My Morbid Obsession

Bound for Andersonville

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Sat, 24 Aug 2013 22:16:00 +0000

The young man with velvet-collared jacket and jaunty striped bow tie gazes intently at the camera for the twenty-second exposure. His hair is neatly parted, with a wave combed across the front. The artist has colored his cheeks and lips pink. The cased photograph was found among an old collection of images from my grandmother’s home, the majority of which are portraits of my father’s paternal ancestral line. Most are post-Civil War carte de visite or otherwise printed on paper.

This one is an ambrotype—the only one among the collection—a negative image produced on a silver-coated sheet of glass with a black backing, making it appear as a positive. Ambrotypes were a cheaper alternative to the daguerreotype. They were produced in the thousands between 1855 and 1865. The brass inner frame and mat is more ornate, dating the photo from 1859 or so. Also noteworthy is that this young man is not wearing a uniform, possibly narrowing down the date of the image to between 1859-1861.

Who was he? The young man’s age, approximately 17-21, eliminates many possibilities. He was presumably born between 1838 and 1843. Scanning through my genealogy, only two or three men match these birth dates. A likely candidate was my great-great grandmother’s younger brother, Adoniram Elliot Vining, born in Weymouth, Massachusetts in 1840. Further research revealed that he enlisted on August 4, 1862 and was mustered into service with the First Massachusetts Volunteer Heavy Artillery.

According to the regimental history from Massachusetts Soldiers, Sailors, and Marines in the Civil War “the entire regiment was employed during the spring and summer of 1862 in the defenses of Washington...garrisoning forts, strengthening fortifications, and doing other similar duties.” In May of 1864, the regiment was ordered to join the Army of the Potomac, acting as infantry in support of Grant’s Overland Campaign. On June 22, 1864, during an ongoing assault on the Petersburg entrenchments, 143 men were captured by the Confederates. Vining was among those sent to the Camp Sumter military prison at Andersonville, Georgia.

Andersonville was built in early 1864, as the Confederate officials decided to move large numbers of Federal prisoners from Richmond to greater security in the deep South. During the fourteen months it served as a prison, 45,000 inmates were confined there; 13,000 died of disease, exposure, and malnutrition. By the end of June, 26,000 inhabited a space designed for 10,000. Due to the Union blockade and the severe economic decline of the South, the Confederate government was unable to provide adequate food, shelter, or medicine.

One newly captured Union soldier described his entry to the prison: “As we entered the place, a spectacle met our eyes that almost froze our blood with horror, and made our hearts fail within us. Before us were forms that had once been active and erect;—stalwart men, now nothing but mere walking skeletons, covered with filth and vermin. Many of our men, in the heat and intensity of their feeling, exclaimed with earnestness. ‘Can this be hell?’”[1]

Vining survived his imprisonment at Andersonville, released on December 31, 1864. After Sherman’s troops occupied Atlanta in September, most of the Andersonville prisoners were moved to South Carolina and the Georgia coast. He may have been among those transfers. Vining was discharged from the Army on May 12, 1865, returning to Massachusetts; he married in 1867 and had three children.

Post traumatic stress disorder was unknown in the 19^th century, but severe psychological trauma was all too familiar for Civil War veterans. Depression, anxiety and flashbacks with attendant behaviors such as suicide, alcoholism and domestic violence were common. Excepting further discoveries from pending research, I'll never know how Vining fared after the war. Records show that he died of heart disease in 1909, just months before the dedication of a monument to another member of the First Mass Heavy Artillery who died at Andersonville.* Vining was sixty-eight.

One thing is certain: after the war, he never again knew the bold and vibrant youthfulness so much in evidence in his ambrotype likeness. Perhaps, gazing at his image years hence, he wondered whether that young man ever existed. Maybe it was someone else after all.

[1] ^ Kellogg, Robert H. Life and Death in Rebel Prisons. Hartford, CT: L. Stebbins, 1865.

[2] See Dean, Jr, Eric T. Shook Over Hell; Harvard University Press, 1997

* See Melvin Monument, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord, MA.

Now Or Never

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 19:20:00 +0000

"Sir: You are hereby notified that you were, on the 20th day of May, 1864, legally drafted in the service of the United States for the period of three years, in accordance with the provision of the acts of Congress...You will accordingly report, on the 1st day of June 1864, at the place of rendezvous, in Taunton, or be deemed a deserter, and be subject to the penalty prescribed therefor by the Rules and Articles of War."

Lysander Heald was 37 years old, married, and a successful businessman in South Weymouth, Massachusetts. Five of his seven brothers had volunteered for military service. Two had died. One, in October, 1862, of disease, having been taken prisoner of war and held captive in Richmond. Another, three days before Lysander was drafted, of gunshot wounds received near Spotsylvania Courthouse.

On June 11, he paid a commutation fee of $300, thus obtaining exemption from military duty. For those of means, it was a common practice. Today, that amount would approximate $6,000. On August 9, in a surprising turn of events, he volunteered and was enlisted for one year in the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment, Heavy Artillery, Co. G. He was paid a bounty of $100. There is no indication that his commutation fee was refunded.

Why did he do it?

Perhaps—his brother Frank having died just days before he had been drafted—he felt remorse. Remorse for having not fulfilled his duty, a duty five of his brothers had fulfilled and, in so doing, two had sacrificed their lives.

Perhaps it was because, in August of 1864, northern morale was at a low ebb. After the massive blood-letting of the spring campaign in the Wilderness and beyond, Union forces were stalemated before Petersburg, Atlanta, and in the Shenandoah Valley. Many Republican leaders were advising the president to give up on emancipation and sue for peace. Lincoln himself had conceded that it was “exceedingly probable” that he would not win reelection in the autumn. The Union cause was teetering at the edge of a precipice.

It was now or never.

Whatever the reason, whatever soul-searching had transpired in those intervening weeks, he volunteered, leaving behind his wife, Margaret, a three-year old child, Arthur, and a thriving leather business. He went south to Washington, to the forts encircling the capital city, and manned the big guns. He was honorably discharged ten months later, in June, 1865, “by reason of Close of War.”

Photo: Soldiers of the 3rd Massachusetts Regiment, Heavy Artillery, in Washington, D.C

An Axe Cut On One Ankle

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Sat, 27 Jul 2013 16:05:00 +0000

“My late husband, Lysander Heald, was born in the town of Sumner, Maine; at the time of his enlistment he was 37 years of age; occupation, Leather Cutter; residence, Weymouth, Mass.; he was 5 feet 9 inches in height, fair complexion, blue eyes and brown hair. Had a scar from an axe cut on one ankle...” wrote Margaret, my great-great grandmother, as taken from a Civil War pension affidavit dated in 1908.

