Court packing, 1860s style

   In February 1861, two pro-secession state senators from western North Carolina, Marcus Erwin and W. W. Avery, issued an address to the people of their districts. The address lamented the election of the “black Republicans,” and with the secession of Southern states, the loss of seats (and power) in the halls of Congress for the Southern slave-owning states that remained. Then, the pair turned their attention to courts: “The Supreme Court is the only refuge left us. But that will not avail us. Because that court construed the Constitution so as to protect the rights and property of southern men, the Black Republicans have cursed it, and vowed to destroy its present organization. Mr. Seward, who has accepted the principal post in Mr. Lincoln’s cabinet, and who will be the governing and directing spirit of his administration, has declared that the Supreme Court must be reconstructed on account of its decision in favor of the South, in the Dred Scott case. That means that the first measure of Mr. Lincoln’s administration will be to pass a law organizing the court in such a way as to enable them to appoint Black Republican judges enough to control the court against the South, and to reverse all its previous decisions in favor of the South.”[1]

   The important person in the debate was William H. Seward. A former two-term New York Governor, Seward was serving his second term as a United States Senator when the Dred Scott v. Sandford case was decided upon in 1857. In March 1858, Seward, in a speech in the Senate, decried the court’s decision. The court could reverse its decision, or Congress could “reorganize the Court, and thus reform its political sentiments and practices, and bring them into harmony with the Constitution and the laws of nature.”[2] President Buchanan was angry, and Chief Justice Roger Taney later told a friend that had Seward won the presidency instead of Lincoln, Taney would have refused to administer the oath to the new president.[3] Others agreed with Seward. Zachariah Chandler of Michigan found the Dred Scott ruling “monstrous.” The Republican party meant to “annul the Dred Scott decision, the stump speech of Taney…” and reorganize the Supreme Court.[4]

   Many in Washington, D.C., were alarmed by Seward’s proclamation. D.Q.C. Lamar, serving the people of Mississippi in the U.S. House, stated he heard Seward’s speech in person. Lamar believed that once the Republicans assumed power, the Supreme Court would be remodeled “in order that its decisions should no longer confirm to us what we believe to be the constitutional rights of the South.” As Seward spoke, as he “uttered this atrocious sentiment, his form seemed to dilate, his pale, thin face, furrowed by the lines of thought and evil passions, kindled with malignant triumph, and his eye slowed and glared upon southern Senators as though the fires of hell were burning in his heart.”[5]  Others in Congress spoke out in favor of the court, denouncing the Republicans. These included senators Jefferson Davis-Mississippi; Judah P. Benjamin-Louisiana; Stephen Douglas-Illinois; James A. Stewart-Maryland; George E. Pugh-Ohio; and, Joseph Lane-Oregon.[6]

   The news of Seward’s proposal to remake the court made its rounds across the South in 1860. It was an election year, and many felt Seward would get the nod for the Republican presidential candidacy. One editor in Louisiana told his readership that Seward had “announced that his party would soon reorganize the Supreme Court in such a manner as to avoid disagreeable decisions…”[7] The Texas Republican considered Seward an “arch Tallyrand” declaring that the Supreme Court had to be reorganized.[8] The Times-Picayune noted in April 1860 that Roscoe Conkling was on the floor of the US House calling for the “reorganization of the Supreme Court,” as “one of the auspicious promises of the Republican victory” in the coming election. [9] In Nashville, Tennessee, the day before the election, one speaker told the crowd that “The North is bent on abolishing slavery by revising the Supreme Court and then reversing the Dred Scott Decision…”[10]

US Supreme Court, ca.1864 (Wikimedia Commons)

   Once the election was over, the Republicans gained the presidency, and a Republican-led coalition controlled the House, while the Democrat’s control of the Senate was five seats less. As states considered secession, the idea of a reorganized court haunted many an editor. “What, then, becomes of this much-vaunted bulwark of Sothern constitutional rights?” a Louisiana editor asked. “The Supreme Court will become an Abolition Court, and will give judicial sanction and authority to whatever oppressions and outrages may be perpetrated upon the South by an Abolition Congress and an Abolition president!”[11] The Republican Banner told its readership that the new administration planned to fill the Supreme Court with “his [Lincoln] creatures, as vacancies may occur from death or otherwise… If vacancies should occur too slowly in the Supreme Court, and he should have a majority in both Houses of Congress, he might even add to its number, so as to give his party a majority…”[12] The Richmond Enquirer noted the same. Citing a speech that Seward gave at the Cooper Institute in New York in November, Seward planned to set the wheels in motion to reconstruct the Supreme Court in short time.[13]

