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.”

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

'Increasingly rare' unpublished Lincoln letter goes for $85,000

A recently discovered letter written by President Abraham Lincoln that offers a glimpse into his thinking during the early part of the Civil War sold this week in Pennsylvania for $85,000, according to an autograph dealer. The previously unpublished letter had been in the same private collection for at least a century before it was acquired earlier this year, said Nathan Raab, the principal of the Raab Collection, which buys and sells historical autographs, documents and signed letters. -- Article

Sultana Disaster Museum: Arkansas city closes in on $10M fund-raising goal as it continues work at larger location in old high school

The overcrowded Sultana just hours before the explosion  (Library of Congress)

Backers of a new museum that will tell the compelling story of the steamboat Sultana disaster are racing to raise enough money so that FedEx, headquartered not far away in Memphis, Tenn., will donate the final $1 million to complete the fund-raising.

John Fogleman, head of the Sultana Historical Preservation Society, told the Picket in an email this week that the project has donations and pledges totaling $8.316 million. If the society garners another $684,000 by May 31, FedEx’s contribution would bring the total to $10 million for the museum in Marion, Ark. [May 15 update: The tally currently is $8.67 million]

The city, close to where the vessel exploded and caught fire at the Civil War’s end, in November broke ground for a museum that will honor soldiers who died in the disaster and residents who helped save others plunged into the Mississippi River.

About 1,200 passengers and crew perished. Hundreds of Federal soldiers, many recently freed from Confederate prisons, including Andersonville and Cahaba, were on their way home.

The 1865 disaster is remembered at a small museum a few blocks from where working is going on now in the gymnasium-auditorium at Marion’s old high school. 

Haizlip Studio's museum rendering depicting moment of explosion (SHPS)

Abatement of lead paint and asbestos at the gym was recently completed, Fogleman said. Request for bids for construction will go out around June 20. The society is currently looking for an executive director.

Organizers have launched a new GoFundMe page in recent weeks to augment large donations and funding from governments, foundations and other groups. “We all have our fingers crossed,” said Gene Salecker, a Sultana author and collector who serves as historical consultant for the museum.

The museum is sponsoring a fund-raiser on April 27, "Bluegrass on the Levee," on the anniversary of the Sultana’s sinking.

Abatement work at the old gym in mid-March (SHPS)

“John and I will be attending the annual reunion of the Association of Sultana Descendants and Friends (Sultana Association) being held this year at Lexington, Kentucky, on April 28 and 29, with a visit to the Perryville, Kentucky battlefield, where at least 100 soldiers that eventually ended up on the Sultana saw their first big battle,” Salecker said.

Officials in Marion -- a bedroom community just a 15-minute drive from Memphis -- say it’s important that the Sultana’s story of greed, fraud, valor and sacrifice be told in a bigger way than what’s covered in the tiny museum that opened in 2015.

No one was formally held accountable for putting too many men on the Sultana, despite documented concerns about the safety of one of the boat's boilers. Accounts of the largest maritime tragedy in U.S. history were overshadowed by headlines about the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

Banners for survivor reunions in the late 19th century (Sultana Disaster Museum)

The Sultana Historical Preservation Society, which has spearheaded the project in collaboration with the city, believes a compelling museum and effective marketing can bring in up to 50,000 visitors a year who collectively will spend millions of dollars to support the economy in Marion and nearby communities.

The larger venue will include scores of artifacts or memorabilia related to the disaster and exhibits on steamboats on the Mississippi River, the Sultana’s service, Civil War prisons, corruption involved in its overloading, the explosion, the struggle for survival, rescue efforts and the disaster’s aftermath.

Many of the artifacts have been donated by Salecker. He is attending an annual Civil War show in Mansfield, Ohio, in May and hopes to pick up items related to the Sultana, as he has in the past.

