Snapshots of hell: A visit to Nashville's Peach Orchard Hill

Few visit this out-of-the-way historical sign off busy Harding Place Road at Peach Orchard Hill. 

Like this blog on Facebook | Follow me on Twitter 
Bordered on three sides by traffic hell, the neighborhood seven miles south of downtown Nashville is like thousands of others in Anywhere, USA. Dotted with trees, it includes a mix of McMansions, circa-1950s ranch-style houses and two-story charmers. Most have large, well-manicured front yards.

In one driveway, a basketball hoops sits while two ornamental stone pigs guard another. At the dead end of Elysian Fields Road, an open space and a “No Dumping” sign await a visitor. Just beyond the chain-link fence along this strip of greenery, traffic on Interstate 65 roars. In the distance, a train whistle blows and a plane roars overhead, the background noise of life in a major city.

The entrance to a gated community on old Peach Orchard Hill,
anchor of the right flank of the Army of Tennessee
on Dec. 16, 1864.

Near the top of the incline of green space, next to the interstate, a wooden fence stands. Beyond it, a gated community thrives near the crest of old Peach Orchard Hill. An out-of-the way historical sign on Franklin Road and another nearby on Harding Place Road note what happened here in December 1864. But few stop to read them. All this neighborhood is built on hallowed ground.

On the afternoon of Dec. 16, 1864 — the second day of the Battle of Nashville — dead and dying soldiers blanketed Peach Orchard Hill, anchor of the right flank of the Army of Tennessee. Among those cut down by General Stephen D. Lee's infantry and artillery were 200 men in the 13th U.S. Colored Troops, including five color-bearers.

Here's the story of two Midwesterners who fell on Peach Orchard Hill. For them, this place was a special kind of hell.

13th U.S. Colored Troops formed up at this incline on Dec. 16, 1864.  This slice of land on
Elysian Fields Road  is managed  by the Tennessee Department of Transportation. 

---

Bristling with sharpened stakes firmly planted in the ground, Peach Orchard Hill proved to be a formidable defense against Union attack. But as the 51st Indiana ascended the steep slope, Sergeant William R. Hartpence's saw an even more worrisome sight: four Confederate cannon and lines of infantry.

Lieutenant Peter Gordon Tait, a native of Scotland, 
was killed at the Battle of Nashville. He was buried
in Scotch Cemetery in Victoria, Ill.
(Find A Grave | Leta Knauss)

"Our boys were exhausted," he recalled, "and under ordinary circumstances would have been glad to delay the battle a few hours. But they felt that the end was near; and were eager to begin the fray, and have it over."

When Confederate artillerists found their range with canister and solid shot, 51st Indiana soldiers hit the ground. Then an artillery shell crashed into Lieutenant Peter Gordon Tait of the 89th Illinois "near the center of his body, tearing a great hole" in his left side. He was standing nearby, in advance of his regiment.

The incident, Sergeant Hartpence wrote, "will haunt the writer as long as life remains."

Falling to the ground, Tait—a 26-year-old native of Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland— threw his right arm to his side. His heart and left lung fell out of his body.

"The heart continued to throb for twenty minutes," Hartpence recalled, "its pulsations being distinctly seen by his agonized comrades who stood there and saw the noble life fade out in heroic self sacrifice. The ball buried itself in a log immediately in the rear doubtless thereby saving the lives of others who were in direct range of the deadly missile."

The remains of Tate, a farmer, were returned to Victoria, Ill., where he was buried in Scotch Cemetery. Nearly seven months earlier, Peter's 29-year-old brother, John, also in the 89th Illinois, had been killed at New Hope Church in Georgia.

---

Mortally wounded at Peach Orchard Hill
 in a freak incident, George Scrogin is
buried in Nashville National Cemetery.
(Find A Grave)

As he advanced up the slope leading to the crest of well-defended Peach Orchard Hill, 51st Indiana Private George Scrogin may have thought of his older brother. More than two years earlier, Henry Scrogin of the 45th Indiana had died of typhoid fever at Hospital No. 9 on Market Street in Nashville.

When grapeshot struck a Union colonel's horse in the neck, the wounded animal wildly careened through Federal lines. "A livelier horse I never saw," 51st Indiana veteran W. P. McClure wrote in a letter published in The National Tribune, a veterans newspaper.

With the 51st Indiana within 70 yards of the Confederate works, the horse bounded through the regiment at an angle, the sergeant remembered, "dashing madly through Co. H."

"His movements were so rapid," McClure recalled, "that our boys had barely time to make a slight movement either way to avoid collision, and he passed by almost as quickly as the shot and shell which the enemy were just then pouring into our fast-depleting ranks."

Stunningly, as the horse passed through the ranks, a stirrup hit the lock of a 51st Indiana soldier's musket, discharging the weapon into the back of George Scrogin's head. The private "fell dead on the spot," McClure noted, although records indicate he died five days later. Only 22, Scrogin was later interred in Nashville National Cemetery in Madison, Tenn., under grave marker No. 2900.

---

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

SOURCES

• Hartpence, William R., History of the Fifty-first Indiana Veteran Volunteer Infantry, Published by the author, The Robert Clarke Company, Printers and Binders, 1894.
• The National Tribune, July 21, 1887.

Why no Battle of Nashville markers for U.S. Colored Troops?

Marker at Peach Orchard Hill, where 13th U.S.C.T. attacked on Dec. 16, 1864.

Railroad Cut in South Nashville, where U.S.C.T. made futile assault on Dec. 15, 1864.

Like this blog on Facebook | Follow me on Twitter
U.S. Colored Troops fought bravely at the Railroad Cut (Dec. 15, 1864) and Peach Orchard Hill (Dec. 16) at the Battle of Nashville. But no battlefield markers on the mostly developed ground at either site note the valor of the African-American soldiers.

 At Peach Orchard Hill (see video below), the 13th U.S.C.T. suffered more than 200 casualties, including the loss of five color-bearers. "I never saw more heroic conduct shown on the field of battle than was exhibited by this body of men so recently slaves,” an Ohio officer recalled of the black troops’ performance on Dec. 16 at Peach Orchard Hill. Reported the Nashville Tennessean on Dec. 19, 1889, "There was no other occasion perhaps during the war where colored troops were so severely treated."

Twenty-five years after the battle, Aaron P. Baldwin, an officer in the 6th Ohio Light Battery, recalled the assault by the U.S.C.T. at Peach Orchard Hill:

War-time image of Aaron Baldwin.

We had often seen colored troops, but they were invariably doing garrison duty, and to see them march out in line of  battle and form for a charge was decidedly interesting to us and of course drew all our spare attention. If we ever had any question as to the bravery of colored troops, the events that soon followed showed us that no braver troops ever went into a fight. All was ready when Gen. [Thomas J.] Wood gave the order to cover the advance and to continue firing so long as the battery could do so with safety to the charging lines. This we did until the colored troops had reached the enemy's earth works. In the meantime the rebels had not been idle. They marched three distinct lines of infantry around the brow of the  hill, one line above the other, thus giving them four distinct lines of fire. This turreted fire was all directed upon the colored troops, and the action that lasted not more than 20 minutes left more than 400 colored troops lying on the field. One color bearer reached the earth works but fell, pierced with 17 bullets, rolling down into the trench, where he concealed his colors on his person. The charge having proven a failure, the reserves as well as what was left of the colored brigade fell back upon the battery line for reformation. The color bearer that was so seriously wounded was brought off of the field and with him the colors. He died within two hours after the action.

