My Next Talk Will Be at the Kankakee Valley Civil War Round Table on November 3, 2021, on the 39th Illinois

 At 6 p.m. on November 3 I'll be at the Kankakee Valley Civil War Round Table Meeting at the Bradley Public Library in Bradley, Illinois discussing the 39th Illinois Veteran Volunteer Infantry's role in the battle of Fussell's Mill, about 10 miles southeast of Richmond, Virginia, on August 16, 1864.  The regiment's color bearer, a member of Company G, "the Preacher's Company," won a Medal of Honor that day.  Despite receiving a wound in the charge that broke the Confederate line, the color bearer picked himself up and continued onward, capturing the flag of an Alabama regiment and killing its bearer.  The incident appears in my book, The Siege of Petersburg: The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864 (Savas Beatie, 2019) and indeed is depicted on the dust jacket, taken from a painting by Keith Rocco.

Birthday of Mr. Petersburg, George S. Bernard, 12th Virginia Infantry, Author of "War Talks of Confederate Veterans" and "Civil War Talks"

Today, August 27, is the birthday of Mr. Petersburg--George S. Bernard, Esq., author of War Talks of Confederate Veterans (1892) and Civil War Talks (2012).  

None of the soldiers of The Petersburg Regiment (12th Virginia Infantry), wrote more than George S. Bernard.  A graduate of the University of Virginia, he was a lawyer in Petersburg when he joined the Petersburg Riflemen as a private in 1859.  The Riflemen became Company E of the 12th.  He went off to Norfolk in April 1861 and was discharged in September 1861 after a bout of typhoid fever.  In February 1862, after recovering, he joined the Meherrin Grays as a sergeant, and the Grays were assigned to the 12th in Norfolk as the regiment's second Company I.  Wounded and captured at Crampton's Gap in September 1862, he was exchanged and put on recruiting duty at Cumberland Court House, about 60 miles southwest of Richmond.  After recovering from his wound, he transferred back to the 12th's Company E as a private.  Wounded at Hatcher's Run in February 1865, he was on furlough at the time of the Appomattox surrender and had tried unsuccessfully to rejoin his regiment.

After the war he returned to law practice and served in the state legislature.  He also wrote prolifically about the war.  He was the first historian of the 12th Virginia Infantry, the Petersburg Regiment.

George S. Bernard

From War Talks of Confederate Veterans

In 1892, he compiled and edited War Talks of Confederate Veterans, which included some of his own articles.

He had a sequel ready for publication in 1896 when it disappeared.  The manuscript showed up again in 2004 at a flea market, where it was purchased for $50 and sold to the History Museum of Western Virginia for $15,000.  Hampton Newsome, John Selby and I were honored to edit the manuscript into Civil War Talks: Further Reminiscences of George S. Bernard & His Fellow Veterans, which the University Press of Virginia published in 2012.

He also left letters and diaries at the University of Virginia, a notebook at Duke University, manuscript fragments at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a letter collection in private hands.

I drew heavily on his writing in 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.  Soldiers such as Bernard did most of the Distinguished Writing.

  

Additions to My Schedule at Gettysburg National Battlefield Park on August 14, 2021

There are some additions to my schedule at Gettysburg National Battlefield Park on August 14, 2021.

I'm still due to give a talk with Charlie Knight at 9:30 a.m. at the marker for Ross's Battery on West Confederate Drive about the movement of Mahone's brigade on the evening of July 2, 1863.

Additionally, I'll be on the authors panel moderated by my publisher Ted Savas at 4 p.m. August 14, 2021 at the Gettysburg Heritage Center.

At 5 p.m. I'll be remaining at the Heritage Center to sign any copies purchased of the July 2021 edition of Gettysburg Magazine, which contains my article, "The Myth that Mahone's Brigade Did Not Move on July 2, 1863" as well as copies purchased of my latest 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's Distinguished Writing Award for Unit History.

William Evelyn Cameron, Adjutant of the 12th Virginia Infantry, Witness to the Movement of Mahone's Brigade on the Evening of July 2, 1863, Governor of Virginia 1882-1886

From George S. Bernard, ed., War Talks of Confederate Veterans (Petersburg: Fenn & Owen, 1892)

(Bernard was another member of the 12th Virginia in Mahone's brigade and another witness to its move on the evening of July 2, 1863) 

Charlie Knight and I Will Give a Talk at Gettysburg 9:30 a.m. August 14, 2021

There will be a gathering of Savas Beatie authors at Gettysburg August 13-15, 2021.  Author Charlie Knight (Robert E. Lee's Civil War Day by Day) and I (The Petersburg Regiment) will discuss the movement of Mahone's brigade on July 2, 1863 as set forth in my article in July's Gettysburg Magazine entitled "The Myth that Mahone's Brigade Did Not Move on July 2, 1863."  The talk will take place at 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, August 14, 2021, and will last about an hour.  I'm hoping to meet up near the marker for Ross's Battery (Sumter Artillery) on West Confederate Drive.  I should be able to point out the route of Mahone's brigade from there.  Copies of Gettysburg Magazine should be available at the Visitor Center and I'll bring copies of The Petersburg Regiment and I'll sign either for anyone who wishes to buy one.

