Glossary: The World of the 12th Virginia Infantry

Below is one of the items that wound up on the cutting room floor because of space considerations as I prepared the manuscript of "The Petersburg Regiment in the Civil War, A History of the 12th Virginia Infantry from John Brown's Hanging to Appomattox" for publication.  Last I heard it's due out next January.

GLOSSARY:  The World of the 12th Virginia Infantry

The Petersburg Regiment                                           The 12th Virginia Infantry

A Saratoga Trunk Regiment                                       The 12th Virginia Infantry

The Cockade City                                                       Petersburg

The Herrings (Second Company H)                           The Meherrin Grays

The Kid Glove Boys                                                   The Mahone-Weisiger Brigade

Lee’s Regulars                                                            The Mahone-Weisiger Brigade

The Turkeys                                                                The Florida Brigade (1863)

The Gophers                                                               The Florida Brigade (1865)

The Norfolk Division                                                  The Huger-Anderson-Mahone Division

Mahone Men                                                               The Huger-Anderson-Mahone Division

Mahone’s Beauties                                                     The Huger-Anderson-Mahone Division

(Old) Porte                                                                     General Mahone

Bomb-Proof                                                                Safe

The Old Rag                                                               The Regimental Flag

The Gridiron                                                               The Federal Flag

Raghouse                                                                    Tent

The Blockade                                                              The Provost Guard

Run The Blockade                                                      Go Absent Without Leave

Take French Leave                                                     Go Absent Without Leave

The Rapid Ann                                                           The Rapidan River

“Soldiers’ Friends”                                                     Lice

“A Confederate Guard of Greybacks”                        Lice

“The Confederates”                                                    Lice

Easy Cuts

Here's an easy way to cut a couple words a page, which adds up over hundreds of pages.

Eliminate "of the" whenever possible.

"The north bank of the Rappahannock" is six words.

"The Rappahannock's north bank" is four.

Just by making this type of cut, I've probably shortened a manuscript of around four hundred pages by almost a thousand words.

Herodotus versus Thucydides

The principle criticism of Herodotus is for his reporting what he was told in response to his inquiries, but he generally differentiates what he has seen from what he has been told.  For me, his strength is the vividness, the unforgettable nature of his stories--the tyrant throwing his ring into the sea and having it brought back in a fish, Croesus on the pyre, the two Spartan lads trying to explain freedom to a Persian, and of course the fight at Thermopylae.  When I was restoring stories to my history of the Petersburg Regiment, my criterion was my inability to forget the incident in question.

The strongest criticism of Thucydides I have seen is that he fabricated the speeches in his book, though he is considered to have written from contemporary accounts and on a relatively scientific basis.  His strength is his analysis.  But his accounts are less particular than those of Herodotus, and consequently less vivid.  I cannot imagine reading Thucydides just before going to sleep, but as a boy I used to read Herodotus before going to sleep.

So while I favor Herodotus, I think Thucydides a very great historian and probably a greater analyst of history than the other father of history, Herodotus.  Telling a vivid story is entirely compatible with providing analysis.

The Last Battle Flag of the Petersburg Regiment

            Federal sources mistakenly claimed that on April 6, 1865, at Sailor’s Creek, two Federal cavalrymen of Custer’s division captured flags that belonged to the 12th Virginia Infantry.[1]  Neither banner belonged to the 12tb.  Its battle line did not participate in the battle of Sailor’s Creek.  Custer/s troops charged “the enemy’s wagon train” and captured 300 wagons and much of Ewell’s command.[2]  The flags that Custer’s men allegedly captured from the 12th bore neither unit designation nor battle honors.  On June 4, 1892, before any controversy regarding the regiment’s banner had arisen, Phillips wrote:  “The Flag we had at Appomattox was not surrendered but cut up in places….”[3] 

            In 1905, the United States government returned to Virginia the flags that now hang as WD 333 and WD 437 in the American Civil War Museum (formerly the Museum of the Confederacy).  Their misidentification as banners of the 12th touched off a flurry of letters from the regiment’s veterans.  “The 12th Virginia infantry flag was not surrendered,” wrote Phillips after explaining that the 12th had not become engaged at Sailor’s Creek.  “I with my own hands tore it to pieces….”[4]  He stated that he still had the star he had taken for himself.  Phillips’ granddaughter had it in her possession when I photographed it years ago in Arlington Heights, Illinois.  Attached to it is Phillips’ inscription, which states that the star is “from the Battle Flag of the 12th Va Infantry, which I with my own hands tore it up at Appomattox when we surrendered on the 9th of April 1865….”[5]  Another source corroborates Phillips.  “The regimental flag…was not surrendered,” wrote Birdsong, who also insisted that the 12th did not fight at Sailor’s Creek.  “When the regiment stacked arms after surrender, the flag was cut up by the boys….”[6] 

            Conclusive evidence came from Corporal Francis C. Stainback of Company A, the Petersburg City Guard.  It is the portion of the flag that reads “12th. Va.” and it rests in the Museum of Virginia Military Institute.  His inscription, which accompanies the fragment, states that he brought it away from Appomattox in his shoe, that the flag was divided to keep the enemy from getting it, and that the 12th never lost a flag.[7] 

            In response to an email about a captured flag identified as that of the 12th at the American Civil War Museum (formerly the Museum of the Confederacy), Robert Hancock of the museum emailed me the following:

…The flag long associated with the 12th Virginia Infantry and captured at Sailor’s Creek is listed in the records as WD 437.  However, subsequent research has determined that there is not enough evidence to designate this flag as that of the 12th Virginia. 