At the Railroad Cut on the foggy morning of Dec. 15, the  U.S.C.T. -- part of a diversionary attack of about 7,000 soldiers on the extreme right of the Confederate line -- were ambushed. Soldiers, many of them former slaves, leaped into the cut, breaking bones ... or suffering a worse fate.

We'll aim to help the effort to honor the U.S.C.T. for Battle of Nashville valor. Stay tuned.

The 13th U.S.C.T. are believed to have formed up here in preparation for the assault at Peach Orchard Hill.
This sliver of land in a residential area is managed by the Tennessee Department of Transportation.

---

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

-- Lewis, George W., The Campaigns of the 124th Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Akron, Ohio, The Werner Co., 1894
-- Nashville Tennessean, Dec. 19, 1889.
-- The Summit County (Ohio) Beacon, Dec. 25, 1889.

'Came only to die': Five Black lives lost on Peach Orchard Hill

Under devastating fire, 13th U.S. Colored Troops advanced up Peach Orchard Hill on Dec. 16, 1864 -- 
the second, and final, day of the Battle of Nashville. This is private property in a residential area,
(CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE.)

 Like this blog on Facebook | Follow me on Twitter
In an affluent residential area of Nashville, only slivers of ground remain undeveloped on Peach Orchard Hill, where U.S. Colored Troops fought courageously in their first battle of the war.

A historical marker near Peach Orchard Hill does not mention 
the black troops who fought there.

On my brief visit to battleground there Saturday, the scene seemed so incongruous: Traffic droned on busy Franklin Road a short distance from the private property; near a backyard pool, a hare dashed into a clump of woods, yards from a broken wheelbarrow; and steps from a large bed of flowers, an air-conditioning unit hummed beside a large house. This place, also known as Overton Hill, is hallowed ground.

How could this be?

Only a few acres of core Nashville battlefield remain undeveloped from the Dec. 15-16, 1864, battle. And the role of Black troops during the two-day fight is virtually unrecognized publicly on historical markers in the city. Along Franklin Road, one describes the fighting that occurred here, but few stop to read it, and the role of the U.S.C.T. isn't mentioned.

Oh, what a story we're missing.

On the afternoon of Dec. 16, 1864, 13th U.S.C.T. soldiers advanced toward the camera
 up Peach Orchard Hill.  In the distance is busy Franklin Pike. 

On the unseasonably warm afternoon here on Dec. 16, 1864 – the second day of the Battle of Nashville – three regiments of U.S.C.T  advanced up the steep, 300-foot hill into the teeth of strong enemy defenses near the crest. Canister and well-directed musket fire poured into them. And yet these ill-equipped and ill-trained men, directed by white officers, charged on.

A post-war image of
Union officer
Ambrose Bierce, who was
 impressed by the U.S.C.T.

“I never saw more heroic conduct shown on the field of battle,” recalled an Ohio officer, “than was exhibited by this body of so recently released slaves.”

Disabled by a wound, U.S. Army officer Ambrose Bierce watched from afar the advance of the U.S.C.T. through “an intricate abatis of felled trees denuded of their foliage and twigs.”

“They did not hesitate for a moment: their long lines swept into that fatal obstruction in perfect order and remained there as long as those of the white veterans on their right,” he recalled decades later. “And as many of them in proportion remained until borne away and buried after the action. It was as pretty an example of courage and discipline as one could wish to see."

Even Confederate commander James Holtzclaw noted the valor of the black troops. In his sector, the general's men defended against soldiers in the 13th U.S.C.T. In its first, and only, major fight of the war, the nearly 600-man regiment suffered 55 dead among 220 casualties.

“Placing a negro brigade in front,” he wrote in his official report, “they gallantly dashed up to the abatis, forty feet in front, and were killed by hundreds. Pressed on by their white brethren in the rear they continued to come up in masses to the abatis, but they only came to die.

James Holtzclaw, a C.S.A.
general, wrote in his official
report about 
U.S.C.T. gallantry.

“I have seen most of the battle-fields of the West," he added, "but never saw dead men thicker than in front of my two right regiments.”

In his after-action report, 13th U.S.C.T. Colonel John A. Hottenstein wrote that his men advanced to the "very muzzles of the enemy's guns." But unsupported by artillery, the small regiment fell back, "but not for the want of courage or discipline."

"Them that was not killed," a U.S.C.T soldier recalled decades after the war, "was almost shot to death almost to a man."

From my vantage point on this private property, I gazed toward the present-day crest of Peach Orchard Hill. (Post-war construction of a road took away a chunk of the hill.) In his report, Holtzclaw wrote of five black color-bearers falling after they vainly attempted to plant their battle flag on Confederate earthworks. Another color-bearer was shot down a few feet of Holtzclaw's line. An Alabama officer leaped over the works to grab the prized trophy.

Did these acts of valor happen near a present-day tool shed, 50 feet from a row of sunflowers? Or maybe it was somewhere else in the back yard of the large, white ranch house. Who knows?

I tried to imagine the "wild disorder" described by Holtzclaw of black soldiers as they tumbled down the hill and the broken bodies that lay on the muddy, blood-soaked ground.

Who were these men?

Culled from widow's pension records in the National Archives, here are glimpses of five black lives lost on Peach Orchard Hill.

13th U.S.C.T. Private James Byars, Company K

(National Archives via fold3.com)

"I was a solger in the war with James Byars," wrote Company K Private Preston Byars in a document found in James' widow's pension file (above). "I was shot in the sholder and I was taken from the field. I was told he was shot and killed. When I left his side I never saw him any more. He must have been killed for all in my command was almost killed. Them that was not killed was almost shot to death almost to a man."

After her husband's death at Nashville, Ruth Byars filed for a pension, which was approved at the standard $8 a month. Years later, the former slave re-married and her pension was discontinued, but the union did not last. Ruth's second husband deserted her in 1874.

"I am very much in need of a pension," Ruth, who worked as a cook, claimed in an 1891 affidavit for the Bureau of Pensions. "Get it as soon as you can."

James' final resting place is unknown.

13th U.S.C.T Private James Thomas, Company B

Amy Roberson said she was James Thomas' daughter, but the Bureau of Pensions rejected her claim.
(National Archives via fold3.com)

Seven months after he was killed in action at Peach Orchard Hill, James' widow died in Nashville. Decades later, a woman named Amy Roberson filed for a dependent's pension, claiming she was the daughter of James and Cynthia Thomas, former slaves. She was born into slavery herself in May 1860.

A special investigator was assigned to the case by the Bureau of Pensions. Seeking evidence to buttress Amy's claim for a pension, the pension bureau interrogated former slaves and James' former masters. Their testimony gives stark picture of the times.

