Confederate Wagon Trains, Teamsters, and Wagoneers

   Over the years, I have collected quite a few volumes on the War. They include general reference works, biographies of military and political figures, books on places, and on battles. In only one of these multitude of volumes can I find one chapter on the subject of wagon trains. That would be found in Earl Hess’s Civil War Logistics, and this chapter looks at the role of wagon trains mostly on the Federal side.

  When most people think about Confederate wagon trains, the retreat of Confederate forces from the battle of Gettysburg is the primary event that pops into mind. Under the command of Brig. Gen. John D. Imboden, that wagon train of supplies and wounded stretched 15 to 20 miles (probably more) and was attacked several times by Federal cavalry. While these transportation systems are now an important piece of history, seeing a wagon or a train of wagons was a common occurrence in the 1860s.

   Turning first to Army Regulations (1863, Confederate. The Federal 1861 regulations are almost identical), we find that each infantry regiment is entitled to six wagons. A textbook regiment is 1,000 men, so overall, that is not a lot of room to haul food, mess equipment, and officer’s baggage on campaign. Of course, save for the opening days of a campaign, regiments were seldom at full strength. By mid-1863, at least in my experience, a regiment had 400-600 men. Plus, the medical department for each regiment “is allowed two four-wheeled, and the same number of two-wheeled ambulances; and one wagon for the transportation of hospital supplies.” Federal regulations actually specified the size of the wagon – 22x41x114 inches, inside measurement. It seems this was omitted from Confederate regulations. Of course, we know that wagons were always in short supply for the Confederacy. The wagon train for a regiment was under the command of the colonel of that regiment. The actual commander of the wagon train was the wagon-master, who, according to regulations was under the command of the quartermaster’s Department. The wagon-master had command over the teamsters or wagoneers. Strangely enough, a “wagon-master” is not a rank that I have encountered on the Confederate side.

   Digging a little deeper, Scott’s Military Dictionary (1861) tells us that for “each regiment of dragoons, artillery, and mounted riflemen in the regular army there shall be added one principle teamster with the rank and compensation of quartermaster-sergeant and to each company of the same two teamsters, with the compensation of artificers.”  (610) It is interesting that there is no mention of the Infantry.

Edwin Forbes, "The Supply Train" 1876.

   So how well do these numbers stand up to what actually happened? That, my friends, is a hard conclusion to reach. Just how many wagons were with each regiment? Five to six seems to be the rule. In August 1862, when Col. John B. Palmer was ordered to move his regiment, the 58^th North Carolina Troops, from the present-day Johnson City area to Cumberland Gap, he was instructed to take just five wagons (Hardy, The Fifty-Eighth North Carolina Troops, 39). A field officer in Colquitt’s brigade (ANV), writing in December 1862, complained that his brigade (five) regiments only had thirty-seven wagons, six of which were worn out. He needed six foraging wagons, but only had one.” (Glatthaar, General Lee’s Army, 212) What I do now know is this: does the number of wagons, both for Palmer and Colquitt’s brigade, include the ambulances and wagon for transporting medical supplies? Or, were those two always separate?

  Peter Wellington Alexander, a correspondent for several war-time Southern newspapers, fills us in with several important observations early in the war. Writing in December 1861, he has this to say about the Quartermaster’s Department: “It is the duty of this department to provide transportation, fuel and quarters for the men, and forage for the teams and staff and cavalry horses. The rules adopted in the Army of the Potomac [later Army of Northern Virginia]—and the same is true, I presume, elsewhere—had been to impress all the transportation and forage in the counties adjacent to Manassas. Where the owners were willing to part with their teams or provender, they received pay for them; otherwise, they were seized and the owners turned over to the government for remuneration. There cannot be fewer than 1,500 to 2,000 wagons, and six to 8,000 horses, in the service of the Quarter-Master’s department for that division of the army… At first drivers were impressed with the wagons. Now, they are detailed from the ranks, of the army—young men who have no experience in driving and who complained that they did not enlist to drive wagons. They were required to alternate, and thus every day or two there was a new driver, who was ignorant both of the ability and disposition of the horses, and who soon teaches them bad habits.” (Styple, Writing and Fighting the Confederate War, 59)

  There is a lot to unpack, at least for early war, in that statement. The Confederate army would have had next to no wagons at the start of the conflict. Maybe a handful found at various captured military post throughout the South, but really not enough to provision and equip the army. So, military officials bought or impressed both wagons and teams. I’m sure this is not only true for Confederate forces in Virginia, but Tennessee, Alabama, and South Carolina as well.

