19-foot statue hoisted back into place

A historic statue has been returned to a Civil War memorial in Wichita, Kan., after undergoing a nearly three-year renovation in Missouri. The Wichita Eagle reports that a crane hoisted the statute, named “Liberty,” into place Wednesday. It occupies the pinnacle of the Soldiers and Sailors Civil War Monument outside the Sedgwick County Historic Courthouse. • Article

Huge painting of Gettysburg gets new home, more visitors at Spartanburg, S.C., library

James Walker/Courtesy of Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, S.C.

A massive painting depicting Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg has made a short march in downtown Spartanburg, S.C., to the county library headquarters, where more people will be able to take in all of its exacting detail.

Over the weekend, James Walker’s “The Battle of Gettysburg: Repulse of Longstreet’s Assault, July 3, 1863” was taken out of its frame at the Advance America corporate headquarters and transported a couple blocks to Spartanburg County Public Libraries, where it will be unveiled next month as part of the library headquarters’ new programming spaces.

For 12 years, the painting – a staggering 7 1/2-feet high by 20-feet wide -- was displayed in the corporate lobby, where visitors had to be buzzed in. (Click painting to enlarge)

Philanthropists Susu and George Dean Johnson Jr., who bought the panoramic work in 2003 from a Mobile, Ala., family, were “haunted” by the fact that more Spartanburg residents could not enjoy it, said Lynne Blackman, public relations coordinator for the Johnson Collection. The collection includes more than 1,200 works of fine art relating to the American South.

“The entire purpose is for it to be stewarded and shared,” Blackman told the Picket on Monday.

Blackman said nine professionals carefully moved Walker's titanic creation, not an easy task given its weight -- with frame, an estimated 2,000 pounds. The gilded frame, which features rifles and cannons, was disassembled. An expert checked the integrity of the painting, which was conserved after its purchase.

“It is in excellent shape,” Blackman told the Picket. She likened the move to a “choreographed ballet.”

The painting showing Pickett’s Charge will be on loan to the library system, where about 500,000 annual visitors can see it. County librarian Todd Stephens, in a YouTube video about the move, said the work will be in a recessed upper-floor niche and serve as a fascinating backdrop to lectures, documentary viewings and other programming.

A public unveiling is set for 7 p.m. on May 16.

J.B. Bachelder

The English-born Walker was known for his military art, often large in scale. For Gettysburg, he worked with artist and historian John Badger Bachelder. The oil painting, after it debuted in Boston in 1870, traveled around much of the country, providing education and entertainment in the days before movies.

Johnson Collection curator Erin Corrales-Diaz said patrons would buy an admission ticket and have an opportunity to buy small-scale prints of the painting and a highly detailed key showing key battle figures and moments.

In another video, history Prof. Melissa Walker of Converse College said it is astounding how Walker’s painting captures the landscape at Gettysburg.

“It is a mile of cornfield across which these soldiers were scattered,” she said. “You can really get a sense of the immensity of the battlefield and the horror of what happened there when you stand there on what many people have called consecrated ground. And you get that sense in this painting, as well.”

In a press release about the relocation, officials said the painting will provide a wealth of information about Gettysburg. (While Gen. James Longstreet was born in South Carolina, none of the Palmetto State’s troops took part in this charge, though they were elsewhere in the battle).

"Walker’s grand canvas captures the dramatic conclusion of the three-day battle, which marked a turning point in the war’s tide. Bachelder’s meticulous research and Walker’s precise technical skill combined to produce an epic visual record of the event, including regimental positions, combat vignettes, Union and Confederate soldiers, noble steeds, victory and defeat.”

For a painting so huge, visitors will be drawn to details, including advancing and surrendering troops, the wounded and dying, plus various accoutrements, from caps to strewn knapsacks. Veterans would often talk about the painting’s accuracy, officials said.

Lewis Armistead

“The monumentality of the painting allows the viewer to become immersed in the scene, yet the detailed vignettes such as Confederate General Armistead handing an aide his pocket watch to give to Union General (Winfield Scott) Hancock, provide a spotlight focus that makes the painting more tangible and accessible,” Corrales-Diaz said in the statement. Armistead was mortally wounded in the attack.

