"I will keep this stained letter for them until peace comes back:" Oliver Wendell Holmes' Hunt for the Captain, Part 3

Elizabeth Wright to James Wright, August 13, 1862.
Letter found on battlefield by O.W. Holmes, Sr.
Harvard Law School Library Digital Suite: 
Holmes, Oliver Wendell. John G. Palfrey (1875-1945)
 collection of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. 
Papers, 1715-1938: Civil War telegrams, 1862,
 http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HLS.LIBR:8597952 seq. 42; direct URL 
http://library.law.harvard.edu/suites/owh/index.php/item/43275364/42

On Sunday, September 21st, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and two companions[1] set out for the battlefield with his driver, James Grayden, at the reins. "We followed the road through the village for a space, then turned off to the right, and wandered somewhat vaguely, for want of precise directions, over the hills. Inquiring as we went, we forded a wide creek in which soldiers were washing their clothes, the name of which we did no then know, but which must have been the Antietam. At one point we met a party, women among them, bringing off various trophies they had picked up on the battle-field. Still wandering along, we were at last pointed to a hill in the distance, a part of the summit of which was covered with Indian-corn. There, we were told, some of the fiercest fighting of the day had been done. The fences were taken down so as to make a passage across the fields, and the tracks worn within the last few days looked like old roads. A board was nailed to the tree, bearing the name, as well as I could make it out, of Gardiner, of a New-Hampshire regiment.[3]

On coming near the brow of the hill, we met a party carrying picks and spades. "How many?" "Only one." The dead were nearly all buried, then, in this region of the field of strife. We stopped the wagon, and, getting out, began to look around us. Hard by was a large pile of muskets, scores, if not hundreds, which had been picked up, and were guarded for the Government. A long ridge of fresh gravel rose before us. A board stuck up in front of it bore this inscription, the first part of which was, I believe, not correct: "The Rebel General Anderson and 80 Rebels are buried in this hole."[4] Other similar ridges were marked with the number of dead lying under them. The whole ground was strewed with fragments of clothing, haversacks, canteens, cap-boxes, bullets, cartridge-boxes, cartridges, scraps of paper, portions of bread and meat."

As he walked the field, Holmes picked up "a bullet or two, a button, a brass plate from a soldier's belt." He also picked up a letter "directed to Richmond, Virginia, its seal unbroken. 'N.C. Cleveland County. E. Wright to J. Wright.' On the other side, 'A few lines from W.L. Vaughn,' who has just been writing for the wife to her husband, and continues on his own account. The postscript [written by Vaughn], 'tell John that nancy's folks are all well and has a very good Little Crop of corn a growing.' [Holmes wrote] I wonder, if, by one of those strange chances of which I have seen so many, this number or leaf of the 'Atlantic' [Atlantic Monthly] will not sooner or later find its way to Cleveland County, North Carolina, and E. Wright, widow of James Wright, and Nancy's folks, get from these sentences the last glimpse of husband and friend as he threw up his arms and fell in the bloody cornfield of Antietam?[5] I will keep this stained letter for them until peace comes back, if it comes in my time, and my pleasant North Carolina Rebel of the Middletown Hospital will, perhaps, look these poor people up, and tell them where to send for it."[6]

That afternoon, September 21, Holmes turned away from the Antietam. After spending the night at Middletown, he continued his search for the Captain--a search with more false leads and dead ends. Four days earlier, on the morning of September 17, his son, whom he called Wendell, began a journey under very different circumstances--one that took him from a near-death experience in the West Woods through the Maryland countryside to a reunion with his father.

To be continued...

Notes:

[1] Oliver Wendell Holmes, Soundings from the Atlantic (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1864), p. 67 [hereafter Soundings]. In Soundings, Holmes writes: "On the battle-field I parted with my two companions, [the 'Chaplain and the Philanthropist'] they were going to the front, the one to find his regiment, the other to look for those who needed his assistance." Holmes mentioned in Soundings that they exchanged cards on parting. In the Harvard University Library, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Civil War Letters and Telegrams, Folder 18-12, Sequence 217-18 is the calling card of William Henry Rice, Chaplain of the 129th Pennsylvania Vols. The 129th was part of Humphrey's Division, V Corps. The "Philanthropist" was probably Frank B. Fay who in his Reminiscences describes a journey to the battlefield (see previous post, August 13, footnote 9).

[2] Holmes identified his driver, James Grayden, as "born in England, Lancashire; in this country since he was four years old." Soundings, 67-68.