Previous Sultana coverage:

• Documentary, events mark 150th anniversary

• Descendants drop flowers in memory of the lost

• Model captures every detail of Sultana
• Disaster took lives of those who had endured so much

• Siblings recall learning of disaster

Mathew Brady's photographs captured the reality of the Civil War. A new gravesite memorial celebrates the diversity of his subjects

A partial view of the memorial depicts Brady in foreground (Congressional Cemetery)

A new memorial at his gravesite in Washington, D.C., celebrates pioneering Civil War photographer Mathew B. Brady’s legacy.

Photo historian Larry West spearheaded the effort to honor Brady, who died destitute in 1896 and was buried in Congressional Cemetery. The photographer is remembered for his depictions of famous and everyday Americans, and battlefield scenes that brought the horrors of war to American's doorsteps.

Matthew B. Brady

A dedication on Sept. 17 showcased life-size bronze statues of President Abraham Lincoln and civil rights figure Frederick Douglass – among famous Americans photographed by Brady -- a portrait on stone of Brady, a reproduction metal camera and 85 fired porcelains of images, most by the photographer and his associates.

“The memorial features Mathew, recognizing him as the entrepreneur, innovator, team leader and posing artist that he was,” West wrote the Picket in an email this week. 

While it does not include his famous scenes from the Antietam and Gettysburg battlefields and those of campsites, many of the porcelains depict people who were wartime figures.

Historians this year are marking Brady’s 200^th birthday, emphasizing his importance to the field of photojournalism.

“Brady’s photographs of Gettysburg caused a sensation when viewed by members of the public,” says Congressional Cemetery. “Americans were little used to scenes of war that before had only existed in imagination.

“The prior year, in 1862, Brady had shocked the public when he exhibited photographs of dead enemy soldiers, captured by associates Alexander Gardner and James M. Gibson, from the Battle of Antietam.”

Lincoln, Douglass and Anna Murray-Douglas (Congressional Cemetery)

Brady’s team took more than 10,000 photographs by war’s end. He had spent some $100,000 but the federal government initially declined to buy them. Brady declared bankruptcy and struggled financially for the rest of his life.

Eventually, the government purchased Brady's photographs for $25,000, providing him some financial relief. Fortunately, most are available on the Library of Congress website.

Upon his passing in 1896, veterans of the 7^th New York Infantry helped finance Brady's funeral and interment at Congressional Cemetery.

Sept. 17 dedication in southeast Washington (Congressional Cemetery)

"His photographs, and those he commissioned, had a tremendous impact on society at the time of the war, and continue to do so today," says the American Battlefield Trust.

West, a board member of Congressional Cemetery, designed and provided primary financial backing for the memorial.

“Celebrating Brady's outstanding artistic achievements, the memorial reflects the diversity of his subjects and the Washington, D.C. community,” a Facebook post says.

Congressional Cemetery, founded early in the 19^th century, has graves of Washington residents and numerous national figures.

It is the final resting place for about 600 Union service members and 100 Confederates.

“Generals lie next to privates, and brothers who fought on opposite sides rest only a few feet apart.”

Among those buried there are Alfred Pleasanton, a Union cavalry general, Maj. Gen. Andrew Humphreys and executed Lincoln conspirator David Herold.

Visitors can take a self-guided, Civil War-themed walking tour.

Mary Surratt, convicted in the Lincoln conspiracy, was executed on a hot July day in 1865. Her conserved bonnet is still a curiosity at a Georgia museum

Bonnet before (left) and after conservation (Drummer Boy Civil War Museum)

Many visitors to the Drummer Boy Civil War Museum in Andersonville, Ga., are surprised to learn it displays a quilted black bonnet worn by convicted Lincoln conspirator Mary Surratt.

The museum near the infamous Confederate prison tells them about Surratt, who was the first woman executed by the federal government. To this day, her conviction and punishment remain controversial. The bonnet underwent repairs in 2015.

On July 7, 1865, Surratt and three others were marched to the gallows on a sweltering afternoon at the old Washington penitentiary, now the site of Fort McNair. The boardinghouse owner and the others had been convicted in the conspiracy to kill President Abraham Lincoln, who was shot dead nearly three months before at Ford’s Theatre.

