Research fun

On a recent tip from a fellow student of The Late Unpleasantness, I got a copy of an 1863 diary of a trooper in the 8th Illinois Cavalry that’s located in the research library of a Pennsylvania college.  To my knowledge, this diary has never been used before in any capacity, and it’s a simply fabulous daily snapshot of life in the Federal Cavalry in 1863.  There are wonderful entries of each important action and battle during the year.  The trooper kept good notes for every single day of the year without exception, and I’ve been having fun working at transcribing it from his original longhand.  I passed on the June 9 Battle of Brandy Station material to Eric, and he recently worked it into the manuscript of the 3-volume study of Gettysburg Campaign cavalry actions we’re currently working on.  The diary is yielding an enormous amount of material that will find its way into the volumes.

My researcher also recently sent me a couple large envelopes with lots of primary material that he’s uncovered.  One bit of it is the recollections of a South Carolina cavalryman that served in Gen. Wade Hampton’s brigade.  This trooper makes many comments about the officers he served under, and I found one to be particularly interesting – and revealing.  It’s his impressions of Jeb Stuart, and it’s quite unlike any other.  While so many contemporary comments about Stuart are positive, this fella had little good to say about Jeb.  Here’s what he wrote in a contemporary observation:

I wish to say what I think of Stuart right now… He looks more like a clown and fool than a soldier, nor can you see him without a feeling of contempt for him; yet he is generous and brave – two qualities that redeem a multitude of faults.  You seldom see him on foot but on horse-back.  He wears a roundabout coat, the sleeves and collar of which are gorgeous with stars and trimmings.  His hat has some sort of insignia on it, I do not know what, with two long drooping ostrich plumes in it – high top dragoon boots with brass spurs and very fine, elaborate housing for his horse completes his outfit.  Red hair and long red beard make up the man that is thoroughly and firmly persuaded that J.E.B. Stuart is the great man of this war.  He keeps old Mike Sweeney at his headquarters to play the banjo for him, and he has a song that he sings most all the time (“Old Joe Hooker Come Out of the Wilderness”).
I do not know whether that this raid around McClellan originated from Stuart or not, but it sounds like him, as I don’t think that Gen. Lee would have thought of such a fool thing.

Well, you have to love someone who doesn’t pull any punches.  And it’s certainly a bit different than most contemporary observations of Jeb that I’ve ever read.

Good karma indeed

Eric posted yesterday about the wonderful assistance we’ve been receiving lately from our good friends in the Civil War community in researching for our new book project on Jubal Early’s 1864 Raid and the battles of Monocacy and Ft. Stevens.  Eric called it “good karma” and he’s absolutely right.

In our search of primary sources, we compiled quite a list of material in the form of letters, diaries, recollections, manuscripts, etc. that are in the repositories of historical societies and universities around the country.  Unless we suspended our jobs for several months and bought a handful of plane tickets, there’s no way that Eric and I could travel around and procure these sources by ourselves.  They range in geographical locations such as Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and just about every state that was in the Confederacy.

Over the past few weeks, once we had our list of sources (which gets revised constantly) we put out a couple calls to our good friends that live near these areas… and also an email post to active online forums that we belong to, such as the Gettysburg Discussion Group and the Civil War Discussion Group.  Several good-hearted folks answered us, volunteering to visit these repositories for us and to go through the material.  (We are compensating them, of course, but they are as excited about doing the research as we always are.) 

We have nearly a dozen people, including our own full-time researcher, working on procuring material at this point.  And a good deal of the material has not been mined previously, or used in a treatment of these July 1864 actions.  These folks are emailing us and letting us know what they’ve found, and it’s generating a lot of excitement for all of us.

The point, as Eric also makes it, is that this sense of volunteerism (whether a person is paid or not) and willingness to help on such a project is amazing and gratifying to see.  We are going to have a considerable amount of folks to thank in our Acknowledgements section of the book – and they will be as responsible for its completion as we are.  There is no way that we could complete this book, and it wouldn’t be as detailed and documented as we expect it to be, without all of their help.

In our previous two joint works, the book on Stuart’s Ride to Gettysburg and the book on the retreat from Gettysburg, the reader will see a lot of folks that we’ve thanked for their help.  And moreso in the retreat book.  If there were really justice in publishing ( ) all of their names would appear on the cover with our own.

