New and Noteworthy---What the Yankees Did to Us: Sherman's Bombardment and Wrecking of Atlanta

What the Yankees Did to Us: Sherman's Bombardment and Wrecking of Atlanta, Stephen Davis Mercer University Press; 450 pages; $35

Like Chicago from Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, or San Francisco from the earthquake of 1906, Atlanta has earned distinction as one of the most burned cities in American history. During the Civil War, Atlanta was wrecked, but not by burning alone. Longtime Atlantan Stephen Davis tells the story of what the Yankees did to his city.

General William T. Sherman’s Union forces had invested the city by late July 1864. Northern artillerymen, on Sherman’s direct orders, began shelling the interior of Atlanta on 20 July, knowing that civilians still lived there and continued despite their knowledge that women and children were being killed and wounded. Countless buildings were damaged by Northern missiles and the fires they caused. Davis provides the most extensive account of the Federal shelling of Atlanta, relying on contemporary newspaper accounts more than any previous scholar. The Yankees took Atlanta in early September by cutting its last railroad, which caused Confederate forces to evacuate and allowed Sherman’s troops to march in the next day.

The Federal army’s two and a half-month occupation of the city is rarely covered in books on the Atlanta campaign. Davis makes a point that Sherman’s “wrecking” continued during the occupation when Northern soldiers stripped houses and tore other structures down for wood to build their shanties and huts. Before setting out on his “march to the sea,” Sherman directed his engineers to demolish the city’s railroad complex and what remained of its industrial plant. He cautioned them not to use fire until the day before the army was to set out on its march. Yet fires began the night of 11 November—deliberate arson committed against orders by Northern soldiers. Davis details the “burning” of Atlanta, and studies those accounts that attempt to estimate the extent of destruction in the city.  Davis pays particular attention to contemporary journalistic accounts and to the Union force's two and a half month occupation of the city.

Stephen Davis of Atlanta earned a PhD in American Studies, an MA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a BA from Emory University. His hobby since the fourth grade has been the Civil War, on which he has written more than one hundred articles. For over twenty years, he served as book review editor for Blue & Gray Magazine. His book, Atlanta Will Fall: Sherman, Joe Johnston and the Yankee Heavy Battalions, was published in 2001.

Text and Image Source: Mercer University Press

Research Tip---National Library of Medicine American Civil War Finding Aides Index

U.S. National Library of Medicine has a search page that aggregates online resources. The History of Medicine Finding Aids Consortium is a discovery tool that provides keyword search services across a union catalog of descriptions of primary sources materials found in special collections and archives throughout the United States.

The consortium leads to information found in historical documents, personal papers, business records, and other sources. Finding aids provide contextual information about these collections along with detailed inventories to help researchers locate relevant materials.  Currently 3,600 finding aides are indexed from 35 institutions that collect broadly in the areas of the history of medicine, allied sciences, general collections and archives.

Here is the link to the initial search page: National Library of Medicine.  A keyword search, 'American Civil Medicine', yielded 233 record collections and their web links.

News---CSS Hunley's Spar Still Has A Portion of The Torpedo Attached

Hunley Legend Altared By New Discovery, Brian Hicks, Post and Courier, January 28, 2013. 

                                                                           For nearly 150 years, the story of the Hunley’s attack on the USS Housatonic has been Civil War legend. And it has been wrong.

 

Scientists have discovered a piece of the Confederate submarine’s torpedo still attached to its spar, debunking eyewitness accounts that the Hunley was nearly 100 feet away from the explosion that sent a Union blockade ship to the bottom of the sea off Charleston in 1864.

 

Instead, the Hunley and its eight-man crew were less than 20 feet from the blast. And that changes everything about the story — and possibly even provides a clue as to why it sank. “I would say this is the single-most important piece of evidence we have found from the attack,” said Maria Jacobsen, senior archaeologist on the Hunley project.

 

Basically, Hunley conservators found a piece of the torpedo’s copper shell, peeled back from the blast, when they removed a century of hardened sand and shell from the submarine’s 20-foot spar. The torpedo was bolted to the spar, contradicting the conventional wisdom that the torpedo was planted in the side of the Housatonic with a barb like a fishing hook, slipped off the spar and then detonated by rope trigger when the sub was a safe distance away.

 

Instead, the Feb. 17, 1864, attack off Charleston was a dangerous, close-quarters assault that risked the sub and crew. “This changes some things,” said Lt. Gov. Glenn McConnell, longtime chairman of the state Hunley Commission. “They were much closer to the explosion than we believed, but I don’t believe this was a suicide mission.”

 

Text and Images Continued at Post and Courier

News---Possible Confederate Blockade Runner Found On Desolate Island Near Georgia

Shifting Sand Yield Mystery Ship Wreck On Remote Georgia Island That Likely Dates To 1800s, Associated Press, Washington Post, January 21, 2013.

