Top Posts of 2023

2023 was a year of firsts, my favorite being leading a battlefield tour at Perryville, Kentucky with the Western Theater in the Civil War's Symposium on the Field. The topic of the tour was walking the ground where General William R. Terrill's brigade fought in the opening moments of the battle culminating with a deep dive into the fight for Parsons' Battery on Bald Knob. I'm looking forward to presenting another tour this upcoming October as well as working up some tours of Stones River to support the upcoming book releases. Special thanks to Darryl Smith for the invite and to my fellow tour guides Taylor Bishop, Derrick Lindow, and Stuart Sanders for putting together such a great event.  

Let’s take a moment to review 2023 on Dan Masters’ Civil War Chronicles. Busy, busy, busy with book projects this year which “cut” my productivity on the blog from 208 posts last year down to 114 this year, or basically one every three days. With two books now on the ramp to come out in 2024 (Hell by the Acre with Savas Beatie and Echoes of Battle Volume 2 with Columbian Arsenal Press with a third to be announced) I would anticipate this trend to continue in the future. But as the blog is approaching 800 posts, there is certainly a lot of great stuff to look back on, and to look forward to.

     The blog’s focus remains centered on telling the story of the common soldier in the Civil War, North and South, with a growing appreciation for material culture as shown by the popularity of posts relating to weaponry. The blog’s content tends to lean more towards western theater, but some of the most popular posts this year featured eastern theater content, particularly posts concerning Gettysburg.

     The aim in 2024 is to keep on trucking along; the research process never stops and as I am still thoroughly enjoying the hunt (if drifting more into WWI research for a few future book projects) I will continue to share these discoveries with all of you. The process of research and study is a treasured part of my day and I thank all of you for enjoying it along with me.  

 To help ring in 2024, let’s revisit the top 20 posts of 2023:


1: Dedicating Gettysburg National Cemetery            

2: The Boy Yankee in Butternut: Edward Savage's Adventure with Morgan's Troopers          

3: Straw Already Threshed: Sherman on Shiloh         

4: Federal Arms in the Stones River Campaign          

5: Thirty-Three Holes in the Colors: The 24th Ohio at Stones River 

6: Federal Arms in the Chickamauga Campaign        

7: Our Gallant Boys Bleaching in the Sun: A Buckeye Returns to Chickamauga                 

8: The River of Death with the 75th Indiana              

9: One of Sherman’s Gophers on the March to Chattanooga

10: Storming Vicksburg: Earning a Medal of Honor in the Forlorn Hope       

Another highlight of the year was the annual Seminar in the Woods at Chickamauga hosted by Jim Ogden and Dave Powell. I had five ancestors who fought at Chickamauga and visited all of the monuments dedicated to their regiments including the 89th Ohio where my great-great-great grandfather Joseph H. Carter of Co. H fought on Horseshoe Ridge on September 20, 1863. 

I had a bit of a moment while visiting the 37th Indiana monument at Chickamauga. My closest Civil War ancestor, my great-great grandpa James P. Brown, served with the regiment for four years and was present on this ground during the battle. As I wrote at the time, "It is a moving experience to stand on the same ground as he did on the afternoon of September 19, 1863. Today it is quiet with the Carolina Chickadees, Northern Cardinals, and the occasional Blue Jay adding their songs to the soft rustling of the leaves in the forest. It is a peaceful place today. When Grandpa Brown arrived here that long ago Saturday afternoon, the roar of battle dwarfed anything he'd ever heard before. Smoke filled the woods and the air sung not with the songs of birds, but with the zip of bullets and thunderous crash of artillery. What a powerful place this sacred ground is." Little did I know that eight months later, after a quarter century of searching, I would finally find a photograph of Grandpa Brown as shown below. 

Private James P. Brown, Co. D, 37th Indiana Volunteer Infantry with his beloved wife Harriett in an image dating from about 1890. He served four years with the 37th and upon returning home to Indiana promptly married Harriett and set off to find his fortune in the cornfields of Iowa. But his health was wrecked by his years in the army and after trying to make a go of it in Iowa and Nebraska for a number of years, he returned home to Osgood, Indiana where my great-grandmother was born in 1879. James lived until 1912 and is buried at Sharpsville, Indiana. 
     

11: I Don’t Thirst for More Fight: An Iron Brigade Sergeant Remembers Gainesville and Second Bull Run

12: How Wilder’s Brigade Got Their Lightning       

13: Sunbrowned and War-Worn Stalwarts: A Character Study of Western Federals                

14: I Could not Ride Without Stepping on the Bodies: A Hoosier Colonel at Shiloh              

15: Arming the Buckeyes Part 2: Longarms of Ohio's Infantry Regiments

16: Civil War Roadtrip of a Lifetime                         

17: Ready for Breakfast or a Fight: The 8th Missouri and the Fight for Tunnel Hill                

18: A Brotherhood of Khaki and Blue                     

19: Revisiting Snodgrass Hill: Memories of a 21st Ohio Officer

20: Firm as an Iron Pillar: A Hoosier Describes the Battle of Franklin                               

In September 2023, Savas Beatie hosted an author's meetup in Gettysburg where I had the chance to not only tour Antietam and Gettysburg with some of the sharpest minds in the business, but finally had a chance to meet my publisher Ted Savas. A great event, a lot of fun, and looking forward to rolling out Hell by the Acre later this summer. 