He was 5 feet 9 inches in height, fair complexion, blue eyes and brown hair. He had a scar from an axe cut on one ankle—the utter uniqueness of this person, known and beloved by his wife, Margaret; this person who comes to me this morning from the past. Once alive, he is no longer. And yet, he remains as I peruse the old document.

In the mid-19^th century farm communities of Maine, the axe was an essential tool. Its hardwood handle was well oiled and worn with use, it’s blade fine honed and sharp. With the advent of the woodstove, fifteen cords of wood were needed every year to keep the family fires alight, down from forty or more in colonial times. Accidents were not uncommon. The axe slips, the edge cuts deep. And the sleigh carries him home through the snow covered fields.

He had a scar from an axe cut on one ankle. And the way he walked ever since. The barely perceptible limp. On a day in late May, after she spent the morning working in the garden, she sat down and wrote: “Warm and fair...A year ago to-day, Lysander died.”

Memorial

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Tue, 23 Jul 2013 22:07:00 +0000

On a high dusty shelf at the Islesford library there is a two-volume set entitled The Life and Correspondence of Henry Ingersoll Bowditch. It was given to the library by Bowditch’s son, Vincent, who was a summer resident from 1894-1928.

Henry Bowditch was a prominent Boston physician and abolitionist. Born in 1808, he was the son of the Salem mathematician Nathaniel Bowditch. While studying medicine in Europe in 1833, Henry attended the funeral of William Wilberforce, the great British abolitionist, at Westminster Abbey, afterwards returning to Boston where he became a disciple of William Lloyd Garrison. In 1854, Bowditch was a founding member of the Boston-Anti-Man-Hunting-League, a secret organization formed in response to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. His son, Nathaniel, was a First Lieutenant in the First Massachusetts Cavalry, and was killed at Kelley’s Ford, Virginia in March, 1863.

As he came to terms with his eldest son’s death, Henry Bowditch wrote Memorial, the story of Nathaniel’s brief life and subsequent death as a hero/martyr of the Unionist cause. Yesterday, Henry’s great-great grandson Stephen sent me several images from this elegant and privately printed tribute.

The Road to the Death Strewn Slope: Part Nine

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Thu, 04 Jul 2013 17:13:00 +0000

The last of a nine-part series about the journey of Benjamin Franklin Heald and Llewellyn Heald to Gettysburg with the Twentieth Maine Regiment, June 29-July2, 1863.

In the aftermath of the battle, Frank’s cousin Llewellyn was brought by ambulance to the field hospital of the Fifth Corps on the farm of Michael Fiscel, a mile and a half southeast of Little Round Top. On June 20, he was transferred to the US General Hospital in York, Pennsylvania, where he remained until late October. He was promoted to corporal in November, 1863, for “gallantry in action” and to sergeant in July, 1864, for “gallant and meritorious service.” After the war, he went home to Sumner where he married twice and had four daughters. He was a leading citizen of the town. The effects of his Gettysburg wound were ongoing—he walked with a limp and suffered chronic pain throughout his life. He returned to Gettysburg in 1889, where on Oct. 3 he was present for the dedication of the Twentieth Maine monument on Little Round Top. A photograph shows him alongside many of his comrades, among them Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain. Photo: Llewellyn B. Heald, wearing his Grand Army of the Republic uniform, sometime after the war.

The Road to the Death Strewn Slope: Part Eight

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 17:30:00 +0000

The eighth of a nine-part series about the journey of Benjamin Franklin Heald and Llewellyn Heald to Gettysburg with the Twentieth Maine Regiment, June 29-July 3, 1863.

My great-great uncle, Benjamin Franklin Heald, survived Gettysburg. The wound to his hand was apparently superficial. He was promoted to corporal on November 1, 1863. In May, 1864, fighting with the Twentieth Maine at Laurel Hill near Spotsylvania Courthouse, he was wounded by a gunshot to the left thigh. He died of sepsis eight days later in a Fredericksburg hospital at the age of twenty-one. It is not known whether any of his brothers received word in time to travel from up north to be with him. In the historical novel I’m writing in my head, Lew was at his bedside. Ironically, when Frank was shot at Spotsylvania, Lew was in a hospital in Washington, D.C, suffering from “debility”—the effects of his Gettysburg wound. Frank is buried on Sumner Hill alongside his parents and his brother James. The epitaph on his gravestone reads: “Sleep on brave Soldier! A life sacrificed but a Country saved.” Photo: The Heald homestead on Sumner Hill.

The Road to Death Strewn Slope: Part Seven

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Wed, 03 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The seventh of a nine-part series about the journey of Benjamin Franklin Heald and Llewellyn Heald to Gettysburg with the Twentieth Maine Regiment, June 29-July 2, 1863.

The two hundred and fifty Alabamians scrambled up the slope, straight into the muzzles of more than a hundred rifles. The volley tore into the ranks of the appalled rebels, who were brought up short and hastily sought cover. When the southerners at last regrouped and returned fire, the Maine men were grateful that they were on a height, shielded by rocks and trees. Ramming a cartridge down the muzzle of his musket, Frank saw blood running down his hand into his coat sleeve. Nearby, Lew gasped, his thigh hit hard as if by some unseen force and he staggered backward, his left leg collapsing under him. To his front, Lew dimly sensed that the men of his company were running away from him, down the slope. He heard the metallic clang of fixed bayonets and now wild yelling as they went. He lay back, gazing up at the clouds of smoke drifting among the leaves of the trees, tinged with a golden hue in the early evening light. Some time later he heard his name, indistinct and far away. He turned toward the sound. Kneeling down on the ground beside him was Frank, the sweat pouring down his powder blackened face.

The Road to the Death Strewn Slope: Part Six

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 20:00:00 +0000

The sixth of a nine-part series about the journey of Benjamin Franklin Heald and Llewellyn Heald to Gettysburg with the Twentieth Maine Regiment, June 29-July 2, 1863.

