The Ultimate Civil War Series - Episode 5 - "Not War, But Murder" - LionHeart Original

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land will yet swell the chorus of the union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature. During the middle of July, 1863, General Lee's bloodied Army of Northern Virginia limped back into Central Virginia, and the Army of the Potomac, despite President Lincoln's frustrations, let Lee's force escape. While those events in Virginia dominated the public's attention through the press, another Confederate force in Charleston, South Carolina, tried to hold off a powerful federal force from capturing the Cradle of the Rebellion. The Confederate general commanding that defense was the famous P.G.T. Beauregard, the hero of First Manassas and one of the South's best engineering officers and strategists. Dozens of miles of earthworks surrounded the northern and southern approaches into the Confederate city, but the greatest of efforts was directed along the southern approaches. Commanding one of those passages into the harbor was Fort Wagner, and it was deemed necessary to take this fort by direct assault. The officer assigned to lead the attack was Brigadier General George Strong, who would get his white regiments ready for this dubious offering, but would be joined by another new to this theater of warfare. The 54th Massachusetts Infantry. This regiment, raised in Massachusetts by Governor John Andrew with the consultation of Frederick Douglass and other abolitionists, was the first northern black regiment sent to the war. It was comprised of highly recruited individuals from several northern states and was attended as a model regiment to demonstrate before the people of the country, Lincoln's administration, and the world. Its colonel was a wealthy young man by the name of Robert Gould Shaw, whose abolitionist parents were his inspiration. This was a regiment further comprised of highly skilled and highly educated colored men, which included even Frederick Douglass' son, Lewis, who was appointed by Shaw as a sergeant major of the regiment, and he would be another key participant in the attack. The attack was ordered for July 18th, 1863. The 54th, approximately 600 men, were split into halves or a column of wings of the regiment, Shaw commanding in front and Lieutenant Colonel Edward Hallowell commanding the rear wing. The left flank was nearly touching the marsh on the left, and the right nearly in the wake of the ocean. The attack rolled forward and within a few hundred yards of the fort, the confederate small arms and artillery combined to make the narrow land passage toward the fort a very difficult place to pass alive, let alone in a military formation. The 54th did not waver, and as the men were in the moat, Colonel Shaw, near his colors, launched up and upon the parapet where he was heard to call out, Come on, 54th, and fell immediately after, but his men were infused with his spirit and hurled themselves at the confederate defenders. Bayonets and clubbed muskets were the weapons of choice in the sand parapets. The 54th, unsupported, could take but not hold the parapet. The brave black regiment begrudgingly gave way back out of the fort and held the dunes through darkness. The 54th's national colors were saved from capture by Sergeant William Kearney, who despite being wounded in his leg, arm, chest, and face, crawled several hundred yards to safety, telling his comrades that the old flag never touched the ground and would eventually win the medal of honor. As far as the remainder of the regiment, they did in fact do the job that they were asked to do, but the cost was staggering for the regiment lost 272 men killed, wounded, and missing, including Sergeant Major Douglas. Approximately 30 men were killed outright and almost double that number would die of their wounds. The other regiment sustained significant casualties and Fort Wagner was never taken. Months later, it was abandoned. Charleston would hold out until 1865. The summer of 1863 was indeed an active period of campaigning on all fronts. In the middle of the country, federal forces attempted to drive a wedge into the Confederacy through central Tennessee. This would first be realized in the little-known Tullahoma Campaign. The federal commander of the Army of the Cumberland, General William Rosecrans, looked to confront the Confederate Army of Tennessee under General Braxton Bragg and engage in a locked campaign to prevent more troops from the theater from going to help fight against Grant in Mississippi. It was, in fact, a brilliant campaign in which the Army of the Cumberland outflanked and pushed off Bragg's men from very strong defensive positions. It was a campaign that started an ongoing series of engagements in which this theme of Confederates who were strongly entrenched would be outmaneuvered by a federal army. During the late summer, Bragg was reinforced by the Army of Northern Virginia. In a harrowing series of train rides, General James Longstreet, with two divisions of his vaunted First Corps of Lee's Army, was sent to assist Bragg and other operations in eastern Tennessee and northern Georgia. This was a rare instance of the eastern and western armies shifting troops effectively, but it did give Bragg a slight numerical superiority and also a set of proven field commanders in Generals Hood and McClaws who led those two divisions with Longstreet. The