by Bruce Catton
I Rode with Stonewall, by Henry Kyd Douglas. Chapel Hill, 1940.
In the Defenses of Washington: or, the Sunshine in a Soldier’s Life, by Stephen F. Blanding. Providence, 1889.
The Irish Brigade and Its Campaigns, by Captain D. P. Conyngham. Boston, 1869.
The Iron-Hearted Regiment; being an Account of the Battles, Marches and Gallant Deeds Performed by the 115th Regiment New York Volunteers, by James H. Clark. Albany, 1865.
Journal History of the 29th Ohio Veteran Volunteers, by J. Hamp Se Cheverell. Cleveland, 1883.
The Last Hours of Sheridan’s Cavalry, by H. E. Tremain. New York, 1904.
A Little Fifer’s War Diary, by C. W. Bardeen. Syracuse, N.Y., 1910.
Meade’s Headquarters, 1863–1865: Letters of Col. Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness to Appomattox; selected and edited by George R. Agassiz. Boston, 1922.
Memoirs of a Volunteer, by John Beatty, edited by Harvey S. Ford. New York, 1946.
Memoirs of Chaplain Life, by the Very Rev. William Corby, C.S.C. Notre Dame, Ind., 1894.
Military History of the Third Division, Ninth Corps, Army of the Potomac, compiled and edited by Milton A. Embick. Harrisburg, Pa., 1910.
Music on the March, by Frank Rauscher. Philadelphia, 1892.
Musket and Sword, by Edwin C. Bennett. Boston, 1900.
My Diary of Rambles with the 25th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, by D. L. Day. Milford, Mass., 1883.
My Life in the Army, by Robert Tilney. Philadelphia, 1912.
The Passing of the Armies, by Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Brevet Major General, U.S. Volunteers. New York, 1915.
Personal and Historical Sketches and Facial History of and by Members of the 7th Regiment Michigan Volunteer Cavalry, compiled by William O. Lee. Detroit, 1907.
Personal Narratives, Second Series, the Rhode Island Soldiers and Sailors Historical Society. Providence, 1880–81
Personal Recollections of the War of 1861, by Charles A. Fuller. Sherburne, N.Y., 1914.
Personal Recollections of Distinguished Generals, by William F. G. Shanks. New York, 1866.
Recollections of a Private Soldier in the Army of the Potomac, by Frank Wilkeson. New York, 1887.
Record of Service of Company K, 150th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, by James C. Cannon. Cleveland, 1903.
Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals: as Seen from the Ranks during a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac, by a Citizen-Soldier. New York, 1864.
Red, White and Blue Badge: Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers, by Penrose G. Mark. Harrisburg, 1911.
The Road to Richmond: the Civil War Memoirs of Major Abner R. Small, of the 16th Maine Volunteers, edited by Harold Adams Small. Berkeley, Cal., 1939.
Reminiscences and Record of the 6th New York Veteran Volunteer Cavalry, by Alonzo Foster. Privately printed: 1892.
Reminiscences of the 19th Massachusetts Regiment, by Captain John G. B. Adams. Boston, 1899.
Reminiscences of the War of the Rebellion, by Colonel Elbridge J. Copp. Nashua, N.H., 1911.
Reminiscences of the War of the Rebellion, 1861–1865, by Major Jacob Roemer. Flushing, N.Y., 1897.
Sabres and Spurs: the First Regiment Rhode Island Cavalry in the Civil War, by the Rev. Frederic Denison. Central Falls, R.I., 1876.
Service with the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers, by Rufus R. Dawes. Marietta, Ohio, 1890.
Shot and Shell: the Third Rhode Island Heavy Artillery Regiment in the Rebellion, by the Rev. Frederic Denison. Providence, 1879.
A Soldier’s Diary: the Story of a Volunteer, by David Lane. 1905.
The Story of the 15th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, by Andrew E. Ford. Clinton, Mass., 1898.
The Story of the First Massachusetts Light Battery, by A. J. Bennett. Boston, 1886.
The Story of the 48th, by Joseph Gould. Philadelphia, 1908.
The Story of the Regiment, by William H. Locke. Philadelphia, 1868.
The Sunset of the Confederacy, by Morris Schaff. Boston, 1912.
Ten Years in the Ranks, U.S. Army, by Augustus Meyers. New York, 1914.
Thirteenth Regiment of New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry in the War of the Rebellion: a Diary, by S. Millett Thompson. Boston and New York, 1888.
Three Years in the Army: the Story of the 13th Massachusetts Volunteers, by Charles E. Davis, Jr. Boston, 1893.
Three Years in the Sixth Corps, by George T. Stevens. New York, 1870.
Thrilling Days in Army Life, by General George A. Forsyth. New York, 1900.
The Tragedy of the Crater, by Henry Pleasants, Jr. Boston, 1938.
