Lt. Colonel Henry Pearson: 'Left ... alone in his glory'

6th New Hampshire Lieutenant colonel Henry Pearson was killed at North Anna River
on May 26, 1864.  The case is not original to the image. (Author's collection)

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Soon after Lieutenant George E. Upton of the 6th New Hampshire spied a Confederate battery through his field glasses, 24-year-old Lieutenant colonel Henry H. Pearson stepped up on a stump and peered above the Union field works to have a look for himself.

The time was about 4 p.m. on May 26, 1864.  The 6th New Hampshire was part of the IX Corps of the Union Army, which was pressing the Confederates near the North Anna River, about 25 miles north of Richmond.

The sun shined on Pearson and reflected off his field glasses, possibly providing an excellent mark for a Rebel sharpshooter, who squeezed his trigger and sent a bullet crashing through the 6th New Hampshire officer's head, near the temple. Pearson fell backward and was caught in the arms of Upton and another lieutenant, Lyman Jackman, and laid upon the ground.

There was little doubt the wound was fatal.

Lieutenant Lyman Jackman on Pearson's
wound: "... the ball had passed directly
through his brain."
(Image courtesy Mike Pride)

"A stretcher was procured at once," Jackman recalled, "and he was taken to the field hospital in the rear, but we all knew as soon as we saw the wound that he was beyond help, for the ball had passed directly through the brain. He never spoke, and was unconscious till he died at eight o'clock in the evening.

"It was a sad night for the Sixth Regiment, and we all felt that it would indeed be hard to find another to fill our lost commander's place," Jackman added. "Major [Phineas] Bixby was quite overcome, and with misgivings succeeded as ranking officer to the command. He soon found accorded to himself the confidence and affection that had been so lavishly bestowed upon his predecessor." 

The lieutenant colonel's death was especially crushing for soldiers in Company C, the unit Pearson had commanded as captain when he joined the regiment in November 1861.

Captain Josiah Jones of the 6th New Hampshire was ordered by Bixby to arrange for the transport of Pearson's body to Washington. Unable to find the means, Jones ordered his men to dig a grave for the lieutenant colonel, whose remains were placed in a large, wooden box taken from an abandoned residence nearby. Because it was raining and the army was on the move toward Totopotomoy Creek and Cold Harbor,  Pearson was hastily buried on the eastern bank of the North Anna River. Jones and regimental chaplain John S. Dore remained behind to cover Pearson's grave, which was marked with a crude, wooden headboard made from a piece of a bread box.

Then  "...we left him alone," Jones noted, "in his glory."

On May 31, 1864, while the Union Army was on the move again, Dore hurriedly wrote a condolence letter from a military hospital in Virginia to Pearson's father in Illinois, where Henry grew up. Published June 21, 1864 in The Pantagraph of Bloomington (Ill.), it included a graphic description of Henry's wound and an account of the beloved officer's nighttime burial. Wrote the chaplain:

In 2016, I took my tintype of Pearson to his grave in Fredericksburg National Cemetery.

"The regiment lay during the afternoon of that day behind the breastworks, with sharpshooters in the advance. About 4 p.m., the fire between the sharpshooters becoming more brisk, and the bullets whistling thickly over our men, the Colonel arose from his seat where he had been reading, and, with that utter disregard for his personal safety so characteristic of the man, stood erect, looking at the enemy through his field glass. 

"He had been standing thus but a few moments, when the fatal shot was received, which was without doubt fired by a rebel sharpshooter. The bullet struck directly in front, crushing the left temple bone and passed through the head. Nearly one-third of the entire brain immediately protruded. He was brought to the division hospital, where he lived three hours. He was not probably sensible of any pain for a single moment after he was struck.

An illustration of Henry Pearson
based on a photograph appears
in the 6th New Hampshire
regimental history.

"He breathed his last at 7:15 p.m., May 26. We prepared a rude coffin and made arrangements to have the body taken to Belle Plain, where we thought it possible to have him embalmed and sent thence to his friends; but this could not be done, for already our forces had begun to re-cross the North Anna river, near which was our hospital, and to move down to this point where we now are, and the battle of the 30th and 31st, is now going on. We loaded our wounded in ambulances, and moved on also. 

"It was near midnight, and there was no alternative but to bury our beloved commander. Capt. Jones, of Co. F, and myself, with a few others, remained; and at that hour, with nothing to break the stillness save the muffled tread of our passing columns, we performed the last sad funeral rites. Could we help thinking of and comparing his burial to that of Sir John Moore?

"The surroundings of the spot where we buried him are such that I can give no description that would enable a stranger to find the same without difficulty."

Dore said Henry's comrades deeply admired him, noting, "We, as a regiment, loved him with a tenderness such as brothers are capable of loving." The chaplain  requested Mr. Pearson provide instructions for where to send Henry's effects and a plan for what to do with his horse. With the letter, Dore also included a few bloody locks of Pearson's hair.

After the war, Pearson’s body was disinterred from near the North Anna River and re-buried in Fredericksburg National Cemetery, where his remains rest under grave No. 4103. Perhaps he is among the lucky ones: Of the 15,243 Union soldiers buried at the national cemetery in Fredericksburg, only 2,473 are identified.

---

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

SOURCES

• Jackman, Lyman, History of the Sixth New Hampshire Regiment in the war for the Union, Concord, N.H., Republican Press Association, 1891
• The Pantagraph of Bloomington (Ill.), June 21, 1864. (Hat tip: Dan Masters' Civil War Chronicles) 

(For more on Pearson and other New Hampshire Civil War soldiers, check out Mike Pride's excellent "Our War" blog.)

What HS students wrote about Gardner's Antietam photo

A fallen Confederate on Antietam battlefield.
(Alexander Gardner/Library of Congress)

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Stripped of his dignity, the fallen Rebel soldier in a tattered uniform lay in a ditch on the battlefield, perhaps hundreds of miles from home. Days after the Battle of Antietam, Alexander Gardner captured an image of the unknown young man, who likely awaited a haphazard burial in a trench with the bodies of other comrades. If anything, the photograph is one of the greatest anti-war statements possible.