    Associate Justice John McLean died in April 1861, giving Lincoln the opportunity for his first nomination. For those border states still in the Union, there was cause for great alarm. “The vacancy in the supreme court cannot be filled unto the next session of Congress. It is not impossible an effort will be made then to reorganize judicial districts,” the Memphis Daily Argus informed its readers.[14]

   Eventually, Lincoln did appoint five new justices to vacancies, and Congress did, in the summer of 1862, redraw the boundaries of the districts, compressing the five Southern districts into two. In March 1863, Congress went further, creating a tenth district, thus adding a tenth justice to the bench (this seat was abolished in 1869). Two of Lincoln’s nominations, Salmon P. Chase and Samuel F. Miller, were confirmed the same day they were nominated. Noah H. Swayne’s confirmation took three days, Stephen J. Field’s took four days, and David Davis’s confirmation took seven days. In the end, William H. Seward and Abraham Lincoln were able to reorganize the Supreme Court in a way that benefited their political party.[15]

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[1] Weekly State Journal,  February 20, 1861.

[2] The Works of William H. Seward, 4:594-95.

[3] Stahr, Seward: Lincoln’s Indispensable Man, 172.

[4] “Acquisition of Cuba. Speech of Hon. Zachariah Chandler, of Michigan, in the Senate of the United States, February 17, 1859,” 5.

[5] Congressional Globe, quoted in Bancroff, The Life of William H. Seward, 1:504.

[6] Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History, 2:329.

[7]  Sugar Planter January 21, 1860.

[8] The Texas Republican, February 11, 1860.

[9] The Times-Picayune April 26, 1860.

[10] Nashville Union and American, November 4, 1860.

[11] The New Orleans Crescent, November 21, 1860.

[12] Republican Banner, November 27, 1860.

[13] Richmond Enquirer, November 13, 1860.

[14] Memphis Daily Argus, April 4, 1861.

[15]  https://www.scotusblog.com/2013/07/the-first-court-packing-plan/

The Strange Cases of William Marsh, Carter County, Tennessee

Louis Brown, in his book on the Salisbury Prison, has a long list of civilian prisoners incarcerated at the North Carolina stockade. One of those men listed is William Marsh. In 1860, Marsh was living in Elizabethton, Carter County, Tennessee, working as a hatter. Marsh was twenty-four years old, married to Ellen, with two children. They were all born in Virginia. His personal estate was only worth $50, so being a hatter was obviously not a lucrative job in mid-nineteenth-century Elizabethton.

In 1864, Marsh wrote Andrew Johnson, then serving as a representative of Tennessee in the United States Senate, explaining that he was once again “under the Stars & Stripes,” albeit by “peculiar circumstances.” Marsh explained that he was a friend of Dan Stover, took an active part of the 1860 presidential election, and was a member of the East Tennessee Convention. In September 1861, he visited his parents in Virginia, where he was arrested for disloyalty. He was first confined in Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia, and then sent to the prison in Salisbury. Over the next nine months, Confederate officials repeatedly offered Marsh the opportunity to take the Oath, which he declined, until he felt he was “compelled to take it to save life as my constitution was fast giving way under the treatment received.” In July [1864?], Marsh stated he was “arrested” and sent to a regiment in John C. Breckinridge’s division. When he arrived with his regiment, Marsh was sick, and left at a house, “confined to my room with a fever.” He was afraid that once the troops returned, he would be arrested again, and wanted Johnson to do something to keep him out of the Confederate army. The letter is dated September 24, 1864, Valley of Virginia.

At some point, it appears that Marsh was captured by Federal forces. In October 1864, he was discharged from the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C. He apparently got a job working at the wharf on G Street in Washington, D.C. It seems, maybe in his excitement over being released from confinement, he indulged a little too much one evening, and his employer found that he had dropped his copy of his Oath of Allegiance to the Confederacy. Marsh’s boss had hired Marsh, “a Confederate refugee… through sympathy.” The official wrote that Marsh swore he had not taken such an Oath (prior to losing his Oath). What happened after that point in time is unknown. [1]

