HMDB Civil War Updates – Week of November 9
A good crop of marker entries for the Civil War category this week. Forty-five entries from Civil War related sites and memorials in Alabama, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. Here’s the rundown:
- A state marker in Shelby Springs, Alabama indicates the site of a Confederate cemetery, a reminder of nearby Camp Winn which operated a training site, hospital, and soldiers’ home.
- A memorial to the 24th Connecticut Infantry in Middletown, Connecticut cites battles in far away Louisiana, where the regiment served as part of the Federal 19th Corps.
- A Cultural Tourism DC marker in the Shaw neighborhood of Washington, DC mentions wartime Wisewell Barracks and hospital which stood in the area. The neighborhood later evolved with row houses, schools, and eventually a playground.
- Four entries this week from the Chickamauga Battlefield – 74th and 84th Ohio Infantry, VanDerveer’s Brigade, Whitaker’s Brigade, and a NPS wayside at the Brotherton Cabin. On Missionary Ridge in the nearby Chattanooga Battlefield we have the tablet for the 10th Ohio this week.
- Two more markers from the Looking for Lincoln series, both from Clinton, Illinois. One marker discusses the “Copperhead” or “Peace Democrat” activity in DeWitt County. The other nearby relates the story of volunteers from the county who served the Union.
- A state marker in Brandywine, Maryland notes the passage of John Wilkes Booth during his attempt to escape after assassinating President Lincoln.
- In May 1864, a Confederate raid attempted to destroy the Blackistone Island lighthouse near Coltons Point, Maryland. While the lamp and lens were destroyed, the structure was spared, as the lightkeeper’s wife was expecting child.
- A memorial in Riverdale, Massachusetts leaves no doubt about the communities sentiments concerning the war, calling its casualties “martyrs.”
- A memorial near La Russell, Missouri lists Union soldiers and civilians from the local communities who died during the “Terrible Civil War.”
- In Salisbury Mills, New York a memorial honors local heroes – Captain Richard Caldwell of 25th US Infantry from the War of 1812 era and Captain Isaac Nicol of the 124th New York Infantry who served in the Civil War.
- A Civil War Trails marker in New Bern, North Carolina conveys the story of William Henry Singleton, an escaped slave who served in the 35th USCT. Singleton later wrote an autobiography – “Recollections of my Slavery Days.”
- Lebanon, Ohio was the home of Thomas Corwin, orator of note, congressman, governor, and Lincoln’s minister to Mexico during the war years.
- The Graham Post G.A.R. Memorial in Pottstown, Pennsylvania lists members of the 53rd and 68th Pennsylvania (as well as a few other regiments) from the community who served in the Civil War.
- Several new entries from Charleston, South Carolina within the Magnolia and St. Lawrence Cemeteries. A memorial to the Charleston Light Dragoons lists members who died in the war and the engagements the unit fought. A memorial to the Defenders of Charleston indicates the warships, batteries, and forts involved in the city’s defense during the war’s longest siege. A simple stone with inscription indicates the final resting place for soldiers relocated from the Rose Farm at Gettysburg to Charleston. Another memorial lists the generals from South Carolina who served in the Confederate army.
- Several markers from around Tullahoma, Tennessee. A state marker relates that the Confederate Army of Tennessee wintered around the town in the first six months of 1863 after the battle of Murphreesboro. Many of the 407 unknown dead in a cemetery near Tullahoma date to the that Confederate stay. In June 1863, after actions to the north, the Army of Tennessee withdrew from Tullahoma. Colonel James W. Starnes was killed leading a brigade of Confederate cavalry in a rear guard action during the retreat. South of Tullahoma, a state marker indicates the birthplace of Isham G. Harris, Tennessee’s wartime governor.
- Near Beech Grove, Tennessee, to the north of Tullahoma, a marker indicates a position held by the 18th Indiana Battery during the battle of Hoover’s Gap. That action opened up the Confederate defensive line in June 1863, precipitating the withdraw from Tullahoma mentioned above. The battery’s position is today the site of a Confederate Cemetery.
