Ambrose Bierce on Cheat Mountain

Trail at the site of the Cheat Summit Fort, atop Cheat Mountain in the Monongahela National
Forest of Randolph County, West Virginia. Photo by Carol Highsmith. Library of Congress.

It was in the autumn of that "most immemorial year," the 1861st of our Lord, and of our Heroic Age the first, that a small brigade of raw troops—troops were all raw in those days—had been pushed in across the Ohio border and after various vicissitudes of fortune and mismanagement found itself, greatly to its own surprise, at Cheat Mountain Pass, holding a road that ran from Nowhere to the southeast. Some of us had served through the summer in the "three-months' regiments," which responded to the President's first call for troops. We were regarded by the others with profound respect as "old soldiers." (Our ages, if equalized, would, I fancy, have given about twenty years to each man.) We gave ourselves, this aristocracy of service, no end of military airs; some of us even going to the extreme of keeping our jackets buttoned and our hair combed. We had been in action, too; had shot off a Confederate leg at Philippi, "the first battle of the war," and had lost as many as a dozen men at Laurel Hill and Carrick's Ford, whither the enemy had fled in trying, Heaven knows why, to get away from us. We now "brought to the task" of subduing the Rebellion a patriotism which never for a moment doubted that a rebel was a fiend accursed of God and the angels—one for whose extirpation by force and arms each youth of us considered himself specially "raised up."

from "On a Mountain," by Ambrose Bierce. Read Bierce's Cheat Mountain story in its entirety at the Civil War Trust site. Photo by Carol Highsmith, Library of Congress.

antidote to idiocy . . . Brooks Simpson and the neo-Confederates

A handy go-to link to send to your friends and associates who are confused by the weed-like tenacity of neo-Confederate propaganda, which has found new life in the internet age.

[September, 2000]

Two recent Civil War discoveries at the National Archives

The National Archives in Washington holds unknown and uncountable little treasures, and it's always a thrill to hear of some new tidbit coming to light. Archivists and researchers spend long hours, weeks and years, combing through, organizing, and cataloging items in the nation's miscellanea without catching a glint of a shiny nugget in the pan, or without understanding the significance of particular documents. But sometimes they hit paydirt, and know it at a glance. Interesting discoveries are regularly reported, and two Civil War-related items caught my attention this week. 

A true golden nugget surfaced recently in the form of a letter written by Walt Whitman on behalf of a dying soldier. According to Smithsonian.com (quoting The Washington Post), "Catherine Cusack Wilson was doing volunteer work for a digitization project on Civil War widows’ pension files when she ran across the letter. Ruane writes that she saw the postscript 'Written by Walt Whitman, a friend' on the correspondence, and realized that the letter, dictated by an illiterate soldier at Washington’s Harewood Hospital, was penned by the poet."

Eureka! 

Another neat find was an 1864 letter that makes passing reference to the Free State of Jones, uncovered by historian Adam Domby. That's a particularly timely item given the upcoming May release of a movie on that subject, based on Victoria Bynum's book. Victoria discusses Domby's find on her blog, Renegade South. I conducted an online interview with Victoria about her book way back in 2001, when Matthew McConaughey was still a harmless Wedding Planner. I'm looking forward to the release of the new film. 

Election Results from California

The Abraham Lincoln Papers at the Library of Congress

Series 1. General Correspondence. 1833-1916. Leland Stanford to Abraham Lincoln, Sunday, September 07, 1862 (Telegram reporting results of California elections)

"Civil War 360" -- now available on Netflix

I missed this when it aired on the Smithsonian Channel back in 2013, but am happy to have a look now at my leisure, thanks to Netflix. 

According to the New York Times: 

 The program enlivens a routine narrative of the Civil War by stopping now and then to examine objects that played small but telling roles. A slave’s diary. A photograph of a woman and child found on a dead Union soldier at Gettysburg. The top hat Abraham Lincoln wore to Ford’s Theater. The flag of truce — actually an ordinary dish towel a Confederate captain had recently bought in Richmond — used at Appomattox.