famed Texas Brigade was a part of that command, and one of those soldiers, J.B. Polly of the 4th Texas Infantry, would describe that ride in his memoirs. He wrote, At what date the Texas Brigade took the train at Richmond cannot be stated. It started and made the journey down to Georgia in unseated flats and boxcars. I slept on the floors and tops of these as best I could and subsisted on hardtack and uncooked bacon. Safe at Wilmington, North Carolina, where it stayed a day and a night and made its only change of train, it had no relief between Richmond and Atlanta where the constant joltings and springless freight cars running over roadbeds made it rough by consistent usage and seldom ever been repaired. The Great Battle of Chickamauga was opened on the morning of the 19th with a series of skirmishes around Reed's Bridge where it fell under the federal tactical command of the 14th Corps commanded by General George Thomas. This officer, a Virginian, was a loyal unionist and a solid officer. At length, the enemy closed in upon us as if like a flame or a rushing tide, they would lap us up. They were on our right, front and rear, and we had to cut our way out the best we could. My losses were dreadful to contemplate. 750 men. Reinforcements came too late for my brave boys. They too were struck as a whirlwind and hurled into disorder. There were two days of epic large-scale fighting with the Confederates pushing the Federals hard and Rosecrans boys buckled after a proud effort. Near the end of the fighting, General Rosecrans rode from the battle and into Chattanooga. He wanted to organize the troops who would be pouring into the town from the Chickamauga battlefield. He wanted Thomas to hold his ground, protect the road northward, and cover a retreat. Not only did Thomas perform this task, but his defense inflicted thousands of casualties into the late evening of the 20th. This performance would endure with a nickname for George Thomas, forever known as the Rock of Chickamauga. After darkness, the fighting died off and within a few hours, Thomas had his plan for retreating put into effect. The Federals still would hold Chattanooga and would eventually draw on another fight outside the defenses of the city. This tactical victory was the greatest bloodshed in the Western Theater with over 34,000 combined casualties. The war was getting bloodier as both armies were getting better at killing on these battlefields. Following the army of the Cumberlands retreat into Chattanooga, Bragg slowly followed up this victory, but would eventually besiege his enemy around Chickamauga. The Army of Tennessee would hold the high ground near Missionary Ridge and Lookout Mountain and both sides were fortified. Throughout October and into November, both sides skirmished and stared at one another across the picket lines. With Generals Sherman, Hooker, and Burnside dispatched to assist the Union effort in Chattanooga, various fighting took place along the line. But after the beginning of November, as Federal movements would begin to increase, General Bragg sent off Longstreet's divisions to drive Burnside from Knoxville and had also sent off his cavalry commands. Longstreet's loss was a key loss and if the Federals attacked, those men would be sorely missed. Grant would see to it that he would not wait all that long and prepared to hit Bragg's men. One soldier on that hill, Lieutenant Joseph Calloway, discussed his sentiments on this situation in a letter home to his wife. He wrote, My dear darling wife, I have not received any letter from you since the last time I wrote you and I merely write you to merely kill time, which is the greatest burden I have. I am almost dead to see you and be with you. My patience is worn entirely out by this war. I am perfectly miserable, but God knows if I could see any prospect for peace, even a year hence, I could manage to bear it. The sun is up just above the top of Missionary Ridge, shedding golden light all over the valley, which is variegated with 10,000 autumn tents and the Yankees' tents are so thick that their camps look like a vast cotton field in the distance. By the third week in November, Grant put his war machines in motion after a comprehensive planning system that involved Sherman making a flanking movement to the north. Things moved quickly. On November 23rd, Federal soldiers under General Thomas Wood advanced on Confederate positions at Orchard Knob and then on November 24th, captured Lookout Mountain. It seemed as if the moment was right to test Bragg. On November 25th, both Sherman and Hooker met obstinate resistance and gained little ground. By the afternoon, Grant wanted to push up the middle and that fell upon the Army of the Cumberland. As if on impulse, Thomas' men rolled onward like a wave, seemingly with a desire to lock with the Army of Tennessee. Men scrambled up the hillsides in broken order, following flags and shooting as they went. The volleys of Confederates followed by the Rebel yell was heard distinctly and then followed by the deeper roar of the Yankee huzzah. Thomas' men overran the advanced pits and soon there was a confused mass of firing and hand-to-hand fights with some prisoners being sent down the slopes. Federal flags were seen crowning the eminence, including one 19-year-old Arthur MacArthur of the 24th Wisconsin Infantry who clambered up the slope making himself conspicuous to the enemy yelling, On Wisconsin! For this, he