Our flag was still there: 'The Demon of Unrest' brings attention to the march to war, Fort Sumter's brave commander and the return of Old Glory after Union triumph

Souvenir from April 1865 flag-raising (Courtesy Glen Hayes), Peter Hart puts flag back up during 1861 bombardment

If you look closely at the illustration on the dust jacket for Erick Larson’s “The Demon of Unrest,” you will notice something small, but colorful at dead center. The object is surrounded by Fort Sumter’s brick walls, flames and smoke and the bright streaks of incoming artillery fire.

It's the U.S. flag flying defiantly as garrison commander Col. Robert Anderson and his soldiers bravely withstand the furious Confederate bombardment that launched the Civil War in April 1861. Anderson felt not only the burden of defending the bastion, but also safeguarding the American flag. He surrendered only after his supplies were depleted, parts of the interior were on fire and his exhausted, outnumbered troops could not carry on.

I read Larson’s compelling book a couple months back and thought back to two posts I have written about the National Park Service taking three historic Fort Sumter flags off display last year to give them time to rest from exposure to light. Among them is the 20-foot-by 10-foot storm flag, which flew during the 34-hour bombardment.

As Larson recounts, Anderson told Confederates hours before the attack he would not fire “unless compelled to do so by some hostile act against this fort or the flag of my Government."

Some members of the flag-removal team in front of the storm flag at Fort Sumter (NPS photo)

Rebel batteries, naturally, took aim at the storm flag, which has 33 stars, once the early-morning assault began, and they eventually brought it down.

“A ball or shell shattered its staff and the great flag collapsed into the smoke below. ‘Then arose the loudest and longest shout of joy – as if this downfall of the flag, with its cause, was the representation of our victory,’ Southern firebrand Edmund Ruffin wrote in his diary,” Larson writes.

The flag, to the Union garrison, was “a tactile representation of nationhood” and must be made to fly again. (Robert Anderson, left)

“Sumter’s unofficial infantryman, Peter Hart, the New York City police officer who had accompanied Anderson’s wife on her surprise visit to the fort, set off through the smoke and fire and came back with a long spar to replace the shattered flagstaff,” Larson writes. “Hart also retrieved the flag and nailed it by its edge to the spar. He then fixed the spar to a gun carriage on the parapet level, all this while fully exposed to Confederate fire. Once again the wind caught the flag. It did not fly as high as it had, but at intervals wind gusts created temporary clearings that revealed the flag gamely flying amid striations of smoke.”

Confederates treated Anderson and his men honorably after the surrender, and he took the storm flag with him. It immediately became a patriotic symbol for the remainder of the conflict and raised the status of the Star-Spangled Banner to what we know today. Anderson was treated as a hero in North.

As Military Images publisher Ronald S. Coddington wrote, Anderson later told an acquaintance of the flag: “I knew that it would never come down in disgrace.”

In a twist of fate, Anderson, a retired general, returned to Charleston at war’s end to raise the flag again over the battered fortress (more about that below). An aside: Visitors to the fort today who take the first boat river over in the morning can help rangers raise the U.S. flag.

Q&A with Fort Sumter staffer about impact of book

I recently asked Brett Spaulding, chief of interpretation for Fort Sumter and Fort Moultrie National Historical Park, about the renewed interest on the site brought by “The Demon of Unrest.” (At right, damaged flagpole after Confederate bombardment, Library of Congress)

Q. I am curious as to what kind of attention or questions the book has posed to rangers at the park. Do guests or historians bring up particular aspects of the book's scholarship?

A. “The Demon of Unrest” is frequently mentioned by visitors to Fort Sumter as a reason for their interest in visiting our site. Common questions are about the mindsets of the major players of the pre-Civil War standoff – the courage and inner conflict of Major Robert Anderson, and the march to war among both hardcore secessionists and typical white Charlestonians.

Q. Did the park provide any resources or materials for Larson? Did the staff learn new things from the book that might be helpful with interpretation?