While Walker’s work is not necessarily Southern, the Johnson Collection has other works, including Henry Mosler’s painting “The Lost Cause,” depicting a sorrowful soldier returning to a deserted log cabin.

The free May 16 program at the library's new Gettysburg Room will include period music and the portrayal of George Pickett, Hancock and two privates, one Federal, the other Rebel. The Johnson Collection website includes an audio overview of the painting.

18 burial trenches at Salisbury National Cemetery in N.C. bespeak war's misery

Burial trenches are in open area to right of monuments (Picket photos)

Unlike at Camp Sumter (Andersonville) in Georgia, Union troops held at Salisbury Prison in North Carolina had no Dorence Atwater to record the names and number of fallen comrades.

When conditions in the overcrowded stockade reached a crisis stage, Confederate officials resorted to burial trenches – an estimated 18 – to hold the dead. Bodies were placed above one another in 240-foot lines; there were no markers and few coffins.

While initial Army death estimates ranged above 11,000, the National Park Service now maintains about 3,700 men died between October 1864 and February 1865. No one knows for certain.

On Saturday afternoon, I got off Interstate 85 and made a brief visit to the bucolic site southeast of downtown. Save one car, I was the only visitor to this portion of Salisbury National Cemetery on a fine spring day, a light breeze barely rustling leaves.

The cemetery has three monuments – for the unknown dead and men from Maine and Pennsylvania. Just beyond the Maine and taller monument to the unknown is an open patch of grass above the burial trenches. It’s a sobering sight.

The Keystone State has an iron placard with a title that speaks to the suffering: “Many Pennsylvania Soldiers Are Buried Here.”

I was taken by the eloquence of the panel’s message, including a reminder that the 1910 monument was erected in memory of the dead and “not as a commemoration of victory.”

Most of the individual gravestones are for unknown soldiers. Medal of Honor recipient Lorenzo Deming is among those who died at Salisbury.

The prison opened in October 1861 on the site of an old cotton factory. It was first intended to hold Confederates who had committed offenses, but it was quickly switched to hold Union troops. By the end of October 1864, the population had more than doubled to 10,000 on a site originally built for 2,500.

Description of the 18 burial trenches

View of prison, made 20 years later (Wikipedia, public domain)

Adequate shelter, rations and sanitation quickly evaporated.

“The prison quartered prisoners in every available space,” the NPS writes. “Those without shelter dug burrows in an attempt to stay warm and dry. Rations and potable water were scarce. Adding to the poor conditions was an unusually cold and wet winter. Disease and starvation began to claim lives, and all buildings within the stockade were converted to hospitals to care for the sick.

The trench graves were dug in a cornfield west of the prison. About 200 Union troops died in a November 1864 mass escape.

Maine monument (left) and one for unknown dead

With a death rate hovering near 28% in the camp’s last several months, it’s no surprise Federal forces burned the site in April 1865. (The death rate was much lower during much of the conflict). The cemetery opened in 1874.
 
NCpedia writes: “The most painful period for the Salisbury prisoners was from October 1864 until their release in February 1865. Accounts from POW diaries indicate that the prisoners took in about 1,600 calories per day, whereas 2,000 calories was considered the minimum for survival under the adverse conditions that existed at Salisbury. It is not surprising that diarrhea was the most common disease as well as the most deadly, due in large part to the overcrowding and unsanitary conditions.”

Salisbury’s commandant was acquitted of war crimes.

Peaceful scene of Salisbury prison life (Library of Congress)

Harriet Tubman: Abolitionist and Union spy

With the Treasury Department announcing Wednesday that Harriet Tubman will replace President Andrew Jackson on the front of the $20 bill, the Washington Post reports that it is noteworthy that her legacy extends beyond her extensive contributions to the abolition movement and into her work as a Union spy who oversaw a Special Operations unit of sorts, according to numerous accounts. • Article

How they spent their spring break: Students help excavate Pea Ridge artifacts

NPS' Alex Swift with piece of case shot or a .69-caliber musket ball. (NPS)

Archaeologists are cleaning and analyzing hundreds of artifacts – the largest a 6-pound solid artillery shot – recovered from a cornfield that saw a desperate Confederate infantry assault during the 1862 Battle of Pea Ridge.