"He was a mere boy of about 17 years old when he left me," testified 73-year-old former slaveholder James Thomas Sr. He and his son, Sam, claimed Cynthia and James were never married.

A 73-year-old Methodist minister, a former slave who sold eggs, butter and chickens, disputed the slavemasters' testimony: "I performed the marriage ceremony on the [slavemaster Granville] Pillow place," Alfred Wilson testified, "uniting those two in wedlock. I remember it well. It was on a Saturday night and in the [slave] cabin of Cynthia's mother..."

Sarah Walker, James' sister, also belonged to James Thomas Sr. She left her master "when the Yankee army first came to Columbia [Tenn.]..." Walker testified she and her husband raised Amy after the deaths of Jacob and Cynthia.

Sarah also recalled saying goodbye to James with Cynthia on the morning of the battle. "I never saw my brother again," she said.

Ultimately, the Bureau of Pensions believed the testimony of former slavemasters over former slaves. Roberson's claim was rejected in 1890.

The final resting place of soldier James Thomas is unknown.

13th U.S.C.T. Private Lewis Martin, Company A

Probably unable to read or write, 39-year-old Lewis Martin signed this form with an "X" when he enlisted.
(National Archives via fold3.com)

Lewis, who was 5-foot-4 with black hair and eyes, enlisted in Franklin, Tenn., in August 1863.
On either Dec. 18 or 23, 1864, he died  from a lacerated wound to the left hip at Hospital No. 16 -- one of many medical facilities in Nashville during the war. Located on South College Street, the hospital served African-American soldiers and contrabands. The 39-year-old farmer was married to his wife, Minerva, for about 23 years. His final resting place is unknown.

13th U.S.C.T. Private Miles German, Company I

German's widow Ellen signed with an "X" this pension file document, which includes 
the birthdates of her five children.  (National Archives via fold3.com)

German enlisted in the 13th U.S.C.T. in Stevenson, Ala.., on Oct. 22, 1863, and was mustered into the regiment at Camp Rosecrans, in Murfreesboro, Tenn. Miles, who died of his wounds in Nashville a little more than a month after the battle, was survived by his wife Ellen and five children: John, 8 in 1864; Jerry, 6; Augustus, 4; Alice, 3; and Martha Jane, 2.

In a terrific, detailed post on her excellent "From Slaves to Soldiers and Beyond" blog, researcher Tina Cahalan Jones wrote German was enslaved in Williamson County (Tenn.). After the war, Martin's remains were disinterred from somewhere in Nashville and re-buried in the national cemetery north of the city.

13th U.S.C.T. Private John House, Company H

(National Archives via fold3.com)

Months after the war was over, 13th U.S.C.T. Lieutenant Barnabas Ricketts wrote this note confirming House's death in a Nashville hospital on Dec. 16, 1864. John may have died at the Glen Leven Estate, where a makeshift Federal hospital was set up a short distance north of Peach Orchard Hill. Thirty years after her husband's death, Sophia House remained unmarried. John was buried in Nashville National Cemetery in a section with his U.S.C.T comrades.

Private John House's grave in Nashville National Cemetery.

---

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

SOURCES

-- San Francisco Examiner, June 5, 1894. (This is source for Bierce comment about worthiness of black soldiers.)
-- Lewis, G.W., The Campaigns of the 124th Regiment, Ohio Volunteer Infantry, with Roster and Roll of Honor. The Werner Comapany, Akron, 1894.
-- The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Vol. 45, Part 1.

'Family tradition': Relic hunting with Hank Williams Jr. in '64

In this photo published in the Tennessean in 1964, Gordon Stoker (left), a singer with the
Jordanaires, holds a spoon he found on a battle line while Hank Williams Jr. examines
an unexploded artillery shell Stoker found in his back yard near Shy's Hill in Nashville.

Hank Williams Jr. and Gordon Stoker, a singer in the Jordanaires, "prospect for
mini balls," according to the caption in the Tennessean on Dec. 6, 1964.

Like this blog on Facebook | Follow me on Twitter

Long before he became a mega-country music star, with hits such as "A Country Boy Can Survive," "All My Rowdy Friends," and "Family Tradition," Hank Williams Jr. pursued another passion: Civil War relic hunting.

As a teen, Williams Jr. lived in Nashville, not far from battle sites Shy's Hill, Peach Orchard Hill, Oak Hill and Granny White Pike.

Hank Williams Jr. at a 2006 concert. (Andrea Klein via
Wikimedia Commons)

On Dec. 6, 1964, the Tennessean ran a short feature by Hugh Walker on Civil War “treasure hunters” in the Music City. Among those featured in the story was Williams Jr., then 15. One of the three photos that accompanied the story showed him holding an unexploded, fused shell (yikes!) found by Jordanaires tenor singer Gordon Stoker in the back yard of his home near Shy’s Hill, where John Bell Hood's Army of Tennessee was routed on Dec. 16, 1864. Hank Jr. attended John Overton High School, built on Peach Orchard Hill, defended by Hood's army.

Williams Jr.'s passion for relic collecting -- and the Civil War -- has lasted well into adulthood.

"We have so much information now on the Internet that you can almost trace a musket or revolver right to the soldier that it was issued to," he said in a video posted to YouTube in 2008. "Boy, that makes it sweet when you can put it all together." Williams used to hunt for Civil War relics with his close friend, Johnny Cash -- the greatest country singer of all time. (June Carter Cash was Hank Jr.'s godmother.)

In a four-minute clip, Williams, now 71, mentioned two of his ancestors in the 6th Alabama -- one was killed at Gettysburg, another lost an arm at Little Round Top. He also showed off a musket in his collection with "Co. G, 6th Alabama" carved into the stock.

In 1992, when Hank Jr. scrapped his full beard for a goatee look, his agent even gave it a Civil War spin. "He was looking through some Civil War books and saw some generals," Merle Kilgore said, "and decided that's how he wanted to look."

Below is the story from the Tennessean and the 2008 Williams Jr. YouTube clip:

From Shy’s Hill to Peach Orchard, collectors of Civil War relics are still looking for minie balls, cannon halls, bayonets, buttons and belt buckles. And they're finding them! One of the more successful and more knowledgeable of the relic hunters is Hank Williams Jr., son of the late great country singer, and a recording star in his own right. 

Hank, 15, lives at 4916 Franklin Road, but has done most of his collecting of shells and bullets at High Note, the home of Gordon Stoker of the Jordonaires Quartet. Stoker lives on the high hill about 400 yards south of Shy's Hill, on Benton Smith Road. The brow of this hill was the scene of a sharp battle on the second day of the Battle of Nashville on Dec. 16, 1864. 

Hank operates with the aid of an electronic metal detector, and while we were there he came up with a perfect minie ball, found two inches under the grass in Stoker's back yard. "This it a .577 caliber Confederate mini ball," Hank said, "fired from an English Enfield rifle."  

It developed that he usually is able to identify shells and bullets, and tell from what arm and by which army they were fired. Stoker, too, has a considerable treasure from his back yard, and one of these is a heart stopper. It is a round, explosive type shell containing a five-second fuse. The fuse stopped at three and a half seconds, for some reason, and the shell never exploded. Now, after a century, the shell looks as though It might explode at any time if that last second and a half ever ticks off. 

