The following
blogs are going to consist of details from all of the accounts I have gathered
so far regarding John M. Gould’s writings about Antietam. They are being
presented in with my notations and commentaries in brackets and, undoubtedly
you will see material from the first blog among these entries but they are
necessary. When completed you will have as detailed analysis of what happened
that fateful day on September 17, 1862. The entries are necessarily longer than
in most blogs and I am attempting to insert footnotes for the first time. Your
patience is appreciated.
John Mead Gould
(Acting Adjutant, 10th Maine Volunteer Infantry) devoted the better
part of his postwar life trying to prove that Brig. Gen. Joseph K. F.
Mansfield, XII Corps commander, received his mortal wound in front of the 10th
Maine. He correctly began his 1896 publication, Joseph K. F. Mansfield Brigadier General of the U. S. Army, A Narrative of Events Connected With
His Mortal Wounding at Antietam, Sharpsburg , Maryland, September 17, 1862,
in the introductory paragraph:
“It was bad
enough and sad enough that Gen. Mansfield should be mortally wounded once, but
to be wounded six, seven or eight times in as many locations is too much of a
story to let stand unchallenged.”[1]
His accompanying map identified five
of the alleged locations. Locations “A”, “B”, and “E” are unquestionably incorrect.
B is too far west. The general stayed with the left of his corps and was
nowhere near the David R. Miller Farm. “E” is also incorrect. In an 1893
account in the National Tribune by
Pvt. John H. Keatley (Company A, 125th Pennsylvania) erroneously
said the general fell near the Hagerstown Pike at point “E”. Again, no evidence
indicates Mansfield ever went beyond the East Woods.[2]
I took the
cluttered, hard to read Gould Map and transferred the information to the 1963
James D. Bowlby Map, which is based upon the Carman-Cope Maps. I have
approached this conundrum by correlating and analyzing as many primary sources
I could find to locate where they saw the general on the field.
Traditionally,
Adj. John M. Gould’s account, mostly through his personal exertions and
influence has become the official accounting of Mansfield’s wounding and death
at the exclusion of those rendered by the 125th Pennsylvania.
Experience in research, over the intervening 30 years between the release of my
Antietam: the Soldiers ’ Battle in
1989, has taught me that, as a rule, no two individuals will recall see the
same incident identically. While some psychologists believe that perception is
reality what the individual actually experienced might differ somewhat from
what he believed happened.
By examining
John M. Gould’s personal writings on the incident I believe I can illustrate
how the need to make the experience complete an individual will not only recall
more details of the event over time but will fill in the voids with the
recollections of other witnesses.
The following is
a copy of Gould’s memo, “Diary kept during day.” The brackets are his notes
written in 1890 and initialed by him. This entry concerns the day of the
battle, September 17, 1862.[3]
(5:30 up [this I
presume is a later entry in the History I sat “about 5” JMG 1890]
6.10 Halted at
cornfield & tore down a nice rail fence
6.30 Advance
past Best’s battery
7.30 Going
through the corn (this was the actual advance 5 minutes after we were firing)
8.30 Went back
to the fight
(Has previously
taken Gen. Mansfield to rear & helped Sergt Geo A Smith a short distance.
Finding the regt. gone I got back to the battlefield I helped off wound[ed])
12 ate dinner
12.25 getting
list of casualties
Apparently my
watch was 5 – 10 minutes fast July 1892
As early as
December 2, 1862, he wrote Mrs. General Mansfield the following:
“Passing in
front of our line and nearer to the enemy, he attempted to ride over the rail
fence which separated a lane [Smoketown Road, JMP] from the ploughed land where
most of our regiment were posted. The horse would not jump it, and the General
dismounting led him over it, when a gust of wind blew aside his coat, and I
discovered his whole front was covered with blood. I ran to him and asked if he
was hurt badly, “Yes,’ he said, ‘Yes – I shall not live – I am shot by one of
our own men.’”[4]
A few items
stand out in this contemporary account. a) Mansfield attempted cross the
Smoketown Road into the lower ground northeast of the East Woods over the
downed fence while mounted. b) An
unexpected gust of wind blew open his coat and revealed his front covered in
blood. c) He knew he was dying. d) he said one of his own men shot him.
