ON THIS DAY: Tuesday, April 22, 1862

“The Leading Thought”

For many in the Union armies, the battle at Shiloh was their first big test at arms. Three of Grant’s five divisions were “entirely raw,” in Grant’s words; many had only just received their weapons and hardly knew how to load them. Probably most had wondered to themselves how they would perform when they “saw the elephant.”

A significant number—though a minority of Grant’s troops—had panicked and run away, taking shelter under a bluff at Pittsburg Landing. Of the 41,500 men present for duty at Shiloh on the first morning, estimates of those who fled range from 4,000 to 5,000 (In Grant’s opinion) to 15,000 (Buell’s).

Reactions to the first experience of combat varied. Although some men on both sides fled the field, the majority of soldiers remained in the fight, despite their fears. And then there were those who were energized by fighting, who came alive in the eyes of their peers and forgot whatever apprehensions they may have had. As the war went on, the men around Ulysses S. Grant would discover he was one of these. Sherman seemed to be another.

At Shiloh, Sherman remained in the thick of the fighting at risk of his life, galloping back and forth to rally his men. Grant said he found it unnecessary to stay long with Sherman during the battle, explaining, “Although his troops were…under fire for the first time, their commander, by his constant presence with them, inspired a confidence in officers and men that enabled them to render service on that bloody battlefield worthy of the best of veterans.” This was the same man who had seemed so spooked by the mere possibility of Confederates bearing down on him in Kentucky.

As the armies settled down after the battle and men had time to think and write, Capt. Emerson Opdycke, executive officer of the 41^st Ohio, wrote his wife to tell her “how I felt during such an awful contest.”

Underlining certain words for emphasis, Opdycke told Lucy that “I was conscious of the danger all the time, but felt that as an officer, I was there to perform certain duties, so that in my mind, all the danger sank into comparative insignificance.

“I thought of patriotism, of victory, of personal honor and pride, and of a glorious death of the battlefield, but the leading thought was to thrash the rebels soundly! I could not help smiling to myself occasionally when I saw cowardly officers or men, but they were very few in the brave 41^st.”

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—scarcely 3 years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions about this blog are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author and his newest book, please go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg

ON THIS DAY: Sunday, March 16, 1862

Day of Prayer (for some)

It is Sunday and in the camps chaplains are conducting services. It was not uncommon for chaplains to accompany the troops and sometimes even join them in battle, encouraging the soldiers, performing last rites, and occasionally doing God’s work with their muskets. Chaplains received little direction from the Army, but typically busied themselves with prayer services, baptisms, and encouraging morality and temperance. Officers expected them to help build morale and maintain good order among the troops. Most chaplains were Protestants; Catholic priests were sometimes turned away by Protestant officers. Religiosity was not yet the American hallmark it would become in the 21^st century, however, so many soldiers did not attend services or attend them willingly.

(Pictured here: Rev. Lemuel F. Drake of Perry County, Ohio, preaching to the men of the 31st Ohio, while encamped in Kentucky.)

Now at Savannah, Tennessee, Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant continues forwarding troops to the Tennessee River expedition. By letter, he advises Brig. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman at Pittsburg Landing (Shiloh), eight miles upstream, on how to organize the soldiers coming his way and observes, “I have just arrived and although sick for the last two weeks, begin to feel better at the thought of again being along with the troops.”

From Nashville, Brig. Gen. Don Carlos Buell is preparing to move southwest in support of Grant, but, as usual, will move very slowly, delayed this time by swollen streams and broken bridges. Among his Army of the Ohio regiments is the 41^st Ohio. One of its captains, Emerson Opdycke, writes wife Ellen to report, “We march at 8 a.m. tomorrow.” He says no more of the advance but spends most of his letter describing reconnaissance in force 12 miles east to the late Andrew Jackson’s home, the Hermitage. After the tiring march, which raised numerous blisters on soldiers’ feet, the men “got back to camp at sundown where the bed has seldom been more appreciated.”