The brigade climbed the hill by way of an old logging trail. Shells exploded around them severing tree branches and shattering the rocks. Luther French, the regiment’s chaplain, was undone when a shell hit nearby his mount, killing the horse of a brigade officer. French rode over to Capt. “Pap” Clark, gesticulating wildly, trying to describe the unfortunate event. Pap, known for colorful language, cut him off and shouted: “For Christ’s sake, Chaplain, if you have any business attend to it!”* Reaching the crest of the hill, the four regiments of the brigade formed line of battle around its southern facing height, with the Twentieth Maine on the far left. In front and to it’s left there were only oak scrub and bushes, the ground sloping away, the men’s vision almost wholly obscured by the dense foliage. Ten minutes later the shelling stopped. And then the eerie sound of a peculiar yelling as scores of gray clad men emerged from among the trees below them, firing as they came on. *Thomas A. Desjardin “Stand Firm Ye Boys From Maine” pg. 37

The Road to the Death Strewn Slope: Part Five

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Tue, 02 Jul 2013 10:00:00 +0000

The fifth of a nine-part series about the journey of Benjamin Franklin Heald and Llewellyn Heald to Gettysburg with the Twentieth Maine Regiment, June 29-July 2, 1863.

Some time after midnight on July 2, a halt was called and the men got two or three hours of sleep before the sun rose red around 4:30. Frank and Lew got up stiff and bone weary and fell into line to cover the last few remaining miles. Arriving southeast of Gettysburg at 11, the regiment stacked arms in a peach orchard and the men passed the afternoon dozing or talking quietly. Behind them, from beyond the hills and woods, the booming of cannon and rising rattle of musketry roused them. Bugles sounded and the Fifth Corps, with their brigade leading the way, marched off-road through a swamp and over stonewalls while the earth shook beneath*. Ahead and to their left was the western face of a bare, boulder strewn hill, its other half covered in thick woods. It was known locally as Little Round Top. * Thomas A. Desjardin Stand Firm Ye Boys From Maine pg. 35

The Road to the Death Strewn Slope: Part Four

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 20:00:00 +0000

The fourth of a nine-part series about the journey of Benjamin Franklin Heald and Llewellyn Heald to Gettysburg with the Twentieth Maine Regiment, June 29-July2, 1863.

Frank’s brother James had died eight months before at a hospital in Annapolis. A member of the Twenty-ninth Massachusetts Regiment, he had been taken prisoner of war at Savage Station and was held in a Richmond prison. As the regiment was ordered back into line at sunset on July 1, Frank knew that a battle was not far off. He may again have thought of his older brother, the closest of his eleven siblings. But now, he took solace in the nearness of his cousin Lew as they marched alongside into the moonlit evening. Rumors drifted through the corps that their beloved General McClellan was back in command and cheering broke out in the ranks. Later, another rumor arose that General George Washington had been seen riding on a white horse among the hills of Gettysburg. Years hence, reflecting on that surreal evening, Joshua Chamberlain would write: “I half believed it myself—so did the powers of the other world draw nigh!”*Thomas A. Desjardin “Stand Firm Ye Boys from Maine” pg. 30.

The Road to the Death Strewn Slope: Part Three

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 10:00:00 +0000

The third of a nine-part series about the journey of Benjamin Franklin Heald and Llewellyn Heald to Gettysburg with the Twentieth Maine Regiment, June 29-July 2, 1863.

The men’s spirits were high and their step quickened as they crossed over into Pennsylvania the next day, July 1. They were marching through a “beautiful, big-barned country, rich with ripening grain, knee high corn and lush orchards.”* Further north, as they approached Hanover, they came across signs of rebel depredations—burned carts, wagons and dead horses. Confederate cavalry had come this way the night before. Far over the horizon, there were “disturbances in the atmosphere,” an ominous distant booming. As the evening drew near, they went searching for fence rails to fuel their campfires. News spread through the camp that the First and Eleventh Corps had collided with Lee in a crossroads town called Gettysburg, some fourteen miles to the west. * See John J. Pullen, “The Twentieth Maine” pg. 94.

The Road to the Death Strewn Slope: Part Two

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Sun, 30 Jun 2013 10:00:00 +0000

The second of a nine-part series about the journey of Benjamin Franklin Heald and Llewellyn Heald to Gettysburg with the Twentieth Maine Regiment.

The bugle sounded reveille before daylight and the men of the Twentieth Maine heeded the command to fall in. The heat diminished but the rain made the marching all the more miserable, as worn-out and ragged, they walked foot-sore for another twenty-five miles before making camp. That day, June 30, in lightest possible marching order, they passed through Unionville, Union Bridge, Uniontown, and bivouacked for the night at Union Mills. They were names all reminiscent of friendlier territory*. Now only five miles from the Pennsylvania border, they heard cannonading off to the northeast, toward Hanover. Two days before, on the Sabbath, after a sixteen day hiatus when the regiment received no mail, Frank and Lew sat down with letters from home. Now, on this night, Sumner Hill had never seemed farther away, nor more missed. *Thomas A. Desjardin, “Stand Firm Ye Boys from Maine” pg. 25

The Road to the Death Strewn Slope: Part One

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Sat, 29 Jun 2013 20:31:00 +0000

The first of a nine-part series about the journey of Benjamin Franklin Heald and Llewellyn Heald to Gettysburg with the Twentieth Maine Regiment, June 29-July 2, 1863.

For some time now they had known that a large battle was brewing to the north. There were signs of heightened tension in camp and in the Fifth Corps. In the last three days, they had trudged nearly sixty miles in intense summer heat. On June 29, with colors unfurled, they marched through Frederick, Maryland. Flags were flying from nearly every window and the weary men were welcomed with food and water. Among the soldiers of the Twentieth Maine were Benjamin Franklin Heald and his cousin Llewellyn, both farmers from Sumner, a town in the foothills of the western mountains. Later that day, toward evening, a heavy rain began to fall. Without tents, they hunkered down as best they could and awaited the dawn.

On Furlough

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 14:11:00 +0000

I'll be "on furlough" for a week, so there will be no further posts until my return. For further details on the furlough, go over to Distant Temple Bell.

We Behold As In a Magic Mirror: Part Three

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:00:00 +0000

This is the third in a series of posts about two brothers who died in the Civil War. Benjamin Franklin Heald and James Hersey Heald were younger brothers of my great-great grandfather Lysander.

In 1784, the family's patriarch, Benjamin, had emigrated from Carlisle, Massachusetts to Butterfield Plantation, a 47,ooo acre tract of land, presently comprising the towns of Sumner and Hartford, Oxford County, Maine. Benjamin's son, Hiram, my great-great-great grandfather, married Sophronia Hersey in 1824. They had eleven children.