From both Eric and me, thanks to all of you for your ongoing assistance.  Among my closest friends are those that I’ve made in the Civil War community.  We move away from, and lose touch, with those friends we make when we’re young – but your base of friends then begins to change and solidify when you get older.  In my case, when I got married to my lovely wife nearly 5 years ago, all but one of my groomsmen were friends made in this community over the past decade or so.  That speaks volumes about how tight the friendships were, still are, and will continue to be.

No man is an island, and no writer can afford to be alone when so much help is needed – and freely offered.  When this book appears, it will be a cooperative effort from not just two guys, but a whole community of folks who truly care.

“Farnsworth’s Charge” – Right vs. Wrong

In the new issue of Blue&Gray Magazine just on the shelves (Summer 2007, Special Gettysburg Issue) is printed the letter by myself and Eric Wittenberg refuting Gettysburg LBG Andrea Custer’s revisionist theory on the charge.  Behind it is Custer’s response to us.  Our original letter was about 5500 words, but it had to be edited down to 2500 for the issue due to space limitations.  Therefore, later today, Eric will be posting the entire 5500-word response on his blog. 

Either tonite or tomorrow, I will be posting here our additional refutation of the points she makes in her response.  We believe that her theory (published in B&G last summer) about the location of the charge and timing of Farnsworth’s death is incorrect and easily disproven by the evidence.  In fact, the evidence is easily used against her theory.  In her published response, Custer makes assertions based on our letter that need a reponse.

My apologies again for the lack of posting over the past couple of weeks.  I spent most of my free time last week working on revisions of the manuscript on the Retreat from Gettysburg by myself, Eric, and Mike Nugent.  As Eric has posted on his blog recently, we’ve changed the scope of the book a bit, and we believe it is now a truly scholarly account of the retreat as well as the decision-making of the leaders of both sides.  I’m also currently working on one of the appendices to the book, a narrative of Federal Cavalry Corps commander Alfred Pleasonton’s role in the three Councils of War that Meade called during the campaign – we think it will be quite interesting, and a subject never explored in such detail before.

Not what you’d think

While perusing my copy of William F. Fox’s 1889 classic Regimental Losses in the Civil War last night for nuggets to use in upcoming writing projects, I came across the section in chapter 7 in which Fox delineates some data from the muster rolls (p. 62).  Fox gives averages for enlistees, such as height and weight, and percentages of other data such as hair color, occupation, nationality, etc.

I’ve often heard, as I suspect many others have, that the Civil War soldier (and any person of the era) was a great deal shorter than the average American today.  Hey, just look at the myriad of original uniforms in any museum – they look as if they’d barely fit our 12 year-olds today.  I know that their smallness has always surprised me.  But in looking at the data in Fox, I was reminded of how surprised I was by the true data.

According to Fox, the average height of the Civil War soldier was slightly over 5’8″.  I’m not sure of the average height of the American male today (probably a simple Internet search would find that) but I suspect that’s not a whole lot shorter than today’s average.  All those small uniforms in the museums sure seem to paint a different picture, but an averaging of the muster rolls is what it is.

The average enlistee was, not surprisingly, a good deal lighter than today’s average – he averaged about 143 pounds.  So, tall and lean he was.  I’m sure today’s average weight is quite higher – many news programs tell us all the time how fat America is.  The difference, I’m sure, was due to the physical labor and activity done by males of the era, as well as the obviously different diet.  You didn’t stop at the local McDonald’s for a meal in 1861.  And there were no all-you-can-stuff-in buffets either.

As to be expected, there were definitely extremes and peculiarities in the numbers.  Here’s some from Fox:

The men from Maine, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, and Kentucky were slightly taller than the average.  West Virginians averaged 5’9″ in height.  Out of about 1,000,000 recorded heights of soldiers there were 3,613 who were over 6’3″, and among them were some who were over 7′ tall.  Must have been something in that water!

However, Fox makes an interesting comment about height and performance.  Keep in mind that in marching formation, soldiers were arranged tallest to shortest from front to back (something you rarely see done at reenactments today):  “But tall men proved to be poor material for a long, toilsome campaign.  When, after a hard, forced march, the captain looked over his company at nightfall to see how many men he had with him, the ‘ponies’ who trudged along at the tail of the company were generally all there; it was the head of the company that was thinned out.”

