The Way I See It

            History has always been personal to me. It has parasitically latched onto me and there are times when I wish it had not. When I am pensive, my mind flooded with memories and observations which I want to share but am afraid to do so because I question whether they really matter at all, I wish I could forget that the past had ever occurred. Studying history, in particular military history, has made me rather cynical. While I have never been in combat, I know how it affects some people. I know how a lot of politicians and their ilk have twisted it and glorified it to suit their own purposes. I know that the effects of war affect the civilians almost as much as it does the men fighting it.  The melancholia of living with the memories is as palpable decades afterward as they were when they were still fresh. As an historian, those impressions overwhelm me at times and make it nearly impossible for me to write.

            History teaches relationships between cause and effect, between perceived reality and reality, between legend and memory, between rage and fear. The list of correlations could go on ad infinitum. People and their basic reactions to stress, fear, and death have never changed. They are part of an eternal continuum than spans the centuries of human existence. My particular quest is to discover, as accurately as I can, what happened on the alleged “fields of glory,”

            On a personal level, I can relate to the intense fear that a person experiences when coming within a second of dying violently. During recurring spats with physical and mental exhaustion I can almost feel the blade of the hunting knife being held against my throat from behind and hearing, “Don’t move.” The incident occurred 56 years ago, when I was 13, but I recall it a vividly as if it had just happened. I remember lying awake at night, frozen in place in my bed, anxiously watching the shadows of the tree branches outside the bedroom window dance menacingly against the pulled window blinds, waiting for the assailant to make a second call while I slept.

            I know what it is like to watch someone very close to me die. The face grows pale then gray. The eyes lock in their sockets and grow dull. The death rattle fills the room with its ominous, rapid clatter and the fingers grow indescribably cold as it creeps progressively up the left arm. The rattling stops. Life is gone, just as Walt Whitman described his hospital experience with a dying soldier. Some things never change and never will.

            I can still see an employee, who had just been severely beaten, on her back on the floor. Eyes fixed but still alive, shivering uncontrollably, yet still as a corpse, not dead but seemingly so. Her boyfriend had stolen onto the jobsite and roughed her up then left her to lie there.

            I remember regaining consciousness after a student kicked me unconscious, having no recollection of what had transpired seconds before. My glasses lay askew to one side. My hearing aids flanked me on either side. I cannot recall him repeatedly kicking me in the chest and head. I still cringe at videos of anyone needlessly getting kicked while down. They trigger memories I would prefer to leave in the shadows. Hyper-vigilance and I have become lifelong companions.

            I just read an article about a study of generational trauma concerning Civil War veterans and the longevity of their male offspring. Many historians could honestly verify that “The sins of the father are visited upon the children.” Many who have had relatives in the Holocaust, who survived the Great Depression of the 1930’s, or who was raised in abject poverty has experienced some generational trauma. Children perceive the world through their parents’ eyes and will probably pass on, to some degree those influences, to the generation which follows them.

            So it is when I write history. Rifled shells “Scream.” Twelve pounder Napoleons “ring.” The faces of the dead and dying glow phosphorescently in the moonlight of a humid, sultry spring night in the mosquito infested swamp land along the James River. Men reek of sweat and wood smoke and scratch the lice and wood ticks imbedded in their clothing and their skin. They weep uncontrollably when a friend dies in their arms and often swear out of frustration and hopelessness. Others just leave their comrades where they lay because they have no choice and can do nothing for them because after all “Death is just Death.”

            My experiences growing up have shaped who I am and not always for the better. I understand from my past why I write history the way I do. It is a mixed curse/blessing. Sometimes I have to put my writing down because it gets too vivid. Erich Maria Remarque, in All Quiet on the Western Front unknowingly, of course, described my approach to history best when he wrote:

“This book is to be neither an accusation nor a confession, and least of all an adventure. For death is not an adventure with those who stand face-to-face with it. It will try, simply, to tell of a generation of men, who even though they may have escaped its shells but were destroyed by the war.”

Timing IS Everything

            One of the persisting problems within the Civil War community is that “modern” historians insist that unreliable time pieces created the discrepancy in times recorded in the hundreds of battle accounts, including the Official Records [ORs], and therefore the times cited are not reliable. With the plethora of information now available to the historian, I believe it is possible to verify the accuracy of the times cited by the various participants.

When researching my new project, I encountered a problem trying to establish when Wadsworth’s Division, Army of the Potomac, actually marched and arrived on the field. I had a difficult time reconciling the various sightings of Maj. Gen. John F. Reynolds on the field. Therefore, I decided to develop a system to verify the accuracy of the veterans’ accounts which I have used throughout this work to determine to some degree when the various units arrived upon the field. It is a system which I developed by accident while developing a miniature wargame over the last couple of decades.