A. Fort Sumter & Fort Moultrie NHP was not involved in the research or writing of “The Demon of Unrest”, though writer Erik Larson visited the fort in the spring of 2024. The book reinforced existing research on the environment of pre-war Charleston, and helped visitors make connections between influential “fire-eater” secessionists and the crisis at Fort Sumter.

Q. The storm flag in particular: Have you learned anything new about it? What details does the park have on its status and location during the bombardment?

A. The book, unfortunately, gives an inaccurate impression of which of our historic flags flew during the bombardment. On page 10, Larson refers to Anderson, within an hour of the bombardment, raising a flag “twenty feet high by thirty-six long” over Fort Sumter. However, a New York Times article dated May 21, 1861, citing conversations with Major Anderson, specifically states that Anderson flew the smaller of his two flags. The smaller of the two flags in our collection, the storm flag, measures ten by twenty feet and was the original flag that flew during the bombardment. Based on historic images of the fort, we believe the flagpole’s original location to be near the left flank of the fort, not far from the fort’s modern-day entrance. (The larger garrison flag was taken down shortly before the bombardment and replaced by the sturdier storm flag.)

Storm flag, top, garrison flag and the Confederate Palmetto Guard flag (NPS)

Q. The Palmetto Guard flag -- Have you learned anything new about it? Did Edmund Ruffin carry it into the fort and hold it during Anderson's surrender? Do you have any idea where it was made and when?

A. We do not have further information on the origins of the Palmetto Guard flag. The earliest citation we have found for it is The New York Times article of December 1, 1860.

Edmund Ruffin’s presence in the Palmetto Guard is backed up by the historical record. We do not have evidence to dispute that the Guard chose to let Ruffin bear the flag – he was a well-known secessionist leader and had been given the honor of firing the first shot from their battery. Contemporary accounts do place Ruffin in the fort on April 14, the day of the ceremony.

Q. Can you please tell me where all three flags are currently being stored, and in what fashion (tube, flat, etc.)? (At left, one of the flags being removed in 2023, NPS photo)

A. The Palmetto flag and the storm flag are both stored in our curatorial facility. The garrison flag is stored in a trusted specialty art storage facility in Texas via government contract due to its immense size and more fragile nature. All three flags are stored and were professionally packed by a team of conservators, museum staff and art movers. The flags are interleaved with and wrapped with archival materials and are stored rolled an archival tube for preservation purposes. 

Q.  I know the Harpers Ferry Center experts have said they all will need some kind of work, mounts, repairs, new frames, etc. at some point. Has any of that work begun, or is it too early?

A. The garrison flag specifically has been identified as needing additional conservation work. Plans for this work have been prepared but will not go into effect until the permanent home for this flag is ready (this includes facility and exhibit renovations). This is to ensure the flag is packed and moved as few times as possible while it transitions from its current storage unit to the conservation lab, and finally to its permanent home. We are currently speculating that this work may be able to be scheduled in approximately three years.

Q. How long do you think each banner will be kept in the dark, so to speak?

A. Currently, the answer to this question is uncertain. The park does not plan on returning any flags to exhibit at Fort Sumter specifically due to the difficulty with accessing this site in the event of an emergency, and the higher difficulty with safely moving the flags to and from this site. The flags could go on exhibit at other sites and through other means. The most likely involves ongoing plans for a redesign of exhibit spaces at Liberty Square. 

Q. Has any decision or further discussion been had on the fate of the three flags?

A. Discussions about the flags are active and ongoing. The park is devoted to ensuring that all flags are properly cared for and stored. The garrison flag has been the largest point of discussion and planning since it is the only flag currently off site and in need of conservation. The Palmetto and storm flags are both stable, and their future plans will be determined when exhibit renovations are scheduled and planned.