None of those
specifics appear in the memo, however they are the first mention of the
severity of the general’s wound and how he received it. This account also
changed over time.
From carefully
reading his published journals and diary it is obvious that he inserted
information months, if not decades later, as it returned to his memory or as
others “refreshed” his recollections with their own stories. Rather than quote
his journal verbatim, I have listed the embellished or appended material.[5]
1)
He
noted the weather as overcast with a persistent breeze. [The majority of
participants in the morning fight, who mention the weather, describe it at
muggy, with a bright blue sky, thick ground fog, and no breeze and hot. Gould
is the only one I have seen which describes it as “not a warm day.”]
2)
Awakened
at 5:30 a.m. Firing coming from [the
south]. [He references the fighting
during the late afternoon and early evening of September 16 and with the
artillery fire opening from the Confederate lines at first light: 5:30 – 5:45
a.m.]
3)
Mansfield
ordered the men to tear down a fence and go toward the right of the army.
[west]
4)
We
tear down a magnificent fence at a cornfield and halt. [On the Carman-Cope Maps
it appears south of the Middlekauf farm lane and immediately west of the
Smoketown Road.]
5)
From
here the regiment moved south under a small hill and lay down to avoid
artillery fire. They lay here a while [Gould’s 1896 map marks the time in this
field as 6.20 and shows a stone pile bordering the Samuel Poffenberger
(Smoketown) Woods. The spot is at the East- South bend of the farm lane which
runs through the East Woods]
6)
As
they lay there, Mansfield rode to the right [front] and observed the battle
until a shell drove him from the spot. [Gould identifies this spot with a “W”
and placed it at the northwest corner of the northern face of the East Woods.
From that vantage point he could have seen the Confederate guns east of the
Dunker Church above the surrounding ground fog.
7)
“He
was everywhere and took command in person of everything he wanted moved.”
[Mansfield, having assumed XII Corps command on September 15, did not have an
adequate staff for a corps. Captain Clarence H. Dyer his A.A.G., traveled with
the general from Washington, D.C. General George B. McClellan detached Capt.
James W. “Toney” Forsyth from his staff to serve as Mansfield’s aide-de-camp,
and Brig. Gen. Samuel Crawford gave the general his own aide-de-camp, 1st
Lt. Edward L. Witman (Company D, 46th Pennsylvania) to serve as an
aide. None were with Mansfield when he was shot because he had them scattered
all over the field delivering orders and gathering intelligence.][6]
8)
Move
into a cornfield [10 acre cornfield] and flank left across a small lane
[Smoketown Road] into a ploughed field. [The Carman Maps show it as a grass
field.]
9)
The
regiment got pretty mixed up in a few minutes because of contradictory orders
to “left oblique” “and left face.”
10)
Under fire the regt. advances across ploughed
ground, John McGinty (Company B) shot dead through the head here.
11)
Reached a rail fence over which a few men
jumped and others sheltered behind and fired through.
12)
Mansfield and [Samuel] Crawford [on Croasdale
Knoll] are on our right across the fence and in the rear of one of the new
regiments.
13)
He saw us firing at what he thought were Union
men and rode down in front of us yelling to “cease firing.”
14)
With great difficulty he succeeded in making
himself heard.
15)
“The officers were running around the crowd
trying to stop the men who knew well the character of the men in front.”
16)
On reaching the fence I had a chance to at
things beyond the 10th Maine. The woods were large trees, no
underbrush. [Later testimony said there were logs and piles of cord wood among
the trees.]
17)
Saw a couple of rebs jumping about among the
trees doing no great mischief.
18)
To the right, new regiments of our brigade
were entering the woods some distance ahead of us not bothered by the fire.
[Probably the 125th Pennsylvania.]]
19)
To our right was a brave color sergeant waving
his flag and rallying about 30 men around him and more running out to him.
There was a broken down caisson or deserted cannon near us. Could not
distinguish which. [Probably the 8th Pennsylvania Reserves. There is
no record of a deserted gun or caisson in the vicinity.]
20)
Got the idea that the fight was going against
us as [James] Rickett’s men were to the rear as also were the rebs behind them.
