We are but few in number but formidable. -Pvt. James Shelton, 7th Md. Co. B

Transcription

1 Volume 22, Issue 9 We are but few in number but formidable. -Pvt. James Shelton, 7th Md. Co. B May 2016 Rizzi and Katie resting after the morning rush and three reenactors. It was nice to be at Marching through Time again. It was a perfect day weather-wise., the sun and warmth drew in a good-sized crowd of spectators. Inside this issue: Upcoming Campaigns 2 Captain s Report 3 Taylor s Travels 5 May 24, 1861 The Death of Colonel Ellsworth Col. Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth was a man with large military ambitions, but his meteoric fame came in a way he could not have hoped for: posthumously. At the age of 24, as commander of the 11th New York Volunteers, also known as the First Fire Zouaves, Ellsworth became the first Union officer killed in the war. He was not just any Union officer. After working as a patent agent in Rockford, Illinois, in 1854, Ellsworth studied law in Chicago, where he also served as a colonel commanding National Guard cadets. In 1860, Ellsworth took a job in Abraham Lincoln s Springfield law office. The young clerk and Lincoln became friends, and when the president-elect moved to Washington in 1861, Ellsworth accompanied him. A student Cpl. Dan Paterson, Jr. President of military history and tactics, Ellsworth admired the Zouaves, Algerian troops fighting with the French Army in North Africa, and had employed their training methods with his cadets. He even designed a uniform with baggy trousers in the Zouave style. A native of New York State, Ellsworth left Wash- (Continued on page 8)

2 PAGE 2 OUR CAMP JOURNAL VOLUME 22, ISSUE 9 MAY April 30 May 1st: South Mountain Creamery Heritage Weekend Boonsboro, MD (Fundraiser Civilians Only) May 7-8: Carroll County Farm Museum Living History / Skirmish Sponsored by the 61 st PA, with a wake and tribute for Col. Rob Wingert. (Individual) May Drill and Baseball Weekend Monocacy National Battlefield, Frederick, MD Bring your own rations for the weekend. Camp on Friday evening so come early if you wish. Please bring your accoutrements, rifles and food for the weekend. We will have access to the visitor s center during the day and port-o-johns in the evening. The NPS will provide wood for our fire. No caps or powder are allowed on the field so please do not bring these items. Directions: It is on Rt. 355, south of route 70, north of 80, and visible from route 270. (Individual Contact Cpl. E. Schwetje) JUNE Saturday June 4th Ft. Ward Museum Living History Alexandria, Va. (Individual) June Old Bedford Village Birney s Div.(Individual) JULY July Skirmish at Funkstown Funkstown, MD (Company) July th 1 st Manassas, At Cedar Creek, Middletown, VA Registration is currently $25. (Company / FVB Event) AUGUST August Renfrew Museum Waynesboro, PA Registration is $8. by June 25th (Company / FVB Event) SEPTEMBER Open OCTOBER October Cedar Creek, Middletown, VA Registration is $12. by March 25th (Company FVB Event AoP Event) NOVEMBER November 18 FVB Annual Meeting, Gettysburg, PA Location TBA (Company Representative) November 19 Remembrance Day Gettysburg, PA (Company FVB Event AoP Event) Our reenacting community has lost a great friend and soldier. I was very privileged to have known and worked with Rob Wingert through the years. I'll always remember great times around the campfire, going into battles, and enjoying his company. Though we had our differences recently, I never lost my respect and admiration for him despite what others may think or feel. Rob will be missed greatly within our tight-knit community. Gen. Jay Henson FVB Commander It was a pleasure to have known him, and I wish to pass my condolences to his wife Mary and his family. Rest in peace, Rob. Know that you leave behind many, many friends who will forever miss your lasting friendship.

