Day 11. March 11, 1862.
11
smoke rose straight upward into a vast column to the height of a mile or more….
March Tuesday 11th 1862
Quite frosty this morning and clear. The sun came up very clear this am. Our brigade took up the line of march for Martinsburg 10 ½ miles from Back Creek. We marched and had a very pleasant day. I came on ahead. I got my dinner at North Mountain I joined our Regiment there. We came on towards Martinsburg. I counted [illeg. looks like 80?] coal cars and passengers and I know not how many and several locomotive at Martinsburg. We came through Martinsburg at 4oclock and came out on the Winchester Turnpike two miles to the Big Springs. Our Brigade haulted and quartered in the orchard and sleep out in the orchard. It was quite cold. It was a splendid night and very clear. This is a splendid spring. Col Crowther* has command as Col Lewis is sick
*Crowther: Killed May 3, 1863, Battle of Chancellorsville, at Hazel Grove. August 6th is the annual Colonel Crowther Day in Tyrone. (Crowther was court-martialed at one point– as was Chaplain Shindel– see beginning of book under “Desertions.” They could have perhaps fallen asleep on watch, or taken leave without permission, etc.)
Many Crowther-related pictures:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/13988985/james-crowther
https://theclio.com/entry/129007
http://www.tyronepa.com/?p=40925
Book: Crowther, James Eli. The Crowther Letters Tarentum, PA: Word Association Publishers), 2004.
In 2005, the Colonel Crowther Foundation in Huntingdon, PA. was formed, & periodically hosts a Christmas shindig at a local Methodist church: “The displays will include original copies of the 1861 and 1862 Christmas issues of Harper’s Weekly newspapers, an original General Grant’s marble game, an original testament book carried by a soldier… Christmas candy such as the type available in 1862 and other items will be available for purchase.” http://www.tyronepa.com/?p=40005
Civil War Weather in Virginia Robert K. Krick P. 48
“7a.m. 30; 2p.m. 38; 9p.m. 35. Began snowing at 4P.M.”
Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era James McPherson P. 187
“The secret of the civil war was that many Americans wanted it to come, wanted to prove their patriotism and demonstrate that they held god’s favor.”
Terrible Swift Sword Bruce Catton P. 201
“On March 11 Mr. Lincoln issued one more War Order, removing McClellan from his position of General-in-Chief and reducing him to the post of commander of the Army of the Potomac. Until further notice there would be no general-in-chief; all Army commanders would report directly to the Secretary of War—in effect, to Mr. Lincoln himself—and the order specified that “prompt, full and frequent reports will be expected of each and all of them.’”
Doctors in Blue: The Medical History of the Union Army in the Civil War George Worthington Adams 1952 P. 66-67
“When a battle impended it was the surgeon’s duty to select some building or site for his “depot,” or field hospital, at a “safe distance” in the rear. “Safe” meant beyond the range of the enemy’s artillery, or about a mile and a half to two miles. The regimental hospital detail of ten men and the band, about 25 in all, would be divided, some assigned to the field hospital as nurses, the remainder accompanying the troops as stretcher-men. While waiting for the wounded to arrive the hospital staff would make their preparations. The hospital steward would open the medical chests and lay out surgical supplies, opiates, and bottles of whisky. The men detailed as cooks would heat water, prepare tea, or coffee, and soup, and put sponges to soak.
The assistant surgeon, accompanied by an orderly carrying a hospital knapsack filled with emergency supplies, went with the stretcher bearers to establish a “primary station,” just outside musketry range. There first aid was given and the regimental ambulances loaded. Another of his duties was supervision of the stretchermen so far as his location and circumstances permitted. The stretchermen were supposed to cover the field and give no excuse for a soldier to leave the line in order to escort the wounded to the rear. When they found a wounded man incapable of walking– many wounded could and did walk– the stretchermen would carry him to the primary station, using a practiced pace to hold the patient’s suffering to a minimum. There the assistant surgeon, with the help of his orderly and usually of a hospital steward, would give him liquor to counteract shock, and administer first aid with an equipment consisting of pails, basins, sponges, lint, and bandages. The treatment was usually limited to a tourniquet and bandages. The patient would then be put in one of the regimental ambulances and taken to the field hospital.
There the seriously wounded would go at once to the operating table for detailed examination and, if found necessary, for an operation. If the army was stationary, the patients might lie in the field hospital until they recovered or died. The more usual procedure was to evacuate then within a few days to a general hospital, at the army’s base or to the North. Curing the early battles of 1862 most field hospitals were regimental hospitals and the operations were performed by regimental surgeons, at much needless suffering….
