How Longstreet survived post-Gettysburg reunion train wreck

En route to his home in Georgia, James Longstreet was aboard "The Piedmont Airline"
 when it wrecked at the "Fat Nancy" trestle in Orange County, Va., on July 12, 1888.
 (Train wreck photo: Images of Orange County | Longstreet photo: William Tipton)

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A version of this feature story appeared in the January 2021 America's Civil War magazine.

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Nearly a quarter-century after he suffered a severe wound at the Battle of the Wilderness, Confederate Lt. General James Longstreet had another brush with death in Virginia. Early on the morning of July 12, 1888, the 67-year-old passenger survived a deadly train accident at a rickety railroad trestle called “Fat Nancy,” 20 miles southwest of the infamous battleground. 

Die in a mere train wreck? Fat chance for Robert E. Lee’s “Old War Horse.”

Sporting astonishingly long, white whiskers, Longstreet was en route to his home in Gainesville, Ga.,  from the Grand Reunion of Civil War veterans in Gettysburg. The former lieutenant general served as star attraction on that hallowed ground where George Meade out-generaled Lee 25 years earlier. “No man in Gettysburg,” a New York newspaper noted, was “more honored nor more sought than he.”

At roughly 11 p.m., Longstreet boarded the southbound Virginia Midland Railroad’s No. 52 train, “The Piedmont Airline,” in Washington. He traveled with at least two other Confederate veterans — including New Orleans-bound Louis G. Cortes, a “whole-souled, open-hearted, compassionate man” who, as a 19-year-private in the 7th Louisiana, lost his left leg at Gettysburg. Fighting for Brigadier General Harry Hays’ famed “Louisiana Tigers,” Cortez became a prisoner in Pennsylvania and did not get exchanged until early 1864. He also attended the Gettysburg reunion.

The train, scheduled to make stops in Augusta, Georgia; Atlanta and New Orleans, typically carried between 150 and 200 passengers. No. 52 consisted of mail, baggage, smoking and ladies’ cars, three sleepers, the locomotive (Engine 694) and a tender.

James Longstreet, sporting long, white whiskers, was returning from the Grand Reunion 
at Gettysburg when the train he was aboard wrecked at the "Fat Nancy" trestle.
(William Tipton photo)

Longstreet sat in a sleeper car as the train snaked its way through countryside ravaged by civil war decades earlier. At roughly 2 a.m., “The Piedmont Airline” arrived with sleeping and groggy passengers in Orange Court House. A short time later, conductor C.P. Taylor eased it out of the station on the Virginia Midland Railroad line. Two miles south of Orange Court House, the train slowed to about 4 m.p.h. as it approached the 44-foot-high, wooden Browning Trestle spanning rain-swollen Two Runs Creek.

Locals called the 470-foot bridge the “Fat Nancy Trestle,” after a plus-sized African American named Emily Jackson, who lived near its western approach. As she stood near the doorway of her house, Jackson would wave her green-checkered, gingham apron at railroad workers, who would toss her apples and oranges from their lunch baskets.

The train wreck site today.
 (Special to the blog)

At 2:20 a.m., the train crept toward the middle of the trestle, which had been undergoing repairs.

Then disaster struck.

After the locomotive and tender apparently made it across the bridge, the smoking car in the center of the trestle plunged through wooden beams and into the creek. It dragged the four cars, followed by the tender and locomotive, into the vortex. Two sleepers remained on the track above; the other sleeper, which also fell, rested precariously atop the crumpled wreckage below it.

Frightened passengers, adults and children alike, moaned and cried. Steam hissed from the crippled locomotive. All lights on the train went out after it plunged from the bridge. In the inky blackness, passengers frantically worked to free themselves from the wreckage or to aid the injured. 

Thankfully, the wreck didn’t burst into flames or this disaster could have been worse. According to a report, “no pen or tongue” could adequately describe the horror. A survivor from North Carolina said the “cries and groans of the wounded and distressed baffled description.”

Longstreet, a large man, somehow squeezed to safety through a bottom of the sleeper car on the tracks. (Another account said a window.) “He afterwards looked at the hole through which he had emerged,” a newspaper reported, “and wondered how he had ever got through it.” The general, apparently unscathed physically, assisted survivors until daylight and then lay down to rest. Dozens were injured — or worse.

A historical marker at the site briefly
mentions Longstreet.
(Special to the blog)

“The train was piled in such an inextricable mass of debris,” the Baltimore Sun reported, “that it was difficult to discover the outlines of human forms. Through the interstices of the wreck arms and legs protruded in every direction.”

A woman in her 20s in one of the first-class cars traveled with two or three bantam chickens. When someone raised objections to the noisy birds, she moved forward into a smoking car. Responders discovered the young lady with “her head mashed beyond recognition” — one of nine passengers who died at the scene.

