Indian Nations: Civil War within a Civil War
Caught in the Maelstrom: The Indian Nations in the Civil War, 1861–1865. By Clint Crowe. Bibliography, footnotes, photographs, maps, index. 300 pp., 2019, Savas Beattie, www.savasbeattie.com. $32.95.
Reviewed by Joseph A. Derie
The Indian Nations, or Indian Territory as it was also known, due to the U.S. government’s ceding the area to the “Five Civilized Tribes” (the Cherokee, Creek (Muscogee), Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole) in the 1830’s. This area would mostly become present day Oklahoma. Prior to, and during the Civil War, the Indian Nations and their politics were split among pure blood non-slaveholders, and mixed bloods, many of whom were slaveholders.
It is not surprising the slaveholders sided with the Confederacy, providing various regiments to the Confederate Army, and a general officer, Brigadier General Stand Watie, a Cherokee; while the non-slaveholders stood with the Union, providing the Union Indian Brigade.
The Civil War in the Indian Nations was thus a Civil War within a Civil War, as found in Tennessee, Missouri, and western Virginia, with all the tragedy and hatred of brother against brother.
There were a number of battles fought within the Indian Nations by Indian troops supported by Texans or Kansans. Within the territory’s borders the population was at the mercy of guerilla bands, bandits and people out for themselves or to pay off grudges. The latter included the Union siding Keetoowah Society, made up of Cherokee full-bloods.
Stand Watie surrendered his troops on June 23, 1865. The author states that he was “likely” the last Confederate general to surrender. All other sources state he was the last and it is unusual that a scholarly work of this nature would not seek a definitive answer to that question.
Stand Watie’s surrender may have ended the fighting but did not end the war in the Nations because it was not a state, and therefore different federal laws and treaties applied there. It would take until September when a council met and terms and a full government was agreed to by both sides.
The volume also includes a very interesting “exclusive excerpt:” “Chapter 6: Protecting Johnsonville: Union Defense of the Supply Depot,” from the publishers recent Johnsonville: Union Supply Operations on the Tennessee River and the Battle of Johnsonville, November 4-5, 1864. This will be of special interest to fans of Nathan Bedford Forrest and the Civil War in Tennessee.
Caught in the Maelstrom is based on the author’s dissertation and has been ably researched by the author. It is highly recommended to those with special interest in the Trans-Mississippi Civil War, as well as in the former Indian Nations and the areas surrounding it.
Capt. Joe Derie is a longtime Civil War buff with a special interest in Civil War naval history and the Civil War in the West. He is a retired USCG officer and a licensed officer of the Merchant Marine, currently self-employed as a marine surveyor and marine accident investigator in Portland, OR.
Reviewed by Jonathan A. Noyalas
Twenty-seven years ago, historian Stephen D. Engle, in his biography of Union general Franz Sigel, Yankee Dutchman, offered a scathing assessment of Sigel’s conduct in the Shenandoah Valley during the spring of 1864. Engle concluded that Sigel’s generalship in the weeks leading up to and during the Battle of New Market proved Sigel a “fool.” While historians prior to the publication of Engle’s biography reached similar conclusions and scholars have continued to assess Sigel’s ability to command in a similar vein since, author David Powell’s thoughtful volume convincingly challenges that notion in this outstanding study.
Powell, best-known for his work on Chickamauga, does not profess to be an apologist for Sigel, but rather aims to scrutinize him under a more objective lens to illustrate that Sigel’s conduct in the Shenandoah Valley during the spring of 1864 was not that of “a blundering fool, and not all of his decisions wrong-headed.” Through careful analysis of a wide array of primary and secondary sources Powell offers an unprejudiced examination that shifts Sigel from “caricature” to “commander.”
Throughout the book’s ten chapters, the author masterfully recounts the decision to appoint Sigel to command and how Sigel’s Department of West Virginia fit into Grant’s overall strategy in the spring of 1864. Additionally, Powell analyzes how, at times, Grant’s decisions impeded Sigel’s ability for success, including not providing Sigel the manpower required properly carrying out his mission and preventing Confederates in the Shenandoah from supporting the Army of Northern Virginia’s operations east of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Securing the Valley was a task that proved the bugbear of many Union Shenandoah commanders since the conflict’s outset.
