Petersburg, Appomattox trading cards tell the compelling stories of five soldiers, including a patriotic USCT officer who was wearing this kepi when he was shot

Cards for three soldiers, James Roantree's kepi and grave and photo of William Montgomery (NPS)

I don’t get up to Virginia and Maryland very often, so I took advantage of my family encouraging me to visit Petersburg, Monocacy (first time) and Manassas battlefields during a mid-August trip.

While leaving the visitor center/museum at Petersburg National Battlefield’s Eastern Front Unit, I spied boxes filled with surplus Civil War “trading cards” from the sesquicentennial.

I felt like a kid! I scooped up the five cards detailing specific soldiers, three of whom were killed near the war’s end.

I was familiar with two of the men but had not heard of the others. Thus began a journey of discovery after the ever-helpful Emmanuel Dabney, chief of resource management at Petersburg, got me started.

Dabney said the park recently launched a 13-part StoryMap interactive page highlighting the experiences of James Roantree (one of the trading cards) and his brother Robert. The text largely draws upon letters and James' 1864 diary, among several other fascinating resources.

"Their correspondence with their family members illustrates some common themes of this period, but their bitter opposition to those Northerners who did not wish to persecute the war in a manner that would destroy the Confederacy is fascinating," said Dabney.

"It's the family's efforts in the years after the Civil War to preserve the objects, letters, and diaries that really is of great value,” he said of the project.

The park has a chilling artifact: James Roantree’s kepi, which still has a bullet hole entry. He was killed in the Battle of Boydton Plank Road southwest of Petersburg.

I have used park information and other sources to learn the stories of these five men. The card for Roantree has his last name misspelled.

UNION SGT. DECATUR DORSEY

Amid the chaos following the Crater explosion at Petersburg on July 30, 1864, Sgt. Decatur Dorsey planted the flag on Confederate works as comrades with the 39^th USCT advanced into the breach.

Rare photo of black troops (background) in the field in Virginia (See more here)

Dorsey and his flag rallied men when they were pushed back. His heroism -- just months after gaining freedom from enslavement – earned him the Medal of Honor in November 1865. The park has nothing in its collections about Dorsey and, as is typically the case with African-American soldiers, has no photograph of him.

Dabney did point me to some information about Dorsey's life while enslaved in Howard County, Md. A researcher wrote that Dorsey’s slave name was Cato. Dorsey attempted a store burglary after his master died in 1858, possibly “part of a plan to run away and escape the risk of being ‘sold South.’”

After conviction, Dorsey escaped, was captured and sent to prison to complete his sentence. After he was released, he was purchased again, says the Howard County Historical Society.

A stack of trading cards at the Eastern Front visitor center (Picket photo)

At 28, he obtained his freedom in some manner shortly before the spring campaign of 1864 began. He enlisted with the 39^th USCT in Baltimore and was promoted twice before Petersburg.

Under cover of darkness on July 29, 1864, Dorsey and his regiment filed in to the trenches before Fort Morton on the eastern front of Petersburg, according to the National Park Service.

The Union army detonated a mine underneath the Confederate lines. After the mine's detonation, Federal soldiers rushed forward only to become trapped inside the crater and the defensive works on both sides. Dorsey was vulnerable as a target and the fact he could not use a weapon while carrying the flag.

The Union army was unable to exploit any advantage they had gained and soon withdrew to their lines.

The heavily engaged 39^th USCT saw action at Weldon Railroad, Poplar Grove church and Hatcher’s Run during the Petersburg campaign. It took part in the capture of Fort Fisher in North Carolina in January 1865 and helped occupy Wilmington.

Dorsey was honorably discharged in December 1865 while in Wilmington, North Carolina.

He married soon after and died in 1891 from the effects of typhoid and rheumatism he had contracted in Wilmington, at the approximate age of 55.

He is buried in Flower Hill Cemetery, North Bergen, NJ. (Photo courtesy Glenn Blank/ Findagrave)

UNION PVT. WILLIAM MONTGOMERY

All who have read about the Civil War – or any conflict, for that matter – have thought how cruel it was for a combatant to die just days, or hours, before the fighting was over.

Of course, any death from 1861 to 1865 was a terrible loss to loved ones, friends and comrades.

Pvt. William Montgomery of the 155^th Pennsylvania Infantry was mortally wounded about the time a flag of truce was exchanged on April 9, 1865, at Appomattox Court House. Confederate forces surrendered shortly afterward.