would be promoted, awarded the Medal of Honor, and significantly inspire his son to pursue a military career of his own fame. The troops of the Army of the Cumberland splintered the lines of the Army of Tennessee. Bragg could not hold his lines and ordered a retreat. For the major armies in the East and West, the year of 1863 ended in a similar way with the Federals on the hunt for a chance to crush a wounded and weakened Confederate army. The Army of the Potomac under General George Meade made its camps between Brandy Station and Warrenton, Virginia and was in fine spirits. As for the Army of Northern Virginia, they were weakened but still dangerous. There was an overall symptom of depression that oozed from the units in Lee's command and religious revivals popped up from camp to camp where men would look to God for assistance and guidance in the hardships of continuing to be motivated in fighting. Lee himself felt like he could hold the Federals off in every turn but wanted more opportunities for the offensive. Grant was promoted to commanding officer of all federal armies and chose to keep his headquarters in Virginia where he would see to the plans for three armies operating there come the end of the winter. Sherman was promoted to command all those forces that had been consolidated at Chattanooga and participated with the Army at Missionary Ridge. He would plan for an advance towards Atlanta in conjunction with other federal armies driving through and into the Confederacy at other locations. Grant's larger plan was to put all the troops of the Union in motion at once. A half a million men in the field with a mission to wear the Confederate armies down. In the West, Brad was replaced and General Joe Johnston was put in command and he would be the one that would be assigned to confront the aggressive Sherman as he began to make movements southward once the roads dried out and allowed for an army to move. The Army of the Potomac would retain Meade but Grant had a new and more specific mission for the Army and that was to hound, engage and fight Lee to the death. To assist this operation of Virginia, two other armies were put into the fight simultaneously to Meade's operation along the Rapidan. Franz Siegel would command a small army in the Shenandoah Valley and was ordered to destroy any force there to place upon Lee's rear if possible and curtail supplies for Lee's army. In addition to this was a larger force under General Benjamin Butler that would be placed below Richmond and look towards an assault on Richmond as well as perform the vital task of disrupting the communications between North Carolina and Virginia. To many in Lee's army, the religious revivals, the warmth of spring and the return of so many wounded men may have sprung them into some semblance of order but only the fight would tell the truth of that. Colonel E.P. Alexander and his artillery battalion would be in the heart of this new fight. Alexander wrote of this attitude about Grant and the 1864 campaign. We all knew of the tremendous preparations of the enemy and enormous odds we would have to face under their new general who had beaten all of our people in the West. We knew that rivers of blood must be poured out in this struggle but we were only anxious for it to begin. We wanted to see Grant introduced to the army of Northern Virginia and to let him have a smell of our powder for we knew that we simply could not be driven off a battlefield and that whatever force Grant brought with luck we would have to accommodate itself to that fact. General Lee was curious about what action Grant would take into this 1864 campaign and from atop a lookout station at Clark's Mountain he was surveying the options. If Grant moved southward from his camps he would expose his rear to harassment by Stewart, Mosby and various infantry movements not to mention uncovering routes into Washington. Lee correctly judged that Grant would have the Army of the Potomac push through the wilderness near the old Chancellorsville battlefield and when through attempt to secure some open land and force Lee into a pitched battle where numbers and artillery could make a difference. Lee would want to hit Grant amongst the trees in the wilderness where his lesser numbers and infantry's reputation for close-in action would come into play. The Army of Northern Virginia was in an interesting situation that first week in May 1864 and the armies always knew when a campaign was going to begin. General Robert McAllister of New Jersey wrote a brief note to his wife Ellen and their children. It is now quite late and we are all ready to move tonight at midnight. In four hours we will be on the move and no doubt engage the enemy soon. I think it is a general move. You will hear of battles perhaps before this reaches you. God grant that we may be successful. I hope and pray that God will give me mind and judgment to manage the brigade and enable me to do my whole duty to my country. On May 5th the pickets and skirmishers of both sides knocked into one another along the orange Fredericksburg turnpike. These forces, the leading elements of Warren's V Corps and portions of other commands probed up the road and would find that their path was blocked. The II Corps under Ewell was closest to Grant's push southward still holding some of its defenses until Warren was discovered turning his flank from the Rapidan River crossing at Germanna Ford. Ewell then