[3] Soundings, 58, 62-64. The identify of "Gardiner" is a mystery. The board that Holmes describes was probably near the Sunken Road since he later describes area in some detail. If so, then the only New Hampshire regiment engaged in that part of the field was the Fifth New Hampshire (there were a total of four NH outfits at Antietam: the Sixth and the Ninth, part of the IX Corps, were engaged at the Burnside Bridge, and the 2nd Company NH Light Artillery, part of the I Corps, Doubleday's Division, were operating near the North Woods and reported three wounded only). There was an Isaac L. Gardiner, serving in the Fifth New Hampshire, Richardson's Division, but he survived the battle and was mustered out later as a Second Lieutenant. There is a possibility that this was Corporal O. Winslow Garland of Company D, 5th N.H., who was killed in action. Thanks to James Feindel and James Blake, Fifth New Hampshire Volunteers for their research and correspondence related to this individual's identity. For more on the 5th New Hampshire, click here. Any further information on this individual will be added if it comes in.

[4] Holmes is correct: Brigadier General George Burgwyn Anderson was seriously wounded but not killed in the Sunken Road action. He later died of his wounds on October 16, 1862 in Raleigh, N.C. Brian Downey's Antietam on the Web under Anderson's biography at http://antietam.aotw.org/officers.php?officer_id=1

[5] This may have been James Wright of the 14th North Carolina. A James D. Wright from Cleveland County NC enlisted as a private on Feb. 6, 1862 in Company D, North Carolina 14th Infantry Regiment (Cleveland Blues) on June 2, 1862. The 14th NC fought in the Sunken Road. The 1860 Census of Cleveland County North Carolina, records that James Wright (46, born Virginia about 1814) resided with his wife Elizabeth Wright (43, born Virginia about 1817). He gave his occupation as a wagon maker. They listed in their household a Nancy Wright (19 years, born Va.) and seven other children. James Wright survived the war and is listed in the 1870 Census of Township 9, Cleveland, North Carolina along with his wife Elizabeth, his daughter Nancy and seven children. James' brother, John, also served in the same regiment and was killed at Antietam.

As for W.L. Vaughn, the 1860 Census for Cleveland, Co. shows a William Vaughn, 35 years old, living in Cleveland County.  Later a William L. Vaughn of Cleveland County enlists in the 34th North Carolina in April 1864, survives the war, and is mustered out on June 17, 1865. 1860, 1870 U.S. Census, N.C., Cleveland County; Historical Data Systems, comp.. U.S. Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA; Harvard Law School Library Digital Suite at http://library.law.harvard.edu/suites/owh/index.php/item/43275364/42

[6] Soundings, 66-67. Holmes noted in his memoir an encounter in Middletown with a lieutenant from North Carolina: "He was of good family, son of a judge in one of the higher courts of his State, educated, pleasant, gentle, intelligent." Soundings, 57.


Images: Elizabeth Wright to James Wright and (verso) W.L. Vaughn to James Wright: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Civil War Letters and telegrams, Folder 18-12, Sequence 235-238. Retrieved at:
http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/8620153?n=235&imagesize=1200&jp2Res=.5

"I started as some faint resemblance…recalled the presence I was in search of:" Oliver Wendell Holmes' Hunt for the Captain, Part 2

Col. Edward A. Wild

By the evening of September 20, Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. and his traveling companions reached Middletown. [1]. There the “gentle lady who had graced our homely conveyance with her company here left us. She found her husband, the gallant Colonel, in very comfortable quarters, well cared for, very weak from the effects of the fearful operation he had been compelled to undergo.” [2].

Late the next day he searched the town’s churches that had been turned into hospitals. [3] “Boards were laid over the tops of the pews, on these some straw was spread, and this the wounded lay, with little or no covering other than such scanty clothes as they had on.”[4] As the elder Holmes searched, he thought “was it possible that my Captain could be lying on the straw in one of these places? …Many times as I went from hospital to hospital in my wanderings, I started as some faint resemblance…recalled the presence I was in search of.” [5]

On Sunday morning, the 21st, Dr. Holmes set out from Middletown for Keedysville. Along the way, he searched all the Boonsboro hospitals with no result.

At Keedysville, Holmes met “the tall form and benevolent countenance, set off by long flowing hair, belonging to the excellent Mayor Frank B. Fay of Chelsea, who had come promptly to succor the wounded of that great battle. It was wonderful to see how his single personality pervaded this torpid little village; he seemed to be the centre of all its activities.”[6]