There is a little more to story. William Marsh’s name appears on a list of “Union Men Confined at Salisbury, N.C.” in the New York Tribune, July 29, 1862. While there is no information with this article, there is a letter, in the Official Records, from Brig. Gen. James S. Wadsworth (US), written on August 10, 1862, stating that an article from the New York Tribune was being enclosed, and that Wadsworth was holding thirty Confederate citizens from the area between Fredericksburg and Washington, D.C., “as hostages.” [2]

What became of William Marsh? It seems that he hired himself as a substitute for John C. Wellbanks, and was mustered into Company C, 1^st Delaware Infantry. He was mustered in as a private on December 24, 1864, then promoted to sergeant on January 24, 1865. In June, he was promoted to second lieutenant and transferred to Company F. Marsh was mustered out of service on July 12, 1865.  Marsh apparently did not return to East Tennessee. He is listed on the 1870 US Census as a resident of Fort Chiswell, Wythe County, Virginia. It appears that his first wife, Ellen, passed in the previous decade. He was, in 1870, married to Susan V. Marsh and had four children at home. In 1880, he was in Surry County, North Carolina. According to a family history chart on Ancestry, William Marsh died on April 2, 1893, in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, and he was buried in the Bob Marsh Cemetery, Grayson County, Virginia.

Civilians arrested by the Confederate government for disloyalty is a seldom discussed topic. Mark Neely Jr., writes that there were at least 4,108 political prisoners arrested during the war.[3] It would be interesting to find additional information on Marsh, namely, what led to his arrest. Maybe those records will turn up one day.

 

 

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[1] Case Files of Investigations by Levi C. Turner and Lafayette C. Baker, 1861-1866.M797, Record Group 94, NARA. Some of Marsh’s records were microfilmed with those of Adam Mohr.

[2] Official Records, Series 2, volume 4, 368.

[3] Neely, Southern Rights, 1.

Battle of the Bands

5th Virginia Infantry band
(Military Images, 1983)

   Music has always played an important part of military life, from the drums that woke them up in the morning or the brass bands that serenaded the soldiers off to sleep. As Robert E. Lee once famously said: “I don’t believe we can have an army without music.”[1] Musicians were not often under fire, but they did wage, on occasion, their own battles of the bands against the tooters on the other side.

   One such event took place on the eve of the battle of Murfreesboro (Stone’s River). It was December 30, 1862. Skirmishers had plied their deadly trade that day, as the armies moved into position. That night, the bands began to play. A Southern band struck up “Bonny Blue Flag,” which was answered by “Hail, Columbia,” and then “Yankee Doodle.” After the dueling went on for some time, one band began to play the haunting strains of “Home, Sweet Home,” with bands on each side joining in. “We could hear the sweet refrain as it died away on the cool frost air,” recalled a member of the 19^th Tennessee Infantry. This scene would be played out in different camps throughout the war.[2]  

   Just a couple of weeks earlier, a similar event occurred on the banks of the Rappahannock River, near Fredericksburg in Virginia. A Confederate band played “Dixie,” followed by a Union band playing “John Brown’s Body.” Then came “The Bonnie Blue Flag” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” After a few moments of silence, a lone Federal bugler played the notes of “Home, Sweet Home.”[3]

   On May 2, 1863, as the battle of Chancellorsville got underway, Confederate artillery under Jubal Early dueled with Federals. One Federal officer noted that that during the bombardment “from the rebel lines came the clear notes of a band playing the air of ‘Dixie,’ a favorite tune with the Confederates. Three or four times they played it through, and then stopped. In a moment, a band in our own army commenced the ‘Star Spangled Banner.’”[4]

   During the siege of Vicksburg, the commander of Waul’s Legion (Texas) instructed E. W. Krause to play for the men, trying to raise their spirits. The Legion band began to play “in a very patriotic air ‘Dixie,’” to which a Federal band responded with “a very rude and unharmonious, double Forte accompaniment.” Federal artillery lent their music, “directed at the impudent bank in which we were sheltering.” Krause wrote that the practice was continued throughout the siege.[5]

   During much of 1864, the armies were close to each other. At daylight on July 4, Federal bands outside Petersburg shattered the early morning stillness with “a perfect hurricane of national airs.” The Confederate bands soon replied, with each side cheering their tunes, while groaning at those of the enemy. “After sundown our brass bands and those of the enemy indulged in a musical duel,” wrote a member of the Donaldsonville Artillery. 6 In the outskirts of Atlanta, on August 14, Washington Ives, of the 4^th Florida Infantry, recalled the “The Bands on both sides play every evening and as a band on either side plays, the partizans begin to yell. Three nights ago after the Fed. & Reb. had played several times for each other the troops on both sides began yelling. . . during which a great many men picked up their guns and accoutrements and jumped into the fortifications thinking the enemy was going to charge us.” [7]

   There are undoubtedly scores of other accounts and admittedly, these few jottings just scratch the surface. These tunes inspired men, as demonstrated by the account of the soldier in the 4^th Florida. The bands could be even more important in combat. Making music and making war might seem incompatible. In the end, the music played in camp by bands South and North had a profound impact not just in the moment, but for generations.

