Gettysburg interactive panorama: Devil's Den

Click here for battlefield panoramas from Antietam, Cedar Mountain, Chickamauga, Gettysburg, Harris Farm, Manassas, Malvern Hill, Salem Church,  Spotsylvania Courthouse and more.


From tourists to soldiers to ghost hunters, visitors to Gettysburg are drawn to Devil's Den, scene of intense fighting on July 2, 1863. I shot the interactive image above of the iconic spot during an early April visit ... 

... early photographers at the site posed "dead" soldiers on the massive boulders, perhaps eager that such scenes would lead to a spike in sales. This image was taken in Devil's Den on Nov. 11, 1863 by Peter Weaver, a Hanover, Pa., photographer, according to research by William Frassanito. (Hat tip: John Cummings of Spotsylvania Civil War blog) ... 

... an enlargement of the photograph, which is available on the Library of Congress web site, shows three"dead" men and their muskets ... 

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

... and these 8th Connecticut veterans and their families visited Devil's Den on Oct. 9, 1894 en route to Antietam, where the regiment nearly broke through the Rebel lines on Sept. 17, 1862. This image is in the Connecticut State Libary archives ...

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

... years later, these soldiers in Company C of the 303rd U.S. Army Tank Corps posed in Devil's Den before they sailed for Europe to fight the Germans during World War I.  This photograph appeared in the Hartford Courant on Aug. 11, 1918. ...


... of course, no visit to Gettysburg is complete without a ghost tour or a little paranormal activity. In April 2008, I met Stewart Cornelius of the Mason Dixon Paranormal Society in Devil's Den, where he was conducting an "investigation." Before I departed, Stewart played a recording of an EVP -- Electronic Voice Phenomena for the uninitiated -- that his group recorded of a Civil War soldier in Gettysburg. "Help me," the "soldier" pleads in a low voice. Real or nutty? Judge for yourself by clicking on the video above.

Then & now: Chancellorsville House on Orange Turnpike

A snake rail fence and two hunting dogs appear in this enlargement of the original image.

The Chancellorsville House, re-built on the site of the original house that was destroyed during
 the war, burned down in the spring of 1927. This is another enlargement of the original image.

The Chancellorsville House appears in the background of this circa-1900 albumen.
(Photo courtesy Pat Sullivan/Spotsylvania Memory blog)

Here's a circa-1900 albumen of the old Chancellorsville House on historic Orange Turnpike, courtesy of Spotsylvania County native Pat Sullivan. He regularly posts stories about his Virginia ancestors, several of whom fought for the Confederacy, on his excellent Spotsylvania Memory blog. (Pat's post on the Spotsylvania County he remembers while growing up there is well worth your time.)

The large house in the image, of course, is not the original Chancellorsville Inn, which Joseph Hooker used as his headquarters during the massive, and embarrassing, Union defeat at the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 1-3, 1863. The image instead shows the house that was built on the same site after the war. It was destroyed in 1927 by a fire that may have started at an upstairs flue. During the battle, Union troops deployed in the field behind the snake rail fence in the image ...

An illustration of the old Chancellorsville Inn, used by Union commander Joseph Hooker as his 
headquarters at the Battle of Chancellorsville on May 1-3, 1863.

Ruins of the original Georgian-style house, struck repeatedly by Rebel fire and destroyed during the battle, are shown above in an 1865 image in the Library of Congress collection. The original building, seen in the illustration above that's also in the LOC collection, was completed in 1816 and served as an inn and later as an especially large private residence. As the fighting swirled about her property during the battle, widow Frances Chancellor, her children and extended family sought refuge in the basement.

Union commander Joseph Hooker was knocked out when 
an artillery shell  struck Frances Chancellor's
 large house during the battle.
(Library of Congress collection)

They had unwelcome company.

"The fighting was awful, and the frightened (Yankees) crowded into the basement for protection from the deadly fire of the Confederates," recalled Susan Chancellor, one of Frances' daughters, "but an officer came and ordered them out, commanding them not to intrude upon the terror-stricken women." Later, the same officer ventured into the basement to tell Frances Chancellor that her house, the target of Rebel artillery, was on fire.

"Cannon were booming and missiles of death were flying in every direction as this terrified band of women and children came stumbling out of the cellar," remembered Susan, 14 at the time of the battle. "If anybody thinks that a battle is an orderly attack of rows of men, I can tell them differently, for I have been there."

In the early 20th century, Susan Chancellor would often stop by for unannounced visits to the re-built house, much to the chagrin of a young girl who lived there with her family. "It was odd that she never knocked," 89-year-old Hallie Rowley Sale told the Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star in 2003. "It was like she still thought of it as her home. We would hear a door open. And the next thing we knew, Mrs. Chancellor would be leading a group of people through the house."  (Here's a transcript of a fascinating 2003 interview of Sale by the Spotsylvania Preservation Foundation. She died in 2006 at age 91.)

Observing the battle from the second-floor porch of the house, Hooker was famously knocked senseless when an artillery shell crashed into the pillar he was leaning against, showering the general with splinters and chunks of wood. An unexploded rifled shell was discovered under these steps (above) of the Chancellorsville Inn during an archaeological dig in 1973, leading some to speculate it was the one that KO'd Hooker, who returned to the site in October 1876 for a veterans reunion. The artillery shell is now in the Chancellorsville National Battlefield visitors center.

Only a brick outline remains today from the original building, which once was described as "one of the most celebrated houses in Virginia."

---

SOURCES:

Confederate Veteran, Volume XXIX, 1921, Page 216
Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star, Aug. 2, 2003
Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star, June 21, 2007

American graffiti: What soldiers left behind in Brandy Station

Once a derelict building, Graffiti House was restored after it was purchased in 2002
 by the Brandy Station Foundation.

