Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles

S urgeon Elihu Toland of the 18 th South Carolina was visiting his regiment in the lines at Petersburg, Virginia on the morning of July 30, 1864, when the Army of the Potomac detonated their massive mine loaded with 8,000 pounds of black powder below the lines held by his fellow South Carolinians.           “Simultaneous with the deep, dead sound, and the quiver of earth, there arose in the air a cloud of dust, smoke, timbers, men, muskets, and all manner of shapes and fragments that flew in every direction,” Surgeon Toland later wrote. “Then for a moment a stillness. Then it seemed as if every cannon on the whole Federal line was turned loose upon us.   Shells shrieked through the air as musket balls and fragments of shells flew in every direction, plowing up the earth and cutting off limbs from the few trees that the relentless hand of war had spared. Then came the charge.”           Dr...

W hen General David Stanley took command of the cavalry of the Army of the Cumberland in late 1862, one of the first changes he made was to direct a renewed focus on the use of the saber. "Our cavalry had been poorly instructed and depended upon their carbines instead of the saber," Stanley remembered. "I insisted on the latter and sent for grindstones and had all the sabers sharpened, each squadron being provided with the means for this work."         In one of the opening moves of the Tullahoma Campaign, the 7th Pennsylvania Cavalry put their sabers to good use as they routed Wheeler's cavalry in a wild street fight in downtown Shelbyville, Tennessee. As remembered by Adjutant George Steahlin, it was " cutting right cuts, left cuts, front cuts, and rear cuts, making thrusts right, left, and front, dealing death at every blow until Duck River was reached." The Pennsylvanians captured hundreds of Confederate troopers, two flags, and three guns that b...

O n Friday afternoon September 26, 1890, 50-year-old John Wollam died alone in his rooms at 309 Kansas Avenue in Topeka, Kansas. The local newspaper noted the passing of the “old soldier” with a single paragraph notice stating that he was “one of the eleven survivors of the famous Mitchel raid in 1862 and possessed a medal for bravery and meritorious services given him by the Secretary of War.”           “Although ailing for the past few months, nothing serious was thought of until within the past month he noticed he was growing weaker, and for the last two weeks has been confined to his room,” the Topeka Daily Capital reported. “When the summons came, he expired suddenly while seated in his chair. He has lived here in this city for several years a quiet, unobtrusive life. No boasting or telling of the service he had done, and yet here was a hero.” And thus, was marked the passing of "The Silent Raider," one of the nation’s first Medal of ...

Second Lieutenant Smith Spangler Turner of Co. B, 17th Virginia Infantry was cited for gallantry at South Mountain and was one of the few officers of the regiment to survive Sharpsburg unscathed. Appointed a second lieutenant in April 1862, Turner served with the 17th Virginia through the end of the war. This handsome CDV of the young Virginian has a Lupton & Brown backmark from Winchester, Virginia and is part of the Liljenquist Family Collection of the Library of Congress.  T he fighting at Sharpsburg on September 17, 1862 had raged for hours before Alexander Hunter, a private serving in the 17 th Virginia of General James L. Kemper’s brigade of Longstreet's Wing, received the urgent call to fall into ranks and prepare to fight. Kemper’s brigade, including the 55 men comprising what was left of the 17 th Virginia, marched a short distance south of town along Harper’s Ferry Road then turned east towards the rolling hills of the Avey farm and took position behind a newly made...

I n part one of this series, we explored how Ohio’s first 126 infantry regiments were armed at the outset of the Civil War. This post will explore how Ohio’s regiments that entered service from 1863-1865 were armed. It is worth noting that Ohio’s regiments went out in eight distinct phases during the course of the war: 1)      90 days’ men (April-May 1861) 1 st - 22 nd 2)      Three years’ men (June 1861-March 1862) 1 st -83 rd 3)      The Three Months’ Men (June-July 1862) 84 th -88 th 4)      The 300,000-more (August 1862-January 1863) 89 th -126 th 5)      The Morgan Response (June-August 1863) 86 th , 127 th -129th 6)      Hundred Days’ Men (May 1864) 130 th -172 nd 7)      Eleven More in 64 (September-November 1864) 173 rd -183rd 8)      The Lucky 13 (February-April 1865) 184 th -197 th   ...

I t was a simple Masonic pin that saved Captain John Gillespie’s life during the Battle of Atlanta on July 22, 1864.           Gillespie, leading Co. G of the 78 th Ohio, had fought all afternoon but in the closing portion of the action found himself surrounded by a horde of angry Confederate infantrymen, one of whom had a bayonet thrusting towards Gillespie's chest. “At the same time, my ears were greeted with a terrible oath from the Rebel owner asking what I was ‘doing with a sword and gun both?’ I answered that I had been using the gun to the best of my ability when click went the trigger of his gun and with another oath he swore he would ‘put daylight through me,” Gillespie remembered.           “It flashed across my mind that my earthly existence was near its end when suddenly a Rebel officer ran up to the fellow and cried out, “Hold! Hold! Hold!” The soldier, who was drunk with powder a...