[Gould erred here. Rickett’s Division had already been driven from the field.
He is describing the retreat of Col. Albert Magilton’s Brigade of Pennsylvania
Reserves from the northern side of the Miller Cornfield and the retreat of
McIver Law’s Brigade from the same area. This occurred as the regiment was
approaching the East Woods through the 10 acre cornfield west of the Smoketown
Road and north of the East Woods. This particular entry and entry 19 belong
between entries 8 and 9 at about 7:20 a.m.]
21)
Most of the fire came from the ledge across
our left front, catching us in a crossfire.
22)
“I could see a rebel regiment marching by the
flank toward our right threatening of course the Serg’t. with his flag.” I ran
to the left of the line to get a gun. Found a fellow doing nothing and set him
to work. [Not sure of this reference but it probably was the 4th
Alabama moving toward the north-south leg of the East Woods before the regiment
got to the fence. Again this recollection is not in sequence with the others
about the fighting in the woods.]
23)
Just then the order came to cease firing and
noticing it was not being obeyed and assisted in having it obeyed. [This
occurred after the regiment reached the fence.]
24)
At our first volley, the colonel’s horse
jumped into the sky and the colonel left the saddle higher than the horse from
the ground. [More on this in another Gould account.]
25)
Afterward they say the horse kicked [Lt.] Col.
[James S.] Fillebrown in the breast and the stomach. I did not see it.
[According to Nicolas Picerno, the national expert on the 10th
Maine, the horse nailed Fillebrown in the groin.]
26)
I noticed Mansfield and could not take my eyes
off him. He rode in front of us beckoning us not to fire. At length, he reached
the left of the line and came within 20 yards of the rebs. [More details to
follow]
27)
Because his horse was hurt, he dismounted and
helped the horse over the fence. He passed through our line and with his
orderly went down along the ledge where I was. [[There is a ledge, running
north to south along the Smoketown Road where the right of the line crossed the
road to the west. Gould got the ledges mixed up when he recollected his
experiences. The orderly appears to have been a straggler. H shows up in a
subsequent account.]
28)
A gust of wind blew his coat skirt aside and
showed me that he was wounded as well as his horse. [Note change in the account
involving the wind gust and the part of the frock coat disturbed by it.]
29)
I ran to him at once and told him his horse
was shot. He was trying to mount the horse.
30)
I called for a man to help me carry the
general away but no one seemed to notice us
till Joe Merrill (Co. H] came up.
31)
Dropping his gun, we took the general along.
We shortly pressed 2 others and a black into service. I got a gun and put it
under the general’s shoulder.
32)
At length we got quite a crowd. I let go and
ran for a doctor.
33)
I came across Gen. Gordon and asked him to
send an orderly for help.
34)
He was short of orderlies and ignored me.
35)
About ¾ of a mile away we encountered a
surgeon and an ambulance. Feeling he was going to be cared for I left to return
to the regt.
At first
observation, Gould added a great deal of valuable information regarding his
part in the action that day. There are numerous details which other sources
support.
[1] John Mead Gould, Joseph K. F. Mansfield Brigadier General of
the U. S. Army, A Narrative of Events Connected With His Mortal Wounding at
Antietam, Sharpsburg , Maryland, September 17, 1862, (Portland, ME, 1896),
3. (Hereafter cited as Gould, Joseph F. K
Mansfield.)
[2] Gould, General Mansfield, 4, 24; John H. Keatley, “Ill-Timed Bravery, How
One Competent General Lost His Life Through Carelessness,” National Tribune, November 16, 1893, 3…
[3] Copy memo “Diary kept during
day”, Antietam Collection, John M. Gould Papers, Dartmouth college,
Hanover, New Hampshire. (Hereafter cited as Gould Papers). The underscoring
appears
[5] William B. Jordan, Jr., The Civil War Journals of John Mead Gould,
1861-1866, Baltimore, MD, 1997), 193 –195. (Hereafter cited as Jordan, Civil War Journals.)
[6] Gould, General Mansfield, 27; Antietam Battlefield Memorial Commission, Pennsylvania at Antietam, (Harrisburg,
PA, 1906), 134.
No comments:
Post a Comment