Jimmy McMinn shows 52 minie balls and two cannon balls
 to his friends. He found them at Nashville's Peach Orchard Hill,
where he lived. The photo accompanied the 
1964 story that featured Hank Williams Jr.

On Shy's Hill itself Vernon W. Gerth and his boys, David and John, have been busy collecting minie balls. Not long ago they found a fine bayonet and a partly exploded shell located with shrapnel. Williams also had found a shell of this type. 

The stone wall that runs along Stonewall Drive continued the Confederate line eastward most of the way to Franklin Road, and around the brow of Peach Orchard Hill. On the northern face of this hill young Jim McMinn, a student at Overton High School, has picked up 52 minie balls and two cannon balls, plus some miscellaneous scrap iron. 

Jimmy's family has been forced to move from the hill top. temporarily, because of the new highways that will cross Peach Orchard. One of these, the southbound 1-65, will pass just east of the hill, which is really a long ridge, somewhat broken in the middle. The other, which may be a part of the projected Briley Parkway, will he an extension of Battery Lane running east and west. It passes a little south of the Confederate defense line and cuts across the line where it was refused to the south.

Besides the collections of shells and bullets mentioned, many Nashvillians have Civil War guns, uniforms, swords and articles of various types and scores of these will be furbished up and put on display for the commemoration of the battle centennial, Dec. 11-13.

POSTSCRIPT: Soon after the 1964 Tennessean story was posted to the Battle of Nashville Trust Facebook page, one of Stoker's sons weighed in. "The group of youngsters in the first picture (see below) is myself, my brother Brent Stoker, and our neighbor, Johnny Daniel," Alan Stoker wrote. "Thanks for posting this. We still have most of these relics too."  (Gordon Stoker died in 2013.)

---

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

SOURCE

 -- Lincoln (Neb.) Journal via Associated Press, Jan. 10, 1992.

Battle of Nashville's Peach Orchard Hill ... and peppers?

Sloping terrain near the crest of Peach Orchard Hill.

Are there Civil War relics in this ground?

Lifelong Nashvillian Jim Cooper, who used to be an avid relic hunter, examines the ground.

Like this blog on Facebook | Follow me on Twitter
I spent part of Thursday afternoon examining terrain in a neighborhood near the crest of steep Peach Orchard Hill, where regiments of U.S. Colored Troops fought courageously in their first battle of the war on Dec. 16, 1864 — the second day of the Battle of Nashville. Somewhere up here Confederates fought from behind their works.

Rick Allen briefly searched his property.

Now you must bring your imagination when you visit this site, located in a gated community. Sadly, all of Peach Orchard Hill — also known as Overton Hill — was developed for housing long ago. But if you can blot out the drone of nearby traffic, you can almost see men like former slave James Thomas of the 13th U.S.C.T. advancing up this slope.

Bonus from my visit: Gracious host Rick Allen introduced me to his uncle, Jim Cooper, a lifelong Nashvillian. He’s knows this battle. Back in the day, he found quite a few artifacts in Nashvile while relic hunting around the city, which looked before development exploded. Today's Nashville features a lot of find neighborhood restaurants ... and construction cranes.

(Double bonus: Rick gave me peppers from his garden. He warned me they are hot ... and for the record, I’d like to confirm his scouting report.)

Rick briefly brought out a borrowed metal detector to see what he could find in his yard. Nothing ... yet. Let’s keep history alive.

Warning: These peppers are HOT!

---

-- Have something to add, correct? E-mail me at jbankstx@comcast.net

Legacy in lead: What a 114th Pennsylvania Zouave left behind

114th Pennsylvania Private William Garner carved his initials and regiment into this bullet, 
relic hunter Richard Clem believes. Below: An image of the carved bullet next to a
 whole .58-caliber bullet. (Photos courtesy of  Clem unless noted)

Like this blog on Facebook.
If you're a regular reader of this blog, you know I am a big fan of relic hunter Richard Clem, whose amazing tales have been posted here, here, here and here. For nearly 50 years, Clem and his brother have hunted for Civil War relics in Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia. Here's another story from my friend Richard Clem about a relic hunting find:

---

By Richard E. Clem

Richard Clem

A murderous encounter the previous week at Gettysburg had thinned the ranks of the 114th Pennsylvania Volunteers. While glowing campfires slowly died, the boys from Philadelphia tried to erase from their minds and souls that bloody ordeal in the “Peach Orchard.” Today, not a sign remains to indicate these battle-weary warriors bivouacked on the ground in Maryland. However, one member of the 114th Pennsylvania left evidence underground that the camp did indeed exist. (1)

On a beautiful Indian summer afternoon in 1986, the author and his brother, Don, searched for Civil War relics with metal detectors. The farm we searched was camped on by units of the Union III Corps of the Army of the Potomac during their pursuit of the  Rebels after Gettysburg. In earlier years, the nearby intersection in this area of southern Washington County, Md., was called Jones’ Crossroads by locals. (2)

Warm, sunny hours had proven favorable as our relic pouches bulged with bullets, buttons and various Civil War artifacts. With shadows lengthening, we decided to call it a day and take one final sweep across the old campsite. As we were about to finish, Don headed in my direction with an outstretched hand and a smile on his face. This could mean only one thing: He had dug a “keeper!” (3)

"At first, I thought it was just another bullet," Don explained. "But after a closer look, I could see something carved on it." Darkness was setting in too fast to figure out the tiny letters, so we headed for the pickup truck. That evening we soaked the bullet in water, and after a light cleaning with a soft toothbrush, letters and numbers surfaced: "H / W. L. G. / 114 P.V." (4)

Using imagination and common sense, we came to the conclusion what these small letters represented. First, the “H” at the top of the carving stood for “Company H.” Next, the letters “W.L.G.” were the initials of some soldier’s first, middle and last name. And finally, “114 P.V.” stood for the “114th Pennsylvania Volunteers.” Apparently, more than a century before a Civil War soldier had taken a pocket knife or some other sharp object and cut the nose and bottom ring off a standard .58-caliber bullet. He then continued to carve his company’s letter, his own initials and abbreviation of his regiment on the flattened remaining nose of the bullet. This was no easy task considering the surface being carved was the size of an aspirin. This veteran must have had better than 20-20 vision. (5)

An extreme close-up of the bullet shows the carved 
words "Zouaves D'Afrique."