The death list also included Cortes, the one-legged veteran bound for home in New Orleans, He was initially discovered with only $4. But during preparation for his burial in the Confederate Cemetery a mile or so away in Orange, Va., a policeman examined the man’s cast-off shoe. In it, he discovered $82 in bank notes.

A month after the death of Cortes — one of scores of Hispanics to serve the Confederacy — the Louisiana Division of the Army of Northern Virginia passed a resolution in the veteran’s honor.  “He sleeps … in the sacred soil of Virginia made precious by the best blood of the south,” it read. “Flowers will bloom upon his grave, the birds make melody above him, and at night the stars will watch as sentinels over the sleep of L. G. Cortes.” 

Responders found another New Orleans-bound passenger, an “unknown Italian” killed in the accident, with a railroad ticket, a poker chip and three cents. A civil engineer named Cornelius Cox, who had been directing repairs on the trestle, also died in the wreck. A severely injured mail agent died in a Charlottesville hospital five minutes before his wife and brother arrived from Prosper, Virginia. Miraculously, the train’s crew survived.

Cornelius Cox, a civil engineer who
had been directing repairs on the trestle,
died in the train accident. He was buried in 
Congressional Cemetery in Washington
(Find A Grave)

William N. Parrott, a postal clerk in Piedmont, Virginia, rode in the mail car. The Confederate veteran lived a charmed life. When he was 6, he survived a blow from a large, fallen tree limb sawed from an oak by workmen. As a private in the 7th Virginia, he suffered wounds at Second Manassas, Gettysburg and Dinwiddie Courthouse. In an account published decades after the accident, he recalled:

“The [postal] car was broken into kindling wood and I sustained injuries as follows: Left leg broken in three places, right hip badly injured, two ribs broken, both elbows badly injured, paralyzed in stomach and bowels for 10 days and Dr. W.C.N. Randolph said my back from head to hips was bruised so it was as black as a black hat.”

A passenger from Baltimore said it was a miracle how anyone survived the plunge from the trestle. To free the baggage master, who somehow survived under an iron safe and several trunks, rescuers cut away the top of a car.

A couple living nearby in the rural area apparently arrived first to assist the injured. The train’s slightly injured engineer escaped from the wreckage, walked two miles to Orange and telegraphed for help. At about 7 a.m., physicians from nearby Charlottesville arrived on the scene. A local woman did such a fabulous job aiding and comforting the wounded that the railroad company later awarded her $250. The supremely efficient U.S. Post Office Department sent special agents to collect mail that littered the accident scene.

Unsurprisingly, a reporter spotted Emily Jackson, “Fat Nancy,” sitting on a wooden beam near the broken timbers of the trestle watching the rescue.

After the disaster, the railroad built an embankment with a stone culvert to replace the trestle. 
(Special to the blog)

In nearby Charlottesville, anxiety soared.

“As the hours went by the excitement grew very intense,” according to a report, “so much so that when a special train from Orange arrived bearing the wounded the depot and platforms were literally packed, and it was as much as the police could do to keep a passageway clear.”

A reporter quizzed one of the survivors from the sleeper car about the cause of the accident.

“Why, sir,” the man said excitedly, “there were rotten timbers in the trestle and the rotten wood bulged out where the timbers broke. I made careful examination of the structure and am willing to make oath as to its condition.”

A marker in Graham Cemetery in Orange County, Va.,
for five of the nine killed in the "Fat Nancy" train wreck.
(Find A Grave)

A coroner’s investigation quickly confirmed the obvious: Rotten timbers gave way, causing one of the worst train accidents in the state’s history. In the aftermath of the investigation, officials fired the chief engineer for the Virginia Midland Railroad line.

In newspaper accounts afterward, Longstreet — the most prominent passenger on the train — strangely barely earned a mention. Days later, observers spotted the general in Washington, reportedly seeking a pension for his service in the U.S. Army during the Mexican-American War.

Years after the accident, Longstreet served in another role for the American government: U.S. Commissioner of Railroads under presidents William McKinley and Teddy Roosevelt from 1897-1904.

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SOURCES

• Alexandria (Va.) Gazette, July 18, July 20, 1888
• Baltimore Sun, June 13, 1888
• Charlottesville (Va.) Daily Progress, Oct. 29, 1908
• Greensboro (N.C.) Patriot, July 20, 1888
• St. Louis Globe-Democrat, July 24, 1888
• Shenandoah Herald, Woodstock, Va., July 20, 1888
• The Western Sentinel, Winston-Salem, N.C., July 19, 1888

On trail of serial killer, a Civil War explosion and grub in Philly

Dr. H.H. Holmes, a serial killer whose real name was Herman Webster Mudgett, was executed
 in 1896 at Moyamensing Prison in Philadelphia, across the street from the site of a deadly
 explosion in a munitions factory in 1862.

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Sometimes the pursuit of history takes you to strange places, such as the South Philly neighborhood where:

• a corner pub stands on the site of one of the Civil War's deadliest munitions factory explosions.
• a serial killer was executed in a prison where Edgar Allan Poe slept off a drinking spree.
• chickens meet their maker in a most brutal way.
• and a famous fast-food joint provides around-the-clock service.