The descriptive lists show that 13% had black hair, 25% had dark hair, 30% brown hair, 24% light, 4% sandy, 3% red, and 1% gray hair.  So, not a dearth of gray-haired, 300-pound soldiers like you see at so many reenactments?

Eye color – 45% had blue eyes, 24% gray, 13% hazel, 10% dark, and 8% black.

So, based on the averages, if you pulled a Civil War soldier out of the line, what would you likely get?

A 5’8″, 143-pound, brown-haired and blue-eyed fella who’d probably make most of the long marches.  And he’d have no idea what a Happy Meal is.

Is that what you expected?

Cavalry depots

While researching recently the topic of cavalry depots (remount camps) for an article I’m working on, I’ve been getting quite an appreciation for the subject.  Over the years I’ve run across the topic of the depots and camps in my study and reading, but never anything indepth until now.  My researcher has been pulling all the information he can find on the Federal Government’s cavalry depots during the war – and is now scouring the National Archives.  I hadn’t realized, until now, the depth of the scheming, bribery, and profiteering that took place.  I’d long known that the camps provided yet another opportunity for the unscrupulous to profit from the war, but I had no idea of the scope of criminal activity that was taking place.

I’ve been finding many examples that are quite shocking.  One administrator of Geisboro Point near Washington DC, in fact, only lasted a few weeks after he was found to be collaborating with the ne’er-do-wells that were supplying substandard horses.  Literally, horses near death were branded as fit for service.  The most run-down nags were being sold to the government at many times the going price for a quality horse. 

But by the final year of the war, especially with the arrival of  chief of the Cavalry Bureau Gen. James H. Wilson, the depot and quality control was finally straightened out.  Supplying Sheridan’s cavalry corps with quality mounts was a monumental task.  Because the Federal cavalry, in both the east and west, played such a major role in the ending of the war, the cavalry remount camps turned out to be an indispensible service and one that is rarely appreciated today.

I hope to be ready to begin writing this article in the next two weeks.  Besides the logistical information regarding supplying mounts to all the branches of service, it will also give readers a good idea of the problems faced in ’63 and ’64 – both logistical and the criminal activity.  Like just about everything else, the Cavalry Bureau was afflicted by the political and profiteering machine.  Wherever there’s a buck to be made, someone will want it and find a way to make it.

Things change little over time, eh?

Scratchin’ fleas

Reader Richard Williams posted a comment to my “Army of Amateurs” post from A.E. Housman.  It’s his definition of a historian, and I really like it:

A historian is not like a scientist looking through a microscope, but more like a dog searching for fleas. You can never be sure you have got them all.

How apropos.  No matter how exhaustively you think you’ve researched a topic, something new always turns up.  Researching the Civil War is no different.  There’s always another diary or letter lurking there in Grandma’s attic for the last 100 years, or a rare book that hasn’t seen the light of day for generations.  It’s indeed like scratching fleas, and thank goodness there’s always the possibility of discovering more.  If we no longer had unknown and yet-undiscovered source material out there, modern scholarship would simply be repetitive and rehashing.

After releasing my book and most of my articles, something new had a habit of turning up.  That’s frustrating, yet exciting.  Sometimes, though, you catch it just in the nick of time.  I’ve posted examples of that regarding the Stuart book here.  But late last year I completed an article on the cavalry battle at Fairfield, PA, which took place on July 3, 1863 concurrently with Pickett’s Charge at nearby Gettysburg.  The article will be published in the July issue of America’s Civil War magazine this year.  It contained the most up to date scholarship when I completed it, and I was very satisfied with it.

