FORTUNATE SONS
William Marvel wrote a very informative article about the Dartmouth Cavalry in the Summer issue [“Fortunate Sons,” Vol. 10, No. 2] but I would like to make a couple of minor corrections that do not take away from the rest of his work. Marvel states that Maryland Heights was the southern tip of South Mountain. Maryland Heights is the southern tip of Elk Ridge, which rises a few miles north, east of Sharpsburg. South Mountain is a few miles east of Elk Ridge, running northeast through Maryland and Pennsylvania and forming the eastern boundary of the Hagerstown and Cumberland Valley. Loudon Heights, which is directly across the Potomac from Maryland Heights, is the beginning of the Blue Ridge and the eastern boundary of the Shenandoah Valley.
Second, while Marvel refers to James Longstreet’s corps and Stonewall Jackson’s corps, the corps organization was not instituted by the Confederate government until the following month, after the Army of Northern Virginia’s retreat from Antietam and Longstreet and Jackson were both promoted to the rank of lieutenant general. During the period Marvel writes about in his article, both had charge of “commands,” a quasi-corps structure in which division assignments were not permanent. Marvel also mentions that three divisions—those of Lafayette McLaws, Richard Anderson, and John B. Walker—were detached from Longstreet’s corps for the investment of Harpers Ferry. Actually, as Joseph Harsh writes in his book Taken at the Flood, all three of those commanders, along with D.H. Hill, were kept in independent command, reporting directly to Robert E. Lee, until the October corps assignments. Harsh conjectures that Lee was not entirely satisfied with the “two command” arrangement and was testing those commanders for possible “third corps” command. None of them performed to his satisfaction during the Antietam Campaign.
I had these misconceptions in the past myself and realize others may have them as well. Thank you for a very informative article and an excellent magazine.
Duane Carrell
Springfield, Illinois
Ed. Thanks for your letter, Duane. We asked William Marvel if he’d like to respond. He writes: “Mr. Carrell is right on both counts. Having once climbed the southern extremity of South Mountain and watched eagles soaring over Elk Ridge, on the far side of Pleasant Valley, I’m surprised not only that I confused the two but that I didn’t catch the mistake through several proofreadings. The details he offers on corps structure in the Army of Northern Virginia are also correct, despite Official Records references to the ‘corps’ of Longstreet and Jackson as early as Second Bull Run, and ‘corps’ returns dated September 22, 1862, that show McLaws, Anderson, Walker, and D.H. Hill assigned to Longstreet or Jackson. Stylistically, however, the generic form of ‘corps’ still strikes me as a legitimate synonym for the wings they commanded from the second half of August.”
WELCOME BACK, STEPHEN BERRY!
I can’t tell you how pleased I was to see Stephen Berry’s new column in the Monitor’s Summer issue [“Fighting Words: Skedaddle,” Vol. 10, No. 2]. I loved reading his previous column in the magazine [“Casualties of War”], and this one promises to be just as interesting and insightful.
Carol Monroe
Via email
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What a tremendous addition to The Civil War Monitor, this new word treatment column from Stephen Berry. Icing on the cake of another great edition of more enjoyable reading.
I really hope it doesn’t send him off half-cocked, but I would hope Berry maintains his historical integrity and never gets filled with all the malarkey so often associated with Civil War history.
Eli Beachy
Valley View, Ohio
PLAY BALL!
Thanks for the Voices quote about Brigadier General George Lucas Hartsuff playing baseball with the troops [“Voices: Camp Sports,” Vol. 10, No. 2]. My Union ancestor served with Hartsuff during the engagement that secured Fort Pickens, Florida, at the beginning of the war.
Ironic, perhaps, that Hartsuff, after having survived Antietam (among other battles), died in 1874 of pneumonia, a condition exacerbated by a chest wound he had suffered during the Third Seminole War, a conflict fought prior to our nation’s greatest time of trial.
Keep up the good work!
Edward Keller
Central Islip, New York
ABOUT THAT MAP …
While I applaud the work that Damian Shiels is doing with Civil War pensions [“Figures: The Civil War’s Long Reach,” Vol. 10, No. 2], I question the use of a modern map of Europe to illustrate the trans-Atlantic distribution of dependent pensioners. Doing so minimizes the true geographic extent of pensioners because the Austria and Germany that exist today are nowhere near the size they were in 1883. Poland, for one, did not exist in 1883 and was subsumed for the most part by the German Empire, and to a lesser extent the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Russian Empire. Prussia existed as the core of the German Empire, yet none of its territory appears on the map because in 2020 it is within Poland and Russia. Similarly, Croats, Serbians, and other southern Slavic peoples who later formed the now defunct Yugoslavia participated in the American Civil War, but when it was fought they were subjects of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph who ruled over the entire southern half of the Balkans. The same was also true of Hungary, which rebelled against Austrian rule in 1848 and officially became part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1867 after Austria was defeated by Prussia in 1866.
The political boundaries of central Europe were a mess in the second half of the 19th century, and it does not do Civil War historians any good to omit from the narrative Poles, Hungarians, and a dozen other ethnic nationalities based on application of a modern map to a historical problem.
David Paul Davenport
Fresno, California
Ed. Thanks for your feedback, David. You’re right—the shifting territorial boundaries in late-19th century Europe are complicated. We—not Damian Shiels—made the decision to simplify things by using a modern-day map. While imperfect, we believe doing so still gives readers a very good sense of the impact the Civil War had across the Atlantic.
OOPS!
I have been interested in anything associated with the Civil War since I was very young. I enjoy reading books and magazine articles, as well as in-person visits to sites, battlefields, and museums. I am enjoying the current issue [Vol. 10, No. 2] of the Monitor, especially the articles about the 54th Massachusetts Infantry [“Disputed Glory” by Glenn David Brasher] and Abraham Lincoln’s 1864 call on City Point [“Mission to the James” by Noah Andre Trudeau].
I did find two minor errors in the issue. The caption on page 33 appears to have an error regarding the date. It references an issue of Harper’s Weekly from 1862, when I believe it should be 1863. On page 47, the caption states the presidential party has dinner at Point of Rocks, Maryland (a place on the Potomac River). The group probably dined at Point of Rocks, Virginia, on the Appomattox River.
Joseph McArthur
Kent, Washington
Ed. Thanks for the kind words, Joseph—and the keen eye! You’re correct on both counts. The illustration from Harper’s Weekly on p. 33 was from 1863, not 1862 as mentioned in the caption, and Lincoln and his party dined at Point of Rocks, Virginia. Our apologies for the errors.
LEE A TRAITOR?
I’m writing to answer the question Joseph McKeown posed in his recent letter to the editor [“Dispatches,” Vol. 10, No. 2] concerning Robert E. Lee’s status as a traitor to the United States of America. McKeown mused about whether Lee should be considered a traitor—and if he should be, why George Washington wouldn’t also be “despised” for having taken up arms against Great Britain during the American Revolution. I don’t know if Washington should be despised for betraying Great Britain, but he very well could be seen as a traitor to the crown. Like Washington, Lee also took an oath—though not to protect Virginia, but to the United States of America. Lee betrayed this oath to fight a rebellious war against the same government that gave him an education at West Point and an opportunity to become the man he was, all for a cause that Ulysses S. Grant would call “one of the worst for which a people ever fought, and one for which there was the least excuse.”
Joey Viola
Morristown, New Jersey