Beyond insightful analysis of the ways in which Grant’s decision adversely impacted Sigel; Powell does a remarkable job of analyzing the varied abilities of the regiments and subordinates who comprised Sigel’s command. Not only did some units lack combat experience, animosity existed amongst regiments as some regimental commanders balked at the idea of serving in brigades with regiments they believed inferior. For example, some in the 34th Mass. Inf. did not approve of being in the same brigade with the 116th and 123rd Ohio Inf. Although the two Ohio regiments had combat experience, and the 34th had none, some of the 34th’s officers believed their regiment better-disciplined and more proficient in drill. While indeed, as the author notes, the 34th might have appeared better on the parade ground, their lack of combat experience proved detrimental during the culmination of Sigel’s spring campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, the Battle of New Market.
Enmity, as the author rightfully concludes, not only existed between various regiments, but between some of those regiments and Sigel. When Sigel staged mock battles in Winchester during early May, dissension among some subordinates rose significantly. Among those who did not see any merit in mock battles was the 34th Massachusetts’ Colonel George Wells. He believed them
September 2020
so asinine that he feigned illness to avoid them. While some historians previously characterized Sigel’s mock battles as another example of his foolishness, Powell views them as evidence of Sigel’s awareness of the lack of combat experience that existed in his army and his reasonable effort to remedy that deficiency.
Although Powell does a terrific job highlighting various factors working against Sigel, he is balanced in his assessment and points out critical strategic errors Sigel made leading up to the Battle of New Market, such as his ill-advised decision to send Colonel William H. Boyd with a hodge-podge cavalry command to Luray. Powell also enumerates Sigel’s tactical errors at the Battle of New Market, covered in three of the book’s chapters, including ordering a counterattack against Confederate General John C. Breckinridge’s command on Bushong Hill and his failure to appropriately utilize Brigadier General Jeremiah Sullivan at New Market.
This study, solidly written, soundly researched, profusely illustrated, and enhanced with detailed maps is indispensable reading for anyone interested in Shenandoah Valley Civil War conflict. Its importance transcends those who study that oft-contested region. To those interested in understanding the animus existing among soldiers of the same army Powell’s volume is also quite useful.
Jonathan A. Noyalas is director of Shenandoah University’s McCormick Civil War Institute in Winchester, Virginia, a professor in Civil War Era Studies at Shenandoah University, and founding editor of Journal of the Shenandoah Valley During the Civil War Era. He is the author or editor of thirteen books including Civil War Legacy in the Shenandoah: Remembrance, Reunion, and Reconciliation.
September 2020 A Revolution that had Global Implications
The Second American Revolution: The Civil War- Era Struggle over Cuba and the Rebirth of the American Republic. By Gregory P. Downs. Notes, Bibliography, and Index, 232 pp., 2019. The University of North Carolina Press. www.uncpress.org. Cloth. $27.95.
Reviewed by David Marshall
The Civil War was more than a fight between two regions of the United States. This was greater than a domestic struggle, or a fight to preserve the nation. The differences were not only national but international as well. It spilled into many other nations, confronting how the world was going to change. Would countries be free-labor republics and governed by a constitution with slavery ended or would empires continue to dominate many countries and regions?
In the end, Americans called the four-year nineteenth century conflict such names as the Rebellion or the War of Secession. During the early 20th century, people phrased the term Civil War as an effort to depoliticize the struggle between the states and reconcile better relations with white Southerners. Some people even used the phrase second American Revolution for this momentous period in U.S. history. The New York Herald used this phrase on March 4, 1869, to describe the change that was happening with Ulysses S. Grant’s upcoming presidential inauguration. The paper emphasized that the Union general would help bring about a transformational change. Significant modifications were the end of slavery, citizenship for freed people, forcing the last Southern states to accept voting rights for African American men and the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments with the threat of martial law. In the end, Gregory Downs makes the excellent point that these reforms came about due to a violent reconstructing of a reunified nation’s political structure.
Downs explains that people in this time period wanted to see how the United States would influence old traditional powers such as Great Britain, France, and Spain and others as an emerging world power. This wonderful monograph starts off by detailing not only changes that occurred because of the Civil War and the passage of the Civil War/Reconstruction amendments but how citizens can reevaluate our founders, their legacy, the First American Revolution, and the establishment of a new government under a ratified constitution. The chapter titled “The Civil War the World Made” goes into great detail concerning how the U.S. helped bring about an end to global slavery as well as bringing about the establishment of constitutional republics and increased freedom and rights for colonial controlled countries such as Cuba.