The odd skeleton of wooden beams barely poked above the sands, exposed just enough by wind and tides for a beachcomber to report the curious find. Fred Boyles, National Park Service superintendent on Georgia’s Cumberland Island, says the buried beams could have easily been overlooked as ordinary flotsam washed ashore on the beach. But archaeologists called to the remote Atlantic coastal island spent days last week unearthing an astonishing find: an old wooden shipwreck held together with wooden pegs, its backstory lost in time.

“Someone had the foresight to say that doesn’t just look like normal wood, and thank goodness they called us,” Boyles said of the island resident, who stumbled on the wreck around Christmas. “Frankly, had I been driving on the beach, I would’ve ridden right by.” This 80-foot-long fragment of history, with some of its wooden siding still intact, is believed to date to the mid-1800s based on its construction, said Michael Steiber, a National Park Service archaeologist trying to crack the mystery of the ship’s origin.

It might have been delivering supplies to Southern plantation owners who grew cotton, corn and rice on Cumberland Island for decades after the Revolutionary War, Steiber said. Or perhaps it was a Confederate blockade runner that sank during the Civil War. There is no shortage of potential suspects on Cumberland Island, a place steeped in history. The park service manages the island off the Southeast coast today as a federally protected wilderness. “This has been a high-traffic area ever since the Spanish and the British started colonizing,” Steiber said. “There are a lot of possibilities.”

The archaeologists made copious notes during their days of excavation on the site last week. They drew maps and collected wood samples for testing. Now they are turning to the historical records for clues. Early Spanish settlers operated missions on the island for roughly a century, from 1587 to 1684. The English arrived not long after Gen. James Edward Oglethorpe founded Georgia as the 13th British colony in 1733. In the 1800s, plantations thrived on Cumberland Island until the region’s economy collapsed after the Civil War. Yet identifying the wreck is proving elusive.

The story continues at Washington Post.
Image Source: Atlanta Journal Constitution

News--No Clear Reason For Moving Remembrance Day at Gettysburg

Gettysburg Remembrance Day Has New Date, Laura Wheeler, Washington Post, January 22, 2013.

In anticipation of larger than usual crowds expected at Gettysburg for the annual Remembrance Day parade, planners have moved the event to the weekend of Nov. 23, a week later than had been scheduled. This year is the 150^th anniversary of both the battle in July and Remembrance Day in November, the day President Abraham Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address. The parade is very popular with visitors and residents and draws thousands of smartly dressed reenactors who march in military units through the city.

 Planners say the change was made to better accommodate “lodging requirements.” Other events rescheduled for the weekend include four balls.

However, the reading of the Gettysburg Address and other related events will still occur Nov. 19, the actual anniversary of Lincoln’s visit to the then-new Gettysburg National Cemetery.
The city of Gettysburg and the National Park Service have organized numerous events    for the whole of 2013 to mark the sesquicentennial year.

CWL comment:  No direct quotations in this article.  Who are 'the planners'?  National Park Service and the Sons of the Union Veterans. Yet no on record comment from them.  Best guess: Department of Interior is clearing the path for a presidential visit and there would be too many men with guns in the street.    VP Biden scampered out of the visitors' box during the 2012 St. Patrick's Day Parade in Pittsburgh when the Irish Brigade came within 300 yards of him.  CWL marched with the Irish Brigade that day.

Text source: Washington Post
Image Source: Maryland Brigade

News---What Is The Value Of Gettysburg's Lincoln Train Station?

With Hopes For Sale, Gettysburg To Appraise Lincoln Train Station; But Obstacles In Way Of Transfer To Park Service, from the Hanover Evening Sun and  reported by the Frederick News Post, January 21, 2013.

First three paragraphs: The borough of Gettysburg is once again making steps toward selling the historic Lincoln Train Station on Carlisle Street. The council voted last week to let the borough manager select an appraisal firm to determine the value of the property.
"The park service is not allowed to pay a penny more than the appraised value of a property it would add to its boundary," said Council President Michael Birkner in an email. "So an appraisal is essential to make a transfer." The borough hopes to have an appraisal firm selected by February so that the borough has better guidelines heading into negotiations with the National Park Service. When talks over the sale began in 2009, the borough expected to sell the property for at least $722,000, which is about how much it cost the municipality to restore the 154-year-old building.

Last Paragraph:  "Congressional actions toward passage of this nonpartisan measure have been painfully slow," Birkner said, but the hope is that with the help of this new donation from the Gettysburg Foundation, the process might begin to move along.

Full Article at Frederick News Post

Image Source: Lincoln Studies

Review--With the Sword in One Hand and Jomini in the Other

With A Sword in One Hand and Jomini in the Other: The Problem of Militiary Thought in the Civil War North, Carol Reardon, Chapel Hill: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 177 pp., 2012, $30.00

Review by Lawrence A. Kreiser, Jr., Stillman College

First Paragraph of the Review: Carol Reardon (Penn State Univ.) has had a remarkably wide-ranging and influential career. She has written many books and articles on the Civil War and the Vietnam War, Pickett's Charge in History and Memory  perhaps the best known among them, particularly for its innovative approach to the battle at Gettysburg and its aftermath. She has also bridged the still considerable gap between academia and the public with appearances on C-Span and PBS and membership on the advisory boards of several museums and Civil War battlefield parks.

