Circa1865

An address on “Who Owns These Monuments?” delivered by Dr. Joseph Grier of Chester, South Carolina at the dedication of the Richburg monument on May 7, 1939, best sums up the issue of responsibility.

“Whose monument is this? Dr. Grier asked.

It is the United Daughters of the Confederacy’s because it is their labor of love, representing a long period of loyalty, devotion and sacrifice, culminating in the erection of the splendid memorial.

Secondly, it belongs to the village, town or city in which it is erected because it will stand by the roadside for centuries in the same place and all may see it and draw inspiration from it.

Thirdly, it belongs to the American soldiers of the Confederacy whose names are inscribed upon it, because it is erected in their honor.

And fourthly, to God, because patriotism and devotion to duty and willingness to sacrifice are a vital part of religion, and as we feel the impact of these things, we are swept toward God.”

(A Guide to Confederate Monuments in South Carolina . . . Passing the Silent Cup, Robert S. Seigler, SC Department of Archives and History, 1997, pg. 21)

Neglect of the South’s Navy

“John Newland Maffitt was convinced that Secretary of the Navy Stephen Mallory failed to understand the needs of the Confederacy; and Mallory dismissed Maffitt as commander of the Florida in 1862 at Mobile Bay, and finally, Mallory showed favoritism to a small circle of friends.

In perceptive reflections, Maffitt summarized the important role of sea power in the war. He belonged essentially to what might be termed “western theater school of thought.” Particularly critical, as Maffitt now saw it, was the fall of New Orleans which occurred in the spring of 1862, relatively early in the war and which was the result of superior northern sea power.

“The grand mistake of the South was neglecting her navy. All our army movements out west were baffled by the armed federal steamers which swarmed on western waters, and which our government had provided nothing to meet.”

Maffitt – perhaps thinking of his dismay at the outcome of his discussion with Mallory in Montgomery – pointed out that prior to the capture of New Orleans, the South should have had a navy strong enough to prevent its capture and to hold the Mississippi River and its tributaries.  Concluded Maffitt, “This would have prevented many disastrous battles; it would have made Sherman’s march through the country impossible, and Lee would have still been master of his lines . . . neglect of the navy proved irremediable and fatal.”

There were other factors contributing to the fall of New Orleans, such as the general poverty of the South, and high water in the river that sept away obstructions, but Maffitt was generally correct in his assessment of sea power in the war.

The setback at New Orleans, which Confederate Secretary of War James A. Seddon termed the “darkest hour of the struggle,” had been foreshadowed at Port Royal, where Maffitt’s suggestions were ignored just as they had been at Montgomery. Northern success at Port Royal [and at Roanoke Island, North Carolina] prepared the way for more important operations against Southern fortresses. It is doubtful if the north would have risked its fleet at New Orleans without the precedent of Port Royal.”

(High Seas Confederate: The Life and Times of John Newland Maffitt. Royce Shingleton. University of South Carolina Press. 1994. pp. 102-103)

American Soldiers Suffering Worse than Valley Forge

“Starvation, literal starvation, was doing its deadly work. So depleted and poisoned was the blood of many of General Lee’s men from insufficient and unsound food that a slight wound which would probably not have been reported at the beginning of the war would often cause blood-poisoning, gangrene and death.

Yet the spirits of these brave men seemed to rise as their condition grew more desperate . . . It was a harrowing but not uncommon sight to see those hungry men gather wasted corn from under the feet of half-fed horses, and wash and parch and eat it to satisfy in some measure their craving for food.” General John B. Gordon, “Reminiscences of the Civil War.”

“Winter poured down its snows and sleets upon Lee’s shelter-less men in the trenches. Some of them burrowed into the earth. Most of them shivered over the feeble fires kept burning along the lines. Scanty and thin were the garments of these heroes. Most of them were clad in mere rags. Gaunt famine oppressed them every hour. One quarter pound of rancid bacon was the daily portion . . . often times none. At the close of 1864 Grant had 110,000 men. Lee had 60,000 on his rolls, but this included men on detached duty leaving barely 40,000 to defend the trenches some 40 miles in length from the Chickahominy to Hatcher’s Run.” Henry Alexander White, “Life of Robert E. Lee.”