moved his men by the right flank into the path of Warren's veteran V Corps. One soldier, Sergeant John Worsham of the 21st Virginia Infantry was in the front lines of this confrontation. He wrote of this initial fight. All knew that Grant had crossed the Rapidan and soon the tumult of battle would begin. The march continued and command, close up, soon the order. Halt, load your guns and then shoulder, arms, march. Soon the battle line was formed. We broke the enemy's line in front and made no halt in our advance. On we went shooting as fast as we could load. Suddenly I was confronted by a gun resting on a big stump and behind the stump we saw Yank. We alluded to him to lay down his gun. Several of us took aim at him. He started to rise but before he could do so a little crack of the gun and the Yank fell dead. We advanced to a dense pine thicket and halted. Every man falling flat on the ground at once for protection. The men could not see very much of the enemy and the fighting got close. And because of this melees erupted everywhere. Volleys were shot in the direction of the enemy musket flashes and there was generally much confusion. One soldier of the Vermont Brigade, Sergeant Nelson Cole, wrote of this clash. We went by flank into line on the double quick but did not get into line before they fired a volley into us. There was not over 150 yards away. This volley thinned our ranks in a fearful manner Captain Wales, my captain, was seriously wounded. He was shot through the lung. About that time we had orders to fall back and the enemy opened another volley but we got him out all right. A shot went through my blouse pocket and tore a bunch of cartridges to pieces and another went through my pants leg but they did not draw blood. We cut a slash and built breastworks and lay behind them until the next day the pickets were driven in. The Rebs advanced in three lines. When the first line got through the slack we gave them another which stopped them. The dead and dying were in every shape. We then charged and brought in a lot of prisoners. They fell back and we formed a new line of pickets. The loss in the Vermont Brigade was staggering but they bought the army time and eventually the Second Corps came up and held the line. The Second Corps and Hill's Confederate Third Corps would then begin a fight that was a tangled mess. Getty's Sixth Corps Division and then elements of Hancock's men attacked Hill's lines. The Confederate Division of Henry Heath and then troops under Brigadier General Cadmus Wilcox did some superb fighting through the darkness holding their ground a tenuous hold. On the morning of May 6th the fighting along both lines would become general as all the troops arrived in the field. With the Federal Fifth Corps holding the right flank supported by elements of the Sixth Burnside's Ninth engaged in the center playing on A.P. Hill's flank and rear and Hancock's stalwarts held the left against Hill. Lee seemed to be tearfully jubilant and as he rode amongst the famed Texas Brigade he intended on going forward into the attack with them. The soldiers started calling out to him Lee to the rear, Lee to the rear. Lee seeing that he was slowing their advance complied with their demands and the Texans along with other veteran troops of Longstreet's Corps plunged into Hancock's Second Corps. One of the last actions on May 6th was Brigadier General John Gordon's attack on the right flank of the Federal Army which pounced on some elements of the Sixth Corps there rolling them up and capturing two Union generals. This almost caused a panic amongst the men at Grant's headquarters. Grant told them to stop worrying about what Lee would do and keep focused on what they would do to fight him. It was a telling moment as Grant was not hooker and was in no way intimidated by Lee as the rest of the campaign would show. Perhaps Grant would be out-generaled on a few occasions but he was never scared of Lee. By the morning of the 8th the Army of the Potomac was put in motion Meade and Grant were surely frustrated by the jumbled mass of confusion in the forests. Lee had bested Grant on the first meeting the Army of the Potomac sustaining over 17,000 casualties and the Army of Northern Virginia lost somewhere between 8,000 and 11,000 men. The race would soon begin for the Rolling Hill Country towards Spotsylvania Courthouse. Due to some great engineering and cavalry usage Lee's men won the race and would force Grant to attack at the Battle of Spotsylvania. It was known and promoted that Grant made a declaration that the press loved. U.S. Grant stated that he intended on fighting it out on this line if it takes all summer in this upcoming battle. Grant was absolutely locking horns with Lee and he would in fact not let up the pressure. Nowhere would that fighting be more brutal and ghastly than at Spotsylvania. Lee's veterans had fought a major engagement held back the big Army of the Potomac and within days they were finding themselves beginning another slaughter. This fight would begin on May 8th when troops under General Richard Anderson, Longstreet's replacement relieved the hard-pressed cavalry from a blocking position. They threw up their works and took on troops of Warren's 5th Corps and Sedgwick's 6th Corps at Laurel Hill with the spindle farm between the lines bearing mute testimony to the carnage that renewed itself soon after the wilderness. Wave after wave of Union infantry hurled