Basic “Givens”

1.      Not every timepiece, even today, will have the same time, despite the global usage of GPS and cell phones.

2.      Armies, once watches appeared on the scene, ran on more precise time schedules than during the age of sundials and hour glasses. Adjutants in their diaries often listed the times for all of the bugle and drum calls required to run their regiments, brigades, divisions, and corps on a regular schedule. The time for “Reveille” varied based upon the time of sunrise, which was often determined by almanacs, and by whether an army was in camp or on campaign. The following is the typical Artillery schedule. Infantry calls were not that different.

Reveille – Sunrise

Breakfast – Immediately after Reveille

Sick Call/Stable Call – half an hour after breakfast

Guard Mounting – 8:30 a.m.

Boots and Saddle (Section or Battery Drill) – 9:00 a.m.

Watering Call – 11:30 a.m.

Dinner Call – 12:00 p.m.

Drill (Standing Gun or Marching Drill – 2:00 p.m.

Recall – 4:00 p.m.

Stable Call, water before grooming – 4:00 – 5:00 p.m.

Retreat Sunset

Tattoo – 8:00 p.m.

Taps – 8:30 p.m.

            Times had to be accurate to make the Army function properly. The responsibility for keeping accurate time rested on the Army commander and filtered down to the regimental adjutants and their musicians.

       3.  Many of the farmers and the outdoor laborers in the military had learned to judge the time, give or take about 15 minutes, by observing the position of the sun in the sky. As a construction worker, decades ago, I could do the same thing.

       4.  Almanacs, for instance, established sunrise and sunsets by locales: New York City to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Washington, DC to Baltimore, Maryland, and, Staunton, Virginia. Everyone who had a watch depended upon them to establish a standard time based upon their geographic region.

Using Drill Manuals to Establish Rate of Movement and Distance to be Covered When in the Field

According to Hardee’s Rifle and Light Infantry Tactics, Vol. 1, 1861, and Silas Casey’s Infantry Tactics, Vol. 1, 1862  the infantryman marched at three distinct rates – Common Time  (90 steps per minute), Quick Time (110 Steps per minute), and Double-Quick (165 steps per minute). The length of the step for Common Time and Quick Time was a prescribed 28 inches from heel to heel and for the Double-Quick 33 inches from heel to heel. Therefore, a soldier at the Common Time could cover 210 feet in one minute (2.4 mph); at the Quick Time: 256.7 feet per minute (2.9 mph); and at the Double-Quick: 453.75 feet per minute (5.2 mph). Both manuals stressed that once the recruits learned to march at the Common Time, they should immediately transition to the Quick Time for all maneuvers.

Phillip St. George Cooke’s Cavalry Tactics, Vol. 1, 1862 explained the following gates for mounted cavalrymen: Walk (3.75 mph), Trot (7.5 mph), and Gallop (10 mph). George B. McClellan’s, Regulations and Instructions for the Field Service of the U.S. Cavalry In Time of War, 1862 sets the paces at: Walk – 100 yards per minute (3.4 mph); Trot – 240 yards per minute (8.2 mph); Gallop – 300 yards per minute (10.2 mph). The Canter and Charge do not appear in either manual. According to www.speedofanimals.com/animals/horse, the Walk is 4 mph The Trot is 8.1mph – 12 mph; the Canter is 12 mph – 15mph; the Gallop is 25 – 30 mph. It seems that in the 1860’s the modern Canter and Gallop would be considered a Charge.

Because gaits vary from horse to horse based upon size, age, and physical condition, I averaged the rates between McClellan’s and Cooke’s regulations. The Walk becomes 3.57 mph. The Trot amounts to 7.85 mph, and the Gallop equals 10.1 mph. The modern Canter and Gallop (Charge) would fatigue or possibly kill a horse if extended beyond 2 miles. When casually riding a horse over extended distances the pace could alter between all three paces, unless the urgency of the moment required the riders to maintain a faster pace. At that point, the rider could alternate between the Trot and the Gallop which would bring the horse’s approximate speed to 8.975 mph. However a sound animal could complete the entire 10 miles at the Gallop without getting fagged out. Attempting to calculate departure and arrival times on the field are, at best, estimates. By calculating the estimated times of departure and arrival, the researcher can somewhat accurately determine if the “official times” cited in the military records are reasonable or not.

The Time to March from the Bridge on Marsh Creek to the Peach Orchard

            Nearly every regimental account from Wadsworth’s Division said they halted at the Peach Orchard then went to the Codori Farm where their columns turned northwest and cut cross country to get to Seminary Ridge. Therefore, using the Peach Orchard as the marker point, I had to calculate how long it took the infantry to traverse the distance from Marsh Creek to that point at the Common Time. It is 3.4 miles from Marsh Creek to the Peach Orchard. To reach the approximate time of arrival, I had to divide the distance (3.4 miles) by the rate of march at Quick Time (2.9 mph) which translated into 1.17 hours (1 hour 10 minutes) to get to the Peach Orchard.