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—less than 3½ years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions about this blog are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author and his newest book, please go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg

ON THIS DAY: Monday, March 10, 1862

The Sun Will Rise for Grant

Maj. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant doesn’t realize it yet, but his removal from active command by his jealous, self-seeking superior, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, is about to end. Halleck is getting what he wanted from Washington, so today he composes a telegram to Grant. Unaware of the machinations and jockeying going on at higher levels, Grant busies himself on the sidelines at Fort Henry. He is limited to forwarding troops and supplies to the Tennessee River expedition he was originally supposed to lead but, it will be a sunnier day for Grant tomorrow.

Elsewhere in the Western Theater of the war, soldiers take time out from their duties to write home.

Nineteen-year-old Pvt. Andrew Altman of Company D, 68^th Ohio, now heading southward through Tennessee, is writing his father in Ohio a promise: “I will do my best Durty tricks to Shoot a Reble.” Freed from the grinding monotony of farm work, Altman is one happy soldier: “I are a Seting by a little oak tree by a fire a rosting potatoes. That is nice food for me. I an engoy my Self very much here. All the boys are brothers to me and I to them.”

Altman’s letter closes with the soldier’s typical plea: “Write soon as you can and I will always be ready to receive them. When you write, Send all the war news that you can. We cant get no papers to read here a toll.”

Meanwhile. Capt. Emerson Opdycke of the 41^st Ohio, still occupying Nashville, is writing his wife about his idea of Manifest Destiny: “What a military power this war will leave us.I for one hope that our invincible columns will not be disbanded until our eagles perch upon the walls of Quebec, and our banner floats triumphantly over every inch of British North America.”

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—less than 3½ years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions about this blog are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author and his newest book, please go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg

ON THIS DAY: Monday, March 3, 1862

Interlude

East and west, warm days alternate with cold days; occasional light snowfalls cover the mud. North and South, armies are stirring, not quite ready to fight, but thinking about it. In the Eastern Theater, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan—after six months of inactivity—is preparing his “Peninsular Campaign,” a scheme to attack Richmond from the south and an idea to which President Lincoln had only reluctantly agreed. In The Western Theater, Grant is organizing his forces for a move up the Tennessee River, aimed at Eastport, Mississippi, as ordered by General Halleck. In Virginia, a little-known Confederate general named Thomas J. Jackson hopes to begin attacking the Yankees in the Shenandoah Valley and nearby mountains.

And in their tents, soldiers are using the interlude to write letters. Capt. Emerson Opdycke of the 41^st Ohio, part of the Union force occupying Nashville, writes wife Lucy on this, their fifth wedding anniversary, that although they are apart, the further he travels “ the nearer I am to home.” Opdycke means that he thinks the backbone of the rebellion is broken and the end of the war may be near.

Opdycke’s candid words to Lucy reveal some of the racism common among even opponents of slavery. Opdycke considers slavery “a curse,” but does not think freeing the slaves now would be practical or beneficial. It’s a problem best solved in “the immeasurably greater yet to be.” He doesn’t even have much confidence in arming “the Darkies” (as he calls free blacks) to fight for the North.

At Fayetteville in western Virginia, Lt. Col. Rutherford B. Hayes has time to write his wife, also named Lucy, about a a strange marriage proposal by one of his soldiers. A man named Hegelman has asked permission to marry a girl living near the camp, a young woman who is "good-looking” but of “doubtful reputation.” On questioning, Hegelman admits he does not even know the young women’s name! Finally, the soldier confesses he wants to marry Miss Nameless because $800 has been bequeathed him on condition that he marry! He wants to use the money to make loans that will earn him interest.

So much for pure love—trumped by the profit motive in romantic western Virginia.

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—less than 3½ years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions about this blog are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author and his newest book, please go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg

ON THIS DAY: Thursday, Feb. 27, 1862

“Best soldier in the world”

“The American citizen, properly commanded and instructed, makes the best soldier in the world,” Gen. William Babcock Hazen wrote in his post-war memoirs, proudly recalling those days when he “properly commanded and instructed” the raw soldiery of the West. On this date in 1862, he issued the following orders to his brigade, now camped two miles from Nashville:

1. “There will be bayonet exercise…from nine to ten a.m. and battalion drill from eleven to twelve.

2. “At four p.m….the regimental grounds [will] be thoroughly policed under direction of the officer of the day.

3. Officers’ drill, until further orders, will be that of skirmishers. None are excused from the above duties…”

In what his men would undoubtedly have called an understatement, Hazen fondly recalled that “While at Nashville, we were very busily engaged with drills and preparation for moving forward.”