themselves against Anderson and were cut down to the point that officers and men had to consider mutiny if asked to try it another time. It was at this location that the beloved Uncle John Sedgwick commander of the 6th Corps was hit by a Confederate sharpshooter early on the 9th. His men had little time to mourn his loss. They were soon up against more Confederate defenses. Before more action could be thrown against the troops of Anderson Yule came around and occupied Anderson's right flank continuing the line and immediately digging in. This line would be continued on the 9th and both sides brought up the remainder of their armies. Lee was allowing his army to dig in and take on the assaults of the Army of the Potomac and Meade and Grant had him stationary as they had wanted when the campaign began. But Lee's men were getting efficient at erecting fortifications overnight and by the 10th were solidly in line around the McCool and Harrison houses. Among the 6th Corps was a veteran officer Colonel Emery Upton a regular army officer who had commanded the 121st New York Infantry and a brigade. His plan was a deep formation of several lines that could sweep over the works of the Confederates and turn up and down the lines opening a breach for others to exploit. Grant liked the idea and allowed 12 picked regiments to be a part of it. The command went in three regiments across and four regiments deep. It was an impressive formation. One New Yorker Corporal Clinton Beckwith of Upton's regiment wrote of the attack. We were ordered to fix bayonets, to load and cap our guns and to charge at right shoulder shift arms. No man was to stop and sucker or assist a wounded comrade. We must go as far as possible and when we broke their line face to our right advance and fire lengthwise of their line. Colonel Upton was with our regiment and rode on our right. He instructed us not to fire a shot, cheer or yell until we struck their works. It was nearly sundown when we were ready to go forward. The officers were shouting forward and breaking into a run immediately after we got into the field a short distance. As soon as we began to run the men unmindful of our forgetting orders commenced to yell and in a few steps farther the rifle pits were dotted with puffs of smoke. The men began to fall rapidly and some began to fire at the works thus losing the chance they had to do something when they reached the works to protect themselves. We were broken up some getting through the slashing and abatis. By this time the rebels were beginning to fire a second time and rapid but scattering fire along the works which were reached in another instant. One of our officers in front of us jumped on the top log and shouted, and pitched forward and disappeared. As I got up on top some rebs jumped up from their side and began to run back. Some were lunging at our men with their bayonets and a few had their guns clubbed. Jim Johnson, Oaks and Hassett were wounded by bayonets. Upton's assault broke the confederate lines for about a quarter of a mile. The attack was staggered by severe counterattacks but not before Upton pulled off with several hundred prisoners. For his efforts Grant promoted Upton to brigadier general. The attack was successful in demonstrating that an attack in depth could not be stopped as it had too much momentum and the federal army would become the masters of this tactic with their clear advantage in numbers. This organized style of Upton's was respected by Grant who devoted to further attack this mule shoe with even more men. Through May 11th Grant and Meade prepared for an attack on the center of the mule shoe line. Hancock's men were ready and assembled with elements of the 5th, 6th and 9th corps to assist on left and right flanks of Hancock's supposed breach of the lines. The attack was planned for the pre-dawn hour of May 12th and approximately 15,000 men were led through the misty damp morning towards the confederate salient. Within a few hundred yards the confederate skirmishers fired and then the mighty roar of all those federal soldiers provided a constant cheer of hoorah, hoorah. Up and over the works they went. Thousands of confederates were captured, generals and all. It happened in the space of minutes. Brigade after brigade of confederate troops were thrown into the breach. General Lee near the McCool house behind the breakthrough was attempting to lead one of these counterattacks and again had to be discouraged by calls of Lee to the rear. The confederate troops drove much of the federal columns back to the works. No troops fought harder or accomplished more to keep the Yankees at bay than McGowan's South Carolina Brigade and Harris's Mississippi Brigade. One Mississippi soldier, David Holt of the 16th Mississippi Infantry wrote of the carnage at the Mule Shoe as the fighting entered its several hour mark and the ongoing rain just added misery to the efforts of the soldiers. The breastwork was in a bog and to make a charge in such a place against a line of fierce men close up who would have no idea of giving way was more than these gallant Yankees could do. Many of them were shot dead and sank down on the breastworks without pulling their feet out of the mud. Many others plunged forward when they were shot and fell headlong into the trench among us. Between the charges we cleared the trench of the dead and wounded and loaded all the guns we could get a hold of for the next charge. I