Last Paragraph of the Review: With a Sword in One Hand and Jomini in the Other is a fascinating and novel work. Some may quibble over its brevity and strict focus on the Union high command. But its concise and engaging style of presentation, cogent organization, and depth of research make it a very welcome contribution among the outpouring of publications marking the Civil War sesquicentennial. Well suited to undergraduate courses and graduate seminars, it will also provide much food for thought for anyone interested in the Union's strategic decisions and the formulation of military thought in democratic societies generally.

Read the entire review at   Michigan War Studies Review

Review---What Was Lincoln Thinking?: A Very Short Introduction

Lincoln: A Very Short Introduction, Allen C. Guelzo, Oxford University Press, 145 pp., 2 maps, ten photographs, index, bibliography, 2009, $11.95.

Abraham Lincoln is one of five Americans who are known on every continent of the planet earth. Allen Guelzo considers Lincoln's beliefs regarding seven essential issues being contested during the mid-19th century. The limits of  equality, the possibility of advancement, the nature of law, the hazards of liberty, the importance of debate in a democratic republic, the emancipation of slaves, and the terms of reunion in order to end of the war.

Experiments in establishing democratic republics during this era had failed with the exception of the United States of America.  During the 1850s it became apparent that this government was on the brink of collapse. The possibility of all men being equal was put at risk by the presence of slavery. The opportunity of all men to rise, economically and socially, was in conflict with the right to hold property in the form of slaves. Lincoln tailored and tempered his ambitions to rise in the frontier environment of a capitalistic, democratic republic. His advancement came though agriculture, transportation, retail work, military life, the practice of law and participation in local, state and national politics. Rejecting farm work, he embraced Mississippi River and Indiana commerce, militia leadership during the Black Hawk War, the bar and legislative election campaigns.

In his law practice he represented both masters and runaway slaves. The natural rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, among others, were for Lincoln in direct conflict and contradicted by slavery. Hammered out in political debate, Lincoln's understanding of these natural rights were honed by his service in the courtrooms, the federal House of Representatives and the Presidency. The necessity of emancipation and the possibility of reuniting the states perplexed Lincoln.

Guelzo, Gettysburg College professor and preeminent Lincoln scholar, carefully describes Lincoln's beliefs and their context within post-revolutionary America and Europe. In clear and concise language, the author clarifies what Lincoln believed, thought and practiced. The Old Testament declares that out of the heart flows the issues of life. Guelzo's very short introduction to Lincoln's beliefs and his struggle to conform his life's work to them is a thought provoking revelation for 21st century readers.

Lincoln: A Very Short Introduction, is one of over 200 Very Short Introductions offered by Oxford University Press. CWL recommends this series; it well rewards the brief amount of time it takes to read one of the series.  Curious about Freud, Jung, Islam, History, Dreaming, or the American Presidency?  There is a Very Short Introduction for you.

News: Louisiana Native Guards---Poet's Award Winning Topic

U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey will read selections from her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection "Native Guard," in commemoration of the sesquicentennial of the Civil War and in conjunction with the Library of Congress exhibition "The Civil War in America." The reading will be at noon on Wednesday, January 30 in Room 119 on the first floor of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E., Washington, D.C. A book-signing will follow.

Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey Will Read Civil War Poems, Library of Congress Today News, January 4, 2013.

Sponsored by the Library’s Poetry and Literature Center, the event is free and open to the public. Tickets are not needed. In Native Guard, Trethewey uses poetry to give voice to the Louisiana Native Guards, one of the first regiments of black soldiers recruited by the Union Army during the Civil War. Trethewey, in 2001, had researched "Native Guard" using primary-source documents from the Library’s Manuscript Division and later spent time writing the book in the Library’s Main Reading Room.

Trethewey, named Poet Laureate in June 2012 by Librarian of Congress James H. Billington, is the author of four poetry collections and a book of nonfiction. In January 2012, she was named Poet Laureate of Mississippi for a four-year term and will continue in the position during her tenure as U.S. Poet Laureate. The Civil War in America exhibition, which commemorates the sesquicentennial of the war, features more than 200 unique items that reveal the complexity of the Civil War through those who experienced it firsthand. Through diaries, letters, maps, song sheets, newspapers and broadsides, photographs, drawings and unusual artifacts, the exhibition chronicles the sacrifices and accomplishments of those—from both the North and South—whose lives were lost or affected by the events of 1861-1865.

The exhibition, which runs through June 1, 2013, will display for a limited time until February18 the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, handwritten by President Abraham Lincoln, who read the document to his cabinet on July 22, 1862.  The Civil War in America is free and open to the public, 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through Saturday, in the Southwest Exhibition Gallery in the Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E. in Washington, D.C., The Poetry and Literature Center at the Library of Congress fosters and enhances the public’s appreciation of literature. The center administers the endowed poetry chair (the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry), and coordinates an annual literary season of poetry, fiction and drama readings, performances, lectures and symposia, sponsored by the Library’s Gertrude Clarke Whittall Poetry and Literature Fund and the Huntington Fund. 

The Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world, holds more than 155 million items in various languages, disciplines and formats. The Library serves the U.S. Congress and the nation both on-site in its reading rooms on Capitol Hill and through its award-winning website. Library of Congress' website.

Text Source: Library of Congress, Today
Image Source: New Georgia Encyclopedia

News---Will Gettysburg's Old Cyclorama Building Be Demolished Before The 150th Anniversary?

Below is the contents of an email blast by the Gettysburg Foundation that arrived Januarary 11th.  It came as an email labeled Special Preservation Update, January 2012.

"The National Park Service has issued a decision regarding the future of the Cyclorama building at Gettysburg National Military Park and concluding the park's environmental assessment (EA) planning process.  The decision document, known as a Finding of No Significant Impact, or "FONSI," calls for demolition of the Cyclorama building in order to rehabilitate North Cemetery Ridge on the Gettysburg battlefield to its historic 1863 battle, and 1864 - 1938 commemorative-era appearance."

"In March 2010, the United States District Court directed the NPS to undertake a "site-specific environmental analysis on the demolition of the Cyclorama Center" and to consider "non-demolition alternatives" to its demolition before "any implementing action is taken on the Center."  Accordingly, the NPS initiated the EA.  In 1962 the Cyclorama was built on the center of the Union battle line on Cemetery Ridge near where Union forces repelled Pickett's Charge.  The building was designed by Richard Neutra and is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.  The park's nonprofit partner, the Gettysburg Foundation, has funds for the demolition of the building which would begin this winter."

"The FONSI for the environmental assessment for the Final Disposition of the Gettysburg Cyclorama Building will be available for public review at here.  A copy will also be available for review at the Adams County Public Library reference desk at 140 Baltimore Street in Gettysburg. Gettysburg National Military Park is a unit of the National Park Service that preserves and protects the resources associated with the Battle of Gettysburg and the Soldiers' National Cemetery, and provides an understanding of the events that occurred there within the context of American history."

The Gettysburg Foundation's website, the Gettysburg National Military Park's website, and the Gettysburg Rangers' From The Fields of Gettysburg weblog have no additional information. CWL will likely be in Gettysburg on the third weekend in January and will drop by the Adams County Library on Baltimore Street to locate the report.

The above image's source is from the Gettysburg Foundation email Speciaal Preservation Report, January 2012.  During the past two years the entire building has been obscured by vines, trees and foliage.

 

News---Gatehouse Press Offers Major Sale On Back Issues of Gettysburg Magazine

Gettysburg Magazine, the only magazine devoted to one battle is offering a significant temporary price reduction on its back issues and on it bound issues.  The publisher's notice states:

 

"As the 150th anniversary year of the Battle of Gettysburg begins, we are starting it off with a sale on The Gettysburg Magazine. Each issue is 128 pages with no advertising, so each issue is like a book on America's most famous battle. If you want to get some of the best material being published on the battle, now is a great time to do it.  Through the end of January, individual issues are just $4.00 each."

 

"We also have bound volumes. Each are newly printed books that contain eight issues of the magazine (1,024 pages). We have three bound volumes. Bound Volume 1 contains issues 1-8, Vol. 2 issues 9-16, and Vol. 3 issues 17-24. Regularly $80.00 each, the bound volumes are now on sale for just $50.00. That's a tremendous amount of great material on the battle, all for a great price."

 

Gettysburg Magazine is essential for all students of the battle. It covers major and small actions of the battle and campaign, significant artifacts and personalities, and major topics usually found few other places.  Many of the articles focus upon on brigades activities on the battlefield or campaign. Topics have included the Federal Signal Corps, prisoners of war,  Federal and Confederate field hospitals furing the battle, civilian farms and civilians during campaign and the Army of the Potomac's military intelligence staff.  Since its inception, Gettysburg Magazine has offered detailed maps on all segments of the campaign.

 

CWL has taken the magazine to the battlefield and has walked the routes of the soldiers as described in the articles.  These walks are very helpful and are similar to the walks presented by the park's rangers during the battle's anniversary. The magazine is essential for those preparing for the Gettysburg Licensed Battlefield Guide examination.

 

Here is the link to Gettysburg Magazine's internet home page and here is the internet link to the magazine's publisher, Gatehouse Press.  Above image is the cover of the January 2013 issue; here is the table of contents for the issue.