  

[1] Clark, NC Troops, 2:399.

[2] Daniel, Battle of Stones River, 68.

[3] Barton and Logue, The Civil War Soldier: A Historical Reader, 126.

[4] Mackowski and White, Chancellorsville’s Forgotten Front,

[5] Woodworth and Grear, The Vicksburg Assaults, May 19-22, 1863, 86

[6] Greene, A Campaign of Giants – The Battle for Petersburg, 1:345

[7] Sheppard, By the Noble Baring of Her Sons, 194.

Confederate Music – a quick primer

 

Robert E. Lee once remarked that “I don’t believe we can have an army without music.”[1] Lee was referencing the brass band of the 26^th North Carolina Troops which serenaded the general several times during the war. Yet brass bands were not the only type of music encountered by Confederates during the war. There were the drum and fife corps, the brass bands, and the informal music encountered around the campfire.

Field Music – Kautz, in his Customs of Service (1864) hits the nail on the head when he writes “The law with regard to drum-majors is obscure.”[2] That might be said of the enlistment of musicians as a whole. Confederate regulations state that those recruits “found to posses a natural talent for music, to be instructed (besides the drill of the soldier) on the fife, bugle, and drum… boys of twelve years of age and upward may…be enlisted for this purpose.” “Regiments will be furnished with field music on the requisitions of their commanders.”[3] It would appear that most infantry regiments had a drum and fife corps, while artillery and cavalry commands had buglers. It would seem that the position was appointed from the ranks. And in most cases, there appears to be no more than a handful of musicians at any time. They were typically not boys. In the 16^th North Carolina, there were 24 men listed as musicians; the youngest was 18 and the oldest 35. In the 18^th North Carolina, there were some boys, (12-16 years old), but they were later discharged. These musicians were some of the hardest working men in the army. Everything was regulated by a drum call: there were calls for assembly, first sergeant’s call, reveille, retreat, tattoo. Drumbeats were used to keep step while on a march, set the pace for a double-quick march, signal a halt, and could be used in battle to command both skirmish lines and regular battle lines. Concerning the latter, it is seldom that we find reference to firing by drums during a battle. Bugle calls, especially for the cavalry, were far more useful.

Brass band of the 26th North Carolina

Brass Band – the band was different from the field music. It would almost seem that one regiment in a brigade (a brigade was typically composed of four to five regiments) would have a brass band. The purpose of the brass band was more to provide entertainment and as a morale boast, over the field music. Bands often performed in the evenings, serenading the men, and the generals. According to Oliver Lehman, a member of the band of the 33^rd North Carolina Troops/Lane’s brigade, the brass band played every morning at nine for guard mounting duty, at dress parade about sunset, and for reviews. Also, when the weather was favorable, the band played for an hour every evening.[4]  Many of these bandsmen were “professional” musicians. Lehman came from the same Moravian community that produced members of the band for the 26^th North Carolina.

Camp Fire Music – the various states and communities across the continent were a musical people. People sang at home, at taverns, at churches. And the soldiers brought that musical heritage with them. They sang church songs, and tavern songs, and quite a few made-up songs themselves. Fiddles, fifes, and maybe a banjo or guitar were commonly employed. Soldiers spent an enormous amount of time in camp, and the scratch of a fiddle could be heard many evenings as the soldiers sang about the war, about home, about loved ones they had not seen in months or years. At times, musicians would form bands and put on concerts and minstrel shows for their fellow soldiers. A couple of songs, like “Home Sweet Home” and “Lorena” made some soldiers so home sick that it was rumored they were banned from camp. Probably the most famous musician in the Confederate army was Sam Sweeny, one of three musician brothers well-known before the war. Sweeny was on the staff of JEB Stuart, following the general around and plucking tunes on his banjo.