 

Each episode relates a particular perspective on the war, and each has its own celebrity guide. The actress Ashley Judd opens with the Union view, the country singer Trace Adkins brings his impossibly deep voice to the Confederate angle, and the actor Dennis Haysbert is most compelling of all as he explores what the war meant to enslaved people. Each has a connection to the conflict: relatives of Ms. Judd and Mr. Adkins fought for one side or the other, and Mr. Haysbert has slaves among his ancestors.

Boy holding Union and Confederate bullets, Perryville Battlefield

from the Library of Congress

• Title: [Boy holding Union and Confederate bullets, Perryville Battlefield, Perryville, Boyle County, Kentucky]
• Date Created/Published: c1927.

• 
  

Ike, Monty, Sack Gen. Lee

Enhancing Your Family Tree with Civil War Maps

excerpted from Prologue:
Summer 2003, Vol. 35, No. 2

Enhancing Your Family Tree with Civil War Maps
By Trevor K. Plante

In the foreword to Mapping the Civil War: Featuring Rare Maps From the Library of Congress, Richard W. Stephenson aptly notes that "although a great wealth of contemporary manuscript and printed maps is extant in archives and libraries throughout the United States, especially at the National Archives and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., few authors, editors, or publishers of today's books and articles on the war avail themselves of this valuable resource." Stevenson's observation can easily be applied to genealogists as well.

In most cases, genealogists conducting research at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) tend to concentrate on textual records relating to their Civil War ancestors. Typically, their main focus is on compiled military service records, pension files, and unit records. Often overlooked, cartographic records can be a boon to researchers delving into family history. From plans of a Civil War army post or little-known navy gunboat to maps of famous battles, the maps, plans, and charts found in the Cartographic section of the National Archives in College Park, Maryland, can provide a unique, and oftentimes rewarding, perspective for genealogists.

Maps and plans, while not the starting point for your Civil War genealogy, can enhance previous research. For this reason, it is wise to master textual records relating to your Civil War ancestor prior to conducting research in cartographic records.

The Cartographic section contains approximately eight thousand Civil War maps. While this set of records is impressive, it is just a small fraction of the approximately five million maps, plans, and charts and sixteen million aerial and satellite images maintained in the unit. The Civil War maps collection contains both manuscript and printed maps and plans. The manuscript maps include pencil sketches and original pen-and-ink drawings as well as processed maps that contain annotations in ink or pencil. Many of the Civil War manuscript maps and drawings are unique to the National Archives, while a variety of the printed maps are more common and can be found in other large repositories such as the Library of Congress.

The place to begin is with A Guide to Civil War Maps in the National Archives (1986). This book provides a general description of NARA's Civil War maps and is separated into two parts. Part one is a general guide that describes the maps by record group under these headings: Congress, Department of the Treasury, Department of War, Department of the Navy, Department of the Interior, Department of Commerce, and Other. Confederate Records (RG 109, War Department Collection of Confederate Records) are found under "Other." 

Part two of the guide describes select maps and map series and is arranged by state. Entries in this section usually contain information such as title, author, size, and a detailed description of the map or maps. According to the guide, the maps described in part two "were selected for several reasons: they represent the major geographical areas in the Civil War; they possess intrinsic historic value; they contain the highest concentration of information; they are easier to read than other maps covering the same area; and they are of artistic value" (p. 73). The Cartographic Research Room maintains binders that contain color photographic reproductions of each of the select maps and plans described in part two of the guide.

Read the full article here.

While you're at it, check out this Library of Congress site, which "brings together materials from three premier collections: the Library of Congress Geography and Map Division, the Virginia Historical Society, and the Library of Virginia. Among the reconnaissance, sketch, and theater-of-war maps are the detailed battle maps made by Major Jedediah Hotchkiss for Generals Lee and Jackson, General Sherman's Southern military campaigns, and maps taken from diaries, scrapbooks, and manuscripts all available for the first time in one place. Most of the items presented here are documented in Civil War Maps: An Annotated List of Maps and Atlases in the Library of Congress, compiled by Richard W. Stephenson in 1989. New selections from 2,240 maps and 76 atlases held by the Library will be added monthly." 