Chapter three assesses what the Civil War and Reconstruction accomplished and what disappointments happened during the Jim Crow era to race relations and civil rights. The author further develops that, due to the turmoil that occurred in the United States, Mexico, Cuba, and Spain, the resulting changes failed to go far enough in Western Hemisphere countries including their own revolutions and independence in the years following the Civil War and the Second American
Finally, the chapter titled Afterward proposes that the Second American Revolution is unfinished today and did not go far enough in the nineteenth century. This excellent historian proves that many changes were significant such as freeing four million individuals who were held in bondage, the greatest emancipation in world history and the largest confiscation of property in any one nation’s history. Downs shows that the Civil War reshaped the United States, politically, socially, and economically, however, in the end bigger changes could have happened faster concerning civil rights for blacks, assistance with, and alliances with Atlantic world emerging revolutionary nations seeking independence from old world countries such as Spain.
Using numerous primary and secondary sources, Downs was able to bypass many opinions of previous authors and demonstrated an important new and insightful interpretation of a great deal that has not been studied in the past. He makes a substantial contribution to understanding what comprehensive deviations arose in the U.S. and in the world by providing fresh insight that helps us understand the motivation, strategies, tensions, controversies, and triumphs that have characterized the work and lives of people and nations involved in this excellent book. While this volume contains six important illustrations, it would have been helpful to all readers to have included many more images and a few maps. Highly recommended by this reviewer.
David Marshall is a high school American history teacher in the Miami-Dade School district for the past thirty-three years. A lifelong Civil War enthusiast, David is president of the Miami Civil War Round Table Book Club. In addition to numerous reviews in Civil War News and other publications, he has given presentations to Civil War Round Tables on Joshua Chamberlain, Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, the Battle of Gettysburg, and the Common Soldier.
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The Petersburg Regiment in the Civil War: A History of the 12th Virginia Infantry from John Brown’s Hanging to Appomattox, 1859–1865. By John Horn. Maps, photos, diagrams, footnotes, bibliography, index, 440 pp., 2019, Savas Beatie, www.savasbeatie.com, hardcover. $39.95.
Reviewed by John Michael Priest
Many Civil War enthusiasts are, probably, familiar with George S. Bernard’s, 1892, War Talks of Confederate Veterans and Hampton Newsome’s, John Horn’s, and John G. Selby’s excellent edition (2012) of Bernard’s previously unpublished, Civil War Talks: Further Reminiscences of George S. Bernard & Fellow Veterans, (UVA). Mr. Horn has expanded his research and produced this very good and much needed, Confederate regimental history.
The 12th Virginia served with distinction from the Peninsula though the rest of the war, with some of its hardest fighting occurring at Petersburg and the Crater. Interpreted through the astute observations of several more participants other than Bernard, this work puts the reader in the ranks to observe the war in all its grim reality from the ground up. Thoroughly illustrated with over 30 clear, easy to read maps and diagrams explaining regimental formations, the author puts every action into context by marking where the 12th was on the field, where I learned that the Virginians did not always, to their relief, get into the thickest part of the battle but when they did, they served very well.
They owed their tenacity, in part, to General William “Billy” Mahone, whose contributions to
battles I never really knew very little about. Throughout the pages of this book, he emerges as a uniformed bantam rooster. The author makes no apologies or excuses for the regiment’s feelings toward African Americans in the Union Army or for their brutality in battle. The chapters on the Crater and Petersburg starkly describe how desperate and unforgiving the fighting had become by the last stages of the war in the East. Mr. Horn clearly has honestly portrayed the combat brutality, some of which shocked veteran George S. Bernard.
I also noted how he used the soldiers’ slang to describe their camps, their officers, and the U.S. flag, which I had never heard referred to as the “gridiron.” They called Mahone “Porte,” the reason for which you will have to read the book to discover.
Critics will probably find issues with the footnotes, because they only refer to primary sources concerning the 12th Virginia and not every secondary or Union regimental history cited in his extensive bibliography. That did not detract from the quality of the writing or the information in this book. Mr. Horn invested a lot of time and effort in creating this thorough regimental and it shows.
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The False Cause: Fraud, Fabrication, and White Supremacy in Confederate Memory. By Adam H. Domby. Illustrated, bibliography, index, University of Virginia Press, www.upress.virginia.edu, 2020, 258 pp., hardcover, $29.95.
