Mark Nesbitt's Blog, page 5

June 26: Don’t call it The Gettysburg Campaign.

Franklin Horner and his fellow Union soldiers begin their march to join the rest of the Federal army at 5:30 a.m. this Friday. They marched through Dranesville, VA, passed the Union Army’s Sixth Corps, and camped at 4:00 p.m. He wrote that the men were getting too tired to march much more. It rained a little this night, and they get orders to be ready to march at 5 the next morning.

Thomas Ware talks about the rainy morning he experiences. Being to the west of Horner, it’s probably the same shower that dampened him that evening. Once again, Ware records in detail his march route and the towns he passed through. After the first four miles, they ford the Potomac River (only a little over knee deep). They also cross the Chesapeake &Ohio Canal, which parallels the Potomac. It was still raining, so the boys were issued “a dram…Several of the boys got quite drunk & we had a jolly set.” Several more miles brought them to the Maryland and Pennsylvania line. After 16 miles of marching, they encamped, found that it was cherry season in Pennsylvania, supplied themselves and were “…living finely.”

I found it interesting that the Confederate troops were issued a “dram” of whiskey, apparently to warm them up after marching in the rain and wading the Potomac. Thought to be a stimulant during the Civil War, according to Ware it made a few of the men “jolly,” and a few more belligerent, mentioning that a few fights broke out along the march.

For Thomas Ware, this is a momentous day: He has been in three states, is probably farther north than he has ever been in his life, and officially becomes an invader of a northern state.

Like a giant ship passing by, the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia begins drawing Union troops toward it. Horner and his comrades, after digging entrenchments outside of Washington, now must call on a new set of muscles to catch up with Lee’s invaders. His route takes Horner from Ball’s Crossroads toward Leesburg (modern route 7). They march beyond Leesburg and, too tired to go any farther after fifteen miles, encamp outside of town.

The Chesapeake & Ohio (C & O) Canal was created in the early 1800s to open commerce to the west from Washington and the east along its 184.5-mile length. But shortly after its completion, the railroads began their expansion westward. Where the Canal could transport cargo and passengers at the speed of a mule towing a barge, the railroads could do the same at an astounding thirty or forty miles per hour. The Canal eventually fell into financial ruin, but the towpath continued to be used by the military as a road. Today it is a wonderful recreational area for hikers and bikers along the scenic Potomac.

By now Confederate troops were fanning out toward Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, and York, PA, on the road to Philadelphia. In fact, this very day, Confederate general Jubal Early’s men pass through one of the number of small Pennsylvania towns they will capture during the invasion. As in every other town, they request supplies: 60 barrels of flour, 7,000 pounds of bacon, 1,200 pounds of sugar, 600 pounds of coffee, 1,000 pounds of salt, 40 bushels of onions, 1,000 pairs of shoes and 500 hats. The mayor of the town is worried and writes to Early, “The quantities required are far beyond that in our possession.” Early’s men take what they can and move on, never realizing that they will be returning in less than a week, albeit under more difficult circumstances, to the town of Gettysburg.

At this point, the Confederate movement into the north has no name, since no one knows where—or if—it will end. Their goals are to draw the northern hosts out of the south for a growing season and bring relief to the farmers there. Perhaps this invasion will garner worldwide recognition to their cause of independence and give more credence to the arguments of the Peace Party in the north. Most of all, the Confederate leaders wish to force the north into some sort of negotiations toward the Confederacy’s independence. Nowhere do you see this invasion called “The Gettysburg Campaign” because there is no reason to connect Gettysburg to it. One day hundreds of books and millions of words will be written about it, but for Horner and Ware, it draws but a few lines in their diaries.

June 25 Gettysburg Campaign: The Great Confederate Raid of 1863

This Thursday Franklin Horner finally gets his marching orders. He comments that he thinks they are headed to join the Army of the Potomac, the Union’s largest army in the field, to counter Lee’s invasion.

Thomas Ware writes that it is a cloudy day, “a splendid day to march,” and once again records the details of his march route over 21 miles to near Martinsburg.

Horner’s intuition is correct: they are marching to join the army whose job it is to counter Lee’s invasion of the north. Where they will finally meet up is a mystery. Though he marches less than two miles, the tension is broken and they are part of the active campaign.

Ware puts in a long and tiring day. The part of the country they are passing through used to be Virginia, but as of June 20, by presidential proclamation, it became the new state of West Virginia. Apparently, it was acceptable for a section of the state to “secede” from the secession.