Frank B. Fay

Francis Ball Fay (1821-1904), mayor of Chelsea, Massachusetts, traveled with the Army of the Potomac looking after the boys in Chelsea's regiment, the 35th Massachusetts. The Thirty-Fifth, less than a month after leaving home, received their baptism of fire at Fox’s Gap on South Mountain. [7]. On reading about the South Mountain battles in the papers the morning of the 15th, Fay hurried by train to Frederick from Washington. There he met Dr. Lewis H. Steiner, Inspector of the U.S. Sanitary Commission, who asked him to wait until the next day to bring a wagonload of supplies to the front. When the wagons did not arrive, Fay set out for Middletown by foot “hearing the guns of the battle of Antietam not far away.” At Middletown, Fay “began to work at once among the wounded at that place.” That evening the wagons came up and he went on with them reaching Keedysville at dawn on the 18th. There he set up his headquarters in the home of a “Mr. Keedy” whom he found “generous and hospitable.” [8]. It was there that he met Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Years later, Fay recollected their meeting: “We were strangers, but I ventured to ask if I could help him, and he replied, ‘Yes, I am anxious to go through the hospitals, if you can point them out to me.’ I replied that every house, barn, mill, and church within a radius of miles was a hospital, but that we could undoubtedly find his son. I then remembered that I had seen some of the wounded men of the 20th regiment in a house near by, and we went in search for him.” [9]

As the men visited the Keedysville locations were the wounded and dying lay, Fay answered all of the Doctor’s questions “clearly and decisively, as one who knew everything going on in the place. But the one question I had come to ask, Where is Captain Holmes ? he could not answer.“ [10]

Finally they ran into a medical officer “who answered my question by pointing to a house, saying he is staying there.” Holmes described the house as “a cottage of squared logs, filled in with plaster, and whitewashed. A little yard before it, with a gate swinging.” He described what happened next: “the door of the cottage ajar,--no one visible yet. I push open the door and enter. An old woman, Margaret Kitzmuller …is the first person I see.

‘Captain Holmes here?’[10a]

‘Oh, no, sir; he left yesterday morning for Hagerstown in a milk-cart.’” Furthermore, he “was in good condition—good spirits—wound doing well.” [11]

51 N. Main Street, Keedysville, MD

The Keedysville home of Margaret Kitzmiller is located at 51 North Main Street. Margaret and her two daughters, Malinda, 21, and Margaret, 17, tended to Holmes there until he was strong enough to continue northward in the hopes of catching a train in Hagerstown and then on to Philadelphia where he could recuperate at the home of his friend Norwood Penrose Hallowell. [12]

Satisfied that his son was headed to friends and sure he could not catch up with him given his 36 hour head start, Holmes decided to return north by way of Frederick and Baltimore and reunite with his son in Philadelphia. But before doing so, he thought it “impossible to go without seeing” the “great battlefield” only a few miles away. [13]

To be continued…

Notes

1. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Soundings from the Atlantic (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1864), p. 51 (hereafter, Soundings).

2. This was Col. Edward Augustus Wild, 35th Massachusetts, who was wounded at Fox Gap on South Mountain. His left arm was severely injured by the explosion of a shell and was amputated at the shoulder after three surgical operations. Two months earlier, he had nearly lost his right hand at Fair Oaks. A graduate of Harvard University, Wild was a homeopathic physician before the war and resided in Brookline, Massachusetts with his wife Frances Ellen (Sullivan). Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. to Amelia Lee Jackson Holmes, September 22, in the Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Civil War Letters and Telegrams, Harvard Law School Library at http://www.law.harvard.edu/library/special/exhibits/digital/owh-digital-col.html; Brian Downey's Antietam on the Web bio for Wild; Thomas Clemens, The Maryland Campaign, Vol. 1, Fox’s Gap map, 3 p.m. until dark; Bradford Kingman, Memoir of Gen. Edward Augustus Wild (Boston: Privately Printed, 1895), pp. 4, 6, 7. For more on Wild, see Frances H. Casstevens, Edward A. Wild and the African Brigade in the Civil War (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland Publishers, 2003).

3. Soundings, 55.

4. Soundings, 55.

5. Soundings, 56

6. Soundings, 59-60; In his letter to his wife Amelia, Holmes describes Fay as “the benevolent general of the place.” Oliver Wendell Holme to Amelia Holmes, September 22, 1862, Harvard Law Library online at http://www.law.harvard.edu/library/special/exhibits/digital/owh-digital-col.html.

7. The 35th Massachusetts recruited at Boston and Chelsea and Company H originated as The Chelsea Light Infantry. The 35th, part of the IX Corps, participated in the action around Burnsides Bridge. 35th Massachusetts, Civil War Archive at http://www.civilwararchive.com/Unreghst/unmainf3.htm; Clemens, The Maryland Campaign, Vol. 1, p. 343; Brian Downey's Antietam on the Web at http://antietam.aotw.org/officers.php?officer_id=322.

8. There were a number of Keedy families residing in Keedysville in the 1860s. Christian Keedy appears to have held the most property, and the most likely location for Fay's operations, but there were others: Samuel Keedy, a retired farmer, John Keedy, a physician, Alfred Keedy, a carpenter, and Jacob Keedy, a farmer. U.S. Census, Maryland, 1860 and 1870; U.S. Tax Records, 1862 and 1863; My Families at Antietam: A Genealogy Website at http://servalstudios.com/antietam/keedy/.

