Bearss and former University of Georgia football coach Vince Dooley (Georgia Battlefields Assn.)
The public is
invited to Gettysburg, Pa., for a celebration of life for renowned Civil War
historian, battlefield guide and preservationist Edwin Cole Bearss, who died in
September 2020 at age 97.
The American Battlefield Trust announced that the Bearss family has invited people
to attend the 1 p.m. June 26 celebration – what would have been Bearss’ 99th
birthday -- on land the trust preserved near the Seminary
Ridge Museum and Education Center, a nonprofit venue on the campus of the United Lutheran
Seminary.
Speakers include retired Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Richard
P. Mills; Jerome A. Greene, retired historian for the National Park
Service; and O. James Lighthizer, president emeritus of the American Battlefield
Trust.
Bearss was a legendary figure in the Civil War world. Tour
participants hung on his every word as he walked the grounds and gave precise
details of what happened there, usually without notes. His voice, itself
riveting, was described as thunderous or booming.
As "History's Pied Piper," he more than lived up to
the title of Jack Waugh's 2003 biography of the decorated Marine Corps veteran and
National Park Service chief historian emeritus.
The American Battlefield Trust detailed his careeras a decorated Marine severely wounded during
World War II, National Park Service historian, author, preservationist and
lecturer. Commenters on the trust’s Facebook page this week remembered his tours and knowledge of battles to exacting detail.
Bearss gained fame for the discovery and raising of the USS
Cairo in the 1960s, when he was historian at Vicksburg National Military Park.
The majority of the public came to know him from his appearance in Ken Burns' 1990 “The Civil War” series on PBS.
The widower, after living 50 years in Arlington, Va., moved in
2018 to Mississippi, where he had family (Above, in Athens, Ga., in 2019. Photo courtesy of Georgia Battlefields Association.)
The American Battlefield Trust said the one-hour June 26 event will be tented, with
seating available and water and light refreshments provided. Portable toilets
and indoor restrooms will be nearby.
Click this link for an email address in which you can express your intention to attend. For those unable to attend in person, a video of the
celebration will be posted later.
Current location of the Polllitz headstone (Trinity Episcopal Church)
The headstone
of a Union soldier buried beneath a Long Island, New York, church awaits a
permanent location nearly four years after it was found during a renovation project.
The Picket
wrote two articles about the unusual circumstances involving parishioner Pvt.
John Codman Pollitz, who died in 1863 while serving with the 44th Massachusetts
in North Carolina.
Trinity Episcopal Church in Roslyn has long known that Pollitz’s 1863 grave was incorporated within the current
building during construction in 1906. But most of them had no idea where; there
was no recorded location.That changed in summer 2018, when
rotting wooden floor joists were removed and Pollitz’ headstone was exposed; it
was lying flat in a crawlspace area.
“My assumption was that the headstone was too high standing
up for the crawlspace. I believe they simply laid it down on that same spot”
during the 1906 construction, church property manager and sexton Mike Callahan
told the Picket.
Removal of the floor exposed headstone for John C. Pollitz (Trinity Episcopal)
A June 2019
ceremony rededicated the soldier’s grave, which still lies beneath the floor. A plaque marks the spot on the floor under
which Pollitz rests. Members of an area camp of the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War took part in the ceremony.
At the time, the church said it was trying to determine what
to do with the headstone.
“Plans are to
build a cabinet mounted on the wall, but that’s going to take some engineering,”
Father George Sherrill, priest in charge, told the Picket in a recent email. “The stone weighs a ton and affixing to the wall is
going to be difficult, so no real timetable as of yet.”
The headstone is currently propped up against a bell that has its own interesting
history.
Bell was used during the funeral (Courtesy of Trinity Episcopal)
According to a June 1914 article in The New York Times, a dying Pollitz asked
comrades to ensure his body was sent to Roslyn, where it was to lie in the
shadow of the belfry. “With his army pay he had bought a bell as a gift to the
parish, and its arrival and his death were so close together that it was tolled
for the first time at his funeral,” the article said.
It’s believed that the young Pollitz was living
in Boston and barely 18 when he joined up with the 44th Massachusetts,
ostensibly in the summer of fall of 1862.