The Vermont Brigade in the Shenandoah Valley, by Aldace F. Walker. Burlington, Vt, 1869.
A Volunteer’s Adventures, by John W. DeForest, edited by James H. Croushare. New Haven, 1946.
War Diary of Luman Harris Tenney. Cleveland, 1914.
War Years with Jeb Stuart, by Lieutenant Colonel W. W. Blackford. New York, 1945.
NOTES
Chapter One: Glory Is Out of Date
A BOY NAMED MARTIN
1. The atmosphere of army dances during the winter of 1864 is well described in A Woman’s War Record, 1861–1865, by Septima M. Collis, pp. 34–36. The II Corps ball is depicted in History of the 106th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, by Joseph R. C. Ward, p. 193, and in The Diary of a Young Officer, by Josiah M. Favill, pp. 277–80, and the corps’ battle casualties are listed in Francis Walker’s History of the Second Army Corps, p. 397. There are references to the ball and to the entertainment of the women guests, in South After Gettysburg: Letters of Cornelia Hancock from the Army of the Potomac, edited by Henrietta Stratton Jaquette, p. 53, and in The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, by Captain George Meade, Vol. II, p. 167.
2. Meade’s Headquarters, 1863–1865: Letters of Col. Theodore Lyman from the Wilderness to Appomattox, selected and edited by George R. Agassiz, p. 73.
3. Under the Old Flag, by James Harrison Wilson, Vol. I, pp. 369–73; Meade’s Headquarters, p. 75.
4. Civil War Echoes: Character Sketches and State Secrets, by Hamilton Gay Howard, p. 214.
5. Official Records, Vol. XXXIII, pp. 170–72; Kilpatrick and Our Cavalry, by James Moore, p. 143.
6. Correspondence regarding the Butler fiasco, culminating in a tart interchange between Sedgwick and Halleck during the post-mortem phase, is in the Official Records, Vol. XXXIII, pp. 338, 502, 506–7, 512, 514–15, 519, 530, 532, 552 ff. The business is summarized in William Swinton’s Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, pp. 398–99.
7. Memoir of Ulric Dahlgren, by Rear Admiral John A. D. Dahlgren, pp. 1–66, 92–116; The Rebel Raider: a Life of John Hunt Morgan, by Howard Swiggett, p. 208.
8. Memoir of Ulric Dahlgren, pp. 159–62, 169, 185 ff., 204–11.
9. History of the 17th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry, by H. P. Moyer, p. 233; Official Records, Vol. XXXIII, pp. 170, 172–74.
10. Kilpatrick’s report, Official Records, Vol. XXXIII, p. 183; History of the 17th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry, p. 234.
11. History of the 17th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry, p. 235.
12. Personal and Historical Sketches and Facial History of and by Members of the 7th Regiment Michigan Volunteer Cavalry, compiled by William O. Lee, pp. 28, 198; report of Captain Joseph Gloskoski, 29th New York Infantry, a signal officer attached to Kilpatrick’s column, Official Records, Vol. XXXIII, p. 189; History of the 17th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry, pp. 235–36.
13. Personal and Historical Sketches … 7th Regiment Michigan Volunteer Cavalry, p. 29; Official Records, Vol. XXXIII, pp. 184–85, 192.
14. History of the 17th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry, pp. 242–44; Personal and Historical Sketches … 7th Regiment Michigan Volunteer Cavalry, pp. 30–31; Official Records, Vol. XXXIII, p. 193.
15. The Rebel Raider, p. 208.
16. Campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, p. 400; Memoir of Ulric Dahlgren, p. 214; Official Records, Vol. XXXIII, p. 195.
17. The bes
t account of this period of the expedition is perhaps that of Captain John F. B. Mitchell, 2nd New York Cavalry, in the Official Records, Vol. XXXIII, pp. 195–96.
18. Memoir of Ulric Dahlgren, pp. 219–22; report of Lieutenant James Pollard, 9th Virginia Cavalry, Official Records, Vol. XXXIII, p. 208; The Rebellion Record, edited by Frank Moore, Vol. VIII, Part 2, p. 589.
19. There is a thoughtful analysis of the treatment accorded Dahlgren’s body and effects in Swiggett’s excellent The Rebel Raider, pp. 208–11. The photographic copies of the Dahlgren papers, forwarded by Lee to Meade, are now in the National Archives in Union Battle Reports, Series 729 of the Records of the Adjutant General’s Office, Record Group 94. They are faded and are very nearly illegible, but it is fairly easy to see that the signature is misspelled—“Dalhgren” for “Dahlgren”—which would hardly be the case if it were genuine. The affair is discussed indignantly in Memoir of Ulric Dahlgren, pp. 225–35. The Bragg-Seddon-Lee correspondence is in the Official Records, Vol. XXXIII, pp. 217–18, 222–23.