9. William Howell Reed (editor), War Papers of Frank B. Fay With Reminiscences of Service in the Camps and Hospitals of the Army of the Potomac, 1861-1865, (Privately Printed, n.p., 1911), p. 41 ff.

10. Soundings, 60.

10a. Holmes described Margaret Kitzmiller [not Kitzmuller] as a “beady-eyed, cheery-looking ancient woman [who] answers questions with a rising inflection, and gives a good account of the Captain, who got into the vehicle [the milk cart] without assistance, and was in excellent spirits.” Soundings 61.

11. Soundings; Holmes to Amelia, September 22, 1862, Harvard Law Library and posted at http://www.law.harvard.edu/library/special/exhibits/digital/owh-digital-col.html.

12. Norwood "Pen" Hallowell served with Holmes in the 20th Massachusetts. He was wounded in the West Woods. U.S. Census, Maryland, 1860; Kathleen Ernst, Too Afraid To Cry: Maryland Civilians in the Antietam Campaign (Mechanicsburg, Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1999), p. 174; Keedysville: An Illustrated Atlas of Washington County, Maryland (drawn by Margaret Burtner Moats from surveys by Lake, Grifing and Stevenson, Philadelphia, Pa. 1877)—special thanks to Thomas Clemens for providing this map; William LeDuc to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., 1910 and cited in Mark De Wolfe Howe, editor, Touched With Fire: Civil War Letters and Diary of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2000), pp. 65-66.

Images 

First. Edward Augustus Wild, ca. 1863.
Second. Frank B. Fay, Jr. This photo is not contemporary to 1862.
Third. No. 51 North Main Street, August 2010. Perhaps somewhere within the remodeled current house are remnants of the original home of Margaret Kitzmiller.

"It was a pitiable sight...this great caravan of pilgrims:" Oliver Wendell Holmes' Hunt for the Captain, Part 1

As the guns grew quiet on Antietam Ridge the evening of September 17th, the telegraph carried the news of the great struggle that day. Correspondents, when they could find an open line and cooperative telegrapher, filed stories with their papers late that evening and into the next morning. Comrades of the fallen also dispatched telegrams to small towns and big cities alerting distant families of the fate of their loved ones.

Early on the morning of September 18, a messenger from the American Telegraph Company knocked on the door of Oliver Wendell Holmes in Boston. The telegram, sent by William G. Leduc{1} from Hagerstown at 11:45 PM on September 17 , brought news of his son, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., of the 20th Massachusetts Regiment that had fought in the West Woods that day.{2}

The father took the envelope from the messenger's hand, opened it, and read: "Capt. Holmes wounded, shot through the neck. Thought not mortal at Keedysville." The father, a distinguished surgeon, knew all too well that a bullet wound through the neck "ought to kill at once" and in any event was serious in nature. "Thought not mortal, or not thought mortal--which was it?" the elder Holmes anxiously wondered.{3}

Later that day, the doctor climbed aboard a southbound train where he joined William Dwight who had also received a telegram that night informing him that his son, Wilder, also of the 20th, was lying "grievously wounded" at Boonsboro.{4} Also joining was Dr. George H. Gay "an accomplished an energetic surgeon" who would attend to Wilder Dwight when found.{5} In Philadelphia, they were joined by Dr. William Hunt "on an errand of mercy to the wounded" and by an unnamed "lovely, lonely lady, the wife of one of our most spirited Massachusetts officers" then lying wounded in Middletown.{6}

Transferring to a carriage in Baltimore, Holmes headed west to Frederick where he ran into Lt. Henry Wilkins of the 20th who was accompanying the body of Regimental Assistant Surgeon Edward H.R. Revere home to Boston. Wilkins "mentioned incidentally having heard a story that recently that [Wendell] was killed."{7}

Upset but undaunted, the senior Holmes pressed on by wagon to Middletown. This step in the long journey from Boston would be one of the hardest: "As we emerged from Frederick, we struck at once upon the trail from the great battle-field. The road was filled with straggling and wounded soldiers. All who could travel on foot--multitudes with slight wounds of the upper limbs, the head or face--were told to take up their beds--a light burden or none at all--and walk. ... Through the streets of Frederick, through Crampton's Gap, over South Mountain, sweeping at last the hills and the woods that skirt the windings of the Antietam, the long battle had travelled, like one of those tornadoes which tear their path through our fields and villages. ...[and] those who could walk were meeting us at every step in the road. ...It was a pitiable sight...so vast...this great caravan of maimed pilgrims."{8}

To be continued...