Our story continues with a narrative of Hiram and Sophronia's life in Sumner and culminates in the outbreak of the Cvil War in 1861. Part Two in the series may be found here.

Little is known of Hiram and Sophronia’s day to day life, although we may presume that they lived much as their parents’ had; the exhausting round of farm chores requiring the use of much the same tools and equipment that had been employed since the time of the earliest settlements. There were indications by mid-century that the economy was gradually changing.

Asa Robinson, the proprietor of a store in East Sumner established by his father Increase, makes mention in his account books of the sale of “one stove” in 1848. This was, if not a luxury item, certainly much coveted hardware that not only spared the backs of women bending low over the hearth but required far less wood to heat the home. Its purchase also suggests that the economy had begun to evolve away from mere subsistence farming to one in which realizing an agricultural surplus was a possibility. Hiram’s new home may have been built with monies accrued from just such a surplus. That there was an increasing awareness of larger markets beyond Sumner is apparent as well, and Asa Robinson’s account books indicate that he engaged in long-distance hauling to Portland, Hallowell, and Lewiston.

As was the case throughout New England, the advent of the railroad was the most striking symbol of change. In 1856 an East Sumner station was opened, although predictable and reliable service would not be provided until after the Civil War.

Although we may infer something of Hiram and Sophronia’s economic life, we know little of their personal character, of who they were as individuals. No written record remains, or has yet been discovered, that would provide the necessary information. However, there is a daguerreotype, very possibly made when the likeness of Franklin and James was also produced, which provides some clues.

As did the two boys, Hiram and Sophronia sit side by side, dressed in their finest clothes. Hiram, wearing a white shirt, black cravat, and frock coat, gazes confidently at the camera; his left hand tucked – Napoleon style – into his vest accentuates the self-possessed, even somewhat cocky, appearance.

Sophronia, wearing a lace bonnet and collar, a beaded necklace (in all likelihood, the only one she owned), and cotton dress, also gazes steadily ahead, although the impression the viewer receives is of a more interior soul. Her substantial hands, with thick fingers devoid of rings suggestive of hard domestic work, are folded left over right atop a large book, undoubtedly the family Bible. It must be said that the long exposures called for in such settings, requiring ramrod-straight postures and minimal facial expression, make any inference of the sitter’s character extremely difficult. But barring any other evidence, we are more emboldened to conjecture about such things. We might even be willing, in retrospect, to see in Sophronia’s inward-looking gaze something of the suffering she would so soon undergo.

By 1860, only six persons remained in the Heald household on Sumner Hill – Hiram (62) and Sophronia (57), their eldest daughter Marcella (35), younger daughter Althea (18), Franklin (16), and Oscar (13). Albert, Stephen, and Emogene had all married and moved away from home even if, as was the case with Stephen, it was only next door. Abel had recently joined his brother in Sandwich, Massachusetts, as had James, to be closely followed by sister Althea later that year. Their grandmother Rebekah had died in 1858 and was buried beside her husband in the family cemetery on the rise above the homestead.

In November of that year, Abraham Lincoln, an attorney from Springfield, Illinois who had served several terms in the state legislature, one as a U.S. Congressman, and who had gained considerable notoriety in his 1858 debates with Stephen Douglas, was elected president. Sumner, as did the rest of Maine, strongly supported Lincoln’s election. There can be little doubt that those male Healds of voting age cast their ballots for the Republican ticket.

The election only further exacerbated escalating tensions between North and South. At 4:30 A.M, April 12, 1861, General P.G.T Beauregard’s troops opened fire on the federal garrison at Fort Sumter with the big seacoast guns and mortars ringing Charleston Harbor. In response to Lincoln’s subsequent call for 75,000 volunteers, Sumner was one of only four Maine towns (noted Sharon Robinson who would later enlist with the Ninth Maine Regiment), that “not only promptly filled its quotas, but had a surplus besides.” Of those one hundred and ten who signed the rolls, and of those thirty-eight former Sumner men who joined the ranks of regiments out of state, many would not survive. Of those six sons of Hiram and Sophronia who enlisted, four would return from the South alive, two would not.

Image Source: Daguerreotype of Hiram and Sophronia Heald; early 1850s (?)

We Behold As In a Magic Mirror: Part Two

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 00:01:00 +0000

This is the second in a series of posts about two brothers who died in the Civil War. Benjamin Franklin Heald and James Hersey Heald were younger brothers of my great-great grandfather Lysander. In 1784, the family's patriarch, Benjamin, had emigrated from Carlisle, Massachusetts to Butterfield Plantation, a 47,ooo acre tract of land, presently comprising the towns of Sumner and Hartford, Oxford County, Maine.

In 1786, Benjamin married Rebekah Spaulding, whose parents had earlier emigrated from Dunstable, Milddlesex County, to Bucksfield. A long succession of children followed, eleven in twenty-four years, nine of whom survived to adulthood. Each of Benjamin’s six sons, upon marriage, was given substantial acreage of cleared land with outbuildings or, in a least one case, a mill site. All three daughters eventually married, and settled on their husbands’ property.

As a young man, the fifth child, Hiram, my great-great-great grandfather, came to inherit his father’s land and buildings. His parents lived with him until their deaths in 1841 and 1858, respectively. Our story begins with Hiram's marriage to Sophronia Hersey in 1824. Part One in the series may be found here.

Hiram and Sophronia had eleven children – Marcella, Lysander, Hiram (Hersey), Albert, Abel, Stephen, Emogene, James, Althea, Benjamin (Franklin), and Oscar. By mid-century, Lysander and Hiram had moved to Massachusetts (Maine having become a state in 1820) – Lysander to South Weymouth, Norfolk County, where he became a “leather cutler” supplying heels to the burgeoning shoe industry there; and Hiram, to Sandwich, Barnstable County, where he eventually became a partner, with his brother Abel, of a tack manufacturing business.

Even with the departure of two sons seeking to further their careers in business, the Sumner Hill household consisted of twelve members, comprised of three generations. Rebekah, being supported by her son Hiram after her husband’s death, was still living at home. Household crowding was no doubt commonplace at that time; by today’s standards it would be considered oppressive, even squalid.

