Day 10. March 10, 1862.
10
droll and at the same time sad and humiliating….
Monday 10th 1862
Quite cool this morning. We found ourselves* the 110th Regt PV 40 miles down East of Paw Paw Station on the B&O R.R. We got out and built some fire and made coffee and was there all day. Some rain this morning and it rained several showers. It was very throng all day the car coming loaded with Government goods to Back Creek.** This evening at 5 Oclock the first train went over. I went over on it when the locomotives came on the bridge. I gave some six inches on each side and it might have gone down in case it had gone some more or sliped off in the bottom. It was blowen up last 4 July. We slept in the woods and quite cold all night. I don’t often sleep in the woods at home this was Morgan Co. Va. Cleared off about 8 o’clock in evening
*Ephraim seems to be writing here for an audience, as he’s certainly aware which regiment he is in.
**Back Creek Bridge still stands 10 miles west of Martinsburg, W.V. The bridge sways, & a thin train shadow bisects the landscape with its interior as it goes by now, in the 2020s, in shadows of 1860s ghost trains. On June 3, 1861, Rebels blew up the Back Creek Bridge; it was 30 feet high, 150 feet long, & stone. Back Creek is a 59 mile tributary of the Potomac. Confederate bridge burning in the area is described:
Wheeling Intelligencer
June 6, 1862
“Reopening of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway.:On last Monday night Gen. D. S. Miles, in command of the Railway Brigade, stationed at Harper’s Ferry, arranged a reconnoitering party, composed of several companies of regular infantry, with four pieces of artillery, and proceeded from Harper’s Ferry along the line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railway to Martinsburg, and from thence to Sir John’s Run. Gen. Miles reported no enemy in sight, and the railway opened for the repairs needed. The injuries to the road and bridges are not of a serious nature. The following named bridges were only partially burnt: the Opequan and the Pillar, both between Harper’s Ferry and Martinsburg, and the Back Creek bridge, ten miles west of Martinsburg. The track was not disturbed. Persons residing along the side of the road state that the Confederates expressed no desire to injure the road to any serious extent, only sufficient to prevent engines and cars from passing over the bridges while they (the Confederates) were in possession of Martinsburg.
Mr. Wilson, roadmaster-in-chief, and Mr. W. C. Quincy, assistant roadmaster, have each a large force of workmen under them making the necessary repairs, and the line will probably be restored to its previous perfect condition by this evening, and if so, the road will be re-opened on Saturday next, and passenger and freight trains are expected to be fully renewed on that day, or by Monday morning at furthest. On Tuesday evening Gen. Miles, with a considerable force, also made a reconnaissance on the railway from Harper’s Ferry to Winchester, but the result of his investigations are not known. It is not believed, however, that that railway has been much injured. A large force of workmen are being sent thither to make the necessary repairs. The railway will now probably be brought into extensive use for the purpose of supplying the army said to be now occupying the Valley of Virginia. The entire railway telegraph line between Baltimore and Wheeling was again in operation at noon on Tuesday last. Mr. C. Westbrook, the Superintendent of the line, was but ten hours, with a small force, making the necessary repairs, the damage was of such a trifling character.”
http://www.wvculture.org/history/sesquicentennial/18620603a.html There are infinite resources to comb through about the role of the B&O throughout the entire war & the fighting that took places along this rail line. Elisha Hunt Rhodes wrote of it as well. Back Creek Bridge will burn again on 9/22/62, 7/3/64, 7/27/64.
In the area where Ephraim is today, Augusta County, VA., 3,130 men had voted: 10 to stay in the Union, the rest to secede. This flips “a few months later” to where 10 say it’s time to leave, the rest to stay. VA.’s Ordinance of Secession passed on 5/23/61 by a vote of 132,201 to 37,451.
Note: Around the 10th, fake Confederate Quaker guns (logs painted to look like cannons) are found at Manassas Junction and Centreville, VA. Northern newspapers had a field day. Just one between the eyes, pls.