The knoll where Custer fell

• Creator: Gedney, C. D., artist; Date Created/Published: [between 1881 and 1887
• Medium: 1 drawing : pencil, ink wash and opaque white. Library of Congress

Valley of the Little Big Horn; Creator(s): Gedney, C. D., artist; Date Created/Published: [between 1880 and 1887]; Medium: 1 drawing on paper with lithotint : pencil and ink.

• Maj Cutter's ranch at the Custer battlefield; Creator(s): Gedney, C. D., artist; Date Created/Published: [between 1880 and 1887]; Medium: 1 drawing : pencil, charcoal, ink wash and opaque white.

from the Civil War to Silicon Valley -- Neil DeGrasse Tyson on Abraham Lincoln

Red Horse: Drawings of the Battle of the Little Bighorn (Stanford's Cantor Arts Center, January 16 to May 9, 2016)

Exhibition Presents Rarely Seen Warrior’s Visual Account of Famous Battle and Cross-Disciplinary Inquiry

Stanford, Calif.—The Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University announces a rare exhibition of 12 drawings by acclaimed ledger artist Red Horse, a Minneconjou Lakota Sioux warrior who fought against George Armstrong Custer and the 7th Cavalry at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in June 1876. Red Horse: Drawings of the Battle of the Little Bighorn brings together key collaborators from Stanford and its communities to explore these indigenous-centered illustrations from diverse perspectives. The Cantor’s exhibition marks the first time that a representative selection of these remarkable works has been displayed together since the 100th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1976. The drawings are on loan from the National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution.

“This exhibition, with singular works from the Smithsonian Institution’s acclaimed archives combined with the expertise of Stanford-affiliated scholars, supports new interdisciplinary approaches to art and culture here at Stanford,” said Connie Wolf, the John and Jill Freidenrich Director of the Cantor Arts Center. “This collaborative project illuminates unique and essential new understandings of this critical moment in history.”

For Visitor Information and full press release, click HERE.

Ken Burns: The Civil War was about 'slavery, slavery, slavery'

General, you go down there. . .

When Douglas Scott, and others, conducted excavations at the Little Bighorn battlefield, strangely, they collected artifacts left behind by Hollywood, including cartridge cases and hairpins dating to scenes from the movie Little Big Man, from 1970. 

    (excerpt from on online version of Uncovering History, by Douglas D. Scott)      

Viewers of Little Big Man will recognize some of the unmistakable geography around Weir Point, and Medicine Tail Coulee.



I wrote about my pilgrimage to the Greasy Grass in this 2013 blog post, when I had the pleasure of following Dr. Scott cross country on the battlefield to talk about his work there. 

CUSTER'S TRIALS, A Life on the Frontier of a New America

Biographer T.J. Stiles Takes on the Mythology of General Custer
Forum, with Michael Krasny (KQED, San Francisco)

Separated at birth?

Publishing titan Ted Savas commented that Captain William Duley, the Mankato executioner, bore a resemblance to Confederate General Nathan "Shanks" Evans. I think he might be on to something.

"Horse thief statue" for sale, best offer

From the Lebanon Enterprise
Lebanon, Kentucky

City puts Morgan statue up for bid
Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan statue has been collecting dust in storage since it was created

By Stevie Lowery
Wednesday, November 18, 2015 at 6:00 am (Updated: November 18, 6:01 am)

A piece of artwork that’s never been displayed and has been the center of controversy since it was created in 1999 is for sale.

The City of Lebanon is accepting sealed bids for the Confederate Gen. John Hunt Morgan statue. During the Lebanon City Council meeting Monday, Nov. 9, Public Works Director Terry Bland asked the council to consider doing something with the statue, which is being stored and taking up space at the city service center.

The council approved taking sealed bid for the sale of the statue. “The council decided to sell the horse statue since they felt we were not going to put it up because everyone will call it the Morgan statue regardless if we rename it,” Lebanon City Administrator John Thomas wrote in an email to the Enterprise. “It is also in need of some repairs due to its riding around on the small trailer, several cracks have developed. So we’re seeking bids.”

read the full article (and for info on placing your sealed bid) here

Image found of man who hanged 38 Dakota men 153 years ago

A formal glass-plate portrait of William Duley in his military jacket,
probably taken between September 1862 and February 1865.