   Second, the drivers of these wagons came from the ranks. For many who write about the war, we often see long wagon trains driven solely by impressed or hired slaves/free people of color. That might be true, especially after mid-1864, but not entirely. I’ve noticed over the years quite a few men detailed from the ranks to drive wagons. In the 39^th Battalion Virginia Cavalry, I documented fourteen men who served as teamsters. The average age was 36. (The youngest, fourteen, the oldest forty.) The records are really spotty, as with most Confederate regiments. All of these men save two were listed as teamsters when the compiled service records of 39^th Batt. VA Cav. end in December 1864. Only one of those men, Pvt. Alexander J. Ramsey, was listed as being sick and wounded prior to being assigned as a teamster. I can’t really say that those who were disabled or unfit to march with the infantry were assigned to this duty. Another interesting example from the 39^th Battalion is Pvt. Anthony S. Butts. Private Butts was conscripted into the Confederate army in 1863, and was assigned to ANV headquarters staff. For the rest of war, right up until Robert E. Lee arrived in Richmond on April 15, 1865, Butts was driving Lee’s personal ambulance. Of course, the 39^th Battalion Virginia Cavalry did not function as a traditional cavalry command. Many of these men detailed as teamsters, like Butts, were serving in other commands.

   Did Black men serve as teamsters? Yes. Where they prominent in that role? I really can’t say. There were a couple of attempts in 1864 to get detailed men back in the ranks. Marion Hill Fitzpatrick wrote in November 1864 that “Jeff Davis recommends the calling out of Forty Thousand able bodied negroes [for teamsters].” (McCrea, Red Dirt and Isinglass, 528) Obviously, some of them could have been used to replace white men detailed as teamsters.  Some regiments did have Black teamsters. The 30^th Virginia Infantry had six. (Pamplin Historical Park) Tim Talbot has an account on his blog of a member of the 1^st Maine Cavalry capturing (in late 1864) ten Confederate wagons loaded with provisions, along with their “drivers (all colored men).”

   How did the men in the ranks feel about the men detailed as teamsters? Another good question. Joshua Lupton, 39^th Battalion Virginia Cavalry, was detailed to serve as the wagon master for ANV Headquarters staff. His brother John thought Joshua’s assignment was an easy one. All he had to do was “issue forage to General Lee's horses twice a day.” (Hardy, Lee’s Body Guard, 25) Undoubtedly, there was some resentment over this “easy assignment." At Appomattox, when the time came to surrender, those men who had been detailed as teamsters were sent back to their regiments to march in the proceedings. Brigadier General James H. Lane felt that these men should all be placed in a group together. "I did not wish to surrender any but those brave fellows who had followed us under arms,” he wrote after the war. (Fayetteville Observer, June 8, 1897.)

   I think this subject needs a lot more research, so, more to come.

Robert E. Lee versus the USS Monitor

    The USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia came upon the scene about the same time. They were innovative war machines, and their famous duel in Hampton Roads in March 1862 heralded a new mode of warfare. Their duel was the first meeting between ironclads, changing naval history. There was a great concern that the Monitor would sail up the James River and attack Richmond.

   On March 18, 1862, Gen. Robert E. Lee wrote to area commander Maj. Gen. John B. Magruder concerning a possible attack by the USS Monitor. How could Magruder defeat the seemingly undefeatable ironclad? Lee had an idea. “Should the Monitor appear before your batteries, it has occurred to me that by reserving your fire until she arrives near and discharging by word of command or simultaneously your heavy guns at her turret at the time when her gun was protruded for delivering fire, if the gun was struck it would be disabled, or if the turret was hit by a number of shot it would be deranged or capsized from its center.” (Official Records, Series I, Vol., 11, Part 3, page 385.)

   Magruder’s best opportunity to try Lee’s strategy would be if the USS Monitor steamed up the York River. The distance between the batteries at Yorktown and on Gloucester Point was only a third of a mile. Elsewhere, the distance was between one and a half and two miles, until the town of West Point was reached. Would Lee’s plan work? The idea of hitting the muzzle of one of the Dahlgren cannons is plausible. Such a shot might have damaged the gun in such a way that it could not be brought back into the turret for reloading, or it might have forced the gun off its carriage, creating carnage in the turret. But even at the short distance between Yorktown and Gloucester Point, hitting such a target as the muzzle of a cannon protruding from a turret just a few feet above the water line would be difficult, to say the least.

   The USS Monitor did steam up the James River in May 1862, but it was after the fortifications near Yorktown, where Magruder’s command was located, had been abandoned. The Monitor was unable to elevate its guns high enough to duel with the Confederate works at Drewry’s Bluff. The other ships in the Federal naval flotilla were damaged after more than three hours of battle. The ships dropped back down the James River to refit.

   Lee v. the Monitor… who knew.

Books on Richmond and the War.