POSTSCRIPT: Collector has flag-raising relic

Storm flag (waving behind white pole) about to be raised in 1865 (Library of Congress)

Glen Hayes of New York has collected Gettysburg artifacts and memorabilia for about 57 years (more on that in a future post), but he also has a few Fort Sumter-related items.

The most prominent is a souvenir from April 14, 1865, when Anderson, 59, and his son returned to the fort to again raise the storm flag he took with him in 1861. In June 2023, Military Images magazine wrote about ferns, loose flowers and bouquets that had been placed near the flag before its raising, a symbol of a restored union.

Hayes bought the relic that features mounted remnants of the flora and a portrait of Anderson and an uncommon photograph taken inside the fort that day, showing the large flag attached to two poles decorated with bunting.

The Military Images article states Anderson cried and told the large crowd that it had been “the cherished wish of my heart” to restore the flag to its rightful place. With him was Peter Hart, the man who reattached the flag during the bombardment four years before.

Photo of Robert Anderson by Brady (Courtesy Glen Hayes) / Storm flag (Library of Congress)

“With the reading of Psalms concluded, Hart stepped forward carrying a mailbag that contained the original flag, nail holes and all. At this the crowd broke into a tumult of cheers. Three Navy sailors attached the flag to a halyard; they added roses, mock orange blossoms, and an evergreen wreath,” wrote Larson.

Hayes told the Picket in an email he bought the item from a relic dealer in about 1981. The caption reads: “Some of the leaves & ferns that fell from the boquet on the flag raised in position from where the Confederates made us take it down at Fort Sumpter SC in the Civil War. 1865”

The maker of the collage is not known.

“I purchased it because it was a good example of the end of the Civil War. Also, the relic is what you would call a ‘silent witness’ to the events of that day,” Hayes said. “Also, because it had the uncommon scene of the actual flag as it was being raised. It is ironic looking at the picture and seeing all the happy people in the photo, they not knowing that that evening Pres. Lincoln would be assassinated. Also, that Lincoln had been invited to the ceremony but couldn't attend. How history could have changed if he went.”

Gun tool for Austrian weapon (Courtesy Glen Hayes)

Hayes years ago acquired a piece of wood from the Star of the West, a vessel Confederates fired upon in January 1861 when it attempted to supply the Federal garrison, an episode thoroughly documented in “The Demon of Unrest.”

The other item is a gun tool for a model 1854 Austrian Lorenz rifle. “Both sides used that rifle but seeing how the Confederates occupied Fort Sumter for 4 years it was probably from a Confederate soldier,” Hayes told the Picket.

'Sound trumpets! Let our bloody colors wave!: Professor using fellowship to learn more about how Americans turned to Shakespeare to interpret the Civil War

1864 cartoon depicting George McClellan and Abraham Lincoln in a "Hamlet" scene

From the White House desk of President Abraham Lincoln to book shelves in homes across America, the works of William Shakespeare were omnipresent during the Civil War.

Lincoln favored “Macbeth,” soldiers staged Shakespearean plays and people in North and South used the bard’s writings to justify their cause and express their deepest emotions at a time of great sacrifice and loss.

Now, a Massachusetts Historical Society fellowship is helping a history professor conduct research for a book she’s writing about reading habits and practices during the Civil War, particularly in regard to the works of Shakespeare.

Dr. Sarah Gardner, distinguished professor of history at Mercer University in Macon, Ga., is the recipient of the Suzanne and Caleb Loring Fellowship. The fellowship is entitled “Shakespeare Fights the American Civil War.”

Dr. Gardner has received more than 15 grants and fellowships (Mercer University)

She spent part of the summer at the historical society, which specializes in Union war efforts. Next June, she will travel to the Boston Athenaeum, which focuses on the Confederate side and has print materials, including newspapers, journal articles, books and poems.

“I became interested in Shakespeare because Shakespeare was popular with the Civil War generation,” the cultural historian told the Picket in an email. “He was evoked in speeches, he was popular on the lecture circuit, his plays were performed by amateur and by professional actors, allusions were deployed in magazines and in short and long fiction. I am largely interested in the ways soldiers and people on the home front used Shakespeare in their correspondence and diaries.”