From the outside, the circa-1858, two-story frame building beside train tracks in Brandy Station, Va., looks unremarkable. But on the walls inside, you'll find treasure: charcoal and pencil drawings and signatures left by soldiers from both armies during the Civil War. Even one of the South's most famous generals may have left his name on the walls of  Graffiti House.

Brandy Station Foundation member Joe McKinney points to graffiti in 
what today is the first-floor bathroom of Graffiti House.

Known mostly for the huge cavalry battle on June 9, 1863, Brandy Station was a strategic location and a junction of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad during the Civil War. In the weeks after the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21, 1861, Confederate casualties who were evacuated by train were probably treated at Graffiti House, and it also may have been used as a hospital following the great cavalry battle that took place in fields near the building.

Signatures from soldiers who fought at Brandy Station appear on walls in three rooms on the second floor, where nearly all of the remaining Civil War-era graffiti in the building appears today. In 1863-64, Brandy Station was site of a winter encampment by the Union army, which used Graffiti House as a headquarters.

En route to visit Cedar Mountain battlefield in early April, I stopped by Graffiti House, a short distance off U.S. Route 15/29. The museum was closed, but it didn't take much convincing to gain access. Brandy Station Foundation member Joe McKinney answered my call to the number on the sign on the museum door, and within 10 minutes, he arrived in his black pickup to conduct a 90-minute tour for me and a couple from Virginia.

The building, McKinney explained, has changed hands numerous times since the Civil War, serving as an antiques shop and an office for a period of time. The foundation acquired the once-derelict structure in 2002 for $98,000. Graffiti was discovered during a renovation in the early '90s, when old wallpaper was removed, and further investigation in 2013 revealed even more in a crawl space under stairs and what is now the first -floor bathroom. ...

... this may be the signature of Confederate cavalry commander Jeb Stuart himself. More than 30 signatures of soldiers, mostly Rebels, have been identified by the Brandy Station Foundation. The signature above, McKinney said, compares favorably to other signatures during the war from the Rebel general, whose horse soldiers were so surprised by Union cavalry at Brandy Station that the Richmond Examiner derided them as "puffed up cavalry." ...

... Allen Bowman, whose signature appears above, was a sergeant in Company E of the 12th Virginia Cavalry. Thirty years old at the Battle of Brandy Station, he died at age 76 in 1911. His lonely final resting place is at the edge of  the woods in rural Mauertown, Va. ...

... it's difficult to read, but a Union soldier took a shot at his enemies, writing "Battle of Gettysburg July 3, 1863," followed by "the rebs got licked." ...

... this man in a bowler was probably drawn by a Union soldier, who added the thought bubble at top that reads, "He smells a rebel." Out of the photograph to the immediate left is the rear end of a horse. ...

... just like today, some 1860s graffiti artists were more talented than others. The creator of this happy face apparently was artistically challenged or perhaps enjoyed a little too much whiskey -- or both ...

... the wives of officers sometimes followed their husbands to camp. This illustration is of a finely dressed woman, who appears to be deftly stepping through mud.  ...

... in one of the coolest features I have seen in a museum, the present meets the past. Graffiti House allows descendants of Civil War soldiers to write their names on a wall on the first floor. Descendants of Robert E. Lee and Jeb Stuart did the honors here ...

... while the great nephew of Phillip Carper (below), a private in the 35th Virginia Cavalry Battalion, printed his name and provided a snippet of the story of his ancestor. From White Post, Va., Carper was 22 years old when he enlisted in the Rebel army on Dec. 17, 1862. His $800 horse was shot and killed during the Battle of Brandy Station, but that was the least of Carper's concerns. He suffered saber cuts in the head, left hand and right arm during the largest cavalry battle ever in North America, was captured and then sent to a Yankee hospital in Alexandria, Va. He recovered from his wounds and eventually was paroled, but Carper was captured again at Sugarland Run, Va, in in December 1863 and was imprisoned for nearly two months before he was exchanged.

Carper, who died in 1918 at age 77, undoubtedly would have been pleased that his descendant remembered him at Graffiti House, a short distance from where he was slashed by a Yankee in the summer of 1863.

SOURCE: American Civil War Research Database

Private Phillip Carper of the 35th Virginia Battalion was wounded and captured at the 
Battle of Brandy Station on June 9, 1863.
(Library of Congress collection)

Not a pretty picture: Salem Church (Va.) battlefield

THEN AND NOW: In a circa-1950s image, Virginia State Route 3 (historic Orange Turnpike) 
is relatively uncluttered. Salem Church  is just around the bend to the right.
 The Google Maps image is roughly the same view today.
(Top photo courtesy Pat Sullivan)

I enjoyed a great e-mail exchange today with Pat Sullivan, a Spotsylvania County (Va.) native who has fond memories of growing up in the area rich with Civil War history. Posts that I wrote on the obliteration of the Harris Farm and Salem Church battlefields prompted the initial e-mail from Sullivan, whose ancestors fought for the Confederacy. Once open land, the Salem Church battlefield was long ago destroyed by urban clutter and a greatly expanded State Route 3, the historic Orange Turnpike. The traffic-snarled highway has made it a challenge to get to the old Salem Church, which was used as a field hospital during and after the battle. Sullivan shared with me an image of a circa-1950s Route 3, which is quite a contrast to the mess today. Check out Pat's excellent post on his blog on the old Spotsylvania County he remembers.

THEN AND NOW: A post-war image of Salem Church, courtesy of Pat Sullivan. The images were
 taken from opposite sides of the church.