Whew.

There's a lot to unpack there, so let's start with those birds and forget most of the rest of that opening sentence. The clucks of chickens in a live poultry market on 9th Street horrified Mrs. B and Philadelphia Daughter B, who accompanied me on this history excursion. Perhaps they'll be comforted that they are not alone in their disgust. Online reviews of Shun Da Market range from horrible ("I can't stand to walk by that place") to the really horrible ("smells like shit.") 

While my wife and daughter absorbed City of Brotherly Love ambience, I explored the 'hood, a working-class area of Italians, recent immigrants from Central America, hardcore liberals and Republicans, row houses, and narrow side streets with lots of potholes.

 "Rugged elegance," a resident told me. 

This ballfield, dedicated in memory of a prominent South Philadelphia physician, was built
on the grounds of a former cemetery. Are bodies still there?

On 10th Street, a ballfield dedicated in memory of a local physician occupies ground once part of a  massive cemetery. Workers disinterred most of the bodies — including those of Civil War vets — for reburial elsewhere in the 1940s. But the contractor who did the grisly work botched the job. So, there's no telling what might be under third base or the pitcher's mound.

But what really caught my eye was a historical marker at the corner of Passyunk and Reed streets denoting the site of Moyamensing Prison: "H.H. Holmes, considered America's first serial killer, was executed here. The city razed the castle-like prison, opened in 1835, in 1968. An Acme stands there now. 

A 1901 image of Moyamensing Prison, razed in 1968.
 (Philadelphia Prison Society)

Now I didn't have the heart to tell shoppers in the supermarket's cereal aisle that a serial killer dangled at end of a rope near stacks of Frosty Flakes, Cheerios, and Lucky Charms. But I was determined to find out more about Mr. Holmes, better known as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes and sometimes by his real name, Herman Webster Mudgett.

In the 1890s, Holmes left a trail of dead, mainly young women, from Chicago and Toronto to Philadelphia and who-knows-where-else. Besides being a murderer, he was a con artist, liar, horse thief, employee of the State Lunatic Asylum at Norristown (Pa.), graduate of the University of Michigan's Department of Medicine and Surgery, subject of dozens of lawsuits, and a trigamist, which I had to look up in the dictionary. (Holmes enjoyed marriage, often to many women at the same time, which is illegal unless you are the star of Sister Wives.)

Dr. H.H. Holmes' "Murder Castle" in Chicago.
(The Holmes-Pitezel Case:  A History of the Greatest Crime
 of the Century and of the Search for
 the Missing Pitezel Children, 1896).

In Chicago, where he apparently commited most of his murders, Holmes owned an apartment building, later dubbed the "Murder Castle." The place reportedly had soundproofed rooms, mazes of hallways, and chutes in which Holmes dropped victims into a basement, where he had acid vats, quicklime, and a crematorium. The bad doctor's killing spree ended in Boston in November 1894, when he was captured by Pinkertons.

After a trial and conviction for the murder of his business partner in Philly, Holmes was hanged at Moyamensing Prison on May 7, 1896, nine days before his 35th birthday. "Take your time," he told the hangman, "you know I'm in no hurry." It took the hangman 15 minutes to execute Holmes, who calmly met his fate. "Cool to the End," the New York Times proclaimed. 

"That Holmes was a criminal, such as the world has ever seen, cannot be questioned," the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote. "It is known of him that he was many times a murderer, a villain, that he lived by plunder and was the most accomplished liar that ever walked the face of the earth."

Naturally, this story gets even weirder. Apparently fearful his body might be stolen and dissected, Holmes requested — and somehow was granted — burial 10 feet underground in a pine coffin encased in concrete. In 2017, amid allegations Holmes had escaped execution, his body was exhumed for testing. Holmes—whose mustache was well preserved but body was goo—was positively identified by his teeth. 

An artist's impression in Frank Leslie's Illustrated of ruins of a Philadelphia munitions factory after explosions on March 29, 1862. (House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College)

A cropped enlargement of an 1862 lithograph shows the grim aftermath of the munitions factory explosion in Philadelphia. (Artist John L. Magee | Library Company of Philadelphia)

An approximate view of the scene in the lithograph above.

Dazed by the serial killer historical marker — and a mesmerizing Flyers mascot painted on the wall of the Triangle Tavern —  I wandered through the narrow side streets. Holmes' execution was far from the only macabre event in this neighborhood. 

I was mesmerized by the Flyers' mascot.

On March 29, 1862, gunpowder and cartridges ignited in Professor Samuel Jackson's fireworks-turned-munitions factory on 10th Street. Many of the 78 factory workers, mostly women and girls, never had a chance to escape the explosion and conflagration. Eighteen employees died — including Jackson's 23-year-old son. Dozens of survivors suffered from burns or other injuries in the war's first munitions factory accident that involved a major loss of life. 