Part of Ware’s route takes him near the Old Valley Turnpike (now route 11) a major thoroughfare for both armies marching up and down the Valley. (By the way, going “up” the Shenandoah Valley means traveling south and upward in altitude; going “down” the Valley means heading north.) Ware’s infantry comrades do not get the luxury of marching on the smooth Valley Turnpike—that’s for the wheeled artillery and supply wagons. We temporarily lose his line of march, but the Atlas to the Official Records shows a road that roughly parallels the Turnpike that perhaps was used by the infantry. He mentions that some of the work that day involved tearing up railroad tracks and burning a Baltimore & Ohio depot in Martinsburg. Heavy work after a hard day’s march. They will tear up more tracks in the near future.

One of the things I noticed while researching my book Saber and Scapegoat: Jeb Stuart and the Gettysburg Controversy was how often Lee mentioned gathering supplies to send back to the Shenandoah Valley in his official correspondence to his officers on the invasion. In one piece he actually says that the campaign depends upon the successful gathering of supplies to end up in Virginia. This led me to theorize that the 1863 summer campaign could be considered a gigantic raid into the north to procure goods for the Confederacy. Add to that his well-known order not to bring on a general engagement, it seems that if Lee could have successfully gotten out of Pennsylvania and back into the Valley without a fight, he would have.  General A. P. Hill’s decision at Cashtown, PA, on the night of June 30 to allow General Henry Heth to march his men into Gettysburg the next morning, and Heth’s decision to respond to being fired upon by the Union cavalry stationed there looms large. More on that later.

June 24 Gettysburg Campaign: Washington vs Lee

Franklin Horner reports that the clothing he packed up is being sent away to Washington by the quartermaster, another sign that his unit is about to begin some serious marching.

Thomas Ware, after resting yesterday, begins his day at 2:00 a.m. Their march starts at Millwood, and with typical detail, Ware names almost every road on their route. After six miles they arrive outside of Berryville and rest in the rear of breastworks thrown up by Union soldiers. He is fortunate to have breakfast provided by a private citizen. Twice during this entry he mentions the large number of girls that come out to the road to watch them pass, some waving handkerchiefs, making Ware and his comrades no doubt feel like heroes. They end up marching 18 miles this day, passing through a part of the country they crossed on their first invasion of the north, which ended at the Battle of Antietam (or Sharpsburg as it was known in the southern ranks.) Ware’s day ends about 11:00 p.m.

The details of his march route are so precise, it is almost as if Thomas Ware writes in his diary at every halt in the march. He noted the destruction left by the Union army after it camped near Berryville. He may have remembered the devastation wrought by the Union army on Fredericksburg, VA, as well, after the town was shelled then occupied and looted. He and the rest of his comrades may have felt some helpless anger, especially in light of Lee’s General Orders number 72 prohibiting them from inflicting the same devastation on the enemy’s civilians.

And so it would go during the war. The south would become the part of the country that was invaded. Many in the south thought it should be a purely defensive war and, in fact, were angered when Lee and Confederate President Jefferson Davis decided to invade the north twice. But the difficulties with waging a defensive war would soon make themselves apparent upon the civilian population, which would have to supply their own and an invading army, however reluctantly.

I still wonder, after studying it for so many years, why Lee didn’t embrace the strategy of his hero (and kinsman by marriage) George Washington during the Revolutionary War. He certainly had to be familiar with it. The goals, to me, had been similar: The Confederacy wanted to merely separate from the rest of the country, like the colonies did from England. Washington used a strategy of attrition—keep the British fighting and losing men for years until the British population and politicians got tired of it. It resulted in a longer war, but with the desired goal of independence achieved.

Eventually, with both armies fighting and subsisting on the south’s resources, the term “scorched earth” may have been coined during this war instead of a later one. The south, after eight or more years, may have won, but at what cost?

One thing I am glad of: That Lee did not, per the suggestion of some of his officers at Appomattox, disband the Army of Northern Virginia to fight a guerilla-style war. We might still be fighting 150 years later and travel across the border from Maryland to Virginia would be at your own peril. I think Lee foresaw the tragedy that would unfold should that course have been taken.

June 23 Gettysburg Campaign: Hurry Up and Wait.