Then, I discovered a letter written after the battle by Maj. Samuel H. Starr, the commander of the 6th US Cavalry detachment that was all but decimated by Brig. Gen. William E. “Grumble” Jones’ Confederate cavalry brigade that day at Fairfield.  No accounting of the fight has ever used anything written by Starr before.  Starr was desperately wounded that day (an arm was amputated) and his letter contains much about the local citizens who nursed him back to health.  The letter was so good, that rather than quoting a few lines from it, I composed a sidebar piece for the article that contains the entirety of the letter.  I believe it will be printed alongside the article.  In addition, I also discovered a private letter written by a 6th US trooper who witnessed the saving of the regiment’s colors, and for which a Medal of Honor was issued after the war.  There has never been a lot of detail about the event until now, since I was able to weave in great details from the letter.  Neither letter has been used in any accounting of the battle before.  Now I’m really proud of the article, and it contributes a lot more scholarship to this relatively obscure fight than I had previously hoped.

I also received an email recently from a reader and fellow author regarding how I find my sources.  I do get this question quite often, in fact.  The questioner wondered where I go, and whether I procure material myself or use a hired researcher.

As to the latter, I do both.  My researcher gets half or more of my sources for me.  He’s in Washington DC, and it’s worth it to me to pay someone hourly rather than do it all myself – which would be much more expensive in lost work time and other expenses.

As to where I get my material, that’s a much broader answer.  Besides the obvious places like the Military History Institute holdings at Carlisle, PA, and the Library of Congress and National Archives, there are all sorts of terrific libraries around the country that have vast historical collections.  State museums and archives have a wealth of material.  And because of my website, this blog, and my public activities, an enormous amount of material in private hands comes to me.  This is probably the most rewarding.  I get emails such as, “Hey, my great-great grandfather was in the Xth cavalry regiment, was at such-and-such a battle, and I have all his letters here…. would you be interested in seeing them?”  My heart jumps at such emails and letters. 

Yep, it’s sure like scratching fleas.  My trusty dog probably wouldn’t appreciate the analogy, but I hope there continues to be lots more fleas out there to go after.  It’s what keep me going as a student and historian.  Just the thought that there’s one more letter, diary, or book out there I haven’t seen yet, just one more from some guy who wrote about his experience never knowing what it would mean to the future, keeps me going onward.  Even with all the material we have now, there may be just as much lurking out there somewhere waiting to be used and appreciated.

Thank (scratch) goodness.

National Archives Digitization Project

In a comment to one of my previous posts about the massive digitization of books on the internet, I mused about the possible availability of just about anything historical on the ‘net one day.  The following was recently sent to me by a friend, regarding the ongoing digitization project of the National Archives holdings:

WASHINGTON and LINDON, Utah, Jan. 10 /PRNewswire/ — Archivist of the United States Allen Weinstein and Footnote, Inc. CEO Russell Wilding today announced an agreement to digitize selected records from the vast holdings of the National Archives. The 4.5 million pages that have been digitized so far are now available at the National Archives website (http:www.nara.gov).

This non-exclusive agreement, beginning with the sizeable collection of materials currently on microfilm, will enable researchers and the general public to access millions of newly-digitized images of the National Archives historic records on a subscription basis from the Footnote website. By February 6, the digitized materials will also be available at no charge in National Archives research rooms in Washington D.C. and regional facilities across the country. After an interval of five years, all images digitized through this agreement will be available at no charge through the National Archives website.

“This is an exciting step forward for the National Archives,” said Professor Weinstein. “It will immediately allow much greater access to approximately 4.5 million pages of important documents that are currently available only in their original format or on microfilm. The digitization of documents will also enhance our efforts to preserve our original records.”

“The partnership with the National Archives will expand significantly the content we are able to offer professional and amateur researchers,” said Footnote CEO Russell Wilding. “We will continue to add millions of original documents and images monthly.”

The following represents a portion of the millions of historic documents that will be made available as part of the National Archives – Footnote Agreement.

Papers of the Continental Congress (1774-89). The Papers of the Continental Congress include Journals of the Congress, reports of its committees, papers submitted by state Governments, and correspondence of its Presidents and other officers with diplomatic representatives of the United States abroad, officers in the Continental Army, State and local officials, and private persons. Among the Papers are copies of the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, the Northwest Ordinance, the Constitution, and other documents instrumental in molding the new Government. Also included are drafts of treaties and commercial agreements, papers relating to expenditures and loans, reports of military progress during the Revolution, and papers relating to Indian treaties and tribes.