 

Issue 46, January 2011

Introduction: "Gettysburg Revisited"
by Edwin C. Bearss

A Matter of Time: The Issuance of the Pipe Creek Circular
by Robert Himmer

Harry Heth and the First Morning at Gettysburg
by Mark Acres

"The Bravest of the Brave": Maj. Thomas Chamberlin, 150th Pennsylvania Volunteers
by John F. Krumweide

As Fate Would Have It: The Bible That Brought North and South Together
by Steven LaBarre

James A. Gardner and the Positions of Cooper's Battery at Gettysburg: A Quest for Truth
by Frank J. Piatek

If You Want To Go
by Sonny Fulks

"Don't Bury Me Among the ---- Yankees": Gettysburg's Confederate Soldier
by Chris J. Hartley

Lee's Illness Lost Gettysburg
by Carl Coppolino

The Last Action of Gettysburg
by David R. Wiltse

In Their Words: Recollections of Visitations at Gettysburg After the Great Battle in July, 1863
by Silas Felton

The Gettysburg Magazine Interview: Joanne M. Hanley, Gettysburg Foundation President

News: Gettysburg's Daniel Lady Farm Becomes Confederate Field Hospital, June 30 Through July 7

GBPA Announces Major Gettysburg 150th Event At Daniel Lady Farm, The Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association, Press Release, December 31, 2012.

The Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association today announced that a reenactment of the struggle of Southern surgeons, stewards and nurses to treat the scores of wounded soldiers of the Army of Northern Virginia brought to the Lady Farm will run from June 30 to July 7 at the farm.  The Florida Regimental Medical Department (FRMD) is organizing the field hospital living history week War Meets Compassion: The Confederate Field Hospital during the Battle of Gettysburg sesquicentennial observance. There will be no admission charge to the event.

The restored barn on the Lady farm was used for treating enlisted personnel, while wounded officers were administered to in the nearby house. Forensically-verified bloodstains on the floor of the house show where wounded officers propped themselves against the wall as a surgeon worked nearby, blood-soaked clothing and rags accumulating in a corner of the room. The FRMD will be joined in the living history by three other active Confederate field hospital corps organizations and the local Pvt. John Wesley Culp Camp #1961 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans.

The 2nd Florida Volunteer Infantry will portray the march of the troops of generals Richard Ewell and Jubal Early to the site, bringing ambulatory wounded soldiers for treatment by surgeons and inhabiting the grounds where Confederate troops encamped in preparation for their assault on Culp's Hill.

The living history will be tailored to the convenience of visitors. Scheduled demonstrations will include triage of the wounded, amputations, brain surgery and treatment of diseases.  Additional programs will focus on Civil War-era medicines, sanitary conditions, medical instrument identification, roles of purveyors and stewards, battlefield chaplains, embalming and the role of women in aiding the sick and wounded.

The overall commander for the event will be Major Robert Sonntag, Department of the Gulf. Sonntag, who actually worked in surgery, as a hospital administrator and now a medical consultant, will demonstrate on wounded soldiers how a good Civil War surgeon could perform a leg or arm amputation in 11 minutes. Other unit commanders will be Major Trevor T. Steinbach, Department of Tennessee; Major Harry Sonntag, Army of Northern Virginia; the 1 st Virginia Medical Unit; and Commander Gary Casteel of the Private John Wesley Culp Camp #1961, Sons of Confederate veterans.

The Lady Farm event is being coordinated with the official 150th anniversary activities of the Gettysburg Convention & Visitors Bureau and the Gettysburg National Military Park. "We are honored to be able to hold the largest ever Civil War medical re-enactment to the Daniel Lady Farm," said Robert  Sonntag. "What could be better than staging our living history on an actual Confederate field hospital site as part of the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg?"

"This is the blossoming of the Daniel Lady Farm into what the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association envisioned for the property when it was acquired 14 years ago," said GBPA Vice-President Jay Purdy. "With this presentation it will evolve from a restored static site where one must try to imagine what happened there in 1863. War Meets Compassion: The Confederate Field Hospital will transport visitors to the closest thing to having been there 150 years ago."

We also cannot over-emphasize how pleased the GBPA is with the cooperative relationship that has developed with the Military Park and the Convention and Visitors Bureau and we look forward to this relationship growing in the future.

Text Source: The Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association
Image Source: panoramio.com

News: Pennsylvania Reserve Divisions' Grand Army of the Republic Medal

Pennsylvania Reserve Corps Medal

When the commonwealth of Pennsylvania found itself with more volunteers than needed to meet its Federal quota, Governor Curtin decided to retain the extra men and organized, trained, and equipped them at state expense. The creation of the special division was approved by the Pennsylvania legislature on May 15, 1861. Fifteen regiments were formed, known as the 1st through 15th Pennsylvania Reserves (they were later designated the 30th through 44th Pennsylvania Volunteers, but generally retained the label of the Pennsylvania Reserves). 

At the time of the re-designation, many of these units used their designations into middle and late 1862, much confusion arose over the naming convention. Additional naming confusion occurred within the ranks of the reserves. The 13th Pennsylvania Reserves (42nd Pennsylvania Volunteers) was additionally named the 1st Pennsylvania Rifles. Although better known as the "Bucktails," this regiment became officially known as the First Rifles. T he same can be said regarding the 14th and 15th Pennsylvania Reserves (43rd and 44th Pennsylvania Volunteers), which officially were designated as the 1st Pennsylvania Light Artillery and the 1st Pennsylvania Cavalry, respectively.