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune
by Curt Brown

Until now, historians had never seen an image of Capt. William J. Duley—the executioner on the day 38 Dakota men were hanged in Mankato after the 1862 U.S.-Dakota War. New Ulm researcher and author Elroy Ubl tracked down a descendant in Seattle who had inherited a family album of the glass-plate portraits, including her great-great grandfather’s.

Now we know what the hangman looked like at the largest mass execution in U.S. history. Just how history remembers Duley — as traumatized father, notorious executioner or out-for-himself promoter — remains a thornier question.

Three of Duley’s children—Willie (10), Belle (4) and Francis (6 months)—were killed in the conflict. His wife, Laura, was shot in the heel, witnessed at least one child’s slaying and was taken captive along with their son, Jefferson, and daughter. Emma. Some accounts said Laura was pregnant at the time and miscarried during her four months on the Dakota plains. She might have been raped.

Read the full article here.

The Counterfeiter Who Sank the Confederacy

IMAGE: 

WORTHPOINT / CHLOE EFFRON

"Upham had an idea. If it worked, he would not only undermine and upend the Confederate economy but make himself a good bit of money in the process. He offered to buy the plate from the reporter, then used it to run off 3000 copies of the bank note, printed on premium French paper." 
Read the full story here at Mentalfloss.com. 

The Appeasement of 1850 -- rephrasing American history

Food for thought from Smithsonian. . .

Steve Earle -- "Mississippi, It's Time"

[first spotted at Civil War Memory]

Restoring THE CIVIL WAR

An interesting short film on the restoration of the Ken Burns classic. . .

Aired: 09/06/201513:57 Rating: NR

To reach a whole new audience with the story of America's greatest crisis, and to offer those who have already seen the series a far more compelling experience, THE CIVIL WAR series has been completely restored to Ultra High Definition – 4K resolution – to bring it up to the standards current audiences demand.

a shot of Shiloh, to steel the nerves

"The source from the water used in making this batch of Battlefield Bourbon is taken from water sources on privately owned property on the Shiloh battlefield, about 125 miles southwest from Franklin, between Savannah, Tenn., and Corinth, Miss. By using water from the battlefield, Hicks is providing an opportunity to actually taste part of this hallowed ground. Each bottle is signed and numbered by Hicks."

[from Brentwood Home Page, "Hicks' second 'Battlefield Bourbon' made with Shiloh water"]

700 University of California Press eBooks, and a lot more

The University of California Press e-books collection holds books published by UCP (and a select few printed by other academic presses) between 1982-2004. The general public currently has access to 770 books through this initiative. The collection is dynamic, with new titles being added over time.

Readers looking to see what the collection holds can browse by subject. The curators of the site have kindly provided a second browsing page that shows only the publicly accessible books, omitting any frustrating off-limits titles.

The collection’s strengths are in history (particularly American history and the history of California and the West); religion; literary studies; and international studies (with strong selections of Middle Eastern Studies, Asian Studies, andFrench Studies titles).

A quick browse yields a multitude of interesting possibilities for future reading: Shelley Streeby’s 2002 book about sensational literature and dime novels in the nineteenth-century United States; Luise White’s intriguing-looking Speaking with Vampires: Rumor and History in Colonial Africa (2000); and Karen Lystra’s 2004re-examination of Mark Twain’s final years. (The image above comes from another Twain text by Randall Knoper.) Two other noteworthy texts include Roland Barthes’ Incidents and Hugh Kenner’s Chuck Jones: A Flurry of Drawings.

Sadly, you can’t download the books to an e-reader or tablet. Happily, there is a “bookbag” function that you can use to store your titles, if you need to leave the site and come back. [About Open Culture: http://www.openculture.com/faq]

Causes of the Civil War (James Epperson)

An internet classic. For nearly 20 years, Jim Epperson's Causes of the Civil War site has been a go-to resource for interested students, and anyone evaluating the still-pervasive influence of the Lost Cause narrative. For those fighting the good fight against the forces of neo-Confederate nonsense, this assemblage of essential primary source material has been indispensable. I've visited this page hundreds, if not thousands of times, and am glad to see it's still being maintained. Thanks Jim.

