Will historic 'Bachelor's Rest' farmhouse walls be saved?

In early April 1865, the Union Army used Truely Vaughan's farmhouse near Deatonville, Va.,
 as a makeshift hospital. Confederate prisoners may have been cared for here, too. 
(All photos courtesy of Michael Meehan)

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In early April 1865, as the battered but still deadly Army of Northern Virginia crept toward Appomattox Court House, the U.S. Army fought Robert E. Lee's rearguard near Truely Vaughan's farm outside Deatonville, Va. To care for their wounded, the Federals' III Division, II Corps established a makeshift hospital at the bachelor farmer’s modest, four-room plantation house.  

The farmhouse, now in disrepair, dates
to the late 18th century.

For posterity or perhaps simply because they were bored, some of the 250 to 300 wounded at Vaughan’s farm—it was known during the war as “Bachelor’s Rest”—wrote their names or initials on the homestead's walls. One of them, John Shivler of the 105th Pennsylvania, suffered from a ghastly, life-altering battle wound to his face. 

More than 155 years after the corporal left his mark in a house near Lee's final retreat route, his heart-rending story touched a Pennsylvania native with a deep interest in Civil War history and historic preservation.

“It’s almost like he has reached back in time—I really have affinity for this guy,” says Michael Meehan, who aims to preserve the scrawling in the farmhouse for future generations.

“Just walking into that room in the farmhouse and seeing that man’s name on the wall and you go, ‘Holy cow!’”  

Meehan—who grew up in Stewartstown, Pa., roughly 45 miles from Gettysburg, but now lives in Meherrin, Va.—must work fast. Victimized by nature, time, and neglect, Vaughan’s late-18th-century house has nearly deteriorated beyond repair. With the blessing of the farm’s current owner, who acquired the house and surrounding property in 2011, Meehan intends to remove the walls. But he needs the public's help, so he has established a GoFundMe Page to raise $3,500 to defray costs. Ultimately, Meehan and other local preservationists want to have the artifacts displayed in a museum.   

A view of the Virginia countryside from the farmhouse.

Besides Shivler, Meehan has identified three other soldiers who wrote on the farmhouse walls: Privates Luther Calkins and Cornelius Mahorn of Company K of the 105th Pennsylvania; and Corporal George McKechnie of Company I of the 1st Maine Heavy Artillery. With the aid Patrick Schroeder, the historian at Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, and others, Meehan has researched the backgrounds of each soldier. Pension file documents provide rich details.

On April 6, 1865—three days before Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House—the 105th Pennsylvania fought Confederates near Deatonsville, a continuation of fighting at Saylor’s Creek. Among the regiment's 16 wounded that day were Shivler, Calkins, and Mahorn. 

Calkins suffered a wound in his left foot, between his second and third toe, with the bullet coming to rest near his ankle. “It must have been incredibly painful,” Meehan says. Less than a year earlier, he had suffered a wound in the right arm in brutal fighting at the Wilderness. After the war, he married, raised a family, and moved throughout the country. 

Meehan identified Mahorn by his initials on the wall, but the nature of the Pennsylvanian’s wounds and his background require more research. 

McKechnie, who battled dysentery in 1864, suffered a wound from a stray bullet in his left hand in support of a firing battery near Amelia Springs, Va. The bullet tore through his index finger and middle finger, exiting below the thumb. Following the war, McKechnie—who was probably in his late teens when he enlisted—returned to Maine.

Near his name, Private Luther Calkins of the 105th Pennsylvania may have drawn
 the illustration at lower left.

Severely wounded John Shivler of the 105th Pennsylvania wrote his name on the farmouse wall.

But it’s the story of Shivler, who served in the 105th Pennsylvania’s color guard, that moves Meehan most. 

After a bullet struck the corporal in the face, a 105th Pennsylvania comrade feared he was dead. As Shivler, who was 30 or 31, staggered to his feet, a horse nearly trampled him. He made it to Vaughan's farmhouse, where he received treatment for his wound. Perhaps Vaughan, who remained on his farm during fighting in the area, walked through his house as Shivler and other Federal wounded lay in the cramped quarters. 

An illustration from John Shivler's pension file
depicts his April 1865 battlefield wound.
(Courtesy Michael Meehan)

In an era long before plastic surgeons,  Shivler endured with a terribly mangled face. After the war, the veteran married a widow named Maria and became a  tailor. But by 1902, he resided in an insane asylum in Mahoning Township, Pa. Nine years later, Shivler died at age 77 and was buried in a cemetery in South Philipsburg, Pa.

“This incident affected him forever,” says Meehan of the corporal's wounding, perhaps in a “grand charge” on earthworks near Deatonville. 

In addition to money, the removal of the  fragile walls requires expertise. Meehan's brother, a building contractor, will aid the effort. The plan is to cut studs from the walls, put plywood behind and Plexiglas in front of them, squeeze the Civil War treasure together “like a sandwich,” and remove the artifacts.