Sam Sweeny playing banjo in camp. 

All of these types of music could boost morale among the soldiers. Writing from Florence, Alabama, November 17, 1864, Captain Thomas J. Key, 28^th Battalion Georgia Artillery, wrote that “The whole earth resounded and echoed with music this morning before the rising of the sun. Band after band commingled their soft and impressive notes, melting the hearts of some and buoying up the spirits of others.”[5] Many could probably join with Captain Key, extolling the virtues of a well-played song in camp, on the march, or in battle.

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[1] Clark, NC Troops, 2:399

[2] Kautz, Customs of Service, 76

[3] Confederate Regulations, 393.

[4] O. J. Lehman, "Reminiscences of the War Between the States." 1862 to 1865." The Union Republican, October 19, 1922.

[5] Cate, Two Soldiers: The Campaign Diaries of Thomas J. Key, CSA, December 7, 1863-May 17, 1865, and Robert J. Campbell, USA, January 1, 1864-July 21, 1864, 150.

Expanding Freeman’s Confederate Bookshelf

 

   In 1939, Douglas Southall Freeman gave a series of lectures at Alabama College. These lectures were “an informal historiography” to the writings of Confederate history. There was probably no better person to provide this glimpse than Dr. Freeman. He had already finished his four-volume Pulitzer-winning R.E. Lee, and was hard at work on Lee’s Lieutenants. Later, his lectures were edited and published as The South to Posterity.

  Through these nine chapters, the subject of what had been written to that date was examined. Freeman examines letters penned home during the war, along with books and journals published in that frame of time. Chapter II covers those items written “while the ashes still smoldered,” (31) like Alexander Stephen’s Constitutional View of the Late War, Alfred Bledsoe’s Is Davis a Traitor, and Robert Dabney’s Life and Campaigns of Lieut. Gen. Thomas J. Jackson. Chapter III looks at tomes published on the life of Gen. Robert E. Lee. Of course, Freeman would have intimate knowledge of the subject, having spent years working on his own four-volume study.

   Freeman labeled Chapter IV “Controversy and Apologia,” an examination of the “savage controversies of the war” in which former generals engaged via post-war writings. Familiar names abound: Jubal Early, Joseph E. Johnston, John Bell Hood, Fitz Lee, James Longstreet, Jefferson Davis, P.G.T. Beauregard. And of course there are the journals and newspapers where these new battles were waged: The Southern Historical Society Papers, Century Magazine (Battles and Leaders), Philadelphia Weekly Times, New Orleans Republican. Chapter 5 gives a history of the publication of the War of the Rebellion: Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Commonly referred to as the Official Records, or ORs, this 128-volume set, published by the United States government, radically changed the scholarship, both North and South. While there are gaps and materials found later, researchers had tens of thousands of documents written during the war at their fingertips. Chapter VI looks at the war through the writings of women. Freeman mentions Judith McGuire’s Diary of a Refugee, Phoebe Pember’s A Southern Woman’s Story, and Mary Chesnut’s A Diary from Dixie, among others. Chapter VII examines the writings of those from overseas, while Chapter VIII looks at more sentimental treatments of generals. Freeman wrote that by 1900, Confederate veterans had forgotten the diseases that ravaged camps, the lack of water on long marches, the “hunger of Vicksburg,” (171), and, the “ghastly picture of Malvern Hill on the morning after the battle,” (170). Freeman considered these books “charming and therefore dangerous reading.” (172)

   Finally, Dr. Freeman concluded with “Yet to be Written.” Freeman hoped for new biographies on James Longstreet, Albert Sidney Johnson, Richard Ewell, Joseph E. Johnston, and A. P. Hill. “The greatest gap in Confederate military history. . . concerns the Army of Tennessee,” wrote Freeman. “Scarcely less is the need of a comprehensive book on the Confederate service of supply. The work of the Mining and Nitre Bureau, of the Ordnance Bureau and of the Quartermaster’s office remains to be described in satisfying detail.” (199-200) Freeman believed there still needed to be books on blockade running, Southern-railroads, economics of war-time farm management, Southern women and the war, the psychosis of war.

