"Predictions Are Difficult, Especially When They're About the Future"--They're Not Necessarily Easy When They're About the Past, Either.

One might think the above quote comes from Yogi Berra.  The real author was Niels Bohr, a Danish nuclear physicist who worked on the atom bomb.

It sounds silly to talk of predictions about anything but the future, but it's not.  Sometimes predictions about the past are difficult, too.  The following is an example of a prediction about the past.

It concerns the battles of Sappony Church, fought Juue 28-29, 1864, and the first battle of Reams Station, fought June 29, 1864, during the Wilson-Kautz Raid.

Alfred R. Waud, Destruction of Genl. Lee's Lines of Communication in Virginia by Genl. Wilson (LOC)

A reader of the manuscript of my next book, Grant Lays Siege to Lee:  Petersburg, June 18-July 1, 1864, insists on knowing at which of the two battles the Federal casualties occurred.

He thinks it is possible to know this.  

I disagree for the following reasons.

Wilson's division did most, possibly all, the fighting at Sappony Church on June 28.  Any casualties listed for that date in the units of that division, as well as in the units of Kautz's division, belong to the battle of Sappony Church.  

Both divisions, except for Chapman's brigade of Wilson's division, departed Sappony Church for Reams Station (about 10 miles away) during the night of June 28-29.  Any casualties listed for June 29 in Kautz's division or McIntosh's brigade of Wilson's division occurred at or on the way to Reams Station.

Chapman's brigade remained at Sappony Church, where it was routed by Confederate cavalry on June 29.  

If its troopers had all fled in one direction, determining where its casualties occurred on that day--Sappony Church or Reams Station--would still be possible.

What I think makes it impossible to allocate Federal casualties for June 29 for Sappony Church or Reams Station is that some survivors of Chapman's brigade fled to Reams Station, where they suffered additional casualties, and at least some of the state attorney general reports on the casualties of June 29 (Vermont, for example--the 1st Vermont Cavalry belonged to Chapman's brigade) specify only the date and not the place of the death, wounding or capture of the soldier in question.

But we shall see.  

In the days or weeks to come, we'll be going over the state attorney general reports on all the regiments of Chapman's brigade at Sappony Church:  the 3rd Indiana Cavalry (Cos. A-F), the 8th and 22nd New York cavalry regiments, and the 1st Vermont Cavalry (which I think already proves my point because I've gone over that state attorney general report).  

With respect to June 29, we may be going down a rabbit hole.  It's probably impossible to allocate all the Federal casualties for that day and we may have to look at Sappony Church-Reams Station on June 29 as a single battle.  (Livermore, for example, in Numbers and Losses splits up the battle of Jonesboro into two battles of one day each, one for August 31, 1864, and the other for September 1, 1864.)

On the other hand, even if I'm right about June 29, we should be able to determine the Federal casualties for the other days and actions of the Raid, particularly the fights at Black's and Whites/Nottoway Court House/The Grove on June 23, Staunton River Bridge on June 25, and Sappony Church on June 28.

William Waud, General Grant's Campaign - Return of Kautz's Cavalry Expedition from Its Raid in Virginia (LOC)

Dust Jacket Stories: The Petersburg Regiment (2019) and William Crawford Smith

These days I'm finding the creation of this dust jacket very interesting. 

Savas Beatie, 2019

None of the credit for creating it belings to me.  I was at a loss for ideas about a cover because the picture that ought to have been used had already been used to death:  The Battle of the Crater, by John Elder, which depicted the Petersburg Regiment, the 12th Virginia in action at the Battle of the Crater.

The Battle of the Crater, by John Elder

Hampton Newsome, who drew the maps and diagrams for The Petersburg Regiment, had the first idea for the cover of the book--the map that is in the background.  It was Savas Beatie which came up with the idea of putting on the cover the last color bearer of the Petersburg Regiment, Sgt. William Crawford Smith.

 

Courtesy of William Turner

Sergeant Smith was a fascinating fellow.  A native of Petersburg, he had moved to Nashville, Tennessee before the War of the Rebellion.  When the war came, he returned to Petersburg and enlisted in the Petersburg Old Grays, which became the Petersburg Regiment's Company B.  Smith was captured at Crampton's Gap on September 14, 1862.  After his exchange, he returned to the regiment.  An architect, he was engaged in bridging Germanna Ford in late April 1863 when the Federal advance across the Rapidan at Germanna Ford ended construction.  Smith and some of his crew escaped.  (See The Petersburg Regiment, 137-139.)