3 VOLUME 22, ISSUE 9 OUR CAMP JOURNAL PAGE 3 With all that is going on right now with a presidential election, it is interesting to look at the election of 1860 and see how little has changed. At this writing the field for 2016 has been narrowed down considerably. But let s take a look at what transpired in the election process of We are familiar with the man that won in the final election, but are you familiar of the field that he came from? The list is quite large and full of some very familiar names from some not so familiar parties. The Peoples Party nominee was Governor Samuel Houston nominated in April of 1860 and by August had withdrawn because it was thought that his candidacy would only strengthen the Republican candidacy. The Liberty Party nominated Gerrit Smith a former representative from New York. The Constitutional Union Party nominee was former Senator from Tennessee, John Bell from a large field of contenders that included: Sam Houston Governor from Texas, Senator John Crittenden from Kentucky, former Senator from Massachusetts Edward Everett, and former Senator from North Carolina William A. Graham and former Senator from Virginia William C. Rives. Capt. Jeff Bush Company Commander The Southern Democrat Party had five notables three of which declined the nomination. Vice President John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky and former Senator from New York Daniel S. Dickinson accepted and Robert M. Hunter, Senator from Virginia, Senator Joseph Lane of Oregon and Jefferson Davis Senator from Mississippi all declined the nomination. The Democrat Party had a field of six. Senator Stephen A. Douglas from Illinois, James Guthrie of Kentucky and former Treasury Secretary, Robert M.T. Hunter Senator from Virginia, Senator Joseph Lane of Oregon (who had declined the nomination from the Southern Democrat Party), Senator Daniel S. Dickinson ( also nominated by the Southern Democrat Party), and Andrew Johnson Senator from Tennessee. Hold on we are almost done! Whew! Republican Party candidates were: former Representative from Illinois Abraham Lincoln, New York Senator William H. Seward, Simon Cameron Senator from Pennsylvania, Governor of Ohio Salmon P. Chase, former Representative from Missouri Edward Bates, associate Justice from Ohio John McLean, Senator Benjamin Wade of Ohio and William L. Dayton former senator from New Jersey. When the dust settled from the preliminaries the field was narrowed down to four men: Republican Abraham Lincoln Southern Democrat John C. Breckinridge Constitutional Union John Bell Democrat Stephen A. Douglas The election was held November 6 th 1860 and voter turnout was around 81 % the highest in history to that point. Lincoln only garnered 40 % of the popular vote and did not carry one slave holding state. Some speculated that his victory was due to the split in the Democrat Party. Imagine a turnout of 81 % today minus the technology that brings the nominees into our living rooms on an endless basis! People actually had to be engaged in the process to determine who actually spoke for them. What a novel idea! See you at the fire. Democratic candidate Stephen A. Douglas Constitutional Union candidate John Bell Southern Democrat candidate John C. Breckinridge Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln

4 PAGE 4 OUR CAMP JOURNAL VOLUME 22, ISSUE 9 The heaviest fighting at The Battle that Saved Washington was mostly on what is today Monocacy National Battlefield, in Frederick, Maryland, and was fought on July 9, Confederate General Jubal Early and his army of 14,000 were marching south on the Georgetown Pike (current MD Rt. 355) out of Frederick towards Washington, D.C., when they came upon Union skirmishers on the north side of the Monocacy River near the Monocacy Railroad Junction. At the junction there was a blockhouse, rifle pits and two bridges that spanned the river. One span carried the B&O Railroad that had a spur towards Frederick. The other was a covered wooden bridge which Early needed to get his artillery across the river. Union Major General Lew Wallace, in command of 5800 men and several artillery pieces, hoped to slow Early s march to Washington by defending the bridges and fords up and down the river. To avoid casualties in a frontal assault to take the bridge, Early sent cavalry south of the junction where they found an undefended river ford on the Union left flank. The horsemen crossed the river, dismounted and formed at the Worthington House. Expecting 100 days men as they advanced through the fields between the Worthington and Thomas Farms, two brigades of Union Brigadier General James Rickett s 3 rd Division of the Federal VI Corps, rose from behind a rail fence, rested