The Pittsburgh native had enlisted in Company I in August 1864 when he was 18, weighed only 115 founds and stood 5 feet 6 inches tall.

“By this point in the war, the 155th PA wore the iconic Zouave uniforms. These uniforms, adopted from the French, stood out thanks to their red fez hats, a jacket with yellow trim, a red sash, and baggy French Chasseur trousers,” according to the National Park Service.

After taking part in the siege of Petersburg, the 155^th marched on the Maria Wright House at Appomattox.Court House, an area held by the Confederate Richmond Howitzers..

Patrick A. Schroeder, historian at Appomattox Court House National Historic Park, wrote in his book "More Myths About Lee's Surrender," the 155th Pennsylvania was in a skirmish line when officers arrived with a ceasefire order. "As the firing began to die away, an artillery shell (or fragments of a shell) tore into young Montgomery. His fancy Zouave uniform was shredded, and much of his equipment was ripped from his body. The shell made a wound to Montgomery's inner right thigh."

He lingered for nearly three weeks.

“Under the Maltese Cross,” a book about the 155^th Pennsylvania, said, “Young Montgomery’s last words were messages of love and affection to his mother and the tender of comforting hopes that his injuries were not serious.”

He died the next day, on April 29, 1865, “while the paroling ceremonies were being enacted,” according to the book. (At left, NPS photo showing position of Rebel guns at Appomattox)

The young soldier is believed to be the last enlisted man killed in Virginia during the Civil War, but that is not possible to confirm. He is buried with other Federal dead at Poplar Grove National Cemetery at Petersburg.

A wayside marker at Appomattox details last casualties (NPS photo; click to enlarge)

Montgomery’s mother applied for the soldier’s pension.

Schroeder wrote it was a myth that Montgomery was only 15 when he died. And the regimental history was incorrect in saying the soldier died during paroling ceremonies, he said.

I asked the NPS historian why the Montgomery story resonates today.

“Undoubtedly, any soldiers killed or mortally wounded at Appomattox is tragic," Schroeder replied in an email. "Though it is myth that he was 15 as stated in the 155^th Pa regimental history, he was still young, 19. And he enlists as a substitute in the fall of 1864, probably to help support his family, only to be hit by a shell in the waning moments of the battle on the morning of April 9. Very sad."

CONFEDERATE COL. WILLIE PEGRAM

Like other boys of means in antebellum Virginia, William Ransom Johnson Pegram, or Willie, was born to be a soldier. As a teen in the militia, Pegram witnessed John Brown’s execution and as a law student joined the Confederate army when he was 19.

A marker showing the area in which Pegram fells (Devry Jones/HMdb.org)

Dubbed the “Boy Artillerist” by the late historian James “Bud:” Robertson, Pegram gained fame at Mechanicsville and fought at Cedar Mountain, Antietam, Gettysburg, the Wilderness, Cold Harbor and Petersburg, among other engagements.

“He was notably nearsighted -- and the story in Richmond was that's why he had to get so close to the enemy before engaging,” according to Antietam on the Web.

Rebel Maj. Gen. Henry Heth thought Pegram “one of the few men…supremely happy in battle.”

Robertson wrote that statement was true.

“Soldiers never tired of telling how, one afternoon when Pegram rode down his line of guns, an artilleryman waved his hat aloft and shouted: ‘Come on, boys! Here comes that damned little man with the glasses! We’re going to fight ‘em now.’

Living historians who have portrayed Pegram's unit at Petersburg (NPS photo)

Gen. Robert E. Lee declined to promote Pegram to general, believing he was too valuable as an artillery officer and was needed with his men and guns.

Nearly two months after his brother John, an infantry general, was killed, Pegram met the same fate at the Battle of Five Forks. He was mortally wounded during a Federal attack on April 1, 1865, and died the next day.

“To the end, he believed God would see the Confederate cause through to victory,” reads his trading card. He and John are buried together at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.

Pegram’s letters are in the collection of the Virginia Museum of History and Culture in Richmond, said Dabney.

UNION 2^nd LT. JAMES ROANTREE

Like about a half million other immigrants to the United States, brothers James and Robert Roantree heeded the call to arms to preserve the Union.

The Roantree family had moved from England to upstate New York in Madison County, east of Syracuse. James (photo left, courtesy of PNB) was about 10. He grew up to be a miller before the war.