Witnesses said that Cutler’s Brigade, which led the advance, got at least a 1 mile to 1.5 mile lead on the Iron Brigade. Cutler’s men left their bivouac around 6:45 a.m. They would have reached the Peach Orchard around 7:55 a.m. Rounding it up to 8:00 a.m., places Cutler at the Peach Orchard at the time that Meredith’s Iron Brigade left its Marsh Creek bivouac. This created a 3.4 mile gap between the two brigades, not a 1 mile – 1.5 mile lead. Cutler halted at the Peach Orchard, according to the men to get a breather and, by my undocumented conjecture, to probably allow time for Meredith to catch up.

The 19th Indiana received word around 7:30 a.m. that the division would march at 8:00 a.m.. Meredith’s Westerners left the bivouac at Marsh Creek on schedule but at what some referred to as a leisurely pace. More than likely, they were at the Common Time rate but in Route Step. The men kept their intervals and pace but not in step and with their weapons at the carry which they preferred, and they were allowed to talk while on the move.  Being, at the least, 2 miles further north, within sight of Big Round Top, the brigade would not reach the regiment until around 8:50 a.m. (Colonel Samuel J. Williams 19^th Indiana recorded that the regiment was on the march before 9:00 a.m..) Allowing 5 minutes for the regiment to take its place in the column, it would take another 35 minutes to reach the Peach Orchard around 9:30 a.m., by which time Cutler’s men were in the swale west of the Seminary and out of sight.

I also had to estimate how long it took Reynolds and his staff to reach the Peach Orchard from Marsh Creek. Moving at a Trot/Gallop (8.975 mph) to make good time and not overtax their animals would put them at the Peach Orchard within in 22 minutes. If Reynolds and Wadsworth left Marsh Creek around 7:30 a.m., they could have overtaken the head of the column by 8:00 a.m., which would have given them time to dismount, examine their maps and give the infantry a much needed rest. Colonel Hofmann (56th Pennsylvania) saw Reynolds and his staff dismounted in the road at the Peach Orchard studying a map.

From there, Reynolds and his entourage, without Wadsworth, took the Emmitsburg Road into Gettysburg. They traveled north on the Emmitsburg Road to the Taneytown Road-Washington Street intersection. They stopped momentarily at the George George house to ask for the most direct route to Seminary Ridge. They took Washington Street north to York Street.  Turning west, they rode to the Chambersburg Pike intersection and followed it northwest to the seminary building. The General did a short inspection with Buford to the west to McPherson’s Ridge to the position held by Calef’s Battery – a distance of 2.73 miles. They then returned through Gettysburg by shorter route than he took into the town.  At the Gallop that would mean that Reynolds left the Peach Orchard around 8:15 a.m. 

            The general, before returning to Wadsworth’s Division, made a preliminary reconnaissance of McPherson’s ridge, and stopped in a field near to Seminary to dispatch his aides to various corps commanders and to Army Headquarters. He then rode to the John Burns House on the southeast corner of York and West Streets, where he turned south on West Street.  The corner of West and High Street, he went east to Washington Street. He took Washington Street to the Emmitsburg Road where he encountered Major Henry E. Tremain, General Sickles’s aide de camp, and stopped briefly to scan Cemetery Hill and the surrounding field before riding to Codori’s at which place he sent Cutler’s Brigade through the field to the northwest. Adding an estimated .6 miles on his return route the distance works out to 2.66 miles, which he could have covered in about 20 minutes. At the minimum gallop, had he left McPherson’s Ridge at 8:40 a.m., he could have reached Codori’s about 9:00 a.m., the time most of Cutler’s witnesses said they started cross country. At a faster gate, Reynolds and his staff could have stayed until 8:50 a.m. and still arrived at Codori’s by that time.

            Cutler’s Brigade reached Codori’s around 9:00 a.m..  Pioneers went forward to widen the fence openings which Company L, 1^st Maine Cavalry had created to make the advance. A couple of the regiments used the delay to load their weapons. They crossed the field at the Double-Quick the rate for which could vary from 5.2 – 5.625 mph. The distance from Codori’s to the college lane is 1.42 miles. At that speed, the head of the column would have reached the lane within 15 to 16 minutes. Interestingly enough, G. B Garrison, Buford’s scout, jotted the infantry’s time of arrival at 9:15 a.m.

This is the time line of departure and arrival as I understand it and Reynolds’s activities upon the field. Being the proverbial “work in progress,” these times could vary as the research progresses.

1.      6:45 a.m. Cutler’s Brigade leaves the Marsh Creek bivouac, with Cutler at the head of the column.