In January 2011, after resting in my brother’s collection for 25 years, an amazing discovery was made while photographing the ID'd bullet. Under a strong, close-up magnification lens, the words “Zouaves D’Afrique” appeared on the base of the bullet. Perhaps this was why the bottom joint or ring was cut off, leaving a larger surface to inscribe. (6)

The month following the Battle of First Bull Run, a company known as Zouaves D’Afrique was organized in Philadelphia by an attorney, Charles Henry Tuckey Collis. The name “Zouave” comes from the French Army Zouaves of North Africa. Zouaves of the French army were originally recruited from native Algerian soldiers in North Africa after the French occupation of Algiers in 1830. Later, the African troops were replaced with Frenchmen. These soldiers earned respect for their fierceness in battle and were considered one of the best fighting forces in the world. (7)

Collis’ new unit served in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia under Major General Nathaniel P. Banks, who vainly tried to outfox the soon-to-become legendary Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson. In August 1862, Collis returned to Pennsylvania to recruit men for an entire Zouave regiment. The Zouave D’Afrique company, now under the direction of Captain Severin A. Bartholot, engaged in battles of Cedar Mountain, Second Bull Run, Chantilly and Antietam. Commissioned colonel, Collis organized nine companies in Philadelphia that became the 114th Pennsylvania Infantry -- his old Zouaves D’Afrique becoming Company A under Captain Bartholot. It seems the men of Company A were so admired and so proud of the name “Zouave D’Afrique” that it was used by the whole newly formed regiment. (8)

During the War Between the States, a small percentage of a soldier’s time was spent in battle or combat. What has escaped the writer’s pen for the most part is the miles of strenuous marching and daily routine of boring camp life. Many played checkers and cards to pass away the long hours. Some would write letters to sweethearts and folks back home. Another favorite pastime was the art of bullet carving. Because of its softness, a lead bullet could be easily carved or whittled into any shape that came to mind. Thousands of these small “messengers of death” have been dug using modern-day metal detectors. To the author’s knowledge, my brother’s ID’d bullet stands alone as one-of-a-kind. (9)

A war-time image of Charles Collis (left), who organized the 114th Pennsylvania.
(Library of Congress)

A recruiting poster for the 114th Pennsylvania, a Zouave regiment known for its colorful uniforms.

So let’s return to Nov. 22, 1986, when my brother and I stood scratching our heads and wondering about the soldier who carved the bullet. With two great clues to start our research -- the letter of the soldier’s company and name of his regiment --a trip to Gettysburg was planned. The library at the Gettysburg National Military Park produced a copy of  the History of Pennsylvania Volunteers 1861-5. The large volume contains in order every regiment from the Keystone State that served in the Civil War. Each regiment is broken down into companies listed in alphabetical order. Pages became blurred as we nervously, anxiously fumbled through the heavy book until a finger landed on the 114th Pennsylvania Volunteers. In a matter of seconds, the only name listed in Company H that matched those carved on the bullet leaped from the page – “William L. Garner.” We had found our bullet carver from the past. (10)

William L. Garner was born in 1833, in Augusta County, Va. Augusta County archives give little information about Garner’s early years. In the early 1850s, he relocated for an unknown reason to Philadelphia, where he became a barber. In the City of Brotherly Love, William married on Jan. 15, 1854, and fathered a child, Ida, who was born March 6, 1859. (11)

In August 1862, war clouds drifted slowly northward, mainly in the form of the Army of Northern Virginia under the leadership of General Robert E. Lee. On Aug. 22,  29-year-old William L. Garner enlisted in Philadelphia in Company H, 114th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry. Signing up for three years, Private Garner was listed as 5-9, with a dark complexion and eyes and black hair. The 114th Pennsylvania Zouaves wore dark blue jackets with red trim and baggy red trousers, polished brass buttons and turbans or fezzes. The new recruits’ uniforms were made from material purchased from the French Government;  the U.S. government supplied new Springfield muskets.

Lt. Colonel Frederick Cavada commanded
the 114th Pennsylvania at Gettysburg.
He was captured  on the Sherfy farm.
(Library of Congress)

Nine days after enlistment, Garner and Collis’ Zouaves left for the seat of war. Entering the defenses around Washington, the regiment was attached to 1st Brigade, 1st Division, III Corps, Army of the Potomac. Why would a man volunteer for military service, leaving his wife and 3-year-old daughter? One incentive might have been the $40 bounty offered by the City of Philadelphia -- that was far more tempting than a barber’s charge of "two bits." Maybe it was just a matter of duty to preserve the Union. Also, word was spreading of the possibility of a Rebel invasion of Pennsylvania, so able-bodied men were called upon to defend their native state. (12)

Clad in its unique, flamboyant garb, Collis’ regiment experienced its baptism of fire at Fredericksburg, Va., on Dec. 13, 1862. At the town along the Rappahannock River, the 114th and 63rd Pennsylvania rushed to save several Union batteries from falling into hands of the enemy. And then on Jan. 20, 1863, during “Burnside’s Mud March” campaign, the Zouaves were called upon to construct a pontoon bridge across the Rappahannock in the face of Confederate fire from the opposite bank. (13)

Private Garner was on sick leave from January-April 1863, but recovered and was present at the Battle of Chancellorsville that May. Near the Chancellor house, the 114th and 105th Pennsylvania charged a fortified Rebel position but were driven back to the entrenchments with the loss of 173 killed and wounded. In the same engagement, Colonel Charles Collis was reported wounded, although some records claim he contracted typhoid fever. Whatever the case, Collis was recuperating and missed the Gettysburg Campaign. (14)

After General Lee’s brilliant success at Chancellorsville in spring 1863, the Confederacy decided once more to invade Union territory -- a campaign that reached its climax at a sleepy, crossroads village in Pennsylvania. Enduring heat and humidity on the trek north, the 114th Pennsylvania was under command of Lt. Colonel Frederick F. Cavada. Now the soldiers from Philadelphia would be defending their own home turf. (15)

Late on July 1, Major General Daniel E. Sickles’ III Corps reached Gettysburg; the aftermath of the first day’s fighting left a landscape northwest of town covered with bloated forms of blue and gray dead. The stage was set for the blood-letting to continue. On the morning July 2, the armies faced each other on rolling farm land near town. Newly appointed Major General George G. Meade’s Army of the Potomac was established on high ground. In the shape of a “fish hook,” Meade’s line extended from Culp’s Hill west to Cemetery Hill and bent south along Cemetery Ridge to the Round Tops – approximately two miles long. No action took place in the morning while both sides waited for remaining units to arrive on the field. (16)

Meade had placed Sickles’ Corps, which included the 114th Pennsylvania, to the left of the line on Cemetery Ridge, just north of the Round Tops. Early in the afternoon, acting on his own, Sickles advanced his III Corps to a slightly higher ground. The daring move, breaking the Union’s defensive line, placed the bulk of Brigadier General Charles K. Graham’s Brigade (63rd, 105th, 57th and 114th Pennsylvania) partially in a peach orchard along the east side of Emmitsburg Road. The 141st Pennsylvania of Graham’s Brigade formed at a right angle to the brigade facing south, with the 68th Pennsylvania in support. At the time of the battle, this orchard was owned by Joseph Sherfy, who operated a 50-acre farm bordering both sides of Emmitsburg Road. To strengthen Graham’s position at the Peach Orchard, four Federal batteries were deployed on the opposite side (west) of the road facing gathering enemy forces. (17)

