HMDB Civil War Updates – Week of June 22
Another Tuesday and it’s time to break away from Edwards Ferry to report the week’s activity on HMDB’s Civil War category. Thirty-five entries this week. Coverage this week from Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Here’s some highlights:
- Close to a monument for the Revolutionary War battlefield of Groton, Connecticut stands a handsome Civil War Veterans Memorial.
- A small park in Tampa Florida contains two replica naval guns, representing the armament of Fort Brooke which defended the city during the war.
- Some of the first entries we’ve had from the Chickamauga Battlefield itself – the monument to the 21st Ohio on Snodgrass Hill and its advance position marker. The regiment’s activities in the battle of Chattanooga are discussed on the 21st’s tablet in the Ohio reservation on Missionary Ridge.
- Two entries this week reference the Great Locomotive Chase. A stone monument, simply titled “General”, stands near Ringgold, Georgia and lists participants of the raid. William Bensinger and John R. Porter, members of the raid, are also recalled on a marker from McComb, Ohio.
- A state marker in Wyoming, Ohio recalls Robert Reily, founder of the town and Colonel of the 75th Ohio. Reily was killed in the Battle of Chancellorsville.
- A War Department tablet on Lookout Mountain details the occupation of the summit and posting of the colors during the battle of Chattanooga.
- Several interesting entries from Kansas this week. A marker in Baldwin discusses a community of “Free-state” settlers who founded the village along the old Santa Fe trail.
- Three entries discuss the Battle of Black Jack, fought between “Free State” and “Slave State” forces in June 1856. Some have called this the “first” battle of the Civil War.
- A memorial in Trading Post, Kansas commemorates the victims of the Marais Du Cygne massacre in May 1858.
- Of course the activities of ruffians and raiders did not end in Kansas when the war started in earnest. A memorial in Lawrence, Kansas reminds passers of the civilians killed in the August 1863 raid on the town by William Quantrell.
- One of the largest cavalry actions of the war was fought at Mine Creek, near Pleasanton, Kansas, on October 25, 1864. The battle was fought as General Alfred Pleasonton pursued Confederate General Sterling Price’s forces after the Battle of Westport.
- Near Sunset, in Saint Landry Parish, Louisiana a marker indicates the site of a mass Confederate grave for those killed in the nearby Battle of Bayou Borbeux in 1863.
- A marker at Trophy Point, in the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, New York references the institutions fine collection of artillery pieces. Many of these were Civil War weapons, some with quite interesting stories to tell.
- Another Stoneman’s Raid marker this week. This one in Polk County, North Carolina.
- New Hope, Pennsylvania boasts a IX-inch Dahlgren gun which served on board the USS Minnesota during the war.
- From the Virginia Southside this week, we have a collection of markers, entered by our correspondent from Richmond, related to the Wilson-Kautz Raid. These generally follow the return route of the raiders as they fought a series of actions in their attempt to return to the Federal lines in Petersburg.
- A marker on the Brambleton Golf Course, just south of Leesburg, Virginia, indicates the final resting place of Private Richard Moran, one of Mosby’s Rangers.
Several markers of note outside the Civil War category this week. Let me feature an entry related to the Seminole Wars. A plaque simply titled “On this Spot December 28, 1835” indicates the location of the Dade Massacre. The action triggered a seven year war between the U.S. and the Seminoles, in which many future Civil War leaders were involved.