The regiment, which took part in
skirmishes and sieges across North Carolina before it was mustered out in June
1863, was in New Bern for several months before transfer to Plymouth, N.C.
A history of the regiment detailed disease and
illness that stalked the troops during campaigning and at their quarters.
Pollitz, who served in Company F, died on Jan. 7, 1863 in New Bern.
Sons of Union Veterans lead 2019 ceremony near plaque (Trinity Episcopal)
According to the “Record of the Service of the Fourth-Fourth
Massachusetts Volunteer Militia in North Carolina, August 1862 to May
1863,” Pollitz and 13 other soldiers in the regiment died from cerebrospinal meningities.
His remains were sent north to Long Island.
“Shortly after his burial, February 1, 1863, the bell was taken down and
another put in its place. John Pollitz’s bell was inverted, filled with dirt
and flowers, and stood by his grave for many years,” a church newsletter states.
In 1914, the bell was moved and restored after church
officials discovered the grave under that floor while investigating a break in
the foundation walls, according to The Times.
Construction of floor during 2018 (Trinity Episcopal Church)
A dedication ceremony in Council Bluffs, Iowa, for military headstones for 36 Civil War veterans who
have been buried in unmarked graves for a century will be taking place in May. This
is being done with the help of Colonel William H. Kinsman Camp #23, Sons of
Union Veterans of the Civil War, and the Veterans
Administration. -- Article
A maritime tragedy that occurred on the Potomac River during
the intense search for Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth will be remembered
this weekend by a wreath laying, free museum admission and other activities.
The April 23, 1865, collision of the barge Black Diamond and
the steamer Massachusetts in the Lower Potomac near St. Clement’s Island killed
87 people.
The military had contracted with the Black Diamond to help prevent
Booth from escaping into Virginia. He managed to do so and was killed a few
days later, overshadowing the ship tragedy off Coltons Point.
The overloaded Massachusetts -- a privately owned ship also known as JWD Pentz -- was carrying about 300 soldiers from
Alexandria, Va., to return to various regiments at City Point and Fort Monroe
when it struck the port side of the coal barge, manned by 11 volunteers, shortly after midnight.
Angela Wathen's depiction of collision (St. Mary's County Museum Division)
According to the newspaper accounts, the tragedy occurred
within one mile of Blackistone Island (now called St. Clement’s Island) but the
exact location is not known, said Karen Stone, manager of the museums division
of the St. Mary’s government.
While the Black Diamond sank, the Massachusetts limped nearly
30 miles to Point Lookout, Md. Most of the dead were on the troop transport.
“It is difficult to compile a complete list of the names of the men lost
on Massachusetts, as they represented several regiments. Most were
recently exchanged prisoners of war, captured at Plymouth, N.C., on April 20,
1864, and sent to the Confederates’ infamous Camp Sumter prison camp in
Andersonville, Ga. After being transferred from Andersonville to the
Confederate prison camp in Florence, S.C., in December 1864, the men were
eventually exchanged and nursed back to health by Union doctors at Camp Parole
near Annapolis, Md. All were returning to their various regiments to complete
their terms of service.”
Visitors can take a water taxi to nearby St. Clement's Island State Park
10 a.m.-5 p.m.: Visitors can enjoy free water taxi
rides to a state park on nearby St. Clement's Island (the final ride will leave
at 3 p.m.) and free admission to the St. Clement's Island Museum. There are
special exhibits on the Black Diamond story and the Surratt House Museum
(Clinton, Md). St. Clement’s Island State Park has a hiking trail and replica
of Blackistone Lighthouse. A large cross marks the site of the arrival of Roman
Catholic colonists in 1634.
SATURDAY
2 p.m.: A concert on the waterfront lawn of
the museum will feature the Sibling Rivalry Fiddle Band, a four-sibling ensemble
playing Civil War-era music and other American folk tunes. The teen musicians
are Fredericksburg, Va., natives and their instruments include the fiddle,
bodhran, tin whistle and mandolin.
St. Clement's Island Museum (St. Mary's County Museum Division)
SUNDAY
2 p.m.: Commemorative ceremony marking the
Black Diamond-Massachusetts disaster. It will include a wreath laying, the
reading of the names of those who died and were identified, and remarks by the
commanding officer of Naval Air Station Patuxent River.