Lee’s plan of attack on July 2 was to strike the Round Tops with Lt. General James “Old Pete” Longstreet’s 1st Corps and gradually sweep in echelon up Emmitsburg Road, rolling up the Union left flank on Cemetery Ridge. As a diversionary strategy, at the same time of Longstreet’s assault, Major General Richard S. Ewell’s II Corps was to attack the Union’s right flank on Culp’s Hill. Around 4:30 p.m,. Major General John Bell Hood’s Division (Longstreet’s Corps) attacked Little Round Top. While Hood’s Texas troops had more than they could handle advancing up the rocky hill, the Confederate advance unfolded in the direction of the Peach Orchard; a deafening Rebel yell split the battle smoke-filled atmosphere. (18)

As the Southern assault launched in a northeast direction, facing the 114th and 57th Pennsylvania stood the Mississippi Brigade (21st, 17th, 13th and 18th Mississippi) of Brigadier General William Barksdale. An attorney and former U.S. Congressman, Barksdale had what one of his men called "a thirst for battle glory.” We must wonder what went through Garner’s mind as he gazed toward Pitzer’s Woods, where “Stars & Bars” led Barksdale’s massive force. (19)

Before Barksdale’s attack, Confederate artillery unmercifully shelled Sherfy’s orchards, forcing Cavada to order the Pennsylvania Zouaves to hug the ground. Longstreet’s artillery chief, Col. E. Porter Alexander, wrote later, “About 4 p.m., I placed about five batteries in action against a heavy artillery & infantry force of the enemy about 500 yards distance in a peach orchard on the Emmitsburg Pike.” As cannon smoke cleared at about 6:30 p.m., the Mississippi Brigade of 1,600 emerged from Pitzer’s Woods and rushed straight toward the Peach Orchard 600 yards ahead in what a Federal officer described as "the greatest charge that was ever made by mortal man.” (20)

As the gray columns approached, orders were given to the 114th and 57th Pennsylvania regiments to move across the Emmitsburg Road to rescue two of the advanced Union batteries. In a matter of five minutes after leaving cover of the timber, Barksdale drove his veterans into Graham’s vastly outnumbered brigade, slowed only by rail fences lining both sides of the Emmitsburg Road. (21)

The Mississippians tore through the Philadelphia Zouaves positioned between Sherfy’s house and barn, sending the entire Union brigade streaming to the rear. Suffering from complete exhaustion and unable to run, Cavada was captured with General Graham, who was wounded. The fragmented 114th, now under Captain Edward R. Bowen, was pushed back almost to its original location. The retreating elements of III Corps left a tremendous gap in Meade’s position on Cemetery Ridge. (22)

At Gettysburg, the 114th Pennsylvania showed 296 men available on its roster. The clash in the Peach Orchard resulted in 19 killed, 76 wounded and an unknown number missing. With the exception of supporting Cowan’s Battery during “Picket’s Charge,” the 114th saw little action on July 3, the last day of the battle. (23)

A post-war image of the Joseph Sherfy Farm, where the 114th Pennsylvania was routed.

Joseph Sherfy farmhouse on Emmittsburg Road at Gettysburg.

Bullet marks in the brickwork of the Sherfy farmhouse.

On July 6, a member of the 20th Maine Infantry wrote to a brother about what he witnessed at the Sherfy Farm: “There is where the hottest of the fight took place and the Barn was filled of dead and wounded, which had been set on fire and burned, and there was the skeletons of men, some all burned up others half burned some with only their clothes burned off. On the same ground that our Regt. camped was the 114th Penn. Zouave, red Breeches as we called them ... There was as many as 30 or 40 lay dead there of that Regt. They had laid there 3 days in hot July weather. And I wish I never could see another such sight.” (24)

On July 20, 1863, The Gettysburg Compiler reported, “In the Joseph Sherfy barn and around the hay stack were about twenty wounded Philadelphia Zouaves (the 114th Pennsylvania Infantry) who perished in the conflagration.” Another Federal soldier noticed in Sherfy’s smoldering barn the uniforms of  “... blue and gray and scattered among them were the bright red hats and trousers of the fallen Zouaves.” Private William L. Garner was not one who “perished in the conflagration” nor were his “red trousers” found in the ashes of Sherfy’s barn. By the grace of the Ruler of All Battles, he would be one of the fortunate blessed to walk from the blood-stained fields of Gettysburg.

114th Pennsylvania monument at Gettysburg.

A civilian visitor to the Gettysburg battlefield just days after the conflict took note of the Sherfy property: "The Rebels had searched the home thoroughly turning everything in drawers etc. out and clothes, bonnets, towels, linen etc were found trampled in indistinguishable piles from the house out to the barnyard. Four feather beds never used were soaked with blood and bloody clothes and filth of every description was strewn over the house.” (25)

To escape the battle on the morning of July 2, Joseph and Mary Sherfy and their six children fled the farm, driving their livestock southeast of the Round Tops to a little community along the Baltimore Pike called Two Taverns. Joseph and his son returned on July 6 to find the barn burned and their home ransacked. The orchards and fences were destroyed, and the fields were covered with dead soldiers and horses. Joe Sherfy replanted his orchards, rebuilt the barn and continued the sale of fruit for many years. The original Sherfy farmhouse built in 1840s stands today along the Emmitsburg Road, still displaying numerous bullet holes from the 1863 battle in its brickwork. (26)

Under a torrential downpour on the evening of Independence Day, July 4, 1863, General Lee led his embattled Army of Northern Virginia from the killing ground of Gettysburg -- a vast sea of suffering humanity spattered with mud and blood. When the Rebel army reached the Potomac River at Williamsport , Md., some 40 miles south of Gettysburg, panic broke out. Because of record-setting rain, the Potomac was too swollen to cross. With a swollen river to his back and Meade’s army approaching in front, Lee quickly established entrenchment lines. A mutual stand-off developed as the two forces, still suffering battle fatique, nervously and impatiently waited for the raging river to recede. It was at this time (July 10-13, 1863) William Garner carved his miniature lead masterpiece. On the night of July 13 and the next morning, the Confederate army made good its escape across the still-receding Potomac to Southern soil, thus ending the Gettysburg Campaign. (27)

The 114th Pennsylvania regiment passed through its worst trials in spring and summer 1863 at Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. In 1864, with Collis back commanding the battle-tested brigade, the Zouaves continued reducing their numbers in action at Wapping Heights, Kelley’s Ford, Auburn, Mine Run, Guiney’s Station and Rappahannock Station. Private Garner survived those engagements, but luck ran out for the red-legged veteran from Philadelphia. (28)

On a clear, warm Sunday in the final month of hostilities, Garner made his last charge during General Ulysses Grant’s assault against the enemy’s strong works at Petersburg, Va. A surgeon’s report listed his condition as, “ . . . disabled resulting from a gun shot wound in the right foot received in action at Petersburg, Virginia, April 2, 1865.” Just seven days after Garner fell in battle, Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia at Appomattox Court House, officially ending the war. With the Confederates' surrender, the 114th Pennsylvania marched to Arlington Heights, opposite Washington, where it was mustered out of service May 29, 1865. The War Between the States was over, but for William Garner the battle for life was just beginning. (29)

Private William Garner's name on a plaque on the massive Pennsylvania monument at Gettysburg.