History lost: Salem Church (Va.) battlefield

     Pan to left to see the 23rd New Jersey monument. Pan to right to see Salem Church.

Nearly hidden, this battlefield marker is
 near Salem Church.

As fellow blogger John Cummings noted in my post on the loss to development of the Harris Farm battlefield, there have been major preservation victories in Spotsylvania County (Va.), where four major Civil War battles took place. For example, a huge development was stopped at the site of major fighting that occurred at Chancellorsville on May 1, 1863. But sadly, Cummings noted, among "horrific losses" are sites such as the Brown Farm, where Winfield Scott Hancock launched his assault on the Mule Shoe on May 12, 1863, and Myer's Hill, where George Meade was nearly captured two days later. The Salem Church battlefield, which I visited for the first time in early April, is another one of those major defeats for preservationists.

An interchange built in the 1960s on I-95 spawned massive development along State Route 3 (the historic Orange Turnpike), leading to the destruction of the site where Union and Confederate armies suffered more than 9,500 casualties on May 3, 1863. Even the National Park Service web site concedes: "Salem Church is located amongst a virtual sea of shopping malls."

The Mysteries and Conundrums blog explains the loss in greater detail  and provides two neat photos of what the battlefield looked like before it was virtually wiped out. Salem Church, behind Rebel lines during the battle and used as a field hospital, remains -- an island in a sea of asphalt and other urban clutter. I shot the interactive panorama above during my visit, amazingly not capturing six-lane State Route 3 when it was packed with traffic.

Six-lane State Route 3 makes visiting Salem Church a challenge. (Google Maps)

      Salem Church battlefield has been nearly obliterated by development. (Google Maps)

History lost: What happened to Harris Farm battlefield?

Left: 27-year-old Van Buren Towle of the 1st Massachusetts Heavy Artilllery
 and 25-year-old James Branscomb of the 3rd Alabama. 
(Towle image: John Banks collection; Branscomb: Courtesy Frank Chappell)

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UPDATE: The  Harris farmhouse pictured below was demolished in mid-December 2014. John Cummings first reported the news on his Spotsylvania Civil War blog. The owner of the house, according to the Fredericksburg (Va.) Free-Lance Star, said it was torn down because it was infested with termites,

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On May 19, 1864,  a day a U.S. Army solder called "beautiful almost beyond description," the world turned upside down for a Massachusetts private and the family of a private from eastern Alabama. Compared to much bloodier fighting elsewhere in Spotsylvania County, the Battle of Harris Farm was a minor event — a brief but deadly continuation of the horrific fighting at Spotsylvania Court House, Va. Forced into action when surprised by 6,000 Confederates under Richard Ewell, four heavy artillery regiments yanked by Ulysses Grant from Washington's defenses fought as infantry at Harris Farm and nearby at the farm of a 23-year-old widow named Susan Alsop.

On their way to the front for their first major fight of the war, soldiers in the 1st Massachusetts Heavy Artillery received an earful from Union wounded in Fredericksburg, Va.

"Go it, Heavies," a soldier teased, "ol' Grant'll will soon cut you down to fighting weight," and while the regimental band played, another soldier told the musicians, "Blow, you're blowing your last blast."

Although the Massachusetts regiment "got a little mixed and didn't fight very tactically" at Harris Farm, it "fought confounded plucky," according to one of its officers. But the Heavies suffered terribly: 54 soldiers killed, 312 officers and enlisted men wounded and 27 missing.

1st Massachusetts Heavy Artillery soldiers bury the dead, most likely Union soldiers,  after fighting on May 19, 1864.  (Library of Congress collection)

"The sound of leaden missiles tearing through the trees and the dull thud of bullets that reached their human marks produced a feeling of horror among those whose ears could hear," a soldier in the regiment recalled. 

Shortly after they received an order to charge into a strip of woods about 3:30 p.m., a Rebel volley shocked and demoralized the New Englanders. "Like a stroke of lightning from clear skies," a soldier recalled. Eleven bullets riddled 25-year-old Major John Rolfe, an obvious target astride his horse. Years later, a veteran who had served as a corporal in the "Heavies" described the horror of the next morning:

"The ground was strewn with dead and wounded, and it was a sad sight that greeted us with the dawn of the next day, when several of us were detailed to bury the dead. A long trench was dug and the bodies were placed side by side, those from each company and regiment being kept together as far as possible. A little wooden cross was placed at the head of each, with name and regiment if known, and then the earth was quietly replaced, with no noise, no speech, no ceremony whateever. Many a brave fellow we laid away that day."

According to this document in the 
National Archives, Van Buren Towle 
was buried at sea.
(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

At roll call, a 27-year-old shoemaker from Haverhill, Mass., named Van Buren Towle of Company B was among the missing. Captured along with his 19-year-old brother, Carroll, they made their way to the notorious POW camp in Andersonville, Ga., where the Rebels crowded thousands of Union soldiers onto about 26 1/2 acres.

Like many of his fellow POWs, Van Buren Towle suffered from chronic diarrhea at Andersonville, perhaps caused from drinking water from a polluted stream that also served the prisoners' sanitary needs. Paroled in December 1864, Van Buren Towle boarded the Northern Light in South Carolina for the 1,000-mile journey home.

He never made it to Massachusetts.

Weakened by months of confinement, Towle died aboard the ship. Comrades buried him at sea.

"I last saw him on the seventh day of December A.D. 1864 in Florence, S.C. in a rebel prison," Carroll Towle noted on April 24, 1865, 15 days after the Civil War effectively ended.  "He left said prison that day in feeble health. Since that day I have never heard from him." He left behind a 19-year-old wife, Tryphena.