The brothers enlisted in 1862 in the 157^th New York, and James, at least, had no shortage of patriotic fervor. Letters he wrote expounded on his determination to help subdue the South and, during a furlough, he worked for President Lincoln’s re-election in 1864.

Petersburg National Battlefield has a poetic musing by James written some time during the war. It is a florid story of love and loss, including these discouraging lines:

“She looked up in his face with earnest eyes and laid her hand in his, and bade him wake. And love another, fairer, freer, maid. He would be happy soon, she knew he would. He must for her dear sake.”

James soldiered on and was wounded at Gettysburg while still with the 157^th New York.

After hospitalization in Philadelphia and further service, Roantree joined the 43^rd U.S. Colored Infantry in September 1864 as a junior officer. He expressed his zeal in a letter:

“As regards commanding Negroes I think that someone must do it and believe it is perfectly right that they should be employed and therefore (I) am willing to fight with them and do what I can to put down this Rebellion.”

Roantree’s service with the USCT was brief. He wrote ahead of the Oct. 27, 1864, fighting at Boydton Plank Road.

“All we can do is to hope and trust in him who holds the destinies of all in his hands to bring us through. If I fall in the fray, I wish to fall at my post and I feel that if I am not permitted to survive the contest I shall fall while doing my duty.”

The bachelor was the only officer with the 43^rd USCT to die in the skirmish.

James Roantree's grave in New York (Courtesy of Douglas Holdridge)

His body was returned a month later to Clockville, N.Y., where he is buried with relatives.

Doug Holdridge of the Clockville Cemetery Association kindly took photos of the graves for me. He said burials in the small agriculture community date to the 1700s. He was unaware of any direct Roantree descendants in the area.

The community acknowledges James on Memorial Day with a veterans flag.

A descendant donated a number of items related to the brothers to Petersburg National Battlefield back in the 1990s.

“We have exhibited items from the collection at various times,” said Dabney.

One is a clothes brush that belonged to either James or Robert. James’ pocket diary and some letters home are in the collection, along with the kepi he wore when killed.

A letter from James Roantree to his family and his pocket diary (Petersburg NB)

I asked Dabney about the use of StoryMaps by the National Park Service.

“They are useful for spatial data where there are changes over time. In the case of the Roantrees, the StoryMap will highlight the brothers movements from England (where they were born), to New York, to Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and for Robert to the Deep South where he spent time in Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina before mustering out. 

David L. Sadler, town of Lincoln historian, said Robert served as a school teacher in Clockville after the war. Robert died in 1911 and is buried in Canastota, a few miles away from James.

UNION MAJ. GOV. GOUVERNEUR K. WARREN

After leading troops at Second Manassas and the Peninsula Campaign, Warren earned everlasting fame at Gettysburg. The chief engineer of the Army of the Potomac directed troops to take unoccupied Little Round Top in July 1863.and save the Union left and set up victory.

Warren peers for eternity at enemy troops below at Gettysburg (NPS)

A bronze statue of Warren gazes below from the summit; it is among the Pennsylvania battlefield’s most-famous landmarks.

Warren later led II Corps in Virginia before taking over the V Corps. He did well during much of the long Petersburg siege, but his reputation was sullied in the final months of the war.

“He led his corps in the Battle of Five Forks, the first action of the Appomattox Campaign. By that time Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant had found Warren troublesome because of his questioning of orders and unwelcome suggestions,” reads an Army Corps of Engineers biography.

“Grant gave Maj. Gen. Philip H. Sheridan authority to remove Warren from command of V Corps, which Sheridan, who disliked Warren, promptly did, alleging that Warren had not vigorously pressed the action at Five Forks.”

The bitter Wallace was reassigned to the defenses of Petersburg.

“After the war, he resigned his commission as a major general in protest to Sheridan’s actions, and returned to the Corps of Engineers.  He spent the rest of his career attempting to exonerate his name,” said the American Battlefield Trust.

The general, known for his complex nature, called for a court martial to investigate the Sheridan controversy. An 1879 inquiry issued a report exonerating Warren in 1882, shortly after he died of diabetes complications at age 52. 

“At his request he was buried in civilian clothing and without military honors,” the Corps says.

The title of a biography on Warren might sum up his complicated career: “Happiness Is Not My Companion.”