Franklin Horner and his comrades get the order to be ready to march at a moment’s notice and to have three days’ rations in their haversacks. Coats and other superfluous equipment are packed in boxes for storage. Camp rumor doesn’t agree on where they are going, just that they are to be ready.

Thomas Ware and the men get up early expecting another hard day’s march. At 10:00 a.m. they get the order to wash, clean up and rest this day, which brought “considerable rejoicing in the Brig. [Brigade].” That night they were read orders from commanding general Robert E. Lee himself. General Orders No. 72 instructed the men to respect private property and civilians; that only appointed certain officers to requisition supplies from locals and to pay market price for them; and gave general guidelines on how to handle civilians who refused payment or concealed supplies from the Confederates. Ware and his men know that these orders would only be issued if they were leaving Virginia and heading into Maryland.

A review of his records shows that Franklin Horner was what one would call a seasoned combat veteran. On June 26, 1862, he came under hostile fire for the first time: “…three O p.m. heard musketry got into rifle pits…O the firing becomes general Shot are flying thick along our heads.” It appears from his use of the present tense that he is writing these words while under fire. The next day “…about four O clock, our men fired first then they gave us a volley and we returned it….” Sometime this day, he was captured and sent to Belle Isle in Richmond.

Early in the war there was a prisoner exchange system that allowed soldiers to be “traded” for prisoners of the enemy. Exchanged prisoners signed paroles saying they would not take up arms again—a pledge that was impossible to enforce and rarely adhered to.  Horner was exchanged and, within three weeks found himself in the Battle of Second Manassas where, on August 28, 1862 they “…got into line…marched about five mile when our advance was fired into and three men wounded and one killed.”

The Battle of Antietam, for Horner, started with the heavy fighting through the South Mountains of Maryland on September 14, 1862: the Division “stormed the mountain.” Then, near Sharpsburg, Maryland, and a creek named Antietam, he was part of the opening fight through the infamous bloody cornfield on the morning of September 17, 1862.

The most costly battle for Horner’s company was Fredericksburg, VA, December 13, 1862. They lost their Captain Andrew Bolar and eight enlisted men killed or wounded.

In his records he is listed as wounded at Antietam, yet he never mentions it in his diary. On September 19, 1862, his unit is marched through the battlefield. They witness the decomposing dead as they camp in a field nearby. He states, “I am not well.” September 21: “I can scrsely[sic] walk” and reports as not being fit for duty. September 23 he writes that his health is good, but on September 30, his handwriting is obviously wavy: “I am not very well to day make out my monthly returns have some trouble getting it right.” This all leads me to believe that Horner’s wound at Antietam may have been what he considered minor, and visiting a field hospital, with its groaning, screaming, bleeding, cursing clientele and waiting in line seemed too much. He may have dressed it himself, and come down with blood poisoning, or some other disease from being near the decomposing bodies. He was lucky to have survived.

Antiseptics were virtually unknown during the time of the American Civil War. Pasteur and Lister didn’t do their work until the late 1860s. A typical scene at a field hospital would go something like this: A surgeon, who had been amputating arms and legs for 24 hours straight, would have a young man with a gut wound placed on his table. He’d explore the man’s gut with his bare hand (and we all know what we have in our guts!) and, having neither the time, nor the expertise to perform internal surgery he would proclaim he could do nothing for the soldier and have the orderlies carry him to a corner of the barn. The next young soldier would show the surgeon a flesh wound in his arm. The surgeon would wipe off his hands on his stained apron, poke around in the man’s arm with his fingers, wrap a quick cloth bandage that had fallen on the straw and manure covered barn floor around the young man’s arm, and tell him he’ll be better in a week. What happens: The soldier with the gut wound, with a little luck, survives because the surgeon didn’t do much; the soldier with the flesh wound suddenly feels his temperature skyrocket two weeks later and is dead of blood poisoning within a day.

June 22 Gettysburg Campaign: Tactics vs. Technology

Franklin Horner and his mates make the best of living in camp and put a floor in their tent, probably out of some scrap wood they may have scavenged.  For the time being they can be comfortable.

Thomas Ware’s unit is sent marching again, ending up in a small village called Millwood, near Carter Hall, “Stonewall” Jackson’s headquarters for a few days in November 1862. Ware and his friends were up late cooking, but he complained of not having lard, salt or soda, and the water being some distance away.

Back to the rifle musket.

At the beginning of the war, the Union had the technological advantage in shoulder arms. With armories producing weapons for the small regular U. S. Army, they had stores of weapons and ammunition from the start. The problem was, many of the armories were in the south and when the southern states seceded, the armories went with them.