* * * 

James Zachariah Branscomb was one of seven sons of a cotton farmer named Bennett, who owned a 400-acre spread and slaves in Union Springs, Ala., once described as "a healthy land where lived the wealthiest plantations." Seeking to fulfill his dream to own a cotton farm, Bennett had moved his growing family from South Carolina in 1842. 

Although of more modest means than the wealthier families in the region, the Branscombs lived comfortably in Union Springs, which before the Civil War was home to thriving tanneries, hotels and several factories. Shortly after war began in April 1861, four of 57-year-old Bennett's sons — William, John, James and Lewis — joined the 3rd Alabama in Montgomery, causing great angst for their mother, Eliza, 57.

A little more than a year into the war, tragedy landed on the Branscomb's doorstep when word arrived of the death from measles of 31-year-old William at a military hospital in Richmond.

"Don't grieve Ma," Private James Branscomb wrote to his mother on June 25, 1862, 10 days after his brother died. "He is better off though tis hard to lose him. You may have more to grieve for than him before this war ends."

On May 18, 1864, the day before the Battle of 
Harris Farm, 3rd Alabama Private James Branscomb
wrote this letter to his sister in Union Springs, Ala.
"We have killed  thousands," he wrote. 
 (Image of letter courtesy Frank Chappell)

For James, a 25-year-old sharpshooter in Company D, there would be awful battles to come at Antietam, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. But the continuous, savage fighting at the Wilderness (May 5-7, 1864) and Spotsylvania Court House  (May 8-21) took a huge toll on an outnumbered and outgunned Confederate Army.

As he took pencil in hand to write a letter home from the front lines on May 18, 1864, James and his comrades in the Army of Northern Virginia must have been exhausted — and no end to the fighting seemed in sight.

"Dear Sister," Branscomb's letter to Lucinda Hunter began, "I can almost feel the anxious throbbing of your heart but could not write sooner. Today is the first mail we have had since the fight began. Today makes two weeks of fighting. Our regiment has been engaged four times. I have never seen any fighting to compare with this. Our loss has been heavy but nothing to compare with the enemy.

"We have killed thousands. I have killed two myself."

James' never sent the unsigned, two-page letter. The next day, he was killed at Harris Farm. Less than two months later, a U.S. sharpshooter killed another Branscomb boy, 21-year-old Lewis, in Harpers Ferry, Va.

Despite suffering 1,500 casualties compared to only 900 for the Rebels, the U.S. won the day at Clement Harris' farm, where soldiers from Maine, North Carolina, New York and Virginia also died. 

And so this obscure battle — pushed to the margin of history — piqued my curiosity.

Where did privates Towle and Brancomb fight?

How were the soldiers honored there? 

Where did comrades bury the 3rd Alabama private?

And what happened to Harris Farm?

THEN AND NOW: Dedication of the 1st Massachusetts Heavy Artillery monument on 
May 19, 1901, 37 years after the battle and a present-day view. 
(Dedication photo courtesy John Cummings)

Bespectacled and with streaks of white in his long, black beard, John Cummings looks like he stepped out of Rebel camp and into the 21st century. A native of Fairfax, Va., a suburb in the ugly, urban sprawl of Washington, the 53-year-old author of two Spotsylvania County history books has a passion for the Civil War — especially photography of the era. 

When he was 14, Cummings received as a Christmas present a copy of  Gettysburg: A Journey in Time by William Frassanito, whose ground-breaking books have set the standard for revealing information in Civil War-era photos and earned him a legendary reputation among avid Civil War enthusiasts. Often channeling his inner Frassanito on his Spotsylvania Civil War blog, Cummings dissects images of everything from Gettysburg death scenes to Fredericksburg battlefield latrines.

John Cummings points to where a large tree
 that was cut down  by gunfire during the Battle 
of Spotsylvania Court House once stood.

Having turned an avocation into an occupation, Cummings gives tours of the many Civil War sites in Spotsylvania County, where three years of fighting and four major battles caused more than 100,000 casualties. Armed with his tour book jammed with photographs and maps, he rides shotgun as I drive from site to site during a sun-splashed Sunday afternoon.

"Spotsy County," as the locals call it, is a crazy quilt of Civil War battlefields, housing and high-density business development, much of it haphazard and with no regard to the region's rich history. Along traffic-snarled State Route 3 (the route of the historic Plank Road) leading from Fredericksburg to battlefields at Chancellorsville and the Wilderness, you'll find historical signs amid fast-food restaurants, auto dealerships and Battlefield Dental of Fredericksburg. 

The six-lane monster long ago nearly swallowed whole the Salem Church battlefield, where a clash on May 3, 1863, resulted in more than 9,500 casualties. Even the National Park Service web site cautions: "Salem Church is located amongst a virtual sea of shopping malls." Business sites and housing tracts have not only carved up battlefields but also strained the nerves of preservationists such as Cummings, who has persuaded a developer or two to tweak plans to save a slice of history.

"There have been some major preservation victories in Spotsy, like stopping a huge development on the site of the May 1 fighting at Chancellorsville," says Cummings, whose ancestor, Frederick Unger of the 7th New York Heavy Artillery, suffered a wound at Harris farm. "But there are also some horrific losses."

See a battlefield and then get your teeth cleaned
 at Battlefield Dental of Fredericksburg.

It isn't breaking news, but developers have destroyed many other Civil War battlefields in Virginia. At Chantilly, near Washington, the battlefield where Union generals Phillip Kearney and Isaac Stevens fell, developers long ago plowed it under for housing and business parks. Only a few acres remain undeveloped.