2.      7:00 a.m. Meredith’s Iron Brigade forms in the Emmitsburg Road at Marsh Creek.

3.      7:26 a.m. Cutler’s brigade passes the 19^th Indiana at the Alexander Currens place. (2 miles from Marsh Creek)

4.      7:30 Reynolds, Wadsworth and their staffs leave the Marsh Creek bivouac.

5.      7:45 a.m., the generals pass the 19^th Indiana at Alexander Currens. (2 miles from Marsh Creek)

6.      7:55 a.m. Cutler’s brigade halts at the Peach Orchard. (3.4 miles from the Marsh Creek bivouac.)

7.      7:55 a.m. Reynolds, Wadsworth and their escorts arrive at the head of Cutler’s brigade at the Peach Orchard.

8.      8:00 a.m. Meredith’s brigade marches out of the Marsh Creek bivouac.

9.      8:00 a.m. Biddle’s Brigade heads north on the Nunemaker Mill Road.

10.  7:55 a.m. – 8:10 a.m. The generals dismount to study their maps.

11.  They dismount to study a map for about 15 minutes – 8:10 a.m. – before mounting up to reconnoiter the situation west of the town.

12.  8:10 a.m. – 8:35 a.m. Reynolds and his officers, without Wadsworth and his staff ride through Gettysburg. He meets Buford at the seminary and they ride out to McPherson’s Ridge, where Buford redeploys Calef’s Battery. (3.19 miles)

13.  8:35 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. Reynolds takes in the situation, rides back to the Chambersburg Road, halts briefly to disperse several aides to Howard, Sickles, Meade, and Wadsworth . He then rides back by West Street to High Street to the Emmitsburg Road where he meets Major Tremain.  He momentarily stops to study the surrounding terrain. From there he rides to Codori’s and meets Wadsworth who is leading Cutler’s Brigade north. He orders Wadsworth to move Cutler across the fields to Seminary Ridge. (2.66 miles)

14.  8:50 a.m. - 8:55 a.m. The 19th Indiana joins the Iron Brigade near Alexander Currens’s place.

15.  9:00 a.m. – 9:30 a.m.  Reynolds and Wadsworth with their staffs ride back through town and west on the Chambersburg Road to the McPherson farm.

16.  9:00 a.m. – 9:15 a.m. The remainder of Company L, 1^st Maine Cavalry cuts north across the fields to tear down fences for the passage of Cutler’s brigade. Infantry pioneers follow in their wake to widen the gaps in the fences, with the infantry in column in their wake. 

17.  9:15 a.m. The 76^th New York, at the front of Cutler’s brigade, halts at the eastern base of Seminary Ridge while the pioneers clear an opening in the fence along the Chambersburg Road to allow the passage of Hall’s Maine Battery. (1.42 miles from Codori’s to the Seminary Lane at the Chambersburg Road.)

18.  9:15 a.m. Biddle’s Brigade crossed Marsh Creek at Sach’s Bridge on what is now the Water Works Road.

19.  9:15 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. Cutler’s brigade, in column, has ascended Seminary Ridge, south of the seminary and is moving north through the low ground east of McPherson’s Ridge. It cannot be seen from the Peach Orchard at the Emmitsburg Road. (.13 miles)  

20.  9:15 a.m.- 9:30 a.m. Reynolds has ordered Hall’s Battery B, 2^nd Maine Artillery to replace Calef’s two sections of horse artillery on McPherson’s Ridge, north of the Chambersburg Road.

21.  9:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m. Reynolds rides into the low ground south of the pike and leads the 95^th New York and the 14^th Brooklyn onto the ridge south of the guns. In so doing, he sees the part of the 5^th Alabama Battalion skirmishers slowly working through the woods toward the right flank of the 14^th Brooklyn with the rest of their brigade not too far behind.

22.  9:30 a.m. The 2^nd Wisconsin reaches the Peach Orchard and finds Cutler’s Brigade is nowhere in sight, which leaves the men with the impression they are at the head of the division and are therefore the first troops on the field.

23.  9:30 a.m., Double Day’s column, consisting of Wainwright’s I Corps Artillery Brigade (three batteries), followed, respectively, by Stone’ Brigade of Rowley’s Third Division, then Robinson’s Second Division, starts its march north on the Emmitsburg Road.

24.  9:30 a.m. Doubleday dispatches Lt. Charles Marten to contact Reynolds and get instructions for his deployment.

25.  9:35 a.m. – 9:40 a.m. Doubleday sends Lt. Eminel P. Halstead and Meredith L. Jones to get orders from Reynolds.