The executioners wanted Surratt (left) shielded from the sun and heat in the moments before she was hanged. 

After the distraught Mrs. Surratt was carried by soldiers up the steps to the top of the gallows, her bonnet apparently was removed and an umbrella lifted as the death warrants were read.

Surratt's last words, spoken to a guard as he put the noose around her neck, were purported to be, "Please don't let me fall.” Moments later, with the temperatures near 100 degrees, the four condemned were swinging on ropes. They were buried only a few feet away.

Her bonnet has been at the Drummer Boy museum  since the 1980s. A collector acquired the artifact in New York and brought it to Andersonville.

The bonnet first came into the possession of Union Maj. Thomas Eckert, chief of the military telegraph department. Eckert, who was a friend of Lincoln, contended that he supplied paper and a telegraph office for Lincoln to write the first draft of the Emancipation Proclamation. He also wrote a telegraph announcing the assassination.

Eckert (right) eventually become president of Western Union.

Many of Eckert’s personal belongings are housed in the small Andersonville museum, which houses a variety of Civil War memorabilia. The black bonnet sits on a mannequin head in one case, with a brief description.

Curator Cynthia StormCaller says the museum has done upgrades in the past several years, including the conservation of the Surratt bonnet, done by textile conservator Jessica Hack of the New Orleans area.

They didn’t take a chance of losing the item through the mail or shipment.

“We actually hand-delivered it,” StormCaller said. At the time, the silk bonnet looked aged.

Hack, now retired, told the Picket the item was one of her favorite projects that came to the studio. “We took the entire thing apart,” she said. A gallery on the company’s website said the bonnet was stabilized by heat seal consolidation.

“We had to disassemble the bonnet to fuse new material to the fabrics,” said Hack. “It was a really interesting piece.” The conservator said the silk was deteriorating in places. She was unable to learn anything about who made it and where.

Prosecutors contended Surratt knew of the plot, which they say was hatched by assassin John Wilkes Booth and others at her Washington boarding house, and gave support. Her defenders say she knew little or nothing of it and never should have been executed.

Conspirator Lewis Powell spent his last hours pleading for her life. “Mrs. Surratt is innocent. She doesn't deserve to die with the rest of us,” he said before he was hanged. (At right, Surratt on the gallows, Library of Congress photo)

StormCaller said she doesn’t believe the businesswoman should have been executed.

She questions why the four were tried in a military court.

“I think she should have gone to jail, but not have been hung,” the curator said. “She knew a tiny bit and was not a full part of the conspiracy.”

The Andersonville Guild, a historic preservation society, and the town used a grant to purchase the museum collection in 2003. The guild is in charge of conservation and care of the items.

The Picket first wrote about the Surratt bonnet in 2009. Read that post here.

Gettysburg home where Abraham Lincoln finished his famous address reopens ahead of anniversary events this month

The Wills residence in historic Gettysburg (Library of Congress)

After being closed for two years because of the coronavirus epidemic, a home where President Abraham Lincoln put the finishing touches on his speech will reopen just before anniversary events related to the Gettysburg Address.

Lincoln completed his speech on Nov. 18, 1863, in a second-floor bedroom of lawyer and judge David Wills’ house, which is operated today by the National Park Service. The address transformed the battlefield from a place of death and devastation to the symbol of the nation's "new birth of freedom."

Gettysburg National Military Park spokesman Jason Martz told the Picket the home was last open on Nov. 19, 2019. It then closed for the season but remain shuttered because of the pandemic.

(NPS photo)

It will be open, free of charge, this month for nine days before closing for the seaon: Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, from 1 pm to 5 pm, from Thursday, Nov. 4, through Saturday, Nov. 20. No programming is planned. Visitors must wear masks and there are a capacity limits because of Covid-19 protocols.