The deficiency of the battlefield medical work is largely to be attributed ot the untrained and usually inferior men assigned to nursing and stretcher work. The only man permanently assigned to the surgeon, and supposed to have some knowledge of his work before appointment, was the hospital steward. A warrant officer, he ranked above the first sergeant of a company. He was supposed to have a knowledge of practical pharmacy. He must “take exclusive charge of the dispensary, must be practically acquainted with such points of minor surgery as the application of bandages and dressings, the extraction of teeth, and the application of cups and leeches, and must have such knowledge of cooking as will enable him to superintend efficiently this important branch of hospital service.” Naturally, this office became the special haven of druggists, medical students, and would-be medical students. There was no prescribed system of examination for such appointments until 1864, when a candidate had to appear before a board of three medical officers.”
Note: It wasn’t until the Civil War that hemorrhagic shock– termed “wound shock” until WWII (blood loss volume mixed with lowered oxygen carrying capacity)– was formally recognized, but they considered shock & hemorrhage separate conditions (they’re not). Also important: before the war, 9 out of 10 doctors had never even seen a gunshot wound, let alone had to treat one.
America Aflame: How the Civil War Created a Nation David Goldfield P. 270
“Field hospitals were especially noxious. At Antietam, Union surgeons set up a field hospital in a stable ankle-deep in manure. Physicians operated clad in blood– or pus-stained coats, wielded instruments and sponges rinsed off with water after being used on previous patients, and sharpened their surgical knives on the soles of their boots. They moistened thread with saliva to facilitate its placement in needles for sutures and wrapped wounds in any cloth available.
If they survived the operating table, recuperating soldiers contended with the groans and screams of comrades, the indifference of hospital personnel, and incessant visits from ministers trying to save their souls. When the young men wrote home about such visits, they typically expressed exasperation. If God was omnipotent, why would he allow such carnage and the accompanying misery for families across the land?”
EmergingCivilWar.com From the book A Woman’s Civil War: A Diary, with Reminiscences of the War, from March 1862 C.P. McDonald Edited by Minrose C. Gwin P. 22-24 Diary of Cornelia Peake McDonald
“McDonald starts a diary on March 11, at her home in Winchester & this is her first entry.
On the night of March 11th, 1862, the pickets were in the town; part of the army had already gone, and there were hurried preparations and hasty farewells, and sorrowful faces and turning away from those they loved best, and were leaving, perhaps forever. At one o’clock the long roll beat, and soon the heavy tramp of the marching columns died away in the distance.
The rest of the night was spent in violent fits of weeping at the thought of being left, and of what might happen to that army before we should see it again. I felt a terrible fear of the coming morning, for I knew that with it would come the much dreaded enemy.
I laid down when the night was almost gone, to sleep, after securing all the doors, and seeing that the children were all asleep. I took care to have my dressing gown convenient in case of an alarm, but the night passed away quietly, and when the morning came, and all was peaceful I felt reassured, dressed and went downstairs.
The servants were up and breakfast was ready. The children assembled and we had prayers. I felt so thankful that we were still free, and a hope dawned that our men would come back, as no enemy had appeared. We were all cheerfully despatching [sp] our breakfasts, I feeling happy in proportion to my former depression; the children were chatting gaily, Harry and Allen rather sulky at not having been permitted to leave with the army, as they considered it degradation for men of their years and dimensions to be left behind with women and children. Suddenly a strain of music! Every knife and fork was laid down and every ear strained to catch the faint sounds. The boys clap their hands and jump up from the table shouting. “Our men have come back!” and rushed to the door; I stopped them, telling them it must be Yankees. Every face looked blank and disappointed.
I tried to be calm and quiet, but could not and so got up and went outside the door. Sure enough that music could not be mistaken, it was the “Star Spangled Banner” that was played. A servant came in. “They are all marching the town, and some have cover over the hill into our orchard.’”
Note: Trivia: In 1927, today, after Charles Lindbergh stays awake for 33½ hours & reaches the Eiffel Tower, “millions” in New York sing the Star Spangled Banner.
Editors Make War: Southern Newspapers in the Secession Crisis Donald E. Reynolds P. 177
“The Clarksville (Texas) Northern Standard asserted that, already, “the spirit, vigor, and force of legislation in the new Government, is a half century ahead of that in the old government.” The Memphis Daily Appeal, an erstwhile defender of the Union, made a similar judgment: “The new Republic, which is now being erected by Southern patriots, the rival in arts and arms of the Northern Government, and surpassing it in its truly republican institutions, will be the sole evidence on this continent of the capacity of man for self-government.” Some journals were so hard-put to find a modern government worthy of comparison to the new Confederacy that they searched the ancient past for suitable prototypes. The Atlanta Gate-City Guardian declared: “We will in a half century, show to the world such a people and such a Government as has not existed since the days of the Theocracy.” Alabama’s Jacksonville Republican had a similar vision of the new nation: “Looming up from the golden portals of the east, the sun throws his broad beams upon the landscapes of the very Eden of the South—the Palestine of a new Republic!” But the new “Eden,” at least in the eyes of the Richmond Enquirer, would last even longer than the great civilizations of the past. “We may even hope that, in duration, it will exceed the pyramids, which, after the lapse of more than forty centuries, still stand erect and unshaken above the floods of the Nile.’”