was shooting seven guns myself. We stacked them up against the breastworks with the butts in the trench. When the Yanks came we picked them up one by one, fired them and set them down again. The blood shed by the dead and wounded in the trench mixed with the mud and water it became more than shoe deep. It soon was smeared all over our clothes. The attacks ran out of steam and once again Lee had held his positions though he lost many good officers and men especially the approximately 3,000 men who were captured there. It was carnage as never seen by even the most rugged veteran on either side with men from both sides rescuing wounded from either army. They were drowning in the water and the blood-filled ditches. It was ghastly but all the way into the night of the 12th the shooting continued. By 4 a.m. on the morning of the 13th the Mule Shoe Salient was evacuated and Confederates wearily pulled back to a new fortified position on the high ground beyond the Harrison Farm. It was almost 24 hours of continuous fighting on one line not soon forgotten by those veterans who were there. The Army of the Potomac was stopped in their attempt to place a crushing blow against the Army of Northern Virginia. This situation was one that would normally have the Army of the Potomac retreat in camp and figure out a new strategy perhaps even changing the command of the army. But Grant was different as he would continue to attempt to get between Lee and Richmond and force Lee's army to attack. The men in blue saw that Grant continued on and despite the losses they related they would continue the fighting. The Battle of Spotsylvania resulted in approximately 18,000 federal casualties and 12,000 Confederate casualties. The sum losses for Grant so far in his campaign were over 35,000 men or approximately one-third of his army. But he could and would replace those men whereas Lee could not. Grant was in fact winning the war in this methodology though tactically losing to Lee in these fortified battles. While fighting raged around the Mule Shoe at Spotsylvania General Sheridan who was brought east with Grant to command the Army of the Potomac's Cavalry Corps wanted to launch a raid against Richmond and force a confrontation with Stuart. On May 11th, Stuart blocked Sheridan's troopers near the old and abandoned Yellow Tavern in the distant northern suburbs of Richmond. It was a classic fight of charge and counter charge but Stuart's 4,500 men were outnumbered by the nearly 10,000 federal cavalry. In addition to being outnumbered, Stuart's men had to begin facing the federal cavalry who had been equipped with Spencer repeating carbines. In the end, the bold Confederate Cavalier was shot down and his brigades defeated. Lee would not only be without his trusted subordinate but Sheridan and his subordinates would hereafter outclass anything the Confederacy could throw up against the Army of the Potomac's Cavalry. A more conventional campaign was at the same time being enacted in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. The Great Valley of the Commonwealth was a definite breadbasket for the Army of Northern Virginia. It was filled with great farms of tall grains and thriving swine and cattle. It had been defended and protected in 1862 by the legendary Stonewall Jackson. The federal army was content with small raids from its base at Winchester and that post was obliterated by Ewell's men in the first stages of the Gettysburg Campaign. In the spring of 1864, Grant assigned General Franz Siegel to command a small army to damage Confederate efforts in the valley and possibly divert troops from Lee. The fiery John C. Breckinridge, the once Vice President of the United States, was placed in command of a hodgepodge army of four to five thousand men that included a battalion of VMI cadets. Breckinridge, an inspiring figure and a veteran of many fights in the Western Theater, was an aggressive officer and though outnumbered by more than double, he went after Siegel. Skirmishing occurred between the two sides but the main action would occur just outside New Market, just west of the Valley Turnpike on May 15th. The fighting took place during a rain and thunderstorm which gave a surreal canopy to the landscape and the imagery of war. The infantry and artillery fighting was a back and forth affair with the Confederate forces not being able to make a gain on Siegel's position. A gap opened on the line and it seemed as if the Confederates were getting the worst of the fighting. It was at this point that General Breckinridge had to turn to his reserve, the 257 VMI cadets commanded by 24-year-old Colonel Scott Shipp. The battalion took an advance on Captain Henry A. DuPont's United States artillery battery across the field. Shipp was struck by the concussion of an artillery shell and awoke in time to see his battalion swarming across the federal guns and driving back the 34th Massachusetts Infantry. From this impetus, Siegel decided to retreat from the field. The Battle of Newmarket was fairly won by Breckinridge's small command but much honor should be afforded to the boys of the academy who lost 10 of their number killed and 48 more wounded. The victory cleared the valley of a federal presence for several weeks and allowed Lee not to worry about his left flank. Also in Virginia at this time of both Meade's and Siegel's commands was that of General Benjamin Butler's newly dubbed Army of the James consisting