The residence served as a temporary hospital during the July 1863 battle and citizens huddled in its cellar. It became the center of the cleanup process after the fighting.

Lincoln was one of David (left) and Catherine Wills’ house guests the night before the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery. 

According to the Gettysburg Foundation, Wills took a lead role in preparing proper burials for Federal soldiers and planning for the national cemetery that was dedicated during Lincoln's visit.

The three-story brick home at 8 Lincoln Square is now a museum with seven galleries. 

Earlier this year, Gettysburg National Military Park launched a page that features three sites -- including the Wills home -- related to the Civil War and the house and show barn at Eisenhower National Historic Site.

Each page has a virtual walk-through of the structure and a second smaller image that provides audio. Viewers can choose which floor to look at, obtain a 3D cutaway image of the entire structure and view floor plans.

The tours are available for those using home computers, smartphones or virtual reality headsets, park officials said.

Model of wartime Gettysburg at Wills house (NPS photo)

Martz said the park hopes to reopen the Wills house again in 2022, depending on current Covid protocols.

The park and community will have events Nov. 18-20 this year to observe Dedication Day. Among the activities are a parade and illumination of graves at the cemetery. The schedule can be found here.

Lincoln bedroom in the David Wills home (NPS photo)

The Atlanta Campaign threw thousands of men at each other in combat. Guest columnist Charlie Crawford tells us about 8 of them

One of the Rebel forts seized in Atlanta (George Barnard/Library of Congress)

This week marks the 157^th anniversary of the beginning of the Atlanta Campaign, a prolonged Federal offensive that would have a profound impact on the outcome of the Civil War.

The Picket asked Charlie Crawford (left), president emeritus of the Georgia Battlefields Association, to write about individuals involved in the fighting. Crawford, who has led or taken part in countless tours of battlefields in the region, focuses, with one exception, on soldiers who were non-military before the war and – if they survived -- returned to civilian life. The following biographies have been edited.

You can make a good argument that the Atlanta Campaign, as it later came to be known, began when Generals Grant and Sherman discussed strategy during a train trip from Nashville to Cincinnati on 18 and 19 March 1864. Grant indicated he would take command of U.S. forces in Virginia with the objective of destroying Confederate forces in that state, principally the army commanded by General R.E. Lee, while Sherman should advance with his forces south from the Chattanooga area with the objective of destroying Confederate forces in Georgia, principally the army commanded by General J.E. Johnston.

For the remaining days of March and the month of April, Sherman would order a concentration around Chattanooga of U.S. forces from Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and Georgia. Gathering supplies and planning for their subsequent movement was also critical. 

Around Dalton, Ga., Gen. Johnston had done much to restore the capabilities and morale of Confederate forces over the first four months of 1864. He, too, had to concentrate his forces and plan a strategy for the U.S. advance he knew would be coming once the spring rains abated and the roads dried enough to allow for movement of the combined 180,000 men and up to 100,000 horses and mules that the opposing forces would concentrate in northwest Georgia. 

On 7 May 1864, Sherman and a group of his subordinate generals stood on the slightly elevated ground in front of a doctor’s house and watched as the U.S. 4^th Army Corps turned southward toward Tunnel Hill and the U.S. 23^rd Army Corps marched east before turning south toward Dalton.

The movement of these troops is often cited as the beginning of the campaign, and a historical marker at the intersection of GA 2 and GA 209 is titled “Campaign for Atlanta Began Here.”

Many men would find their fates conjoined over the next four months.

Leonidas Polk and Peter Simonson, Pine Mountain

Leonidas Polk (left) was from North Carolina and graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1827, but within six months, he resigned from the Army to study for the ministry. When the Civil War began, he was Episcopal bishop of Louisiana but approached his West Point friend Jefferson Davis and offered to serve the Confederate States army.

Davis made Polk a brigadier general. Polk proved to have an inclination to misunderstand orders or refuse to follow them and he had an uneven record on the battlefield.

