The Next Issue of North & South Should Have Another Article I've Written: "Confederate Command Chaos on June 22, 1864"

The next issue of North & South Magazine should have another article from me.  This article is entitled Confederate Command Chaos on June 22, 1864.  It comes from my new book, Grant Lays Siege to Lee:  Petersburg, June 18-July 1, 1864, which covers the battle of Jerusalem Plank Road and the closely related Wilson-Kautz Raid.  The Federals suffered a disastrous defeat at Jerusalem Plank Road on June 22, 1864.  Three Confederate brigades routed three Unionist divisions.  The damage could have proved much worse that day had not chaos prevailed among the Secessionist commanders.  Lieutenant General A. P. Hill, whom the late Ed Bearss once called "the personification of the Peter Principle in the Army of Northern Virginia" was responsible for the confusion.

Lt. Gen. A. P. Hill (National Archives)

This will be the third issue in a row of North & South that contains one of my articles.  The current issue (Series II, Vol. 4, No. 2) contains William Crawford Smith:  From C.S.A. Private to U.S.A. Colonel.  Smith was the last color bearer of the 12th Virginia Infantry and his picture graces the cover of my last book, The Petersburg Regiment in the Civil War:  A History of the 12th Virginia Infantry from John Brown's Hanging to Appomattox, 1859-1865 (Savas Beatie, 2019) (winner of the 2019 Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award for Unit History).  

Born and reared in Petersburg, Smith moved to Nashville, Tennessee before the war and began a career as an architect.  When war came, he returned to Petersburg and joined the Petersburg Regiment.  After the war, he returned to Nashville and resumed his career as an architect, designing many private and public buildings, including a replica of the Parthenon for Tennessee's Centennial in 1897.  (My wife and I visited his Parthenon on May 9 while we attended a legal conference in Nashville.)  In 1898 he became colonel of the 1st Tennessee Infantry, U. S. Volunteers and died of heat stroke outside Manila in the Philippines in 1899.

The issue of North & South (Series II, Vol. 4, No. 1) before that included my article about Victor Jean-Baptiste Girardey, A Most Remarkable Officer.  Born in Alsace, Girardey became an outstanding staff officer who plays a role in my coming article Confederate Command Chaos on June 22, 1864 as well as in the book from which the article comes, Grant Lays Siege to Lee:  Petersburg, June 18-July 1, 1864, where he also led Mahone's Florida Brigade to cut off and capture more than 400 Vermonters.  Afterward he earned a promotion from captain to brigadier general by perfectly timing the charge of the Virginia Brigade of Mahone's division at the battle of the Crater on July 30, 1864.  His death at Fussell's Mill on August 16, 1864, is described in another of my books, The Siege of Petersburg:  The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864 (Savas Beatie, 2015).

The picture on the cover is from a Keith Rocco painting that depicts the charge of the 39th Illinois at Fussell's Mill on the north side of James River on August 16, 1864.  It was in this charge that Girardey was killed by an Ohio sharpshooter in the same brigade as the 39th Illinois.  The picture hangs in the Tinley Park (IL) Historical Society, a few blocks down the street from my main law office.  Company G of the 39th, "the Preacher's Company," was recruited in Tinley Park (then called New Bremen).  The company included Pvt. Henry Hardenbergh, who carried the flag of the 39th in the charge at Fussell's Mill.  Wounded as the regiment and its brigade broke through the line of Georgians Girardey commanded, Hardenbergh picked himself up and ran along the enemy line to the left, where he killed an Alabama color bearer and captured his flag.  Hardenbergh thus earned a Medal of Honor and a battlefield promotion.  He received them posthumously after his death on the Bermuda Hundred Lines a few days later.  Now he lies in Poplar Grove National Cemetery about six miles south of Petersburg, just west of the Weldon Railroad which his efforts helped Federal forces sever on August 18, 1864.