Robert E. Lee-- Part 5: Winfield Scott and Lincoln

Both Winfield Scott and General Wool were quite elderly when the war began.  Winfield Scott had been in the War of 1812.

Lee had been in command of troops at Harpers Ferry when John Brown attacked because he was senior officer present.  JEB Stuart also there.

One task Lincoln gave Scott was to escort Mary Todd Lincoln to New York City to prevent her from spending too much money.

Scott recommended Lee to be commander of U.S. forces.  Lincoln accepted the recommendation and made Lee an offer which Lee turned down because of loyalty to his state, Virginia.

Scott  came up with the Anaconda Plan to defeat the South by carving it up and setting a blockade off its coasts.

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Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis.  Davis had an extensive military background and Lincoln didn't.  Davis backed his commanding generals regardless of performance.  Lincoln did not.  They had different perspectives on their generals.

--Old Secesh

Henry Haupt-- Part 3

**  Henry Haupt organized supply and troop movements during the Gettysburg Campaign.

**  He had permission to commandeer Virginia railroads, but now got control over those railroads in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

**  He was a big enemy of Governor Andew of Pennsylvania.

**  After the war, Haupt was involved in an oil pipeline and became very wealthy.

--Old Secesh

President Zachary Taylor's Children-- Part 1

From Find-A-Grave.

ZACHARY TAYLOR

BIRTH:  24 November 1784  Orange, Virginia

DEATH:  9 July 1850 (age 65)

BURIAL: Zachary Taylor National Cemetery, Louisville, Kentucky

He was the last U.S. President to own slaves while in office.

His youngest child and only son, Richard Taylor, was a Confederate general during the Civil War and his second child, Sarah Knox  Taylor, married future Confederate President Jefferson Davis in 1835, but died of malaria shortly after their marriage.

--Old Secesh

Death of Lt. J. Rudhall White-- Part 2: An Eulogy

From "History of the 118th  Pennsylvania Volunteers: The Corn Exchange Regiment."

"White was a handsome, soldiery young man of scarce twenty summers.    A native of Warrenton, Virginia, at the breaking  out of the war, he was a young lieutenant in the Black Horse Cavalry, a command subsequently famous in all the campaigns  of Virginia.

"Differing in sentiments among his friends and his family, sacrificing the ties of home and  friendship, he was determined to defend his convictions with his sword.  Firm in his belief that the unrighteous attempt to disrupt the Government should be suppressed, imbued with the purest and highest patriotism, he sought service in the Union  army.  (Even though a native of Virginia and with all his family and friends siding with the Confederacy, he determined to go with his country.)

"Instinctively a soldier by principle, his sad and early death interrupted a career that promised the brightest prospects.  His short service had secured him the confidence of his superiors and respect of the soldiers."

A Loss.  --Old Secesh

Virginia's Black Horse Cavalry

From the Encyclopedia Virginia.

In the last post, I mentioned that Lt. J. Rudhall White who was killed at the Battle of Shepherdstown as a member of the 118th Pennsylvania Infantry was a native of Warrenton, Virginia, and had been a member of the famed Black Horse Cavalry before he threw in his lot with the Union. 

The Black Horse Cavalry was conceived by a gathering of Warrenton lawyers in 1858 and was among the local militia groups called to active duty by Governor Henry Wise in 1859.

The Black Horse Cavalry led a successful charge against Union forces at the First Battle of Bull Run, winning the special praise of Confederate President Jefferson Davis.  Known as Company H of the 4th Virginia Cavalry, the unit served as  bodyguard, escort  and scout for generals Joseph E, Johnston and  Stonewall Jackson.

Following the war, a number of men from the group became prominent  leaders in the state.

--Old Secesh

Death of Lt. J. Rudhall White at the Battle of Shepherdstown: 'Thank God I Am Over At Last'

From the October 8, 2008, AotW "On the  trail of the Corn Exchange Regiment."  These guys went to the battle site, and retraced the steps of the hapless 118th, even crossing the Potomac River on foot.  Now, there's some dedication.  Well worth going to it and reading.  Lots of pictures.  Too bad John Burns was not with them.  This would be right up his line/

One of the saddest incidents on this disastrous day happened  after the action was really over.  Lieutenant J. Rudhall White had passed through the desperate dangers of the contest and had safely landed  upon the Maryland shore.

As he reached the top of the river-bank he stopped and said, "Thank God I am over at last."

His halt attracted attention and a musket ball, doubtlessly aimed  from the other side by a skilled marksman, plowed through his bowels.  The wound was almost instantly fatal; he died as he was being borne away.