By early May 1864, he was a lieutenant general leading Confederate forces in Mississippi and was ordered to bring three divisions to Georgia to reinforce Gen. Johnston. By 14 June 1864, he was commanding a corps in Johnston’s army, and his headquarters was at the Hardage house on the north side of Burnt Hickory Road a few miles from Kennesaw Mountain. A Georgia Historical Commission marker marks the site.

Gen. Johnston passed the house along with Lt. Gen. William Hardee on the way to inspect the position of one of Hardee’s divisions on Pine Mountain. Johnston invited Polk to come along. Once atop the mountain, the generals and some of their staffs stood near the position of a four-gun artillery battery and observed the U.S. Army lines to the north and west. 

Position of 5th Indiana where it fired at Confederates (Courtesy of GBA)

Riding along the U.S. Army position were Gen. Sherman and some of his subordinate generals.  Through field glasses, Sherman noticed the conspicuous group atop Pine Mountain and surmised that it included general officers trying to get a better perspective on the situation.

Sherman directed Maj. Gen. Oliver O. Howard, commanding the 4^th Corps, to have cannon fire directed at the group. Howard turned to the commander of the artillery of his first division, Capt. Peter Simonson, to execute Sherman’s order. Nearby, Simonson found a familiar artillery unit, the 5^th Indiana Artillery Battery, which Simonson had formerly commanded. The firing commenced, and the third shell passed through Polk’s chest, killing him instantly. His successor, Alexander P. Stewart, proved to be a more successful corps commander.

Simonson himself would be killed two days later by a rifle shot while he was directing the placement of an artillery battery.

It was unusual for a captain to be acting chief of division artillery, and the comments made when he was killed reflected not only sorrow that his personality would be missed but also concern about replacing his military skills.  

A monument marking Polk’s death site (left) is on Pine Mountain, and a Cobb County historical marker relating to Simonson’s death is on the east side of Frank Kirk Road.  Despite the extensive development of Cobb County, which now has nearly 800,000 residents, three of the gun positions at the Polk death site are still discernible, as is the position of the 5^th Indiana Battery that fired the shots. 

Both sites are on private land, so they are in danger of being bulldozed away.

Edward Walthall and John Geary, Peachtree Creek

The 20 July 1864 Battle of Peachtree Creek in Atlanta brought Walthall and Geary together to oppose each other.

Edward Walthall (left) was a lawyer, not a professional soldier. When the Civil War began, he left his position as a district attorney and joined a Mississippi regiment as a first lieutenant. By July 1864, he was a major general commanding a Confederate division. He led that division at Peachtree Creek. His attack had initial success, collapsing the right flank of the U.S. division led by Maj. Gen. John Geary. 

He is most positively remembered for being better than his predecessor as division commander and for his later rearguard action, along with Forrest, that prevented the destruction of the Army of Tennessee during Hood's retreat from Nashville in December 1864.

Geary was also not a professional soldier but a surveyor and railroad builder. He was wounded five times while serving as a volunteer officer in the Mexican War but returned to civilian life until he was appointed postmaster of San Francisco in 1849. He was elected mayor of San Francisco in 1850 and then appointed territorial governor of Kansas in 1856. He returned to his home state of Pennsylvania and remarried after his first wife died.

He joined the volunteer army when the Civil War began and fought in several battles in the Eastern Theater, including Gettysburg, before his division was transferred west in September 1863.

Peachtree Creek map locates Walthall and Geary on the left (Courtesy of GBA)

On 20 July 1864, Geary rallied his men and ultimately repulsed Walthall’s attack at Peachtree Creek. When U.S. forces captured Atlanta on 2 September 1864, Sherman logically appointed the former mayor and territorial governor as military administrator of the city. He would serve the same role in Savannah when that city was occupied by U.S. forces in December 1864. 

His height (6 feet, 6 inches) and his proficiency at administration -- rather than his tactical or leadership skills -- were the features most used to describe his Civil War performance.