(Women of the South in War Times. Matthew Page Andrews. The Norman, Remington Company, 1920. pp. 398-399)

Rose Greenhow’s Source

“Who told Southern spy Rose Greenhow that General Irvin McDowell had issued marching orders to Manassas Junction for July 16^th? Who gave her the red-dotted map? Was this vital information passed to her by a man so swept away by her voluptuous embraces as to forget duty, honor and country?

When she was later taken into custody a month after the First Manassas debacle, federal agents seized a packet of love letters. She had destroyed all else. These letters, in a masculine hand, were signed with the single initial “H.” Could this “H” have stood for Henry? One of these letters was dated January 20^th, 1861. It was written on US government stationery bearing the imprint “Thirty-sixth Congress, United States of America” and the seal of the United States Senate. It indicates an intimacy had existed between Roe Greenhow and “H” even before hostilities began.

Handwriting experts have claimed these letters were not written by Senator Henry Wilson, although they speak of bills before the Senate in which he was interested. No known charges were brought against him, but his share in this business has never been cleared up. Whatever suspicion may have rested on him, he must have explained to the satisfaction of federal authorities who made no record of it.

General Pierre Beauregard later said his information at First Manassas had come through a private source, from “politicians high in council.”

Throughout the war Henry Wilson was a pillar of strength to Lincoln’s administration, and in 1872 was elected Grant’s vice-president.

What of his companion, Rose Greenhow? Over her grave at Oakdale Cemetery in Wilmington, North Carolina, there is a marble cross, erected by sympathetic ladies. On it are carved the words: Mrs. Rose O’Neal Greenhow – A Bearer of Despatches to the Confederate Government.”

(Congress and the Civil War, Edward Boykin. The McBride Company, 1955, pp. 304-305)

The American war of 1861-1865 revealed the depth of the irreparable schism between the sections as well as the unusual sectional allegiances it produced. None was more unusual than Mystic, Connecticut born brothers Asa and Nelson Tift who arrived on the island of Key West with their parents and siblings in 1826. Asa remained on the island to run the family chandlery business while Nelson departed in 1830 to pursue his fortune in Georgia. They were both well-acquainted with Stephen Mallory who would become Confederate Secretary of the Navy, and with whom they helped develop the South’s ironclad navy.

Ironclad designer Nelson Tift became south Georgia’s antebellum economic prosperity machine – Tift County and the city of Tifton are namesakes. Asa returned to Key West postwar to rebuild his business and in 1876 constructed a “West Indian Creole” mansion at 907 Whitehead Street complete with an ironclad-shaped planter in the entrance walkway. The home was later purchased by Ernest Hemingway about 1931.

The following is excerpted from “Key West’s Civil War: Rather Unsafe for a Southern Man to Live Here.” The book is available from Shotwell Publishing,  www.maryjanesclosetfloridakeys.com and www.amazon.com.

Rebel Shipbuilders: The Brothers Tift

How two Mystic, Connecticut natives came to put their lives and fortunes on the line for the American South can be explained only through the culture they adopted, families and many friendships made over time. Nelson, Asa and Charles all had profited greatly in business while absorbing and coming to understand the rich, patriarchal culture around them. With Southern wives and families, they all risked their lives and fortunes in defense of the South and were among the many who deeply believed that secession could be accomplished peacefully. After all, President James Buchanan opposed the withdrawal of States but was aware that his constitutional powers did not include waging war against any of “them,” as stated in Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution.  Like their Southern neighbors who surrounded them, Asa, Nelson and Charles all understood that the citizens of a sovereign State, North or South, had every right to decide its own political future.

Nelson designed a simple green-pine vessel with triangular ends that could be cheaply built along the South’s coast, armed with 16-cannon, 8 per side, and one end reinforced for ramming. He and Asa travelled to Richmond in August 1861 to present a scale-model for review by Key West-friend and now Secretary of the Navy, Stephen Mallory, and the Confederate Navy’s Board of Naval Officers, which included chief naval constructor John L. Porter and his engineer. The brothers received resounding approval and support.