As the Picket reported in February, scientists, volunteers and historians found what they expected following high-tech surveys: Artillery fragments and solid pieces from case shot.

“We did find some bullets,” Troy Banzhaf, chief of interpretation at Pea Ridge National Military Park in northwest Arkansas, said Monday. “Most of them appeared to be dropped.”

Park volunteers, high school students on spring break from the Arkansas Arts Academy in nearby Rogers and National Park Service staffers on March 21-24 excavated 530 objects related to the battle. Another 500 artifacts are postwar.

While they used metal detectors to home in on individual items, they were guided by the findings from remote sensing sweeps conducted by the Arkansas Archeological Survey.

The “super precise” technology, combined with GPS maps, is allowing archaeologists to do a complete study of the largely pristine battle area. The tally of recovered artifacts, while impressive, is not the main aim of the research.

“More so is the location of where we are finding stuff,” said Banzhaf. “Once we have it plotted on the map, that really tells a story.”

Federal guns pounded 3,000 members of the Missouri State Guard as they made their attack at the field on March 7, 1862.

One aim of the project is to ascertain, by analyzing artillery fragment locations, just where the guns were located, the distance from targets and perhaps even the trajectory of the shots. “We can turn the four guns out there (on display) to be in a more appropriate location," Banzhaf said.

Metal detectors and shovels were constant companions (NPS)

Jamie Brandon, a regional archaeologist with the Survey, said the team is interested in such “patterns.”

“It will probably be well into the summer before we are looking at patterns in our database and what they might tell us that we did not already know about the battle.”

Pea Ridge Superintendent Kevin Eads said he is “looking forward” to seeing the analysis.

The attack on Benjamin Ruddick’s cornfield was a short affair. Union canister and shells and infantry fire ripped through the Rebel lines. It was over in 15 minutes, the survivors limping back toward Elkhorn Tavern.

(A Union artillery barraged during an artillery duel the next day sent Rebels scrambling for any cover they could find).

Thousands of “magnetic anomalies” were detected within two feet of the surface at the cornfield site. Archaeologists are excavating a limited number for further study and possible display at the visitor center – all part of an ongoing effort to more fully interpret what happened here.

Researchers have employed five remote-sensing technologies for this project: Gradiometers, electrical resistance, electromagnetic conductivity, magnetic susceptibility and ground-penetrating radar. The effort was supplemented last month by the traditional metal detector during the small, pinpoint excavations.

“Each senses a different physical property in the soil,” said Jami Lockhart, the technology guru of the Survey team. “We are trying to determine, because we can sense big concentrations of metal … where troops were shooting from and to.” 

Banzhaf said the spring break work involved digs in “lanes” of artifacts noted by the Survey. Crews worked in grids from north to south, covering about half the field.

As predicted, most of the metal turned out to be artillery fragments. A bucket and button were found, but no musket pieces, scabbard tips or uniform buttons. “It is strange we didn’t find any of that.”

Historical accounts don’t indicate exactly how long the attacking Confederate line was. 

Shell fragments have been found beyond vehicles in background (NPS)

Artillery rounds farther east than expected indicate it may have longer than anticipated.

“We are fairly close to where everything was historically but this will help us get a more pinpoint accuracy where these guns were at,” said Banzhaf.

The March 6-9, 1862, Battle of Pea Ridge (Elkhorn Tavern) has been called by some historians “the Gettysburg of the West.”

Forces under Union Maj. Gen. Samuel Curtis defeated the men of Confederate Maj. Gen. Earl Van Dorn, whose leadership has been faulted by historians. On March 7, the Rebels controlled Elkhorn Tavern, but the failed attack at Ruddick’s Field presaged the next day, in which consolidated Federal troops made a counterattack, sweeping Van Dorn’s brigades from the field.

The Union won control of Missouri and weakened the Confederate hold in Arkansas.

“It is no exaggeration to say that the Pea Ridge campaign permanently altered the balance of power in the Trans-Mississippi. Few Civil War operations had such an impact on the course of events,” according to the National Park Service.

The Missouri State Guard was made up of pretty good troops, according to Banzhaf. They were veterans of Wilson’s Creek.