Note: Below is another eyewitness account of the newly built Back Creek Bridge Ephraim mentions today…. William Brand and Ephraim are both in the 3rd Brigade (Tyler’s) of Lander’s 2nd Division serving with Nathaniel Bank’s 30,000 troop V Corps. The 66th Ohio and PA. 110th marched, fought, & bivouacked side-by-side at different times in the Valley Campaign:
Army Life According to Arbaw: Civil War Letters of William A. Brand 66th Ohio Volunteer Infantry Edited by Daniel A. Masters P. 29
“The regiments of infantry, when leaving this morning, had to pass over a very narrow temporary suspension bridge spanning Back Creek at the railroad bridge from one abutment to the other without railing and about 75 feet high and as many long and oply four feet wide. Captain Joshua G. Palmer and his gallant company (Co. B) were the first to march across after Colonel Candy and Major Eugene Powell. It was a pretty and interesting scene; the waving of the narrow bridge and the stooping of the soldiers, with their heavily loaded knapsacks, passing under the timbers of the bridge now being erected– all in a single file while those behind were pressing their way forward; indeed it was as well worthy of a sketch from an artist as many others, already rendered famous by pen and pencil.
The people of this vicinity, male and female, are visiting our camp freely and appear to be highly pleased with the appearance of the Union troops among them. They say it has inspired the citizens generally with hope and confidence, and many exiles are returning to their houses and engaging freely in their wonted avocations. In this vicinity (Berkeley County), farming will be commenced vigorously with the opening of spring and a wholesome sentiment will take the place of the delusion of the people in regard to the design and intention of the government in suppressing the rebellion.”
In the Presence of Mine Enemies: The Civil War in the Heart of America, 1859-1864 Edward Ayers P. 254
“Stonewall Jackson and his thirty-six hundred men had long been based in Winchester in the northern Valley. The Confederates knew that the Union army under McClellan was gathering a massive force on the Virginia coast with which to attack Richmond. In order to keep the Federals from uniting all their forces, taking the capital, and bringing the war to the early close that the North expected and demanded, Jackson and his men were ordered to remain active in the Valley,* preventing the Union from concentrating its forces in Virginia. Tens of thousands of Federal troops that could have been marching on Richmond instead tried to make sure that Jackson stayed in the Valley and did not march on Washington.”
Note: On March 25, 26, & 27, Ephraim writes that “the ladies” of Winchester helped– rather than hindered– unlike the following account a contemporary historian picked. Did Ephraim have more of an incentive to get along with the women so he could better care for the wounded? Did he, ahem, have a way with the ladies? Well, he did have that megabeard. Something went on that was different with Ephraim’s ability to cooperate:
Armies of Deliverance: A New History of the Civil War Elizabeth R. Varon P. 89
Note: Writing of early to mid-March:
“Other Federals who occupied the town were struck instead by the intransigence of its Confederate residents. “We had already seen Rebel women, but in all our travels we never saw any so bitter as those of Winchester,” wrote John M. Gould of Maine. “They were untiring in their efforts to show us how they hated us. If we sat upon their doorsteps a moment, they would send out their servants to wash up the spot that was supposed to be made filthy by our presence.”
“Narrative of the Life of John Quincy Adams, When in Slavery, and Now as a Freeman” (Born in 1845; published in 1872) doc.south.unc.edu/neh/adams
“A word for Winchester, Virginia. It is one of the handsomest little towns I ever saw, and is not surpassed by any in Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, or any of the Western States. Winchester is situated in the beautiful Shenandoah valley, where so many battles were fought during the late rebellion. I saw some very sorrowful sights in that valley during the war. In Winchester there were some very fine dwelling houses and churches, a very fine court house, but not quite as fine as Judge Pearson’s court house in Harrisburg, Pa.; some very fine hotels, the best one was called Taylor’s Hotel, where all the “big bugs” stopped; and I will tell you who else stopped there—those great and unthinking gentlemen who called themselves Negro Traders. You could see them walking around with their bags of silver and gold that they had received from selling the poor slaves. But how is it now. Some of them look worse at this time than any of our Pennsylvania farmers ever look. They have no money, no way to make it, and too lazy to work for it, and when men do work for them one-half of them will not pay for it, and that is the way the great gentlemen are living to-day. If they would see a man come from the North it was “poor Northern white trash.” I do not much blame them for it, for some of them did come down there and acted just as bad as some of them that were reared there.—Some of them would almost bow to the ground to them, and at the same time received no thanks for it. Such was the case in those days. But how is it now? Every man is free to go where he wishes to. If a man is poor, let him be poor until he can get rich off of his own labor. A great many of these kings and princes thought that this would always be so.”