"Heads, legs and arms were hurled through the air, and in some instances were picked up hundreds of feet from the scene." the Inquirer reported. "Portions of flesh, brains, limbs, entrails, etc. were found in the yards of houses, on roofs and in the adjacent streets." A "whole human head, afterwards recognized as that of John Mehaffey, was found in an open lot" against the wall of Moyamensing Prison, a New York Herald reporter observed.

A policeman filled a barrel with human remains, and a man told an Inquirer reporter that he saw a boy going home with a human head in his basket. The lad said it was his father's. Blown across the street into a prison wall by the blast, Mary Jane Curtin -- the superintendent of children at the factory -- somehow escaped physical injury.

The Philadelphia Inquirer provided
extensive coverage of the deadly
munitions factory explosion.

While Mrs. B and Daughter B dined on wings in the Triangle Tavern — built on the site of Jackson's doomed factory — I asked a waitress there if she knew anything about the catastrophe. No, she told me, but the place had a "weird, vacant bar" vibe before it became Triangle Tavern. No historical tablet marks the site of this deadly tragedy, an omission someone must rectify.

Someone also must rectify the long lines at Pat's King of Steaks, a fixture in the South Philly neighborhood since 1930. The joint at 9th and Wharton, near where those chickens suffer horrid deaths, has the tourist schtick down pat (sorry), with T-shirts ($25), hats ($30), and sweatshirts ($35) available for the masses. I stuck with food, ordering a cheese steak with sweet peppers ($14) that was out of my comfort zone. 

What a weird day.

Pat's King of Steaks, where I got a great cheese steak sandwich with sweet peppers.

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SOURCES

• New York Herald, March 31, April 1, 1862.
• New York Times, May 7, 1896.
• Philadelphia Inquirer, March 31, April 1, April 5, April 7, April 12, May 2, 1862, May 8, 1896.
• Philadelphia Times, May 8, 1896.

What battlefields? I'm in Bell Buckle for that massive Moon Pie

A selfie at the "World's Largest Moon Pie." Is this a great country or what?

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When Mrs. B. broke the news we would attend the annual RC Cola MoonPie Festival in Bell Buckle, Tenn., I got kind of excited because it might be an opportunity to con persuade her to visit the nearby Hoover Gap and Liberty Gap battlefields with me. Oh my, so much Civil War history out in the wilds 45 miles east of Nashville.

She's smiling in this photo, but I think I
made Mrs. B nervous with my "World's Largest
 Moon Pie" obsession.

But we got sucked in at the festival by a bunch of cloggers, an 11-minute parade, unusual tattoos, the crowning of the MoonPie Festival Kings and Queen, strangers attempting to balance RC Cola cans on their heads, the obligatory water balloon-tossing contest and the piece de resistance, the unveiling of the "World's Largest Moon Pie." So my Civil War battlefields con job got scrapped.

Ugh.

For you uninitiated, a Moon Pie consists of a graham cracker cookie, a marshmallow center and a coating of either chocolate, vanilla or who knows what else. The small Moon Pie I consumed had kind of a cardboardy taste, and judging by the way MoonPie festival attendees smooshed up and tossed the things in the Moon Pie throwing contest, I think I'm on solid ground there.

The festival in Moon Pie Country is part country fair, part homage to the greatness of Moon Pies and part comedy, with a steaming hunk of capitalism tossed in. As my sister-in-law pulled her SUV into the grass parking lot (10 bucks per vehicle), my brother-in-law asked about the MoonPie parade.

"You're in it," said Parking Lot Dude, who had just started his shift 20 minutes earlier. 

My brother-in-law and I chuckled like any other RC Cola MoonPie Festival rookies would.

Thankfully, Bell Buckle — or "Belt Buckle" or "Buckle Belt," as Mrs. B calls it — is not the "Spandex Capital of Tennessee," because on the muggy afternoon we saw that material deployed in unusual ways, many of which will never in the history of ever be unseen.

Ms. Moon Pie marches in the Moon Pie Festival parade near a giant RC Cola can.

Before the parade, I scouted the ground, sort of like John Buford at Gettysburg: Would the Rocky Valley Cloggers approach from the east or west? 

Will a Shriner launch a Moon Pie at my noggin'? 

Will Ms.Moon Pie smile at me? 

Is Moon Pie one or two words? Is it really capitalized? 

Remember: People came from as far as Utah, the Caribbean and even a foreign country (California) for this. Naturally, being a social media maven, I shot cloggers parade video. And, naturally, I shot them in slo-mo on my new iPhone. Perhaps that's why it only has 32 views on Tweeter. 

Anywho, after the parade, we re-deployed with our folding chairs near hay bales and a small stage — the main theater of action, so to speak. 

“People just come here to be happy,” a festival spokeswoman announced to the crowd about an hour into our experience.

"Sorry, ma'am," I muttered under my breath, "but I'm just here to see that damn giant Moon Pie."