 

Map by Hampton Newsome, from The Petersburg Regiment

For my Gettysburg Magazine article, Hal Jespersen has drawn a splendid map based on Hampton's.

Major Moncena Dunn's Dream, June 22, 1864

One of my favorite anecdotes about the first Federal attempt to invest Petersburg from the Appomattox River below the city to the Appomattox above occurred on June 22, 1864, at the United State Army advanced toward the Dimmock Line south of the city.  (June 22 is the climax of my forthcoming book about Grant's second offensive at Petersburg.)

I was very pleased to find a picture of Major Moncena Dunn, who had a poignant dream early that disastrous afternoon.

Major Moncena Dunn

            As Brig. Gen. Francis Channing Barlow’s troops deployed in front of the Dimmock Line, the officers of the 19th Massachusetts of Pierce’s brigade in Gibbon’s division strolled to the rear to eat.  Their regiment held breastworks at the edge of an open field covered by a crossfire from Battery B, 11th New Jersey Light Artillery and the 12th New York Battery.  “Our regiment was so small that we were in single rank and the formation was two companies instead of ten,” recalled Capt. John Gregory Bishop Adams, who commanded the left company.  After enlisting as a private, Adams had won a Medal of Honor at Fredericksburg and a promotion to captain prior to suffering a Gettysburg wound.

The 19th’s commander shared an unsettling experience with his fellow officers. 

“I fell asleep a little while ago, and had a queer dream,” said Major Moncena Dunn, a Maine-born bookkeeper, cutler and hotel manager wounded at Fredericksburg.  “We were lying just as we are here, and the rebels came in our rear and captured the entire regiment.”[1]

Dunn’s fellow officers reacted with disbelief.

“We laughed at his story, said we guessed we should not go to Richmond that way, and returned to our places in line,” remembered Adams.  “The firing in our front increased, the batteries doing good service for the rebels.”[2]

Everything came to pass as Dunn had dreamed.  He, Adams and about 1,700 other Yanks wound up in Confederate custody before evening.  Dunn survived his captivity and often spoke of its hardships.

---

[1] John G. B. Adams, Reminiscences of the Nineteenth Massachusetts Regiment (Boston, 1890), 102.

[2] Ibid., 102-103.

Map by Hampton Newsome

The Richmond and Atlanta Campaigns of 1864 Were Joined at the Hip

On June 18 I finally visited Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.  I was down in Atlanta for my grandson's second birthday.  I'm currently writing about Grant's second offensive at Petersburg.  The Atlanta Campaign battles of Kolb's Farm (June 22, 1864) and Kennesaw Mountain (June 27, 1864) took place within the span of the Federal general-in-chief's second offensive at Petersburg.  Grant loaned his horse Cincinnati to President Lincoln during his visit to the Union lines around there on June 21-22, 1864.  The Kennesaw Mountain park sells a little replica of Cincinnati and I bought one for my grandson, whom the toy horse pleased.

Chickamauga, fought on September 18-20, 1863 just south of Chattanooga, had a profound effect on the general-in-chief.  He realized that the Union armies must act as a team, applying continuous pressure on their respective fronts to prevent the Confederates from concentrating against any particular Federal army.  As late as his second offensive at Petersburg, he feared that if Sherman let up on Johnston in the Atlanta Campaign, the Secessionists might transfer troops from Georgia to Virginia. OR 40, 2:175. Afterward Grant feared that withdrawing his army group from James River would ensure Sherman's defeat by allowing the Southerners to shift forces from Virginia to Georgia for a reprise of Chickamauga.  OR 42, 2:193. The general-in-chief's fourth offensive in August ended any chance of that.  Confederate President Davis was not even thinking of such a move; in fact, he ordered an infantry brigade transferred from Atlanta to Mobile shortly before Atlanta's fall. 

Lee Besieged: Grant's Second Offensive at Petersburg, June 20-July 1, 1864

Right now I'm working on a history of Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's second offensive at Petersburg, June 20-July 1, 1864.  I think I'll call it, Lee Besieged:  Grant's Second Offensive at Petersburg, June 20-July 1, 1864.  I started by looking at the late Edwin C. Bearss's original study of the fighting and, for unpublished material, Noah Andre Trudeau's The Last Citadel.  I recommend these works to anyone else writing about the fighting around Petersburg.  Other very helpful starting points include beyondthecrater.com and petersburgproject.org.  From there I went into more published and unpublished material.

I just finished my draft yesterday.  It will go out for examination by friends and acquaintances who themselves have published on the siege while I map and otherwise illustrate the book.  I estimate that mapping and otherwise illustrating will take a year or two.    

The second offensive occupied a critical period in the siege.  Underway was Grant's first attempt to invest Petersburg from the Appomattox River below the city to the Appomattox above, a very complicated maneuver.  This first attempt ended in disaster.  It might have succeeded against Brig. Gen. John B. Floyd, who had commanded Fort Donelson, or Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton, who had commanded at Vicksburg, but Grant was facing Gen. Robert E. Lee and did not reach the river above Petersburg until April 2, 1865 during the ninth of his offensives.

   

               Brig. Gen. John B. Floyd                                     Lt. Gen. John C. Pemberton