- About half way between Tullahoma and Chattanooga, in Sewanee, Tennessee a marker relates more details of another rear guard action in the Confederate withdrawal from middle Tennessee, fought on July 4, 1863.
- Three markers from Nashville, Tennessee this week. Federals used the Masonic Hall to store supplies during the war. The nearby Maxwell House Hotel served as a barracks, hospital, and prison. A marker just inside the US 440 bypass indicates the XVI line of departure during the Battle of Nashville.
- A wayside marker near the Montpelier Estate in Virginia discusses Confederate encampments during the winter of 1863-64. Some traces of huts built by McGowan’s Brigade remain, and the marker relates details of archaeological excavations conducted in recent years.
- A memorial featuring a Confederate soldier with musket at the ready honors veterans from Pulaski County, Virginia.
- Eight markers, along the James River Walk, in this week’s collection interpret the site of the industrial complex which supported the Confederacy. The most notable activity was the Tredegar Iron Works which produced guns for the Confederate Army and Navy. The foundry was established in 1836, and had supplied weapons to the Federal government before the war. During the war, one of the foundry’s notable products were Brooke Rifled cannon. Shells were loaded with powder in a laboratory on Brown’s Island, to isolate the operation from Richmond proper. Belle Island was the site of a Confederate prison. Passing upstream from the industrial complex, the Kanawaha Canal brought supplies from locations as far as 200 miles from Richmond. As such, late in the war the canal became the target for Federal raids. Closing out the River Walk, a marker relates that during the Confederate evacuation in April 1865 more than 1000 buildings burned.
In all a busy week in the Civil War category at HMDB.
HMDB Civil War Updates – Week of March 2
Just under 90 markers added and updated this week. A more manageable load. This week’s entries come from California, the District of Columbia, Georgia, Iowa (!), Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Virginia. Here’s the highlights:
- Sacramento, California has a plaque discussing the service of the U.S.S. Sacramento, a wartime sloop with several scrapes with the Confederate raiders.
- From the nation’s capital, we have an addition to the Cultural Tourism DC – Civil War to Civil Rights collection, this one indicating the site of Surratt’s Boarding House and providing information about her implication in the Assassination of Lincoln.
- Thirteen more additions from Atlanta for the Battle of Peachtree Creek.
- Often overlooked in the discussion of prison camps operated in Georgia, Camp Lawton near Millen was built to ease the overcrowding at Andersonville. But with the approach of Sherman’s columns bound for Savannah, the camp was closed.
- The Worth County Courthouse in Northwood, Iowa is guarded by an 8-inch Rodman-type Columbiad. The marker hints the cannon was produced locally, but the muzzle stampings indicate its source is Fort Pitt Foundry in Pennsylvania.
- Four markers from Hilton Head, South Carolina this week. To start with, Confederates built Fort Walker in 1861 to defend Port Royal Sound. Federals challenged the fort in the Battle of Port Royal. In that battle, Thomas and Percival Drayton, brothers from South Carolina faced each other in battle on opposite sides. Then after the Federals won the battle, vendors showed up and plied their wares on “Robbers Row.”
- More markers, tablets, and monuments added for Gettsyburg this week, thirty-six for the list. Cemetery Ridge is complete now, with the exception of a few that have escaped good photos. No I didn’t put every name from the Pennsylvania Memorial in the entry. I also entered the items around the Bliss and John Weikert Farms.
- Robert, a.k.a. Cenantua, was rather active this week. As mentioned on his blog yesterday, one of his entries was our Marker of the Week this week. Good photos and some rich supporting information. Robert’s Civil War additions this week include several around Harrisonburg.
- Robert also proposed a grouping of the Civil War Markers from Page County and another for Rockingham County in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley.
- From Newport News, a frequent contributor added sets of markers around Lee Hall and Endview Plantation.
- From near Fredericksburg, Virginia, a marker along the Rappahannock River discusses the “trade” that went on between the pickets during the winter of 1862-63. The marker stands near Banks Ford, a crossing point of importance to several campaigns.