The WLMP was to be unveiled on stage hours later, so I tapped into my inner Jeb Stuart (minus the plumed feather hat thingie and the horse) and aimlessly wandered about to gather intel. 

Thankfully, this vicious dog didn't burst 
through the mesh to go for my jugular.

Nervous and sweaty, I shot a selfie with Ms. Moon Pie. Then I shot a pic of a white dog named Sparkle, Pooky, or Sprinkle — I forgot which, the fog of war and all. Looking like she wanted to go for my jugular, the vicious animal growled from behind the mesh of some pink-and-black baby carriage-like contraption.

Decisions, decisions: Should I buy an official Moon Pie T-shirt ($15) or the genuine antique Coca-Cola tray ($150)? WWMBD: What would Mrs. B do? (I got the shirt.) 

Where can I get one of those Liberty Gap minie balls? Damn, was that Bell Buckle cop really drinking rum out of that watermelon? Do I really need the $25 bottle of balsamic vinaigrette with a hint of barebecue flavor?

At a stand where a guy offered to draw your portrait in 15 minutes, I examined one of the "These Colors Won't Run" illustrations. Hmmm, I seem to remember a whole lot of retreating by that side during the war. (Kudos to Ms. Smiley for teaching us Critical Retreat Theory in fourth grade at Julia Ward Howe Elementary!) 

Seconds seemed like minutes. Minutes dragged on like hours. Mercifully, the unveiling of the "World's Largest Moon Pie" loomed. Before the festival, we debated how large the WLMP would be. The size of a tractor tire? As large as a poker table top? Would it weigh — yikes — 1,000 pounds or more?

The "World's Largest Moon Pie" is escorted to the main stage by security.

Escorted by security — you can't make this stuff up — locals slowly brought the WLMP to the stage atop a golf cart-like vehicle. It was a quasi-religious experience, with security holding down the sides of a giant box — it reminded me of those wacky divine evangelical preachers laying their hands on Trump in the Oval Office. Anyhow, the sweaty crowd parted, making way for the WLMP's journey to its final destination. (Well, second-to-last destination, because people were going to eat the thing.) 

Scurrying to get an up-close look, I dodged several other excited WLMP fans, telling one woman I was the "Official Moon Pie Photographer." Feeling silly, I elbowed what probably was the real official World's Largest Moon Pie photog out of the way to get extreme close-ups. ("Did you plant your face in the pie?" Daughter B later texted. Uh, no.) 

Unable to locate me, Mrs. B, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law briefly expressed concern. And then ... 

"Look, there's John photographing the giant Moon Pie!" one of them said while pointing to me standing on a small step ladder mere feet from the WLMP. I'm told Mrs. B laughed, nervously. 

This year's WLMP was slathered with a
lemon-flavored coating, according to sources. 

I was shooting a video (below) of the massive Moon Pie when a woman said the crazy man must get off the stage.

Uh-oh.

Now about the WLMP, well, it was somewhat of a letdown. It didn't look all that massive — it was more like 20 large, mushed-together pizzas topped with a ton of cheese. (By the way, a slathering of a yellow, lemon-flavored coating covered the giant pie, according to sources.) I wondered how much cardboard they used to make the thing.  

Of course, my "exclusive" WLMP photos and video were anything but. A MoonPie Festival spokeswoman soon announced that anyone who wanted to take a picture of the WLMP should line up stage left. Hundreds did, including the WLMP "semi-official photographer." Ground rules: Each photographer had one second. It was nuts. 

"You must hurry," the MoonPie Festival spokeswoman said, "because we don't want the pie to melt."

HEY, LADY, I'M AN ARTIST!!! 

America...

Is this a great country or what?

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Shepherdstown to Port Republic: 10 unheralded battlefields

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Here's my list, ranked...

1. SHEPHERDSTOWN (W. Va.) | Sept. 20, 1862: Fascinating terrain at final Maryland Campaign battle. Most of battlefield is private property -- including this ground (above) upon which A.P. Hill soldiers advanced (toward camera). Recent visit made doubly good by excellent time spent with town parking cop, who uses a Segway on the job. Regarding the battlefield, he warned me about bears, coyotes, snakes, and ticks. What, no sea serpents? Read about amazing heroism on this battlefield.

2. SOUTH MOUNTAIN: (Md.) | Sept. 14, 1862: Rugged! How the hell did they fight here? George Meade’s men marched past this old house on Frostown Road on Sept. 14, 1862. Once owned by two brothers, locals told me, it and surrounding land were acquired by American Battlefield Trust. As you can tell by the deep-blue sky, this was one of those fabulous western Maryland afternoons.

3. BRANDY STATION: (Va.) | June 9, 1863: View from Fleetwood Hill. Oh my. Meet the man who was instrumental in saving this hallowed ground. Explore panorama.