A month ago, I downloaded a high-resolution TIFF version of Gardner's image from the Library of Congress web site and posted enlargements, some of which revealed details not readily apparent in the original. Blood on the poor soul's forehead, a blanket or bedroll and even scraps of paper with writing are easily seen. Perhaps further examination of that writing could lead to an identification of the soldier, who can't be more than 22 or 23 years old.

One of the more popular posts on my blog, it drew powerful reactions on my Civil War Facebook page and in the comments section below the entry. One commenter took issue with my original headline, writing the soldier "was fighting for a cause he believed in and paid the ultimate price. He is more than a 'dead Rebel.'  Shame on you." Point well taken -- the headline was changed. Another commenter wrote: "I guess I will never truly grasp war & why it is done. ... War. Awful. Hurts my soul. Too many forgotten unknown."

Rotated 180 degrees, this is a close-up of the face
of the soldier in Gardner's image.

The post and accompanying photos even inspired high school teachers Alan McCauley and Pete Yaeger to ask students in their Civil War class at Pius XI Catholic High School in Milwaukee for their reaction. (My reaction? It's great the Civil War is still taught in at least one high school and kudos to Yaeger and McCauley.) Here's what their students wrote:

+ After seeing and reading the information under the photos, it's very hard to see something so clear from so long ago. It's amazing how it is possible, but in this case, gruesome. I personally did not want to look at or analyze into the photos.... but they were an eye opener that bodies were just left on the battlefields as is. I couldn't imagine what was going through the soldier's mind as he laid there dying."

+ "Those pictures provide a reality to the Civil War. The fallen soldier shows how brutal battles are and how costly each battle is. We see evidence of a life outside the war and know the young man probably had a family he was never able to return to. These pictures are the sad truth behind the stories."

+ "I found the image very shocking... To anyone else this picture shows either a dead brother, father, or family member. I can only see the death of war which has changed our thinking. We have experienced so much death that we won't all feel sympathy for the soldier. We would acknowledge just like the title 'another one' out of so many fallen here's one more. It's the reaction we now have to shootings when on the news 'another one', we have grown used to them too much now."

+ "I thought that this is a very good perspective of the Confederates and their losses. It really humanizes the war because it puts a face to match up with the massive amounts of dead from the Civil War. While it may be hard to look at, photos like this one could potentially serve as a deterrent for future wars and educate people as to why war is a monstrous creation of man."

 Words are tantalizingly out of focus on these scraps of paper that lay
 in the brush near the soldier's head. 

+ "The photograph of the dead Confederate soldier brings to life the brutality of the Civil War. The dead man is no longer just a number on a casualty list, but someone with his own story, someone who died fighting for a cause for which he believed. Although, we may never know his name or his true story, his sacrifice will always be remembered."

+ "I think the photograph really portrays the individuality that was lost when each soldier, either Union or Confederate, died. You look at this photo and feel sad for the soldier and wonder what he left behind. Did he have a tight-knit family, or maybe even a child or two? It really helps show the impact of the brutality of the Civil War on the individual families."

+ "Now days we have become desensitized to dead humans. It looks like any other dead body. Now, you search Isis online and videos pop up of guys getting their heads sawed off or kids being burned alive. This black and white photograph really isn't jarring once you've seen a kid get murdered in front of his parents because he missed the evening prayer."

What 14th Connecticut Lt. Theodore Stanley left behind

14th Connecticut Lieutenant Theodore Stanley's inscribed Smith & Wesson revolver.
(Photos courtesy of current owner)

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Shot through the lungs at the Battle of Fredericksburg, 14th Connecticut Lieutenant Theodore Augustus Stanley was transported across the Rappahannock River for treatment in a makeshift hospital. The 29-year-old officer didn't expect to live long -- in fact, he told his men to leave him on the battlefield after he was wounded during the disastrous charge on Marye's Heights on Dec. 13, 1862. But Stanley, from a prominent New Britain, Conn., family, survived the battle's immediate aftermath and what must have been an excruciating journey north to Armory Square Hospital in Washington.

Built earlier that year, Armory Square was one of many Washington hospitals that handled a flood of wounded soldiers from battlefields throughout Virginia. The 1,000-bed complex consisted of 12 pavilions and overflow tents spread on the National Mall, across from the Smithsonian Museum grounds and a short distance from the White House. Wounded arrived from nearby wharves in southwest Washington after sailing up the Potomac River aboard hospital ships or other vessels. President Lincoln himself often visited Armory Square, telling the most seriously wounded soldiers "God bless you," according to a nurse who served there.

There's no known record that the president stopped to visit the bedside of Stanley, who died on New Year's Eve 1862 after 18 days of suffering, "much of which was intense." (According to the Dec. 27, 1862, Washington Chronicle, the president and his wife visited Washington hospitals on Christmas Day.) Stanley's body was returned to New Britain, where a funeral service was held at a packed South Congregational Church followed by burial with military honors at Fairview Cemetery.

"Lieutenant Stanley was very quiet and reticent with strangers," a regimental historian wrote of the Company F officer, "and was not well known to many in the regiment, but his Colonel truly said: 'He was always found to the front,' and the officers and men of his own company testify to his uniform regard for their comfort and welfare."

Stanley's sidearm, a Smith & Wesson revolver, survived the war. It was purchased decades ago at a Civil War show by the same collector who owns the sidearm of Perkins Bartholomew, another 14th Connecticut lieutenant who did not survive the war. Judging from the wear on the weapon, it may have been carried by Stanley in the "storm of shot, shell, grape, and canister" at Fredericksburg, Va., more than 153 years ago.

(Do you have a photograph of Lieutenant Theodore Stanley? If so, e-mail me.)