Closing this week, let me pull a couple of markers out of the database and cite them as a “this week in the Civil War” entry of sorts. On March 6, 1862, an odd looking ship, the U.S.S. Monitor, set out from New York bound for the coast of Virginia. While the Monitor was at sea, the C.S.S. Virginia made a sortie on March 8 and disrupted the Federal fleet anchored off Hampton Roads. The following day the two ironclads met and engaged in their historic dual. The story is briefly discussed on a state marker overlooking the waters where the battle occurred. A detailed map is offered on a city marker in downtown Norfolk. An event that changed the world from 1862.
Spotsylvania
All told there are about sixty markers or monuments. I opted to group these generally as defined by the Park Service driving tour stops, as opposed to chronologically. Some of the stops are merged:
Tour Stop One – Exhibit Shelter, Sedgwick’s Death, Spindle House, and Warren’s Line. (List) (Map)
Tour Stop Two – Upton’s Assault. (List) (Map)
Tour Stop Three - The Bloody Angle. (List) (Map)
Tour Stops Four and Five – Harrison and McCoull Houses, and Lee’s Last Line. (List) (Map)
Tour Stops Six and Seven – East Face of the Salient, Heth’s Salient, and Burnside’s Line. (List) (Map)
Stops around Spostylania Court House. (List) (Map)
Harris Farm is the subject of a seperate blog post.
Spotsylvania Markers
At last with some free time I managed to work out all the proper related sets and group the Spotsylvania Battlefield’s markers. As with the Wilderness, Spotsylvania has a rather simple group of interpretive markers along with a small group of memorials. The interpretive markers are from at least four different distinct series:
- What I was calling the Department of Interior type, but have since learned are Happel panels, named for the historian who wrote the text. (Example of a Happel Panel.)
- The standard “tilted table” type placed by the Park Service.
- An older metal, single post, knee high type. Which are seen only along the foot trails, and only encountered at Spotsylvania.
- A newer, brown colored, single post, knee high type. Also only seen on the foot trails, but is the same type used at other units of the battlefield.
- Lastly those used in the Exhibit Shelter at Tour Stop One.
All told there are about sixty markers or monuments. I opted to group these generally as defined by the Park Service driving tour stops, as opposed to chronologically. Some of the stops are merged:
Tour Stop One – Exhibit Shelter, Sedgwick’s Death, Spindle House, and Warren’s Line. (List) (Map)
Tour Stop Two – Upton’s Assault. (List) (Map)
Tour Stop Three - The Bloody Angle. (List) (Map)
Tour Stops Four and Five – Harrison and McCoull Houses, and Lee’s Last Line. (List) (Map)
Tour Stops Six and Seven – East Face of the Salient, Heth’s Salient, and Burnside’s Line. (List) (Map)
Stops around Spostylania Court House. (List) (Map)
I would highlight two areas outside of the battlefield where major actions occurred. Harris Farm is the subject of a previous post. Additionally, a short drive south of the battlefield, along Block House Bridge Road, is the site where Heth and Hancock fought on May 10, 1864. That action was cited in one sentence of a Happel Panel and illustrated on a map panel, near the Sedgwick Monument.
Overall I found the battlefield easy to traverse with little traffic, even at the high point of tourist season. It was a nice break from the hustle and bustle of Gettysburg, for instance. For those like me, who like their battlefields on foot, it is possible to park at Stop one or three and easily slog it around the entire battlefield as a day hike. The only part of the field I found completely off the paths was Heth’s earthworks from the later stages. The rest of the works and areas of note are along well marked trails. I am still impressed with the extent of the preserved earthworks between the Wilderness and Spotsylvania.
Harris Farm
Last weekend I visited Spotsylvania Court House, under good weather conditions. Prior to starting a day long hike-and-drive tour of the main battlefield, I took the time to visit the CWPT’s Harris Farm site. Normally I would just direct the reader to other web sites offering more details than can be summarized in a single blog entry. But for Harris Farm, I’ve just not seen many resources on the web. From my library, I’ve only found ten pages from Noah Andre Trudeau’s “Bloody Roads South” and a scant few paragraphs from Bruce Catton’s “Grant Takes Command.”