Reviewed by Wayne L. Wolf
The author states in the last chapter, “Anyone can make up an interpretation of history.” True to his word, Adam Domby does just that. Using North Carolina as a microcosm the old Confederacy, he presents selected incidents in four areas; opposition to secession by some North Carolinians, the presence of Union sentiment in the state, the resistance to conscription, and desertion rates among North Carolina Confederate soldiers, as evidence that North Carolina’s support for the Confederacy was lukewarm at best. No mention is made of similar Union difficulties, e.g. New York draft riots, desertion among Union troops in response to the Emancipation Proclamation, or Northern citizens going South to fight for the Confederacy. To have explained these might have tempered the author’s obsession with trying to make the Lost Cause School of historical thought nothing more than a justification for white supremacist ideology.
Professor Domby then launches
Publishers: Please send your book(s) for review to: into attacks on Confederate monuments as inspired by a desire to justify white supremacy. Pensions awarded to blacks who served the Confederacy were dismissed as an early welfare system that rewarded subservient blacks. Confederate soldiers fighting for what Col. John S. Mosby called “my Country” were portrayed as nothing more than protectors of slavery that was crucial in glorifying white control. While he concedes Confederate soldiers fought nobly, even if for a bad cause, he contends they were nevertheless racists who either intentionally, accidentally, or even unintentionally stood for white supremacy.
The author uses a selective series of quotes from North Carolina political speeches, as well as UDC and SCV talks, principally from 1902–1926, including one 8th grade graduation speech, to hammer home his ideology of white supremacy inherent in everything from the dedication of Confederate monuments to Southern soldiers, to supporting black pensioners, to voting for President Donald Trump. This selectivity omits any reference to opposing viewpoints of Black Power movements, or even just the good intentions of a Southern populace trying to honor their ancestors. The battle for States’ Rights is relegated to the dustbin of historical myth.
For all of these reasons, despite including some pension fraud cases, political self-serving speeches, and desertion rates that were illuminating, the overall liberal bias displayed precludes a recommendation that the book be purchased by Civil War historians. If you are looking for a balanced treatment of a sensitive topic, this is not your book.
Wayne L. Wolf is Professor Emeritus at South Suburban College and the author of numerous Civil War books and articles including Two Years Before the Paddlewheel and The Last Civil War Scout.
The Personal Memoirs of Julia Dent Grant (Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant): 45th Anniversary Edition. Edited by John Y. Simon. Photos, notes, index. 351 pp. Southern Illinois University Press, 2020. siupress.siu.edu. Softcover, $26.95.
Reviewed by Jonathan W. White
Ulysses S. Grant has received a much-needed reevaluation in recent years, largely due to major biographies by Ron Chernow and Ronald C. White, as well as a new annotated edition of Grant’s Memoirs, edited by John F. Marszalek. It is fitting that his wife’s memoirs should also receive renewed attention with this new, 45th-anniversary edition.
Julia Dent Grant was the first First Lady to write a memoir, but her book remained unpublished until 1975, more than seven decades after her death in 1902. Fortunately, Grant’s great-grandchildren gave John Y. Simon, the late, eminent historian who for many years served as editor of The Papers of Ulysses S. Grant, permission to publish this important book. Now, forty-five years after it first appeared in print, Southern Illinois University Press has released a special anniversary edition with a new foreword by John F. Marszalek and Frank J. Williams, and a new preface by Pamela K. Sanfilippo.
Mrs. Grant’s recollections begin with her childhood at her family’s plantation, White Haven, near St. Louis, Missouri, where she was born in 1826. The first six chapters cover her early life, the Civil War, and her husband’s presidency. Chapters 7-12 recall the Grants’ post-White House years, with significant attention given to their two-year trip around the world (1877– 1879). In the Introduction, Bruce Catton writes that this section of the book “is highly interesting; she was having fun, and she conveys her feeling of pleasant excitement.”
In fact, the entire book teems with wonderful anecdotes from the lives of Julia and Ulysses Grant. As a schoolgirl, Julia told her friends that she wanted to marry “a soldier, a gallant, brave, dashing soldier—and I got him, did I not?” Throughout her memoirs, she recalled touching, personal moments, such as when she was courting Grant and he attended the funeral of her beloved pet canary. Shortly after their wedding, Julia’s father said that she could remain at home and that Grant could visit “once or twice a year” when he received furloughs from the army. Grant could tell that Julia was upset by this idea. He put his arm around her and whispered, “Would you like this, Julia?” She replied, “No, no, no, Ulys, I could not, would not, think of that for a moment.” “Then,” said Grant, “dry your tears and do not weep again. It makes me unhappy.” She wrote, “There was never again a word said about my staying at home,” she remained with him for much of the Civil War.
