Help Preserve Acreage on the May 1864 Todd's Tavern, June 1864 Jerusalem Plank Road and August 1864 Globe Tavern Battlefields.

You can help preserve the May 1864 Todd's Tavern battlefield through the American Battlefield Trust.  The trust's map is of the cavalry fighting on May 7, 1864, but infantry took up the fighting at Bradshaw's farm just west of Todd's Tavern on May 8.  On May 8, the Petersburg Riflemen, Company E of the 12th Virginia Infantry, the Petersburg Regiment, and the sharpshooter battalion of Weisiger's Virginia Brigade, Mahone's division, Hill's Corps engaged Miles' brigade, Barlow's division, Hancock's corps.  The Federals captured one of Company E's leading writers, Sgt. Leroy Summerfield Edwards, and almost seized the Petersburg Regiment's first historian, Pvt. George S. Bernard, also of Company E.  Edwards and Bernard had belonged to the same Bible study ground the previous winter.

Map by Hampton Newsome for 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).

You can help preserve the June 1864 Jerusalem Plank Road battlefield through the American Battlefield Trust or the Petersburg Battlefields Foundation.  Another prolific writer from the Petersburg Regiment, First Sgt. James Edward "Eddie" Whitehorne described how on June 22, 1864, Barlow's division of Hancock's corps "melted away like ice in the sun" under the onlslaught of the Alabama, Georgia and Virginia brigades of Mahone's division, who then rolled up Mott's division "like a sheet of paper." Mahone's men then routed much of Gibbon's division and seized the four guns of the 12th New York Battery.  Afterward, assisted by the Mississippi Brigade of Mahone's division, the Alabamians, Georgians and Virginians repulsed two counterattacks by Gibbon's troops. 

Map by Hampton Newsome for The Petersburg Regiment.... (Savas Beatie, 2019).

You can help preserve the August 1864 Globe Tavern battlefield through the American Battlefield Trust or the Petersburg Battlefields Foundation.  On August 19 at Globe Tavern, troops of the Federal IX Corps almost surrounded the Petersburg Regiment and its brigade, Weisiger's.  A man next to Private Bernard too seriously wounded to beat the hasty retreat that became necessary and perished in a Union hospital.  It was "no time to swap jack-knives," wrote Pvt. Henry Van Leuvenigh Bird of the 12th Virginia's Company C, the Petersburg New Grays, one of only two members of the Petersburg Regiment's color guard to emerge from the battle unscathed.

Map by Hampton Newsome for The Petersburg Regiment... (Savas Beatie, 2019).

On August 21 at Globe Tavern, while the Petersburg Regiment and its brigade occupied the Petersburg trenches, the rest of their reinforced division suffered a stiff repulse at the hands of the Federal V Corps (including the Iron Brigade) and IX Corps.  Hagood's South Carolina Brigade got surrounded as Weisiger's Virginia Brigade almost had two days earlier, and before the South Carolinians fought their way out of the trap they lost almost two thirds of their strength.

Map by Hampton Newsome for The Siege of Petersburg: The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864 (Savas Beatie, 2015).

The Petersburg Regiment and The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864 from Savas Beatie would make good Christmas presents, too!

Petersburg at Gettysburg

Here's the link to the August 14, 2021 talk that my friend Charlie Knight and I gave about the night move of Mahone's brigade on July 2, 1863.

Map by Hal Jespersen for John Horn, "The Myth that Mahone's Brigade Did Not Move on July 2, 1863," Gettysburg Magazine No. 65, July 2021

Pleasant Reception at Petersburg Civil War Table December 2, 2021

Last night at the Petersburg Civil War Round Table I had a pleasant reception.  We discussed The Petersburg Regiment in the Civil War: A History of the 12th Virginia Infantry from John Brown's Hanging to Appomattox, 1859-1865, my latest book.  It received the 2019 Distinguished Writing Award from the Army Historical Foundation for Unit History.  The soldiers did most of the distinguished writing.

Before arriving at Pamplin Park, the site of the round table meeting, I drove around the June 1864 and August 1864 battlefields, revisiting among other places that of Hagood's South Carolina brigade, which lost about 2/3 of its strength on August 21, 2021.  (See The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864.)

A Good Time at Pender Civil War Round Table at Rocky Mount, North Carolina

 We had a pleasant time at the Pender Civil War Round Table in Rocky Mount, North Carolina December 1, 2021.  I presented on and we discussed upon my most recent book, The Petersburg Regiment in the Civil War: A History of the 12th Virginia Infantry from John Brown's Hanging to Appomattox, 1859-1865.  The book won the 2019 Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award for Unit History.  The regiment's soldiers did most of the distinguished writing.

On the way down from Richmond I stopped at Petersburg National Battlefield Park to pick up postcards for my grandchildren.  

Update: My Appearance at the Petersburg Civil War Round Table Will Be at 7pm December 2, 2021

My appearance at the Petersburg Civil War Round Table will be at 7 p.m. on December 2, 2021, not 7:30 p.m. as I previously stated.  The talk will be about 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.

Most of the distinguished writing was done by the 12th's soldiers; more than 30 of them are quoted in the book.

Back to Back Talks about "The Petersburg Regiment" at Rocky Mount, NC and Petersburg, VA Dec. 1-2, 2021

God-willing, I'll be giving back to back talks about 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) on December 1 and 2, 2021.  This book won the 2019 Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award for Unit History.

On December 1, I'll be addressing the Gen. Pender Civil War Round Table.  I expect to appear at 6 p.m. that evening at North Carolina Wesleyan College in Rocky Mount, NC.  

On December 2, I'll be at the Petersburg Civil War Round Table at 7 p.m.  Their meeting will be at Pamplin Historical Park. 

I encourage all students of the Civil War to write a unit history, particularly about a unit with a lot of diaries, letters and memoirs.  Things did not always happen the way they're described in the Official Reports.  

  

A Pleasant Time Talking about the 39th Illinois at Kankakee Valley Civil War Round Table

We had a pleasant time discussing the 39th Illinois Veteran Volunteers ("Yates Phalanx") at the meeting of the Kankakee Valley Civil War Round Table last night, November 3, 2021, in the Bradley, Illlinois Public Library.  Ted Linton, who is related to five members of the 39th, drove all the way from Minneapolis to hear my talk.  (Ted has helped me significantly with my current project, a history of Grant's second offensive at Petersburg, June 20-July 1, 1864.)

The 39th was a Fighting 300 Regiment, having lost more than 10 percent of its complement or 130 men to death in battle or from wounds.  It was called the "Yates Phalanx" because Governor Yates of Illinois pulled strings to get it into Federal service after Illinois' complement was filled.

My talk focused on the 39th at Fussell's Mill, about 12 miles southeast of Richmond on August 16, 1864.  A charge in which the regiment participated broke the Confederate line and briefly threatened Richmond before the Southerners sealed the breach.  The 39's color bearer, Pvt. Henry Hardenbergh of Company G, was wounded in the shoulder but picked himself up and advanced, capturing the colors of the 10th Alabama after killing its color sergeant.  He was awarded the Medal of Honor and a battlefield commission but they arrived posthumously because a Rebel sharpshooter picked him off on August 28 in the Bermuda Hundred Lines.  He lies in Poplar Grove National Cemetery, about six miles south by southwest from Petersburg. 

Fussell's Mill was part of Grant's fourth offensive at Petersburg, which I described in my book The Siege of Petersburg: The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864.  The dust jacket is based on a Keith Rocco painting of Hardenbergh in the 39th's charge at Fussell's Mill on August 1864.  The book is available from Savas Beatie.