In 1864 Smith served in the Petersburg Regiment's color guard.  He was nicked in the ankle by a bullet in the Wilderness May 6, 1864.  (The Petersburg Regiment, 234.)  Quickly recovering, he became the regiment's last color bearer on May 12, 1864, when he emerged at Spotsylvania as the only member of the color guard remaining unscathed.  (The Petersburg Regiment, 250-251.)  It is Sergeant Smith who is carrying the regiment's flag on July 30, 1864, in Elder's picture of the battle of the Crater.  (The Petersburg Regiment, 301-304; Elder took the license of having Smith carry the color into the battle on the staff as he repaired it after the battle in which 75 bullets pierced the flag and nine smashed the staff.)

Detail from The Battle of the Crater, by John Elder

Smith was one of two members of the color guard to emerge unscathed from the battle of Globe Tavern on August 19, when the Petersburg Regiment was nearly surrounded and captured by counterattacking IX Corps troops.  (The Petersburg Regiment, 316.)  

Contrary to the claims of some Federals, the Petersburg Regiment's (the 12th Virginia's) flag was not captured at Appomattox.  (See my blog entry of May 6, 2018, "The Last Battle Flag of the Petersburg Regiment."  https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/1505932777465495219/2666614055563829045)  Smith was among the soldiers who tore up the flag and distributed the fragments at Appomattox.  One fragment that survived is of a star in the hands of a soldier's descendant who lived near an Illinois courthouse I used to visit about 30 years ago.

Courtesy of Elise Phillips Atkins

Another soldier carried away in his shoe the portion of the banner that said "12th Va."  That fragment was at Virginia Military Institute's Museum when I wrote The Petersburg Regiment.

Courtesy of Virginia Military Institute Museum

After the war, Smith returned to Nashville and resumed his career as an architect.  For Nashville's 1897 Centennial Exhibition, he built a replica of The Parthenon that still stands.  (My wife and I hope to tour Smith's Parthenon when we attend a legal conference in Nashville next spring.)

Courtesy nashvilleparthenon.com

When the Spanish-American War began, Smith joined the 1st Tennessee Volunteer U. S. Infantry.  He died of a stroke as its colonel in the Philippine Islands in 1899.

Courtesy of Tennessee State Library and Archives

Why the Weldon Railroad Raid Was Grant's Seventh Offensive of the Petersburg Siege

Where does December 1864's Weldon Railroad Raid/Applejack Raid/Hicksford Raid/Belfield Raid/Stony Creek Raid/Nottaway River Raid fit within the siege of Petersburg?

Some consider this raid the siege's seventh offensive, with the eighth involving the battle of Hatcher's Run in February 1865 and the ninth comprising the fighting in late March and early April 1865.

Others pronounce the raid a mere raid and liken it to Trevilian Raid, the Wilson-Kautz Raid, or the Beefsteak Raid.  For them, the seventh offensive took place in February, and the eighth and ninth in late March and early April.

For the following reasons, I say the Weldon Railroad Raid constitutes the seventh offensive of the Petersburg siege.

Grant conceived of the Weldon Railroad Raid as in part a gambit to lure enough Confederates away from Petersburg in pursuit of the raiders to allow him to advance to the South Side Rail Road in their absence.  OR 42, 3:865 (On December 8, he wrote to Meade:  If the enemy send off two divisions after Warren, what is there to prevent completing the investment of Petersburg with your reserve?).

,  He hoped that VI Corps infantry would get back to Petersburg faster than the infantry of Early's Corps so as to facilitate such a move.

OR 42, 1:448

Warren's reinforced corps (broken blue line) was to lure Confederates (broken red line) away from Petersburg.  Humphreys, with elements of his own corps and two others, was to slip behind the pursuing Confederates and finally reach the South Side Rail Road and the Appomattox River above Petersburg.  Its failure to provide the hoped for opportunity has obscured that it was a highly indirect approach to the South Side Rail Road.

VI Corps infantry did not reach Petersburg significantly faster than the infantry of Early's Corps and not enough Confederates appeared to pursue Warren.  Grant and Meade therefor did not take the risk of attempting to reach the South Side Railroad.