26.  9:30 a.m. – 9:45 a.m. Meredith quick time marches to Codori’s. (.72 miles)

27.  9:45 a.m. – 10:00 a.m., the 2^nd Wisconsin, leading the Iron Brigade at the double-quick, reaches the Seminary Lane on the Chambersburg Road. (1.42 miles)

28.  10:00 a.m. – 10:05 a.m., at the double-quick, the 2^nd Wisconsin reaches the campus main street, where it encounters General Reynolds, who urges them forward. (.13 miles)

29.  10:00 a.m. – 10:05 a.m. Lt. Marten meets Reynolds at the Seminary and gets orders for Doubleday to protect the Fairfield Road.

30.  10:05 a.m. – 10:10 a.m. the 2^nd Wisconsin double-quicks into the Rebs on McPherson’s Ridge.

31.  10:05 a.m. – 10:10 a.m. Lieutenants. Halstead and Jones arrive at the Seminary. Reynolds orders Halstead to bring up the rest of the I Corps quickly and Jones is told to fetch Wainwright’s artillery.

32.  10:15 a.m. Biddle reaches the Fairfield Road at Henry Meals’s place.

33.  10:25 a.m. (estimated) Marten delivers his orders to Doubleday.

34.  10:30 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. Meredith’s Brigade is rounding up prisoners and gathering weapons on the west side of Willoughby Run.

35.  10:35 a.m. (estimated) Halstead and Jones reach the head of the Artillery Brigade about .5 miles southwest of the Millerstown Road intersection.

36.  10:35 a.m. Doubleday turns back to bring up the rest of the Corps

37.  10:35 a.m. Wainwright put his guns in motion at the trot and he heads toward Gettysburg.

Miniature Wargaming

           Five years have passed since I last posted something about miniature wargaming. One of my several hobbies, I enjoy playing games with my toy soldiers, painted or unpainted. At the same time I try to simulate the tactics of the historical time period to make it accurate and playable. It is equally important to create a game which is challenging and, depending upon how many players I can accommodate, as loud as possible.  I used historical simulations in the classroom to motivate students and to get them excited about history.

      The following photos are from a current solo game. The playing board is a Civil War battlefield in my basement on a series of 2.5’ X 6’ tables. The playing area is divvied into 10 distinct areas of entry, randomly numbered from 1 -10. A corresponding deck of 14 cards numbered 1 – 10 with 4 No Entry cards, when drawn by the players determine the time and points of entry on the board.

      The following photos represent 7 turns of play in which the Confederates have committed all of their forces (36 regiments numbering 200 -300 men each on the board) and 4 artillery pieces (1 battery) on 6 0f the 10 entry points. The Federal forces have 6 brigades, numbering 27 regiments of 400 men each and six guns. By this time in the game, they have committed 17 regiments and 2 guns on the field.

     In this particular action a Union regiment, in the foreground, despite incoming small arms fire and case shot screaming overhead has driven a Confederate regiment from the rail fence to their front through another Confederate regiment coming on the field. (Note the Confederate flag in the right foreground heading away from the fighting.)

    While that action is going on, one Confederate regiment has successfully disrupted and flanked two Union regiments while one of them is engaged in a firefight with the Confederates along the rail fence. Simultaneously, in the foreground a small Rebel unit is flanking the Union position unobserved.

     A short distance to the right, in front of the same road (previous photograph), 2 Yankee regiments have successfully halted 2 Confederate regiments trying to break their lines in a charge by column of fours.Note that the Confederate regiment moving by the oblique has come under fire from the stonewall on the left.

     This is an overview of the  field including all of the previous photos. It gives the player an idea of how complicated a battlefield could be. Note the creek with the pole bridges in the foreground. The individual figure on the opposite side behind the rail fence among the trees are Rebel skirmishers. They are taking pot shots at Yankee officers.

     From the opposite end of the field looking toward the creek which is marked by the bridge and the tree line to the right behind the log buildings. The two puffs to the right of the cabin in the right are from two Rebels guns firing at the two Yankee guns to the left of the cornfield. A Union regiment has flanked the Rebel regiments in the valley below while Rebel skirmishers are popping rounds at the Union officers in that regiment. Also note the cavalryman just to the right below the cornfield.

         A fresh Confederate brigade has flanked the Union line near the church and the school house.

     The casualties are what one would expect from frontal assaults and regiments getting hit by flank fire. Union losses: 1 artillery lieutenant, 2 aides de camp to a brigadier, 10 regimental line officers, 400 enlisted men to the Rebels' 11 regimental officers and 350 rank and file and the action has just gotten started. The Union forces still have 10 regiments and 4 guns to commit to the action.

     Lessons learned: skirmishers, when used effectively are hard to eliminate and costly to officers. Regiments can break at inconvenient times. So far and additional 200 men (1 Confederate regiment) has quit the field with their commanding officer in addition to the other casualties. A Union regiment of similar size will probably run from the field if it cannot be rallied by its officers. Nothing is predictable and the outcome it "up in the air." It is a nasty brawl with large caliber weapons beyond the control of the commanding generals, who are not on the field.