Gardner, a cultural historian, has taught courses and written about the American South, the Civil War and Reconstruction. She gave three lectures in 2021 at Penn State University.

“Civil War-era Americans … turned to Shakespeare for universal truths,” said a preview of the series. “Shakespeare, they believed, spoke to abiding concerns, such as the soul of genius, the power of the imagination, and of the heroic individual’s ability to determine an event’s outcome.”

Both sides during the Civil War interpreted Shakespeare in a way advantageous to them.

“I haven't seen any meaningful difference between Unionists' and Confederates' uses of Shakespeare. And they don't always cite Shakespeare to defend a cause,” Gardner told the Picket.

Hamlet and Macbeth were especially popular with Civil War Americans.  

As Gardner and other scholars point out, Shakespeare had a lot to say about war. Two lines from  “Richard II” and “Macbeth” on the subject.

“He is come to open
The purple testament of bleeding war.”

And

“When the hurly-burly’s done,
When the battle’s lost and won.”

“Macbeth” apparently was Lincoln’s favorite. As an essay published on the National Endowment for the Humanities website says, the president did not suffer the weight of guilt and excesses as did Macbeth – who spoke of powerlessness.

“Instead, he got something far more abstract from Macbeth’s famous soliloquy. Throughout his life, Lincoln was deeply attracted to the idea of unchanging destiny, and used this ‘predestination’ mindset to help him survive even the most traumatic of events. In many ways, he saw his presidential legacy not as the result of well-ordered strategy and political planning, but as the sheer result of some higher order of which he was merely an often unwitting tool.” 

Ironically, Lincoln, a theatergoer, was assassinated by an actor who played Macbeth: John Wilkes Booth. (At right, Booth brothers, John at left, in 1864 for "Julius Caesar.")

One of the most-famous cartoons of the Civil War was the “Chicago Nominee,” drawn by Justin H. Howard. It shows Union Gen. George McClellan, who ran against Lincoln in 1864, depicted as Hamlet in the graveyard scene.

“Instead of the skull of court jester Yorick, McClellan addresses the head of President Abraham Lincoln, his Republican opponent. Governor Horatio Seymour of New York is cast as Hamlet’s friend Horatio, and the grave digger is a famished Irish immigrant,” says a description of the cartoon by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

“In 1862 Lincoln removed General McClellan, who had been in command of the Union army, from active duty after he failed to achieve a decisive victory at Antietam -- the bloodiest battle in American military history. The caption at the bottom of the image alludes to false newspaper reports that Lincoln had acted with inappropriate levity while touring the Civil War battlefield at Antietam.

The caption borrows an Act IV line from “Hamlet”: “I knew him, Horatio; a fellow of infinite jest. Where be your gibes now?”

Frederick Douglass was another big fan of Shakespeare. After the war, he was at a dinner with Powhatan Beaty, an African-American Medal of Honor recipient who became an actor, notably playing Macbeth.

A Mercer University news release about the fellowship says Gardner is reading letters, diaries and books to learn more what they read, much of which was from Shakespeare. People often used the author’s words to describe their experiences during the Civil War.

“I’m really interested in how people think and how they make sense of the world,” the professor and author said in the release. “The history of emotions allows us to enter a world removed from us, either by time or place. Everyone experiences joy or pain, but they experience them differently. We can better understand our historical actors by appealing to the history of emotions.”

160 years ago today, photographer Timothy O'Sullivan took breathtaking images of Grant council of war at Virginia church. Today, O'Sullivan is still a man of mystery

Grant leans over Meade's shoulder (Library of Congress); balcony view today (Kathy Hart)

Timothy O’Sullivan's Civil War photographs documented the horror of combat and the grind of camp life, drilling and marching in less deadly moments. While best known for those four years, O'Sullivan is getting attention now for his compelling images made a few years later out West.