During my first visit four years ago to Beaver Dam Creek, near Richmond, I walked through a small clearing only to find a housing development a short distance from where the armies clashed. When asked in 2010 to explain the fighting at Cold Harbor, a National Park Service ranger told me it was "the battlefield of the mind." Although much of that field remains, so much of it is in private hands or otherwise developed that it's hard to understand what happened there. 

My two-hour Spotsylvania Court House battlefield tour with Cummings includes a stop at the infamous Bloody Angle, a walk in the woods to see where Confederate soldiers once were buried, a discussion of skulls found on the field after the war and a visit to the spot where a sharpshooter killed "Uncle John" Sedgwick. 

On the drive back to where the tour started, I ask Cummings to work overtime.

"There's something I have never seen," I tell him. "I want to see Harris Farm."

Bloomsbury Farm Estates, a development of upscale houses, has nearly 
obliterated the Harris Farm battlefield.

     Click upper right for panorama of 1st Massaschusetts Heavy Artillery monument site.

The Harris farmhouse, built in the late 18th century,  is the only historic  structure that remains from battle.

From busy State Route 208, there's little to indicate that a battlefield is tucked in a neighborhood nearby. A black-and-white historical marker placed along the highway decades ago by the state of Virginia provides a short summary of the battle, but there's nowhere convenient to park to read it, so few probably bother. A large yellow-and-brown sign 20 yards away trumpets a real estate development: "Bloomsbury Farm Estates. Now Selling! Make U-Turn."

TOP: An out-of-the-way historical marker
 provides  information on the Battle of 
Harris Farm. BOTTOM: 20 yards
 from that state marker, a large sign touts
 an upscale housing development on what's 
left of the battlefield. 

To get to the site of the Battle of Harris Farm, we turn left off Route 208 on Bloomsbury Lane and go another half-mile or so past ranch-style houses before making a right into the Bloomsbury Farm Estates subdivision. It could be Anywhere in Affluent, U.S.A., where large McMansions sit on oversized lots.

I drive down a hill, make a left and park in front of the only historic structure remaining from the battle: the Harris farmhouse. Isolated within the subdivision, it was used as a field hospital during the battle. A large cement-and-brick marker notes the property dates to circa 1740. "For Sale," reads another sign in a strip of grass near the street 

"What's left to see here?" I ask Cummings. 

He suggests we go to the bottom of the hill and park in a small gravel lot a stone's throw from a 4,000-plus square-foot house with a child's play set in the side yard. Nearby, a lawn mower roars and two teens wash a car while a man in his 70s plays in a large front yard with his grandson.

Years ago, this was beautiful, rolling farmland. Longtime Virginia relic hunter Gary Williams, whom I wrote about here, remembers searching the remains of Civil War trenches that once dotted this landscape. In 2000, the farm was described in this National Register of Historic Places form as "an intact dairy farm with large open houses surrounding the main house/dairy operation. It has high integrity and is significant for its open terrain that it had during the Civil War."

But in 1989, a deep-pockets developer bought the land, outmaneuvering preservationists, and massive houses pockmarked the area by the early 2000s. The builder's web site touts "spacious home sites up to five acres."

                                   Google Maps view of the Bloomsbury Farm Estates. The

        Massachusetts Heavy Artillery monument is the large white object near upper left.

After I park, Cummings and I walk about 60 yards down a strip of grass bordered by a double row of cedar trees to the lone monument on what remains of the battlefield. In an open field near woods when it was dedicated on May 19, 1901, the 37th anniversary of the battle, the 1st Massachusetts Heavy Artillery monument now stands practically in the front yard of a Bloomsbury Farms Estate McMansion. 

During a mid-1990s permit review by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of the proposed housing development, Noel G. Harrison of the National Park Service came up with the initial idea to save the 4.5-acre sliver of property, which includes a small portion of the original Harris farm lane. Three nearby Central Virginia Battlefields Trust markers explain what happened at the farm in May 1864.

On May 8, 2009, near the
1st Massaschusetts Heavy Artillery 
monument, descendants of
James Branscomb sprinkled
 dirt from Alabama near a small tree
 and a plaque dedicated to the private's memory.
 (Photo courtesy Clint Schemmer,
 Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star) 

Two years after raising $1,100 to purchase the block of New England granite for the monument, Massachusetts veterans returned to the battlefield for a dedication ceremony — an event described at the time as "by far the most interesting and important event in the history of the regiment." Among the veterans were five former adversaries of the "Heavies," one of whom gave a short speech.
   
"Men do not mark by shaft or pile, a spot where ignoble deeds are done," said C.B. Winston, who was a sergeant in the 45th North Carolina. "Had you retired before our advancing lines that day, this field would not have become historic. Had you done so, I, as your contestant on the field, would not have troubled myself to quit business and travel three hundred miles to meet you here and witness your ceremonies."

At the end of the speech, he received an ovation.

No effort was made to memorialize Confederate sacrifice at Harris Farm until May 8, 2009, when descendants of James Branscomb from Texas, Alabama, Georgia and Northern Virginia dedicated a bronze plaque in the soldier's memory near the Massachusetts memorial. The genesis of the ceremony was an odd source: a BVD underwear box, which contained war-time correspondence between James, his brothers and sister that Lucinda's Hunter's great-grandchildren discovered in was discovered in 1991.

Decendants read several of James' letters and then sprinkled a vial of Alabama dirt from the old family homestead near a Virginia juniper tree planted in James' memory. One of the descendants, Frank Chappell, a retired Army missile program engineer from Huntsville, Ala., self-published a book about the letters called "Dear Sister." Another descendant, bluegrass composer Louisa Branscomb, even co-wrote a song with Claire Lynch about the brothers. The lyrics begin:

This could be my last letter
I may never see the cotton fields of home again
I miss you, Dear Sister,
Tonight I never felt so all alone

Like Van Buren Towle, James Branscomb also never made it home. Despite efforts by his descendants to find his grave, the final resting place of the private remains unknown.