4. PICKETT'S MILL (Ga.) | May 27, 1864: The Yankees attacked through that ravine? Really? Ranger Jeff Wright (above) warned snakes lurk here. Grrrr. Another Shepherdstown. 

5. CROSS KEYS (Va.) | June 8, 1862: I lost recent staredown here with cows and bull here, preventing a higher ranking. Long story. 😫

6. PIEDMONT (Va.) | June 5, 1864: “Grumble” Jones death site at extreme right of panorama. Best Civil War nickname, by the way. Mrs. B could use for me. 

7. CEDAR CREEK (Va.) | Oct. 19, 1864: Would be higher if they bagged I-81. Ugh. Here's where 8th Vermont advanced through a ravine. Read more.

8. NEW MARKET (Va.) | May 15, 1864: Field of Lost Shoes! Explore panorama.

9. BALL'S BLUFF (Va.) | Oct. 21, 1861: Federals -- including this 15th Massachusetts soldier -- swam Potomac under fire. (Video from Visit Loudoun via YouTube.)

10. FISHER'S HILL (Va.) | Sept. 21-22, 1864: I deftly eluded “cow mines.” Angry herd here eyed me warily, apparently despondent over recent death of one of their own. Weird vibe. Dandy view and a magnificent witness tree (above). Curses to you, I-81! 

HONORABLE MENTION: Port Republic, Va., above (June 9, 1862), Britton's Lane, Tenn. (Sept. 1, 1862), Tebbs Bend, Ky. (July 4, 1863), Morton's Ford, Va. (Feb. 6-7, 1864), Monocacy, Md. (July 9, 1864), Allatoona Pass, Ga. (Oct. 5, 1864), Spring Hill, Tenn. (Nov. 29, 1864),

What do you think of my list? 

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Bull's-eye: 'You damned Yankees have killed old General Polk'

A close-up of monument at the Leonidas Polk death site at Pine Mountain.

This 20-foot monument, dedicated in 1902, marks where Polk was killed.

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On a recent visit to the site where Leonidas Polk was killed in Kennesaw, Ga., I examined the monument to the slave-holding lieutenant general, inspected the remains of a four-gun Confederate battery position nearby, and shook my fist at a modern house, gazebo, and tennis court. (Georgia developers show little mercy for Civil War battlefields; the monument ground is private property.)

Leonidas Polk was killed at Pine Mountain
on June 14, 1864. (Alabama Department
of Archives and History)

Then I listened, aghast, to a period preacher named "Archibald Everhart," who lost me roughly 10 seconds into his oration in front of the obelisk marking Polk's death at Pine Mountain: "Glory to the Southern saint ...." 

Oh, Lord.

On June 14, 1864, Polk -- "The Fighting Bishop" -- was nearly sliced in two by a well-aimed (or damned lucky) U.S. Army artillery round, rocking the Confederacy. "No event of a personal description -- saving the fate of Stonewall Jackson," a Southern newspaper wrote, "compares with it for painful interest and national calamity."

"Saddest event which has ever occurred in the [Army of Tennessee] since the death of Albert Sidney Johnston," wrote another. "You damned Yankees have killed old General Polk," a Confederate soldier reportedly wrote on a piece of paper attached to a ramrod next to a stump on Pine Mountain.

Polk, a West Point graduate and an Episcopal bishop before the war, had fought in nearly every major Western Theater battle. In his pocket when he died were a blood-stained prayer book and three copies of Balm for the Weary and Wounded -- each intended as a gift for generals John Bell Hood, Joseph Johnston, and William Hardee.  

Union newspapers weren't shy about speaking ill of the dead. Polk "has given no proofs of military prowess to especially endear him to the rebels," wrote the New York Observer. "In fact, he was a better bishop than a soldier. "

"... slavery was the poison that vitiated this man's life," wrote the Nashville Daily Union, throwing more gasoline on the Polk funeral pyre, "and led him to turn his back on the church ..."

I didn’t have time to find the position from which U.S. artillery fired the deadly shot, which you can read about here in a 2006 Civil War Times magazine feature. This was a full-circle visit for me: Polk’s Ashwood Hall mansion near Columbia, Tenn., was subject of my recently published CWT column. I'll post it when The Gods of Historynet make it available.

   GOOGLE STREET VIEW: Neighborhood where the Polk monument stands in clearing.

The Polk death site monument stands in a clearing on private property.

ABOVE AND BELOW: A gazebo peeks from behind the remains of a
 four-gun Confederate battery position near site of Leonidas Polk's death.

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

SOURCES

-- Chicago Tribune, June 30, 1864.

-- Nashville Daily Union, June 21, 1864.

-- New York Observer, June 1864.

-- Southern Confederacy, June 15, 1864.

Window (sills) into past: Soldiers left mark at Nashville hotel

James Ward of the 14th Ohio carved his name into this Maxwell House Hotel sill.

Several Union soldiers with the last name "Crider" and first initial 'J" served in the Western Theater.