White was a handsome, soldierly young man of scarce twenty summers.  A native of Warrenton, Virginia, at the breaking out of the war, he was a young lieutenant in the Black Horse Cavalry, a command subsequently  famous in all of the campaigns in Virginia.

Differing in sentiments from his friends and his family, sacrificing  the ties of home and friendship, he determined to defend his convictions with his sword...."

So Here Was a Man Who Was from Virginia But Fighting for the Union.  --Old Secesh

John Banks Looking for Lt. Crocker at Battle of Shepherdstown-- Part 2: 'Beaten, Dismayed, Wild With Fright'

Like I said, John Banks gets down and dirty (and in this case with the copperheads) with his person.  he goes there and experiences.

He goes out to where the battle was fought and he's standing there with the Potomac River about 15 yards away and a steep bluff to the other side of River Road where he is standing.  He can imagine what a treacherous place this would be for even veteran troops, but especially for the "rookie" 118th Pennsylvania, the Corn Exchange Regiment.

This is their first real action.  They are described as "beaten, dismayed, wild with fright" where they now find themselves.  Atop the bluffs they had already fought with muskets that proved defective.  Some had plunged to their deaths off those bluffs.

Under these circumstances. Lt. Lemuel Crocker and others hastily beat a retreat under fire across a mill dam to the Maryland side of the Potomac River.  (They were on the Virginia side  (now West Virginia).  You can still see the remains of that dam stretching across the river.

Others huddled alongside the river by Boteler's Cement Mill kilns where some were even killed by friendly Union artillery fire from across the river.  John Banks said:  "You can still see those ruins, too, if you're mentally prepared for the copperheads."

Hard to get More Real Than This.  --Old Secesh

Nottaway County (Virginia) Confederate Monument

I figured I'd better wrote about some of these monuments before they're gone.

From HMdb

It is located on the lawn at the Nottaway County  Court House, Virginia.

Erected 1893 by the Ladies Memorial Association, Nottaway.

Inscription:

"Erected by the Ladies Memorial Association of Nottaway July 20, 1893.

"Jeffress Artillery C.S.A., Co. G 18th VA Regt. A.N.V., Nottaway Reserves C.S.A.,  Co. E3 VA Cavalry A.N.V."

"This monument  bears the names of several hundred men from Nottaway County who served in the Confederate Army."

--Old Secesh

The Matthews and Middlesex County (Virginia) Confederate Monuments and Capt. Sally L. Thompkins Marker

From the November 3, 2021, Daily Press (Virginia)  "Virginia counties vote overwhelmingly  to keep Confederate monuments" by Dave Ress.

The Matthews County monument was erected in 1912, after a six-year fund-raising  effort by the Lane-Diggs Camp of the United Confederate Veterans, the Matthews Monument Association and the United Daughters of the Confederacy.

There is also a state marker near the statue for Captain Sally  L. Thompkins, CSA 1833-1916. It reads:  

"Sally Thompkins, born at Poplar Grove, 3 miles  south of here, was the only woman granted a commission in the Army  of the Confederacy.  'Captain Sally' founded and directed Robertson Hospital in Richmond, where over 1300 Confederate  soldiers were cared for  between 1861 and 1865.

"Her grave and monument are located  in Christ Church Cemetery on Williams Wharf Road two miles to the south."

Middlesex erected its United Daughters of the Confederacy monument in 1910.  The inscription on it reads:  "To commemorate the valor and patriotism of the men, and the devotion and sacrifice of the women of Middlesex in defense of their liberties and their homes."

--Old Secesh

Another Gravely Brother: Thomas Marshall Gravely Fought for the Confederacy

 From Find-A-Grave.

BIRTH:  4 February 1843, Leatherwood, Henry County, Virginia

DEATH:  16 June 1918,  Berwin, McDowell County, West Virginia

BURIAL:  Oakwood Cemetery, Martinsville, Virginia

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2nd lieutenant, Co. F, 42nd Virginia Infantry Regiment.

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Again, a Split Family in the War.  --Old Secesh

Joseph J. Gravely

From Wikipedia.

JOSEPH J. GRAVELY  

September 25, 1828 - April 28, 1872 

He was the commander of the 14th Missouri Cavalry which was James Bolin's outfit.  James Bolin married Helen Jackson who died this past December 2020 and is regarded as the Last Civil War Widow.

Born in Henry County, Virginia.  He attended public schools as a child,  engaged in agricultural pursuits and taught school.  He studied law  and was admitted to the bar in Virginia and had a practice there.   On 1853 and 1854 he was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates.

In 1854, he moved to Missouri and was a delegate to  the Missouri Constitutional Convention in 1860.