The Battle of Harris Farm was for all purposes the final act in the great battle of Spotsylvania Court House. After nearly two weeks of fighting (May 8-19, 1864) along the main battle lines near the Brock Road, General Grant pulled the Army of the Potomac out of line for the second of his left flanking movements of the Overland Campaign. This shift broke contact with the Confederate main defensive lines. Sensing a move was underway, on May 19, General Lee sent Ewell’s Corps forward in a reconnaissance in force to feel out the Federal flanks and line of march. Attrition from three weeks of hard fighting and campaigning reduced Ewell’s Effective strength to around 6,000. The Corps crossed the Ni River and turned to front the Fredericksburg Road (modern Virginia Route 208). Fortunately for the Federals, Ewell’s artillery was unable to cross the Ni River.
Moving up from the bottom land, the Confederates came into contact with some regiments of “Heavy Artillery.” These “Heavies” had been pulled from garrison duty in Washington, where they had spent the previous years of the war in mundane but safe assignments. Now these Federal regiments fought as infantry in their first engagement. Brigaded under Brig. Gen. Robert O. Tyler were five regiments – 1st Maine, 1st Massachusetts, and the 2nd, 7th and 8th New York Heavy Artillery Regiments. Having avoided the attrition that comes with field duty, these five regiments were substantially larger than the line infantry regiments at this point in the war. So much that the brigade actually formed the 4th Division of Hancock’s II Corps! (A previous 4th Division was consolidated with the 3rd Division, II Corps on May 13 due to losses suffered since the start of the campaign.) All told the “heavies” contained over 6,000 muskets. In addition to Tyler’s men, the 4th New York Heavy Artillery, assigned to Warren’s V Corps, was posted to guard the supply trains along the Fredericksburg Road.
If the Confederates could push the “heavies” out of the way, the Army of the Potomac’s supply lines back to Fredericksburg were vulerable. Should the long serving, but green troops gave way, Grant’s plans would be disrupted. Perhaps the entire Overland Campaign would be suspended. At around 3:45 P.M. Ewell’s lead elements, Ramseur’s Brigade, came into contact with pickets from the 4th New York Heavy Artillery. Outnumbered, the New Yorkers held but needed support. The 1st Maine and 1st Massachusetts “Heavies” moved to shore up the lines. The battle lines now ran roughly north to south between the Harris, Alsop, and Peyton houses. Soon the remainder of Tyler’s “Division” came on line.
Ramseur’s Brigade was joined by Battle’s (to the right or south of Ramseur), Grimes’, Pegram’s, and Evans’ Brigades (to the left or north of Ramseur). Ramseur must have sensed his advance had stirred a slumbering hornet’s nest of sorts. Having found the Federal flank, he requested permission to drive off the pickets in order to cleanly disengage. However, now the forces on the field were roughly equal and Ramseur found instead of engaging pickets from one regiment, he was against nearly a full division. Although the Federal lines overlapped the Confederates, and in particular Ramseur’s men were dangerously exposed, the green “heavies” used tactics that negated their numbers. Instead of digging in and using terrain to their advantage, the former garrison troops fought as if on a parade field, just as they had drilled for years.
With sunset fast approaching and worn from four hours of fighting, the Confederates finally disengaged and withdrew back to their trenches around the Brock Road. Lee had confirmed Grant was on the move. The “heavies” were blooded. But the Federal supply lines were safe. Confederates recorded around 900 casualties. The Federals lost 1,535 men. The Overland Campaign would continue on.
I’ve collected the Virginia state marker, two interpretive markers, and 1st Massachusetts Heavy Artillery monument into a collection at HMDB: Harris Farm Virtual Tour by Markers. As the site is now surrounded by upscale development, little of the battlefield is “tourable.”