Armory Square Hospital in Washington. 14th Connecticut Lieutenant Theodore Stanley
died here on Dec. 31, 1862. (Library of Congress collection)

Patients in Ward K of Armory Square Hospital in 1865.
(Library of Congress collection)

Antietam: Details in Gardner's iconic image of fallen Rebels

Alexander Gardner/Library of Congress

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Taken by Alexander Gardner on Sept. 19, 1862, two days after the Battle of Antietam, this photograph of  bodies of Confederates gathered for burial is an iconic Civil War image. The renowned photographer took another, similar shot of  fallen Rebels near Dunker Church as well as a photograph that focused on the battle-damaged church itself. All these photographs were dissected by William Frassanito in his terrific 1978 book, Antietam: The Photographic Legacy of America's Bloodiest Day, and each is available to examine today in high-resolution, TIFF format.on the Library of Congress web site.

The image above has been reproduced countless times in books, magazines, newspapers and online. It also appears on an interpretative marker near the battlefield Visitors' Center, yards from where Gardner set up his camera to shoot the photograph more than 153 years ago. You can even view an impressive, colorized version of one of the images here.

But have you really seen the iconic image at the top of this post? Cropped enlargements of it offer interesting perspectives and perhaps details you have never noticed ...

... this blurry enlargement includes the figures of two horses and at least two people (near entrance and side entrance) at the Dunker Church, which was used as a makeshift field hospital. Easily seen in this enlargement is damage to the small, white-washed brick building, which was struck by artillery and "perfectly riddled" by bullets. "I visited the little church in the edge of the wood but it's nothing but a wreck," 5th Maine Captain Clark Edwards wrote a month after the battle.

Two days after Antietam, Captain George Noyes, a member of General Abner Doubleday's staff, wrote a seering description of the scene at the church:

"A few severely wounded rebels were stretched on the benches, one of whom was raving in agony. Surgical aid and proper attendance had already been furnished, and we did not join the throng of curious visitors within. Out in the grove behind the little church the dead had already been collected in groups ready for burial, some of them wearing our uniform, but the large majority dressed in gray. No matter in what direction we turned it was all the same shocking picture, awakening awe rather than pity, be-numbing the senses rather than touching the heart, glazing the eye with horror rather than filling it with tears."  

... this enlargement shows broken fence rails and the heavily contested West Woods beyond. The post-and-rail fences along Hagerstown Pike were well constructed, according to the 106th Pennsylvania regimental historian, who wrote:  "... there was a fence on each side of the pike, a strong post and six-railed fence, that the One Hundred and Sixth Regiment had to climb and the mounted officers ride some distance to the right to get through an opening."

Portions of the fence, a frequent target for bullet-hunting souvenir seekers after the battle, survived into the early 20th century.  "The old post and race fence that has been standing along the pike north of the Dunkard Church for nearly a half century, and which was marked with hundreds of bullets, has been torn away on the west side," noted Antietam guide O.T. Reilly wrote in the Shepherdstown (W.Va.) Register on May 20, 1909. "It had been hunted over by thousands of persons in hope of finding bullets. A number of panels still stand on the east side, and we hope they will be left for a while yet to show to visitors." (Hat tip: Rare Images of Antietam by Stephen Recker.)

... a dead horse and torn, bloated bodies near a Confederate artillery limber chest ...

... and another dead horse, its hind leg awkwardly in the air, appears in the right background of the damaged negative of this version of Gardner's image. ...

... while in this close-up a fallen Confederate shows us the ugliness of war. Unburied for two days, this soldier's body is bloated as decomposition has begun. The eight dead Confederate soldiers in Gardner's image were likely buried haphazardly in a trench by Union soldiers, who buried their own dead first. After the war, they may have been disinterred and reburied in a Confederate cemetery in Hagerstown, Md., or Shepherdstown, W.Va. ...

... another close-up of fallen Confederate, his trousers perhaps opened by the expansion of gases within his decomposing body. Noyes also described the shocking sight of  Rebel dead near the Hagerstown Pike:

"Their faces are so absolutely black that I said to myself at first, this must be a black regiment. Their eyes are protruding from their sockets; their heads, hands, and limbs are swollen to twice their natural size. Ah! there is little left to awaken our sympathy, for all the vestiges of our common humanity which touch the sympathetic chord are now quite blotted out."

... and in the foreground of the original image is this incongruity: a pair of easily overlooked shoes yards from the bodies.

Faces of the Civil War: Connecticut musician Marcus Culver

Sylvia Culver holds a CDV of her great-grandfather, who served as musician in the Civil War.

As soon as I saw Sylvia Culver gingerly walk into my Civil War talk in Berlin, Conn., carrying a thick, yellow envelope, I had a feeling we would visit. And sure enough, shortly after my hour-long spiel about Connecticut Civil War soldiers concluded Saturday afternoon, the petite woman in the beige sweater quietly approached my table and pulled from the large envelope two family treasures: a war-time diary and a carte-de-visite of her great-grandfather, who served in the 5th Connecticut and General Edward Harland's Brigade Band.

I dared not open Culver's fragile diary -- its front cover was scuffed and worn. Thankfully, a genealogist had expertly made copies of all the pages in the tiny diary, which was slightly larger than the CDV. The image of Culver, taken in Connecticut before he marched off to war, showed the soldier seated and in military uniform. His long sideburns were impressive.

From Wallingford, Conn., Culver enlisted on June 21, 1861, and was mustered into the 5th Connecticut as a musician a little more than a month later. On Aug. 16, 1862, one week after the regiment saw brutal fighting at Cedar Mountain in Virginia, Culver was discharged for unknown reasons. Nearly two years later, he was mustered into Harland's Brigade Band and served through the end of the war.

Culver, who reared two boys and a girl with his wife Martha, was only 36 when he died in Wallingford in 1872.

(For more Faces of the Civil War on my blog, go here.)

Marcus Culver's wartime diary is slightly larger than a CDV of the Wallingford, Conn., soldier.

Decades after Battle of Bentonville, a Connecticut vet suffers

In a photo probably taken shortly after the Civil War, Jesse Rice, a private in the
 20th Connecticut, poses in the studio of a photographer in New Haven, Conn.
 (Photo: Blogger's collection)

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On March 19, 1865, less than a month before Lee surrendered to Grant, Jesse Hull Rice suffered a gunshot wound to his right arm at the Battle of Bentonville (N.C.). The 20th Connecticut private's limb was amputated nearly two months later, but the surgeon apparently botched the operation, leaving Rice with a painful, lasting reminder of his 38 months in the Union Army.