During the Civil War, Gravely served as colonel of the  8th Missouri State Militia Cavalry Regiment in the Union Army.  In addition, he was a member of the Missouri Senate in 1862 and 1864.

In 1866, he was elected  as a Republican to the U.S. House of Representatives and served there from 1867 to 1969.

After that, he was elected lieutenant governor of Missouri on 1870 and served under Governor B. Gratz Brown 1871 until his death in Stockton, Missouri, on April 28, 1872.  He was interred in Lindley Prairie Cemetery near Bear Creek, Missouri.

--Old Secesh

White Oak Road, Va.

From the 2021 American Battlefield Trust calendar for March.

WHITE OAK ROAD, Virginia

951 acres saved

Photo of White Oak Battlefield in Dinwiddie County, Va. by Kristi A. Gordon.

On March 31, 1865, Major General Gouverneur Warren's Union V Corps assaulted entrenched Confederates along White Oak Road.

Visitors to the battlefield today can still see the remains of these Confederate earthworks along a 0.64-mile interpretive trail managed by the Trust.

The more than 900 acres the Trust has saved here, including 48 acres in 2020, will eventually be a part of the Petersburg National Battlefield. 

--Old Secesh

December Civil War Dates: 13th Amendment and Stones River

From the American Battlefield Trust 2021 calendar.

December

DECEMBER 6, 1865

The 13th Amendment ratified, officially abolishing slavery.

DECEMBER 7 1862

Battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas.

DECEMBER 11, 1862

Battle of Fredericksburg, Va. begins.

DECEMBER 12, 1862

USS Cairo sinks in the Yazoo River, Miss.  Hit a torpedo (mine).

DECEMBER 15, 1864

Battle of Nashville, Tn. begins.

DECEMBER 18, 1865

The 13th Amendment abolishing slavery becomes a part of the U.S. Constitution.

DECEMBER 31, 1862

Battle of Stones River(Murfreesboro), Tenn. begins.

--Old Secesh

Fort Wool Today-- Part 8

The fort was decommissioned in 1953 as a military installation.  Of course, since it was named for U.S. general John Ellis Wool, its name would not have to be changed now since the passage of the 2020 Defense Bill.

It was turned over to Virginia.  In the 1950s, the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT) was constructed right next to the fort, with its southern island connected to the fort  by an earthen causeway.  The HRBT opened for traffic in 1957.  In 1967 and again in 1970, the City of Hampton developed the fort into a park which could be accessed by the passenger ferry Miss Hampton II.

The fort can also be seen by  westbound vehicles on approach to the HRBT  southern tunnel, which carries Interstate I-64 across the mouth of Hampton Roads.

The island the fort sits on is now called  Rip Raps and it continues to settle.  Occasionally the casemates of the original fort are put off limits for safety reasons.

On 28 April 2007, a garrison flag was raised over the fort for the first time to salute a Parade of Tall Ships passing by it as part of the 400th anniversary of the settlement of nearby Jamestown.

What caused me to become more aware of the fort and write about it in my Not So Forgotten: War of 1812 blog (it was built as a result of the British occupying the Chesapeake Bay during that war and, of course the attacks on Washington, D.C., and Baltimore), was that the fort has now been turned into a bird sanctuary and is off limits to people.

There Needs To be Some Sort of Compromise Between Nature and People Here.  --Old Secesh

Confederate General Junius Daniel-- Part 2: From North Carolina, Attended West Point

From Wikipedia.

JUNIUS DANIEL

June 27, 1828-May 13, 1864

Planter and career military officer, serving in the U.S. and then the C.S. armies.  His troops were instrumental in the Confederate success at the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg.  He was killed in action at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House.

He was born in Halifax, North Carolina,  the son of a wealthy political family.  His father, John Reeves Jones Daniel served as attorney general for North Carolina and member of the U.S. Congress.  His mother,  Mary Stith, came from a family of prominent Virginians that descended from John Stith and William Randolph.

Education for Daniel came at local school in Halifax and then another school in Raleigh.  President James K. Polk appointed him to the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1846 and graduated from there with the Class of 1851, ranking 33rd out of 41 one in that group.

Appointed brevet 2nd lieutenant in the 3rd U.S. Infantry, he was sent to Newport, Kentucky, as assistant quartermaster.

Further Service in U.S. Army.  --Old Secesh

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

About Those VCU Confederate-Named Objects-- Part 4

Continued from September 24, 2020.

 From the September 19, 2020, Commonwealth Times "VCU approves removal of on-campus Confederate names, symbols" by Eduardo Acevedo.