In a letter to Mallory in late August the brothers proposed to superintend construction of Nelson’s warship employing ordinary carpenters who could be easily found, pledging to cede their ironclad invention to the Confederacy without compensation or profit other than reimbursement for their material and labor expenses, and travel costs, which was approved.

Arriving at New Orleans in mid-September 1861 with brother Charles attending to Nelson’s business interests at Albany after late October, the Tift brothers went to work on their ship, the CSS Mississippi, locating their shipyard – which had to be created with a sawmill, blacksmith shop, hull berths, and sheds for workers – on the Mississippi’s left bank above New Orleans at Jefferson City. Likely through Mallory’s influence former-US Navy paymaster Felix Senac from Key West was assigned as paymaster for both ironclads.

Fully aware that the CSS Mississippi was nearly complete, Capt. David Porter of the US Navy thought her “strong enough to drive off the whole Union fleet,” as it was “the most splendid specimen . . . the world had ever seen (a sea-going affair), and had she been finished and succeeded in getting to sea, the whole American navy would have been destroyed.”

(Key West’s Civil War: Rather Unsafe for a Southern Man to Live Here.” John Bernhard Thuersam. Shotwell Publishing, 2022. Excerpts pp. 114-119)

“As they walked through Fort Gregg and the surrounding Petersburg trenches following the evacuation of Southern forces in early April 1865, advancing Northern troops could not fail to notice the young beardless faces or the grey hair of many fallen defenders.

Major Washington Roebling of Pennsylvania wrote:

“Old men with silver locks lay dead, side by side with mere boys of thirteen or fourteen. It almost makes one sorry to have to fight against a people who show such devotion for their homes and their country.”

(Civil War Times, Vol. XLIV, No. 6, January 2006)

Recollection of Great Actions in Bronze and Marble

“We are told by historians of an earlier age that whenever the renowned men of the Roman commonwealth looked upon the statues of their ancestry, they felt their minds vehemently excited to virtue. It could not have been the bronze or marble that possessed this power, but the recollection of great actions which kindled a generous flame in their souls, not to be quelled until they also, by virtue and heroic deeds, had acquired equal fame and glory.

When a call to arms resounds throughout the land and people relinquish the pleasant scenes of tranquil life and rally to their country’s call, such action is the result of an honest conviction that the act is commendable. In recalling such an epoch, the wish that a true record of the deeds done should be transmitted to posterity must dominate every patriot heart.

Loyalty to brave men who for four long years of desolating war – years of undimmed glory – stood by each other and fought to the bitter end with indomitable heroism which characterized the American soldier in grey, demands from posterity a preservation of the memories of the great struggle.

We cannot find in the annals of history a grander record or prouder roll of honor, no more just fame for bravery, patient endurance of hardships, and sacrifices. But what caused the four long years of desolating war?

Opposition to the to the right of equality within the political union of our fathers has been fostered and inflamed until it had taken possession of the public mind at the North to such an extent that it overwhelmed every other influence. The Republican party, soon to take possession of the powers of the national government, was sectional, irresponsible to the Southern States, and driven by an infuriated, fanatical madness that defied all opposition which must inevitably destroy every of vestige of our political rights.

The consideration for which our State’s gave assent to become members of the federal union of 1789 had wholly failed when they were not to enjoy equal rights within it. The compact was therefore willfully and materially broken.”

(Military History of Florida, Col. J.J. Dickison; Confederate Military History, Vol. XI.   Confederate Publishing Co., 1899, pp. 3; 8)

The following is a Texas soldier’s letter home after the battle at Fredericksburg in late December 1862, and his account of the North Carolinian defenders at Marye’s Heights. It is remarkable that after the utter carnage of this battle and the already vast number of dead since mid-1861 – that Lincoln did not call for peace between the two Americas. It was within his power.

The Irish Brigade Repulsed on Marye’s Hill

“Between the last houses of the town [of Fredericksburg] proper and the stone fence stretched a piece of level open ground about two hundred yards wide. Entering this, the Federals halted a second or two to reform their lines; and then, some shouting “Erin go bragh,” they and others the Yankee huzzah, they rushed immediately forward against a storm of grape and cannister that, as long as the guns on the hilltop could be sufficiently depressed, tore great gaps in their ranks.

