The Family of Col. Benjamin Lewis Blackford

I wrote about him a lot in my Running the Blockade blog back in November and December 2013.  I am having to go back to that time and redo my entries as I was unable to use paragraphs for seven months.  I was redoing an entry on him (he was not impressed with the Wilmington, N.C., area when posted there during the war.

So I looked him up on Find-A-Grave.  He was there, but there was no information about him, but I did find some history about him in 29 September 2010, Virginia Memory Out of the Box "A Surveyor's View of Wartime Virginia."

He was born in 1835 in Fredericksburg, Virginia, to William Matthews Blackford (1801-1864) and Mary Berkeley  Minor Blackford (1802-1898) who was an anti-slavery activist.  At age ten, Lewis and his family moved to Lynchburg, Va..

When the war began, Lewis and his four brothers joined the Confederate Army, despite their mother's strong pro-Union sympathies.  Lewis enlisted in Co. G, 11th Virginia in April 1861, but left in May to join the Confederate Engineering Corps and spent the war making maps in Virginia and North Carolina.

Lewis had the reputation in his family of being a little too easy-going.  Although two wartime romances ended badly for him (one of them was in Wilmington, N.C.), nether seemed to keep him down for long.

--Old Secesh

Information From Benjamin Lewis Blackford's Letter

I just recently finished transcribing this very informative letter. Some interesting points:

1. How bloody the Seven Days Battles were.
2. The poignant story of the wounded Union soldier.
3. Union doctors were able to stay on the battlefield to tend to their wounded.

4. The Confederate charge (evidently at Malvern Hill against the massed Union artillery.
5. Union General McClellan's report covering up the real losses.  From the Union letters he collected: 
6. That the enemy's soldiers weren't fighting because they loved the slaves, that they actually considered their freedom to threaten wages paid to northerners

7. They considered themselves fighting against aristocracy (and he admitted they were).
8. Getting coffee was very difficult and he would settle for rye coffee.
9. Mess mates shared in the expense of their food.

10. As an officer, he was getting $100 a month along with $25-30 for rations.
11. I wasn't sure who C. Minor was, who was with him at camp. Perhaps a slave, but Blackford mentioned paying him?

All in All, a Very Interesting and Informative Letter. --Old Secesh

"Saw Horrors Enough for a Century:" Seven Days Battles-- Part 6

"I saw Lanty day before yesterday and Eugene yesterday. both well. I wish I could see you all. I sent Mary a relic from the battle field Tuesday by Willy. If Charley M. is with you tell him I am anxious to have him.

"Please lay out [$3.00?] in [letter?] for Cousin May & send it by Expr.(express). She is most kind and hospitable. I will send you the money in my next.

"Oh, please prepare me some rye for coffee, a good deal, there are six in my mess, I do so need something hot in the morning. I have not had coffee for months.

"Our breakfast this morning was baked bread and onions! I hear your rye is as good as other's coffee.

"Let me know the expense, you know it comes out of six pockets. Please send this at once and by Express care C.A. Gwa?. Thank you much for your letter & Belle for her P.S. Does the latter ever write [to people?]

"My best love to Sister Sue & Nannie. I hope Pa is well again. How is Peggy. My love to her. I am important now & say unto people go and they goeth. Also my pay has been raised. that is I get $100 & my rations equal $125 or 130. Good bye.

" I so delight in C. Minor with me. I can & hope give him a much better pay that I promised him but I am not altogether certain.

"B. Lewis Blackford

A Very Informative Letter. --Old Secesh

"Saw Horrors Enough for a Century:" Seven Days Battles-- Part 5: About Those Letters

"One thing I want you to notice. During my survey I picked up and looked over at least 1000 letters. not a single one was correctly written or spelled, and they were rarely decent.

"They all instigated those they were written to murder & steal. they evinced neither love of this country nor sympathy for our slaves, indeed the working classes spoke of the negroes with murderous hate, as probable competitors to lower the price of labor.

"They hate us blindly & [?] they believe us to be an aristocracy (and so we are, thank God) and they hate us as the French canaille hated the noblesse in the revolution then."

-- Old Secesh

"Saw Horrors Enough for a Century:" Seven Days Battles-- Part 4

"Eugene lost 13 of his 23 men in that charge and had his pistol shot away by a grape shot. But to think of McClelland's report. Maj. Gen. Liar! A more utter & complete rout never disgraced a nation 25000 of their discarded muskets have been already turned over to our Gov. & not less than 60000 overcoats.

"He destroyed everything and fifty millions of dollars will not repay their losses in property and arms in nothing but the celerity with which his left wing took flight before they were saved them.. The centre & right of the Yankees fought well."

I imagine Blackford was referring to Union General McClellan's battle report.

--Old Secesh

"Saw Horrors Enough for a Century:" Seven Days Battles-- Part 3: The Wounded Yankee

"I myself found a Yankee in a thicket on Friday who had been shot through his lungs the previous Monday & was alive, lying as he had been shot without food or drink. I found a surgeon (Yankee, of whom numbers were around) for this poor fellow, but it was no use. the Dr. merely pulled open his shirt & said, "He'll die, no use to move him" & went away & he did die while I was looking at him.

"The desperate courage of our men was beyond any precedent. I have never heard or read anything like it. Tuesday, Magruder ordered a charge on a collection of 36 guns, there was more than a mile of perfectly open ground to be gone over, our men were unsupported by artillery & entirely exposed to this awful fire. the charge of the [600?] was nothing to it. but they went at it with a yell. before they had gone 2/3 of the way a thousand men were stretched on that awful field & the increasing darkness was all that saved the rest."

--Old Secesh

"Saw Horrors Enough for a Century:" The Seven Days Battles-- Part 2

Lt. Blackford continued: "I was ordered from my original survey here to the otherside after the fighting commenced to map the country vacated by the enemy, & the battlefield consequently I followed close along in the wake of the carnage, & saw horrors enough for a century.

"I have seen blood enough in that time to swim in, and dead and dying enough to people a city. The Yankees left all their dead and vast numbers of their wounded all along-- and many who were wounded in their fight and crept off in the woods died lingering deaths from starvation."

--Old Secesh

"Saw Horrors Enough For a Century:" Lt. Blackford Writes About the Seven Days Battles-- Part 1

From the July 12, 2012, Civil War Day By Day from the UNC Library.

A letter written by Benjamin Lewis Blackford July 12, 1862, to his mother from a camp near Chesterfield, Virginia, where he was serving as a topographical engineer for the Confederate Army. In it, he wrote about the carnage he had observed in the aftermath of the Seven Days Battles outside Richmond.

I have had extensive extracts from a couple letters he wrote in October 1863 concerning his transfer to Wilmington, North Carolina, in my Running the Blockade Civil War Navy Blog, including today. Blackford was a very literate and observant person.

"I could write you a very interesting letter if I was not so busy-- in fact I have been storing up the incidents of the last two days with a special view of spinning them them into a long yarn home, but this topographical business keeps me at work night & day, week days & Sundays."

More to Come.  --Old Secesh