These are among the names that will be victims of Confederadication on the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University:

McGUIRE HALL--   Named after Hunter H. McGuire, surgeon in the Confederate Army.  Not only will the name be removed, but also all associated mentions  and references to McGuire Hall.

GINTER HOUSE--  All mentions and commemorations of Lewis Ginter will be removed on Monroe Park and  MCV  campuses.

JEFFERSON DAVIS MEMORIAL CHAPEL--  on the 17th floor of West Hospital on MCV campus.  It honors the Confederate president and Kathryn Wittichen, former president of the UDC.  The chapel will be permanently de-commemorated, permanently closed and four plaques honoring Davis and Wittichen will be removed from the chapel and West Hospital.

TOMPKINS-McCAW LIBRARY--  Named for five members of the Tomkins and McCaw families.  James McCaw and Sally Tompkins operated Confederate hospitals in Richmond during the war.  The board voted to remove the name and all associated mentions of the Tompkins-McCaw from the library.  they also voted for the removal of Confederate plaques and a portrait of John Syng Dorsey Cullen, a  surgeon in the Confederacy, from the library.

WOOD MEMORIAL BUILDING--  Houses VCU's School, of Dentistry.    Named after Judson B. Wood, a dentist and private in the Confederate Army.  His name will be removed from the building , and all associated mentions and references will be removed from VCU's campuses.

--O;d Secesh

Obituary of Robert E. Miles, CSA, Died December 5, 1942

He was one of the two old Battle of Antietam survivors who met President Franklin D. Roosevelt on September 17, 1837, the 75th anniversary of the battle.  The other soldier was Bazel Lemley, who fought for the Union,  Picture of them to the right of this.

"Captain Bob Miles, Almost 103, Dies Near Shawsville.
Confederate Veteran Was Wounded  at Antietam.

Shawsville, Dec 5 (Special)  Robert Edward (Captain Bob) Miles, grand old Confederate warrior of Montgomery county, died quietly at his farm home near Crockett Springs early this evening -- just three days before he would have observed his 103rd birthday.

REPRESENTED SOUTH

It was Captain Miles who, as the oldest Confederate veteran attending the 75th anniversary of the battle of Antietam in 1937, represented the  south in a triple handclasp of friendship with President Roosevelt and a veteran of the Union forces.

He was so severely wounded  in the legs and hands in that bloody engagement that he was discharged,  but reenlisted as soon as he recovered in the 21st, Virginia Cavalry, Company B, and served throughout the war, attaining the rank of captain.

Captain Miles recalled until his death, personal contacts with General Robert E. Lee and President Jefferson Davis.

--Old Secesh

More on Robert E. Miles

Still in John Banks' Blog.

He has a photo of the grave of Robert E, Miles in Piedmont Cemetery, in Shawsville, Virginia, which has a marker  "Robert E. Miles.  Capt.  CS Army Civil War, Dec. 8, 1839  Dec. 6, 1942.

Here's hoping nothing happens to it July 1, 2020, when Virginia's law protecting Confederate monuments end.

There was also a comment of interest:

She said that Robert E. Miles were her husband's cousins twice removed.  Robert also had two brothers who also served in the Confederacy.

Private James  Henry Miles, 1832-1864  (Killed in Action at Cold Harbor).
Private John Henry Miles, 1836-1905.

All three brothers served in the same regiment at the beginning of the war, the 57th Virginia Infantry Regiment.

--Old Secesh

Two Old Soldiers Greet FDR at Antietam on 75th Anniversary-- Part 3: Robert E. Miles, CSA

One of the two old soldiers was Confederate, the other Union.

The Confederate one was Robert E. Miles, 101, who was a sergeant in the 57th Virginia Infantry Regiment.  He was struck in the hand and foot by shell fragments at Antietam and lay wounded  on the field for hours until he was able to crawl to the safety of his own lines.  He claimed that later in the war, he carried dispatches for Robert E. Lee, whom he said greeted soldiers each morning with, "Good morning, boys."

By the end of the Rebellion, Miles had been promoted to captain.

After the war, he returned to his Virginia farm in Franklin County, where he and his wife raised ten children.  The old soldier's advice for a good life was simple, "When you start through the world," he told a local newspaper, "commence laughing.  Then never quit."

When he turned 100, Miles received a letter marking the occasion from FDR who noted his milestone was "a privilege  not vouchsafed to many."  That note was one of his most treasured possessions.

Born in Pig River, Virginia, on December 8, 1839, Miles died at Shawsville, Virginia, in 1942, two days shy of his 103rd birthday.  He was buried in his Confederate uniform.

--Old Secesh