Julia’s stories of their children bring the Grant family to life. Once, two-year-old Jesse put on his father’s boots and fell down the stairs. Julia wrote, “The result was dreadful. His neck was not broken, but his four front teeth were broken squarely off, and he lay quivering and fainting in my arms.” On another occasion during the war, when Jesse was now four, a cannonball rolled off a windowsill and landed on his foot. Jesse’s older brother said, “A soldier never cries, Jess.” Julia wrote, “Whereupon the dear little fellow grasped his wounded foot in both hands and sank quivering and pale on the floor, but no
Julia recounted a number of fascinating conversations with her husband and other officers during the War. She also remembered the famous moment when she voted for General George B. McClellan to receive a “magnificent jewel-hilted sword” at the New York Sanitary Fair in 1864. When asked why she voted against her husband, the other contender for the sword, she replied, “Of course, I wish my husband to get the sword, but ... it would not be in good taste for me to vote for my husband.” Her chapter on the end of the war, meeting President and Mrs. Lincoln, and of the aftermath of the Lincoln assassination, is particularly poignant.
Julia Grant was a great admirer of her husband and defender of his reputation. Her memoir largely focuses on their relationship, and it ends with his death in 1885. “For nearly thirty-seven years, I, his wife, rested and was warmed in the sunlight of his loyal love and great fame,” she wrote in the concluding sentence of the book, “and now, even though his beautiful life has gone out... the light of his glorious fame still reaches out to me, falls upon me, and warms me.”
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If you are a regular Civil War buff looking for a book to toss into the backpack and take to the beach, Jon D. Schaff’s Abraham Lincoln’s Statesmanship and the Limits of Liberal Democracy is not the book you are seeking. This intellectually demanding study looks at the presidency of Abraham Lincoln, defining the changes in government power, economic power, and executive power as they evolved beginning even earlier than 1860. Author Schaff brings the changes Lincoln brought to the office of the presidency up to present times and compares those changes from Lincoln to later executives, including Trump.
Usually remembered in connection with the Civil War, Lincoln’s presidency is known for the successful defense of the Union and a redefinition of Presidential wartime powers. This book looks at Lincoln’s presidency from another angle. Even without the war, Lincoln firmly believed that Congress should make public policy, not executive whim. In the president’s opinion, the elected representatives of the people should not be lobbied in any way we would recognize today. Schaff, a professor of political science at Northern State University in Aberdeen, S.D., highlights Lincoln’s significance in the development of American power institutions and social movement politics. He explains how Lincoln’s views on prudence, natural rights, and economics all contain the notion of limits. Were America to be a country ruled entirely by “the people,” then mob rule would take precedence over moderation; because wealth speaks loudest, the government must protect the natural rights of all citizens, especially those with limited means. Reining in presidential power and trusting in elected representation can go far in containing the scope of abuse.
Beginning with Lincoln’s earliest political utterances and actions, author Schaff builds his case that Lincoln stood for balance and statesmanship. Moderate, prudent policies would best serve an American democracy rather than overdependence on the will of the people and the power of institutions. Schaff goes toe-to-toe with previous historians’ views concerning Lincoln’s record. In essence, he quotes and argues with Harold Holzer, Richard Striner, James McPherson, Thomas Di Lorenzo, and James Randall. Abraham Lincoln’s Statesmanship and the Limits of Liberal Democracy discusses where Lincoln and Hamilton agree and disagree:
Americans whose vision of the founding ideas of a nation was already dimming. (5)
Lincoln was initially a member of the Whig party, created in its second iteration in the 1830s to oppose Democrat Andrew Jackson. The ideas of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster defined Lincoln’s initial view toward the powers of government. Lincoln’s personal opinions changed as he served a term in Congress as an Illinois representative (1847–49) and practiced law. In 1854 Lincoln reentered politics as a leader of the Illinois Republican Party. His ongoing arguments with senator Stephen Douglas and the speech at New York’s Cooper Union not only brought him to national attention but further defined his political personality. After clearly laying this groundwork, Schaff then compares Lincoln’s views on government to the defense of unlimited government by twentieth-century progressives. A “distributive” policy dominated the nineteenth century. It dealt mostly with rivers and harbors, defense procurement, research and development (think “patents!”), labor business, agriculture, and tariffs. The government distributed goods to client groups. Within this environment, patronage and pork flourished, although it may be considered a “win-win” situation. Schaff’s unique exploration falls between historians who consider Lincoln an early progressive and those who say his presidency foreshadowed industrial, corporate America.