But they were in little shape to fight at Elkhorn Tavern, having marched 60 miles over three days. Most had little or nothing to eat for a couple days.

If they had succeeded in their attack, the Missourians might have changed the outcome of the battle – and filled their bellies. The main Union supply line was just below the cornfield.

Bring sneakers but no gloves to Sunday's baseball fun on Fort Pulaski parade ground

(NPS photos)

The old ball game won’t cost you a dime Sunday at Fort Pulaski National Monument outside Savannah, Ga.

The Civil War site is marking the National Park Service’s centennial through a celebration of 19th-century baseball. Participants, with a focus on youth, will learn how to hurl (pitch) and strike (bat) on the old parade ground that saw baseball games way back in 1862.

“They’ll be learning the rules and taking a crack at it,” said interpretive ranger Andrew Miller. Games are planned at the end of two sessions (11 a.m.-1 p.m. and 2 p.m.-4 p.m.).

A bonus is that admission to Pulaski, as it is at all NPS units, is free during National Park Week, April 16-24.

Visitors will get a history lesson on baseball at Fort Pulaski. In 1862, months after the fort fell to Union forces, Henry P. Moore took one of the earliest surviving photos of a baseball game.

In the photograph, members of Company G, 48th New York Volunteer Infantry Regiment proudly stand at attention on the Fort Pulaski parade ground.

Behind them, other soldiers play a game that transcends geography and stations in life.

Miller is quick to point out that Sunday’s action will be less competitive. The main idea is to promote health and fitness, particularly among youngsters. He expects a good crowd.

Of course, many visitors to Fort Pulaski won’t be taking part in the baseball fun. “We’ll be trying to keep as many foul balls as possible corralled," said Miller.

And because the parade ground isn’t quite level and has some dips, “We want to emphasize safety. Do not try to run as fast as you can.”

Union soldiers, many from Brooklyn, followed the New York, or Knickerbocker rules. They are the basis for the modern game, and featured bases, the foul line and diamond shape of the infield.

There are no gloves or called balls. Hurlers throw the ball underhanded. A striker (batter) is called out if the ball is caught in the air or on one bounce.

The baseballs and bats to be used Sunday are reproductions of 19^th century equipment. 

The Fort Pulaski staff a few years ago played in a “Rumble on the River” annual series against Old Fort Jackson, a Confederate defensive fortification operated by the Coastal Heritage Society.

Baseball got its start in the Northeast, with several variations and sets of rules adopted before and during the Civil War. Southern troops had little familiarity with the sport and there is no evidence it was played at Fort Jackson.

Mustered in Brooklyn, the 48th New York served more than a year at Pulaski before being sent to Hilton Head, S.C., and on to the bloody fighting at Battery Wagner near Charleston, where it suffered heavy casualties. While at Pulaski, they were protected by Union gunboats and other troops, allowing them to enjoy some entertainment.

Brigade commander Col. William Barton is remembered for the Barton Dramatic Association, a theater group that entertained the troops.

Among the patrons who saw productions outside the walls were Union officers and enlisted men stationed at Hilton Head and Port Royal, S.C.

Soldiers at the garrison in Fort Pulaski traveled to those locations to play baseball. Miller said his research showed the men were competitive and likely played against fellow New Yorkers.

While baseball hadn’t yet caught on in the South, Confederate prisoners (including Georgians captured at Fort Pulaski) that were held at Castle Williams on New York’s Governors Island were known to occasionally play baseball.

Miller said he will probably umpire Sunday’s games. “I am going to be very lenient.”

3D sonar imaging will help confirm identity of Rebel blockade runner off N.C.

(Courtesy N.C. Office of State Archaeology)

A 3D sonar imaging device will aid divers next week as they continue to explore what’s believed to be the largely intact remains of the Civil War blockade runner Agnes E. Fry.

The North Carolina Office of State Archaeology on Monday said the Charlotte Fire Department offered the use of the technology for the investigation just off Oak Island, south of Wilmington.

Deputy state archaeologist Bill Ray Morris, in a statement, said the remains of the iron-hulled steamer match up with the Scotland-made Agnes E. Fry, one of three blockade runners that sank in the area.