Two days before, Hazen’s 19^th Brigade of Don Carlos Buell ‘s Army of the Ohio had marched into Nashville, abandoned only the day before by its Confederate defenders. One of Hazen’s most trusted officers, Capt. Emerson Opdycke of the 41^st Ohio writes his wife today about how happy he is to be in Nashville. “It is a beautiful city. People seem glad to see us. Many had left, supposing we would plunder and destroy; but they are now seeing their great error… I am delighted with Nashville and its surroundings.”

Not everyone welcomes the Union forces, however. Reporting a common reaction to their appearance throughout the war, Opdycke notes, “The women are by far the bitterest against us, knowing they can say what they pleased without fear of injury.”

(Pictured above: the 51st Ohio Volunteer infan try on dress parade in Nashville)

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—less than 3½ years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions about this blog are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author and his newest book, please go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg

ON THIS DAY: Saturday, Feb. 22, 1862

Letters home

Capt. Emerson Opdycke [pictured] of the 41^st Ohio has a headache. Until yesterday, Opdycke’s regiments and others in Hazen’s Brigade were in steamboats “going up and down the [Cumberland] river,” killing time while awaiting orders. They had arrived too late to participate in the battle of Fort Donelson. Finally coming to rest at Paducah, Opdycke rushes off the boat and into a photographer’s studio.

The captain’s wife, Lucy, has been pestering him for a picture, so a peevish Opdycke spends a frustrating morning at the studio trying to get a good one taken. The best he can get “is so outrageous, I shall have a notion to pitch it into the Ohio [River]; I would do so, only I know I shall never have any peace until you have a picture of some kind.”

Because of all the fussing in the studio, Opdycke returns to his boat with a headache that “came near to sending me to bed.” By evening, he feels better about the picture, so he turns to fretting about something else. “I am sick of doing nothing, while others are doing so much. Our arms are winning glorious triumphs, which are but the beginning of the end of the rebellion,” he concludes, fearing he will lose out on the action.

Others are writing as well. Near Fort Donelson, Pvt. Andrew Altman of the 68^th Ohio uses his knapsack as a writing desk (“It is a poor place for to wright”). He tells a younger brother, Isaac, “You must not cut up” in school and asks him to “tell all the scholars at school that I think of them every day and hope they may do well.”

In Cincinnati, Lt. Col. Rutherford B. Hayes is enjoying a final day or two of furlough at home. He writes his mother that the “recent victories [meaning Grant’s triumphs at Forts Henry and Donelson] convince everyone that the Rebellion can be conquered. Most people anticipate a speedy end of the war.”

This evening. Grant himself writes his wife, Julia, to tell he has just learned he is being promoted to major general. “There is but little doubt but that Fort Donelson was the hardest fought battle on the continent. I was extremely lucky to be the commanding officer.

“I have no doubt but you have read of Fort Donelson until you have grown tired of the name so I shall write you no more of the subject. Hope to make a new subject soon.”

And he would.

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—less than 3½ years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions about this blog are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author and his newest book, please go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg

ON THIS DAY: Friday, January 31, 1862

A Day in the Life of…

Capt. Emerson Opdycke of the 41^st Ohio, is one of Col. William B. Hazen’s most trusted officers. Hazen, who started out as colonel of the 41^st, is now commander pro tem of the 19^th Brigade in Brig. Gen. Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio. The 19^th Brigade includes the 41^st Ohio, 46^th and 47^th Indiana, and the 6^th Kentucky (loyalist). The brigade occupies Camp Wickliffe in west-central Kentucky’s LaRue County.

Opdycke sits down near midnight to reply to his wife’s latest letter and describe a typical day in his life in camp (which, Opdycke says, is “devoid of much incident.”)

The hard-driving Hazen is, as usual, demanding every man in the brigade train ceaselessly. Opdycke—a no-nonsense officer who emulates Hazen—is one of the colonel’s designated taskmasters. He writes Lucy:

At half past seven or eight A.M., your most obedt marches through mud half way up to his knees to the camp of the 47^th Ind. about a quarter mile distant; drills the officers…for one and a half hours, then superintends those officers drilling their companies, til half past eleven A.M., then wades back to dinner; but stop, before dinner, I recite [my own lessons] to Col. Hazen, or in his absence, I hear others recite, then dinner, and at one p.m. I wade back and drill the battalion…until four P.M., return and at six P.M., recite to Col. H. till seven, when I wade again, to hear the officers of the said 47^th Ind recite for two hours. In the intervals of time I get my lessons and attend to much Company business; and the balance of the day I have for letter writing and sleeping.