T he 11 th New York Volunteers, also known as Ellsworth’s Zouaves, had scarcely arrived on the field at Bull Run when the men spied a nearby Federal battery that had been overrun by the Confederates. “We were at once impressed with the idea that we had a mission and that mission was to retake those guns,” remembered First Lieutenant Edward B. Knox of Co. A. “Whereupon with a wild, wild yell, three cheers, and a loud fierce cry of “Remember Ellsworth,” we dashed across the intervening space, rushed in the face of a murderous discharge from the cannons on the hill, and with loud whoops and hurrahs drove some away, killed the rest, occupied the position, and attempted to use the guns. The Regulars did not return to receive at their hands the recaptured battery, and it was useless in our hands.”           Before the Civil War, Maine native Edward Burgin Knox was a member of Elmer Ellsworth’s U.S. Zouave Cadets in Chicago where he gained the ni...

O rderly Sergeant Alvin B. Chase of the 55 th Ohio had seen his share of hard fighting during the Civil War, but he ranked the Battle of Peach Tree Creek fought July 20, 1864, outside of Atlanta, Georgia as “decidedly the nicest fight I ever saw.”           For the first time in the Atlanta campaign, the 55 th Ohio fought the Confederates in an open field and came out victoriously. “So far as our corps is concerned, we gave them a good thrashing,” he wrote. “When we charged on the Rebs yesterday, we charged over more of their dead and wounded than we ever did in a battle before. Our loss was not very heavy as the 55 th Ohio lost three killed and 20 men wounded. We buried 108 Rebels this morning and we have more to bury yet. We captured all of their wounded that couldn’t walk off the field and three stands of colors. Our brigade did nobly,” he concluded.           The 55 th Ohio was assigned...

M uch historical attention has been focused on the efforts of the 54 th Massachusetts in being the initial regiment of the assault upon Battery Wagner on July 18, 1863 ; however, today’s post dives into the story of the Federal regiments that followed the 54 th in the assault column. A total of two brigades took part in the assault- the leading brigade under General George C. Strong was led by the 54 th Massachusetts, followed by the 6 th Connecticut, then the 48 th New York, all of which managed to climb the ramparts, but the remainder of Strong’s brigade (the 9 th Maine, 3 rd New Hampshire, and 76 th Pennsylvania) became pinned down by Confederate artillery fire and did not get into the fort.           The ‘second wave’ of the assault column was Colonel Haldimand Putnam’s four-regiment brigade consisting of his own 7 th New Hampshire, the 100 th New York, and two Buckeye regiments, the 62 nd  Ohio and 67 th  Ohio bot...

A s the boys of western Alabama went off to fight the Great War in 1918, William Battle Stansel, a veteran of the 41 st Alabama during the Civil War, penned the following short history of his regiment “so the children of the old boys will know what their fathers did and where they fought the Yanks.”           It’s an extraordinary short history complete with his memories of charging across Stones River with the Orphan Brigade on January 2, 1863, and a chance meeting with General Robert E. Lee on June 18, 1864, during the Second Battle of Petersburg when the 41 st was holding a critical point in the lines. “About 6 a.m., General Lee came up to the lines and as he got into Co. C, he said, “Hold the lines my brave boys. My men will soon be here,” Stansel remembered. “Jim Sparks said, “Go on General and rest easy. When those Yanks get these lines, we will all be dead men.” Lee held out his hand to Jim and said, “My brave man, that’s the way I...

A rattling good, fun, light-hearted, thought-provoking read.   T he mission statement of John Banks’ Civil War blog is “let’s keep history alive.” In his latest book A Civil War Road Trip of a Lifetime , the Pennsylvania native shows that the memory of our Civil War is alive and well across the country, and in the most out of the way spaces, he is able to touch upon those “mystic chords of memory” by interviewing fellow Civil War buffs determined that their particular slice of our great national tragedy isn’t forgotten. Written in the spiritual vein of Tony Horwitz’s legendary 1999 travelogue Confederates in the Attic , the author documents with a twinkle in his eye and a spring in his step the multiple strands of Civil War remembrance across the nation. Whether its sweating through a scorching May reenactment of the Battle of Resaca, taking a President Lincoln-shaped Oreo cookie on a tour through the environs of Harper’s Ferry and Sharpsburg, or trudging through the thick fo...

C orporal John Gordon Law had scarcely fired his first shot after joining his 154 th Tennessee on the field at Shiloh before hearing a sickening thud as a Yankee bullet struck a captured canteen he had slung over his shoulder. He soon noticed the sensation of wetness on his hip. “As the water poured out and soaked through to my skin, I imagined that the blood was gushing from a mortal wound and, without waiting to see what damage my body had sustained, I started off to the surgeon,” he confessed in his diary. It proved the end of the battle for the Tennessean. “After an examination by Dr. Woodward, the gratifying discovery was made that my canteen had received a mortal wound, while I had escaped with a slight flesh wound, which, however, would have proved more serious but for the protection afforded by the canteen in breaking the force of the ball. More water than blood was shed, and I am thankful for my escape with my life.” Law was placed in a wagon with other wounded men and star...