As author Schaff works his way through convoluted mid-nineteenth-century political thought, he never loses sight of the
I specialize in cannon, projectiles, fuses and wrenches, implements, sights, gunner’s equipment, tools, and other artillery related
domestic policies that had little to do with the Civil War. Lincoln’s Congress gave America the Transcontinental Railroad, the Homestead Act (westward settlement), the Pacific Railroad Act, the Land-Grant College Act, the Legal Tender Act, and the National Bank Act. He quotes historian James Randall: “Lincoln believed in planting, cultivating, and harvesting, not in uprooting and destroying.” Schaff also never loses sight of Lincoln’s slavery politics. He puts them into context:
When the white man governs himself that is self-government; but when he governs himself and also governs another man, that is more than self-government-- that is despotism. If the negro is a man, why then my ancient faith teaches me that “all men are created equal;” and that there can be no moral right in connection with one man’s making a slave of another. (62).
book, Abraham Schaff’s Lincoln’s Statesmanship and the Limits of Liberal Democracy rejects the idea that Lincoln was a revolutionary. It urges instead that Lincoln preferred limited presidential power, particularly compared to today’s definition. It is statesmanship that emerges as the guide to examining Lincoln the politician. America was at a crossroads just as Lincoln was elected. It was Lincoln’s political view and adherence to the values of the Declaration of Independence that helped a broken country navigate back to Union. Today Lincoln’s example could be used as a model for a better way of defining political roles
in a democracy. Jon Schaff’s book is not a quick or easy read, but it is one to which the reader can return time and again for guidance and clarification. Abraham Lincoln’s Statesmanship and the Limits of Liberal Democracy is not a relaxed or casual read. It is, however, worth the effort.
Meg Groeling received her Master’s Degree in Military History, with a Civil War emphasis, in 2016, from American Public University. Savas Beatie published her first book, The Aftermath of Battle: The Burial of the Civil War Dead, in the fall of 2015. Her biography, First Fallen: The Life of Colonel Elmer Ellsworth, the North’s First Civil War Hero. It will be published by Savas Beatie in 2020. She is a book reviewer for LSU, Civil War News, and a regular contributor to the blog Emerging Civil War. She lives in Hollister, California in a 1928 bungalow with her husband, her cats, and a lot of books and roses.
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their riders. The Virginias lost one man killed and eight captured along with their battle flag. The Eighth Illinois pursued the Twelfth Virginia to Barnesville where the Virginians were driven further west with the loss of one killed, eight captured, and several wounded.
On a different road to the north, another detachment of the Eighth Illinois under Captain George M. Kelly engaged a separate group of Rebels and drove them through Barnesville and two miles beyond. The Confederates lost five men wounded and fifteen captured.11
The same day, a squadron of the First New York Cavalry led by Major A.W. Adams charged into Hyattstown and drove out a detachment of Wade Hampton’s Brigade. Hampton’s men returned the next day with artillery support to reclaim the town but were driven off by the New Yorkers reinforced by the First U.S. Cavalry under Captain Marcus A. Reno.12
On Sept. 10, Captain William P. Sanders, Sixth U.S. Cavalry, supported by two guns from the horse artillery, attempted to reoccupy Sugar loaf Mountain and capture the Confederate signal station operating on its summit. Their advance struck an advanced position commanded by Captain Waller of the Ninth Virginia Cavalry and captured a ten man picket post. The Virginians fell back to the base of the mountain.13
General Fitzhugh Lee and the balance of the Ninth Virginia joined Captain Waller’s men and succeeded in turning back the Yankees. Captain Sanders then dismounted his troopers and renewed the battle on foot. Only one squadron of the Ninth Virginia was armed with carbines while the entire Union force was equipped with both carbines and side arms. Lee ordered the men with carbines to take positions on the wooded slope of the mountain while the remainder remained mounted and covered their flanks. Firing from behind rocks
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and trees, the Southerners were able to hold on until darkness put an end to the fighting. That night Lee led the Ninth Virginia west towards Frederick.14
The morning of Sept. 10, Captain William P. Sanders attempted to drive Colonel Munford off Sugar Loaf Mountain but was repulsed with one man killed and four wounded. The next day Colonel Farnsworth led his brigade against Munford supported by Winfield Scott Hancock’s Brigade of infantry. This was the largest force thrown against Stuart’s line to date. McClellan’s advance was closing in on Lee’s army. The I Corps was at Triadelphia. The II and XII Corps were far as Clarksburg.