The regiments were grouped into a division of three brigades, and the entire unit normally fought together until the initial enlistments expired in 1864. The exceptions to this include the 2nd Brigade, most of which did not take part at Gettysburg, as it was assigned to the Washington, D.C., defenses, and the detachment of several artillery batteries and cavalry troops to other divisions.

Additionally, upon the muster out of service of the regiments composing the Reserve Corps, a large number of veterans and recruits, whose term had not expired, still remained. These were collected and organized into two new regiments, designated as the 190th and 191st Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers.

A number of the surviving members met in Philadelphia on July 3, 1866, and resolved to form a permanent organization, calling a meeting for that purpose at Lancaster, Pa,. September 11, 1866, when they formally organized and elected Governor Andrew G. Curtin, President. The object of the Society is: "To cherish the memories, perpetuate the friendships, and continue the associations formed in the field."  This medal was created after the war by the veterans of this organization.

Only two original Pennsylvania Reserve Corps medals are know to exist. One is on display at the US ARMY Heritage Center in Carlisle, PA and the other is in the possession of a Past National Commander-in-Chief, Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War. This medal belonged to his great-grandfather, Corporal William Henry Harrison Ogden, Sr., Company B, 4^th PA Reserve, and this recreation is inscribed on the back in memory of Corporal Ogden.

This recreation of an authentic period piece was done by Civil War Recreations.

Text and image is provided by Marty Neaman, a member of the Ninth Pennsylvania Reservers reenactment unit.  Neaman received the reproduction medal for supervising the raising of $16,000 in 2012 for the replacement of ACW veterans' gravestones in the Chartiers Cemetery, Carnegie, Pennsylvania.
 

New and Noteworthy: The Lincoln Haters' Club, 1861-1865

The Battles That Made Abraham Lincoln: How Lincoln Mastered His Enemies To Win The Civil War, Free The Slaves, and Preserve The Union, Larry Tagg, Savas Beatie Publishing, 576 pp, paperback, $19.95.

From the Publisher:  Today, Abraham Lincoln is a beloved American icon, widely considered to be our best president. It was not always so. Larry Tagg's The Battles that Made Abraham Lincoln is the first study of its kind to concentrate on what Lincoln's contemporaries thought of him during his lifetime, and the obstacles they set before him. Be forewarned: your preconceived notions are about to be shattered.Torn by civil war, the era in which our sixteenth president lived and governed was the most rough-and-tumble in the history of American politics. The violence of the criticism with which Lincoln had to deal came from both sides of the Mason-Dixon line and was overwhelming. Indeed, the breadth and depth of the spectacular prejudice against him is often shocking for its cruelty, intensity, and unrelenting vigor. The plain truth is that Mr. Lincoln was deeply reviled by many who knew him personally, and by hundreds of thousands who only knew of him. His rise to greatness was in spite of their vitriol.Boisterous and venomous enough to be good entertainment, The Battles that Made Abraham Lincoln rests upon a wide foundation of research. Tagg includes extensive treatment of the political context that begat Lincoln's predicament, riding with the president-elect to Washington and walking with him through the bleak years of war up to and beyond assassination. Throughout, Tagg entertains with a lively writing style, outstanding storytelling verve, and an unconventional, wholly against-the-grain perspective that is sure to delight readers of all stripes.Lincoln's humanity has been unintentionally trivialized by some historians and writers who have obscured the real man behind a patina of bronze. Tagg's groundbreaking book helps all of us better understand the great man Lincoln was, and how history is better viewed through a long-distance lens than contemporaneously. The Battles that Made Abraham Lincoln will be the "must-read" title for general readers and scholars alike.

Early Reviews:  "This is a well-written and edited book. Much to its credit, it is devoid of an author's opinion and presents the information in a straightforward manner and is a valuable addition to the Lincoln library, and a must for serious students." Civil War News.

"The author has done an impressive amount of research. . . . an impressive work." Sacramento Book Review

"This is a tour de force demonstration of writing, reading, and thinking that never lets the reader down. Easily the Lincoln book of the Bicentennial of his birth and the best Lincoln tome I have seen in 15 years of compiling and reviewing Civil War book releases." - Dimitri Rotov, Civil War Bookshelf

New and Noteworthy---The Civil War In Pennsylvania, An Amazing and Astounding Photographic History

The Civil War In Pennsylvania, A Photographic History, Michael G. Kraus, David M. Neville, and Kenneth C. Turner, Pennsylvania Heritage Foundation, 2012, 312 pp., profusely illustrated, bibliography, index, $35.00.

From the June 17, 1843 photograph of the shops at Numbers 46-52 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia to the July 1935 photograph of a veteran waving good-bye through a train window,  The Civil War In Pennsylvania, A Photographic History is an amazing and remarkable book. The breadth of the images' subjects presented and the details offered within each image is astounding.  The images are rare and their captions are informative. There is a wealth of material culture in this collection:  Civilians and soldiers, architecture and armaments, broadsheets and books, coins, currency and camp life, industry and insignia, and a depth of information that is often rare among sesquicentennial offerings.