After the war, Rice twice tried to be outfitted for an artificial arm, but a physician wrote it was not possible “for reason that end of bone is so sharp & and whole stump is so painful." The veteran had trouble sleeping because of the amputation.

A New Haven, Conn., physician noted a litany of maladies for Rice, all largely due to the “nervous shock from loss of [the] arm and the disadvantage to which this loss put him.”  Rice, only 53 at the time, suffered from “severe constipation,” dizziness, a double hernia, frequent attacks of diabetes, “great pain in defecation,” and an “inability to properly digest food,” among other ailments. Once weighing about 185 pounds, Rice only had 140 pounds on his 5-foot-11 frame.

“His condition in a general way is as bad as it could be and but for a strong will and superior intellect he would be absolutely helpless,” wrote a doctor, adding, “If  [Rice] long survives it must be through constant and daily medical attention and judicious nursing.”

In 1895, another doctor wrote in a pension affidavit for Rice that his patient suffered from attacks of severe retching and vomiting that would continue for two or three days and then recur a day or two later. “It appears to have become a chronic condition for him,” noted the physician, who  attributed Rice’s awful health to his war wound.

In a post-war diary in which he recorded the weather, deaths in the neighborhood, the assassination of President Garfield and the butchering of his 428-pound hog, Rice barely made mention of the Civil War. Perhaps it was just easier to forget.

“18 years since Bentonville,” the married farmer simply wrote in 1883 on the anniversary of his wounding.

When he died in 1915 at 71, Rice, who lived in Cheshire, Conn., was on government rolls for a $55-a-month war pension.

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

SOURCES:

-- Jesse Rice pension file, National Archives and Records Service, Washington D.C.
-- Jesse Rice diary, Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, Conn.

What 14th Connecticut Lt. Perkins Bartholomew left behind

Three images of  the revolver of 14th Connecticut Lieutenant Perkins Bartholomew, whose
name is inscribed on the weapon (top).  (Photos courtesy of current owner)

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14th Connecticut Lieutenant Perkins Bartholomew
was mortally wounded at the Battle of Boydton Plank Road.
(Image courtesy Tad Sattler)

Abandoned by his comrades deep in enemy territory, the body of 14th Connecticut Lieutenant Perkins Bartholomew was left for the Rebels to bury by the side of a road. A bullet had ripped through his haversack and exited the front of his body during the Battle of Boydton Plank Road, near Petersburg, Va., mortally wounding the officer fondly called "Perk" by those who knew him well.

Although he wasn't present during the battle on Oct. 27, 1864, regiment adjutant William Hincks wrote a detailed account of Bartholomew's death to his mother, apparently with information gleaned from soldiers in the regiment. The officer from Bridgeport, Conn., had plenty of experience with the grim duty of informing relatives of the deaths of their loved ones.

"I know that it ... is very hard that he was not brought in and that we had to leave his burial to the enemy," he wrote on Nov. 13, 1864, "but remember that we were in the enemy's country miles away from our own lines, the enemy upon almost every side of us in greatly superior numbers." Trying to soften the blow of her son’s death, Hincks took pains to explain to Caroline Bartholomew that her son did not suffer, the regiment did all it could for Perkins and that one soldier indeed remained with him when he died.

Efforts to recover Perkins Bartholomew's body
were fruitless, according to this report
in the Hartford Daily Courant on Nov. 28, 1864.
(CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.)

"He vomited occasionally," he wrote. "He had his senses perfectly and remained conscious of his condition. We had but two or three officers but one of them detailed a number of men to carry him away. The ambulances had all gone back with wounded men before. The lieutenant of the ambulance train agreed to send back an ambulance for him and did so. But it was an uncommonly dark night and rainy and the ambulance got lost in the woods and never found him."

Hincks noted that a comrade heard Bartholomew's dying words --  “Tell my mother I die like a man fighting for my country" -- and retrieved the dead officer's shoulder straps and memo book. Both items may have been forwarded to Mrs. Bartholomew.

Perhaps another memento made its way back to the 23-year-old officer's family: Bartholomew's Manhattan Navy revolver. The weapon, inscribed with Perkins' name, rank and regiment, was purchased in the 1980s at a Civil War show by a longtime collector, who recently shared with me images of the prized collectible. The revolver shows considerable wear, according to the self-proclaimed  "octogenerian" collector, an indication it was used during the war and may have been with Bartholomew the morning he died.

Despite efforts by Perkins' friend, a doctor named Frank Dudley, and others, the lieutenant's body was never found. He “died in a cause that has called thousands before him," Dudley wrote to Bartholomew's sister on Feb. 2, 1865, "and thousands still must be sacrificed before this wicked war will end.”

Perkins Bartholomew's shoulder boards. (Tad Sattler collection)

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

SOURCES:

--14th Connecticut adjutant William B. Hincks to Caroline Bartholomew, Nov. 13, 1864, MS Civil War Box II, Folder 3, Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, Conn.
-- Dr. Frank A. Dudley letter to Carrie O’Neal, Feb.2, 1865, MS Civil War Box II, Folder 3, Connecticut Historical Society.

How 20-year-old Connecticut Yankee saved army in Virginia

From Hartford, Conn., Charles Greenleaf served in the 5th New York Cavalry. He was
mortally wounded at Kearneysville Station, Va., on Aug. 25, 1864.
(Connecticut State Library)

Adapted from my latest book, Hidden History of Connecticut Union Soldiers. E-mail me here for information on how to purchase an autographed copy.

On May 23, 1862, Charles Greenleaf, a 20-year-old soldier from Hartford, accomplished what few Yankees could claim: He was credited with helping save a Union army. With a series of lightning strikes, Stonewall Jackson’s foot cavalry booted the Federals from the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia that spring, routing them at McDowell, Strasburg, Front Royal and Winchester, before chasing Nathaniel Banks’s army across the Potomac River and into Maryland.

It could have been worse.