“Fry was 236 feet long, and the vessel remains we have are 225 feet in length. The other runners, Georgianna McCaw and Spunkie are both considerably shorter and a much earlier design than Fry,” said Morris. “The boiler type, as well as the hull design of the wreck, are both indicative of a more modern vessel than either McCaw or Spunkie. The difference in the lengths has to do with the damage to the bow and stern.”

The wreck was first studied in late February with side-scan sonar images during remote sensing operations. Both engines and the paddlewheel shaft are missing, matching salvage records. Divers noted the missing pieces during a March 22 dive.

"Every piece of evidence we have examined to date, from sonar images to primary documentation, points directly to this shipwreck being Agnes E. Fry," said Gordon Watts of the Institute for International Maritime Research. "We look forward to working with the Charlotte team to confirm our suspicions." 

The Llama resembled the Agnes E. Fry (NCOSA)

Fire officials in Charlotte arranged for Nautilus Marine Group International, the company that provides sonar systems to its dive team, to bring the latest version of a sector-scanning imaging sonar to confirm the vessel’s identity

"This instrument will allow us to make a complete, multi-dimensional map of the site in a matter of days," Morris said in the statement. "Unlike usual methods, imaging sonar does not require good visibility and is considerably faster than on-site mapping. Visibility underwater on the site is so murky that it rarely exceeds 18 inches."

The Agnes E. Fry made several successful runs for the Confederacy before it ran aground near Wilmington in the closing months of the war.

Not a land mine, but maybe a cannonball?

A Civil War-era device found near Danville by a Hot Springs man that prompted the evacuation Thursday of a neighborhood was "definitely not a land mine," the Magnolia station archaeologists for the Arkansas Archeological Survey said. The device was destroyed by an ordnance disposal team. • Article

On Shiloh's 154th anniversary, an ode to a Union fifer who was there, and a note about social media

Veteran W.Y. Jenkins plays his fife (Courtesy of R. Serroels)

Shiloh National Military Park this week is marking the 154^th anniversary of the epic contest in the Civil War’s Western Theater. Visitors are tromping through fields and woods for hikes and tours that are bringing the battle to life.

Many more people are following activities through the federal site’s “aggressive” social media, which provide real-time updates for certain programming, such as today (April 6).

That outreach can elicit responses that add richness and context to the story of the two-day clash in southern Tennessee on April 6-7, 1862. Such was the case last weekend after the park posted photos of a whiteboard filled on both sides with the names of soldiers and their units.

Rangers had asked visitors to list ancestors who fought in the Civil War. They, like the men who fought here, tend to be from the Midwest or Deep South.

Richard Serroels, who has not been to Shiloh in about 30 years, was among those responding to a park Facebook post showing the whiteboard.

“My maternal great-grandfather, Warren Young Jenkins, was a fife player at Shiloh,” the Marietta, Ga., resident wrote. “The family donated his fife to the museum and it was put on display along with other battlefield instruments from the war. He was with the 9^th Illinois Infantry.”

Jenkins' fife is on display at Shiloh (Courtesy NPS)

The Picket spoke to Shiloh ranger Chris Mekow and Serroels on Tuesday, curious about the impact of social media and the story of Jenkins, who survived the war, was married for more than six decades and ended his days in Canon City, Colo.

In later years, Jenkins wrote a riveting account of the carnage at Shiloh, which saw more than 23,000 casualties and, eventually, a Union victory.

The 9^th Illinois, part of Hurlbut’s division, suffered enormous losses as it bore the brunt of Confederate assaults throughout April 6. Some 103 men were killed and 263 wounded, one of the highest rates for a unit at the battle. (Interestingly, the 9^th Illinois was positioned not far from where Confederate commander Gen. Albert Sydney Johnston was mortally wounded.)

Like other musicians, Jenkins, a private, served as a medical orderly when bullets and artillery rounds started flying. After one Rebel shell landed, the Company H fifer carried two wounded soldiers to the rear and went back for a third and found him sitting behind a large stump.