   So, how do we stack up? What holes have been filed in Freeman’s Confederate bookshelf? Freeman would probably be pleased to know that Stanley Horn wrote The Army of Tennessee (1941), followed by Thomas L. Connelly’s two volume set on the Army of Tennessee, released in 1967. Added to this is Larry J. Daniel’s Soldiering in the Army of Tennessee (1991) and Andrew Haughton’s Training, Tactics and Leadership in the Confederate Army of Tennessee (2000). There are, of course, now biographies on Richard Taylor, Joe Shelby, Joe Wheeler, Gideon J. Pillow, Matthew Butler, Patrick Cleburne, Nathan Bedford Forrest, States Rights Gist, William H. T. Walker, even Braxton Bragg. (Ok, some of the above list is more Trans-Mississippi than Army of Tennessee.) There are, of course, many battle studies of the Western Theater, from Cozzens, to Powell, to Bradley. Freeman never really dives into that discussion, as his criteria is a strictly Confederate bookshelf.  

   There are biographies on all of the generals that Freeman mentions, even A.P. Hill. Actually, there are two on Hill, and many on Joe Johnston. There are even biographies on some of the division and brigade commanders as well, like William Dorsey Pender, Daniel Harvey Hill, Robert Rodes, Stephen D. Ramseur, “Extra Billy” Smith, Matt Ransom, Roger Pryor, William Wofford, Joseph B. Palmer, W.W. Loring.

   Freeman did not really feel qualified to essay on naval aspects of the war, but that field has improved as well. Hamilton Cochran’s Blockade Runners of the Confederacy (1958) and Stephen R. Wise’s Lifeline of the Confederacy (1988) have recently graced my own desk. There are even a couple of studies on Confederate marines: The Confederate States Marine Corps (1989) by Ralph Donnelly and Biographical Sketches of the Commissioned Officers of the Confederate States Marine Corps (1973) by David M. Sullivan.

   Readers may find books on several different Southern railroads, but a good general history is Robert C. Black III’s The Railroads of the Confederacy (1998). Along those lines would be R. Douglas Hurt’s Agriculture and the Confederacy (2015); Ella Lonn’s Salt as a Factor in the Confederacy (1965); Harold S. Wilson’s Confederate Industry: Manufactures and Quartermasters in the Civil War (2002); and Richard Goff’s Confederate Supply (1969). Ella Lonn also wrote Foreigners in the Confederacy (1940). Bell Irvin Wiley released The Life of Johnny Reb in 1943. Wiley published several other important works, including Southern Negroes, 1861-1865 (1938), The Plain People of the Confederacy (1943), and Confederate Women: beyond the Petticoat (1975). I would also add to this list The Confederate Negro: Virginia’s Craftsmen and Military Laborers, 1861-1865, William Robinson, Jr.’s Justice in Gray (1941), Jack Bunch’s Military Justice in the Confederate States (2000), Kenneth Radley’s Rebel Watchdog: The Confederate States Army Provost Guard (1989), J. Boone Bartholomees, Jr.,’s Buff Facings and Gilt Buttons: Staff and Headquarters Operations in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 (1998), and H.H. Cunningham’s Doctors in Gray (1958) There are undoubtedly other books that should be added to this list, probably some that I have owned and read, that simply did not cross my mind while putting together this list. (Please feel free to add them in the comments).

Freeman in his study. 

   A question we now need to consider is this: what areas still need to be covered? What is still in the “Yet to be Written” category? I think there is a lot of work still to be done on the Confederate medical corps. There are some really good books that look at both sides, but we really need a book on the army- level medical corps. I believe that there are huge gaps in state-wide and regional coverage or place histories (for example, there is still no book on Raleigh and the war). A lot of the state-wide books we use were written 50+ years ago, although Virginia did a great job with their five-volume set released during the sesquicentennial. We also really need more books on the Confederate Congress and Congressmen/Senators. That is really just a hole in the scholarship. They translate to the state level as well. There are many books on North Carolina governor Zebulon Baird Vance, but none on the state’s general assembly or supreme court.

   To be honest, there are not a lot of us out there writing solely Confederate history. There are some really good area-specific histories being written, just not much strictly on Confederates. A biography on some general appears every couple of years, usually a rehash of something done in the past, maybe a regimental every year, but that’s about it. In today’s society, where so much primary source material is available online, there should be more. But alas, there is not. Thankfully, scholars have filled in many of the gaps in scholarship pointed out by Douglas Southall Freeman.

General Lee’s Headquarters at Sharpsburg

 

   A week ago, I had a chance to visit to Sharpsburg and the Antietam Battlefield. For the first time, I sought out General Lee’s Headquarters. It is a beautiful spot, in a grove of old trees, with a monument and plaque, and it is located on Main Street or Shepherdstown Pike. However, looking at several different maps may lead one to conclude that Lee’s headquarters seem to be elsewhere.