Notes
{1} Captain William Gates Leduc, later XI Corps Quartermaster, ended the war as a brigadier general. He went on to become the fifth Commissioner of Agriculture and in that post established the Division of Veterinary Science and organized the Division of Forestry. He died in Hastings, Minnesota in 1917. Biographical sketch from the National Agricultural Library, U.S. Department of Agriculture.
{2} Captain Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. 20th Massachusetts. The regiment, sometimes referred to as the Harvard Regiment, was part of Napoleon J.T. Dana's Brigade, and stood approximately 60 feet behind the 15th Massachusetts and the 82nd New York in the West Woods. Cope-Carmen Map, 1908.
{3} Telegram from William Leduc to Oliver Wendell Holmes, Harvard Law School Library; Oliver Wendell Holmes, Soundings from the Atlantic (Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1864), p 24 (hereafter, Soundings).
{4} Lt. Colonel Wilder Dwight (1833-1862) did not survive his wounds and died in Boonsboro on September 19. His father, upon arriving in Baltimore, received a telegram telling him that his son's remains were on their way to him there. (Soundings, 37; biographical information at Brian Downey's definitive Antietam web site, Antietam on the Web, at http://antietam.aotw.org/officers.php?officer_id=1033); Soundings, p. 25.
{5} Dr. George H. Gay was a prominent Boston surgeon. William Richard Cutter, William Frederick Adams, Genealogical and Personal Memoirs Relating to the Families of the State of Massachusetts (Boston: Lewis Historical Publishing, 1910), p. 2676.
{6} Soundings, pp. 34-35.
{7} Dr. Edward Hutchinson Robbins Revere, was the older brother of Major Paul Revere. A graduate of Harvard Medical School (1849), maintained a practice in Greenfield, Massachusetts at the outbreak of the war. He was "performing field surgery when he suddenly found himself in front. He remained and calmly finished the operation before he was shot and killed." Richard F. Miller, Harvard's Civil War: A History of the Twentieth Massachusetts (Lebanon, N.H., University Press of New England, 2005), pp. 25-26, 177; Soundings, p. 41.
{8} Soundings, 45-46.

Images: (Image 1) Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. in 1862 and (Image 2) Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., ca. 1861 (Harvard Law School Library Digital Collection).

Recovering Fence Lines

Sometime in the 1930s an aerial photograph was made of the battlefield looking eastward in the direction of the New York monument and the Dunkard Church (second illustration).

Although the West Woods had been cleared and the land turned to agricultural use, the original fence lines depicted in the Cope-Carmen map were still visible.

In the intervening years, these fence lines were nearly obliterated by agricultural and residential development. Using the Cope-Carmen map, the aerial photo, and a 2010 Google Earth image, we can once again locate the nearly vanished original fence lines.

Here is how it was done. First the Cope-Carmen map (first illustration) is marked with letter coordinates (A-G, H) with F marking the Dunkard Church and H marking the location of the Maryland Monument.

Next the letter coordinates and unit locations (using the Cope-Carmen map) were marked on the aerial photo. Note that the map is oriented North while the aerial photo is oriented East.

G.T. Anderson's position and the positions of the 7th, 8th, and 2nd South Carolina are shown here.

Finally, an image of the same ground from Google Earth was downloaded.



Using the Cope-Carmen and the 1930s aerial map, the letter coordinates were layered onto the Google Earth image (third illustration).

Next, following the traces of the original fence lines marked by small trees and other growth, the fence lines were marked on the Google Earth image using transparent gray lines (fourth illustration). The result is a modern "map" of the original fence boundaries.

As with all images on this blog, click once on the image to enlarge.

For those tramping the ground you can now align yourself with the position of Anderson (C - E) and the 2, 7 and 8 South Carolina (straddling North and South of coordinate A).

Thanks to NPS Ranger Alann Schmidt for supplying the aerial photograph.

The Cope-Carmen Map Revision of 1908

Recently, the Library of Congress posted on its American Memory Project website the 1908 revised Cope-Carman maps of the "Atlas of the battlefield at Antietam" showing the position of troops at various times during September 17.[1] This revision is posted here as the first map image on the left--click to enlarge. The Library had posted the earlier version of the map series--the 1904 series[2]--on its website some years ago--this is posted here as the second map image--click to enlarge.

Both map series can be examined at the Library of Congress' Map Reading Room but the online versions are as adequate as an in-person view.

So how have the two maps depicted action in the West Woods between 9 a.m. and 10 a.m.? Here are some observations.