J. H. P., "Vermont Cavalry," Windsor (VT) Park, July 16, 1864

 As I get older, I pray more and more often to find things.  “Oh, Lord, please help me find my keys!”  “Oh, Lord, please help me find my glasses.”

Until yesterday I was praying to find something a little different.

While preparing the manuscript of my latest book for publication, one of my newspaper citations troubled me:  “J. H. P., ‘Vermont Cavalry,’ Windsor (VT) Park, July 16, 1864.”  I didn’t recognize the item to which I was citing.  Ordinarily, the citation would begin with the website from which I obtained it, such as beyondthecrater.com, citing…. or csa-railroads.com, citing… or the citation would end with the page and column number if the item came from newspapers.com or chroniclingamerica.com.

In the absence of a website of origin, I looked at newspapers.com and chroniclingamerica.com.  Neither had a newspaper named the Windsor (VT) Park.  Nor did such a newspaper appear on any other website, such as that of the Vermont Historical Society.

I searched the desktop of my current laptop (the one on which I’m writing this) and found nothing corresponding to the article. 

Finally, I searched the desktop of my previous laptop.  The summary of what I quoted from the article  appeared.  That led me to the folder (“1st Vermont Cavalry”) in which I had in May 2019 downloaded individual images of each page of the article before I created my summary of the article.  I searched my emails and downloads for that period and found nothing corresponding.  I think I know who sent me the images of the article, but I haven’t received confirmation.  Therefore I intend to publish the images here in my blog so that somebody looking for my citation can verify it.

The moral of the story is immediately to include any document’s origin whenever it is footnoted.  This article will be cited as posted in johnhorncivilwarauthor.blogspot.com, August 17, 2023.  It has long been in the public domain.

The Battle of Decatur, Georgia, July 22, 1864: A Potentially Decisive Battle?

Late last year I blogged about the Confederacy's lack of enough talented generals to go around during the Campaign of 1864.  I pointed out that even if President Jefferson Davis had heeded the advice of Gen. Robert E. Lee to put Gen. G. T. Beauregard in command of the Army of Tennessee, and even if Beauregard were able to defend Atlanta successfully, the Confederacy would probably have lost Richmond in May or June of 1864.  If Beauregard had taken command of the Army of Tennessee, Gen. Joseph E. Johnston (whom Davis entrusted with the Army of Tennessee) would have had to fill Beauregard's shoes on the east coast.  It is highly unlikely that Johnston would have successfully defended Richmond against both Maj. Gen. Benjamin F. Butler and Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant.  To be more specific, it is unthinkable that Johnston would have acted as boldly as Beauregard on the evening of June 15, when to reinforce his troops defending Petersburg he abandoned the Howlett Line keeping Butler from advancing westward from Bermuda Hundred.  No matter how Davis shuffled his generals, he could not deploy them in a way that might win the war.

Was there any other way that the Confederacy might have prevailed?  Yes, but a special case or a miracle would have been required.

I came across evidence suggesting the possibility as I wrote a thumbnail biography of John W. Sprague for a collection of postwar reports to be published in the near future by Savas Beatue.  Sprague had led the 63rd Ohio as its colonel at the battle of Corinth, October 3-4, 1862.  Afterward, he and his mauled regiment performed mostly garrison duty until the beginning of the Campaign of 1864.  Still a colonel, he led a brigade in XVI Corps of the Army of the Tennessee, part of Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's army group facing the Confederate Army of Tennessee.

Portrait of Brig. Gen. John W. Sprague, office of the Federal Army (LOC)

On July 22, 1864, the same day as the battle of Atlanta, Sprague's brigade was assigned to guard the trains of the Army of the Tennessee at Decatur, Georgia.  I assumed that those trains comprised about a third of the wagons in Sherman's entire army group because the Army of the Tennessee was smaller than than Army of the Cumberland yet larger than the Army of the Ohio, the army group's other two components.  Confederate cavalry outnumbering Sprague's brigade attacked the trains at Decatur.  Sprague, successfully defended the trains.  He was almost immediatly promoted to brigadier general.  The loss of those trains would have crippled the Army of the Tennessee.  Replacing the wagons, hornses and other equipment via the Western & Atlantic Railroad, Sherman's sole supply line, would have posed a difficult problem.  I reasoned that it might have hindered Sherman's final maneuvers against Atlanta.