On April 10, 1865, the day after Lee’s surrender, Garner was admitted to U.S. General Hospital in Philadelphia. Later that month, he was transferred to McClellan U.S. Hospital in the same city. His health continued to deteriorate after being shuttled from one hospital to another. To make matters worse, in 1868, while still in the hospital, his wife died. Four years later, on Aug.  7, 1872, William L. Garner died in Belleme Hospital in New York. He was 39.  The cause of death was  “… disease of lungs and wounds contracted in the service.” Without mother or father, what would happen to Ida, the Garner’s 12-year-old daughter? (30)

Exactly 24 years to the day -- April 2, 1889 -- that Garner was wounded at Petersburg, Ida Garner Klinck applied for a military pension as the daughter of  William L. Garner. The 30-year-old woman who appeared before the deputy clerk of the Supreme Court of New York gave her address as Brooklyn, Kings County, N.Y. Seventeen years later, she applied again for a pension, writing the following:

Torrington, July 22, 1906
Mr. Warner

          i thought I would Write to you to tell you That my mother died Before
          my father. My mother died when I was 9 years old. My father died
          because of a Wound in the foot and I know that my father never
          Married But one time. I feel that I Should have sum thing come to me.
          i am a lone in This World. I was 12 years old When my father died. My
          father was William L. Garner.

from
Mrs. Ida G. Klinck  (31)

The letter carried the return address: “283 Oak Ave., Torrington, Litchfield County, Connecticut.” Records show Ida Garner Klinck was rejected for a pension the second time. Ida Garner had married William Klinck in 1882. A 1900 Census revealed the couple, who lived in Torrington, were parents of four daughters and two sons. (32)

William Garner never accomplished anything the world would consider great, but he fought to preserve the Union for three years. Reward for his faithful service was a foot wound and a form of tuberculosis that caused his early death. As of this writing, no image or photograph, not even a gravestone, are known to exist for Private Garner. Still, days following the Battle of Gettysburg, near a small country crossroads, this Zouave soldier carved letters on a piece of lead smaller than a sewing thimble -- a simple act that made it possible for his name to be printed on pages of Civil War history. (33)

Click here for notes and sources for this story.

'Where'll I find the Crater?': A visit to Petersburg in 1881

In 1887, six years after reporter George Morgan's Petersburg visit, 57th Massachusetts veterans
pose at The Crater.  William Mahone, the Confederate brigadier general who led counterattacks 
at The Crater on July 30, 1864,  is the man with the cane and long, white beard
 in the front row. (William Tipton | Library of Congress)

Like this blog on Facebook | Morgan's battlefield accounts
On a tour of Southern battlefields in 1881. Philadelphia Times correspondent George Morgan stopped in Petersburg, Va., where citizens weren't especially eager to talk about momentous Civil War events that occurred there. At least one of them, however, profited from the war: The farmer who owned land where the U.S. Army exploded a mine under the Confederates' salient on July 30, 1864, charged visitors a quarter apiece to visit the "historic hole" created by the blast.

Correspondent George Morgan 
toured Civil War
battlefields in 1881-1882.

"[H]e was obliged to charge a fee," Morgan wrote about Timothy R. Griffith, who owned The Crater, "as otherwise his visitors, after the reckless manner of Sunday sight-seers, would trample down his cotton and kill his corn."

The Crater served as the feature Civil War attraction in Petersburg, and Morgan unsurprisingly made it one of his first stops. It looked "like an abandoned reservoir," he wrote, "of uneven banks and irregular bottom, overgrown with clumps of briars and bushes. It is one hundred and sixty feet long, sixty feet wide and twenty-five feet deep."

Morgan made no mention of soldier remains at The Crater, where a photograph taken a little more than a decade earlier showed human skulls gruesomely perched on the rim of the giant hole. In visits to forts Damnation, Davis and Rice and elsewhere in the immediate area, the 27-year-old reporter also found plentiful evidence of civil war.

"[E]very rain," he wrote, "washes out Minie balls and grape [shot] on all the farms between the lines."

Here's Morgan's colorful account published by the Times on Sept. 5, 1881:

---

Special Correspondence of The Times. 

Petersburg, September 3

America's Sevastopol, which I make bold to call this place of prolonged siege, seems to me to be a sort of Richmond on a small scale. The streets and stores of this pretty little city on the Appomattox are much like those of the proud beauty on the James: the nooks and crannies of the one suggest those of the other, and there is that in the air here whereby the stranger recognizes the Virginia capital in miniature. In Richmond, however, there may be felt the snap and dash of a lively now South, while at this ancient point of trade there is a hint of Dixie, not altogether unadulterated, but still pleasantly suggestive of the land of "cinnamon seed and sandy bottom."

Though the town is surrounded by the ruins of numerous forts and though many of the people served in the trenches, I find them averse to talking about the siege. Furthermore, those of whom I asked questions apparently fail to appreciate what a big thing they have in the matter of battle-fields. Very likely it is because they have them at their doors and it is the old story of the weather prophet who is not without success save in his own country. It wouldn't be at all wonderful if St. Peter has ceased to admire the golden hinges of his big gate, and no doubt the devil fails to appreciate the interesting section over which he presides.

On the Jerusalem Plank

"Where'll I find the Crater?'' I asked, coming out from the built-up part of the town and emerging upon Jerusalem plank-road.

"Feth, an' am thinkin' yo'll be afther gettin' yer nuff av the crathur beyant there in Jimmy O'Nail's saloon," replied my interlocutor, pointing to a sign whereon "Old Rye," "XX Ale" and things of that kind blazingly figured.

"He don't mean that crater; some other crater," chimed in a small boy; "he moans the big C-r-a-t-e-r, where the Yanks busted a hole in old man Griffith's field."

"Och, bejasus, tho't yo was manin' the livin' liquid herself;" and as I drove on I left the boy telling the citizen how Burnside had wasted his tons of powder. Passing along the Jerusalem road for more than a mile I came to a road that branched off into a field of peanut plants. At the side of the gateway was the sign:

TO THE CRATER, 25 CTS. AHEAD

At the end of the field road, a few hundred yards from the sign, I saw a large, roundish bank of red earth topped by shrubs and small trees. Near by is a two-story frame house in which lives T. R. Griffith, the owner of the farm and the guardian of the historic hole. Mr. Griffith led me up the side of the Crater, explaining as he brushed the weeds from the path that for self-protection he was obliged to charge a fee, as otherwise his visitors, after the reckless manner of Sunday sight-seers, would trample down his cotton and kill his corn.

What the Crater looks like

Present-day view of The Crater, on outskirts of Petersburg. (Photo:Shelly Liebler | Visit her Instagram page)

Tunnel dug by 48th Pennsylvania soldiers for a mine placed under Confederate salient nearby.
(Photo: Shelly Liebler)

The land within a half mile in every direction is clear of woods and at this time is checkered by fields of corn, cotton and peanuts and patches of ground that are fallow. Looking to the north the fields slope downward, and so with the strip to the east, but passing a ravine the slope is upward to the Federal line. To the west and south is rising ground, with the city cemetery on the ridge and the city itself beyond. The crater now looks like an abandoned reservoir, of uneven banks and irregular bottom, overgrown with clumps of briars and bushes. It is one hundred and sixty feet long, sixty feet wide and twenty- five feet deep. The earth is brown, with red blotches, being clay sub-soil.