Terrible Swift Sword Bruce Catton P. 199
“The bonfires were spectacular. At Thoroughfare Gap, not far behind Johnston’s lines, the commissary department had built a huge meat-packing plant– much too forward, General Johnston had always insisted– and this, with more than a thousand tons of bacon, was burned. One soldier remembered piles of bacon “as high as a house” sending up queer yellow and blue flames, spreading the smell of fried bacon for twenty miles around. In the camp itself mountains of baggage went up in flame and smoke.”
Note: The John Kelso (1831-1891) excerpts throughout this book I included to add additional firsthand accounts of the war. A schoolteacher in Dallas County, Missouri, Kelso is now a Captain in the Missouri State Militia Cavalry, a spy for the Union Army, & served in the U.S. House of Representatives post-war. His excerpts are from various timeframes & locations in the war. He was not in Lander’s Division or in Ephraim’s regiment.
Bloody Engagements: John R. Kelso’s Civil War John R. Kelso Edited by Christopher Grasso P. 12
“We encamped near a hill of considerable height. While the men were cooking their supper, I climbed this hill alone and looked down upon the camp which covered some forty acres. At least a thousand bright fires were burning upon this space. Not a breath of air was stirring. The smoke rose straight upward into a vast column to the height of a mile or more, then, reaching a rarer atmosphere, it spread out into an immense canopy gorgeously illuminated by the flames below. A little way to my right, the rebel camp, about the same size, presented a similar scene. It was the finest night scene I had then ever beheld. Since then, I have seen few that have surpassed it.”
Note: Jackson abandons Winchester & heads to Strasburg today. President Lincoln relieves McClellan as General-in-Chief. He keeps him as Commander of the Army of the Potomac, though. From today until November 13, Lincoln & Stanton – his new Secretary of War– direct the war themselves. Then, on November 5, Lincoln will entirely remove McClellan from command and replace him with Ambrose Burnside– who doesn’t even want the job– a few days later. Lincoln explains to John Hay: “I preemptorily ordered him to advance…. He kept delaying on little pretexts of wanting this and that. I began to fear he was playing false– that he did not want to hurt the enemy. I saw how he could intercept the enemy on the way to Richmond. I determined to make that the test. If he let them get away I would remove him. He did so & I relieved him.” (When Lincoln requested they meet because they were in the same area, McClellan on two occasions snubbed him.)
Note too: Lincoln exhumed the coffin of his son Willie twice to look at him one last time; no one thought that unusual. His wife had nervous breakdowns, chasing him in the street with a butcher knife, held seances in the White House, misappropriated public funds, the press blasted her, & she, above all, was a Southerner. He didn’t need his General-in-Chief ignoring him. Fast-drip IV of Lexapro in order all around.
Note: In the Official Record, I found no correspondence between leaders from March 4 to March 15. The gap in the record says more in its silence in the blank space of each of these sentences, in each slice of paper not on record. 11/13/61, President “If there’s a worse place than hell, I’m in it” Lincoln is holding his lighter high for McClellan. He runs the request up the flagpole to visit McClellan late that night– after just having named him King of the Union Army– but in the magic spell of an alternate reality, George horses it home, goes up to bed instead. Alright, that’s my time. Goodnight. And that is very very very creepy. And that won’t be the last time McClellan conforms to an established pattern with his piker moves, puts up an out of order sign Gone Fishin’ and Lincoln has to eat crow. Something’s not sitting right. Off kilter. This is wrong, all wrong, something’s gotta give. Eventually something does but it takes until March of 1862 before Lincoln packs it in, fires him. An account of the night McClellan ignores Lincoln:
History of the Civil War 1861-1865 James Ford Rhodes P. 63
Note: This was in 1861:
“On the evening of November 13, the President, Secretary Seward, and John Hay called at McClellan’s house and were told by the servant at the door that the General was at an officer’s wedding and would soon return. Hay will write in his diary, “We went in and after we had waited about an hour, McClellan came in, and without paying any particular attention to the porter who told him the President was waiting to see him, went upstairs, passing the door of the room where the President and Secretary of State were seated. They waited half-an-hour, and sent once more a servant to tell the General they were there, and the answer cooly came that the General had gone to bed.” As Hay & Lincoln are returning to the White House, Hay talks to Lincoln about McClellan: “I merely record this unparallelled insolence of epaulettes without comment.” “It is the first indication I have yet seen of the threatened supremacy of the military authorities. Coming home I spoke to the President about the matter, but he seemed not to have noticed it specially, saying it was better, at this time, not to be making points of etiquette & personal dignity.” Another time, when McClellan refused to meet with Lincoln, Lincoln said, “Never mind; I will hold McClellan’s horse if he will only bring us success.’”