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Present-day Church Street in Nashville wasn't exactly a bastion of tidiness during the Union Army's occupation. Next to the First Presbyterian Church (now Downtown Presbyterian Church) the Federals constructed a two-story outhouse that was, ah, pretty crappy. Twenty yards or so across the street stood the ugly shell of the unfinished Maxwell House Hotel, initially used by Confederates as a barracks and then by the U.S. Army for the same purpose beginning in early winter 1862.

The Maxwell House Hotel near the end of the war.
(Tennessee State Library and Archives)

Unsurprisingly, the hotel didn't receive 5-star treatment from its occupiers, who probably would have stolen all the towels, swiped those little bags of goodies given to honors club members, and perhaps made off with the exercise bikes in the gym if the place were officially open for business.

“In many places the tiling of the rooms was cracked and broken where fires had been built on the floor for warming purposes, and having been used for so long as a barracks, the building was alive with vermin,” former 1st Wisconsin Cavalry quartermaster sergeant James Waterman wrote decades after the war. “The whole thing was more like a prison than a barracks for civilized beings, and was a disgrace to the service.”

Soldiers left their marks in other ways: by etching their names on the limestone window sills. Four examples recently acquired from a private donor by the Battle of Nashville Trust include the etchings of names and units of Ohio and Illinois soldiers (see photos). Names of others -- presumably soldiers -- also appear etched into the slabs of stone, which the Trust plans to donate to a local business, organization, or historic site. 

These four sills were salvaged from the Maxwell House Hotel after a fire destroyed 
the building on Christmas Day 1961.

Polk D. Southard, a teen, served with the 41st and 53rd Illinois. He apparently struggled
with the "4" in "41." He died in 1920 and was buried in New Mexico.

The chances of identifying "W.W." are remote, but perhaps we'll ID "M. Day."

B.R. Hawk -- perhaps Benjamin Hawk of the 14th Illinois -- etched his name in this sill.

G.B. Bates and H.C.B, left their mark, too. Confederate and U.S. Army soldiers
occupied the hotel, used as a barracks, depot, and prison during the war. 

The Maxwell House Hotel had a twisted history. In the fall of 1863, the grimy barracks housed hundreds of Confederate POWs, many from the Sept. 19-20, 1863, Battle at Chickamauga. On the morning of Sept. 29, disaster struck as POWs were being herded near a fifth-floor stairwell for breakfast. Barracks commander John Lakin, a captain in the 89th Ohio, may have warned the Confederates about the rickety flooring, but none apparently listened if he did.

The lone reminder in downtown Nashville 
of the old Maxwell House Hotel.

A temporary wood floor suddenly gave way, sending prisoners plummeting to the second floor. There were conflicting accounts of the number of dead – one indicated as many as 45 were killed; another said 25, while others said less. “Some were between the floors and were mashed almost to jelly,” a 10th Texas Cavalry veteran recalled. Dozens were injured. (Read more about that tragedy in my Rambling column for Civil War Times magazine.)

From its official opening in 1869 to the early 1900s, the Maxwell House Hotel was the go-to site for the most important people in society. Presidents Rutherford Hayes and William McKinley, both Civil War veterans, were guests, as was former slave trader and Confederate cavalry commander Nathan Bedford Forrest, who took the oath to the Ku Klux Klan in a ceremony in Room No. 10.

Once one of the grandest hotels in the South, the Maxwell House was destroyed by fire on Christmas Day 1961. The lone reminder of the hotel is a historical marker mounted on the outside of a modern office building that occupies the site. (The sills may have been salvaged from the city dump after the fire, according to Greg Wade's story in North South Trader's Civil War magazine.)

As far as the fate of that huge outhouse, well, thankfully it was closed in January 1864.

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

SOURCES

-- American Civil War Research Database

-- Confederate Veteran, 1902, Vol. 10.

-- The National Tribune, May 3, 1900.

Bad guys to battlefields: In Valley, ex-cop relishes his new gig

Man at work: Former police officer Aaron Siever, clutching a weed eater, prepares to battle
his enemy near a monument that marks where two Confederate veterans were executed.

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On a sliver of land adjacent to historic Valley Pike in Virginia's Shenandoah Valley, 36-year-old Aaron Siever deploys weaponry against a tireless enemy. His Exmark Radius commercial mower makes quick work of tall grass near a monument that marks where two Confederate veterans were executed by the U.S. Army in June 1865. Then he uses a Stihl weed eater to cut down a determined patch of thistle, the Iron Brigade of weeds.

"I hate the weeding," Siever tells me, "but I do it."

Humdrum work? Hardly. For this history-loving former police officer, his new gig as Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation resource management associate is almost heavenly. "My job," says Siever [pronounced S-EVE-er], "is to hang out at battlefields all day." Oh my, how some of us would give up our day jobs to join him.

  

Aaron Siever swapped a police officer's uniform
for one from the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation. 