Distribution in the south was a problem. If a soldier or militia unit didn’t live near an armory, they had to supply their own weapons, many of which were antiquated fowling pieces, smoothbores and flintlocks.

Eventually, Confederates began to produce their own weapons. Some were run through the blockade from Great Britain and other foreign powers. Captures after early victories, as well put the more advanced rifle musket in the hands of rebel troops.

The weapon was called a “rifle” musket because of a series of twisting grooves (rifling) cut into the bore of the weapon. This innovation was not new, but became more widespread during the Civil War. Rifling put a spin on the projectile which made it fly farther and more accurately. A percussion cap, rather than flint and powder, became the standard, more rapid way of igniting the weapon.

But the innovation that truly made the rifle musket a long-distance killer was a small indentation in the base of the bullet.  In 1849, Captain Claude E. Minié of the French Army modified the bullet and loaned his name to the “minie ball.” This minor change would cost hundreds of thousands more casualties in the American Civil War and lead, eventually, to major changes in tactics.

Smoothbore shoulder arms, in use for centuries before,  were accurate to about 75 yards and, being muzzle-loaders and often flintlocks, sometimes took a minute to load and fire. Tactics were therefore designed to concentrate fire by lining soldiers up shoulder-to-shoulder and have them all fire at once. They would then sprint towards the enemy and finish the fight using the bayonet, tactics which served the British Army so well. Captain Minié’s indentation changed all that.

When the rifle musket was fired using a minie ball, the hot gases produced by the burning powder, softened the lead bullet, filled the indentation and expanded the lead into the rifling grooves. Now, instead of 75 yards, the projectile, with a spin like a football pass, would travel accurately 350 yards. Soldiers cannot fire a volley, sprint three football fields, and be expected to fight after so exhausting a run. Thus, they continued to march in packed ranks taking numerous volleys from the defenders until they reached sprinting distance. The field behind them was littered with dead and dying.

Because of the extreme accuracy and range of the rifle musket, tactics had to change. Defenders entrenched rather than standing up in an open field awaiting their assailants. Attackers began to use new formations, such as advancing in column, giving the enemy less of a front at which to fire.

However, the change in tactics came too late for a huge number of young men during the Civil War. Even halfway through the war, at Gettysburg, soldiers were still attacking in linear fashion, as in Longstreet’s Assault, popularly known as “Pickett’s Charge,” on July 3, 1863. Tactics lagging behind technology made mourners of a whole generation of mothers, fathers, sisters and children.

June 21 Gettysburg Campaign: What They Carried.

It was a cloudy, cool Sunday as Franklin Horner and Thomas Ware sat in their camps.

Horner heard some firing “towards Leesburg” to the west which would have been the cavalry battle around Upperville—Jeb Stuart’s men holding off the prying Yankees desperate for information on the Confederate main column—the same Upperville Thomas Ware visited a few days before.

Ware gets orders to prepare for dress parade and to be on the march immediately. The movement never happened.

Since both soldiers were relatively inactive, I took this point in the book to reach back to my own research as a “living history interpreter” ranger/historian at GNMP and explain just what the common soldier wore and carried during an active campaign.

According to his earlier diary entries, Ware complained in the spring of 1862 that his pack weighed about 25 pounds. By the summer of 1863, his burden was considerably lighter.

The pack probably would have been tossed. His extra clothing (perhaps a shirt, a change of underwear, and extra socks) was rolled up flat inside his wool blanket; the blanket would have been rolled inside of his “gum” (rubber) poncho, which also doubled as a shelter half. He tied the ends together then slipped the light, flexible roll over his head hanging from shoulder to hip.

Underneath the rolled blanket he carried his haversack. The Yankees had a tar-covered, waterproof haversack, but the Confederates (if they hadn’t “liberated” a tar haversack from a dead Yankee) slung a cloth bag from right shoulder to left hip. In it he carried personal items: bits of food and coffee, sugar, writing paper, letter from home, pencil or pen, tin plate and eating utensils, money, pocketknife, gun cleaning tools, and, most likely, a “twist” of tobacco.