Robert Sullivan, in his new book, “Double Exposure: Resurveying the West with Timothy O’Sullivan,” focuses on the enigmatic photographer’s work after the Civil War.

O’Sullivan, as the author tells the Columbia Journalism Review, left no autobiography, letters or papers. While O’Sullivan is well-known in Civil War circles, it’s safe to say most Americans know little to nothing about him. He died at age 42 of tuberculosis.

Thankfully, O’Sullivan’s work speaks for itself – from “A Harvest of Death” at Gettysburg (1863) to Iceberg Canyon on the Colorado River, circa 1871.

At about noon on May 21, 1864, O’Sullivan (left), using a stereo camera, captured an extraordinary moment on the grounds and from the second-floor balcony of Massaponax Baptist Church in northern Virginia. Union generals Ulysses S. Grant and George Meade and others rested on church pews, wrote orders and surveyed a map after the bloody fighting at nearby Spotsylvania Court House.

John Hennessy, retired chief historian at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park and a history blogger, told the Picket the images are simply remarkable.

“The series at Massaponax Church is a rare, completely candid series of shots of the army headquarters functioning,” he wrote. “I know of nothing else like it from the Civil War.”

My sole visit to the church came in 2016. With my parents, I walked the grounds. The sanctuary was closed, so I could not ascend the balcony to see what O’Sullivan saw below.

Since then, I have been trying to get an image replicating the view, and late last year Kathy Hart, a lifelong member of Massaponax Baptist Church and its history team, came through, taking the photo above on a rainy day.

Hart has been helpful in describing soldiers’ graffiti still on the walls of the church, Civil War tours she leads and more about the small congregation today.

A team from the American Battlefield Trust last summer shot photos and video at Massaponax for its “Step into History” series. The video was released in February.

In the immersive video, Garry Adelman, director of history and education for the Trust, says O’Sullivan must have been excited as he ascended the stairs to record Grant’s council of war.

I asked the trust for more information about the video shoot at the church, which is at the corner of a very busy U.S. 1 (then called Telegraph Road) and Massaponax Church Road. (The church address is 5101 Massaponax Church Road)

Adelman (left) and team at Massaponax Church (Courtesy of Garry Adelman)

“Doing this was complex stuff,” Adelman said. “Shooting in the church and since we shot in 360 making sure that crew didn’t show up in video was a challenge. Then, outside the church was done on a ladder and using a stick to approximate the window height, as seen in the photo.”

O’Sullivan’s treasured photographs are in the collection of the Library of Congress.

In one candid view, Grant leans over Meade’s shoulder to study a map as they plot the next phase of the Overland Campaign -- a move toward the North Anna River. In another, Grant sits with a cigar clenched in his teeth. Also present is Assistant Secretary of War Charles Dana and staff officers. Wagons of the Federal V Corps rumble by in the background on what is now Massaponax Church Road. Grant’s chief of staff John Rawlins also was there.

Grant realized on May 21 that Confederates remained in strong positions after fierce fighting at Spotsylvania and he decided to move to the southeast to try to get them out in the open. Much of the Union army used Smith Station Road and Massaponax Church Road as it started its march to the North Anna, according to Hennessy.

Period map shows church and Telegraph Road (Library of Congress; click to enlarge)

John Cummings, in his Spotsylvania Civil War Blog, has written about the day that Grant and his subordinates stopped by the church.

According to Cummings, Grant wrote one dispatch from Massaponax, to Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside. One of the O’Sullivan photographs shows Grant scribbling on a paper pad.

GENERAL: You may move as soon as practicable upon the receipt of this order, taking the direct ridge road to where it intersects the Telegraph road, thence by the latter road to Thornburg Cross-Roads. If the enemy occupy the crossing of the Po in such force as to prevent your using it, then you will hold the north side at Stanard's Mill until your column is passed, and move to Guiney's Bridge. General Wright will follow you and will cover the crossing of the Po for his own corps. At Guiney's Bridge you will receive further directions if you are forced to take that road. If successful in crossing at Stanard's your march will end at Thornburg.
U. S. Grant,
Lieutnant-General.

