The Wizard of Oz and the Civil War

The 1939 film The Wizard of Oz has delighted viewers for 85 years and ranks as a personal favorite, especially during the Halloween season. While watching it with the family the other night, I wondered if there were any connections between the film and the Civil War. Not surprisingly, the answer is yes and those connections touch both the blue and the gray.

          Interestingly both “witches” in the film not only had Civil War ancestors but had connections with Civil War soldiers from Ohio. Margaret Hamilton, the “Wicked Witch of the West,” was born in Cleveland, Ohio on December 9, 1902, to attorney Walter Jones Hamilton and his wife Mary Jane Adams; Margaret’s grandfather was Judge Edwin Timothy Hamilton. Judge Hamilton had served as a private in Co. D of the 84^th Ohio Infantry during the summer of 1862. The 84^th Ohio, a three months’ regiment, served nearly the whole of its service attached to the Railroad District in western Maryland, performing provost duty at Cumberland, Maryland.

Judge Edwin T. Hamilton (left) was the grandfather of Margaret Hamilton, a native of Cleveland, Ohio who won lifelong plaudits for her depiction of the Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz. Judge Hamilton served for three months with the 84th Ohio Infantry. 

Elected to his seat on the Common Pleas bench in 1875, Judge Hamilton served for 20 years before forming a law partnership with his son Walter in 1895 which he maintained until his death in 1905. Upon his retirement from the bench in 1895, the local newspapers lauded him as a “model judge, a man without reproach, and a citizen of whom Cleveland learned to be very proud.”  

Billie Burke, stage name of the Good Witch of the North, was born Mary William Ethelbert Appleton Burke on August 7, 1884, in Washington, D.C. to Ohio-born William Ethelbert Burke and his wife Blanche Beatty. William, a native of Knox County, Ohio, joined up as an 18-year-old corporal in Co. D of the 96^th Ohio Infantry, serving from August 1862 until his discharge for disability in April 1863. The 96^th Ohio, after being rushed to Cincinnati in September 1862 to fend off General Henry Heth’s threatened attack on the city, moved into western Tennessee and later took part in the operations at both Chickasaw Bayou and Arkansas Post.

William E. "Billy" Burke enjoyed a lengthy career as a showman and clown after serving about half a year with the 96th Ohio in the middle of the war. His daughter Mary took the stage name "Billie" Burke in honor of her beloved father and likewise enjoyed a lengthy career on the stage and in film. 

Styling himself as “Billy” Burke, William became one of America’s most famous clowns and traveled all around the country as a showman, enjoying a nearly 40-year career on the stage. Billing himself as “America’s Greatest Clown,” Billy at one time worked for Barnum & Bailey’s Circus. He moved the family to Europe in the early 1900s and passed away at an infirmary in Huddersfield, England in 1906; by that point, his vivacious daughter, styling herself “Billie” Burke, had made her debut on a London stage. She later returned to the U.S., making her mark on Broadway and later the big screen.

          Director Victor Fleming’s mother was Lizzy Evaleen Hartman, and his maternal grandfather was Lewis Shortly Hartman from Columbia County, Pennsylvania. “At the first call for volunteers in the Civil War, he had just been married and having two small children, thought it impossible to give his service at that time and hired a substitute for three years’ service,” Lewis’s obituary stated. “Later at the close of the rebellion, he volunteered and served in the 79^th Pennsylvania Infantry one year and one month, participating in the capture of Atlanta and with General Sherman on his notable march to the sea.”  The 79^th Pennsylvania served in the 14^th Army Corps of the Army of the Cumberland and saw action from the outset of the war in the West including the Atlanta Campaign and the March to the Sea.

Joseph L. Baugh, a merchant from Winchester, Tennessee served nearly three years with the 11th Tennessee Cavalry during the Civil War; he was eldest brother to Judy Garland's grandmother. Garland's father Frank Gumm was born in Murfreesboro, Tennessee in 1886, the son of William Tecumseh Gumm who experienced the Battle of Stones River as an 8-year-old resident of Rutherford County. 

          The lead actress in the film was the legendary Judy Garland, the stage name for Frances Ethel Gumm who was born June 10, 1922, in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Her father was Frank Avent Gumm who was born March 20, 1886 in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The Gumm family had lived in Rutherford County since the early 19^th century and as Rutherford County was the stage for so many engagements in the Civil War (including Stones River) Judy Garland’s grandfather William Tecumseh Gumm saw much of the war up close and personal during his boyhood. He later worked as a merchant living in Murfreesboro before passing in 1906. William's father, John Alexander Gumm, did not serve in the war, working as a plasterer and living in a home on Church St. in Murfreesboro in his later years. 

Judy’s paternal grandmother was Elizabeth "Clemmie" Baugh, born in 1857; she likewise experienced the 'war outside her window' as a child growing up in war-torn middle Tennessee. Her oldest brother was Joseph Lawrence Baugh who owned a mercantile business in Winchester, Tennessee and served in the war as a sergeant in Co. C of Douglass’ Tennessee Cavalry Battalion (C.S.A.), joining the cavalry October 4, 1862, at Salem, Rutherford Co., Tennessee. Douglass’ Battalion was folded into the 11^th Tennessee Cavalry in 1863 and Sergeant Baugh served with that regiment until the very end of the war, surrendering May 10, 1865, at Gainesville, Alabama, signing the oath of allegiance June 7, 1865. He was remembered as “a most upright gentleman and enjoyed the very highest respect of all who knew him.”