Underneath his haversack to keep it in the shade, was his canteen—tin or possibly a wooden one, like a flat barrel, in the Southern armies. Going into battle the men would strip themselves of much of this equipment, some even emptying cartridge boxes into pockets. But one thing they always carried was their canteen. If wounded, they knew water was often the difference between life and death. Rudyard Kipling, writing a few years later about the British army in India, summed it up in verse:

“You may talk o’ gin an’ beer/When you’re quartered safe out ‘ere/ An’ you’re sent to penny-fights an’Aldershot it;/But if it comes to slaughter/You will do your work on water/An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ‘im that’s got it…”

Attached loosely to the canteen was the ubiquitous tin cup, probably the most versatile piece of equipment in either army. Coffee could be cooked rapidly with just a small fire during a break on the march. Water could be scooped quickly from a stream. A brief halt on the march next to a huckleberry patch and the cup would be filled. The tin cup also gave a sort of music to the march with its rhythmic clinking, hundreds of times over, against the canteen or a bayonet socket.

On his right hip Ware (or Horner) carried his cartridge box with 40 rounds when battle loomed. Strapped to the waist-belt was his cap pouch, filled with the copper, top-hat-shaped percussion caps, the next generation improvement over flint and pan, which ignited the powder in the barrel of his rifle musket.

Ware may have carried the particularly savage-looking triangular bayonet, probably used more for cooking than combat. Since he was a non-commissioned officer he may have been issued a sword which, on active campaign, likely ended up in a supply wagon somewhere. His real weapon, and the true killer of the Civil War, was the rifle musket. More on that tomorrow.

June 20 Gettysburg Campaign: Fences, Again

Franklin Horner gets some interesting news this day: all furloughs are stopped. It means that no one can leave camp, a sign that they may be called up for active duty.

Horner’s assignment since he was wounded at Antietam was to work on the defensive lines around the capital. It was physically less stressful than active campaigning and gave the men time to recuperate from illness or minor wounds while remaining in the army. It was called the “Invalid Corps.” But as emergencies arose, like when the Confederates are looking like they are on a full-scale incursion across the Mason-Dixon Line, the “Invalid Corps,” after months of relative inactivity, would be ordered on the same strenuous marches their counterparts had endured.

Though the weather was still rainy, Thomas Ware’s unit could finally build fires using fences for firewood. They bought butter from local farmers at “50c.” At 9:00 a.m. they received marching orders to return up the mountain to the Gap. There, probably just down the slope (or “military crest” of the hill), each company built rock breastworks 3 feet high and cut fields of fire in front of them. He was convinced the position could be defended against 10 times their number. They finished their entrenching, built fires and relaxed, cooking rations. But after all that work, at 3:00 p.m., they were ordered to abandon their prepared position. They re-crossed the river carrying the half-cooked beef in their hands.

Ware mentions that Pickett’s Division was marching in front of them—the same Pickett’s Division that was to make the ill-fated charge just two weeks hence.

They were ordered not to take off their clothes for the crossing: “few obeyed it.” They marched another mile and, at 6:00 p.m. encamped in a grove. They began to tear down local fences but were ordered to stop. They worked out a payment system with the farmer and finished cooking the rations late into the night.

The problem with burning fences was not confined to the Union army. Officers on both sides tried in vain to protect civilian property. One notable order came down from headquarters saying that only the top rail may be used for firewood. As each succeeding unit passed the fences, the men took what they perceived as the “top” rail until the fence had completely disappeared.

The nature of the war was changing. At the beginning, using “Napoleonic Tactics” in which the officers were schooled at the various military academies in both sections of the country, the warfare was strictly “linear.” The assaulting soldiers lined up shoulder-to-shoulder to attack another line of the enemy. But after a number of brutal stand-up, volley-for-volley fights, some of the officers realized that method was too costly. As a field commander, Robert E. Lee was given by his men the nickname “The King of Spades” since he ordered his men to dig in nearly every time they halted. It was hard work but it saved lives. By the time the two sides were at Petersburg, VA, in June 1864, the men created full-scale trenches, foreshadowing the trench warfare of the next century.

Wine Vacations – Wine Country Trips – Redbook

Just a quick distraction from my series on soldiers Mr. Ware and Mr. Horner, and the Gettysburg Campaign of the CIvil War.

Wine Vacations – Wine Country Trips – Redbook.

June 19 Gettysburg Campaign: A Test of Patriotism

We have a tendency to picture the battlefield as the only testing-place of the Civil War soldier’s patriotism. This Friday it was cloudy and rained. Franklin Horner watched the burial of a member of another company in his regiment who had died this day. Was this poor soldier who expired so far away from his home and family any less patriotic than one who was killed assaulting the enemy’s line?