To defend his position Munford had only two depleted regiments, the Second and Twelfth Virginia and four guns from Chew’s battery, in all about 500 men. After skirmishing for several hours, Munford was forced to let the Yankees have their signal station back and withdrew to Urbana.15
The same morning, Daniel Harvey Hill’s Division left Monocacy Junction and marched through Frederick City following the rest of Lee’s army, who had departed the day before. By noon only Confederate cavalry remained south and east of the city. As the bulk of Stuart’s command shifted north and west, Hampton’s Brigade headed for Frederick City and Munford took up outpost duties at Hyattstown.
At 1:30 p.m. Major Adams with the First New York Cavalry and a squadron of regulars from the First US Cavalry commanded by Captain Marcus A. Reno charged into Hyattstown but were repulsed by Lieutenant Dan Shunk’s section of horse artillery and Munford’s undersized brigade. When the Union cavalry withdrew to Clarksburg, Munford fell back to the Monocacy where the wooden bridge for wagon and pedestrian traffic was still standing. Chew’s Battery covered the bridge supported by the cavalry on either side of the road. Munford remained there until ordered to take up a new position in the village of Jefferson in the
nearby Catoctin Mountains on Sept. 12.16
Union infantry would soon be on the field in great numbers. The Kanawha Division formed the van of the IX Corps. It marched through Damascus and camped at Ridgeville. The rest of the corps could be found between there and Hyattstown. The II Corps was at Clarksburg; the Twelfth had stopped at Damascus. Fitzhugh Lee was forced to give up New Market on Sept. 11. As the day came to a close, Captain James Abraham’s Independent Company of West Virginia Cavalry entered the east side of New Market as the last Confederate videttes exited the western side.
When Fitzhugh Lee abandoned New Market, he retreated to Liberty and crossed the Monocacy River north of Frederick the next morning only to have Stuart order him back over the river to scout the Union Army’s right flank. He led his brigade as far north as Westminster where he charged into the town and captured the Provost Marshal. After damaging a bridge on the Western Maryland Railroad and throwing a first class scare into the mostly pro-Union residents, Lee retired across the Monocacy. His actions forced General Pleasanton to send one brigade as far north as Gettysburg to make sure the Confederates were not trying to make an end run around the Union right flank.17
The last action before the Confederates evacuated Frederick City occurred on Sept. 12. Wade Hampton formed the rear guard of the Cavalry Division and the Army of Northern Virginia. He wisely gave up New Market to the advancing IX Corps and fell back to the Monocacy. Here he made a stand with two guns covering the bridge with cavalry on both sides of the road. At this time Hampton had two squadrons south of the city guarding the pedestrian bridge where Munford’s Brigade was now in danger of being cut off. To help slow down the Union advance, he added one rifled gun supported by a squadron from the Second South Carolina to the force at the stone bridge. Kegs of power were placed on the bridge in hopes of blowing it up.
When Captain Abraham’s Company of West Virginia cavalry approached the bridge, the Confederate pickets retreated to the west side and set off the powder which made a great deal of smoke and noise but failed to damage the bridge. Two companies of Union cavalry then charged the bridge but were forced back by the Rebel artillery. At this point Simmonds’ Kentucky Battery arrived with two 20-pounder Parrott rifles and a 12-pounder Napoleon smoothbore. Lieutenant Abraham led his cavalry downstream and crossed so he could outflank the Confederate artillery. At the same time the two 20-pounders opened fire. With one gun out of action the Confederates retreated into the city. By 2 p.m. Cox’s Division was on the scene.18
A squadron of the Second South Carolina under Lieut. John Meighan skirmished with the advancing infantry losing two men before being ordered to fall back. Hampton withdrew his artillery and posted it to cover the road from Frederick to the Catoctin Mountains.