their rifles on the top rail and fired at volley at a distance of 125 yards that sent the panicked rebels back to the Worthington Gen. Jubal Early House. A second advance by the rebels resulted in another retreat back to their starting point. Eventually, Rickett s men were driven from the Thomas Farm after repeated charges by rebel General John Gordon s division, who were supported by rebel artillery on the north side of the river. Having delayed the rebel advance as long as they could, Wallace withdrew Rickett s Cpl. Erik Schwetje Vice President Gen. Lew Wallace and his men from the Thomas Farm, as well as those defending the bridges at the junction and, after torching the covered bridge, retreated north towards the Baltimore Pike/National Road (current MD Rt. 144) to Baltimore. What is less known, but just as important, is that Wallace s least experienced men, a detachment of the VIII Corps that included 100 days men, had been tasked with defending the northernmost fords and the stone bridge that carried the Baltimore Pike/National Road over the Monocacy River. Named after the ornamental monument on its east side, the defense of the Jug Bridge was critical to Wallace s retreat toward Baltimore. Rebel General Robert Rodes division threatened the Jug Bridge around 6 PM but were held off long enough by the VIII Corps detachment to allow the Federal troops to begin their withdrawal down the National Pike toward Baltimore. Today, the jug stands in a small park about a mile from its original location off of Interstate Route 70. Completed in 1809, the inscription welcomes visitors to Frederick and legend has it that jug of whiskey is contained within the stonework. It s an interesting landmark and piece of Frederick history.

5 VOLUME 22, ISSUE 9 OUR CAMP JOURNAL PAGE 5 Part IV By Pvt. Bill Hart This article continues with excerpts from the letters of William Taylor, a soldier who served with the 100th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. In the seven months since he reported to the 100 th, William has traveled from Pennsylvania to Alexandria, Virginia, spent some time in western Maryland, then back to Virginia where he camped at Falmouth across the Rappahannock from Fredericksburg and participated in the Battle of that name. He then traveled to the vicinity of Newport News where after staying only a month or so, he was sent to Kentucky by way of the Chesapeake Bay, across Pennsylvania and down the Ohio River. By this time, he managed to have himself attached to the regimental quartermaster as a clerk, forsaking the role of infantryman. When he traveled through Kentucky, it was on horseback. This is a man who knows how to make the best of being a private. We last left him at Camp Dick Robinson, Kentucky, on April 26 th, 1863, some 20 miles south of Lexington where Fort Dick Robinson Elementary School celebrates the memory of the camp. His next letter of May 1 st. finds him relating marching with his company again. He was able to have all of his gear loaded in a wagon. From his description, he had a comfortable amble through the countryside. The route step brought to its ultimate. This is something our officers need to learn. In his letter of June 3 rd when writes about women being found in uniform in his brigade, he simply notes it as a fact expressing no excitement; no surprise, shock, outrage, astonishment. Just another item of interest to pass on to the folks at home. Camp of 3 rd Brigade 1 st Division, Buffalo Run, Lincoln, Ky May 1, 1863 The reveille beat at 5 1/2. We started at seven. It was a very sultry day and the men were overloaded with extra clothing. After halting the second time the heat of the day was getting to be too much for the boys, and they commenced throwing away everything they could spare. The destruction of overcoats was the first. Several hundred, perhaps over a thousand were thrown away. One company put theirs all in a heap and burned them. Next went pants, blouses, drawers and shirts, until they had just what they could carry. Sometimes we came across a knapsack entire which some one had abandoned. I had nothing to carry except a rifle, and that I did from choice. As we were going pretty fast and out of sight of the train. I fell back to wait for it, as perhaps the quartermaster might want me. I therefore went a very slow pace and had plenty of time to see everything without the crowd. I [ate] a whole custard that I bought from a mulato girl at Judge Burham s. Judge B. has gone to Brazil and three slaves are keeping his place in order for him. It is a splendid place and as I stopped to examine it the women brought a large basket of pies, custards & cakes to sell to the soldiers. I filled my haversack with gingerbread, got