20. The Rebellion Record, Vol. VIII, Part 2, pp. 572, 574, 581, 591–92; Official Records, Vol. XXXIII, pp. 178, 180.
21. History of the 17th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry, p. 257.
TURKEY AT A SHOOTING MATCH
1. Army Life in a Black Regiment, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson, p. 310.
2. Reminiscences and Record of the 6th New York Veteran Volunteer Cavalry, by Alonzo Foster, pp. 102–04.
3. An interesting account of the adventures of Custer’s men, and of the behavior of the contrabands who followed them, appears in Annals of the 6th Pennsylvania Cavalry, by the Rev. S. L. Gracey, pp. 228–29.
4. History of the 17th Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry, pp. 245–46.
5. Ibid., pp. 247, 251–52. The reference to the chalk line in the row of black faces is borrowed from this account.
6. Journal History of the 29th Ohio Veteran Volunteers, by J. Hamp Se Cheverell, p. 21.
7. The Road to Richmond, by Major Abner R. Small, p. 193. For an interesting depiction of a typical Army of the Potomac veteran early in 1864, see Three Years in the Army: the Story of the 13th Massachusetts Volunteers, by Charles E. Davis, Jr., p. 262.
8. An excellent analysis of the way the draft and bounty laws worked occurs in Lincoln and the War Governors, by William B. Hesseltine, pp. 290 ff. This writer points out that the draft actually brought in few new men; its chief effect was to compel the state governors to raise troops. See also the report of James B. Fry, provost marshal general, Official Records, Series III, Vol. V, pp. 599 ff.
9. History of the 12th Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers, by Captain A. W. Bartlett, pp. 152–53.
10. Official Records, Series III, Vol. V, p. 831; Three Years in the Army, pp. 131, 264. The report of Thomas A. McParlin, medical director of the Army of the Potomac (Official Records, Vol. XXXVI, Part 1, pp. 213 ff.) gives a horrifying account of the defective human material which came to camp in the winter of 1863–64.
11. Three Years in the Army, p. 270.
12. History of the 12th Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers, p. 155.
13. History of the 2nd Connecticut Volunteer Heavy Artillery, by Theodore F. Vaill, p. 45.
14. Three Years in the Army, p. 302. The gambling and fighting are described by Stephen F. Blanding in In the Defences of Washington; or, the Sunshine in a Soldier’s Life, pp. 8–10.
15. The History of the 39th Regiment Illinois Volunteer Veteran Infantry, by Charles M. Clark, M.D., pp. 240–42.
16. There is a detailed and rather dreadful account of life on this island camp in Henry Wilson’s Regiment: History of the 22nd Massachusetts Infantry, by John L. Parker and Robert G. Carter, pp. 359–60, 362–70.
17. A Little Fifer’s War Diary, by C. W. Bardeen, pp. 261–62; History of Durrell’s Battery in the Civil War, by Lieutenant Charles A. Cuffel, p. 167; History of the 12th Regiment New Hampshire Volunteers, pp. 156–57.
18. The reader who wants an extended account of one of these sea voyages is referred to Frank Wilkeson’s Recollections of a Private Soldier in the Army of the Potomac, pp. 14–19—one of the most graphic and least romanticized of all the Civil War reminiscences, with a tone of bitter disillusionment which sounds almost as if it had come out of World War II.
19. Ibid., pp. 1–14, 20. For the way the bounty men vanished on the way to camp, see The Story of the 15th Regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, by Andrew E. Ford, p. 290.
20. Four Years Campaigning in the Army of the Potomac, by D. G. Crotty, p. 141.
21. Musket and Sword, by Edwin C. Bennett, p. 200; The Irish Brigade and Its Campaigns, by Captain D. P. Conyngham, pp. 425–38. The writer of History of Durrell’s Battery in the Civil War remarks (p. 168) that the 79th New York was the only IX Corps regiment which failed to re-enlist that winter. All regiments which re-enlisted were re-enforced by drafts of new recruits. See also the pamphlet, Report of Committee to Recruit the Ninth Army Corps, printed in New York in 1866.
22. Official Records, Series III, Vol. V, pp. 600, 669. In the summer of 1864 U. S. Grant wrote to Secretary of State Seward that not one in eight of the high-bounty men ever performed good service at the front. (Official Records, Series II, Vol. VII, p. 614.)
23. History of the 7th Connecticut Volunteer Infantry, compiled by Stephen Walkley, p. 150.
24. Recollections of a Private Soldier, pp. 32–34.
25. Four Years Campaigning in the Army of the Potomac, pp. 117–18; My Diary of Rambles with the 25th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, by D. L. Day, p. 110; Three Years in the Army, pp. 302–3.