Mathew B. Brady Collection of Civil War Photographs. One of the largest and most frequently researched bodies of Civil War photography anywhere, this series originated with some 6,000 glass plate negatives acquired by the War Department from Brady in 1874-1875. Encompassing images by the enterprising Brady and more than a dozen other photographers, including Alexander Gardner and Timothy O’Sullivan, directly or indirectly associated with him, the series ranges from Brady Gallery portraits of leading military and political personalities of the 1850′s-1860′s to views of units, battlefields, ruins, landscapes, camps, hospitals, prisons, fortifications, bridges, and railroads from Fredericksburg to Chickamauga to Atlanta.

Southern Claims Commission. In the 1870s, some southerners claimed compensation from the U.S. government for items used by the Union Army, ranging from corn and horses, to trees and church buildings. The claim files contain a wealth of genealogical information and they consist of petitions, inventories of properties lost, testimony of family members and others, reports, and certificates submitted by claimants to the Southern Claims Commission as proof of loyalty to the Federal Government and value of property damaged or lost during the Civil War. The materials are arranged by state and thereunder by the name of the claimant.

Name Index to Civil War and Later Pension Files. Pension applications for service in the U.S. Army between 1861 and 1900, grouped according to the units in which the veterans served. The name index to the Civil War and Later Pension Application Files contains over 3 million index entries documenting the applications of soldiers, sailors and their widows. The index is the entry point for one of the most significant bodies of Federal records documenting the lives of volunteers who served in the Civil War, the western Indian Wars, and the Spanish American War.

Investigative Case Files of the Bureau of Investigation, 1908-22. The Bureau of Investigation investigated real and perceived threats to the nation and its citizens before it became the FBI. The materials compiled by the BOI from 1908 to 1922 consist of an index to the investigative case files, general investigative records, investigative records relating to German Aliens from 1915 through 1920, investigative records relating to Mexican Neutrality Violations from 1909 through 1921, and investigative records transferred from the Department of Justice from 1920 through 1921. The records are arranged alphabetically by the name of the person or organization investigated.

Another terrific online text source

A couple days ago, Eric Wittenberg passed on to me another great online source for books, texts, and many other media types.  It’s the “Internet Archive” at http://www.archive.org.  There appear to be even more digitized books accessible here than on Microsoft’s site that I posted about previously.  Both of these sites often take you to the same database for books.  A search will repeat a particular source several times when it’s in different databases.

Just type in what you’re looking for in the search box at the top of the screen, then select the media type.  When you find what you want, you can flip through the book, download it, print it, etc.

Last night I was thinking about the digitization of so many historical sources – books, papers, manuscripts, newspapers, all kinds of documents.  I can easily see where, some day, everything in – for instance – the Library of Congress, National Archives, university libraries, historical repositories, etc. will be available for viewing online.  You can see anything you want from the comfort of your own computer.

Researchers who now work doing this digging for scholars and writers will probably one day be mostly out of a job, but such easy access to this nation’s historical documents can only be good – now everyone can see the sources for themselves.

Check out the site.  It’ll keep you quite busy.

A Cavalry Charge

Yesterday I “discovered” a primary source on the June 9, 1863 Battle of Brandy Station that I had never seen before.  It is an address by a former officer in a Massachusetts infantry regiment, a regiment that accompanied the Federal cavalry that day and participated in heavy skirmishing.  The address was read at an event in Boston in 1884, and it was given a limited publishing that same year.

The address is fascinating, and is the best description of the Federal column’s march to Beverly Ford that I’ve ever seen.  Most accounts of the battle completely skip that portion of the event.  And the perspective from an infantry officer is quite refreshing, revealing details I’d never known about.

Once I’d read through it, I had to find out if anyone has ever used it before in a book or article.  A search of my library last night turned up only one book that used it, and there’s only a couple references to it.  99% of the fabulous stuff has been untouched all these years.