my canteen filled and went on. Many of the men threw their shoes away and were walking in the stockings while several carried shoes & stockings in the hands and went barefooted. I sat down under a shady walnut tree and made my daily memorandum. I then fell asleep I don t know how long but was woke up by the Michigan men passing. Camp of the 3 rd Brigade near Houstonville, May 1, 1863 We have made another days journey. It was a very warm day and the men suffered a good deal from the heat. I rode all the way today and kept with the train. May 2d Went out and had a good washing a nice stream a few rods from our tent... after which I feel fresh and read for another day s journey. Have had now a warm breakfast, good hot coffee, beefshank, bread, butter, and boiled eggs. May 3d We commenced our march at one o clock in the afternoon. A very warm day it was. The men hired wagons to haul their knapsacks, and it was a great relief to them. The men relieved of all but their guns went on whistling and singing, and appeared to think it great fun. I rode about half way and then lent my horse to Lieut. Ashton who was hobbling along behind with a sore foot. We went ten miles. Camp of 3d. Brigade 1 Mile from Green River, May 5, 1863 We are rather scarce of hay and grain for our beasts and our forage master was out a good deal but could find none. At last he got a hint from the slaves that it was hidden, and on the very farm we were on, we found a few wagon loads of corn hidden under a pile of manure, although the old man asserted that he had only five barrels full, which we let him keep. Of course you would think he would hardly claim what we found after that, but he came after the money to day. I will make him take the oath of allegiance before I give him the papers.... Among the folks are a good many refugees from Tennessee. Yesterday a family called, one of the girls of which had lost an eye by the thrust of a rebel bayonet. She killed the soldier with the ax after receiving the wound, and while doing it had her finger shot off by her father who fired at the sol- (Continued on page 6)

6 PAGE 6 (Continued from page 5) dier as he was assaulting her. These people are oddly dressed. Part of their clothes are made out of skins. Camp of 3d. Brigade 1 st Divis, Army of Ohio, Near Green River, May 8, Yesterday I heard that we had been ordered back to Camp Dick Robinson, and it may be so. Somehow our movements here are inexplicable to me. I can see no object in them. Our title has been changed from the Ninth Army Corps to the Army of Ohio....We are still rejoiced by hearing of the continued success of Gen. Hooker, but I do not feel that he is safe yet. [The Battle of Chancellorsville was fought from April 1 through May 6 and news of the disaster has evidently not reached William.] Camp of 3d Brigade 1 st Division, Middleburg Ky, May 11, We usually lay down inside or outside the tent; whichever we think the coolest, and read or sleep as we can. This comes from not having guard, picket or drill to do. This is all the advantages of our situation in the Quartermaster department. I should not say all either, for we can go to bed when we please and get up when we please, have no roll call to answer, and if we choose to keep a light burning at night, are not obliged to put it out at taps like the rest of the regiment. Camp of 3d Brigade 1 st Division, Middleburg Ky, May 14, We had the 100th fixed up with brass letters on their caps telling to which company they belong. They had some fun over it. When the officer got the letters they sent word to the men that the mail had come, and as the men came up for their letters they handed each one a brass letter. Our Court Martial is still going on. It has disposed of forty two cases, all of them originating in bad whiskey. One man was sentenced to be shot. Several to OUR CAMP JOURNAL imprisonment at hard labor and loss of pay for twelve months. Some for depredations on citizens have been handed over to the civil authorities of the place to be dealt with according to the Kentucky law. One of them for stealing a horse. He will get into the penitentiary. Camp of 3d Brigade 1 st Division, Middleburg Ky, May 16, 1863 [William here addresses the state of the natives of the region]... Their garden arrangements are all in equal bad taste with their farming, and that equally bad with their dress and personal appearance. They are a hard set of people to look at and we see plenty of them. They come in numbers into our camp both men and women, selling us such things as they can spare. The principal articles are butter, eggs, poultry, corn bread, soda biscuit and cider. But these are so bad that they are beginning to sell very little of them. We