"I saw John Shivler wounded in the face," 105th Pennsylvania comrade Daniel Shomber
testified in an affidavit found in Shivler's pension file. "He fell and I thought was killed."
(Courtesy: Michael Meehan)

Meehan will continue to research the backgrounds of each of the ID’d soldiers as well as Truely Vaughan, who owned roughly 1,400 acres, 30 slaves and farmed tobacco, among other crops. Through ancestry.com, a genealogy site/rabbit hole, Meehan has even tracked down descendants of Calkins and McKechnie. The Maine soldier’s descendant was “absolutely stunned” when Meehan contacted her.

Meehan also will continue to research the fighting at Deatonville, the little-known scrap in the war's waning days. "We are still trying to lay out battle there because there are very sparse records on it," he says. Dozens of soldiers wounded from the battle may have been cared for on Vaughan's farm.

For Meehan, the effort brings immense satisfaction.  

“I have been passionate about history since I went to Gettysburg when I was 6,” he tells me, "and I’ve been married to it ever since.”

John Shivler's grave in Philipsburg Cemetery in South Philipsburg, Pa.
(Find A Grave)

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A 'drive-by' visit to Fort Sumter, where the Civil War began

Are there other Gettysburg stories like Amos Humiston's?

An enlargement of a CDV of 154th New York Sergeant Amos Humiston's children.
(Library of Congress)

Amos Humiston

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The heart-rending account of Amos Humiston, one of the Civil War's most famous casualties, touches many of us more than any other human-interest story from the Battle of Gettysburg. Carrying no identification, the 154th New York sergeant was found clutching an ambrotype of his three young children after suffering a mortal wound near John Kuhn’s Brick Yard, north of the town square, on July 1, 1863.

Thousands of cartes-de-visite of the ambrotype were created and distributed in the hope someone would recognize the children and thus lead to the soldier’s name. The publicity campaign worked. Months after the battle, Humiston was identified by his widow, who learned of his fate after reading a detailed description of the photograph in a religious publication. (In 1999, Mark H. Dunkelman's definitive Humiston biography was published — the book was reprinted in 2020 by Gettysburg Publishing. Read a Q&A with Dunkelman on my blog here.)

In the aftermath of the three-day battle, other photographs — a torn portrait of a fiancée, a blood-spattered image in a captain’s stiff fingers, a baby’s likeness smeared with blood, and many others —were discovered among bodies, bibles, scraps of letters, clothing, and weaponry. In his book, The Lost Children of the Battlefield, G. Craig Caba details some of the photo finds.

Four years after the battle, a daguerreotype of a woman—in her early 20s with “dark hair, combed back and falling loosely over her shoulders”—was found inside a cartridge box near a soldier's remains. Presumably the image was of the soldier's wife or sweetheart. This story was originally reported Oct. 30, 1867, by the Gettysburg Star and Sentinel and subsequently picked up by other Pennsylvania newspapers (see newspaper clip in this post). 

"There was nothing to indicate the corps, division, regiment or name," the newspaper reported. "From the locality, it is presumed to be that of a Rebel soldier. The cartridge box was marked U.S., but many of these, captured during the war, were carried in the Rebel ranks."

The Star and Sentinel reported the image was in possession of M.J. Emory, a Pennsylvania College student.

What happened to the photograph? Was it ever identified? 

Do you know of similar stories involving photographs found on the battlefield?

I'm working on a story about two photographs found on the Gettysburg battlefield with fallen Confederates and could use your help. 

E-mail me at jbankstx@comcast.net if you know more.

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Cow pasture to housing: A visit to 'hidden' Nashville redoubt

Back end of a Hotchkiss shell and a canister ball from Redoubt No. 4.

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In December 1864, John Bell Hood's Army of Tennessee constructed five redoubts — log-and-earthen forts — in the countryside south of Nashville. On Dec. 15 — Day 1 of the Battle of Nashville — the U.S. Army routed the Rebels, who abandoned these makeshift fortifications. The beleaguered Confederates retreated roughly three miles south as a cannon ball flies, anchoring their extreme left on Shy's Hill, near present-day Harding Place Road. (Worth a visit!) The next day, the U.S. Army again routed Hood's army, which skedaddled to Alabama. (Go to the Battle of Nashville Trust site to see what remains from Redoubts 1 and 3.)

Marker at the site. (Click on image to enlarge.)

In the video, check out the remains of Redoubt No. 4, overrun in the 1980s by an upscale housing development. Somehow soldiers created this defensive work out of frozen ground. Amazing. The Tennessee Historical Society preserved the site, located in a cul de sac on Foster Hill Road. 

A reader of my Civil War Facebook page remembers this ground as cow pasture in 1969. Decades ago, he said he found in front of the works a chunk of a three-inch Hotchkiss shell, one of scores fired on this position by Federal artillery roughly a mile away. Above, from my collection, check out the back end of a Hotchkiss shell and a canister ball discovered at the site.

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A visit to Federals' forward line at Franklin (Tenn.) battlefield

A visit to Patrick Cleburne's 'death kepi' in Nashville