But, wavering not, they closed together and rushed onward until within fifty yards of the stone fence, when in one grand, simultaneous burst of light, sound and death, came a blinding flash, the deafening roar, the murderous destruction of two thousand well-aimed rifles, the wild, weird blood-curdling “Rebel Yell,” and two thousand Irishmen sank down wounded or dead, and a cowed and demoralized remnant sought safety in inglorious flight.

Seven assaults were made on that stone fence during the day, and five thousand Irishmen were sent to eternity before Gen. Burnside convinced himself that Lee’s position was impregnable. Only two regiments of our division were actually engaged in this undertaking – the Fifty-seventh and Fifty-fourth North Carolina – both comprised of young conscripts under twenty as well as old men – all dressed in homespun and presenting to the eyes of us veterans a very unsoldierly appearance. Ordered to drive the enemy back, these two regiments not only charged with surprising recklessness, but kept on charging the enemy until Gen. John B. Hood recalled them.

As they passed our veteran brigade on their return, one old fellow halted, wiped the powder grime from his weather-beaten face with his sleeve, and wrathfully exclaimed, “Durn old Hood, anyhow! He jes’ didn’t have no bus’ness ter stop us when we’uns was a-whippin’ the durn blue-bellies ter hell an’ back . . .”

(The Irish Brigade is Repulsed on Marye’s Hill. A Soldier’s Letters to Charming Nellie, J. B. Polley. The Blue and the Gray, Vol. One, Henry Steel Commager, Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1950, pp. 242-243)

The following is historian Dwight Dumond’s book review of Ella Lonn’s “Foreigners in the Confederacy found in the North Carolina Historical Review, Vol. XVIII, No. 1, January 1941. pp. 85-86.

Foreigners in the Confederacy. By Ella Lonn. (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. 1940.

“This record of the services rendered to the Confederate States of America by foreigners and by foreign-born citizens will take rank as one of the foremost contributions to the mounting volume of revisionist literature in that field of American history. In it we have presented, for the first time, an adequate appraisal of the importance of a large segment of the Southern population. It might not be too much to say that, for the first time, we have been told of its existence; and the telling has shattered some venerable traditions.

Foreign immigration into the United States during the two decades preceding the Civil War did not go entirely to the free states. In 1860 the foreign-born in Mobile constituted twenty- five per cent of the white population, in Charleston thirty per cent, in Savannah thirty-three per cent, in New Orleans forty per cent, in Memphis forty-two per cent. There were 3,263 Irish in Charleston, 3,100 in Savannah, 4,100 in Memphis. In New Orleans there were 24,398 Irish, 19,752 Germans, and 10,564 French. There were 43,464 Irish and 88,487 Germans in Arkansas. Ten per cent of the people in Texas were born under a foreign flag. Many races were represented among the 250,000 foreign-born in the Confederate States with Irish, German, French, and English predominating. They were slave- holding planters, merchants, professional men, skilled craftsmen, and unskilled workers.

Having discussed the geographical distribution of the several racial groups in her first chapter, Miss Lonn then traces their relationship to every aspect of the intersectional conflict. There is an excellent chapter on their divergent and changing attitudes toward slavery and secession; there are long accounts of the prominent military and civil officials under the Confederacy; and there is a chapter on military companies of foreign-born and one on foreign-born adventurers. The array of such prominent men is imposing – cabinet members Benjamin, Memminger, and Mallory; diplomats and special commissioners Henry Hotze, Father John Bannon, Reverend Patrick N. Lynch, and John A. Quintero; officers Patrick R. Cleburne, Prince de Polignac, Heros von Borcke, and a host of others; and entire companies of French, Polish, Italian, Spanish, and Irish troops, including the famous German Fusiliers of Charleston, the Emerald Guards of Mobile, and the Louisiana Zouaves.