And so woods and farm fields where the son of an Alabama cotton farmer and his comrades fought against a Massachusetts shoemaker and the Yankee "Heavies" have been altered forever. 

What does that say about us?

Private James Branscomb 's descendants walk up the preserved Harris farm lane toward  the pre-war  farmhouse (left).  (Photo courtesy Clint Schemmer, Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star)

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— Have something to add (or correct) in this post? E-mail me here.


SOURCES: 

• Chappell, Frank Anderson, Dear Sister, Civil War Letters to a Sister in Alabama, Huntsville, Ala., 2012
• Nutt, Charles and Roe, Alfred, History of the First Regiment of Heavy Artillery Massachusetts Volunteers, Published by the Regimental Association, 1917
• Page, Charles A., Letters of a War Correspondent, Boston, L.C. Page & Co., 1899
• Van Buren Towle pension file, National Archives and Records Service, Washington, D.C.

Gettysburg interactive panoramas: Little Round Top

Click here for battlefield panoramas from Antietam, Cedar Mountain, Chickamauga, Gettysburg, Harris Farm, Manassas, Malvern Hill, Salem Church, Spotsylvania Courthouse and more.

General George Meade observed the battle from this spot on Little Round Top on July 3.
The Civil War sesquicentennial  has caused such little buzz in the United States that one well-known professor/author has called the anniversary "anemic," according to this Wall Street Journal piece. "It's hard to talk about if you don't mention race, emancipation and slavery," Gary Gallagher of the University of Virginia told the Journal. Another disappointed expert simply blames ignorance. "Significant numbers of people have no idea when the Civil War occurred, let alone what it was about," said David Heidler, who co-edited the five-volume "Encyclopedia of the American Civil War" with his wife. If true, that's a sad commentary on everything from our educational system to a collective lack of awareness about our own history. But the sentence that sticks with me from the Journal article is this one about Gettysburg:

"Nearly seven million people scampered along its rolling hills in the peak year of 1970, compared with 1.2 million last year, according to the National Park Service." 

Stunning.

I'll save a long debate on the sesquicentennial for another day. But anecdotally, at least, I can say that I was struck by the lack of big crowds at Gettysburg during a visit April 15-16-17. On a Thursday morning at 9:30, I was the only person roaming The Wheatfield. A short time later, only a handful of people were at Little Round Top as I climbed among the boulders there. For the millions of people who won't be at Gettysburg this year, these three interactive panoramas from Little Round Top are a peek at what you're missing.


   Pan left for statue of Gen. Gouverneur Warren, whose bold move here earned acclaim.

          The rugged terrain at Little Round Top looks as imposing as it did in July 1863.

History revealed: Sgt. Harvey Tucker's Fredericksburg grave

NO. 1: A photographer employed by Mathew Brady made this image of the burial of Federal dead,
 probably on May 20, 1864. (Library of Congress collection)

NO. 2: In this enlargement of the original image, "SAR" and "H. Tuck" appear on the grave marker
 by the  solder's right foot. A shovel obscures the rest of the writing on the marker.

NO. 3: An extreme close-up of Sergeant Harvey Tucker's wooden grave marker.

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The scene at the top of this post, photographed by Mathew Brady's operators in Fredericksburg, Va., on May 19 or 20, 1864, probably was repeated hundreds, if not thousands, of times in the town and the surrounding, war-ravaged countryside during the Civil War. Two wooden coffins lay on the ground, the bare feet of a dead soldier protruding between them (PHOTO 4) while two other bodies wrapped in blankets lay nearby. A man, perhaps a chaplain holding a Bible who was preparing to give the dead men a Christian burial, gazes into the distance while a burial detail and soldiers take a break from their sad tasks. A body appears on a stretcher in the background, which also includes at least 40 wooden markers designating the graves of Union soldiers who were killed in action or died from wounds or disease in or near the town along the Rappahannock River.

NO. 4: In this enlargement, a
 dead soldier's feet protrude
from behind a coffin.

Gravediggers stayed busy that spring. To keep pressure on Robert E. Lee and threaten the Rebel capital in Richmond, the Union army fought especially bloody battles at the Wilderness (May 5-7), Spotsylvania Courthouse (May 8-21) and elsewhere near Fredericksburg, causing thousands of casualties on both sides.

In his ground-breaking 1983 book, "Grant and Lee, The Virginia Campaigns 1864-1865," Civil War photography expert William Frassanito dissected this image and six other photos of this scene in Fredericksburg. Frassanito believed the image was taken by a photographer working for Mathew Brady on May 19 or May 20, 1864, but he was unable to pinpoint its location. Years later, painstaking research by Noel G. Harrison of the National Park Service revealed the photograph's location as the edge of Fredericksburg, on Winchester Street between Amelia and Lewis streets. Using a magnifying glass to view details in the original negative at the National Archives, Frassanito identified a soldier's name as well as his regimental number scrawled on the marker near the gravedigger's hand at the extreme right of the photograph (PHOTO 5). Further research by Frassanito identified that soldier as 121st New York Sergeant Lester Baum, 24, who had been mortally wounded at Spotsylvania Courthouse on May 10, 1864, and died nine days later.

NO. 5: In another enlargement of the original image, Sergeant Lester Baum's marker appears
 just below the right hand of the gravedigger at the far right.

