Learning from Illustrating

To prepare an illustration guide for my next book, I took several months off from a book I was writing about June 18-22, 1864, at Petersburg.  To reacquaint myself with the text, I started illustrating it.  A minor naval action took place on June 21, and part of illustrating it lay in finding pictures of the weapons.  They included the 15-inch Dahlgren, which armed all four of the Union monitors on James River.  Only three rounds from this fearsome weapon had led the ironclad CSS Atlanta to strike her colors the previous year.

Just three 15-inch Dahlgrens remain above water.  (Two lie with USS Tecumseh at the bottom of Mobile Bay, two more at the bottom of the Pacific off Arica, Peru, and another at the bottom of the Pacific off Callao, Peru--but more about these South American Dahlgrens later.)  The first two Dahlgrens above water stand near the grave of John Ericsson, the designer of USS Monitor, in Sweden, his native land.  These two had armed a monitor he designed for Sweden.

The third sits at the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defense.  Quite a story lies behind how it got there.

After the war, the United States sold two Canonicus-class monitors, Catawba and Oneota, each armed with two 15-inch Dahlgrens, to Peru.  The Peruvians named Catawba after the last Inca Emperor, Atahualpa.  They named Oneota after Manco Capac, the founder of the Inca Empire.

 Atahualpa

Manco Capac

Both ships met their ends during the War of the Pacific, 1879-1883, during which Chile trounced Peru and Bolivia, leaving the latter country landlocked.  Manco Capac participated in the defense of Arica, and the Peruvians scuttled her when Arica fell in 1880.  Atahualpa helped defend Callao until the city fell in 1881 and the Peruvians scuttled her, too.

The Dahlgren at the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defense was apparently salvaged from Atahualpa and sold to the British.

The only other image of a Dahlgren I have found is the following:

The gun in the picture is often identified as a Rodman rather than a Dahlgren, though.

My wife and I expect to be cruising past the watery graves of Oneota/Manco Capac and Catawba/Atahualpa next year on a voyage that begins in Valparaiso, Chile, and ends at Callao, Peru.  Unfortunately, we will be unable to visit Talcahuano, a fair distance south of Valparaiso.  There floats the ironclad Huascar, built by the British in 1865 for the Peruvians and named after another Inca Emperor.  The Chileans captured her in 1879 and now she serves as a museum and memorial ship.

Seeing her will require another voyage.

Huascar

"The Petersburg Regiment, 12th Virginia Infantry, 1861-1865"

It looks like my next book, The Petersburg Regiment, 12th Virginia Infantry, 1861-1865, should be published next year by Savas Beatie.  John Wilkes Booth stood in the ranks of one of this regiment’s companies at John Brown’s hanging.  The regiment refused to have Stonewall Jackson appointed its colonel.  Its men first saw combat in naval battles.  In their first action on land, they embarrassed themselves.  Their role at Gettysburg remains controversial.  Yet by war’s end they would number among the Army of Northern Virginia’s most renowned shock troops.

Upcoming Books by Gordon Rhea and A. Wilson Greene

Be on the lookout for a book coming out this August from Gordon Rhea on Grant's crossing of James River and the first day of fighting at Petersburg, June 15, 1865.

Early next year we should see the first of a three-volume series on the Siege of Petersburg from A. Wilson Greene.  

"Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the Petersburg Campaign"

Dr. Dennis A. Rasbach has written a convincing book about the charge of Joshua Chamberlain and his brigade at Petersburg on the afternoon of June 18, 1864.  Dr. Rasbach persuaded Virginia to relocate the marker for the charge about a mile from where Chamberlain thought it occurred to where the historical documents proved it occurred.  Dr. Rasbach writes compellingly.  His research is meticulous.  The maps are excellent.  The proofreading was spectacular--I did not catch a single error.  The most poignant part of the book for me was the last appendix, describing the gruesome nature of the wound Chamberlain suffered.  Though the wound would contribute to his death many years later and would have justified his resignation from the service, Chamberlain nonetheless returned to combat and made it to Appomattox.  What an example this hero set!  We can all look forward to hearing more from Dr. Rasbach.

The Petersburg Campaign, Part X.B.2: The Battle of Fort Gregg

John J. Fox's The Confederate Alamo: Bloodbath at Petersburg's Fort Gregg on April 2, 1865 may well be the definitive account of one of the fights on Battle Sunday, April 2, 1865, the day the Federals also broke through the Confederate lines southwest of the Cockade City.  At least a whole Northern division spent several hours taking a Southern fort manned by the 12th and 16th Mississippi and fragments of other Secessionist units.  Fox's book gets down among the soldiers and puts you with the Unionists huddling in the cold water at the foot of the fortifications, as well as the Rebels desperately trying to hold the fort.  Fifty-five Confederate corpses remained in the fort when the fighting was finished.  My relative in the 12th Mississippi (Pvt. Thomas Mulkaha, Co. B) claimed to have been wounded at Fort Gregg, but he appears neither among prisoners taken by the Federals nor among the ranks of his unit at Appomattox.  I suspect that he just went to his wife's farm a mile or two to the southwest--he had married a Dinwiddie County girl at Dinwiddie Court House December 29, 1864.