James Loewen: "Why do people believe myths about the Confederacy? Because our textbooks and monuments are wrong."

From today's Washington Post.

Gordon Rhea on the Confederacy's legacy. . .

Gordon Rhea is an attorney based in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, and an author of books on the history of the Civil War. He has lectured on military history at the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, at several National Military Parks and at historical societies and Civil War round tables across the country. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his.

(CNN) The Confederacy's toxic spirit still casts a long shadow over the American South. . . Read Gordon's full op-ed piece here. 

Drought exposes Civil War veteran's grave

The broken headstone recently secured to a concrete slab marks the burial site of Civil War veteran Corporal John McBride on the dry lake bed of Lake San Antonio in southern Monterey County on May 27, 2015.
(Vern Fisher, Monterey Herald)

Click HERE to read the full story at the San Jose Mercury News site. 

Civil War Faces at the Library of Congress

Online offerings from the Library of Congress continue to expand at a rapid clip. No one has to know that much of the research for your new book was conducted in pajamas, on an iPad, at your kitchen table. Brew a fresh pot and spend some time with the Liljenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs.

[Unidentified soldier in Confederate infantry uniform with musket and Bowie knife]

• Digital ID: (digital file from original, tonality adjusted) ppmsca 32684 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/ppmsca.32684
• Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-ppmsca-32684 (digital file from original, tonality adjusted) LC-DIG-ppmsca-32127 (digital file from original item)
• Repository: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.print

Last Union prisoners leave Texas (150 years ago)

Helena, Arkansas -- you can't get there from here

I passed through Helena, Arkansas last month, and the odds are good that I won't visit there again in this lifetime, or any other. It doesn't seem to be on the way to anywhere I'm likely to ever be going, but I'm glad I've been there once. While in town on a beautiful Monday in April, I took time to pay a visit to one of Helena's most famous residents, the "Stonewall of the West," Patrick Cleburne. Of the seven Confederate generals to come from Helena, three are buried in the Confederate Cemetery section of Maple Hill Cemetery (Cleburne, Thomas C. Hindman, and James C. Tappan).

Patrick Cleburne

Confederate dead at Maple Hill Cemetery

The "Fagan Six," from the Battle of Helena

Elizabeth Brown Pryor, 1951-2015

[from The Washington Post, By Matt Schudel April 16 at 7:53 PM -- family photo]

“She could speak eloquently of complex matters to people in German, French and Spanish,” Barbara J. Stephenson, a former U.S. ambassador to Panama and deputy chief of mission in London, said Wednesday in an interview. “She was so often the most talented person in the room.”

Her first book, Clara Barton: Professional Angel, came out in 1987, while she was with the Foreign Service in South Africa. Twenty years later, she published “Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters,” a revelatory study of the commander of the Confederate army during the Civil War.

Ms. Pryor was the first scholar to gain access to a newly discovered trove of Lee family documents that had been stored in a bank vault for decades.

In 1917, Lee’s daughter, Mary Custis Lee, sent two trunks of letters and other artifacts to the Burke and Herbert Bank in Alexandria, Va. She died the next year, and the trunks were not opened until 2002.

 

Elizabeth Brown Pryor discusses her new book, Reading the Man: A Portrait of Robert E. Lee Through His Private Letters. Georgia Center for the Book presents E. Pryor, former diplomat and historian (Clara Barton: Professional Angel) and her new look at Robert E. Lee. In her new book, Pryor draws from previously unpublished correspondence, which reveal more fully than ever Lee's life and beliefs before, during and after the Civil War.

Hannah Reynolds will never be remembered like Jennie Wade, but this is a start

Jennie Wade, of course, is remembered and memorialized for being the only civilian casualty resulting directly from the Battle of Gettysburg. Had she been one of dozens who died in the battle, it's not likely that her name would be as well known as it is. There is something about "the only" designation that excites the imaginations of American textbook writers and tourism directors—unless the only in question a member of one of America's forgotten underclasses. In that case, a few more years may pass before notice is taken.