In 1855, no doubt feeling the need for more space, Hiram built a home alongside his former dwelling. An early photograph shows an ample farmhouse facing northeast with a central chimney, consisting of two floors and a kitchen ell. A large barn can be seen on the south side of the house. The cemetery where the family's patriarch, Benjamin, had been buried, was situated just beyond the barn, higher up the hill. The original farmhouse, essentially intact, although having been sold out of the family by the middle of the last century, still stands today.

The Heald homestead is cradled among the foothills of the western mountains, the graceful forms of the White Mountains visible on a clear day. Second-growth forests have overgrown the pastures and fields cleared by the early settlers and now partially obscure the panoramic vistas that a perch atop Sumner Hill once afforded: of Streaked, Speckled, and Black Mountains; of Deacon Pinnacle; of Spruce, Hedgehog, and Cushman Hills, to name but a few. And among these hills and mountains the many ponds – Pleasant, Labrador, and North – and the east and west branches of “Twenty Miles” River (the Nezinscot) flowing either side of the range of hills on which many of the first families made their homes.

In 1840, the federal census reported over twelve hundred residents of Sumner. Population declined for the next one hundred and twenty years, steadily rebounding after 1960 to over eight hundred in 2000. By the mid-nineteenth century, the road over Sumner Hill was the main north/south thoroughfare, an area significantly more populous than today. Within walking distance of the Heald farm was a Congregational Church (1802), a schoolhouse, and a townhouse for local social gatherings.

Across the road and slightly downhill lived Hiram’s brother Jefferson, his wife Jane Hersey, and their six children. The cousins, when not otherwise occupied with farm chores, must have enjoyed one another’s company – berry picking, fishing, hunting with the old fowling piece, winter sledding, and swimming in the nearby ponds. Jefferson’s son Llewellyn was a mere nine months younger than Franklin; childhood chums would become comrades-in-arms on some of the bloodiest battlefields of the Civil War, as both boys enlisted in the 20th Maine Regiment in the summer of 1862.

Image: Heald Homestead; Sumner, Maine; date unknown

We Behold As In a Magic Mirror: Part One

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:37:00 +0000

This is the first of a series of posts on two brothers who died in the Civil War. Benjamin Franklin Heald, a corporal with Co. C, 20th Maine Volunteers, died from gunshot wounds in a make-shift hospital in Fredericksburg, VA, after the Battle of Spotsylvania in May, 1864. James Hersey Heald, a private in Co. D, 29th Massachusetts Regiment, died of disease in a hospital in Annapolis, Maryland, in October, 1862, having been paroled as a prisoner of war in Richmond, VA. The two were younger brothers of my great-great grandfather, Lysander Heald.

They sit side by side clothed in Sunday best, with stiff blued collars, buttoned-down sack coats, and hound’s tooth trousers. They sit in armchairs like little men. The older brother is resolute, sitting up straight with steady gaze. The other, younger by four years, sits with eyes cast slightly downward and to his right. He looks distracted, even sad, as if inward looking on some unfixed point, unable--or unwilling--to stare ahead for that long exposure. Perhaps some itinerant daguerreian portraitist, plying his trade among the small towns and hinterlands of Maine, made the two boys’ likeness. The photograph may have set up shop in the front parlor of their home on Sumner Hill.

Just up the hill from the home where those boys grew up, and where that likeness may have been made, is a country cemetery. Two gravestones stand side-by-side, now slightly askew, among the fallen leaves of late autumn. It is November and the limbs of the trees are bare, starkly etched against the gray sky. Two small American flags placed in metal stanchions, their red, white, and blue startling in that otherwise monotone landscape, flutter in the cold wind blowing across the hill. A gunshot is heard off in the woods, and then another; some deer hunter abroad on that raw, cloudy day. A dog barks, then silence. I stand still gazing at those stones and read the inscriptions:

BENJAMIN F.

son of

Hiram &

Sophronia Heald

DIED

May 17, 1864

of wounds received in

the battle of the Wilder-

ness, Va. May 14, 1864;

Æt. 21

A member of Co. C.

20th Me. Reg’t

Sleep on brave soldier!

a life sacrificed, but a Country saved.

And beside that marble stone, the other, identical except the inscription:

JAMES H.

son of

Hiram &

Sophronia Heald.

died at the U.S. General

Hospital, Annapolis, Md.

Oct. 10, 1862

Æt. 23 yrs. 6 m’s.

A member of Co. D. .

29th Mass. Reg.

He was an exemplary and promising

young man and beloved by all who

knew him. He went forth patriotically to

sustain the Constitution and Flag of his

Country, cherishing each as his own life;

and he gave his life for them.

In the twenty-first century, it seems we have lost this living connection with our ancestors. And, yet, many of us desire to be woven again into the fabric of the lives of those who have gone before. In his historical address on the occasion of Sumner’s bicentennial in 1898, the Rev. Lucien M. Robinson spoke these words:

Gazing backward along the track of past ages of the world’s history, we note with interest the changes wrought by the passage of time. We behold as in a magic mirror the mighty men of bygone times. We enter the tent of the general, talk with the philosopher, and listen to the poet. But amid that throng are also our own ancestors, and how eagerly do we scan the multitude to discern their forms, and how gladly would we question them as Dante or Virgil did of old, about their life while here in the flesh… The very instinct of our nature binds us to the past and links our fates with those of our forefathers. We are all children of the ages, inheritors of the past.

We are all children of the ages and long to feel connected, to be a part of a family; one small yet, we hope, precious part of a greater, all embracing whole. Because who we are is bound up in that greater whole--that “beloved community” as the Quaker writer Thomas Kelly once called it--of all those who have gone before, those who are with us now, and those who are yet to come. Christians call that body of the faithful the “communion of saints."

Gazing even more intently into that “magic mirror,” we may see that it is a vast room, a room without walls expanding infinitely outward, and there is no end to the people in it. Expanding ever outward, it embraces all of creation. And every life, in some sense, is extraordinary. Every life is touched by the eternal.

Franklin and James died tragically, at a young age, twenty-one and twenty-three years old respectively. The sheer number of the Civil War dead threatened Americans’ ability to grieve and to mourn, to honor and to hold dear those who had died. The historian Drew Gilpin Faust has suggested that the Civil War, not World War I, may have been the first modern war and as such “inaugurated the loss of innocence, the threat of meaninglessness that characterize modern life.”

Having no record of how their parents, or their brothers and sisters, responded to Franklin and James’ deaths, we must ourselves imagine it. And we must ourselves, by remembering them, continually make their lives, and their deaths, purposeful. It is for us even now to honor the dead and, we trust, by so doing, to make ourselves truly alive.

