academy buildings named for Matthew Maury, who turned Confederate ship-procurer, and Franklin Buchanan, who became a Confederate admiral. Its final report, released in September, recommended removing the Confederate Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery; renaming Fort Belvoir, which had been named Fort Humphreys until it was renamed Fort Belvoir in 1935 after a slave plantation; renaming landing vessels named after Confederate leaders; and removing or reconfiguring design elements on unit badges or campaign streamers that reference Confederate flags, colors, symbols, mottoes, or nicknames such…

THE 20TH TENNESSEE INFANTRY was one of the Confederacy’s stalwart Western Theater regiments, fighting from 1861 to 1865 from Shiloh to the Army of Tennessee’s last fights during the Carolinas Campaign. The regiment had 880 men at its 1861 formation, but by the time the survivors surrendered on April 26, 1865, only a handful remained. This quarter-plate ambrotype was taken in 1863, and shows members of the 20th held at the Rock Island, Ill., prisoner-of-war camp. These lean Confederates were captured at the November 25, 1863, Battle of Missionary Ridge. A slip of paper kept in the back of the image identifies the man on the far left as Sergeant Joseph Kennedy Marshall. AP PHOTO/BRIAN WITTE; LIBRARY OF CONGRESS…

PORTSMOUTH, VA., a historic port located just west of Norfolk, Va., was long a destination of enslaved people hoping to escape by hiding on board ships headed north. On September 9, 2022, Civil War Trails, in collaboration with the African American Historical Society of Portsmouth and the Portsmouth Department of Museums and Tourism, installed a sign at the Portsmouth Emanuel A.M.E. Church, commemorating its role on the Underground Railroad. The sign also notes that escapees often slipped away aboard small vessels, which attracted less attention from slave patrols. For more information on sites in Portsmouth, go to portsvacation.com/underground-railroad-tour…

A MONUMENT TO USCT soldiers who guarded Florida’s Fort Myers has been repositioned in the city’s Centennial Park, following an appeal by community members. Installed in 1998, the 9-foot-tall statue represents men who not only guarded the fort and 4,000 cattle against a Confederate attack on February 20, 1865, but also helped some 1,000 enslaved people escape to freedom, some enlisting in the Union Army. Earlier this year, the statue had been moved to make space for an amphitheater, and the soldier was placed facing the river. On July 29, 2022, the figure was repositioned to face toward the park, in keeping with the original installation.…