Note: Fast-forward to 1862. By the way, McClellan (1826-1885) is just 36 years old in 1862:
Storm over the Land: A profile of the Civil War Carl Sandburg 1939 P. 156-157
“McClellan now complained about lacking horses and Lincoln telegraphed: “To be told, after more than five weeks’ total inaction of the army, and during which…we have sent to the army every fresh horse we possibly could, amounting in the whole to 7918, that the cavalry horses were too much fatigued to move, presents a very cheerless, almost hopeless prospect for the future.”
The autumn weather was perfect for marching an army. McClellan telegraphed Lincoln asking whether he should march on the enemy at once or “wait the reception of new horses.” General-in-chief Halleck now replied, “The President does not expect impossibilities, but he is very anxious that all this good weather should not be wasted in inactivity.” McClellan came back with a long letter asking instructions as to many details, getting a rely that “the Government has intrusted you with defeating and driving back the rebel army on your front.” He could use his own discretion as to details. And as McClellan had mentioned in his long letter that perhaps Bragg was marching his Confederate army from Tennessee eastward, General Halleck ended his telegram, “You are within twenty miles of Lee, while Bragg is distant about 400 miles.”
McClellan now slowly moved his army across the Potomac and put it about where Pope’s army had lain before Second Bull Run. It was November. Lincoln told one of his secretaries that he had a test by which he would make a final judgment of McClellan. If that commander should permit Lee to cross the Blue Ridge and place himself between Richmond and the Army of the Potomac, Lincoln would remove McClellan from command. Now when Lee’s army reached Culpeper Courthouse the test of McClellan was over. Lincoln prepared a removal order.
Two men traveled in a driving snowstorm near midnight of November 7 to find the tent of General McClellan near Rectortown. They stepped in and shook off the snow from their big overcoats. One of the men was Adjutant General C.P. Buckingham of the War Department. The other was Major General Ambrose Everett Burnside. Buckingham handed McClellan a message relieving him of command of the Army of the Potomac and ordering him to turn it over to Burnside.”
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this is a splendid spring….
They get very still, almost insect-like, heart beating so fast they taste blood in their mouth. 100= thousand times each day a normal heart contracts, anywhere from 60-100 times a minute. 300= number of muscles the body uses to balance itself while standing still. They begin to see figures in the woods that aren’t there. List out a few degrees to aim. Who did you decide to pick off first? A shuffling, shifting back and forth raccoon-like, shambling between the thickest trees they can find. They twitch at the ready, flash in & out of existence, all instincts extended. 200= angle in degrees of average person vision. 7 grams= average eyeball weighs. Here. No, there. No, no– over there. They are just one bullet away from each other firing point A to B. There comes a time when you have to pull the trigger. Circling each other close to breaking the laws of physics. The uninflected pfizz by, that strange too-feral bird the mother knew to toss from the nest before it got too attached. Accounts of noise put it in a separate genera. Sway-backed dinosaur expectorations while a poltergeist throws boulders from the sky. Concussive. They’re loud for a while, then all you hear is the ringing like trails of lit off firecrackers to chase off evil spirits. They smell the sulphur wafting in the rammed air, hear echoes & richochets, the cries for relief from suffering radiating outward in the universe, leaving the sides of the night many hours later brutally peeled, a kind of keening, ending sunset with the dead space between the armies full of the newly dead.
The 4th of July’s got nothing on it, that lack of aim at you. Fireworks aren’t loud, don’t aim to vaporize you, aren’t trying to kill you. Fireworks love the sky. Shoot between heartbeats they say, as if you can slow it down. They feel concussions from the cannons boom in their heart. It’s a black speck in the sky ranging closer, not that you can see it for the smoke. The arc begins growing longer & higher in the sky like little suns, like the sun has lightning strikes, then it squats itself down ½ way across the sky like a hand coming out of space, or a like a murmuration of starlings & it’s there fast, obscuring the sky out of itself when it gets large & down enough to fall, a stamen arch of a flower wilting down, a black tulip. Flash of light from an exploding supernova, rivers of red veins behind the closed eyelids, & like a hung jury, it has its own cosmology. Now whoever’s going to die is going to die, and whoever isn’t, isn’t.
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