Opdycke then describes his bed and “I assure you after the exercises above spoken of, I sleep most soundly upon it. We spread our rubber blankets on the ground, upon them we have a little straw, over the straw that comfortable [?] you gave me, then a layer of soldiers (Self and Lieutenant Mc.) then my shawl, then Lt’s blanket then overcoats, and overall, my Louis Napoleon [a large overcoat with a cape].

“It is now just twenty minutes past twelve P.M. [he means A.M.] so with your permission I will write myself

Affectionately Yours.

AND AT CAIRO, ILLINOIS: All is hustle and bustle as Grant prepares for his attack on Fort Henry, the Confederate post guarding the Tennessee River. Yesterday morning, Maj. Gen. Henry W. Halleck, in St. Louis, telegraphed his formal approval to “take and hold” Fort Henry, reversing his opposition of only a few days earlier. Today, Grant wires Halleck, “I expect to start Sunday evening [Feb. 2], taking 15,000 men. He tells Gen. C. F. Smith to prepare a brigade from Paducah plus “all the command from Smithland, except the 52 ILL and one battalion.” Grant orders Brig. Gen. Lew Wallace to take command and hold the Union base at Smithland, Kentucky, near the confluence of the Ohio and Cumberland rivers. He arranges for ammunition, rations for horses, and transportation of soldiers by steamer.

ELSEWHERE: Putting the spurs to the immobile McClellan, President Abraham Lincoln supplements his “General War Order No. 1” with a special order to “seize and occupy” a point on the railroad near Manassas Junction. But will it make any difference to the stubborn McClellan?

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—less than 3½ years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions about this blog are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author and his newest book, please go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg

ON THIS DAY: Monday, Jan. 6, 1862

“No prospect of…danger”

From Camp Wickliffe in Kentucky, where the 41^st Ohio and several thousand other Midwestern volunteer soldiers sit, yearning for action, 1^st. Lt. Emerson Opdycke (pictured here) writes “My dear wife,” Lucy, in Warren, Ohio.

Bad news: he will not be granted a hoped-for furlough because of the “exigencies of the service.” Pish-tosh, according to Opdycke, a self-confident man who never minces words: “I see no prospect of immediate danger and I am exceedingly disappointed…I do not believe there will be [a forward movement within 10 days], so I am bound to nurse my ‘disappoint.’” (In fact, there will be no forward movement by stolid Brig. Gen. Don Carlos Buell’s Army of the Ohio for five weeks.)

Opdycke tells Lucy that sickness, “principally measles,” is sweeping the camp, especially Opdycke’s 41^st Ohio. One of his men had died from measles on Christmas eve. The death deeply saddened Opdycke because the captain of a company is “something of a father to his men.”

It is not yet dawn and Opdycke is writing the letter by candlelight. He tells Lucy he is well supplied, with eggs, plentiful at 15 cents a dozen, and “plenty of good fresh beef. ” For a New Year’s celebration, he was able to purchase a can of peaches and some cheese.

“Eggs are frying" for Opdycke’s breakfast and "as soon as this [letter] is folded and directed, they will be ready for a splendid appetite.”

ELSEWHERE IN THE CIVIL WAR: President Abraham Lincoln is becoming frustrated with Brig. Gen. Don Carlos Buell’s stalling. Lincoln wants him to advance on East Tennessee in support of the Union loyalists there. Buell, however, prefers to advance on Nashville, which neither Lincoln nor General-in-Chief George B. McClellan think is a good idea. Buell’s attempt to justify himself to Lincoln draws the President’s rebuke by wire today: “Your dispatch of yesterday…disappoints and distresses me.” But Lincoln, who at this early stage of the war, is trying to make do with the generals he has, does not order Buell forward, only expresses “the grounds of my anxiety.”