Often, people ask me about books. And that’s ok. I’ve read a few over the past three decades. At times, it is really hard to answer those questions in a general sense. But, when it comes to more specific questions, like best book on a battle, or a certain topic, that can be easier to answer. Over the past year, I have read, or re-read, several volumes about Richmond, the Confederate capital. There are other volumes about the Confederate capital, but I find these the most helpful. (These are in order of date published.)

Rebel Richmond: Life and Death in the Confederate Capital (Stephen Ash, 2019) – The dust jacket states that Ashe “guides readers from the city’s alleys, homes, and shops to its churches, factories, and halls of power, uncovering the intimate daily drama of a city transformed and ultimately destroyed by war.” The various chapters examine housing, food, work, crime, and other aspects of the city during the war. I struggled somewhat with the chapter entitled “White Supremacy and Black Resistance.” That implies that only white people, most upper society white people, were racist. Everyone was racist in that period of time. Many people did not like the Irish, or the Catholic. In reading Jones’s famous A Rebel War Clerk’s Diary, he never really mentions the enslaved, but he sure detested the Jews. Ash gives some space to overlooked areas of war-time Richmond, such as the “Soldier’s Home” on Cary Street. Soldiers passing through the Capital and required to wait on connecting trains could stay at the Soldier’s Home, instead of having to wander the streets throughout the night, looking for a place to bed down. (51) Overall, Rebel Richmond is a good read.

The Confederate State of Richmond: A Biography of the Capital (Emory M. Thomas, 1971, 1998) This is probably the first book I ever read on the Confederate capital. The edition I now have is the second, with the new introduction. Emory writes in the introduction that as a boy, growing up in Richmond, the War in general and the Confederacy in particular, was a lot of “sad stories told principally by people in flowered dresses, floppy straw hats, and white gloves.” Later, Thomas admits that “the Confederate experience possessed genuine intellectual viability.” (vii) While Thomas should have admitted a debt of gratitude to those ladies in white gloves for saving multitudes of letters and diaries and oral traditions, I still like his book. He uses footnotes so it easy to track down sources (instead of flipping back and forth). Thomas broaches several important subjects, such as the relationship of weather to crop production, the meat panic in January 1864, and the CS Commissary borrowing food from the city to feed Lee’s army in March 1865. There are some who criticize Thomas, especially his biography of Lee. Overall, I still think The Confederate State of Richmond a good read and important contribution (probably the first scholarly) to the study of the Confederate capital.

Ashes of Glory: Richmond at War (Ernest B. Furgurson, 1996)--At almost 400 pages, Ashes of Glory is probably the most detailed history of the Confederate capital to date. Furgurson introduces us to a wide range of characters. Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, Mayor Joseph Mayo, Capt. Sally Tompkins, Rev. Moses Hoge, spy Elizabeth Van Lew, and a host of others make their appearances through the text. There are good descriptions of the relationship (or lack thereof) between Robert E. Lee and Lucius Northorp, of Northorp’s sacking, of the spy network, the escape of Federal prisoners from Libby Prison, the work of such industries as Tredegar Iron Works… Overall, it is a pretty comprehensive look at the Confederate capital. “In this work of great verisimilitude and potency, Furgurson resurrects a city in crisis and dramatically personalizes the conflict that was our nation’s coming-of-age,” the book’s jacket tells us.

There are, of course, many other volumes. Moore’s Complete Civil War Guide to Richmond (1978) contains a lot of useful information for those who like to explore the city. Kimball’s Starve or Fall: Richmond and its People, 1861-1865 (1976) is somewhat dated and probably replaced by Ash. Parker’s Richmond’s Civil War Prisons (1990). Manarin’s Richmond at War: The Minutes of the City Council, 1861-1865 (1966) is essential primary source reading. Burns’ Curiosities of the Confederate Capital: Untold Richmond Stories of the Spectacular, Tragic, and Bizarre (2013) is a fun read. There are two medical- related books: Calcutt’s Richmond’s Wartime Hospitals (2005) and Green’s Chimborazo: The Confederacy’s Largest Hospital (2004) are both important reads, as is Dew’s Ironmaker to the Confederacy: Joseph R. Anderson and the Tredegar Iron Works (1966).

Parker’s Richmond’s Civil War Prisons (1990) looks interesting, but this is one I have never read nor own, as is Casstevens’ George W. Alexander and Castle Thunder: A Confederate Prison and its Commandant (2004). There are, of course, other books that have been written over the years, but these three, Ash, Thomas, and Furgurson are my go-to books about the Confederate capital. (Or course, I might be remiss to not mention my own Capitals of the Confederacy [2015] that has two chapters on Richmond.) This list leaves out first-person accounts, like DeLeon, Jones, McGuire, Putnam, Pember, and Kean.

So, what are your favorite books on Richmond and the War?