A Virginia Yankee in the Civil War The Diaries of David Hunter Strother David Hunter Strother P. 11
“MARCH 10, MONDAY.—… News came of the sinking of the Cumberland and Congress frigates near Old Point by the iron-plated Confederate steamer, Merrimac. Whatever comfort Secessionists might have taken from the news, we gave it a passing objurgation and forgot it. It has struck me as singular the tenacious credulity with which the Seccessionists cling to every straw which seems to afford hope to their desperate cause. There is nothing too absurd for them to accept on the one side or too plain for them to reject on the other. I have never seen the human mind so enslaved by desire. They meet together in little knots to discuss flank movements and the grand strategy of falling back on somewhere. If a loyal man approaches them they are silent or disperse. Day by day the silliest and most improbable stories of Confederate victories are circulated. They count every troop and cannon that passes and underrate the force as much as possible. It is droll and at the same time sad and humiliating.”
Stonewall Jackson: The Man, the Soldier, the Legend James I. Robertson, Jr. P. 333
Note: Jackson had planned a rare night assault but his supply wagons had mistakenly been sent to Newtown, necessitating soldiers walking twelve miles north if they were to fight that night. His officers advise against the assault. Instead, Jackson abandons Winchester tonight, and:
P. 333-334
“A full moon lit the sky when the Confederate army filed slowly out of Winchester. Citizens lines the sidewalks. Some wept; others watched silently. One small lad kept shouting forlornly: “Jackson’s gone! Jackson’s gone!”
Even in the dark of night, the sadness permeating the ranks was detectable. Many of the soldiers had family and friends in the lower Shenandoah Valley; others had grown to consider Winchester a second home. To march away without a fight, and with an enemy host moving in the wake, was demoralizing.”
Jackson and Surgeon Hunter McGuire left Winchester together. The two rode to a high point overlooking the town, stopped, and looked back. McGuire, realizing that he was abandoning his family, Winchester home, and everything dear to him, momentarily lost his composure and began to weep quietly.
Then he looked at Jackson, whose face “was fairly blazing with the fire that was burning in him.” His facial muscles twitched, his lips were pressed firmly together as he gazed at the lights of the town and then at his retreating soldiers. Jackson broke the silence by snarling in a loud voice, “That is the last council of war I will ever hold!”
Wheeling his horse around, Jackson started toward the head of his column. Lieutenant John Lyle stared in wonder at the general. “He came riding furiously like the driving of Jehu, and looked as if the thunderbolts of Jupiter were pent up in him, and [Jackson] would like to hurl them on Banks and his army.” A short distance from Newtown, Jackson finally reined to a halt. He dismounted and went to sleep in a fence corner.
Ashby’s cavalry hovered in Winchester until 8 A.M. the next day before retiring defiantly. A deathlike stillness pervaded the town for a half-hour, Mrs. Hugh Lee noted in her diary. “Then music and some cheering announced their approach; the Yankees came in on different streets, more quietly than I had anticipated.” An Ohio surgeon thought the march of the Union army into Winchester to be a wondrous sight. “Regiment after regiment with colors flying and music filling the air! One’s heart could almost be caught in the teeth as it bounded with patriotism.” However, most Union soldiers quickly pronounced Winchester to be anything but hospitable.”