With the outnumbered Yankees in imminent danger of being crushed near Front Royal, a Union colonel ordered Greenleaf, a sergeant in the 5th New York Cavalry, to take another soldier, grab two of the fastest horses in Company D and ride like hell to seek reinforcements from Banks at his headquarters in Strasburg. The direct route was blocked by Rebels, so Greenleaf  took another road, riding seventeen miles in fifty-five minutes.

General Nathaniel Banks

When an exhausted Greenleaf got to Banks’s headquarters, the general did not think the Union situation was perilous, so he only sent a regiment of infantry and two pieces of artillery to the colonel’s aid. “I asked General Banks for a fresh horse to rejoin my company,” Greenleaf wrote to his parents, “and he gave me the best horse that I ever rode.”

On his way back, apparently without his comrade, Greenleaf saw two men standing in the Front Royal Turnpike, about two miles from his destination, with their horses resting by a nearby fence. Believing they were Union pickets, Greenleaf asked the men who they were.

“We are part of Gen. Jackson’s staff,” they replied.

Thinking they were joking, Greenleaf laughed and asked the men where he could find the famous Stonewall Jackson. In advance, said the Rebels, who were unaware of Greenleaf’s allegiance and let him ride farther down the road. In amazing bit of bad/good fortune, the wayward Yankee soon encountered  another  Rebel, a soldier in the 8th Louisiana. Unaware that he was in the presence of a Union soldier, the Confederate was asked by Greenleaf  how many Rebels were nearby.

“20,000,” he replied.

“I turned back and drew my revolver,” Greenleaf wrote, “expecting either a desperate fight or a Southern jail. But the officers in the road didn’t stop me, and I was lucky enough not to meet any of their pickets. But if it was not a narrow escape, I don’t know what is.”

Greenleaf quickly rode back to Banks’ headquarters to inform the general about his surprising military intelligence. Fearing that Jackson would outflank his army, Banks soon had his soldiers on the move up the Valley Pike toward the supposed safety of his base in Winchester. “He said I saved the Union army,” Greenleaf wrote to his parents about the general, whose men were ordered to destroy thousands of dollars’ worth of valuable supplies in Strasburg to prevent them from getting into enemy hands.

In a letter home to his parents, cavalryman Charles Greenleaf drew this image of himself riding a horse.
(National Archives)

During his short military career, Greenleaf ventured all over the war zone in the East, from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in the north to war-torn towns throughout Virginia. As a private in the 1st Connecticut -- he was one of the first soldiers in the state to join the Union army -- he hugged the ground while he listened to artillery explosions and thud of shells strike near him during the First Battle of Bull Run on July 21, 1861.

Greenleaf survived the first major battle of the war, and when his three-month term of service in the 1st Connecticut elapsed, the youngest of four children of Mary Ann and William Greenleaf re-enlisted, joining the 5th New York Cavalry. “I cannot get anything to do at my business” and his father was sick, Greenleaf told an acquaintance, so the Union army was his best option.  Before the war, Charles was employed as a chaser at Rogers Silver Plate Co. in Hartford, while his father worked as a bookbinder.

In lively war-time letters to his parents, Greenleaf wrote of a brush with death when he fell from his wounded horse during a charge on a battery, the disappointment of not being promoted and his hope that his father would give one of his photos to another man to put in the Neptune Company firehouse, where he also had worked.

 And he told of the ugly realities of Civil War.

Connecticut Historical Society collection

“I have been in the service a year, but I never knew what war meant till to-day."

-- Charles Greenleaf on the aftermath of the Battle of Antietam (above)
“I have been in the service a year, but I never knew what war meant till to-day,” he wrote in a letter to his parents on September 20, 1862, about the aftermath of the Battle of Antietam. He recalled observing more than 100 amputated arms and legs heaped in a yard by a hospital and dead Rebels piled “like cord-wood” along both sides of a road for two miles. “They have lain there two days in the sun,” he wrote, “and are all bloated.”

Nearly three months later, while stationed near Manassas, Virginia, he saw similar gruesome sights at the old Bull Run battleground, where he had fought in the summer of 1861 and where the two armies clashed shortly before Antietam.  Union dead were still scattered about, their skulls and hands sticking up through the ground. In the high grass, he saw skeletons of some Yankees who hadn’t even been buried.

Less than two years later, Greenleaf would join them.

On August 25, 1864, at Kearneysville Station, Virginia, the 5th New York Cavalry was attacked by a Rebel force that outnumbered the Yankees 30-to-1, according to one of Greenleaf’s comrades from Hartford. “Our little battalion was under the sharpest fire we ever experienced,” recalled Lt. Henry Appleby, whose fellow cavalrymen temporarily held off the Rebels with their seven-shot Spencer carbines. Wounded in the left side during the skirmish, Greenleaf was carried off the field, placed in an ambulance and transported more than 15 miles to U.S. General Hospital in the hamlet of Sandy Hook, Maryland, along the Potomac River. A day later, he died there at about 5 p.m.

“Your loss is our country’s loss, too,” an 18th Connecticut chaplain wrote to Greenleaf’s parents on August 27, 1864. A letter from his mother, his commission as lieutenant and the rest of Charley’s effects, Rev. W.C. Walker noted, would be forwarded home.

After Greenleaf’s death, the Neptune Engine Co. 2 members passed six resolutions and submitted them to the local newspapers. The firehouse, one of the resolutions read, was to be draped in mourning for 30 days.

'IT IS MY MELANCHOLY DUTY ...'

Lieutenant Henry Appleby of the 5th New York Cavalry wrote this letter to Greenleaf's father about  Charles' wound during a battle at Kearneysville Station, Va.:

Connecticut Historical Society collection

Near Boonsboro, Md.
Aug. 27th/64

Dear Sir:

It is my melancholy duty to inform you that Charles was severely wounded the day before yesterday in an engagement with the enemy between Shepherdstown & Charlestown, Va. His wound is in the left side. I saw him carried off the field and placed in an ambulance and he was carried the same evening to a hospital at Harper's Ferry. We marched almost immediately for Maryland, so I had no chance to see him. I think by this time he must be in some hospital further north.