For nearly 15 years, Siever was a police officer in three Virginia law enforcement agencies, including the Rockingham County Sheriff's Office. He saw some of the worst of society, working child sex cases, drug cases, and other ugliness. (Meth is a major issue in the Valley, he says.) It was gratifying but mentally taxing for Siever, who has a degree in law enforcement and history from Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.

When he patrolled with law enforcement colleagues or trainees, Siever frequently steered conversations to what happened at such-and-such a place a century or more ago, earning him an eyeroll or three. "It got to the point where they’d say, 'OK, no more talking about the history,' ” he says with a smile.

Months ago, Siever decided he needed a change. The resource management position opened with the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation, which preserves and interprets the region’s significant Civil War battlefields and related historic sites. The organization thought so highly of the history-minded Siever -- who maintains an excellent Facebook page about his Civil War travels -- that it offered him the job and made it a full-time position. One major stipulation: He must take a substantial pay cut. Siever consulted with his "amazingly supportive" wife, who enthusiastically agreed the job was worth making the leap.

Hello, battlefields, green grass, and often-splendid views of the Massanutten Mountains. Goodbye, office cubicle, desktop computer, and patrol car. Former colleagues were supportive: “That’s your passion," one of them told him about his new position. "Can’t fault you for that.”

Ex-police officer Aaron Siever stands on the war-time road trace
 at the River Road site on the New Market battlefield. 
(Courtesy: Jack Owens)

Siever's new office stretches through the Civil War-rich Shenandoah Valley, from Winchester to Port Republic, where the SVBF has preserved more than 5,000 acres of hallowed ground. (Here's where it wants to save more.) He usually works four 10-hour days a week, starting at roughly 7 each morning. Siever mostly cuts grass and battles weeds, but he aims to make other contributions (perhaps writing for the SVBF newsletter).

In the Valley in 1862, the audacious Stonewall Jackson ran circles around the incompetent Nathaniel Banks -- ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY NO RELATION TO THIS BLOGGER! -- and other Union commanders, at Winchester, Port Republic, Kernstown, and elsewhere. On Sept. 21-22, 1864, Union commander Phil Sheridan whipped Jubal Early at Fisher's Hill, where I have eluded scores of -- ahem -- "landmines" and once lost a staredown contest with a herd of angry cows, apparently despondent over the recent demise of one of their own. Fisher's Hill is one of the organization's major saves.

The SVBF's nerve center is the historic (and beautifully restored) Strayer House in New Market, several musket shots from Interstate 81. (Quick aside: No human should ever say something nice about gawdawful I-81, which slices through New Market, Cedar Creek, Tom's Brook, and other Virginia battlefields. "I-81 did more damage to battlefields in the Shenandoah Valley," a wise man once said, "than Sheridan.")

A cottonwood tree at the River Road site
at the New Market battlefield. Did it 
witness the battle on May 15, 1864?

At New Market on May 15, 1864, John Breckinridge's outmanned forces, including Virginia Military Institute cadets, defeated Franz Sigel's Federals. The famous "Field of Lost Shoes," where the youthful cadets suffered mightily, and other core New Market battlefield are owned by VMI. 

But the SVBF has saved important sections of the battlefield, too. The organization's River Road site -- where the 30th and 62nd Virginia Infantry fought against the 123rd Ohio -- is Siever's favorite. (The cadets later moved through this area.) There, on his first day on his new job, the former cop picked up trash at the uninterpreted site on the opposite side of I-81 from VMI-owned battlefield. Working at River Road on 157th anniversary of the Battle of New Market, Siever and a colleague distinctly heard the boom of cannon and firing of muskets by living historians over the roar of highway traffic.

"One of the most awesome things," Siever says of the experience.

On my River Road sojourn with Siever, I do what my wife says I do best: Watch another person work. Wearing goggles, a ballcap and a longsleeve shirt with SVBF logos, Siever rolls the mower from a trailer on a Dodge 4x4 and cuts grass for roughly an hour -- he circles around stumps and boulders, weaves near a huge cottonwood (presumably a "witness tree") and war-time road trace, and briefly disappears behind a post-war house. I occasionally stare at the ground -- you know, just to see if something turns up.

The River Road site, nearly surrounded by trees, is hardly Siever's most challenging. At the SVBF's Third Battle of Winchester site, he maintains 640 acres, which makes me sweat just by typing that. Siever sometimes wonders what lies beneath the ground -- bullets, artillery shells, perhaps even bodies? No battle artifacts have turned up yet during his two months on the job, but he has found a Confederate round ball while digging for a rose bush in his yard in New Market.

Occasionally, Siever uses well-honed interpretation skills to educate visitors. Clearly, this job is a labor of love. (Oh, Lord, my junior high English teacher may hurt me.)

“I loved police work," Siever says, "but the stress level of this job is so small that it’s a whole different world."

At the River Road New Market battlefield site, Siever completes his task in roughly an hour. 
The war-time road trace is at left; the cottonwood (center) may be a witness tree.

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