PRESENT-DAY: Approximate site of Fredericksburg burial site in 1864. (Google Maps)
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

---

Thankfully, I don't have to travel to the Library of Congress or National Archives in Washington or use a magnifying glass to examine glass-plate images from the Civil War, as Frassanito had to while researching his book in the 1970s and '80s. Easily enlarged, digitized versions of Civil War images are available on the excellent Library of Congress web site in JPEG and TIFF formats.

As examination on my blog of these Antietam images by Alexander Gardner shows, the detail found in glass-plate images is amazing, especially in TIFF format. In spring 2014, I re-examined the Fredericksburg burial image, eager to find overlooked details. A gravedigger's shovel, socks on the dead men wrapped in blankets and even wording on the tall marker (perhaps Private Alexander Read of Company K of the 84th Pennsylvania) are easily seen. But another grave marker in the right background, next to the seated soldier, attracted my attention. A shovel obscures part of the marker, but the letters "SAR" and "H. Tuck" appear by the soldier's right foot (PHOTOS 2 and 3).

Tucker died from the effects of his wounds on May 20, 1864,
 according to this document, dated July 10, 1864 and signed by
 6th Michigan 2nd Lieutenant William Creevy.
(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

Determined to identify who was buried underneath that marker, I spent a half-hour on the American Civil War Research Database to narrow the possibilities. I assumed the soldier's rank was sergeant by the apparent misspelling "SAR" at the top of the marker. I also assumed the soldier's last name was Tucker and searched all soldiers with that last name and a first name that began with "H" who did not survive the war. I ruled out soldiers with last names such as Tuckett or Tucksberry  because they didn't die in Virginia in the spring of 1864, their first names didn't begin with "H," or they didn't meet other criteria. Of the 13 Tuckers who did not survive the war, only one had a first name that began with "H" and served near Fredericksburg in 1864:

Sergeant Harvey Tucker of the 6th Michigan Cavalry. 

Wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness on May 6, 1864, Tucker died two weeks days later in Fredericksburg. He was 37 years old. Examination of 55 pages of documents in Tucker widow's pension file on fold3.com revealed many more details about the Michigan man's life — including his last days on Earth.

According to the 1860 U.S. census, Harvey Tucker was a married father of four children.
(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

Thirty-five year-old Harvey Tucker enlisted in the U.S. Army in Cottrellville, Mich., about 50 miles northeast of Detroit, on Sept. 10, 1862. Born in Massena, N.Y., he had gray eyes, dark hair, a swarthy complexion and stood 5-foot-7, about average height for a Civil War soldier. The decision to join the army must have been difficult for Tucker, a married man who lived in Ira Township, Mich., which rises from the shores of Lake St. Clair.

In June 1860, the Federal census taker noted that Tucker's household included his 27-year-old wife, Lovina, and four children: Susan, 7; Lyman, 5; Mary, 2; and Douglas, 9 months. (Another child, John, was born in September 1861.) A farmer and a blacksmith, Tucker had real estate valued at $700 and personal property worth $180, modest totals. Lovina's first husband abused her, and she "was taken away by her father," although the couple apparently did not legally divorce. Born in Canada, she married Harvey on May 20, 1852, when she was 19.

NO. 6: Does this enlargement of the
original image show 6th Michigan
 Chaplain Stephen S.N. Greeley?
 In May 1864, he was 50 years old.

A little more than a month after his enlistment, Tucker mustered into Company C of the 6th Michigan Cavalry, one of four regiments that formed the Michigan Cavalry Brigade. Its young brigadier general, George Armstrong Custer, would earn great acclaim during the last three years of the Civil War — and infamy in 1876 at Little Big Horn.

The 6th Michigan served mainly on picket duty until it saw its first major fighting during the Gettysburg Campaign on June 30, 1863, at Hanover, Pa. The regiment "particularly distinguished" itself, according to General Hugh Judson Kilpatrick, on July 2, 1863, at Hunterstown, Pa., where Custer set a trap and whipped Wade Hampton's cavalry. On July 3, in a cavalry fight east of Gettysburg, the brigade fought well against Jeb Stuart's horsemen, according to Custer, who wrote "there were many cases of personal heroism, but a list of their names would make my report too extended."

Earlier in 1863, Tucker apparently had attracted the notice of superiors, who promoted him to corporal on New Year's Day 1863 and to sergeant a little more than a month later. Battles in Virginia that fall at Brandy Station, Buckland Mills, Mine Run and Morton's Ford followed for the regiment, but fighting at the Wilderness dwarfed all the others.

A regimental band played "Yankee Doodle" as the 6th Michigan Cavalry dashed into battle on May 6 at the Wilderness, mostly thick woods that offered little visibility. Confederates nearly enveloped the Michiganders, who were armed with Spencer repeating rifles. But they turned the tide and held the right of the brigade's line. Sometime during the fight, a bullet struck Tucker a little above the hip, exiting at his opposite shoulder, perhaps indicating a shot from below. By 1864, the Army of the Potomac ambulance corps was well organized, and Tucker soon may have been transported 10 miles over the rough roads to Fredericksburg. The town became "one vast hospital" during the war as scores of buildings became sites to treat wounded and sick soldiers. 

Chaplain Stephen S.N. Greeley,
probably late 19th century.
He died in 1892 at age 79.
(Courtesy John Dickey)

Initially, Tucker appeared to be doing well. He had "regular passages of the bowels" and gave the regimental chaplain his address so he could write a letter home to his wife. But two weeks after he was wounded, Tucker suffered an internal hemorrhage, and the end came quickly at Cavalry Corps Hospital on May 20, 1864 — his 12th wedding anniversary. Later that morning, Chaplain Stephen S.N. Greeley wrote a four-page letter to Lovina Tucker to explain the circumstances of her husband's death. (See complete letter below).

