Richmond Must Fall - Finalist for Harwell Book Award

I learned recently that Richmond Must Fall was a finalist for the 2014 Richard B. Harwell Book Award from the Atlanta Civil War Round Table. The two other finalists were Earl Hess's book on Kennesaw Mountain and Allen Guelzo's Gettysburg title. Guelzo's excellent work earned the prize. I'm honored my book was included in such company.

Browning: The North Atlantic Blockading Squadron

I recently picked up From Cape Charles to Cape Fear, an excellent study by Robert M. Browning, Jr. about the North Atlantic Blockading Squadron.  Browning is a historian with the U.S. Coast Guard and has several other titles under his belt.   In From Cape Charles to Cape Fear, he provides a comprehensive treatment of naval activities in Virginia and North Carolina during the war, including offshore blockade operations and coastal gunboat activities.  Browning writes with a direct, clean style and delivers a well-organized narrative.

Among other things, the study furnishes a revealing analysis of the Confederate counteroffensive at New Bern and Plymouth in 1864.  In discussing these events, Browning notes the lack of cooperation between the Federal navy and army in North Carolina, particularly compared to efforts in the western theater.  He highlights the failure of Union forces, both on water and land, to destroy the rebel ironclads in N.C. before those vessels could float down the rivers and threaten federal coastal strongholds.  Browning also touches on the questionable decision to spread Union forces at multiple coastal enclaves, including Plymouth, Washington (N.C), and New Bern.  I'm happy to have added this title to my collection.

Waud's Combat Sketch at the Darbytown Road, October 27, 1864

Waud, "Battle of Darby Town Rd. Gen'l Butler & his staff," Library of Congress

Here's a look at an eyewitness sketch of the fighting outside Richmond on October 27, 1864.
On that day, Grant launched his sixth offensive of the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign. During this operation, General Benjamin Butler's Army of the James tested Richmond's defenses east of the city, while George Meade's Army of the Potomac attacked the Confederate lines at Petersburg in an effort to seize the vital South Side Railroad.

Early in the morning on the 27th, Butler and his staff rode west along the Darbytown Road and set up headquarters at Dr. Johnson's house, which stood on what is now Dorey Park.  Just to the north and west of the house, Alfred Terry's Tenth Corps troops, more specifically the men of Adelbert Ames's division, deployed to push against Richmond's defenders to the west. 

Looking north from Dr. Johnson's house, English-born artist William Waud captured the scene:
 
Waud, along with other artists during the war, created hundreds of sketches, which, in the absence of combat photography, provided first-hand impressions of the battlefield. William's older brother, Alfred, also created many well-known drawings during the conflict.  In 1864, both brothers worked for Harper's Weekly, published in New York.  In fact, the Library of Congress catalog identifies Alfred, incorrectly in my opinion, as the artist of the piece displayed here.  In my view, William is likely the artist because: 1) he prepared other sketches outside Richmond and Petersburg that day, including one at Dr. Johnson's house;  2) his brother Alfred had been in Washington, D.C. as recently as October 23rd after several weeks in the Shenandoah Valley; and 3) Alfred frequently wrote his initials on the bottom right hand corner of his work - initials missing from this drawing.

Left (West) Half of Sketch

Right (East) Half of Sketch

Waud appears to have prepared his sketch from the second floor window of Dr. Johnson's house, looking north toward the Darbytown Road, which runs through the middle of the drawing immediately in front of the stand of trees on the right.

LC Civil War Maps (2nd ed.), 632.7

This particular drawing reveals a trove of information about the October 1864 battles in this area.  It displays the location of the Union skirmish line on the 27th, supporting artillery that morning, key landmarks north of Darbytown Road (most notably the "Gerhardt" house), and the landscape surrounding Dr. Johnson's Farm (or "Plainfield").  The sketch not only uncovers valuable details about the October 27, 1864 operation, but also shows the ground over which other battles occurred earlier that month.  In an October 7 engagement at the Darbytown Road, Robert E. Lee's infantry swept over August Kautz's cavalry division, pushing the Union troopers toward the viewer in Waud's sketch and south to the safety of the Union lines on the New Market Road.  In addition, on October 13, the Union Tenth Corps conducted a costly reconnaissance advancing right to left across this scene in an effort to locate new Confederate trenches to the east.

Is this sketch entirely accurate?  Probably not.  It was not uncommon for the battlefield artists to take liberties with the scenes they rendered due perhaps to time constraints or the desire to create drawings that their editors would want to print.  In fact, the scene here probably depicts a composite of events that occurred over the course of the morning.  For example, it is unlikely that Butler, not one to rush forward, rode out with this staff so near the heat of the skirmish line, as suggested in the sketch (see #1 below).  Any excursion conducted by Butler probably occurred later in the day, after the Union troops had pushed further west (i.e., to the left of the sketch). 