In five chapters with 44 sections, the authors have left very few history stones unturned. Preceding from colonial Pennsylvania confronting slavery and concluding with the Keystone State commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg, the authors provide a very detailed and very humane story of the the commonwealth and its people.

Every reader will have a list of their favorite and probably previous unseen images. From the antebellum period: the home of William Parker in Christiana, Lancaster County at which a slaveholder was killed and his son was wounded when they were attempting to capture their runaway slaves, and barefoot children at rest from working while skimming petroleum along the bank of Oil Creek .  From the Gettsyburg Campaign:  a very rare image of the Wrightsville bridge over the Susquehanna River before it was burned; the rebuilt Hanover Railroad Bridge that was destroyed by Confederate cavalry, and  an untrimmed printed of the very famous three Confederate prisoners of war at Gettysburg.  From 1863: John Hunt Morgan's raiders posing in a Western Penitentiary cell.

There is no page that readers will not linger over, reading every caption. The Ken Turner Collection, the Library of Philadelphia. the Library of Congress, the Historical Collections of the State of Pennsylvania, the Krause-Messick Collection, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania collections, the Westmoreland Museum of Art, the Pennsylvania State Archives, Pennsylvania county historical collections and many other corporate and private collections are represented in The Civil War In Pennsylvania, A Photographic History.  Thia immensity of images and the quality of the reproductions in other books would have a prohibitive retail price. Yet The Senator John Heinz History Center and the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission have offered this astounding collection at a reasonable price.

News---Smithsonian Posts Civil War Diary Of Newspaper Correspondent and Artist on the Web

The Smithsonian's Archives of American Art has launched "Henry Mosler's Civil War Diary," a digital exhibition commemorating the sesquicentennial of Mosler's diary. Mosler (1841-1920) was a painter and illustrator who began his career during the Civil War when he served as an artist correspondent for *Harper's Weekly. *The website includes a digital reproduction and transcript of the diary as well as an interactive map that allows visitors to follow Mosler's activities as a war correspondent and artist.

Henry Mosler (1841 -1920) kept a diary in October 1862. In it, he recorded observations about his service as an illustrator for Harper’s Weekly and an aide-de-camp to General R. W. Johnson of the Ninth Indiana Volunteer Regiment. This was Mosler’s first professional position as an artist. During this period, he wrote about his time with the troops: their movements, encampments, and encounters.

This digital exhibition presents and interprets his Civil War diary. Visitors can read his writin, examine his illustration, follow the diary on a historic map of Kentucky, mark events of his life on the timeline, and explore selected diary entries in greater depth on the website.  Here is the link to the Henry Mosler diary. Beelow is an image created from a sketch made by Henry Moseler.  It is of "the departure of the First Zouave Regiment from Cincinnati for Western Virginia. "  It was published in the October 5, 1861 Harper's Weekly.

New Fiction---The Lincoln Letter: Two Plots and Four Characters Chase A National Treasure in Two Centuries

The Lincoln Letter, William Martin, Tom Doherty Associates Publishing, 450 pages, one map, $25.99.

In a novel that is both clever and precariously balanced, William Martin offers two plots which are separated by 150 years.  Archivist Peter Fallon and media consultant Evangeline Carrrington are modern treasure hunters who are on the trail of a pocket diary kept by Abraham Lincoln which he lost in the military telegraph office during 1862. Does it contain Lincoln's private thoughts as he contemplates the emancipation of those slaves held by Southerners in rebellion?

Fallon has found a letter written by Lincoln that hints that the diary existed.  Is waiting to be found?  Scholars from different academic camps and multi-millionaires with political agendas are on the diary's trail.  Some want the journal for political prestige, symbolic value, or in order to denigrate Lincoln and take him off his pedestal.  Some hope that the diary reveals  the dark truth about Lincoln's emancipation proclamation that may enhance or destroy certain scholars' and politicans' reputations.

In 1862 Lieutenant Halsey Hutchison, wounded veteran of an 1861 battle is a telegrapher and courier in the military telegraph office that Lincoln frequently visits. Upon finding Lincoln's pocket diary, he gaines new adversaries: Pinkerton detectives who may be involved in a coup d'etate with McClellan at its center, a brothel owner who has a lot of politicans in his pocket, and an abolitionist who seeks to keep the diary out of the hands of proslavery Democratic politicians.

The 1862 setting allows for a certain frequency in the use of guns and knives that the 2012 does not allow. Both the 1862 and the modern Washington D.C. are well described and the characters manners and behaviors reflect the eras.  African Americans are key characters in both eras. Civil War reenactors inhabit the modern era.   Martin handles the two plots well; neither gets too far behind or too far ahead of the other. Characters are unique to their era.  Overall, The Lincoln Letter page turner in which readers are offered fine descriptions of Washington D.C. in 1862 and 2012.

News--How Much History Is In The Film Lincoln? Four Questions and Four Suprising Answers

How True Is Lincoln?, David O. Stewart, History New Network, November 21, 2012.