Thomas Ware mentions the cloudy, rainy weather too. While the temperature may not have been as stifling as the past few days, marching in inclement weather could not have been pleasant. This also was a test of a soldier’s love of country.

General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, the odd, prosaic, former college professor turned military genius, thought soldiers who passed out from heatstroke on the march were merely lacking in patriotism. I can’t remember who—no doubt some soldier from the ranks—commented that, while the rest of him is patriotic, it’s just his legs that are disloyal.

Ware’s unit is sent northward for 10 miles on a road that ran (and still runs) alongside the Shenandoah River. They reach “Snicker’s Ford” and re-cross the river. (During the 19th Century, “Fords” or shallow, rock-bottomed stretches of rivers were used almost more often than bridges. Sometimes minor battles were fought to gain or protect a ford.) They marched 3 miles uphill to Snicker’s Gap and fortified the position with artillery. Ware mentions the fabulous view from the gap. They encamped on the side of the mountain about 300 yards from the bottom. The men had to place rocks below their feet to keep from sliding down. About 9:00 p.m. it began raining, for an hour “as fast as I ever saw it,” then continued more slowly the rest of the night. They had no wood and hence no fires. Ware spent the night “as wet as water could make me & a wet blanket & such an uneasy position. We will long remember that dreadful night.” When morning came, he found himself five feet farther down the mountainside.

Today, the road along the Shenandoah River begins as macadam but soon turns into dirt and rocks, then, as it veers away from the river flats, it undulates. The shoes Civil War soldiers wore were called “bootees” or brogans, ankle high with smooth leather soles. No doubt they made climbing a muddy road going up a hill difficult. Some of the Confederate soldiers may have thought they were fortunate having taken shoes from dead Yankees after their victory at the Battle of Chancellorsville, a little over a month before. But by this stage in the war, profiteers were supplying the Union army with inferior footwear, some with soles made out of cardboard, and so the Confederates may have regretted their “liberated” shoes, especially after they got wet.

June 18 Gettysburg Campaign: The Past at our Fingertips.

Franklin Horner writes about the rebels leaving Pennsylvania. Again, his rumor mill is inefficient. Perhaps the most telling thing about his entries is that he is remaining healthy, something he repeats each day for the last several.

Horner had been captured almost a year earlier on June 27, 1862, at Cold Harbor, VA, after the Battle of Gaines Mill, and sent to Belle Isle Prison in Richmond. He spent five weeks as a prisoner. He was exchanged and returned to his regiment on August 6, 1862. His military records show that he was wounded at the Battle of Antietam, September 17, 1862, although he doesn’t mention it in his diary entries of that period. His wounding may be the reason why, in the summer of 1863, he was not with Hooker’s army, but outside of Washington working on the defensive forts and rifle pits. His time at Belle Isle and his incapacitation after Antietam may be why he dwells upon his health in his diary.

Horner had been born in Cameron County, Pennsylvania, in 1836 (or 1837—records differ) and had become a carpenter. According to his enlistment papers, he stood five feet eight inches tall with a fair complexion, blue eyes and light hair. Three and a half months after Fort Sumter fell, he enlisted in Company H, 12th Regiment Pennsylvania Reserve Volunteer Infantry. Unbeknownst to him, on July 21, 1861, the day he was signing his enlistment papers, the first major battle of the war was taking place at Manassas, VA. On August 3, 1861, he was promoted from corporal to first sergeant.

Thomas Ware, after the grueling marches of the past few days has a relatively easy day—only eight miles. They crossed through Ashby’s Gap and he writes about the beautiful view from there, a view that can be observed to this day. From the gap they descended to the Shenandoah River and crossed it at an area where it was about 200 yards wide and waist deep. He mentions that there was a limestone spring on the other side with enough pressure to turn a mill. It was here the ambulances had brought the sick, and where the cooking detail for the division had set up camp and were preparing rations. They march another mile beyond the river and set up camp. Overnight they were besieged by heavy rain, thunder and lightning.

During my field research I was delighted to find the very spring Ware wrote about just after modern Route 50 crosses the river on a road to the right that goes under the bridge. There is a concrete springhouse built around it now. The spring he saw, which supplied the division with cool, fresh water, still pours into the Shenandoah River, a flowing landmark that reminds us that the past is not always that long ago.