Note: The moon was two days only past its first quarter size on March 10. It was fully first quarter size on March 8th. The full moon won’t hit until March 16th.
Make Me a Map of the Valley: The Civil War Journal of Stonewall Jackson’s Topographer Jedediah Hotchkiss* P. 3-4
“On the 10th of March, 1862, Gov. John Letcher by proclamation, called out all the militia of the Valley and adjacent counties to the west from the Potomac to and including Boteourt and Craig counties; this included the county of Augusta in which I resided. The militia were ordered to report at once to Gen. T.J. Jackson, at Winchester.
The day was warm and the Valley Turnpike quite dusty. We met large numbers of wagons loaded with machinery from the Harper’s Ferry Armory and with army stores. There were whole trains of wagons loaded with Richmond flour that had been sent to Strasburg, and even to Winchester, for the army! Also wagons of citizens loaded with furniture and carriages filled with families, many of them accompanied by servants, moving up from the Lower Valley which the Federals had not occupied.— The men of our command are in good spirits; many of those that ran away have concluded that they had best come along and not wait to be drafted. The report we met was that Gen. Jackson was holding the Narrow Passage, which is said to be very defensible against the enemy.”
* If they could even find any, generals used outdated VA. maps– circa 1826– at war’s start; maps weren’t published with any regularity, so this was a war for which there weren’t even reliable maps of the terrain. Hotchkiss becomes “the Confederacy’s mapmaker,” riding a horse to figure out land enough to draw it for Jackson. Picture Hotchkiss, right in the middle of history like a Darwin fish sketch, papers strewn about, already super highway veins looping out of the ground, metamorphosing to a Rand McNally map that in another 100 years or so, he can walk into the local 7-11 and find on a swivel stack by the door. For now, he’s finding towns on his homemade maps, circling them while there is still a low howl in the wood. His diary is one of the most prominent to come out of the Civil War.
Lincoln Day by Day: A Chronology 1809-1865 Volume III: 1861-1865 C. Percy Powell P. 100
“March 10, 1862: In evening calls on Lt. Worden, commander of “Monitor” nearly blinded by shell in yesterday’s engagement, to express admiration, and “bursts into tears while greeting the sailor.’”
Note: Col. James Crowther’s several hundred pages of letters are available at the Library of Congress. He was court-martialed in Bellair, VA. in April, 1863. (Record at the National Archives, #1871564; Local Identifier number is NN-3904, Batch 153.) Fifty pages are devoted to “When Cultures Collide: The Forming of the 110th Pennsylvania Volunteers.” There were ongoing conflicts between the different companies that made up the 110th; a power struggle ensued between companies formed in south central Pennsylvania versus those originating in Philadelphia. Crowther was from the center: Blair County. Col. Lewis was from Philadelphia, as was Major Johnson. There is one report of a drunken brawl that evolved into a riot that took place (We Are in For It, Ecelbarger, P. 6) on the morning of January 4th, 1862, when several soldiers drank their breakfast a couple miles west of Hagerstown, MD., then threw punches. The 1st Maryland Cavalry came in from Williamsport to stop the men, but three were killed, and forty others injured. After a 26-mile forced march earlier in the day, various of the 110th had 20 minutes worth of energy to go at each other with clubs and pieces of the road’s limestone chunks, and it’s said officers began beating 110th soldiers with pistols and swords (soldiers themselves had not yet been issued firearms). While the ultimate death toll is unknown, Ecelbarger notes the riot’s wellspring on page 6 (selections): “Four companies of the 110th hailed from Philadelphia while the rest were recruited from the country and mountain locales. The heterogeneity of the regiment had created severe animosity within the ranks– the country and mountain companies resented the fact that all of the regimental officers were Philadelphians even though city recruits were in the minority. As the troops left the saloons, several drunken country boys attempted to rectify the situation by taking the flag from the Philadelphian elected to carry the colors. Officers stopped the fight within a few minutes, placed the drunken men in their ranks under guard, and marched them out of the city along the freshly macadamized National Pike. The limestone macadam was six inches deep with pieces as large as goose eggs– potential weapons for angry drunken soldiers who had yet to be issued arms. The inebriated soldiers verbally abused their guards shortly after leaving Hagerstown which fostered an even uglier and deadlier brawl. This time the intra-regimental battle lasted over twenty minutes as the men went at each other with clubs and stones. As chunks of limestone filled the air, the officers intervened by striking men with their swords and pistols. Word of the insurrection travelled fast and the 1st Maryland Cavalry arrived from Williamsport to quell the riot. When the dust cleared, three men lay dead and over forty suffered serious, some mortal wounds. The weary men took shelter in churches and other buildings to rest and reflect on the catastrophic consequences….”