"A kind-hearted, simple-minded gentleman of the old school," Greeley was not well suited to the rigors of war, a veteran wrote after the war. "[I]n the field he was more like a child than a seasoned soldier and needed the watchful care of all his friends to keep him from perishing with hunger, fatigue, and exposure." But the chaplain, 50 years old in May 1864, toughed it out with the 6th Michigan from 1862 through the end of the war, ministering to soldiers and often breaking sad news to loved ones back home.

"It becomes my painful duty to convey to you the sad intelligence that is often sent to dear wives and families of our noble soldiers," Greeley's letter to Tucker's wife began. "In this dreadful war they pass away by hundreds — and after battles by thousands."

At one point during the war, according to Harrison's research, burial crews interred Union dead in Fredericksburg "four deep" and often without identification or a proper burial service. In a 1998 article in Military Images Magazine, Harrison wrote that Corporal Albert Downs of the 57th New York, detailed to Fredericksburg as part of the provost guard, became appalled by the lack of concern for the dead. He persuaded superiors to provide proper burials for soldiers. On the morning he died, Tucker received a respectful service.

Post-war image of Fredericksburg National
Cemetery. The wooden markers shown
 here deteriorated and were replaced 
with stone markers.
 (Photo courtesy Jerry Brent,
executive director
Central Virginia Battlefields Trust)

"We had your husband enclosed in a coffin, while others were laid only in their blankets," Greeley wrote to Tucker's wife, " and when his body rested in the appointed place, many soldiers who stood round and a detachment of grave diggers uncovered their heads and stood in silence while I administered for your husband the right of a Christian burial."

Greeley's description of the service prompts several questions:

Could the scene he described be the same scene photographed by one of Brady's assistants in May 1864? Are the bodies wrapped in blankets in the image the same ones the chaplain described? Is Greeley actually the man holding the book in the image (PHOTO 6)?  Many other burials took place at the site in 1864, so the man with the book could be someone else, perhaps a member of the U.S. Christian Commission. Further research could yield definitive answers, maybe even a photograph of Sergeant Tucker himself. Although not conclusive evidence, the date of  Greeley's letter leads me to believe the photo of the Fredericksburg burial scene was taken on May 20, 1864.

After the Civil War, workers disinterred 328 bodies buried in the soldier's cemetery on Winchester Street and re-buried them in Fredericksburg National Cemetery, less than a mile away. Tucker's body was probably originally re-buried there under a marker that read "Unknown" — one of nearly 13,000 unknown Civil War soldiers graves in the cemetery on Marye's Heights overlooking town.

Sixth Michigan chaplain Stephen S.N. Greeley sent this four-page letter to Tucker's wife
explaining the circumstances of the sergeant's death after he was wounded at the
 Battle of the Wilderness. (fold3.com) 

Cavalry Corps Hospital
Fredericksburg Virginia
Friday morning, May 20, 1864

Dear Mrs. Tucker

It becomes my painful duty to convey to you the sad intelligence that is often sent to dear wives and families of our noble soldiers. In this dreadful war they pass away by hundreds -- and after battles by thousands. Our campaign opened on the 3rd day in May and for eight days after crossing the Rappidan and meeting the enemy there were most fearful and bloody engagements.

In one of the battles in the Wilderness our cavalry force had a terrific struggle. Your husband was pierced by a ball a little above the hip -- passing upward...

After he was wounded in the hip, Sergeant Harvey Tucker was transported to the 
Cavalry Corps Hospital  in Fredericksburg, Chaplain Greeley wrote. 

... and coming out below the opposite shoulder. This was on Friday, two weeks ago today. He was conveyed with some 15,000 wounded men to this town of Fredericksburg, where is established the Cavalry Corps Hospital -- and where I have remained with the cavalry department.

A day or two since Segt. Tucker requested me to write you for him and gave me your name & address. He seemed to be doing nicely. He had regular passages from the bowels and as far as I could see had every prospect of a speedy recovery. He was visited by Christian men of the "Christian Commision" and had kind attention in matters pertaining to the body & soul.

I was about to write you yesterday to be of good cheer with respect to him, but was delayed by business of town. On returning to ...

"Grave diggers uncovered their heads and stood in silence" at Tucker's burial, Greeley wrote.

... my surprise I found that yesterday afternoon he had been taken with internal hemorage (sic), together with a copious discharge of pus through the wound, and died in a very few minutes. My hopes that the ball had not touched the bowels had now proved fallicious.

I attended his remains this morning to a new Soldiers' Cemetery we have just secured. The dead were being constantly brought in from hospitals in every direction -- but we had your husband enclosed in a coffin, while others were laid only in their blankets, and when his body rested in the appointed place, many soldiers who stood round and a detachment of grave diggers uncovered their heads and stood in silence while I administered for your husband the right of a Christian burial. May God comfort ...

This letter appears on fold3.com and is available in Tucker's widow's pension file at the
 National Archives in Washington. (CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

... you in your bereavement -- is the desire and prayer of .

Yours with respect and sympathy.

S.S.N. Greeley
Chaplain Sixth Mich. Cavalry

Mrs. Lovina Tucker
Bell River, Mich.

---

Have something to add (or correct) in this post? E-mail me here.

SOURCES:

• Harvey Tucker widow's pension file, National Archives and Records Service, Washington via fold3.com
• 1860 U.S. census
• Kidd, James Harvey, Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War, Ionia, Michigan, 1908
• Harrison, Noel G., Military Images Magazine, "Victims and Survivors: New Perspectives on Fredericksburg's May 1864 Photographs," November-December 1998
• The Union Army, A History of Military Affairs in the Loyal States, Volume III, Madison, Wis., 1908