O n Sunday morning September 21, 1862, former parochial schoolteacher Michael O’ Sullivan lay flat on his back on a crude field hospital near Sharpsburg, Maryland. “I am laid near the surgeon's quarters, and within one hundred yards and in full view of our brigade’s burying ground, in which fatigue parties are constantly employed burying the dead, uncoffined and unsung,” he wrote. The Dublin native was working in Albany, New York before he was commissioned a captain tasked with leading a company of his fellow Irishmen in the 63 rd New York. O’Sullivan lied about his age at enlistment so he wouldn’t be turned away as being too old to serve; he was born in 1808 and at 53 years old was one of the oldest officers on the field. This remarkable CDV from the Liljenquist Collection shows two of the 63rd New York's flags emblazoned with 1862 battle honors: Yorktown, Fair Oaks, Gaines' Hill, Allen's Farm, Savage's Station, Oak Bridge, Glendale, Malvern Hill, and Antietam. ...

I n the late summer of 1862, General Braxton Bragg’s army stole a march on General Don Carlos Buell’s forces in Tennessee, moving into Kentucky in hopes of giving Kentuckians an opportunity to flock to the Confederate banner. Bragg’s Confederates seriously embarrassed the Union cause for a time, but more importantly they now threatened Buell’s supply lifeline from Louisville. With Union forces in disarray following the debacle at Richmond, Kentucky on August 30 th , Buell had no choice but to turn his army north and race to secure his supply base at Louisville before Bragg took the city. In what may have been his finest feat of maneuvering, Buell marched the bulk of his army 300 miles north in a month and arrived in Louisville before Bragg. [That Bragg swerved eastward to link up with Kirby Smith after his victory at Munfordville remains one of the great mysteries and “what-ifs” of the war in the west.] However brilliant Buell’s efforts were in extracting his army from a particularly...

T he ordnance returns of the Army of the Cumberland at the end of September 1863 show the results of a transformational year in weaponry. Since taking command of the army at the end of October 1862, General William S. Rosecrans had repeatedly pestered the War Department to supply his regiments with better firearms both to improve the command’s efficiency as well as expand its striking power. The results speak for themselves: for the infantrymen at the end of September 1863, 90% of them now carried Class I long arms (36,058 out of 39,959), 8.3% carried Class II arms, and a mere 1.5% carried Class III weapons. Most of the foreign-made weapons (except Enfields) were gone, and by and large the army had settled on a single common .58 caliber ammunition, although a few .54 caliber and .69 caliber weapons remained within the ranks. The English-made Enfield rifle musket was by far the most common arm, carried by 56% of the men while the second-most common arm was the .58 caliber M1861 Spring...

W atching the approach of the lines of Confederates on the afternoon of July 3, 1863, one Minnesota soldier was moved to write " such bravery, coolness, and determination as the Rebels showed in this charge is not recorded in history. MacDonald’s charge at Wagram does not come up to the steady, determined, unwavering approach of these men without a shot or a shout, although not one of every ten who started reached our lines."      Although unsigned, I’m reasonably certain this letter was penned by Second Lieutenant William Lochren of Co. K of the 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry. The letter was written to Colonel George N. Morgan who formerly commanded the 1 st Minnesota and was then the commander of Fort Snelling. The letter first saw publication in the July 31, 1863, edition of the Weekly Pioneer & Democrat published in St. Paul, Minnesota. 

  Sad are our hearts tonight, For our dear brothers. Sadder the bursting hearts, Of widows and mothers. Weep not, ye stricken ones, Their death is all glorious, Brothers and noble sons, Dying victorious! ~ Poem written by former member of 1 st Minnesota   The 1 st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry suffered an 82% casualty rate during the Battle of Gettysburg, one of the highest percentages suffered by any Union regiment during the entire Civil War. Most of this loss was sustained on the afternoon of July 2, 1863, when the regiment charged forth to protect Battery A of the 4 th U.S. Light Artillery and try to turn back a Confederate attack that was driving the 3 rd Corps from the field. General Winfield Scott Hancock who witnessed the charge later wrote, “there is no more gallant deed recorded in history."   The first reports filtered back to Minnesota on July 10 th when M.S. Wilkinson, the state agent in Washington, forwarded a note from Lieutenant...

H istory may record the Battle of Gettysburg as a decisive defeat for the Confederacy, but that wasn't the way some of the soldiers viewed it at the time. " The first day our arms met with complete success; every point which we attacked was carried and the loss of the enemy far exceeded ours," First Lieutenant William Aiken Kelly of the 1st South Carolina explained to his mother on July 10, 1863. "The second and third days we were not so successful, but I will not say we were defeated by the enemy. They were largely reinforced and the position they held was one of the strongest kind. Their artillery occupied high hills, and their infantry were mostly behind stone fences or entrenchments. We were the attacking party every time, consequently they had the advantage and I think their numbers were largely superior to ours."      During the Gettysburg campaign, the 1 st South Carolina served in Colonel Abner Perrin’s First Brigade of General William D. Pender’s Divis...