Excerpted from We Behold As In a Magic Mirror: Two Heald Brothers From Sumner, Maine

(Photo: Benjamin Franklin Heald 1843-1864; James Hershey Heald 1839-1862; Daguerreotype, Unknown Artist, circa 1852?)

O Death!

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:03:00 +0000

Music Source: Traditional Appalachian Dirge

Tim Eriksen's music is some of the most hair-raising in American old-time and alternative folk, with a decidedly Northern Roots twist. He also has many years and remarkable depth of experience in a kaleidoscope of musical styles including South Indian Classical, Bosnian/Balkan, Hardcore Punk, Sacred Harp, Experimental Electro-acoustic and Oromo Gospel.

Text Source: Tim Eriksen website (above)

Congratulations!

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:00:00 +0000

I am delighted to announce that my recent four-part series "Tokens of Dying Love," on the "Good Death" of Captain Charles W. Billings, Co. C, 20th Maine Infantry, was selected to be included among this month's History Carnival selections over at TOCWOC (The Order of Civil War Obsessively Compulsed). The History Carnival is a monthly showcase of blog writing about history, usually published on the 1st day of the month.

My thanks to Brett Schulte for including the Billings posts!

Image Source: Douglas Rowe Fifth Corps Pennant

A Sight in Camp

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:00:00 +0000

A SIGHT in camp in the daybreak gray and dim,
As from my tent I emerge so early sleepless,
As slow I walk in the cool fresh air the path near by the hospital
tent,
Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there untended
lying,
Over each the blanket spread, ample brownish woolen blanket,
Gray and heavy blanket, folding, covering all.

Curious I halt and silent stand,
Then with light fingers I from the face of the nearest the first just
lift the blanket;
Who are you elderly man so gaunt and grim, with well-gray'd
hair, and flesh all sunken about the eyes?
Who are you my dear comrade?

Then to the second I step—and who are you my child and
darling?
Who are you sweet boy with cheeks yet blooming?

Then to the third—a face nor child nor old, very calm, as of
beautiful yellow-white ivory;
Young man I think I know you—I think this face is the face
of the Christ himself,
Dead and divine and brother of all, and here again he lies.

Walt Whitman, "A Sight in Camp..." Drum Taps 1865

"Drum-Taps" is a sequence of 43 poems about the Civil War, and stands as the finest war poetry written by an American. In these poems Whitman presents, often in innovative ways, his emotional experience of the Civil War. The sequence as a whole traces Whitman's varying responses, from initial excitement (and doubt), to direct observation, to a deep compassionate involvement with the casualties of the armed conflict. The mood of the poems varies dramatically, from excitement to woe, from distant observation to engagement, from belief to resignation. Written ten years after "Song of Myself," these poems are more concerned with history than the self, more aware of the precariousness of America's present and future than of its expansive promise. In "Drum-Taps" Whitman projects himself as a mature poet, directly touched by human suffering, in clear distinction to the ecstatic, naive, electric voice which marked the original edition of Leaves of Grass.

Text Source: Huck Gutman, "Drum Taps" Whitman Archive

Tokens of Dying Love (Part Four)

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 10:35:00 +0000

This is the last of four installments entitled "Tokens of Dying Love"--a reflection on the death of Captain Charles W. Billings, Co. C, 20th Maine Volunteers, at Gettysburg in July, 1863. Part Three, on Billings' death at the Fifth Corps Hospital, may be found here.

At last receiving word that her husband had been wounded, Ellen hastily made preparations for the long journey to Gettysburg. Daughters Isadore, then thirteen, and Lizzie, three, were sent to live with family while she was away. The trip itself took a minimum of four days [1]. Accompanied by Billing's brother John, Ellen travelled in the cramped, hot quarters of the railway cars, her mood swinging between hope and dread in the face of the unknown.

Arriving exhausted in the early evening of July 15th, having had little sleep, she waited at the boarding house while John rode out to the Christian Commission camp at the Fifth Corps hospital. The stench of the battlefield was still thick in the humid air. The town's residents had long since closed their windows despite the summer heat, in a vain attempt to shut out the sickeningly sweet odor of decomposition and decay.

Late at night, John returned with a clergyman dressed in black. The Rev. Parvin spoke words of the Captain's death earlier that morning and sought to console Ellen. The chaplain conveyed Billing's last message and delivered the mementos that the Captain had left with him. She spent another sleepless night. The next day, they went to the embalmer's and made arrangements for the Captain's body to be sent home. They returned to Clinton and, alongside his daughter Alice, Charles was buried in the cemetery by the Sebasticook River.

Having no letters that were exchanged between Charles and Ellen, we can only imagine their content and tone. In his letter to his father of May 31, Billings wrote that he depended on him to write news "on matters of interest" about home, as Ellen was "not much of a hand to write news outside of the family." That she was concerned primarily about domestic matters is not surprising, given the hard work of caring for her two daughters and keeping a home. She had little time, whether she was so inclined or not, to see much beyond the immediate tasks of the everyday. Perhaps Charles' letters to her were softer in tone than those to his father, given less to flights of patriotic rhetoric and matters of business back home. His closing words to his father on May 31 suggest an affectionate man: "Share love with the family."

During the course of the Civil War, hundreds of families travelled to the front in search of loved ones. Presumably, some of those were women and, as was the custom of the day, they were properly accompanied by men. And yet we can't help but admire the courage, devotion, and sheer physical stamina that Ellen evidenced in traveling so far from home. We may imagine it likely that, in her thirty-one years, she had never left the state prior to July, 1863.

In his talk to the meeting of the Christian Commission in February, 1864, about his ministrations to Captain Billings at the Fifth Corps Hospital, the Rev. Parvin painted a classic picture of the Good Death colored, as it was, by the Victorian and Protestant piety of the time. That Billings was at least a conventionally religious man, there can be no doubt. Duty to one's God and to one's country were cornerstones of mid-nineteenth masculine identity, the two often conflated and seen as one: "I have tried to serve him in the army, and he will not forsake me now." We may safely assume that he took comfort from the prayers of the chaplain.

As he lay dying, Billing's acknowledged a consciousness of his fate and his willingness to accept it: "I have no fears." He showed signs of belief in God and in the promise of salvation: "My hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ." And, by way of a message conveyed to the chaplain, he uttered those "life-defining" last words to Ellen. Furthermore, he left his knapsack, sword, and other mementos behind to sustain a link, even in death, with his beloved wife.