            The only evidence we have that the flag captured by Lt. James Gibben, 2nd NY Cavalry, at Sailor’s Creek is that of the 12th Virginia Infantry i[n] the Register of Captured Flags which also assigned the flag its WD number.  As you state, further evidence indicates that the 12th was not engaged at Sailor’s Creek and subsequently tore up their flag to prevent its surrender at Appomattox.  WD 437 is without unit identification or battle honors, but testimony states that the one torn up at Appomattox certainly had battle honors.  I believe that the fragment containing the unit ID is at VMI.  If WD 437 is a retired flag of the 12th, it would probably have been festooned with battle honors and unit ID as was the one at Appomattox.  This is just speculation.

            As a point of pride, a unit would keep its flag until they had to get a new one due to excessive damage or loss.  There is very little damage to WD 437, so probably would not have been retired.  Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any unit that surrendered two flags at the same, or approximately the same, time; one that was being actively used and one in the baggage.  For these reasons, we have decided to list this flag as belonging to an unknown unit.  There was so much confusion, and things were happening so quickly, that we may never sort out most of the unmarked flags captured at Sailor’s Creek and Appomattox….

Sincerely, 

Robert F. Hancock

Senior Curator & Director of Collections[8]

            In response to an email about another captured flag identified as that of the 12th  at the Petersburg Siege Museum, Harold Jacobson of the museum emailed me the following:

…The flag…has been tentatively identified as belonging to the 12th NC Infantry but was once thought to be from the 12th VA. The American Civil War Museum has the complete catalog record and image online, located at:  http://moconfederacy.pastperfectonline.com/webobject/89A3BB42-E30C-46AA-BA08-473522773733

            They have a second flag, also incorrectly identified from the 12th VA infantry, which can be found here: http://moconfederacy.pastperfectonline.com/webobject/6E20E5E0-9720-4C0A-9936-439248005641....

Harold Jacobson

Curator of Collections

City of Petersburg[9]

            In conclusion, I think it is possible that the wagons captured by the Federals at Sailor's Creek contained a retired battle flag of the Petersburg Regiment, but the 12th Virginia's last battle flag was torn up at Appomattox.

---

[1] OR 46:1, 591-592, 1258-1259  

[2] Ibid., 1:1132, 1136. 

[3] Letter, James E. Phillips to George S. Bernard, June 4, 1892, Bernard Papers, SHC.

[4] “Capt. Jim Has A Star From Flag:  Tore Up Twelfth Virginia Colors to Prevent Their Surrender at Appomattox,” unidentified newspaper clipping, n.d., Phillips Papers, Private Collection of Elise Phillips Atkins. 

[5] Star Fragment, Phillips Papers, Private Collection of Elise Phillips Atkins. 

[6] James C. Birdsong, “Error As To Flags Of 12th Virginia:  That Regiment Fought Its Last Battle Near Farmville, Not at Sailor’s Creek,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, March 31, 1907.

[7] Francis Charles Stainback Collection, Virginia Military Institute Museum, VMI.

[8] Email, Robert Hancock to John Horn, January 6, 2016, Private Collection of John Horn.

[9] Email, Harold Jacobson to John Horn, January 14, 2016, Private Collection of John Horn.

More Help from Another Friend

A comment by Ralph Peters alerted me to the possibility that I ought to restore the anecdotes I've cut to get my manuscript down by 30,000 words as the publisher requested.  It looks as if I can cut enough verbiage, plus an unnecessary chapter and two unnecessary appendices, to restore the two anecdotes I cut and add a couple more. 

One of the anecdotes I cut was essential, because both the soldiers involved appear later in the book.  I cut it and another because they seemed saccharine, but in retrospect I realized many soldiers put a happy face on their war experiences.  Both anecdotes cut were from garrison duty in Norfolk in 1861.

My father served as a clerk for a field hospital near Le Mans in 1944 and 1945.  He left a memoir of his service from his induction until November 1944, when his unit was at Le Mans.  The memoir described the location of the field hospital so clearly that I was able to visit the site in 2007 on my way to see my elder daughter, who was studying French in Tours, about an hour away.  My father wrote his memoir in a very light, jocular tone--so light and jocular that my son, a Marine, can't stand it.  But I think my father's attempt to make light of his service was very similar to the reaction of the 12th Virginia's soldiers to their service in 1861.  In person, my father told stories that were not so light.  He remembered being issued a rifle and reclassified as an infantryman during the Battle of the Bulge, though he was not called to the front.  He told us of boxcars full of German wounded frozen to death on the journey to the hospital.  He mentioned that a German prisoner named Richard Horn from the Rhineland said our surname was common there.

My father-in-law, a young Marine who served as a cook in the Pacific, also made light of his service.  The only story he told was of falling into a vat of chocolate pudding.  He could never stand chocolate pudding afterward.

The anecdotes I may add are ones that I cannot forget, which I think is a pretty good criterion for adding material.

History is an art, not a science.  The Greeks gave history her own Muse, Clio.  But don't worry.  I'm not going to get carried away and go billing myself as The Artist Formerly Known As John Horn.

P.S. Even in the part of the 12th Virginia's story that space constrains me to post on this blog, I have restored one of Bernard's vignettes of the closing days of the war.