How Did They Do That?

            Watching World War II movies and TV shows were mandatory in our household. Dad, being Marine Corps veteran of the Pacific Theater, never left the Marine Corps or Guadalcanal. Watching a movie with him was a participation event. Every time John Wayne pulled a grenade pin with his teeth, Dad would yell, “You cain’t do thet!” (He was right. Grenade pins were bent to keep them from accidentally slipping out when carrying them.) Every time a grenade actually exploded and on target, he would growl an expletive, usually in two syllables, because as a rural Tennessean he could not say one syllable words. I remember one time while we were watching “Combat,” starring Vic Morrow, Cage, the BAR man (Browning Automatic Rifleman), charged a German machine gun emplacement while firing the weapon from his hip. “You cain’t run an’ fire thet gun like thet! Lie down!” (The recoil from a BAR could knock the shooter down if it was not properly braced.)

            His running commentaries inadvertently taught me that details are important. Accurate portrayals are important. Writing about a Civil War battle on the ground level that I do requires me to read the drill manuals and to know the weapons and how they operated.

            One thing that has always puzzled me could soldiers fire three aimed shots a minute and, could they really load while running at the “double quick.” I shoot black powder rifles and sidearms. Using a patch and ball and starting loading, I can get off two rounds in a minute and a half. When using an Enfield with a greased minie ball which was not in a cartridge I averaged about the same. Considering that I am no means an expert, and that no one was firing back at me, I do not consider that bad timing.

            So how could a man get off three aimed rounds a minute as prescribed in some of the manuals during a drill where no one was under fire? I think I found the answer. The types of cartridges used determined the rate of fire. During the Civil War the armies used a variety of packaged ammunition such as round ball, minie balls, Enfield cartridges, and patent cartridges. In the movies the infantrymen tear cartridges with their teeth and load by putting the entire round down the bore, which they could do if armed with a smoothbore musket and not the rifled musket.

            The smoothbore paper cartridge was greased. The shooter did not have to unwrap the ball to load it because with the cartridge paper still around it, it could fit down the bore. A musket (shot gun) had no lands and grooves in it to grip the round. Theoretically, a person could get three to four rounds off a minute, as long as the weapon did not foul from the coarse powder. Once the weapon was loaded the soldier had to cap it, which could be done while moving, but probably not at a run.

It could also be loaded while marching at the common time (90 steps per minute), quick time (110 steps per minutes) and possibly at the double quick at (120 steps per minute) because the soldier could charge the cartridge without and ram it home without having to unwrap the bullet. The Prussian army, I believe under Frederick the Great, actually drilled in loading while advancing. The men were armed with muskets.

The conical minie ball used in rifles muskets (rifles) came in a self contained cartridge with two paper wrappings. The powder was in one wrapper and the greased minie ball sat on top of that wrapper with the cone (tip) of the round pointed upward. A separate paper went around that and the wrapped powder charge. In theory the grease from the round would not affect the powder and the extra wrap made the cartridge stronger. However in practice, it slowed the rate of fire and made it virtually impossible to load while at a steady walk. The shooter could charge the powder while walking but then had to halt to unwrap the minie and thumb it into the bore before drawing the rammer to push the ball home. Unwrapping the ball under fire consumed time particularly when a fellow was under fire. While writing this, it occurred to me that this is why so many “dropped” bullets have been found on battlefields,

The British Enfield conical round was a bit smaller than the .58 caliber minie- .577 as a rule. It was placed on the powder point down then lubed on the outside of the cartridge. The rifleman tore open the cartridge and charged the powder, then inverted it and placed the round with the ball in the muzzle.   The wrapped bullet was small enough to fit in the bore without unwrapping it. The man then tore off the empty paper, threw it aside and rammed the cartridge home. This increased the loading and firing time and theoretically could be done while moving. 

The patent cartridge consisted of a combustible cartridge with the minie ball inserted base down but without a separate wrapper. The round was small enough that men said they could load at least the first round by inserting the entire thing in the muzzle and thumping the rifle butt on the ground. It loaded the fastest of any of the pervious ammunition types which I described. Of the four, a soldier could load and fire a patent cartridge faster than the minie or the Enfield round and could conceivably load it on the double quick.

When loading while at the double quick, as some of the Civil War veterans said they did, they more than likely halted to load then double quicked into combat. Loading while at the double quick probably meant they loaded and charge their in four steps, not nine (depending upon which manual they used) and then marched at the double quick with some of them still having their ramrods in the bores of their weapons. I have communicated with Mr. Joseph Bilby, a nationally recognized expert on Civil War rifles and muskets and Mr. Phil Spaugy, an historian of the 19^th Indiana, and a very active member of the North-South Skirmish Association who also has a tremendous working knowledge of Civil War muskets and rifles and both concur that the men would have had to halt to load the weapons before or after running to their objective.