I will take care of his clothing and perhaps there is a chance to dispose of it as he or you may wish. He is the first of our Hartford party who has met with any serious mishap. When he was wounded, our ...

... little battalion was under the sharpest fire we have ever experienced. We were under no cover and opposed by Gen. Early's Corps of infantry, they of course having the advantage of mounted men -- they being in the woods besides outnumbering us 30 to 1. Hoping Charlie's wound will not prove dangerous.

I remain 
Yours respectfully
Henry J. Appleby

'YOUR LOSS IS YOUR COUNTRY'S LOSS TOO'

18th Connecticut chaplain W.C. Walker's condolence letter to Greenleaf's parents dated Aug. 27, 1864.

Connecticut Historical Society collection

... he died yesterday Friday the 26th inst about 5 o'clock PM. His "great fortune has not always lasted," but he was a good soldier and now sleeps in honor in a soldier's grave, and must be received among the heros of this age, who stood by the flag of their country to the last and nobly fought its battles. Your loss is your country's loss too. ...

SOURCES

Charles Greenleaf pension file documents, newspaper clipping of letter to his parents about battle events in Shenandoah Valley near Strasburg, Virginia, May 26, 1863, National Archives and Records Service, Washington.

Greenleaf pension file, letter to parents, December 14, 1862, National Archives

Greenleaf letters, Civil War Manuscripts Project, Civil War Box II, Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, Conn.

Lt. Henry Appleby letter to Greenleaf’s parents, August 27, 1864, Civil War Manuscripts Collection, Box II, CHS.

Chaplain W.C. Walker condolence letter to Charles Greenleaf parents, August 27, 1864, CHS

Hartford Daily Courant, September 20, 1864.

Those hauntingly sad eyes of a little girl in mourning

The freckled-faced girl in the plaid mourning dress can't be more than 10 years old. Her hair parted in the middle, she wears a necklace with large pendant, tinted gold by a tintype photographer, who appears to have added a hint of red to her cheeks. You may have seen this poignant image, part of the fabulous Liljenquist Family collection in the Library of Congress,  in magazines, books, online or at a museum exhibit. One of the girl's features is almost impossible to ignore:

...these big, hauntingly sad eyes.

Liljenquist Family Collection/Library of Congress

Who is the little girl who holds in her lap a framed image of a Union soldier, who wears a Hardee hat and clutches a sword? Unfortunately, her name is unknown. The name of the man in the image, presumably the girl's father and perhaps one of hundreds of thousands of Civil War victims, is also lost to history.

Antietam: 125th Pennsylvania sergeant saved by wife's photo

SEPT. 17, 1904: 125th Pennsylvania veterans at dedication of the regiment's Antietam monument.

      THEN AND NOW: 125th Pennsylvania veterans at Dunker Church on Sept. 17, 1888

A post-war image of Edward Russ,
who suffered an abdomen
wound at Antietam.

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On Sept. 17, 1904, 42 years to the day after the 125th Pennsylvania suffered 54 killed/mortally wounded among 229 casualties at the Battle of Antietam, survivors of the regiment returned to the battlefield for the dedication of their monument on Confederate Avenue. Sixteen years earlier, many of these same men visited Antietam with their families and later posed for a photograph in front of the iconic Dunker Church, where many of the veterans fought and witnessed scenes that no men should have to see during a lifetime.

At least five veterans in attendance that late-summer day in 1904 suffered nightmarish experiences at Antietam -- the first battle of the Civil War for the 125th Pennsylvania.

After firing his gun, Private Francis Gearhard of Company D retreated from near the church and joined his comrades, who had re-formed in a line behind a battery. Gearhart found a better musket and picked up a leather case from a dead Confederate that held a knife, fork and spoon. Then "a wounded Reb asked me to help him to a shady place," the immigrant from Germany recalled, "but on getting him to his feet he was unable to walk, as part of his bowels were hanging out, and I was compelled to leave him."

A minister after the war, 
Elias Zeek was shot in the
right arm at Antietam.

Private Elias Zeek of Company C, who became a minister after the war and gave the benediction after the monument dedication, had part of the bone in his right arm shot away during the battle. He lay for two weeks in a battlefield barn hospital before being sent to a hospital in Harrisburg, Pa. Zeek was discharged from the army for good in November 1862.

A bullet ripped through the face and neck of Private Stephen Aiken of Company D, breaking his jaw bone and resulting in his discharge from the army in March 1863. After he was wounded and carried from the field by two comrades, Private Michael B. Brenneman of Company C spent 10 days in a battlefield hospital and another five weeks in a Pennsylvania hospital. "...It was two months," he wrote later, "before I got about on crutches."

But perhaps no veteran who attended the dedication of the 125th Pennsylvania monument that day suffered as harrowing an experience during the battle as Edward L. Russ.

Michael B. Breneman spent two months
on crutches after he was wounded
at Antietam.

A sergeant in Company D, Russ was wounded in the abdomen near the Dunker Church. As he lay in agony, the soldier from Blair County recalled, "a Confederate ran up, seemingly to bayonet and rob me, but, picking up an ambrotype picture, he asked, 'Is this yours?' I replied, 'Yes, that is my dear wife.' He at once placed it in my hand, gazed at me for a moment, and hastily rejoined his comrades among the storm of death-dealing missiles."

Russ, who had been mustered into the 125th Pennsylvania a little more than a month before Antietam, was rescued by six comrades, who risked their lives by carrying him from his exposed position. A surgeon thought Russ' wound was mortal, but he miraculously recovered at a hospital in nearby Hagerstown, Md., and survived the war. He died on Oct. 30, 1928, and was buried in Cypress Hills National Cemetery in Brooklyn, N.Y.

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SOURCES:

--Altoona (Pa.) Mirror, Oct. 8, 1907

--History of The 125th Pennsylvania Volunteers 1862-63, By The Regimental Committee, Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1906

'One vast graveyard': Doctor's remarkable Antietam letter

Dr. Augustin Biggs, shown in an illustration published in 1882.
(History of Western Maryland, Volume II)

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Click here for 11th  Connecticut veteran's account
of  the attack at Burnside Bridge.