1) The most significant revision is that of the placement of the 69th Pennsylvania from its 1904 location between the left and right "wings" of the 72nd Pennsylvania to further north between the right of the 42nd NY and the left of the 106th Pennsylvania. (Why the map continues to break the 72nd Pennsylvania into two wings is a mystery--I would certainly like to find something in Carman's papers that explains this.) The repositioning of the 69th brings Col. Joshua T. Owen's official report into line with the 1908 alignment. He writes: "As the brigade reached the top of the hill [marching east to west the brigade crests the Antietam Ridge about 100 yards east of the Hagerstown Pike and in clear view of the Dunkard Church], I noticed many of the regiments to the left of Sedgwick's division falling back in great confusion...[this would have been the 125th Pennsylvania pulling back from their position just to the west of the church and which is marked on the Cope-Carman map as leaving that position around 9:20 a.m. ]. ...The Seventy-first Pennsylvania Volunteers...was posted on the right; the Seventy-second Pennsylvania Volunteers...on the left; the One Hundred and sixth Pennsylvania Volunteers...on the right center; and the Sixty-ninth Pennsylvania Volunteers...on the left center." This narrative, applied to the 1904 map does not jibe since it depicts the 69th further south and sandwiched between the two wings of the 72nd Pennsylvania. With the 125th Pa. "falling back" and the 69th positioned further north, the 1908 map shows a much different view of the action as Anderson's and Kershaw's brigades swirled around the 34th NY, just north of the church, the split winged 72nd Pa., aligned on the Hagerstown Pike, and the 7th Michigan straddling the fence between the clover field (now part of Philadelphia Brigade Park) and the West Woods.

2. The 42nd NY is shown in the 1908 map to have at least refused its left in order to meet the onslaught of Barksdale's Mississippians--a much better position than depicted in the 1904 series--although the results remain the same.

3. The left of the 15th Massachusetts is shown in the 1908 to be angled further into the West Woods than in the 1904 map and the 59th NY, which fired a fatal volley into its rear, is directly behind the 15th's left. The 1904 map places the 59th in an overlapped position with its right situated behind the 20th.

4. The 125th is shown to have angled its right (or is it depicted as "falling back"?).

5. Smaller adjustments--in the 1908 map, the 106th Pa.'s alignment is less north and south but slightly angled to conform the the 20th Mass. to its front. The 106th and 71st Pa. also have shifted in the 1908 map further north and directly behind the 20th Mass.

6. As for the Confederate positions, there appears to be just one revision, that is the alignment of Jackson's Division to a position along the Hauser farmstead fence line and immediately to the east of the farmyard.

====Notes=====

[1] The map's full bibliographic title is: "Atlas of the battlefield of Antietam, prepared under the direction of the Antietam Battlefield Board, lieut. col. Geo. W. Davis, U.S.A., president, gen. E.A. Carman, U.S.V., gen. H Heth, C.S.A. Surveyed by lieut. col. E.B. Cope, engineer, H.W. Mattern, assistant engineer, of the Gettysburg National Park. Drawn by Charles H. Ourand, 1899. Position of troops by gen. E. A. Carman. Published by authority of the Secretary of War, under the direction of the Chief of Engineers, U.S. Army, 1908." Washington, Government Printing Office, 1908. Retrieved at this location.

[2] "Atlas of the battlefield of Antietam / Surveyed by Lieut. Col. E. B. Cope, engineer, H. W. Mattern, assistant engineer, of the Gettysburg National Park. Drawn by Charles H. Ourand, 1899. Positions of troops by Gen. E. A. Carman. Published by the authority of the Secretary of War, under the direction of the Chief of Engineers, U. S. Army, 1904." Washington, Government Printing Office, 1904. Retrieved at this location.

"No place for artillery:" McCarthy's Battery (Richmond Howitzers) in the West Woods

This post opens a series on Confederate artillery units in and adjacent to the West Woods. In the morning phase of the battle (5:30 to 8:30), artillery units were positioned, among other places, in the Philadelphia Brigade Park which was then an open field. In the second phase of West Woods action (8:30-10:30), units were positioned on Hauser's Ridge 600 yards west of the West Woods boundary while other units were literally in the woods south of the Dunkard Church.

Thanks to the Cope/Carman maps, we can determine the identities of most Confederate artillery batteries in and adjacent to the West Woods and can do so nearly hour-by-hour. There are, still, some mysteries. The first illustration is a detail from the Cope/Carman map showing unit locations from 9:00 to 9:30 a.m.. This section of the map depicts three artillery formations. McCarthy's Battery is clearly labeled; two others are unidentified; I have marked these two units A and B. Very few units were unidentified in the Cope/Carman map series--who were these artillery units? The blue arrow associated with McCarthy's Battery indicates the view angle of the third picture below. Note all illustrations can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Unit A (for want of any other description) is mentioned by Col. Alfred Sully of the First Minnesota in his Official Report on September 20. After describing the regiment's advance across the cornfield, he states that the regiment came "into a woods close to the enemy and in front of our line of battle. Here we were posted behind a rail fence. The enemy soon appeared in force on the left of the brigade, opened a very severe fire of musketry on us, while some of their artillery in front of us also opened on us." This artillery, according to the map, lay in front of the 13th Virginia. Who were they? [1a]

Unit B, which occupied a knoll just south of the Hauser farmstead, also remains a mystery. The second picture here shows the knoll in the far distance viewed from the Poffenberger farmstead.