Amid horrendous conditions and in the face of Billings' slow, painful death, Parvin sought to construct a narrative of a Good Death that would make meaning out of unbearable suffering. In so doing, he exalted the sacrifice made by Billings and did his part in redeeming the otherwise meaningless slaughter of the battlefield. Although he may have omitted some of the hard circumstances of the Captain's death, we cannot fault the chaplain for seeking to strengthen the "home-link" by throwing out a life-line between the unutterably horrific world of battle and the familiar and known world at home. Late on the night of the 15th, as a means of offering her hope and reassurance, he no doubt conveyed the substance of that narrative to Ellen.

In December, a mere five months after her father's death in Gettysburg, three-year old Lizzie died. Ellen's grief was compounded. Late in July, she had applied for a soldier's pension from the US government. Due to there being no official record of her marriage to Charles on file in the town office at Clinton, it was not until almost a year later, in June, 1864--and after the justice of the peace who officiated at the ceremony in 1849 was located in Baltimore, Maryland--that she was finally awarded a pension of $20 dollars a month. Presumably, her pension was retroactive to the date of Charles' death the previous July. Billing's father, Abijah, coping with an unwieldy bureaucracy, had worked tirelessly for months as an advocate for his daughter-in-law in securing the needed documentation.

On September 25, 1883, a group of Clinton Civil War veterans voted to name a new post of the Grand Army of the Republic in Billing's honor. Years later, on May 18, 1912, through the efforts of the Billings Women's Relief Corps who raised a "mile of pennies," a Civil War monument was erected and suitably dedicated. At that time, Ellen was the sole surviving member of the Billings family, her daughter Isadore having died in 1887.

Ellen Hunter Billings died on April 6, 1924 in Lancaster, New Hampshire at age ninety. She remained a widow, having not married again after her husband's death. Her body was brought home to Maine and buried alongside that of her husband Charles and their daughters Alice and Lizzie in Riverview Cemetery. A government form records that her last pension payment of $30 was received on April 4. She was dropped from the roll on May 8th.

[1] Information on train schedules and routes, Augusta, ME to Gettysburg, PA, provided by the National Railway Historical Society.

(I am indebted to Mr. Buddy Frost, President of the Clinton Historical Society, for sending me transcripts of the two Billings letters. He also generously provided vital family records of the Billings family. Pension information came from the Billings pension file at the National Archives in Washington, DC.) da5wx8p7zf

Photo Credit: David S. Heald. The Billings Plot, Riverview Cemetery, Clinton, Maine. The graves of Charles, Ellen, Alice, and Lizzie respectively, are to the right of the obelisk. The obelisk records the dates of Billings wounding and death at Gettysburg, as well as Ellen's death.

Tokens of Dying Love (Part Three)

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 10:02:00 +0000

This is the third of four installments entitled "Tokens of Dying Love"--a reflection on the death Of Captain Charles W. Billings, Co. C, 20th Maine Regiment, at Gettysburg, PA, in July 1863. Part Two, on Billings' life prior to the Battle of Gettysburg, may be found here.

Billings was brought to the field hospital of the Fifth Corps on the farm of Michael Fiscel, a mile and a half southeast of Little Round Top. Along with the "worst cases" in the corps, among whom were his own men, he was treated on the floor of an old barn. Historian Glen LaFantasie graphically describes the scene in the days immediately following the battle:

The hospital was bedlam and slaughterhouse combined. Piles of amputated limbs could be seen everywhere, attracting flies and giving off a sickening odor. Only some of the wounded could be comfortably accommodated on hay beds in the buildings and in several tents; many of the suffering men lay in long lines under the hot sun with no protection over them at all. The moans of the wounded blocked out most of the other sounds around the Fiscel farm, except for the occasional screams of men who could not bear their pain any longer. Rain storms that came after the battle put the men in more agony, turning the hay into damp straw and drenching the wounded soldiers to the skin. East of the barn, in a field overlooking a stream, the men who died from their wounds were buried in shallow graves that gave off an eerie phosphorescent glow at night. [1]

Lying in the hay, his femur shattered above the knee by a minie ball, Billings looked on as around him his men died of their wounds. The sight so affected him that he became deranged--a "raving maniac"-- requiring several attendants to subdue him. He was brought to a room by himself, away from the other mangled and dying men, and in time he rallied. One of the corps' surgeons went in to assess his condition. Departing from Billings, the surgeon spoke to a chaplain from the Christian Commission, the Rev. Robert J. Parvin, telling him that Billings would not live. If the Captain had had a primary amputation--within forty-eight hours--he might have had a chance of surviving.

Parvin went in sit with Billings and held his hand. The Captain asked the chaplain what the surgeon had said.

"He thinks it hardly possible that you will live," Parvin replied.

"My wife, Chaplain, have you heard from her since your message yesterday?"

Parvin said that he had not, that the telegraph lines were in heavy usage by the government.

"We hope she will be here," he replied.

"Does the surgeon say that I cannot live long, Chaplain?"

"Yes; but you are a Christian man, Captain Billings?"

"Yes, Chaplain, I have no fears...my hope is in the Lord Jesus Christ. I have tried to serve him in the army, and he will not forsake me now. I would like to see my wife..." he continued, as his thoughts turned to Ellen.

'Well, Captain, if you have anything to say, will you give the message to me?"

So he gave Parvin his knapsack and sword and the message he wished to be conveyed if she came.

"Now, don't stay longer with me. Go and minister to the boys, and run in here as you can to read a few words of Scripture to me, and kneel down and pray with me."

Billings then asked: "Could you have my body embalmed and sent home? I lost my money on the field."

"Certainly, Captain" Parvin replied, " Give no further thought about that."

The Chaplain later wrote: "Not another time did he refer to it, but he passed away a dying Christian, triumphing over all the horrors of war, over all the sad circumstances surrounding him."

Billings died at eleven o'clock on the morning of July 15th. Later that afternoon, his body was delivered to the embalmers. At ten o'clock that night, as Parvin sat in his tent writing letters, he heard a knock at his door. A civilian gentleman walked in.

"Is Captain Billings, of the 20th Maine, here? I am his brother. I have his wife with me. I have buoyed her up this long way with the hope that we would find the Captain in good condition. Where is he?"

"You have not brought the Captain's wife out here with you tonight?" Parvin replied.

"No, I left her in town for tonight."

"It is well; the body of your brother was sent to the embalmers at five o'clock this afternoon!"