In October, friend of the blog Dan Masters of Perrysburg, Ohio, called to my attention a fascinating post-war account written by an 11th Connecticut veteran about the regiment's failed attack at Burnside Bridge during the Battle of Antietam (right). Masters recently shared with me another gem -- a remarkable letter written on Sept. 29, 1862, 12 days after Antietam, by Sharpsburg, Md., doctor Augustin Biggs, who experienced first hand the battle and its terrible, bloody aftermath. Masters' introduction of Biggs as well as the doctor's Antietam letter, which was published in an Ohio newspaper, appear below. 

Dr. Biggs' letter is believed to be reproduced in its entirety here for the first time since it was published in the Ohio newspaper more than 153 years ago.

Based on his conversations with soldiers on both sides, Biggs estimated Confederate casualties at Antietam as "7,000 killed and 20,000 wounded." Exact numbers will never been known, but those figures are too high. According to the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion and the Antietam Battlefield Board, the Confederate figures were 1,550 killed and 7,750 wounded. As in all wars, rumors and speculation were rampant during the Civil War.

During a December visit to Sharpsburg with my daughter, the former Biggs house, built in 1789, was for sale. The sale closed recently and new owners have moved in. Biggs cared for wounded soldiers there after the battle.

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The following letter, originally published on the first page of the Oct. 16, 1862, issue of the Weekly Lancaster Gazette in Lancaster, Ohio, was written by noted Sharpsburg resident Dr. Augustin A. Biggs, who later served as the first president and superintendent of Antietam National Cemetery. Biggs wrote this letter nearly two weeks after Antietam to his uncle, Elijah Kalb, the postmaster of the small Fairfield County town of Rushville, Ohio. Kalb was the younger brother of Mary Biggs, the mother of Dr. Biggs. As noted in the letter, he was familiar with the environs of Sharpsburg.

Dr. Biggs was born to John and Mary Biggs on Dec. 27, 1812, in Double Pipe Creek, Md., and attended Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia before entering the practice of medicine in Sharpsburg during the 1830s. Dr. Biggs specialized in obstetrics, helping deliver more than 3,000 children during his 53-year career.

A county history described Biggs as  "of a gentle and retiring nature, but at the same time he took an active interest in everything pertaining to the welfare of the community. In politics, he was a Whig before the Civil War and during the war was a strong Union man. He represented the state of Maryland as a trustee and one of the original incorporators of the Antietam National Cemetery, and was first president of the Board. As general superintendent of the cemetery during its construction and up to the time of its transfer to the United States, he was originator of the plan upon which it was laid out and of the order of the graves. His patriotism and unselfishness enabled him to link his name for all time with one of the most beautiful of our national cemeteries.”

In the letter, Dr. Biggs relates his impressions of the invading Confederate army, as well as his experiences during the battle as he huddled in his home with his family while the town was subjected to shellfire. The home in which Dr. Biggs and his family passed the battle (109 West Main St. in downtown Sharpsburg) still exists and is known as the William Chapline House, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The gable side of the house still shows shell damage, which Dr. Biggs describes in this letter.

During the battle, Dr. Augustin Biggs and his family huddled in their house on Main Street. 
(Above: Google Street View)

An embedded artillery shell symbolizes the damage done to the Biggs house during the battle.
(Mark Brugh)

Sharpsburg, Maryland
September 29, 1862

Dear Uncle:

I feel like again resuscitating my correspondence with you, but not for publication; yet at the same time will not restrict you in publishing such items of interest as you may think proper. To give you a correct history of the events in and around Sharpsburg for the past two weeks would be a task impossible for me. Furthermore, we are yet in such confusion, and my mind so distracted, that it would be difficult for me to gather up all that might be interesting to you. I will, however, commence with the first appearance of the rebels in our vicinity. First was their cavalry, next their infantry and artillery, and in a very short time our town and neighborhood was swarming with rebels.

They were poorly clad, indeed, and but few dressed alike -- barefooted, dirty, and filthy in the extreme. To judge from appearances they have had no change of dress the past twelve months. Some few were clad in Union soldiers’ dress. Most of them indecently ragged and their person exposed. They wore a dejected countenance and were seldom seen to smile or indulge in any hilarity, from the officers to the privates. This feature was remarkable. They seemed to have no disposition to keep themselves clean, and from appearances their persons are as filthy as time could make them -- all alive with vermin. I conversed with many and believe there is universal dissatisfaction in their army. Thousand would desert if they could, but they say their families and property are in the South and to go North they could never return to their friends, and would be deprived of all that they have in this world. Many are anxious for the South to get whipped and the war brought to a speedy termination. Whenever an opportunity offers, they destroy and throw away their guns. They say fight they must while under their officers, and before going into battle each man has to fill his canteen with whiskey and gunpowder. This was the case before the battle of Sharpsburg.

The battle of Sharpsburg commenced on Tuesday the 16th just about 4 o’clock P.M., principally with artillery. On the next day (Wednesday) was resumed and continued without intermission until after dark. The line of battle was five or six miles long. [General George] McClellan’s left wing extended below the bridge across Antietam on the road leading to Shewman’s. His center at the bridge at Mumma’s Mill, William Roulett’s, Joseph Poffbarger’s, David B. Miller’s to William F. Hobb’s farm. The hardest fighting was between William Roulett’s and Henry Piper’s. I suppose you recollect a lane on the right of the Hagerstown road, about a half mile from Sharpsburg, leading to William Roulett’s (formerly John Miller’s) running from thence to the Boonsboro Pike at the culvert of said pike. It was in this road the rebels had concealed themselves behind the banks and adjacent cornfield. It was at this place the slaughter on both sides was the heaviest. It was here that the Federals made a charge on the rebels and drove them back with terrible loss. In this road they laid in piles three and four deep. In the cornfield almost every step for several hundred yards around, dead rebels could be seen. The sight was awful.