"With history-minded Americans flocking to see Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln movie, many are beset with questions about the accuracy of some of the neglected facts and episodes featured in the film."

"Lincoln focuses closely on about five weeks in early 1865, when the House of Representatives was debating the 13th Amendment and Confederate peace commissioners explored a way to end the Civil War. Weaving the two stories together with an intimate view of President Lincoln, his official family and his real family, the movie presents a compelling portrait of a leader in a time of extraordinary strain and challenge. Daniel Day-Lewis’s portrayal of Lincoln distills the man’s humor, intelligence, sadness, and power. At least four fundamental questions will arise for any viewer who is not a Civil War junkie.", states David O. Stewart who is the  author of  Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln’s Legacy. His novel about the John Wilkes Booth conspiracy, The Lincoln Deception, will issue in September 2013.

Here are the questions that Stewart addresses.

Were the House vote on the 13th Amendment and the Peace Conference with the Confederates really so closely intertwined?

Did Secretary of State Seward field a group of backstairs lobbyists to recruit Democratic votes for the 13th Amendment, even offering patronage jobs as inducements?

Did Pennsylvania Representative  Thaddeus Stevens really have a romantic liaison with his black housekeeper?

The movie attributes its story to Doris Kearns Goodwin's Team of Rivals but how much of the book is in the film? 

Full Text Available  History News Network, November 21, 2012.

















































































History News Network, November 21, 2012

New and Noteworthy---NPS Rangers Offer Illustrated Walking Tour of Battle of Fredericksburg, 1862

Simply Murder: The Battle of Fredericksburg, December 13, 2012, Chris Mackowski and Kristopher White, 171 illustrations, 168 pp., $12.95.

 

"They melted like snow on the ground, one officer said—wave after wave of Federal soldiers charging uphill across an open muddy plain. Confederates, fortified behind a stone wall along a sunken road, poured a hail of lead into them as they charged . . . and faltered . . . and died. “I had never before seen fighting like that, nothing approaching it in terrible uproar and destruction,” said one eyewitness to the slaughter. “It is only murder now.”

The battle of Fredericksburg is usually remembered as the most lopsided Union defeat of the Civil War. It is sometimes called “Burnside’s folly,” after Union commander Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside who led the Army of the Potomac to ruin along the banks of the Rappahannock River. But the battle remains one of the most misunderstood and misremembered engagements of the war. Burnside started with a well-conceived plan and had every reason to expect victory. How did it go so terribly wrong?  Authors Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White have worked for years along Fredericksburg’s Sunken Road and Stone Wall, and they’ve escorted thousands of visitors across the battlefield.

Simply Murder not only recounts Fredericksburg’s tragic story of slaughter, but includes invaluable information about the battlefield itself and the insights they’ve learned from years of walking the ground. Simply Murder can be enjoyed in the comfort of one’s living room or as a guide on the battlefield itself. It is also the first release in the new “Emerging Civil War Series,” which offers compelling and easy-to-read overviews of some of the Civil War’s mostimportant battles and issues.

Release date is December 3, 2012.

 

About the Authors:

Chris Mackowski is a professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at St. Bonaventure University in Allegany, New York, and also works with the National Park Service at Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park, which includes

the Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania battlefields.

 

Kristopher D. White is a historian for the Penn-Trafford Recreation Board and a continuing

education instructor for the Community College of Allegheny County near Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania. He served for five years as a staff military historian at Fredericksburg &

Spotsylvania National Military Park, and is a former Licensed Battlefield Guide at Gettysburg. Longtime friends, Mackowski and White have co-authored several books and numerous articles for various Civil War magazines. They also co-founded the blog Emerging Civil War, which can be read at: www.emergingcivilwar.com.

 

Text Source:  Savas-Beatie Publishing

News---Lincoln's Voice In Spielberg's Lincoln

Daniel Day-Lewis Listened To His Inner Ear To Find Abe Lincoln’s Voice, Associated Press, Washington Post, November 13, 2012.

Excerpts:

“There are numerous accounts, contemporary accounts, of his speaking voice. They tend to imply that it was fairly high, in a high register, which I believe allowed him to reach greater numbers of people when he was speaking publicly,” Day-Lewis said in an interview. “Because the higher registers tend to reach farther than the lower tones, so that would have been useful to him.”

“I don’t separate vocal work, and I don’t dismember a character into its component parts and then kind of bolt it all together, and off you go,” Day-Lewis said. “I tend to try and allow things to happen slowly, over a long period of time. As I feel I’m growing into a sense of that life, if I’m lucky, I begin to hear a voice.

“And I don’t mean in a supernatural sense. I begin to hear the sound of a voice, and if I like the sound of that, I live with that for a while in my mind’s ear, whatever one might call it, my inner ear, and then I set about trying to reproduce that.”

“And I feel that he probably learned how to play with his voice in public and use it in certain ways in certain places and in certain other ways in other places. Especially in the manner in which he expressed himself. I think, I’ve no doubt that he was conscious enough of his image.”

Full Text Source Available: Washington Post, November 13, 2012.
Image Source:  Hollywood Reporter