The Battles of Atlanta and Decatur, July 22, 1864

mapdatabaseinfo.blogspot.com

A little more research indicated that if Sprague had failed at Decatur on July 22, the results could have been even worse.  The trains of the Army of the Ohio were headed for Decatur as well.  This meant Sherman's army group would have lost not about a third but about half of its trains, as many as 1,600 ordnance and supply wagons and teams.  This almost certainly would have hindered the Army of the Tennessee's move to the west of Atlanta that resulted in the battle of Ezra Church on July 28.  It very likely would have delayed if not prevented the capture of Atlanta prior to the November election.  [David Allison, with chapters contributed by Lisa Rickey and Blaise J. Arena, Attacked on All Sides: The Civil War Battle of Decatur, Georgia, the Untold Story of the Battle of Atlanta (North Charleston, SC:  CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform), 122-124]  If it prevented the capture of Atlanta, it might have prevented the re-election of President Abraham Lincoln.

Nonetheless, it would have been a very special case.  

The Twelfth Virginia in the Gettysburg Campaign," Gettysburg Magazine, July 2023, Issue 69

An article of mine, The Twelfth Virginia in the Gettysburg Campaign, appears in the current issue of Gettysburg Magazine, July 2023, Issue 69.  The article covers in detail the 12th Virginia, the Petersburg Regiment of Mahone's brigade, Anderson's division, Hill's Corps, from June 14, 1863, when the regiment departed Fredericksburg, through uly 25, 1863, when the 12th pitched camp at Culpeper Court House, Virginia.

The article draws on two of my writings.

First, the article draws on my book, The Petersburg Regiment in the Civil War: A History of the 12th Virginia from John Brown's Hanging to Appomattox, 1859-1865 (Savas Beatie, 2019).  The book won the 2019 Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award for Unit History.  (The distinguished writing was principally by the  soldiers; writings from at least 30 of them are quoted in the book.)

The article also draws on an article of mine, The Myth that Mahone's Brigade Did Not Move on July 2, 1863, Gettysburg Magazine, July 2021, Issue 65.

Map by Hal Jespersen

Please Be on the Lookout for Letters from Victor Jean Baptiste Girardey or his Brothers

If anyone knows where letters of Victor Jean Baptiste Girardey or his brothers Isadore and Camille are located, please let me know.

Currently I'm at work on an article that will contain the little we know about one of the War of the Rebellion's most remarkable officers, Victor Jean Baptiste Girardey.  His brief career provides the only instance in the Confederate States Army of a promotion from captain to brigadier general.  His death at the age of 27 before the Confederate Senate could confirm that promotion deprived the Army of Northern Virginia of his sorely needed leadership.  His outstanding achievements have attracted relatively little attention.  Though he had ties with Georgia, he joined what became an entirely Georgia brigade from a Louisiana unit and served in the Georgia brigade as a staff officer rather than a line officer except for less than two weeks before his death.  Line officers misallocated or disputed credit for some of his most remarkable exploits.  Evidence exists that Girardey, and not the brave but ailing Brig. Gen. Ambrose Ransom "Rans" Wright, led Wright's brigade to the top of Cemetery Ridge on July 2, 1863.

Victor Jean-Baptiste Girardey

Credit:  Francis Trevelyan Miller and Robert S. Lanier, The Photographic History of the Civil War (10 vols.) (New York, 1910), 10:157.

Girardey left letters.  At least one of them was auctioned off by Heritage Auction Galleries in Dallas, Texas, February 20-21, 2006, with The Henry E. Luhrs Collection of Important Manuscripts & Historical Autographs, Manuscripts, and Rare Books.  The letter concerns the battle of the Crater, where Girardey earned his unique promotion by his timing of the Confederate counterattack.  A catalogue of the auction is listed as available on Amazon but the listing is in error and the catalogue is unavailable, as I learned when I tried to purchase a copy.

Map by Hampton Newsome

Gierardey has figured in all my books.  His activity at the battle of Jerusalem Plank Road (June 21-23, 1864) figures in my work-in-progress, Grant Lays Siege to Lee:  Petersburg, June 18-July 1, 1864.  His leadership at the battle of the Crater (July 30, 1864) plays a role 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.  His death  in The Siege of Petersburg:  The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864 (Savas Beatie, 2015).

The current draft of my article on Girardey runs to about 4,000 words, including notes.  If anyone knows of where more of his or his brothers' letters are located, please let me know.  Isadore lived in Augusta, Georgia, and Camille in New Orleans, Louisiana.