ABOVE AND BELOW: Cropped enlargements of  Rebel dead in Bloody Lane.
(Alexander Gardner photos: Library of Congress)

“In this road they laid in piles three and four deep. In the cornfield almost every step for several hundred yards around, dead rebels could be seen. "

-- Dr. Augustin Biggs, describing the scene at Bloody Lane

In the space of a quarter of a mile dead rebels were strewn over the ground, also fragments of clothes, hats, caps, guns, horses, shells, and fragments of shells, and mounted artillery in such profusion that one could not step foot upon the ground without stepping on some of the effects of the mighty struggle between the contending armies. The bodies of the men were laying around mangled in every conceivable manner. Legs off and heads and parts of heads off, and mortal wounds of every description -- the most were from rifle shots. In this road, large puddles of blood were visible for several days after the battle. One rebel lay across a fence with three bullet holes in his posterior. I have not learned how many fell, but from all information I could get from the rebels, and our own men, the rebel loss was about 7,000 killed and 20,000 wounded at the battle of Sharpsburg. Their loss since the invasion of Maryland is estimated at 60,000 killed, wounded, and taken prisoners.

"I cannot account for [George] McClellan not renewing
the fight on Thursday," Biggs wrote of
the Union's commanding general at Antietam.
(Library of Congress)

On Thursday, the rebels sent a flag of truce for permission to bury their dead, which was only an excuse to obtain more time to make their escape -- in fact, they commenced retreating Wednesday night which was continued all day Thursday and Thursday night so that by Friday, all with the exception of some who refused to go were safely over the river on the Virginia side. I cannot account for McClellan not renewing the fight on Thursday. If he had done so, he would have captured the great bulk of the rebel army. The retreat of the rebels was in much confusion, for they left their dead and a great number of their wounded on the battlefield. On the day of the battle, they carried a large proportion of their wounded to Shepherdstown and in the direction of Winchester. Some of their dead they also carried away. There are at this time about 4,000 wounded in Shepherdstown.

Our neighborhood is one vast graveyard. The rebels are buried in ditches dug sufficient to hold as high as eighty-piled in such a manner as to be barely covered sufficiently over the top layer of men. The stench is becoming so disagreeable, particularly after sundown, that we can hardly endure it. In addition to the dead rebels, we had about 400 dead horses on the field. I cannot describe all as it really was and is at this time. One thing is remarkably strange, and that is the rapid decomposition of the dead rebels. On Friday, I rode over the battlefield and with few exceptions they were all swollen and perfectly black, while the dead Union men were pale and looked as though life had just departed the body. All I met observed the same contrast. It must be owing to their taking freely of gunpowder and whiskey.

I must say a little more about the character of the rebels. They were destitute of everything necessary to sustain life and comfort. I never saw a set of men reduced so far to the point of starvation. They would eat anything, no matter how dirty or filthy it was, to satisfy their craving appetite. They came upon like a gang of hungry wolves or hyenas. Nothing could be hid from their grasp. All the fruit and vegetables of every description were devoured by them. Nearly every house was robbed of everything eatable. Some few that remained at home succeeded in saving what they had, but all who were forced to leave town lost everything. When they once had possession of a house, it was stripped clean, even the children’s clothes, knives, forks, dishes, and bed clothes --- in fact nothing escaped, for what they could not use, they willfully destroyed. Two thirds of the families in the place had nothing but the clothes on their backs. After the battle, several poor people in town had their houses burned down, after first being robbed of all that was in them. Money, jewelry, and all articles of any value to them was carried off. I never thought that human nature in a civilized land could lose, to such a degree, all sympathy for their fellow beings. They entered several poor people’s houses and robbed them of everything they had in this world. Stealing and plunder seemed to be their profession and design. They appear to have lost all feelings of humanity and self-respect. They would strip themselves naked in the street and sit down and deliberately pick the vermin from their ragged garments.

“One shell exploded just over my head and some of the fragments struck the rim of my hat. "

-- Dr. Augustin Biggs
The rebels had their batteries planted on the hill above town extending in line opposite the line included above. This, as a matter of course, drew the fire of the Federals upon our town. I remained with my family in my house, otherwise would have lost all by the thieving rebels. Thanks to a kind Providence, we all escaped being hurt, although the shells were flying and exploding every moment around us. We suffered but little in comparison to others. One shell passed through the parlor window and exploded, tearing up and destroying things at a great rate. In a few moments, I entered the room and found nothing was on fire. Two shells went through my stable; one through my hog pen and five struck my house, but none went through the wall. One shell exploded just over my head and some of the fragments struck the rim of my hat. One man had his leg shot off on my pavement, and another instantly killed just above my house. None of the citizens got hurt as far as I know. There were sixteen rebels killed in town during the shelling.

Alexander Gardner's photograph of  the destruction of Samuel Mumma's farm. Dr. Biggs 
described the devastation in his letter to his uncle. (Library of Congress)

A cropped enlargement of Gardner's image of Mumma's farm.  

During the battle, Jacob Grove's house at 100 W. Main Street in Sharpsburg "was set afire
 and came very near setting the whole town on fire," Biggs wrote.
(Google Street View)

All this time, some were busy robbing the vacant houses. Two rebels in James Hill’s house were killed in the act of breaking open his safe. Few houses escaped unhurt.  As many as six shells passed through some houses and destroyed everything in their course. On Wednesday night, J.H. Grove’s house was set on fire and came very near setting the whole town on fire. My house caught fire three times, but I succeeded in putting it out. David and Samuel Reed’s barn burnt down the same night. On the day of the battle, the rebels set fire to Samuel Mumma’s house and barn, which with all his hay and grain, were burnt to ashes. Nearly all the horses are taken away; hogs and cattle killed and corn fed to their starving stock. William Cronises’ store was broken open and all his goods taken. At present, it is a strange sight to see fowl of any description.

We have nearly the whole of McClellan’s army quartered here, at Harper’s Ferry, and Williamsport. For five miles around nearly all the fences are gone, and this seems as one vast plain. We are all in a destitute state, and if the government don’t relieve us, this neighborhood is ruined. All is lost, and in all probability, the farmers will not be able to put out any grain this fall. Truly now I have written you a doleful letter and in my next my mind may be more composed and have more time to give you other items of interest.

Yours Truly,
A.A. Biggs

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