of our mess have quit buying altogether. Their corn bread is not raised and lies on the stomach like lead. Their biscuit of a dark brown hue looks likes of mud. Their butter is white and about half buttermilk. Their cider I have not tasted, but those who have tell me they think it is vinegar sweetened with molasses.... Whiskey can be had plentifully at many houses outside of the camp, and we are obliged to keep some of these places guarded to keep the men away. Distilleries are plentier than churches. At the houses where the whiskey is sold and at others also the women have not over good reputations.... The men are a tall thin shambling awkward set of fellows, and the women sharp lean, wrinkled, yellow & toothless even the youngest of them. The darkies look quite as respectable as they do. Certainly they dress with more taste than the whites, though it would make you laugh to see either of them. Hoops are still in fashion here. Are they still in force in Mercer Co.? [On June 2d, William wrote to say that his boss, the regimental quartermaster, had been appointed brigade commissary. William and his brotherin-law Willie made the move with their chief to the new position.] VOLUME 22, ISSUE 9 Camp of 3d. Brigade 1 st Division 9 th A.C., Columbia Ky, June 3d Capt. Gilliland our Inspector General went out to inspect the Cavalry attached to our brigade, and he showed that he was a pretty good inspector. He found nine women in the regiment. It would not be any great matter to tell a woman from a man under ordinary circumstances, but when they are booted and spurred astride a horse with sword & carbine and all the fixtures the cavalry men have it is not so easy. They were made to dismount, and sent off in an ambulance. The officers quizzed the Captain and want to know how he found it out. He is a very good looking man and probably they looked too much at him. Cairo, Illinois, Monday Jun 8, 1863 Here I am sitting writing on a stump. I wrote you last Wednesday 3d and have not had an opportunity since, so rapidly have we moved. We received [marching orders] that day - to have 8 days rations and be ready to move at a moments notice. Instead of crossing the Cumberland into Tennessee we were ordered back with all haste in the opposite direction. I gave Willie my horse and we passed through Columbia at 4 o clock. We proceeded to a very fast gait. We marched 20 miles that day. Steamer Alice Dean, Mississippi River, Jun 9th, 1863 [In this letter, William recounts a three day march totaling about 60 miles to Lebanon, Kentucky, then the brigade took the cars on the Louisville & Lexington Railroad to Louisville, requiring three separate trains. The enlisted men rode in cattle cars did not even sweep the dung out of them, the officers in a passenger car. At Seymour Junction, they switched to the Ohio & Mississippi Railroad to Vincennes, Indiana and on to Centralia then Cairo, Illinois where they boarded the steamer Alice Dean.] Next month, we will continue William s journey down the Mississippi to an as yet unknown destination. By looking at the date, the astute reader may be able to discern the movement.

7 VOLUME 22, ISSUE 9 OUR CAMP JOURNAL PAGE 7 A cold, blustery weekend greeted the troops arriving for the annual spring muster at the skirmish at Campbell s Run. Troops endured drill during heavy snow squalls, enjoyed a rich steak dinner and were entertained by a camp dance, held indoors. Sunday saw the Union boys finally win the annual tug of war event. The editor of the Mobile Advertiser wrote in April, 1861 to inform his readers of the quality of the enemy. ough-bred, impetuous men of the South. Trencher soldiers, who enlisted to war upon their rations, not on men; they are such as marched through Baltimore squalid, wretched, ragged, and half-naked as the newspapers of that city report them. Fellows who do not know the breech of a musket from its muzzle, and had rather filch a handkerchief than fight an enemy in manly combat. White-slaves, peddling wretches, small-change knaves, and vagrants, the dregs and offscourings of These volunteers are men who prefer enlisting to starvation; scurvy fellows from the back slums of cities, whom Falstaff would not have marched through Coventry with; but these recruits are not soldiers least of all the soldiers to meet the hot-blooded, thorthe populace; these are the levied forces whom Lincoln suddenly arrays as candidates for the honor of being slaughtered by gentlemen such as Mobile sent to battle. Let them come South, and we will put our negroes to the dirty work of killing them. But they will not come South. Not a wretch of them will live this side of the border, longer than it will take us to reach the ground and drive them off.