One paragraph of this source (which is over 20 pages total) is the officers’ wonderful description of Gen. John Buford’s mounted cavalry charge early in the action near St. James’ Church.  (It reminded me a bit of Francis Durivage’s famous poem “The Cavalry Charge.”)  Here it is:

The soft, dewy grass of the morning was now kicked and trampled into dry dust.  The infantry held the enemy in the open space beyond the woods; while Buford hurled his squadrons, with drawn sabres, upon the Rebel cavalry on the right and left.
A sabre charge, with both sides going at top speed, is, perhaps, the most exciting and picturesque combination of force, nerve, and courage that can be imagined.  The commanding officers leading in conspicuous advance; the rush, the thunder of horses’ hoofs; the rattle of arms and equipments, – all mingling with the roar of voices, while the space rapidly lessens between the approaching squadrons.  The commanders who were seen, a moment before, splendidly mounted, dashing on at racing speed, turning in the saddle to look back at the tidal wave which they are leading, disappear in a cloud of sabres, clashing and cutting; but the fight is partially obscured by the rising dust and the mist from the over-heated animals.  Riderless horses come, wounded and trembling, out of the melee; others appear, running in fright, carrying dying troopers still sitting their chargers, the head drooping on the breast, the sword-arm hanging lifeless, the blood-stained sabre dangling from the wrist, tossing, swinging, and cutting the poor animal’s flanks, goading him on in his aimless flight.  In this moment of intense excitement, the Rebels give way on the left.  Our troopers follow in hot pursuit.  On they go, over the dead and dying…

This is without a doubt the best description of an actual cavalry charge I’ve ever seen, and from an infantryman no less.  The rest of the address is just as fabulous in its specifics, and it amazes me that it has virtually not been used at all.  Eric Wittenberg and I, just starting a three-volume history of cavalry operations during the Gettysburg Campaign, will make full use of this rare source for the first time.

I thought I’d share this piece with my readers, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did when I came across it.

The sawdust was flyin’…

I’m generally a pretty organized guy.  Well, some would even call me a neat freak.  Okay, okay, let’s say my wife and daughter have called me that once.  Or twice.

Over the past few years, I’ve really ramped up the amount of collected research material as I got serious about writing books and articles, more so than when I was putting together my website.  My researcher sends me a lot of material on a weekly basis, I’ve probably purchased about 500 books in just the past five years or so, and copied huge amounts of material in repositories and collections in that time frame.  All of which began forming a clutter in my library that I just couldn’t take anymore.

The piles and piles of papers were getting unwieldy.  In the back of my library is a large closet, about 60 square feet, the floor of which was nearly covered with paper piles.  For the Stuart’s Ride book project, I would use a particular source and then put it in the piles.  God help me if I had to try to go back and find a particular paper in those piles – it could take hours.  Much of the piles contained sources I’d accumulated for future projects – with nothing grouped together.  Some smaller shelves in the closet were already stuffed with binders full of copies of books and newspaper articles.  As I’ve posted previously, Microsoft’s new online historical book site has been keeping my printer busy as I print off dozens of useful books, with no organized place to store them.

Having a vacation day yesterday (Tuesday) motivated me to finally organize this closet.  My wife had to work all day, so I knew I’d be able to work on the closet without bothering anyone.  In the morning I went to Lowe’s and loaded up on 6 oak shelves, all the necessary brackets and hardware, and other things I’d need.  When I got back home, the closet, of course, needed cleaning out.

I took all the piles of papers and boxes out, creating one huge pile on the floor in the library.  Good thing the better half wasn’t home, because if she’d seen the mess she would have thought I was nuts.  Plus, she probably doesn’t realize that even I had this much “stuff.”  Hell, I didn’t either until I had everything out and piled up.

I set up my radial saw in the garage, and cut all the shelving needed.  I put the brackets on the wall, and once installed I had over 50 linear feet of new shelving.  I broke for lunch and determined that by the time my wife got home at 4pm, everything in the closet was going to be organized.

Well, I almost made it.  When she got home I was still putting the last of the binders and new folders on the shelves, but I was nearly done.  Now, the binders of newspaper articles has its own shelf, with each binder neatly labeled.  Same for the binders containing copies of books and large manuscript material.  There are still some piles of unfiled papers – but now they’re on the shelves and organized by subject matter, ready to be put into their own binders and folders.  This I’ll do over the coming weeks.  As more material comes in from my researcher and other sources, it’ll have a place to go where I can find it easily and work with it.

I’m happy, the wife’s happy, and I can find everything for my current book and articles project.

Oh, and I discovered that the floor of the closet is carpeted – I had forgotten because I hadn’t seen it in years…