Jenkins, then age 23, wrote later:

“I said, ‘Come, now, and I will take you to the field hospital to have your wound dressed.’ He said, ‘Oh, no, I am mortally wounded; see here!’ and he opened his clothing, uncovering his wound. The shell had torn out three or four ribs on his left side and I could see his heart throbbing. He took out his watch and handed it to me, telling me to send it to his girl (I suppose his intended wife, a German name that I cannot remember). I wrote his name on a small bit of paper and closed it up in the back of the watch and later gave it to his captain with the written instructions to send it to the lady at Belleville, Illinois.” (Jenkins was from Hillsboro, Ill., about 50 miles south of Springfield.)

Jenkins came across the soldier’s remains three days later while on burial detail.

Whiteboard filled with soldiers' names at Shiloh (NPS)

He provided other details of the fighting, including his attempt to fire a weapon belonging to a killed comrade. He asked another soldier for a cap to prime the gun.

“He looked down to get a cap and a ball from the enemy passed through his cartridge box and blowed the cartridge box all to splitherines with 30 or 40 rounds of cartridges right up into both of his eyes and my left eye,” recounted the musician. “The injury to Arthur's eyes turned out serious in after years. He went totally blind. My left eye was injured for life.”

Later in the evening, Jenkins cared for more wounded at a steamboat landing and helped build a makeshift coffin and bury an orderly sergeant who had suffered intensely.

Today, Jenkins’ fife, which he was known to proudly play throughout his life, is on display at Shiloh’s museum. The family donated it in the early 1990s, Mekow told the Picket.

The ranger said the whiteboard, which was labeled “Find Your Park” as part of the National Park Service’s centennial celebration, is part of an effort to get more interaction with visitors, whether in person or via social media. Many interested in the battle – such as Serroels -- cannot get to the remote location. “You have got to make a trip to get here,” said Mekow.

The park is active on five platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Flickr. 

“Shiloh has the most active and so far most engaging Facebook page of any Civil War park in the Southeast,” said Mekow. “We have been very aggressive. We are a daily poster. We follow live events in real time.”

“(This) actually gets our programs to people who will never be able to step foot on this battlefield.”

Two comrades in arms, music (R. Serroels)

Posts and video’s aren’t just about the military action, though there is plenty of that. Some look at the park’s natural features, or music. Readers really like the behind-the-scenes stuff, Mekow said, such as remodeling or work on a park feature.

An example was then-and-now photos of a monument dedicated in 1913. “That one went off the charts.”

Shiloh National Military Park has several activities planned to mark the NPS’s 100^th birthday, including a summer concert series. In November, memorial luminaries will be placed in the park’s Corinth, Ms., unit and around that city.

Shiloh and other NPS sites regularly tell the stories of men such as Jenkins, who served a couple stints before mustering out in August 1864. (Jenkins tells a sweet story of visiting home a few months before he got out, playing “Home, Sweet Home” on the fife to his mother.)

Jenkins described the scene as he and other boys returned home.

“Nearly every one of the 29 men that arrived at Hillsboro August 29, 1864, had been absent since April 17, 186(1), 3 years, 4 months and 12 days. When we left there were 110 of us marched to the depot. Where were the 81 missing boys? Why most of them were sleeping the sleep that knows no waking. Some of them in unknown graves.”

9th Illinois monument (background) at Shiloh cemetery (NPS)

The 9^th Illinois went on to take part in the Atlanta Campaign and March to the Sea, and seeing further action in the Carolinas before mustering out after war’s end. It listed 417 men having died from wounds or disease.

A few months before the farmer mustered out, Jenkins had married Susan – a union that produced numerous children and lasted 62 years until her death in 1926. They lived in Illinois and Kansas before moving to Colorado in 1899. Jenkins was active in the Grand Army of the Republic and assisted a fellow veteran in receiving benefits. He would occasionally play his fife, a wooden flute that produces shrill notes. He passed away in 1929 at 90.

A member of a GAR lodge in Colorado a decade before adapted a seven-stanza ode to honor Jenkins’ “historical fife,” which he continued to play on Memorial Day. The verse concludes:

Now worn and gray like the comrades brave,
Who faced the bullet and screaming shell,
It sounds no more in the camps or field
The old commands in a thrilling swell.

When Jenkins answers the last roll call,
And departs from this mortal sphere,
I am sure he would rest more peaceful all
If he knew his old fife was near.