Grant writer an order while seated on church pew (Library of Congress)

The Metropolitan Museum in New York, which has a copy of one of the photographs, says of that day:

“The chaotic study is one of the most daring made by any Union photographer. … Evidence suggests that it had been a disastrous day for the Union troops, as the losses were heavy and no strategic advantage had been gained. In the background are rows of horse-drawn baggage wagons and ambulances transporting supplies for the next day’s engagement and the wounded to field hospitals.”

A soldier in one of the O’Sullivan photographs went on to receive the Medal of Honor for postwar gallantry. You can read about that here.

In 1863, during the middle of the conflict, Massaponax gave letters of dismissal to black members and they formed smaller churches. Confederate and Union forces alternately used the church as a stable, hospital and meeting place during various campaigns.

For a time, the graffiti on the balcony was covered by whitewash that covered “unsightly marks and the sad stories were forgotten.” The faded writing is now protected by Plexiglass.

A portion of graffiti left by Civil War soldiers (Massaponax Baptist Church)

According to a document kept by the history team, noted historian Douglas Southall Freeman had this to say about the graffiti:

 “A careful survey of the whole subject of the inscriptions at Massaponax Church leads me to conclude that you have something almost unique. The church was located in the no man’s land on the right flank of the Confederate position at Fredericksburg. The church was consequently visited by men of both armies. I do not know of another instance where inscriptions of both sides have survived to this extent. To extinguish them in any way would be to destroy a treasure which will become more and more interesting to visitors as it is known.”

Today, the church has one foot in history and the other very much in the 21^st century, meeting the needs of those near and far.

The congregation’s diverse 50 or so active members – many of whom commute to work in the Washington, D.C, metro area -- sponsor a food pantry. They also take part in the Samaritan’s Purse ministry, an international relief effort. “We teamed up with the local elementary school to help provide snacks for low-income students. Also, we visit the seniors at a nearby nursing facility playing bingo,” says Hart. (Photo, courtesy Kathy Hart)

A contemporary service is held at 11 a.m. on Sundays.

“Our mission is to love God and each other through worship; to grow in Christ through discipleship; to serve and fellowship together and to impact the community and the world for Christ,” says Hart.

Civil War aficionados stop by all the time to gaze at the church or a historical marker outside about Grant’s council of war.

O’Sullivan, 160 years after he traveled to Massaponax, is getting new attention through Sullivan’s book.

The photographer was an integral part of Clarence King's survey of the West, undertaken between 1867 and 1872. It covered a vast swath of terrain, from the border of California eastward to the edge of the Great Plains. 

Sullivan, in his Q&A with the Columbia Journalism Review, says his subject “never stopped being a war photographer in the sense that there was violence enacted on the communities that the surveys moved through: either by the surveyors, or the way the surveyors framed the land, or the people who were there.”

Keith F. Davis and Jane L. Aspinwall in 2011 published “Timothy H. O’Sullivan: The King Survey Photographs.”

Davis, a photography curator, author and collector, said O’Sullivan was a key and essential figure of his time.

“The challenge was to grapple with a set of related but distinct questions: what he did, why the pictures look the way they do and why this work remains so relevant to today’s artistic practice,” Davis told the Picket in a recent email.

“Despite (or because of?) the dearth of information about O’Sullivan the person, his pictures have had genuinely special resonance for every succeeding generation of viewers. O’Sullivan is an extraordinary, mysterious gift that keeps on giving.”

Book will closely follow the crucial months leading to the Civil War

The next book by Erik Larson, widely known for the best-selling “The Devil in the White City,” is a work of Civil War history inspired in part by current events.