The parapet of the fort remains and serves as the rim and border of the pit. Pine, peach, apple and atlanthus trees, together with grapevines, blackberry bushes and fruitless briars, grow thickly in the hollows, which look as if a herd of wild boars with hundred-horse-power snouts had rooted them out a dozen years ago. Extending from the northeastern corner of the crater in a straight line down hill to the ravine, two hundred yards away, is a sunken, narrow, ditch-like sink in the earth. This is the surface line of the tunnel dug by Schuylkill county soldiers, who had been brought up in mines and who wormed their way from the ravine until they stored thousands of pounds of powder just under this spot. As I sit in the crotch of a peach tree and look at the points of the field, now little changed from the day when it was the scene of a wonderful episode in war, the picture comes vividly up.

How ten tons of powder spoke

Marker denoting 48th Pennsylania soldiers' role in The Crater explosion.
(Photo: Shelly Liebler)

It is not yet sunrise and the defenders are asleep among the traverses and under the guns of the fort. A match, a touch, a hissing fuse and what a thing of mould and force infernal is now let loose. It is as though a young volcano, held in nature's mystery underground, has burst its bonds. The crust is rent by the up-coming bolt and fire flashes through broken clods of earth that fly to mid-air two hundred feet above. Sand, stones, guns, men, everything within reach of the blast, are blown skyward. A brass piece that weighs a ton is sent whirling over the parapet for a hundred yards.

Young Chandler, who an instant before slept beneath the gun, is hurled so high and so far that his bruised body falls within the Union lines. Men die in the air, never knowing in what unwonted and in what sulphurous guise death has unwrapped itself. Answering to the quake that is felt as far as Richmond and that shakes the steeples at Norfolk, a hundred miles away, come the roll and roar of [Ulysses] Grant's artillery. In redan and redoubt [Robert E.] Lee's men are benumbed and shrink lest the old mole has toothed his blind path under other forts and lest instantly now other death-bolts shall start up from the depths. Lee's batteries to the right and left are deserted; the outburst has broken his line and into it a wedge that may end the war in a week can now be driven. The mine itself is a wonder. It does its work with the swift flight of an electric streak that zig-zags across a bank of clouds in summer time, rendering the thunderous acclaim of its own success.

In the death trap

Granite marker near The Crater. The Federals suffered 504 killed, 1,881 wounded, 1,413 missing 
or captured  in the battle. Many of the casualties were U.S. Colored Troops. (Photo: Shelly Liebler)

But it is in the driving of the wedge that the gain becomes loss. What thus far has been an immense success now turns to that which is worse than a failure. What is needed is that the wedge shall be driven with Grant's best sledge hammer promptly home. A mass of boasting black men, whose battle-cry of "No quarter!" comes as an echo from Fort Pillow, are sent under a leader unworthy of his uniform to accomplish what only the pick of the army could hope to do. A whole hour is given [Confederate General William] Mahone in which to throw himself into the breech. Lee's artillery is again manned and hotly begins to work.

Union troops advance toward The Crater
after the explosion of the mine.
 (Alfred Waud | Library of Congress)
CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE.

Poor devils of black men from shouting "No quarter" now shriek wild prayers for pity. Boasting becomes beseeching. The miserable wretches are bayoneted by friends and shot down by the foe. Without head or order the entrapped victims huddle close about the gap in the ground, seeking shelter behind heaps of upturn earth and even shielding themselves vainly with the bodies of dead comrades. The crater is a death-trap. From many batteries, where lurid gleams come through shrouds of smoke, shot and shell are hailed incessantly, and what was a spot of triumph is now a slaughter-pen a place of torn earth, soaked in the blood of four thousand men.

[Read historian Kevin Levin's detailed account of the Battle of the Crater. Levin's book, Remembering the Battle of the Crater: War as Murder, may be purchased here.] 

Forts Hell and Damnation

Monument denoting the role of Fort Stedman, a Union fortification at Petersburg. 
(Photo: Shelly Liebler)

The Crater is the main object of interest on the lines of fortifications and it is more frequently visited than Forts Steadman, Haskell and Sedgwick, which lie within sight to the north and cast. There are traces of Fort McGilver far beyond Fort Steadman and the outlines of the latter are just as distinctly marked. All the traverses have been removed and all the covered ways destroyed, for Fort Hell, as the armies nicknamed the Steadman redoubt, is now a garden wherein truck is raised for the Petersburg market. A farm house has been erected in the enclosure and O.P. Hare now peacefully dwells where Gordon and havoc once swept along. [Note: Fort Sedgwick was nicknamed "Fort Hell," not Fort Stedman.]

Fort Haskell is in better preservation than any other of the Federal redoubts. Pine trees grow in and around the enclosure and both the inner and outer works with a little use of the shovel could be made as formidable as in the days of death. Many of the oaks in the vicinity contain bullets. nor is it unusual to pick up rusty reminders of battle anywhere along the line from that point southward to Fort Sedgwick. Only half of that famous place of strength now remains. It was built across the Jerusalem road on two plantations.

The part on Mr. Griger's farm was long ago leveled and is now in corn, but the half on the east side still stands. Mahone's Fort Damnation shows many remnants. Fort Davis is in good condition, and Fort Rice has suffered little from the wear and tear of time. In this way the curious visitor might follow the lines of defense and contravallation down to Hatcher's Run and the Five Forks field. Wherever the land was cultivated before the war the works have been levolod, but where the lines passed through woods the works are very much as they were when abandoned. In the high and rolling lands the woods contain white oak, red oak, poplar and hickory, but in the light, sandy soil grow pines, ash, elm and buttonwood. At points where a link in the chain of fortifications is missing the line may be traced by the color of the sub-soil. Where the land is tilled most of the shells and bits of lead have been picked up, yet every rain washes out Minie balls and grape on all the farms between the lines.

Present-day view of Fort Stedman, better known as Fort Hell. (Photo: Shelly Liebler)

Pink blossoms and white

There is a delightful thing about Petersburg that never before has been mentioned in print. The city is bordered in its suburbs by a long bolt of peach trees which, in the spring, turn myriad white blossoms out to the sun and thus give a beautiful girdle to the place once trussed with bands of iron and cordons of steel. In that long and weary year of watchfulness the Southern soldiers were glad to get fruit and the best things that came to them from the Carolinas were peaches, whereof the pink flesh was sweeter than honey-dew. The kernels were dropped upon the battle-ground; the army tramped sorely on to Appomattox; winter came again, and then from the trenches sprang fruit trees that have flourished to this day. Down in the sunny South there is a kind of peach that shows a white bud; elsewhere the blossom is touched with pink. All other peach trees around Petersburg have the pink flower, and the battle-field peach thus keeps its mark and proud distinction. So now, starting from the river at the north, Lee's line may be traced for six miles or more by the far-reaching orchard planted in blood.

G.M.

---

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