   Lee arrived in Sharpsburg early on the morning of September 15. He first surveyed the ground from the Pry farm, crossed Antietam Creek, and moved to a hill near the Lutheran Church Cemetery, where he was joined by Longstreet, and then Stuart. Later that day, Lee set up his headquarters, but the location is not certain. William Owens, a member of the Washington Artillery, wrote that Lee spent the night in a house on the edge of town, with Longstreet using the same structure. (Owen, In Camp and Battle with the Washington Artillery, 139) Ezra Carman, writing after the war, tells us that Lee, Longstreet, and Jackson held a war council at the home of Jacob A. Grove “at the southwest corner of the Sharpsburg town square.” (Clemens, The Maryland Campaign, 2:30). Scott Hartwig writes that Lee spent the night of September 15 “camped in a small woodlot about three questers of a mile west of the center of Sharpsburg.” (To Antietam Creek, 596)

      Lee was mobile on September 16, riding over the field, meeting with generals, positioning troops. It seems that his daylight headquarters were on Cemetery Hill, now the site of the National Cemetery. Later that day, Lee moved back to the wooded lot on the western edge of town. This spot was Lee’s headquarters for the remainder of the battle. However, just where was this spot? Was it the location traditionally known as Lee’s Headquarters on Main Street?

Maps from the time period show many different sites. The recently-found Elliott map (1864, New York Public Library), places Lee’s Headquarters well south of the Shepherdstown Pike.

 

The Robert K. Sneden map (Library of Congress), also war-time, places headquarters at the S.D. Piper farm. The Piper farm was located off what is today Snyder’s Landing Road.

 

Another Sneden map (Library of Congress),  shows the headquarters just outside of town.

 

The Atlas of the Battle of Antietam (1904, Library of Congress), places Lee’s headquarters about where the marker is today.

 

Finding and documenting the location of any Confederate commander’s headquarters site is a challenge. While generals and staff officers frequently tell us that they met a commanding general, they frequently do not tell us where.

Feeding the Army of Northern Virginia update

 

   And just like that, the manuscript has been submitted to the publisher. Feeding the Army of Northern Virginia was a lot of work, a lot of reading. I read somewhere around 350 sets of letters, diaries, and a handful of reminiscences, along with something like fifty secondary books, such as Confederate Supply, War Stuff, and An Environmental History of the Civil War. Although the manuscript is only 60,000 words, I believe this one was the hardest yet. There was no real guide or template. If you are working on, say a regiment at Gettysburg, there are a host of secondary books that give you the necessary background. With Feeding the Army of Northern Virginia, I really did not have that. Yes, Confederate Supply and the biography of Lucius Northrop were helpful (very helpful at times), they cover the Confederacy as a whole.

   The chapters that comprise the final manuscript include a prologue that looks at pre-war foodstuffs; Army-issued Food and Food in camp; Food from Home; Food on Campaign and in Battle; Food and the Plight of the Sick and Wounded; Feeding Robert E. Lee and the High Command; Camp Servants; and, Food, Morale, and Memory.

   Now the wait begins. Maybe by this time next year we’ll have a book!

Johnson County, Tennessee’s one Confederate Company

 Johnson County is tucked far up into the corner of east Tennessee, boarded by North Carolina to the east and Virginia to the north. In 1860, the population was just 5,018 people. If you are looking for a detailed history of Johnson County and the War, you are not going to find one. In fact, other than the Jingling Hole that I wrote about previously, the only bit of information readily available is that Johnson County, which provided a company of men to the 13^th Tennessee Cavalry (US), was a pro-Union County. That may be true (much research still needs to be done. I suspect that Johnson County was more dissident that pro-Union.) However, Johnson County also supplied a company to the Confederate army as well.

Captain Thomas S. Rumbough, Company E, 16^th Battalion (Neal’s) Tennessee Cavalry, was assigned to supervise and organize a new cavalry company. Rumbough appears to be from Greene County, and was killed in the fighting on November 15, 1864, at Morristown, Tennessee. Rumbough’s role in organizing the company is not exactly clear. The Johnson County cavalry company was organized on September 7, 1862, in Taylorsville, now Mountain City. Lieutenant Barton R. Brown, Company D, 1^st North Carolina Cavalry, was assigned to this new company and promoted captain. Including Brown, there were eighty-five men in this company. On November 1, 1862, they were mustered into service as Company F, 7^th Battalion North Carolina Cavalry.  The 7^th Battalion was under the command of Col. George N. Folk.