8 cries for vengeance. Civil War Re-enactors; America s Living Historians. (Continued from page 1) ington for New York City just before the onset of the war. He raised the 11th New York Volunteer Regiment, enlisting many of its troops from the city s volunteer fire departments (hence the Fire Zouaves ) and returned with the regiment to Washington. On May 24, 1861, the day after Virginia voters ratified the state convention s decision to secede from the Union, Ellsworth and his troops entered Alexandria, Virginia, to assist in the occupation of the city. As it happened, an 8- by 14-foot Confederate flag large enough to be seen by spyglass from the White House had been visible in Alexandria for weeks, flown from the roof of an inn, the Marshall House. The regiment, organized only six weeks earlier, encoun-tered no resistance as it moved through the city. Barber notes, however, that the Zouaves were an unruly bunch, spoiling for a fight, and when they got into Alexandria they may have felt they were already in the thick of it. So, Ellsworth may have wanted to get that flag down quickly to prevent trouble. Col. Elmer Ephraim Ellsworth of the 11th New York Fire Zouaves is killed in the Marshall House Inn in Alexandria, Virginia, after he and his men removed a Confederate The coat worn by Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, 11th New York "Fire Zouaves", when he was shot and killed on May 24, 1861 flag. He is generally regarded as the first officer killed while on duty in the American Civil War. He is killed by innkeeper James Jackson, a zealous defender of slavery (and a notorious slave abuser) with a penchant for violence. One of Ellsworth s men, Cpl. Francis Brownell, then fatally shot Jackson. A reporter from the New York Tribune happened to be on the scene; news of the shootings traveled fast. Because Ellsworth had been Lincoln s friend, his body was taken to the White House, where it lay in state, and then to New York City, where thousands lined up to view the cortege bearing Ellsworth s coffin. Along the route, a group of mourners displayed a banner that declared: Ellsworth, His blood The Death of Ellsworth by Alonzo Chappel, 1862 Remember Ellsworth! became a Union rallying cry, and the 44th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment was nicknamed Ellsworth s Avengers. According to Barber, Throughout the conflict, his name, face and valor would be recalled on stationery, in sheet music and in memorial lithographs. One side s villain is another side s patriot, of course, so Jackson was similarly celebrated in the South and in an 1862 book, Life of James W. Jackson, The Alexandria Hero. James W. Jackson, a citizen of Fairfax County, was transported to his grave passing through Level Green (ca 1740), an estate in Centreville, VA that exists to this day and is in my very neighborhood! Level Green was the home of the Summers family south of Centreville, where casualties from the battle at Blackburn s Ford, 18 July 1861, were later taken. Some were buried in the cemetery behind the house. During the 21 July Battle of Bull Run, at Level Green, the Summers family retreated to the basement after all the Federal wounded in their house were hastily loaded in wagons and evacuated to field hospitals in Fairfax. James Jackson is eventually buried in Fairfax, VA. Col. Ellsworth is buried Mechanicville, Saratoga County, New York. The Death of Ellsworth is a small but powerful exhibit on Ellsworth, Jackson and Brownell on display at The National Portrait Gallery. Not only does the exhibit have the double barreled shotgun used by Jackson to kill Ellsworth, but it includes the rifle and saber bayonet used by Brownell to kill Jackson. What really brings the exhibit together is The Death of Ellsworth, a painting by Alonzo Chappell of Jackson shooting Ellsworth.