Note that Ecelbarger claims “all of the regimental officers were Philadelphians” when, in fact, Col. Crowther was not from the city. I can find no supporting evidence this riot took place from any other source but Ecelbarger. Something may have happened, though wouldn’t an incident of that magnitude have made the papers?
Naturally, I wish Ephraim had written of this. I contacted the War Library and Museum of Philadelphia twice for access to 110th records, but never heard back. Two letters to the Shirleysburg Herald, January, 1862 were supposedly about the riot, one of which was written by a Samuel C. Baker in Ephraim’s Co. D, who died of sickness shortly after March 23, 1862, as Ephraim notes in his diary. Paccivilwar at http://www.pacivilwarflags.org/regiments/indivRegiment.cfm?group=101-150®=110th%20Infantry claims “40 soldiers were killed or maimed” in this fracas supposedly over who got the color-bearer job.
Note as well that Chaplain of the 110th Jeremiah Schindel was court-martialed, assigned the same Local Identifier number as Crowther, and tried in the same town in the same month (for a link to a picture of him see March 30). 47 others out of the 110th were court-martialed during the war. Exercise care when looking up these records, as the 110th can land you in the middle of WWII, shooting several hundred prisoners on a forced march in Germany. This is not the same 110th, needless to say. Crowther appears in these pages next on March 28, then June 18. Most court-martials were for desertions, drunkenness, or falling asleep on Post, although I can’t determine the reasons for all of the 47 out of the 110th. Reasons for court martials may be found in future war diaries that come to light, when they do.
Note: In two years the Ambulance Corps Act of March will pass. Then, in theory at least, Union armies will benefit from an organized way to remove the wounded & dead from all battlefields. The next best improvement, meanwhile, will come in August of this year, with General Orders No. 147– created by McClellan– which will regulate ambulance evacuation procedural. Below: The Wounded Angel, by Hugo Simberg, 1903.
Note: One year ago today, Jackson seizes Martinsburg.
Note: Virginia’s Governor Letcher: In 2020, Virginia Governor “blackface” Northram says “It commemorates a lost cause. It’s time to move on” and so declares “Lee-Jackson Day” “Election Day” instead, a State holiday.
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don’t often sleep in the woods at home….
Most combat occurred at 300 yards standoff distance. A shot at 300 yards in a crosswind can go a lot of ways, but it wasn’t often the men stood at 7 yards, knife-fighting range. They can get off two or three shots a minute. A Springfield rifle & a half minute to load. Place your rounds. Don’t bother staking up the hospital flag. Just dig, dig & cover. That’s right, it burns playing capture the flag while the sky holds everything flying and everything falling, the perfect obscenity of aiming to kill them then to race to get them off the field, bandaged up, yet still getting fired upon like big-game hunting, & die trying to save. The little red eyes hiding, scoping you out. This all of course makes no particular sense. A red aurora of blood a sheet mist down from the sky then back up as men fly by. They try to keep it going into the night so the day ends at the close of something else, not the sun. Your weapon knocked away. You have air & wind & then night comes & time passes, the sky filters away as your blood drains fast or slow & it’s dark blue now, & your palm, a tender off-cast blue with the ground peeling back into the film of sky, the land draining away from the sky like a membrane sagged downward, like the drag marks on the ground you will leave, your own last mark on Earth.
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