3 p.m.:Reception at St. Clement’s Island Museum following the
ceremony.
Council officials with Benjamin Oglesby descendants at recent meeting (St. Charles County)
A suburban
St. Louis family is grateful and proud that a future park will be named for a former
slave who fought for the Union during the Civil War and later successfully
farmed on the site for 30 years.
The St.
Charles County Council in Missouri last week approved the honor for Benjamin
Oglesby, who fled captivity at age 39 and joined the 56th US Colored
Infantry Regiment.
The 199-acre Oglesby
Park, just west of Wentzville and near Interstate 70, will include playgrounds,
paths and shelters, county officials said. It is expected to open in July.
“We will have
signage telling his story and we may even be relocating a 1920s Black school to
the property, that was operated by the church where Mr. Oglesby and his family
attended and sits on the same property where Mr. Oglesby and his wife are
buried,” said Ben Gall, park historian.
In a press release,
County Executive Steve Ehlmann said, “The
history behind landowner Benjamin Oglesby and his family is both remarkable and
inspirational.”
Gall said his
research showed that Oglesby was born in Bedford, Virginia, about 1825. In the
mid-1830s, he came to St. Charles County with his enslaver Marshall Bird. The
farm near Foristell grew corn, wheat and tobacco.
In November
1864, Oglesby enlisted in the U.S. Army and was sent to Benton Barracks in St. Louis
for training. He was assigned to the 56th USCT, which conducted
military operations in Arkansas, including fighting at the Battle of Big Creek.
The regiment also fulfilled post and garrison duty (One of Oglesby's military records at left).
Oglesby was
honorably discharged in November 1865, outside Helena, Arkansas, Gall said.
Records kept
by the National Archives showed receipt of a $33.33 bounty when Oglesby was
mustered into service at Benton Barracks. Some $66.67 was due.
Gall said
Congress instituted a February 1864 draft that included Black men who lived in Border
States such as Missouri. “Loyal slaveowners” would be paid bounties for slaves who were freed and brought in the Army.
While there
are no definitive records in Oglesby’s case, Gall told the Picket, it seems the bounty was
due to the former slave because “his
file does not contain any records of Bird filling out the loyalty oath and
bounty … Recently freed Black soldiers did receive the bounty payment if their
owner was not considered loyal.”
The park site is just a couple miles north of I-70 (St. Charles County)
After the Civil War, according to the 1870 census, Oglesby, his wife,
Martha and their six children -- Medora, Samuel, Oskar, Bell, Albert and
Charlie -- worked on a farm in Hickory Grove Township in Warren County,
officials said. In 1871, he purchased 146 acres of land in Foristell. He
financed the property through a $2,000 deed of trust and paid off the property
six years later.
“When Mr.
Oglesby died in 1901, the estate records indicate a nearly 50% increase in the
value of his property, demonstrating him as a successful farmer,” Gall wrote in
an email. “The property was still in the family through the
1960s.”
There are no
known photographs of Oglesby.
Barbara Love,
the soldier’s great-great-granddaughter, told St. Louis TV station KMOV that
her ancestor was determined to succeed after escaping slavery.
“He wanted to do something, not just for him, but for
family,” she said. “To say I’m a descendant of Benjamin Oglesby is a blessing.”
Love wrote on Facebook that her ancestor's story shows "you can be anything you want if you keep the faith."
Enlistment information for Benjamin Oglesby (click to enlarge, National Archives)
When the park
property was purchased at the end of last year, Gall was tasked with conducting
research on the originally proposed name for the park, which is located at 2949 West Meyer Road.
“When looking
at the 19th century maps of the property, I saw the name
Benjamin Oglesby was marked as the owner of the property and decided to do a
little digging just to see who he was,” Gall wrote.
“The research
revealed a truly remarkable story of resilience, so I provided the name and
research to my supervisors for consideration. The director of the department,
who is a fellow historian, also found the story remarkable and decided to
officially propose it. When we learned there were descendants still active in
the community, it seemed to show this was meant to be.”