Crown announced Wednesday that Larson’s “The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War” will come out April 30. Larson sets his narrative over a short but momentous time span, from Abraham Lincoln’s election in 1860 to the firing on Fort Sumter five months later. – Associated Press article

Dear mom: Unfiltered letters from three Massachusetts brothers about combat and camp life are featured in new book

Nearly 100 letters written by three Massachusetts brothers have been transcribed and published in a new book, “My Dear Mother: Civil War Letters to Dedham from the Lathrop Brothers.”

The correspondence by John, Joseph and Julius Lathrop to their mother and three sisters stretched from December 1861 to a postwar visit to the Antietam battlefield by John in September 1865.

“The letters tell of the fierce battles, long marches, camp life and the brothers’ dedication to the Union cause,” says a description by the Dedham Historical Society & Museum, which transcribed the material. “The letters are published as written, without corrections or sanitation, but transcribed using the language of their time.”

A letter written by Julius to his mother on Feb. 13, 1862, details the taking of Roanoke Island, N.C., several days before and describes the 24^th Massachusetts Infantry’s role in the capture of more than 2,000 Confederate prisoners.

Brig. Gen. Ambrose Burnside and his troops secured a vital victory in the Union effort to put a stranglehold on Southern ports. Rebel forces surrendered after they were routed from one battery and rushed to the northern end of the island, as described in the letter.

The corporal wrote his regiment was supposed to be among the first to land early in the battle but the steamer carrying troops ran aground. “We had the mortification of watching all the other regiments pass by us as while we were left lamenting.”

The unit witnessed the bombardment of the Confederate battery and its line was eventually formed near hospital buildings. Wounded Federal soldiers cheered the regiment and its brass howitzer, he wrote.

Fanciful depiction of Union attack at Roanoke Island (Library of Congress)

Other Federal forces took the battery as the 24^th moved up. Lathrop got his first look at the horrors of war, seeing dead and maimed men, some nearly cut in two by artillery shots. “I saw … a poor fellow who was shot through the head with a grape shot. He was still alive though his brains were running out of his wound.”

His letter home to Dedham, about 10 miles southwest of Boston, asked his loved ones to “excuse the dirt but, I must tell you this is Secesh paper; of course it can’t be clean.”

Between them, the Lathrop brothers saw action across the breadth of the war, from Antietam and Fredericksburg in the east to Port Hudson in the west, the historical society says.

Julius, who later in the war accepted a commission with the 38^th Massachusetts, was a captain when he was mortally wounded on April 23, 1864, in a skirmish at Cane River, La.

A regimental history says Lathrop "has rode in an ambulance the day previous, unable to march; but upon the approach of an engagement, had taken command of his company, and was leading his men when he received the fatal shot." He died a few days later.

John Lathrop

John Lathrop served as a captain in the 35^th Massachusetts, took part in several battles, including Antietam and South Mountain. He left service in November 1863 because of disability resulting from malarial fever. He became a lawyer and associate justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. He died in 1910.

Joseph Lathrop, who served in the 43^rd Massachusetts Infantry and the 4^th Massachusetts Cavalry before capture late in the war, also survived. He wrote only one of the letters in the book.

Michael B. Chesson, editor of “The Journal of a Civil War Surgeon (2003),” wrote an Amazon review praising the book and the range of subjects in the letters, from Army life to skulkers and the home front.

Chesson wrote: “Some of the letters describe close combat as raw and immediate as a scene from the movie version of 'Cold Mountain.' The letters span the full range of human emotions, expressed in the characteristic reserve of old time New Englanders.”

A recording of Julius’ letter is on the Dedham Historical Society & Museum website. Five other recordings are being uploaded weekly. The letters were donated to the society in 1928. Volunteers began transcribing them about three years ago, according to the Dedham Patch.

The book includes photographs of the brothers and images of battlefield maps drawn by John and Julius in their letters. The volume, put out by Damianos Publishing, sells for $25 through Amazon and the publisher.