Finally, there are three outstanding chapters dealing with the contributions of the foreign-born in special fields of military service such as engineering, secret service, ordnance, and medicine; with foreigners of distinction as teachers in schools and colleges, as businessmen, and as manufacturers; and with Confederate legislation and diplomatic conversations respecting foreigners in particular reference to citizenship and conscription.

It is a remarkable book, excellently documented, containing a splendid bibliography, and, considering the enormous quantity of facts and statistics presented, written with a pleasing style that excites admiration.

DWIGHT L. DUMOND

A German immigrant of the Jewish faith, Private Louis Leon was not unusual as a Confederate soldier from North Carolina. Many German Jews settled in Wilmington during the 1840s and 1850s, with many owning black slaves as was common then. In 1860, the Kahnweiler and Brothers store of Wilmington held five slaves; Charlotte dry goods merchants David Elias, Levi Drucker and Seigfried Frankenthal held slaves as well. In Atlanta, four of the six Jewish families in 1850 owned slaves – by 1860 this increased substantially plus David Mayer and Solomon Cohen were both slave dealers.

Captain Christian Cornehlson organized the German Volunteers in Wilmington in 1861, which became Company A of the Eighteenth North Carolina Regiment.  Of the 102 men in Company A, every officer and every enlisted man but 30 had been born in Germany. Residents Jacob Blumenthal and Henry Wertheimer died during the War; Solomon Bear was sent to Europe to arrange for goods and munitions to run the blockade into Wilmington. Simon Kahnweiler was also sent to Europe as a Confederate purchasing agent.

Returning to Wilmington postwar, German Volunteers M.M. Katz, Gustav Rosenthal, David Eigenbrunner and Jacob Weil all helped organize the Temple of Israel. (Bauman, 2010)

Louis Leon of Mecklenburg, Confederate Sharpshooter

“Louis Leon, a well-known resident of Wilmington and a veteran of Confederate States service, was born in Mecklenburg, Germany, November 27, 1841.  Three years later he was brought by his parents to New York City, whence he moved to Charlotte in 1858, and engaged in mercantile pursuits as a clerk.  Becoming a member of the Charlotte Grays, he entered the active service of that command, going to the camp of instruction at Raleigh on April 21, 1861.

The Gray’s were assigned to Col. D.H. Hill’s regiment, the First, as Company C, and took part in the Battle of Big Bethel, in which Private Leon was a participant.  At the expiration of the six months’ enlistment of the Bethel Regiment, he reenlisted in Company B [of] Capt. Harvey White, of the Fifty-first Regiment, commanded by Col. William Owen.

He shared the service of this regiment in its subsequent honorable career, fighting at Gettysburg, Bristow Station, Mine run, and the Wilderness, receiving a slight wound at Gettysburg but not allowing it to interfere with his duty. During the larger part of his service, he served as a sharpshooter.

On the 5^th or 6^th of May 1864, the sharpshooters of his regiment were much annoyed by one of the Federal sharpshooters who had a long-range rifle and who had climbed up a tall tree, from which he could pick off the men, though sheltered by stumps and stones, himself out of range of their guns.

Private Leon concluded that “this thing had to be stopped,” and taking advantage of every knoll, hollow and stump, he crawled near enough for his rifle to reach, and took a “pop” at this disturber of the peace, who came tumbling down.  Upon running up to his victim, Leon discovered him to be a Canadian Indian, and clutching his scalp lock, he dragged him back to the Confederate line.

At the Wilderness battle Leon was captured and from that time until June 1865 was a prisoner of war at Point Lookout and Elmira, N.Y.  Upon being paroled he visited his parents in New York City, and then worked his way back to North Carolina.

He is warmly regarded by his comrades of Cape Fear Camp, United Confederate Veterans, and has served several terms as its adjutant. When Col. James T. Morehead prepared a sketch of his regiment, the Fifty-third, Private Leon furnished him with a copy of a diary which he had kept from the organization of the regiment up to the 5^th of May 1864, when he was captured.

(Chronicles of the Cape Fear River, James Sprunt, Edwards & Broughton, 1916, pp. 334-335; Jews at the Cape Fear Coast, Anton Hieke. Southern Jewish History, Mark Baumann, editor, Volume 13, 2010)