Personal Choice as Favorite Story of the Year:

A Brevet Hoss: Molly the Cow and the Grand Review               


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Arming the Buckeyes: Longarms of the Ohio Infantry Regiments

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     A common question that comes up in conversation about Civil War Buckeye regiments is "What were they armed with?" We are fortunate in that the state of Ohio kept good records of how the regiments were armed when they went into service, this being especially true for those regiments which went into service in 1861 and 1862. The state adjutant general's reports for 1861 and 1862 have been heavily drawn upon to construct this article, as well as consultation with Phil Spaugy who has done extensive research on how Ohio's troops were armed during the war.      Buckeyes carried a fairly wide variety of weapons into the field, and the below article breaks this down into weapons of both domestic manufacture and imported arms. The early days of the war found the state of Ohio practically bereft of longarms; as an example, when the 1st and 2nd Ohio Volunteer Militia left the state in late April 1861, they left unarmed, being armed at Lancaster, Pennsylvania on their way to
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Dressing the Rebels: How to Dye Butternut Jeans Cloth

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     In the early days of the Civil War,  the Southern states found themselves with an abundance of cotton but a shortage of cloth with which to make army uniforms. The trade in cloth prior to the war had largely been to send raw cotton or wool north to New England (or Great Britain) where it was converted into usable cloth; but now that trade was broken and the Southern states were thrown upon their own resources in their efforts to properly clothe the Confederate army.  This collection of Confederate enlisted men's frock coats and shell jackets gives some indication of the variety of shades of butternut worn during the war. All of them are shades of yellow brown, some heavier on the yellow and some heavier on the brown. The blue used around the collar or as rank insignia indicates that the soldier was in the infantry. Surviving Confederate uniforms are considered rather rare and command quite a healthy price in the collecting market. For an in-depth study of how Confederate jacke
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Bullets for the Union: Manufacturing Small Arms Ammunition During the Civil War

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The Cannons are Now Silent: The Field of Death of Tupelo

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The Vaunted Enfield Rifle Musket

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     The English-made Model 1853 .577 caliber Enfield Rifle Musket was widely regarded as the best infantry arm in the world at the outbreak of the Civil War in April 1861. Favorable international press describing its efficiency in the Crimean War and in suppressing the Indian rebellion led to the widespread desire of American infantrymen (both Federal and Confederate) to be armed with these accurate and well-made arms. The lock plate of this well-worn P1853 Enfield rifle musket produced in 1862 shows the typical markings of a British-made weapon that made it through the Federal blockade.  ( Army of Tennessee Relics ) Enfield-pattern weapons were imported into the states by the tens and hundreds of thousands during the war years; one estimate stated that the Federal government purchased 500,000 while the Confederates purchased another 400,000. The Confederate government dispatched Captain Caleb Huse to Europe in April 1861 to purchase weapons and Huse focused on securing all the Enfi
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Straw Already Threshed: Sherman on Shiloh

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Federal Arms in the Stones River Campaign

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  T he following list, constructed after many years of research, lists unit by unit which type of weapons were carried by the Army of the Cumberland during the Stones River campaign. A number of sources were consulted including state ordnance reports, Federal quarterly ordnance reports (thank you Research Arsenal ), Ken Baumann’s Arming the Suckers, regimental histories and memoirs, captured ordnance reports, and consultation with knowledgeable experts in the field of firearms. Some of this information has been shared on the blog before in “ Rosy’s Heavy Metal: Artillery of the Army of the Cumberland ” or “ Shoulder Arms: How Sheridan’s and Davis’s Divisions Were Armed at Stones River ” but this is the first time the army as a whole has been presented. The overall conclusion I drew from looking at this data is that the Army of the Cumberland in December 1862 was an organization in the midst of transformation as far as arms. Many of the regiments still retained their original issue
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Escape of Captain Henry H. Alban of the 21st Ohio Infantry

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Captain Henry H. Alban was among the dozen officers of the 21 st Ohio Volunteer Infantry who were captured on September 20, 1863 at the Battle of Chickamauga. The regiment had held its position atop Snodgrass Hill against repeated Confederate assaults and now battered and without ammunition, with the darkness of evening enveloping the hill, the remainder of that gallant band found themselves at the mercy of the 54 th Virginia. A total of 12 officers and 121 enlisted men surrendered; the regiment’s colors were taken, and the men marched off the field into captivity. Captain Henry Harvey Alban, Co. F, 21st O.V.I. Captain Alban along with the rest went through a series of Confederate prison camps before arriving at Columbia, South Carolina in October 1864. Determined to make an escape, he watched for his chance and one night made his leap for freedom, successfully eluding the local camp guard and setting out along the railroad to head for the mountains of eastern Tennessee and
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Knapsack Compression: Wilbur Hinman recalls the first step of becoming a veteran

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Federal Arms in the Chickamauga Campaign

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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
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