For the next few months, the 7^th Battalion was in east Tennessee, charged with breaking up bands of disloyal men and bushwhackers in Johnson and Carter counties. In December 1862, they were near Blountville, and in February, in Jonesborough. June found the battalion under the command of General John Pegram. They proceeded into Kentucky, skirmishing at Simpson’s Ford and Monticello. Later that month, they followed in the wake of destruction of Carter’s Raid above Knoxville. Following this, they rotated between garrison duty at Big Gap Creek, and participated in raids into Kentucky.

On August 3, 1863, the 7^th Battalion, along with the 5^th Battalion North Carolina Cavalry, were consolidated into the 6^th North Carolina Cavalry, with Folk as their colonel. The Johnson County’s company became Company A, 6^th North Carolina Cavalry. There was much skirmishing the following month. The regiment followed the bulk of Confederate forces from East Tennessee to North Georgia and were involved in the battle of Chickamauga. The next few months were spent in Tennessee engaging the Federals. In February 1864, Folk moved the regiment to Weldon, North Carolina. They spent the rest of the war in eastern North Carolina, picketing places along the railroad. In May, they skirmished with Federal forces advancing toward Raleigh. Instead of surrendering, the regiment was disbanded at the end of the war.

So what became of the rank and file? It appears that the company records end in November 1864. Due to the scattered condition of the regiment, only a few received their paroles at the end of the war. These included Pvt. Thomas W. Arnold (Ridgeway, NC); Pvt. E.H. Dougherty (Greensboro, NC); Pvt. James H. Floyd (Greensboro, NC); H. T. Grant (Nash County, NC); James Greene (Greensboro, NC); Isaac Hayes (Nash County, NC); Pvt. William Johnson (Nash County, NC); Daniel Mast (Nash County, NC); Pvt. Thomas A. Roberts (Greensboro, NC); Pvt. John S. Smith (Greensboro, NC); Pvt. Thomas Sutherland (Nash County, NC); Pvt. Daniel Wagner (Nash County, NC); Pvt. Jacob Wagner (Charleston, WV).

Several men were captured during various engagements. These include Lt. Wiley F. Thomas; Pvt. James B. Blair; Pvt. William B. Brown; Pvt. James F. Edwards; Cpl. William F. Elrod; Pvt. Lula Glover; Pvt. P.H. Johnson; Pvt. Hiram Jones; Sgt. J.S. Mast; Pvt. Valentine B. Mast; Pvt. William C. Mast; Pvt. James Parker; Pvt. John C. Parker; Pvt. Thomas Potter; Pvt. G.W. Robinson; Pvt. David B. Wagner;

Pvt. William Lefler, captured at Philadelphia, Tennessee, October 20, 1863, died of disease at Fort Delaware on July 28, 1864. Orderly Sergeant J.N. McQuown died in a hospital in Marietta, Georgia on October 1, 1863, of unknown causes. Pvt. James B. Smith died at Camp Chase, Ohio, February 9, 1864.

Pvt. John Lunsford was captured at Philadelphia, Tennessee, October 20, 1863, and later took the Oath and joined the 2nd United States Volunteers. Pvt. James O. Moreland was captured at Monticello, Kentucky, June 9, 18633, imprisoned at Camp Chase and Johnson’s Island, took the Oath and joined the 93^rd New York Infantry.

At least two soldiers were wounded:  Joseph F. H. Johnson, bugler, was reported absent wounded. Cpl. E.C.D. McEwen was wounded during the battle of Chickamauga, and apparently never rejoined his company. Pvt. D.C. Sutherland was reported missing in action following the battle of Chickamauga.

There are a lot of unanswered questions about these men. For those who have no parole information, were they sick in some hospital? Did they desert and go home? Or maybe they joined a Federal regiment? In time, it might be possible to dig through the various census reports and family histories and build a more complete picture of the lives of the men who formed Johnson County, Tennessee’s only Confederate company.

 

You can read a little more about the war in this area here:

The Jingling Hole 

George N. Folk and the raid at Fish Springs.

Not that "hegemonic": Washington County, TN

Was it really Witcher's Cavalry?