Moor’s Brigade, crossed the bridge and followed the Rebels into the city with a detachment from the Chicago Dragoons and one gun. Hampton ordered Meighan’s Squadron to charge the Yankees and sent them flying down East Patrick Street. Colonel Moor and seven men were captured. In attempting to escape, one trooper ran over an artilleryman who failed to release the lanyard and fired a round of canister at point blank range into his own men. Eight Yankee cavalrymen hit the ground in a heap. The gunners limbered up to avoid being captured only to overturn their gun. Unable to bring off the cannon, Stuart’s men shot the horses and retreated back into Frederick.
On the Union left, Farnsworth led his brigade supported by two batteries of horse artillery from Sugar Loaf Mountain toward Frederick City via Urbana. As Hampton and the last remnants of the Confederate Army exited Frederick, Colonel Augustus H. Coleman led his Eleventh Ohio Infantry into the city. The Rebels were gone, but they would be back in 1864.19
D. Scott Hartwig, To Antietam Creek: The Maryland Campaign of September 1862, (Baltimore: 2012), p. 104 R.L.T. Beal, History of the Ninth Virginia Cavalry, (Richmond: 1899), p. 37; Ezra J. Warner, Generals in Blue, (Baton Rouge: 1972), p. 373.
OR’s, Vol. 19, Part 1, pp. 814- 815; Ezra Carman, The Maryland Campaign of September 1862, Edited by Thomas G. Clemens, (New York), Vol. 1, p. 92.
A Paul & Rita Gordon, Playground of the Civil War: Frederick Country, Maryland, (Frederick, MD: 1994), pp. 45- 48: OR’s, Vol. 19, Part 2, p. 568; Carmen, p. 132; Daniel Carroll Toomey, The War Came By Train: The Baltimore and Ohio 5.
10. Beal, p. 37; Hartwig, p. 174-
11. OR’s, Vol. 19, Part 1, pp. 208-
13. OR’s, Vol. 19, Part 1, p. 209; 14. Beal, pp. 37-38, Carman, p. 176 15. Carman, pp. 177, 179; Harsh, p. 16. Carman, 179; Harsh, p. 206.
17. Carman, pp. 187-188; OR’s, Vol.
18. Carman, p. 186; OR’s, Vol. 19, 19. Bradley T. Johnson, “address on
Daniel Carroll Toomey, is a University of Maryland graduate. Mr. Toomey has authored several books on the Civil War including, The Civil War in Maryland, Marylanders at Gettysburg, and The Maryland Line Confederate Soldiers’ Home. He is also co-author of Baltimore During the Civil War, and Marylanders in Blue, all of which were published by Toomey Press. He has lectured for a number of historical organizations, as well as for the National Park Service and the Smithsonian Institution. He has also contributed to radio and television programs, and on two Civil War battle videos. Mr. Toomey is a member of the Surratt Society, the Maryland Arms and the Company of Military Historians, and was project historian for the Maryland Memorial erected at Gettysburg in 1994 and wrote the inscription for that monument.
Railroad During the Civil War, (Baltimore: 2013), p. 123.
OR’s, Vol. 19, Part 1, p. 815.
OR’s, pp. 117-118; J. Willard Brown, The Signal Corps, USA in the War of the Rebellion, (Boston: 1896), Butternut and Blue reprint, 1996, pp. 241, 242, 325; Carman, pp. 176-177.
OR’s, Vol. 19, Part 1, pp. 208- 209; Vol. 51, Part 1, pp. 136- 137; Carman, p. 165.
Abner Howard, M.D., History of the Eighth Cavalry Regiment Illinois Volunteers…, Morningside Bookshop reprint (Dayton: 1984), pp. 171-172; OR’s, Vol. 19, Part 1, pp. 208, 825.
175; James A. Davis, “JEB Stuart’s Sabers & Roses Ball,” Catoctin History #10, p. 24.
209; Daniel Carroll Toomey, The Civil War in Maryland, (Baltimore: 1983), p. 49; Howard, p. 172
188; OR’s, Vol. I, p. 815.
19, pp. 815-816; Harsh, pp. 188, 205.
the First Maryland Campaign” Southern Historical Society Papers, (Kraus Reprint Co.: 1977), Vol. 12, pp. 516-517; Carman, p. 187; OR’s, Vol. 19, Part 1, pp. 822-823.