After the war, Walthall returned to the practice of law in Mississippi until appointed in 1885 to the U.S. Senate, where he served until his death in 1898. Most people living in the Collier Hills section of Atlanta would not be able to explain why a road in their neighborhood is named Walthall Drive. 

Geary returned to Pennsylvania and served as governor from 1867 to 1873. In February 1873, less than a month after leaving office, he died of a heart attack while preparing breakfast for his infant son. 

Sul Ross and John Croxton, Brown’s Mill 

Lawrence Sullivan “Sul” Ross (left) was born in 1838 in Iowa but raised in Texas, a territory when his family moved there in 1839, and a state by 1845. He attended Baylor University and then Wesleyan University in Alabama but fought Comanches during the summer breaks, being badly wounded in 1858. In the summer of 1860, he again fought Comanches while serving with the Texas Rangers.

When the Civil War came, Ross enlisted in the Confederate army as a private but was soon made an officer. He distinguished himself as a cavalry officer in several battles in the Western Theater. By July 1863, a brigade was created specifically for Ross to lead as a brigadier general, though he suffered recurring attacks of fever and chills every three days from September 1863 to March 1864 due to malaria.

He was a combative sort, which is a desirable trait for a cavalry commander, but sometimes it got in the way of mission success.

He was still leading the brigade when it was transferred along with Polk’s infantry to northwest Georgia in May 1864, and it endured 86 engagements with U.S. forces over the next four months. At the cavalry Battle of Brown’s Mill on 30 July 1864, Ross was briefly captured but was recovered by Confederate forces within minutes. His brigade led Hood’s forces into Tennessee in November 1864. By the time Ross was granted a furlough in March 1865, he had participated in 135 combat actions. 

After the war, Ross prospered as a farmer and rancher and fathered eight children over the next 17 years. In 1873, Ross became a county sheriff.  In 1875, he served for over two months at a state constitutional convention and then served as a state senator 1880-1882. He was governor of Texas 1887-1891, declining to run for a third two-year term. He was a very successful president of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now Texas A&M University) from 1891 until his death in 1898. Sul Ross State University is named in his honor.

Bench at Brown's Mill battlefield park (Picket photo)

John Croxton was born in 1837 and raised in Kentucky by a slave-holding family, from which he became estranged because of his ardent abolitionism. He graduated from Yale University and practiced law until being commissioned as a lieutenant colonel in the 4^th Kentucky U.S. Infantry in October 1861. He commanded infantry units at the battles of Perryville and Chickamauga. 

His regiment was reorganized in February 1864 as mounted infantry, and it served in a cavalry brigade during the Atlanta Campaign, skirmishing frequently from May through July when the Battle of Brown’s Mill in Coweta County brought it face to face with Sul Ross’s Confederate brigade.

Croxton’s regiment lost heavily at Brown’s Mill (a Confederate victory). Croxton, along with every other officer serving under McCook at Brown's Mill, lost a large part of his command.  He had already performed well enough before then to be promoted to brigadier general once he finished his two-week trek on foot back to Federal lines. 

(Civil War Picket photo)

He led a brigade opposing Hood’s invasion of Tennessee in late 1864, where he again faced Ross’s cavalry at the 15 December 1864 Battle of Nashville and clashed with Confederate cavalry almost daily during Hood’s retreat.

In late March 1865, Croxton led a brigade during Wilson’s raid across Alabama into Georgia.  Maj. Gen. James Wilson detached Croxton’s brigade to operate independently against the Confederate supply depot and military academy at Tuscaloosa, and Croxton burned not only military stores but also several buildings of the University of Alabama before defeating a Confederate cavalry force near Talladega on 23 April 1865. He finally rejoined Wilson in Macon, Ga., after operating independently for almost a month.

After the Confederate surrenders, Croxton served as military governor of southwest Georgia until December 1865, when he returned to Kentucky to practice law. In 1872, President Grant appointed Croxton as U.S. minister to Bolivia. Croxton died there from tuberculosis in 1874.