The Petersburg Canon, Part X.B.1: The Battle of Five Forks

The Edwin C. Bearss/Chris Calkins book on the battle of Five Forks has required revision for some time.  Michael J. McCarthy’s book Confederate Waterloo gives an updated and more accurate picture of the fight without going much beyond the overview provided by A. Wilson Greene in his Breaking the Back of the Rebellion.  The reason is that McCarthy is more interested in exploring the subsequent struggle of Maj. Gen. Gouverneur Kemble Warren to demonstrate the injustice of his relief at the hands of Maj. Gen. Phillip Sheridan immediately after Warren won the battle.  The summary of the fighting is good, though I disagree with McCarthy’s figures on Confederate prisoners after having actually counted them—his figures are high, 4,500 as opposed to the 2,500 I counted in The Petersburg Campaign, assisted by the research of Bryce Suderow.  

The main problem with the book is that McCarthy doesn’t know enough about the Siege of Petersburg to put Five Forks in perspective.  He keeps insisting that Five Forks decided the Siege.  It most certainly did not.  The April 2 breakthrough by VI Corps ended the Siege, as A. Wilson Green has observed.  As I’ve pointed out in every book I’ve written on the Siege, page 922 of The Wartime Papers of Robert E. Lee makes clear that Pickett’s failure on March 31, 1865 to evict Sheridan from Dinwiddie Court House would have been decisive except for the slow response of Lee’s civilian superiors (Secretary of War Breckenridge and President Davis) to Lee’s request to evacuate.  Even on April 2, in the absence of approval from above to evacuate, Lee was marshaling forces to strike Sheridan similar to the way that Lee struck Hancock at Reams Station on August 25, 1864.  Unfortunately for Lee, Grant was not sick again as he was on August 25, 1864, leaving Meade to defend with his extraordinary passivity.  Grant defended by attacking, and ended the Siege.

Likewise, McCarthy doesn't understand the depth of bad blood between Warren and his superiors.  Major General George Gordon Meade does not seem to have forgiven Warren for failing to attack at Mine Run in December 1863, even though Warren was justified in calling off the attack.  Grant and Meade also held against Warren his failure to seize Petersburg in August 1864, even though he cut the Weldon Railroad.

Once we are finished with the actual fighting, McCarthy’s real story begins—how Warren obtained a court of inquiry and how that proceeded.  This part of the book is riveting and it is hard to set down.  Despite the protestations of Generals Grant, Sherman and Sheridan, as well as the Army’s chief lawyer, to the contrary, it appears that the unfortunate Warren established his case beyond a reasonable doubt.  Grant carelessly set up Warren to disappoint Sheridan and then invited Sheridan if disappointed to relieve Warren, with predictable results.

The Petersburg Canon, Part X.A: Grant's Ninth and Final Offensive

The last of the major works in the Petersburg Canon is a very good one, Wilson Greene's Breaking the Back of the Rebellion.  I agree completely with Greene that the Sixth Corps breakthrough on April 2, 1865, was the decisive battle compelling the evacuation of Richmond and Petersburg, not Five Forks on April 1.  I would have liked to see Greene point out that for Lee, the decisive battle was Dinwiddie Court House on March 31, where Pickett failed to evict Sheridan from that critical point.  If you don't think so, take a look at page 922 of The Wartime Papers of Robert E. Lee.  I've pointed this out in every book I've written on the Siege.  Problem was, Lee had superiors who appear to have dithered or required more convincing, so it took the Sixth Corps breakthrough on April 2 to end the Siege.

I would also have liked to see Greene explore the parallel between August 25, 1864, and April 2, 1865.  On both occasions, the Federals had forces in threatening positions, and Lee was marshaling his forces to attack them (Hancock in 1864 and Sheridan in 1865).  The difference was that Grant was sick in 1864 and well in 1865.  Meade defended passively in 1864 and Hancock was trounced at Second Reams Station.  Grant defended by attacking in 1865 and brought the Siege to an end.

Greene has a big canvas to fill, and provides solid background summary while getting to a more personal level with the Sixth Corps--a clever and economical strategy.  His judgments are sound and he has admirably dealt with the Siege's end.

But the Petersburg Canon is not finished!  My next and I think last entry on this subject will be Part X.B.