Buell is not Lincoln’s only problem general. Frustration over McClellan’s failure to act is rising as well. Ohio Sen. Benjamin F. Wade, a Radical Republican who is chairman of the (Joint Congressional) Committee on the Conduct of the War, demands Lincoln remove McClellan from command. Preferring to give McClellan more time, Lincoln rejects Wade’s demand.

But the clock is ticking for the careers of both reluctant generals.

IT’S COMING SOONER THAN YOU THINK: April 12, 2011—less than 3½ years from now!—will be the 150^th anniversary of the outbreak of the Civil War. In 1861, April 12 was the day Confederates opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions about this blog are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author and his newest book, please go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg

ON THIS DAY: Saturday, Nov. 30, 1861

“Occasion for Congratulating Myself”

Col. William B. Hazen and his 41^st Ohio Volunteer infantry have just arrived in Kentucky.

By now, hard-driving, tough-minded Hazen has decided that one of the most promising men in his 41^st Ohio is a tall, balding ex-storekeeper from Warren, Ohio, named Emerson Opdycke (pictured above). Hazen is keeping an eye on him.

Today, Opdycke writes his wife, Lucy, to tell her of his arrival in Kentucky and to boast of how he has impressed Hazen.

The admiration is mutual. Opdycke likes Hazen’s no-nonsense approach to all things military and he models himself on the West Pointer. Like Hazen, he is strong-willed and quick tempered. Unlike West Pointer Hazen, Opdycke has no prior military experience.

Opdycke is first lieutenant of the 41^st Ohio’s Company A. He is vain, covets promotion, and hopes soon to become a captain of Company A. Only time will tell if this volunteer citizen-soldier will prove worthy of Hazen’s trust.

Only five days ago, the 41^st was stationed at Gallipolis, Ohio, to help keep an eye on western Virginia, just across the river. Now the regiment is at Camp Jenkins, about 6 miles from Louisville, where Maj. Gen. Don Carlos Buell makes his headquarters. An Ohioan, Buell commands the Army of the Ohio, of which the 41^st is now part.

In his letter to Lucy, Lieutenant Opdycke calls Camp Jenkins “a terrible mudhole.” He mentions the weather (cold, and it snowed last night) but says a stove purchased for $4.50 is keeping his tent warm. Then he gets to the most important news.

In the “regular classes for study and recitation” Hazen requires of his 32 officers, Opdycke ranks highest in Hazen’s grade book. “I see more real occasion for congratulating myself, [now] that I have gained as a honorable position as I...hold, “ he tells Lucy.

In fact, Opdycke is so confident of promotion that he tells Lucy he will turn down an offer—as yet, only hinted at—to join Brig, Gen. Jacob D. Cox’s staff in western Virginia as an aide. That would be an advancement of sorts and he likes Cox, but Opdycke thinks his prospects for advancement are better where he is now. And, although he doesn’t say so, he yearns for combat and considers western Virginia an unappealing backwater of the war—a sideshow.

Back in western Virginia, Rutherford B. Hayes and the 23^rd Ohio are settling into winter quarters at Fayetteville in the Kanawha region of western Virginia. In writing his wife today, Hayes betrays the condescending attitude some out-of-staters have developed for the region’s poor, isolated rural dwellers, now crowding into camp to take the oath of allegiance to the Union. “A narrow-chested, weakly, poverty-stricken, ignorant set,” he writes. “I don’t wonder they refuse to meet our hardy fellows on fair terms.”

Hayes’ harsh opinion is not unique. Many Ohio soldiers are dismayed by the poverty and lack of education of the citizenry here. Scattered among the region’s hills and valleys, many western Virginians live isolated lives of unremitting labor, forced to scratch out bare livings from small, hillside farms.

>>> In other news of the day, the British foreign secretary tells his ambassador to the United States to tell the Lincoln administration it must turn over the Confederate commissioners it captured on the high seas and offer an apology for the “Trent affair.” Otherwise, the ambassador will be recalled. In Washington, officials continue to fret over what to do.

As usual, skirmishing between Federals and Confederates continues to break out here and there, with no reports of in casualties in incidents in Missouri and western Virginia.

Your suggestions, comments, and questions are always welcome. Address the author: Ohioan@bloodtearsandglory.com

For more information about the author’s book, go to http://www.orangefrazer.com/btg