The Atlanta Campaign brought together Ross and Croxton, two men who had rich lives outside their time as soldiers.

Walter Gresham and Randall Gibson
Bald (Leggett’s) Hill, Battle of Atlanta 

Walter Q. Gresham (left) was from Indiana and a conservative Democrat who opposed slavery. He practiced law starting in 1854. When the war came, he sought a commission in the volunteer army but was rebuffed by the governor because of a political disagreement. Instead, he enlisted in the army and by March 1862 was a colonel commanding an infantry regiment that he then led at Corinth and through the Vicksburg Campaign.

By the time the 17^th Corps in which he served arrived in Georgia in June 1864, he was leading a division as a 32-year-old brigadier general. He didn't have that long to demonstrate his capabilities and his command didn’t see heavy action until July. On 20 July 1864, as his division approached Atlanta after passing through Decatur, he was shot in the knee near the Bald Hill, now the site of the Moreland Avenue interchange with I-20, a disabling wound that left him with a permanent limp.

Like Gibson, Ross, Walthall and Croxton, his performance during the Atlanta Campaign was competent.

Gresham returned to the practice of law until 1869, when President Grant appointed him to the U.S. District Court, where he served until April 1883, when President Arthur appointed him postmaster general.  He next served as secretary of the treasury for two months until President Arthur appointed him to the U.S. Circuit Court in October 1884. President Cleveland selected Gresham to be Secretary of State in March 1893, and he died in that office in 1895.

Randall L. Gibson was raised in Louisiana. His great-great-grandfather was a free man of color who married a white woman, though this fact was hidden from public view. Gibson went north for education and graduated from Yale University in 1853. He became a lawyer, served as U.S. attaché in Madrid, and raised sugar cane in Louisiana. When the war began, he became captain of a Louisiana artillery battery until being appointed colonel of an infantry regiment. He led the regiment at Shiloh, Perryville and Stones River, serving several times as acting brigade commander, as he did again at Chickamauga and Chattanooga.

Gibson's brigade was not sent forward to exploit the 22 July 1864
Confederate assault, a central focus of the Atlanta Cyclorama. (Library of Congress)

When the Atlanta Campaign began, he had his own brigade as a 31-year-old brigadier general. On 22 July 1864, despite being in support of the Confederate attack a mile north of the Bald Hill, an action that is the central focus of the Atlanta Cyclorama, Gibson’s brigade was not ordered to exploit the breach.

Gibson and his brigade participated in Hood’s invasion of Tennessee in late 1864, and Gibson ended the war defending Mobile, Alabama.  He returned to Louisiana, practicing law and trying to raise sugar cane in the absence of slave labor. He served in the U.S. House of Representatives 1875-1883 and the U.S. Senate 1883-1892, also serving as a regent of the Smithsonian Institution and president of the board of administrators of Tulane University. Like Gresham, he died in office.

Though their units never fought each other directly, Gresham and Gibson exemplify the many men in their early 30s who became generals by the third year of the war, then went back to their civilian occupations and lives of public service.           

Epilogue

Except for Capt. Simonson, the above biographies focus on generals; but what of the 180,000 or so other soldiers who participated in the Atlanta Campaign? In round numbers, about 8,000 were killed in action, 42,000 were wounded, and 18,000 were captured or reported missing. 

Many of the wounded survived, though some with permanent disabilities, and others survived prison camps. Many of those not killed in action would die of disease, the war’s greatest killer, and others would live with the after effects of malaria, typhoid, dysentery, measles, and other diseases they caught while serving.

Most would go home and try to reconstruct their lives, but they would all be able to say that they had been in the great Civil War that tested whether this nation would long endure. They could also say that they participated in the campaign that likely determined the outcome of that war, because the fall of Atlanta in September 1864 significantly bolstered Lincoln’s chances for reelection, and it was clear that a Lincoln administration would accept nothing less than victory in the fight for a reunited nation that was free of slavery.