What I would really like to know if there is anyone who has seen a re-enactment unit load and fire live rounds while at the common time, quick time, or double quick step. I would welcome any additional documents information about loading while on the move in formation. I genuinely want to know “How did they do that?”

A Tribute to Two Very Special Individuals

    

My Father-in-Law, who was my best friend, took a serious medical down turn during the summer of 2015. I took him to his very frequent daily hospital visits and was with him during several hospital stays. He passed away on January 15, 2016 at the age of 89, one day before what would have been my mother’s 91^st birthday. (She died in 1986 of a heart attack, at age 60.)

            Dad was raised in poverty in Paw Paw, West Virginia. During World War II he was exempted from the draft because he was the youngest son at home, his older brothers having all gone into the Army. He quit school in the 3^rd grade to work on the farm, and at the age of 18, he married my Mother –in-law (age 17). She (to me she is Mom) did not graduate from high school. Both of them came from large families by our standards. Dad was the youngest of ten. Mom was one of eventually 20 siblings until after her mother’s death when her father married a woman who had 7 children of her own.

            They are two of the most hard working, down-to-earth people I have ever known and in so many ways they represent the hearty stock of individuals who settled this country’s frontier in the decades preceding them. Dad was not perfect. None of us are. But he loved me, and respected me. He was one of the very few men I have ever trusted and I surely do miss him.

            I am writing about him because he was the kind of quiet man who embodied the virtues of genuine hero. We do not have too many heroes today. They seem to be passé, irrelevant or superficial clichés. Dad was no superman but he was a man in every sense of the word. He taught himself fractions so he could read a ruler. He read blueprints and squared footers – many of which I dug for him by hand. He read the Bible and he believed in its teachings but he was not a “gospel grinder.” He often said, “I might be a dumb bricklayer but there ain’t nothin’ in that book that is not true.”

            His personal beliefs were as simple as he lived. A master stone cutter, bricklayer, and a good contractor to work for, he lived by his word. If he said he would do something for someone, he did it. He took care of his laborers. He expected the work to be done right or it would get torn down and done over. He taught me the value and dignity of hard work. He treated me like his son.

He never held my education against me. He often embarrassed me in front of people he did not know by telling everyone he met that I wrote books and that I traveled to Australia to give talks. Most of all he told me how much he appreciated me doing things for him when he could not. He taught me how to take scraps and make something work and work safely. 

Why am I spending my time writing about him? I love him and I always will. His passing took a toll on me but I am bouncing back. I was never afraid of him. He treated me decently and never hesitated to tell me when I did something wrong. He brought out the best in me and I am indebted to him for all eternity for it. When I had a terrible flashback, he and mom picked me up at the conference I was attending and took me to their place and let me sweat through it on the couch, no questions asked.

History is about men and women like Mom and Dad. It’s the humble, and simple lives of human beings like themselves which illuminate the darkness in this cold, unfeeling world. They embody the morals and decency which so seldom gets the attention they deserve. They remind us that all of the lying, killing, pain, and evil in this society and any society, for that matter, cannot stamp out or destroy the light in the darkness of the countless number of decent individuals, like themselves, who have positively affected everyone they touched.

For me history is not about the big names but those thousands upon thousands of quiet souls who have slipped into anonymity. Their memories and stories, whenever possible, deserve to be resurrected and honored. There would be no great civilizations without them.

Thanks for listening. More blogs will follow periodically about my new project on July 1, 1863 at Gettysburg.    

Determining the Accuracy of Primary Sources

Very recently, I received some criticism over the reliability of several primary sources which I used in one of my battle books concerning occurrences where the Army of Northern Virginia flew U.S. flags and/or wore Federal blue uniforms in battle. The criticism hinged on using recollections from Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, the only citation in the Official Records citing both happening at Antietam, and citing George H. Gordon’s statement regarding Confederates donning captured U.S. uniforms at Manassas Junction, all of which appeared in my previous blog. The 16^th Connecticut’s reunion booklet said nothing about rebels in blue uniforms.

The arguments against those sources were as follows:

1.     Ezra Carmen knew more about Antietam than anyone else and therefore was the best authority on the subject and he cited Major Comly’s after action report about rebels in blue uniforms and carrying the U.S. flag.

2.      The 16^th Connecticut account said nothing about the enemy wearing blue uniforms.

3.      The Confederate account from Battles and Leaders could not be trusted because soldiers’ memories got worse with time and the series itself was unreliable.