26. History of the 5th Regiment Maine Volunteers, by the Rev. George W. Bicknell, p. 296. The manuscript letters of Edwin Wentworth of the 37th Massachusetts, made available through the kindness of Miss Edith Adams of Auburn, Maine, show how the high-bounty system could affect a veteran’s decision. Early in the winter, Private Wentworth was writing to his wife that he would not re-enlist: “There are plenty of men at home, better able to bear arms than I am, and I am willing they should take their chance on the battlefield and have their share of glory and honor.” Later, however, he reflected that with the bounty he could buy a home and some land—“it will enable me to provide you a good home and a chance to live comfortably.” In the end, Private Wentworth re-enlisted, and was killed at Spotsylvania Court House.
27. A Brief History of the 100th Regiment, by Samuel P. Bates, p. 21; Service with the 6th Wisconsin Volunteers, by Rufus R. Dawes, p. 235; Official Records, Vol. XXXIII, p. 776.
28. Reminiscences of the 19th Massachusetts Regiment, by Captain John G. B. Adams, pp. 79, 89.
FROM A MOUNTAIN TOP
1. Music on the March, 1862–65, by Frank Rauscher, pp. 122, 141, 145, 151; History of the 3rd Pennsylvania Cavalry, compiled by the Regimental History Association, pp. 409–11.
2. Campaigning with Grant, by General Horace Porter, pp. 15, 22, 28.
3. Ibid., p. 30.
4. For various glimpses of Grant, see Captain Sam Grant, by Lloyd Lewis, pp. 99–100; Campaigning with Grant, pp. 45, 56; Army Life: a Private’s Reminiscences of the Civil War, by the Rev. Theodore Gerrish, p. 324; A War Diary of Events in the War of the Great Rebellion, by Brigadier General George H. Gordon, p. 351; Three Years in the Army, p. 315; Following the Greek Cross; or, Memories of the Sixth Army Corps, by Brigadier General Thomas W. Hyde, p. 181.
5. Meade’s Headquarters, p. 81; Correspondence of John Sedgwick, Major General, Vol. II, pp. 177–78.
6. For soldiers’ comments on Grant, see Down in Dixie: Life in a Cavalry Regiment in the War Days, by Stanton P. Allen, pp. 187–88; Four Years in the Army of the Potomac: a Soldier’s Recollections, by Major Evan Rowland Jones, pp. 128–29; The Road to Richmond, p. 130.
7. Campaigning with Grant, pp. 46–47; an incident described to General Porter after the war by Longstreet himself.
8. Congressional doubts in regard to Grant’s drinking, and the reliance placed on Rawlins, are touched on
by General James H. Wilson, who was fairly intimate with both Grant and Rawlins, in Under the Old Flag, Vol. I, pp. 345–46. Dana’s comment is cited in Abraham Lincoln: the War Years, by Carl Sandburg, Vol. II, p. 542. The whole question of the extent to which alcohol was a problem to Grant is carefully examined in Lewis’s fine book, Captain Sam Grant. (His conclusion: that it wasn’t nearly as big a problem as some people have assumed.)
9. References to heavy drinking among Army of the Potomac officers abound in regimental histories and personal memoirs. Specifically, see Days and Events: 1860–1866, by Colonel Thomas L. Livermore, p. 297; South After Gettysburg, p. 55; Camp-Fire Chats of the Civil War, by Washington Davis, pp. 284–85.
10. The Life of Ulysses S. Grant, by Charles A. Dana and Major General James Harrison Wilson, p. 185; The Generalship of Ulysses S. Grant, by Colonel J. F. C. Fuller, p. 210; The Life and Letters of George Gordon Meade, Vol. II, p. 201; The Life of John A. Rawlins, by Major General J. H. Wilson, pp. 426–27.
11. Memoirs of a Volunteer, by John Beatty, edited by Harvey S. Ford, p. 210; History of Durrell’s Battery in the Civil War, p. 150.
12. Recollections of a Private Soldier, pp. 36–37.
13. Down in Dixie, pp. 180–82.
14. Letters of a War Correspondent, by Charles A. Page, p. 110; Musket and Sword, p. 198.
15. There is a good pen picture of Sheridan in Gerrish’s Army Life, p. 249, and Sheridan’s crack about the bob-tailed brigadiers is to be found in Personal Memoirs of John H. Brinton, p. 267. For the cavalryman’s complaint about hard work, see Deeds of Daring: or, History of the 8th New York Volunteer Cavalry, by Henry Norton, pp. 106–7. Other details are in the Official Records, Vol. XXXIII, p. 711, and Under the Old Flag, Vol. 1, pp. 331, 374–75.
16. History of the 10th Massachusetts Battery of Light Artillery in the War of the Rebellion, by John D. Billings, pp. 37–38. (Incidentally, this book contains a good account of the assignments and duties of members of a Civil War gun crew, pp. 18–19.) See also Recollections of a Private Soldier, p. 22.