of approximately 30,000 men. Butler's men would face many of the same troops that they had faced in Charleston and in the Carolina Theater of Operations, ultimately facing off against General Beauregard. The lesser-known battles of Port Walthall, Swift Creek, Chester Station, Warebottom Church, and Drury's Bluff were quite severe fights with Butler's men consistently being repulsed at most instances. As this overland campaign moved into June and got closer to Richmond, the stakes would be much higher for Lee, then operating in the shadow of the capital itself. It was as if 1862 was replaying all over again until Cold Harbor. The Battle of Cold Harbor was the perfection of modern trench warfare on two levels. The first of which was Lee's veterans and engineers knowing how to lay out lines of concentrated and overlapping fire. The second was the speed in which the Army of Northern Virginia could entrench. The battles at the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, and the North Anna were a university to this learning. Grant attacked headlong into Lee's men and achieved nothing but the loss of thousands of his men. It seemed as if the campaign was a deadly repetition of the same cycle for the Army of the Platonic, attack and die. It quickly became obvious that Richmond would not be taken in this manner as Lee's force was too strong. So Grant, convinced that he would move by the left flank with impunity, did so again, using Butler's force at Bermuda Hundred as a covering force. Grant, though seriously defeated at Cold Harbor, refused to pull out and lived by his pledge about fighting it out if it would take all summer. Lee's army stretched, but never broke. And by the late winter of 1864, his army was defending a front of almost 40 miles. The commander of the Army of Northern Virginia knew Grant's policy was working. For Lee and his army, it was just a matter of time. One of the most striking and saddest parts of Grant's strategy in early 1864 was the stopping of the prisoner exchange. Federal soldiers would remain in disgusting southern prison pens for years rather than for months. The most notorious of these places was Camp Sumter, Georgia, otherwise known as Andersonville. Approximately 45,000 men would be sent through the sprawling compound in southern Georgia and more than 12,000 would die there. The camp was not intended for that many men, but due to the stopping of the prisoner exchange and several confederate victories resulting in large amounts of federal prisoners, the compound grew to over 26 acres. Though that plot of land seems big, it was choked with the pathetic forms of what were once strapping northern youth, the embodiment of American bravery. There were many reasons for the ill treatment of Union prisoners there, ultimately coming back upon the responsibility of the camp commandant, Captain Henry Wirtz, who would wind up being hung for war crimes. Andersonville was not the only prison that systematically destroyed life as prisoner of war camps on both sides had very similar issues, usually falling upon the commander of the post. It could be said that there were shortages in the south and food was scarce as were medical and clothing supplies, but that could not be said about the northern camps. The most noted of these camps in Elmira, New York was what a confederate prisoner of 1864 called Hellmira. The camp contained approximately 12,000 prisoners and almost 3,000 of them died from exposure, poor sanitation or lack of medical supplies. The commander of the post was often noted as being proud of his contribution to the war by his inmates dying under his care or lack thereof. Other prisoner of war camps, Point Lookout, Fort Delaware, Camp Douglas, et cetera, all had hordes of confederates die from one cause or another. It was a long standing shame, but in the end, no northern officers were brought to trial for negligence. Washington, DC, August 18th, 1864. Soldiers, you are about to return to your homes and your friends after having, as I learned, performed in camp a comparatively short term of duty in this great contest. I am greatly obliged to you and to all who have come forward at the call of their country. I wish it might be more generally and universally understood what the country is now engaged in. We have, as all will agree, a free government where every man has a right to be equal with every other man. In this great struggle, this form of government and every form of human right is endangered if our enemies succeed. There is more involved in this contest than is realized by everyone. There is involved in this struggle the question whether your children and my children shall enjoy the privileges we have enjoyed. I say this in order to impress upon you if you are not already so impressed that no small matter should divert us from our great purpose. There may be mistakes made sometimes, things may be done wrong while the officers of the government do all they can to prevent mistakes. But I beg of you, as citizens of this great republic, not to let your minds be carried off from the great work we have before us. This struggle is too large for you to be diverted from it by any small matter. When you return to your homes, rise up to the height of a generation of men worthy of a free government and we will carry out the great work we have commenced. I return to you my sincere thanks, soldiers, for the honor you have done me this afternoon.