The third unit recorded on the map is McCarthy’s Battery also known as the First Company, Richmond Howitzers. It was a small unit that may have played some part in slowing Gorman's Brigade's advance from the West Woods.

The Richmond Howitzers was founded in 1859 by George Wythe Randolph, a grandson of Thomas Jefferson, and a Richmond lawyer. By May 1860, the Howitzers had been organized into three companies. An observer wrote that all three, "were made up largely of young business men and clerks of the highest grade and best character from the city of Richmond, but included also a number of country boys, for the most part of excellent families, with a very considerable infusion of college-bred men." In April 1861, the second and third companies became part of the First Virginia Artillery Regiment. [1b]

The First Company participated in the Battle of Williamsburg on May 5, Seven Pines (May 31-June 1), the Seven Days’ Battles (June 25-July 1), and were at Second Manassas. [2] By September 1862, the company was known as McCarthy's Battery[3] and was reported as being comprised of two 10-pounder Parrotts and two 6-pounders. Only two pieces, the 6-pounders, however, were brought into action on September 17 at Sharpsburg. [4]

Led by Robert Meriwether Anderson (1822-1880),[5] the battery was part of McLaw's Division. It included thirty-two enlisted men and remained in line of battle all day, losing one killed and one wounded.

Ezra Carman writes: "Two guns of the 1st Company, Richmond Howitzers, under Lieutenant Robert M. Anderson moved on Semmes's right, but the open, exposed field was no place for artillery. It could not live under the fire that swept it, and--under orders--Anderson withdrew his guns to the high ground in rear, south of the Houser [sic] farm." [6]

The position of the battery during the fight swirling around the Alfred Poffenberger farmstead was about 300 yards due south of the farmstead. The third picture to the left shows the view northward from the battery's position.

According to Carman, there were two other companies of the Richmond Howitzers at Antietam. They are the Second Company, Watson's Battery, and the Third Company, Smith's Battery. A section of Watson's Battery supported Stuart at Williamsport on September 19 and withdrew the night of the 20th along with the rest of Stuart's force. Carman does not report activity for the Second Company. [7]

Notes:

I would like to acknowledge the invaluable help provided by Capt. Wayne Rowe of the 1st Co. Richmond Howitzers (reenactment). Any errors in this post, however, are mine. The website of the group can be found at: http://1stcorichmondhowitzers.com.

[1a] This unit was probably Pelham's Battery. Carman, describing action between 7:30 and 9 a.m., writes: "Pelham's Battery, supported by the 13th Virginia and a small cavalry force, was left near the northwest corner of the West Woods." (p. 247). Describing the advance of the First Minnesota he writes: "The regiment now …pushed through the woods to a rail fence bordering them on the west, and halted at the fence, beyond which was a cornfield on gradually rising to the crest of Hauser's ridge (on which was a small piece of woods concealing the 13th Virginia in support of Pelham's Battery). …Immediately on the Minnesotans coming to a halt, the skirmishers of the 13th Virginia opened fire from the cornfield but were driven back to the woods about 220 yards distant, soon after which Pelham's battery opened fire." p. 261.

[1b] Encyclopedia Virginia (The Virginia Foundation); "Four Years Under Marse Robert," by Major Robert Stiles retrieved from http://www.howitzers.com/unit.htm.

[2] Encyclopedia Virginia (The Virginia Foundation).

[3] "Like almost all Civil War units, the First Richmond Virginia Howitzer Company was often known by an alternate designation derived from the name of its commanding officer. Names of this type used by or for the company are: John C. Shields' Artillery, William P. Palmer's Artillery, Edward S. McCarthy's Artillery, and Robert M. Anderson's Artillery." Typescript notes, Unit Vertical File, Visitor's Center Files, Antietam National Battlefield. Edward McCarthy did not go to Antietam and instead remained in Richmond overseeing the repair and maintenance of the two 10-pounder Parrots (Wayne Rowe correspondence, 2.6.2010).

[4] Some accounts state that the battery left their 2 6-pounders at Leesburg at the opening of the campaign. Wayne Rowe offers, however, that "There was only one section at Antietam and it was lead by Lt. Anderson and it contained the 6-pounders and not the 10-pounder Parrotts." (Wayne Rowe correspondence, 2.5.2010). See also, http://1stcorichmondhowitzers.com/RHcivilwarhistory

[5] Ezra Carman, The Maryland Campaign of September 1862, p. 258.