4.      Comly (23rd Ohio) was too far back to see the Confederates carrying Union flags and wearing blue uniforms.

5.      Brigadier General George H. Gordon was in the XII Corps and was not at 2^nd Manassas.

The historian’s job is to collect as much primary evidence as possible and separate the wheat from the chaff – the honest recollection from the lie or the exaggeration.

1.      The argument that recollections written decades after the War cannot be trusted is nonsense. Having been raised around veterans most of my early life and having been involved in a life threatening experience when I was young, I learned that often it takes years, sometimes decades, to openly talk about the incidents and sometimes longer to commit them to paper. I know what it is like to remember horror and how painful it was to write about it. I can still vividly remember the incident in detail as if it had happened five minutes ago, and it still hurts and it always will. Veterans all through history have experienced the same thing.

2.      When the Civil War veterans wrote about what they saw, they, generally, were not lying. When they waxed eloquent and rambled on about things they could not have seen and their important role in the event, that is when they tended to embellish or fabricate the truth.

3.      The recent trend to discount everything a veteran wrote because a part of it is inaccurate is not the smart thing to do. For instance John B. Gordon did lie about his encounter with Francis Barlow at Gettysburg because Barlow specifically remembered the Confederate officer who assisted him on the battlefield and it was not Gordon. Gordon’s description of Barlow’s wound is inaccurate also, yet when Gordon wrote about a Private Vickers and a dying father who cradled his dead son in his arms in Antietam’s Bloody Lane, he did not lie. I was able to positively identify all three of those individuals.

4.      Why would the Army War College still be collecting recollections of World War II and Vietnam War veterans if they would be inaccurate due to the length of time between the events and the dates they were recorded? Skilled historians should be able to separate the nonsense from the truth. It is their job to identify the witnesses and not to rationalize the veterans’ motivations behind what made them preserve their memories and experiences for posterity. It is not difficult to visualize a Civil War veteran sitting down, fighting back the tears streaming down his face, blankly staring into the past, and vividly recollecting what he experienced. I have witnessed World War II veterans doing it and I have done it.

5.      The argument that what the rebels called wearing blue uniforms was only wearing parts of them does not make sense. When the men wrote about wearing parts of Union uniforms, they more often than not identified the specific items of clothing they used. When Union men talked about the Confederates wearing blue uniforms they did not specifically mention that they only wore parts of uniforms. Wearing a blue uniform meant wearing the entire uniform.

6.      The fact that a person was not there does not invalidate what hey said happened during an event. George Gordon was not at 2^nd Manassas and he did not footnote his book but that does not mean he did not carefully research his project. Similarly, Ezra Carman, while he served at Antietam, did not footnote every incident in his manuscript, nor did he participate in every part of the battle. He relied heavily upon the writings of veterans which he collected decades after the war. The fact that he knew more than anybody about Antietam does not make him the sole authority upon the battle. Where would we Civil War historians be if our books were dismissed because we did not witness the events about which we wrote?

7.      The fact that only one officer officially reported the Confederates wearing blue uniforms and carrying U.S. flags at Antietam in an after action report does not mean it did not happen. A lot of incidents occurred throughout the war which did not get into the OR’s. We take the writings of Caesar, Herodotus, Josephus, and Thucydides as fact. They did not footnote. They did not see everything about which they wrote. Why should we not trust a sole account from a Civil War veteran even if it does not make any sense to us because it does not fit our perceptions of what occurred. Because no one else mentioned it, does not mean that it did not happen. It means that for reasons unknown to us, no one else reported it.

8.      When interpreting history the researcher has to lay aside preconceived ideas of what transpired upon the field and follow the evidence. In battle, men do horrific things, which defy reason and logic. In the West Woods at Antietam, Confederates bayoneted and shot wounded Union soldiers. Asa Fletcher (Andrews Sharpshooters, 15^th Massachusetts) wrote about it in Four Brothers in Blue. I found it mentioned nowhere else. The 5^th New Hampshire in overrunning the Bloody Lane shot down Confederates who attempted to surrender. That is not in the OR’s.

9.      To repeat an old cliché,, “Where there is smoke there is fire.” The role of the historian is to piece together a crime scene based upon the evidence and investigate every lead to recreate what happened as accurately as possible. Sometimes only one witness saw a particular aspect of an incident. The researcher has to have a solid knowledge of human behavior and has to have a thorough understanding of how individuals can and will react under stress. No two individuals involved in the same incident will necessarily see or remember it the same way.

10.   On May 14, 2002, when a student kicked me unconscious, I remembered certain specifics of the incident but I had to ask witnesses to describe what they saw to help me piece together what happened. They each saw something different but with their information I have a very good but not totally accurate idea about what actually transpired.

History is an art, not a science. It is not 100% accurate but it is all we have to preserve our memories, our heritage, our stories. To refuse to believe something because it does not fit into our belief of what occurred or because there was only one person who reported or witnessed an incident makes no sense to me.