Case in point. . .

In 1865, Reynolds was a slave in the household of Samuel Coleman in the Virginia village of Appomattox Court House. And as Union and Confederate troops fought the Battle of Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, a cannonball tore through the Coleman house (All Things Considered).

Read the full story here, and listen to the All Things Considered podcast (3 minutes, 30 seconds).

(Library of Congress)

Meanwhile, 150 years ago in a place other than Virginia. . .

Visit the Fort Blakely page at the Civil War Trust for maps, articles, and other resources on the fighting at Blakely and Spanish Fort. 

Richard McMurry, in the area of the 15th Massachusetts Battery, Fort Blakely, discussing the
April 9, 1865 Federal assault. [19th CompuServe Civil War Forum Battlefield Conference]

150 years ago -- The Battle of Bentonville, March 19-21, 1865

Visit the Civil War Trust's Bentonville page for maps, articles, photo galleries, and interviews about  North Carolina's largest and most important battlefield. 

Mark Bradley, right, author of Last Stand in the Carolinas, conducted a two-day battlefield tour for The CompuServe Civil War Forum in April of 2012.

Remembering the senseless slaughter of the War Between the Butterflies

Lincoln comments on his 2nd inaugural speech

from Lincoln Day by Day, Lincoln writing to Thurlow Weed:

Lincoln taking the oath, March 4, 1865, Harper's Weekly

"Thank you for yours on my little notification speech, and on the recent Inaugeral [sic] Address. I expect the latter to wear as well as -- perhaps better than -- any thing I have produced; but I believe it is not immediately popular. Men are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them."  

More on the 2nd inaugural at the Library of Congress. 

The Racing Presidents visit the National Archives

Abraham Lincoln contemplates a facsimile copy of the Emancipation Proclamation

You can see the full gallery of photos of the Racing Presidents -- a popular feature at Washington Nationals games -- visiting the National Archives by clicking here. 

Battle of Monroe's Crossroads -- 150 years ago

Today marks the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Monroe's Crossroads, which intrepid members of the CompuServe Civil War Forum visited three years ago. The battlefield remains well preserved, due to the fact that it is situated deep inside the grounds of Fort Bragg, and in a restricted area subject to overshot from live fire ranges. Visitors must be escorted, and photos may not be published without permission.

I posted this brief blog entry with photos of our visit back in 2012. 
Here's a good summary of the battle from the North Carolina History Project. 
More text, and maps. 

BONUS LINKS: I just noticed that Eric Wittenberg has posted a three-part essay on events,  culminating at Monroe's Crossroads, for the Emerging Civil War blog:
Part One,   Part Two,   Part Three.

Author and historian Mark Bradley. 

Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Address -- March 4, 1865

One of three photos of the event by Alexander Gardner

"In a print made about 1920 from an original photograph by Alexander Gardner, President Lincoln is seen reading his inaugural address before the crowd on the east portico of the Capitol. This is one of three photographs taken March 4, 1865, by Alexander Gardner. Above Lincoln, to the right and behind an iron railing, stands John Wilkes Booth, though he cannot be seen clearly in this photograph. In only one of the photographs, that in the Meserve Collection in the National Portrait Gallery, is Booth visible. He has a mustache and is wearing a top hat. Five of the other conspirators in Lincoln's assassination stand just below the president. Looking at a detail of the figures behind the railing in the photograph presented here reveals a man with a mustache holding a top hat in his hand who could well be John Wilkes Booth.

For a discussion of the three photographs and the identity of Booth and the conspirators, see Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt and Philip B. Kunhardt Jr., Twenty Days (San Bernardino, California: Borgo Press, 1985), pp. [30]-37."

SOURCE

1.) Harold Holzer, Lincoln in the Times pp. 221-2. [this passage thanks to Vermont Humanities, Civil War Book of Days. 

Brooks Simpson at Crossroads collected together some Library of Congress images of the speech itself, to commemorate a masterpiece of presidential oratory.