Anderson, like the founder Randolph, was from a long line of Virginia gentry and was a direct descendant of Meriwether Lewis of the Lewis and Clark Expedition (his grandmother, Jane Meriwether Lewis (1770-1845), was Meriwether Lewis’ sister); Genealogies of the Lewis and Kindred Families, John Meriwether McAllister and Tura Boulton Tandy, eds., (Columbia, MO.: E.W. Stephens Publishing Co., 1906), pp. 23, 47-49. Anderson survived the war and settled in Essex Virginia. He married Harriet Shore Lewis (1839-1892) in Essex on Christmas Eve, 1864. They produced five children. On November 9, 1880, his house caught fire and Anderson died from inhaling flames while rescuing his effects. After Robert’s death, the mother and the children relocated to Richmond. Lewises, Meriwethers, and Their Kin, (Richmond, Va., 1938; reprinted for Clearfield Company by Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore, MD, 2008), p. 117; Warner Broaddus’ Genealogy retrieved at http://members.cox.net/broaddus/pafg07.htm.)

[6] Carman, p. 263. Carman also notes that the 15th Massachusetts suffered additional "fire of several pieces of artillery that were run-up on Hauser's Ridge and poured an incessant stream of canister and shrapnel along the entire front of the three right regiments of Gorman's brigade and upon the exposed and defenseless lines in rear." [p. 263] Typically, canister was ineffective beyond 400 yards. The distance to Hauser's Ridge from where the 15th stood is over 600 yards. Could the canister have come from McCarthy's Battery?

[7] Carman, p. 376. The two batteries were part of the reserve artillery led by Brigadier General William Pendleton. The units formed under Col. John Thompson Brown's Battalion along with three other Virginia artillery outfits: the Powhatan, Salem, and Williamsburg Artillery. Carman, p. 433.

"I shall never Cease to mourn his death"--Letter of Lemuel Stetson to His Sons

An earlier post (November 11, 2009) chronicled the journey of Lemuel Stetson to Sharpsburg to bring his son, John L. Stetson, home. John Stetson was a Lt. Col. with the 59th New York Volunteers in the West Woods. The letter below, written by Lemuel Stetson to his sons Francis and William, is from the Stetson Family Papers, Fort Worth Public Library Archives.


Baltimore, September 28, 1862

My Dear Sons:

You were doubtless informed by Mr. Platt[1] of the sad news of your dear brother John. He was a noble & [ ] man and his Conduct on the field of Battle was resolute and gallant beyond my hopes.

More than a dozen wounded Men of his own regiment at Keedysville testified to his Cheerful, Courageous demeanor upon this field and upon his way there as shells from the enemy was ploughing up the ground. The [telling] of one was that his face looked Smiling as a May Morning. He died in a glorious Cause and nobly__Still I shall never Cease to mourn his death. We are now alone in the world[2] and I hope that we shall all endeavor to soften our Solitary Condition by acts of sure [ ] kindness to each other. I rely upon you for appropriate bearing under the impressive Circumstances of our [ ] merit. Do not disappoint me I entreat you.

I recovered Johns horse and equipage from Sumners Camp[3] at the top of Bolivar Heights at Harpers Ferry Va. I arrived here night before last, almost Exhausted by fatigue and nearly sick. I wait to [ ] . Tomorrow I go to Washington to look after Johns affairs and return to N.Y. Tuesday morning or evening. The horse will be Shipped from here tomorrow 3 p.m. by The Northern [Steamer?] via Phild. & Canals[4] to Pier No. 7. N. River N.Y. care of Wm. L. Stetson & Co.

I hope to be home by Thursday or Friday.

Call at Express office and pay Charges on Johns parcel. ...

Love to Mr Platts family and all friends.

Affectionately, L. Stetson.[5]

==========

Source: Manuscript letter, Stetson Family Papers, Fort Worth Public Library Archives Collection.

Square brackets [ ] indicate that the word is not decipherable.

Notation on verso. "Lemuel Stetson to F.L.S. and W.S.S. about Johns death." F.L.S. is Francis Lynde Stetson (4.23.46-12.5.1920) and W.S.S. is William Sterne Stetson (4.2.1850-5.29.1883). Stetson Family Papers "Biography."

[1] Probably the father of Lucy Maria Platt (1835-1860), the late wife of John Stetson.

[2] Lemuel Stetson's wife, Helen Hascall Stetson, had died in 1860 and a son, Ralph Hascall Stetson, passed away in 1859. The death of John left only the father and two sons from a family of six.

[3] Reference to the Second Corps encampment at Bolivar Heights, Va.

[4] Probably reference to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. Opened for business in 1829, it provided a shortcut for shipping from Baltimore to Philadelphia, and down the Delaware River to New York.

[5] Lemuel Stetson (March 13, 1804-May 17, 1886). The Cyclopaedia of American Biography under Lemuel Stetson.

Photograph: Lemuel Stetson. The Cyclopaedia of American Biography.