Waud often scribbled copious notes on his drawings to help the engravers and editors back north.  Here are four of the more notable messages from the sketch:

#1 "Butler's Staff & Body Guard"

#2  "1st Connecticut Battery - Capt. Clinton"

#3  "Our skirmish firing at the rebels in the woods; the Gerhardt-House"

#4  "Cavalry going out to support the Battery (over coats - on)"

A correspondent from the New York Times also witnessed the day's events from Dr. Johnson's house and provided the following description, which augments Waud's sketch:

"From the upper windows of Dr. Johnson’s house, a very fair view of the skirmish line could be had. Our pickets were lying behind a small breastwork, about one hundred yards from the edge of trees, and all day long a desultory firing was kept up. There was nothing very exciting in all this. One becomes even tired of watching the little puffs of blue smoke that invariably follows the sudden rising of one of the crouching black specks whom we know to be men lying down along the distant parapet, as well as of noting the little clouds of gray dust that are thrown up by the rebel bullets which strike the ground in front of our boys, who are snug under shelter of the ridge of earth."  - New York Times, October 31, 1864.

Review of Civil War Talks in The Journal of Southern History

"There can be no doubt . . . that Newsome, Horn, and Selby have assembled a rich collection of war reminiscences that will appeal to scholars and enthusiasts alike."  

The most recent issue of The Journal of Southern History has a great review of Civil War Talks from Andre M. Fleche, author of The Revolution of 1861.  Fleche's piece goes to the heart of the project and effectively captures our goals in putting the book together.  He begins by discussing George Bernard's effort in the 1890's to publish first-hand accounts from Civil War veterans in Petersburg and elsewhere. Bernard's work resulted in the 1892 book, War Talks of Confederate Veterans, as well as in the compilation of additional material for a second volume that never reached publication. Fleche commends our detective work in digging up that missing second volume one hundred years later, which, in his words, is a "collector's trove of previously unpublished Bernard papers."

In addition to this background, the review relates the broad scope of Civil War Talks, which spans much of the war in the east.  The volume contains detailed accounts of Norfolk at the war's start, recollections of the 1862 Richmond and Antietam campaigns, little known stories of William Mahone's brigade at Gettysburg, eyewitness accounts of J.E.B. Stuart's mortal wounding during the Overland Campaign, and much material about the fighting at Petersburg.  The book also includes Mahone's own correspondence with Bernard about Seven Pines, Malvern Hill, the Weldon Railroad, Burgess Mill, and the Appomattox Campaign.

Fleche's review also touches on the book's implications for issues of historical memory.  He notes that the reminiscences of Bernard and his colleagues, typical of many soldier accounts, focus on battles and camp life, and generally avoid the broader issues underlying the war, such as slavery.  Some of Bernard's contributors hit on themes voiced by many Confederate veterans, including the notion of the "loyal slave" and the "independence and individuality" of the Confederate soldier. Fleche also mentions Bernard's wartime statements about the "subjection" of the southern states and the "invasion" of Virginia's soil.  Later in life, however, Bernard became somewhat of a reformer, taking a different tack from many of his fellow Confederate veterans.  Among other things, he supported the Readjuster Party, a black-white political alliance in Virginia, and advocated merit-based civil service reform, free from considerations of race and party.

Here are some more excerpts from the review:

"The result is a rich collection of primary sources on the military history of the Civil War that, at times, also speaks to issues of historical memory . . . . The editors do an excellent job of clearly but unobtrusively guiding the reader through the documents . . . .  The working historian will certainly appreciate the richness of the collection . . . .  Military historians will find the collection particularly useful."   

Bandy Field and Green's Farm

In 2003, I drew this sketch after a visit to Bandy Field, a small nature park in Richmond, Va. several blocks from my parents' home.  Situated off Three Chopt Road in the West End, the field sits on a low, uneven ridge running south from Glenside Drive along Three Chopt and ending at Cary Street Road near the James River.  Maps from the Civil War era show that Richmond's defenders constructed several detached, irregular earthworks in the vicinity of Bandy Field (see maps below).  These positions formed part of Richmond's outer defenses.  My notes from the sketch read: 

 "2/03, Nearby resident, who owned house adjacent to field, said College Hills development occurred around 1952 and that substantial Confederate earthworks were destroyed to make way for houses at A & B on the map.   Traces of earthworks remain at the triangular shaped parcel on the western edge of Bandy Field as marked by C.  Earthworks are currently unmarked and difficult to distinguish.  Homeowner said earthworks extended north  to A, B, and Z  and were quite substantial before home sites were cleared - apparently it was more than just a trench line.   Resident also mentioned that there is an old African-American cemetery at F.  This cemetery is unmarked and has a Spanish-American veteran buried in it."

Union engineer map of Richmond (Michler, Mitchie), 1862-1865, CW 632.8, LOC

Bandy Field also marks the general location of the fight at "Green's Farm," which occurred on March 1, 1864. During Colonel Ulric Dahlgren's raid on Richmond, a Union cavalry column pushed south along Three Chopt Road and encountered local defense forces in this area.  In the ensuing engagement, Dahlgren's troopers brushed aside members of the Richmond Armory Battalion but eventually were halted at Hick's Farm on the Westham Plank Road (now Cary Street Road). The original house at Green's Farm (also known as "Huntley") remains today and is on the National Register of Historic Places. More about Bandy Field can be found at the Friends of Bandy Field website.

Confederate map found on the body of General John Chambliss in Aug. 1864,  CW 642.5, LOC