Behind every Civil War picture there is a story, sometimes hard to find. Author Ron Coddington is a detective on the case

Ron Coddington at the Civil War show in Dalton, Ga.

The two troopers with the 13^th New York Cavalry wanted their loved ones to know they were ready for whatever would come at them. A painted patriotic camp scene serves as a backdrop as they pose, swords at their sides and their feet resting on a photographer’s props. One gazes at the camera, his ample whiskers concealing what might be a sly smile.

“It’s a favorite of mine. It’s in pristine condition,” said Ronald S. Coddington, an author, historian and journalist who was manning a table Saturday at the Chickamauga Civil War Show in Dalton, Ga. The show concludes Sunday.

The New Jersey native was talking about one of the 2,700 carte de visite, or small portrait cards, he has collected since he was 14. Unlike most people, Coddington, now 55, took his passion to a much deeper level.

He is working on his fifth book – about nurses – in his “Faces of the Civil War" series for Johns Hopkins University Press. He publishes Military Images magazine and also has written for Civil War News and the The New York Times’ Disunion series during the Civil War’s sesquicentennial. (Full disclosure: I worked during the 1990s with Coddington at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution; where he was an illustrator, caricaturist and graphic artist).

This weekend, Coddington interacted with patrons on a number of levels, scanning tintypes, ambrotype images and cartes de visite for possible print and online galleries for this magazine, getting story ideas, networking and weighing in on a card’s value, a la “Antiques Roadshow” style. While the market currently is a bit soft, the higher-quality images can still draw a pretty penny, some up to the tens of thousands of dollars.

The Arlington, Va., resident spoke briefly spoke with me about what he and about 100 other such collectors do to learn more about the subjects of cards. Coddington goes the extra mile, researching newspapers, old records, pension records and more.

“Show me a photo of somebody and let me read about them,” he said. He writes about 1,000 words for each image appearing in his books.

Many of the photographs in his books belong to other collectors. He purchased the one of the men with the 13^th New York at the Dalton show about 15 years ago.

(Courtesy of Ronald S. Coddington)

The gentleman on the right is Q.M. Sgt. Henry Augustus Blanchard, a “big, stout, square-built” fellow who served until the end of the war, despite declining health. His photo and vignette appeared in Coddington’s first book, “Faces of the Civil War: An Album of Union Soldiers and Their Stories.”

Coddington does not know the identity of the other NCO. He said that happens about 25 percent of the time.

Cartes de visite were the baseball cards of the time. Unlike a tintype photographc, the cards came from a glass plate negative, allowing a soldier or sailor to purchase a dozen copies to hold or send to loved ones by letter.

Coddington spoke a few years ago with the Civil War Trust about Military Images, which has pushed its online and social media presence.

Reverse side of scanned cartes de visite

He told the preservation group: “Over time, I’ve come to understand and appreciate that these rare soldier portraits humanize the terrible conflict that raged on our soil during the four bloodiest and most violent years in our nation’s history. When I see these photos, which were personal, intimate objects shared with family, friends and comrades at a time of war, I am reminded of these soldiers’ courage, and my own responsibilities as an American and a world citizen.”

The result of a typical musket wound

When Confederate surgeons amputated Maj. Gen. Richard S. Ewell’s bullet-shattered left leg, they were anxious to prove to his young, soon-to-be stepson that the operation was life-saving. “Dr. [William A.] Robertson of La. opened the leg along the track of the ball, in order to show me they were justified in taking it off – a Dr. Launer of Ala. having objected to it – but it had been plainly a necessity,” recalled Maj. Campbell Brown, 21. • Healio article

Book review: Grant, savior of the Union

Civil War and scholar Russell Bonds reviews H.W. Brands' "The Man Who Saved the Union," a sweeping look at Ulysses S. Grant and 19th century America. Writes Bonds: "Mr. Brands drives home one point on which detractors and admirers can agree: Time and again, Grant accomplished what he set his mind to." • Review