Billings' brother was overcome with grief. "I cannot tell her! I cannot trust myself to tell her, or even see her again, tonight! I have brought her all the way to Gettysburg, and now you must, you must tell her all!"

Parvin concluded: "And so our duty was to see his wife, and to deliver to her the messages; and the tokens of dying love of her husband, and speak to her words of comfort in the name of the Lord! His body was carried on to the State of Maine, to repose with those of his kindred there."

[2]

(to be continued...)

[1] Glen LaFantasie, Gettysburg Requiem: The Life and Lost Causes of Confederate Colonel William C. Oates (Oxford University Press, USA, 2006)

[2] The Rev. Robert J. Parvin, from remarks given at a meeting of the Christian Commission,: Washington, D.C; February, 1864; Frank Moore, Anecdotes, Poetry, and Incidents of the War: North and South. 1860-1865 da5wx8p7zf

Tokens of Dying Love (Part Two)

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 12:39:00 +0000

This is the second of four installments entitled "Tokens of Dying Love"--a reflection on the death of Captain Charles W. Billings, Co C, 20th Maine Volunteers, at Gettysburg, PA in July 1863. Part One, on the Battle for Vincent's Spur on Little Round Top, may be found here.

Charles W. Billings was thirty-seven years old when he was promoted to Captain of Co. C, 20th Regiment Maine Volunteers. Prior to his official mustering in on September 1, 1862, Billings resided in the agricultural and manufacturing community of Clinton, Kennebec County, Maine, some thirty-two miles northeast of the state capital at Augusta.

By the standards of the day, Billings was reasonably well educated, having attended a private academy in the neighboring community of Benton. Listed on the Descriptive Rolls of the regiment as a "lumberman," he also owned a half-share in a carding and fulling mill. He was active in his community, having once served as town clerk, as well as on the school committee. At the time of Lincoln's call for 300,000 more troops in July, 1862, he was a town selectman.

Billings and Ellen Hunter were married by a justice of the peace on August 18, 1849, just after her sixteenth birthday. He was twenty-four. Their first daughter, Isadore, was born six months later, in February, 1850. A second daughter, Alice, was born in September, 1856 and died four years later, in November, 1860. Their last child, Lizzie, was born in April, 1860.

In May, 1863, the 20th Maine sat out the battle of Chancellorsville, having received a vaccine for smallpox that caused an outbreak of the disease among the rank and file. Those healthy enough to report for duty were called upon to guard the telegraph line that ran from headquarters at Falmouth, VA to the United States Ford on the Rappahannock River.

On May 19th, from his regiment's camp near Falmouth, Billings sat down to "write a few lines" to his father back home in Maine. Referring coolly to the Union defeat at Chancellorsville, he wrote: "Our last engagement was not so fortunate for our arms as we would have wished or as we expected."He was concerned about the diminishment of the army, especially through the expiration of two-year enlistments. Remarking that "the rebels have every available man in their ranks," he launched into an earnest patriotic call to arms:

Now let the north send out his reserves, there are enough to spare, let them come. Who would not jump to serve his country now that everything is promising. It must and will be done. The cause of God & humanity demand it. We must either conquer or be conquered, no other alternative is presented. Shall we subdue the Rebels and secure liberty to our country? Or shall we give up this contest, and let the sword of despotism & ignorance sweep over our fair country? Obliterating at once our national existence, and all our fond and long cherished hopes of seeing our beloved country continue to advance in all that is good and great? What but an emphatic & determined "no never" should be our every answer? Would to God all our people could see it in its true light. Would that those politicians who for their own selfish advance in power are ready to sacrifice our country, might be brought to shame & the punishment they so richly deserve.

Later in May, the regiment moved camp from Falmouth to guard the United States Ford some fifteen miles upriver. On Sunday, My 31st, Billings again wrote his father, encouraging him to write "once a week" as "Ellen is not much of a hand to write news outside the family."Across the Rappahannock, the enemy could be seen "marching and countermarching," perhaps meant as a ruse to shield Lee's preparations for his army's imminent move north. Billings wrote disapprovingly of "our boys" wading out and meeting Confederate pickets mid-stream, even swimming across the ford to talk with the enemy. In a milder tone, he concluded the letter: "Well Father it is almost time to close the mail so I must draw this to a close so that you will get it one day earlier, we have had preaching today, a good sermon. I have a prayer meeting to night. Share love with the family. Your affectionate son, Charles W. Billings."

Fourteen days later, the 20th Maine Regiment, with the 3rd Brigade, departed from the fords. Joining the rest of the Fifth Corps of the Army of the Potomac, they commenced two weeks hard marching northward, under a burning hot June sun. Lee's army was on a roughly parallel course, just on the other side of the Blue Ridge Mountains. They would meet at the crossroads town of Gettysburg, a day's march over the Maryland border into Pennsylvania. Billings, and the other men of his regiment, would be tested in battle on a hill known as Little Round Top.

to be continued...

(20th Maine Regimental Flag)

Tokens of Dying Love (Part One)

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 12:51:00 +0000

This is the first of four installments entitled "Tokens of Dying Love"--a reflection on the death of Captain Charles W. Billings, Co. C., 20th Maine Volunteers, at Gettysburg in July, 1863.

From their position above, they could see through the battle smoke of the attacking line the indistinct shapes of gray-clad men moving en masse through the wooded valley to the left. Alerted to the movement, the left wing of the regiment shifted to the left and rear to meet the onslaught, moving into position among the rocks and trees. They had now formed a horseshoe-shaped line around the crest of the spur on this rocky ledge in the Pennsylvania woods.

In places, the contending forces were less than seventy feet apart. The men dumped out the contents of their cartridge boxes and stuck their ramrods in the ground, signaling that they did not intend to be driven back. Soon after the line had settled in among the rocks, the company's Captain was hit by a bullet just above the knee. Relinquishing his command to his Lieutenant, he was carried to the aid station in the rear. The roar of musketry gradually receded and the clouds of burnt powder dispersed as he was brought down the back-side of the hill to where his comrades--battered and bloodied--were being tended to.

The regimental surgeon applied a tourniquet to stop the bleeding and covered the wound with a bandage. To ease the pain, powdered morphine was sprinkled into the wound. He was given a drink of water and perhaps, to soothe his soul, a swallow of whiskey. It was now late in the afternoon. By early that evening, he had been taken by ambulance behind the lines to the old barn that served as a hospital.

to be continued...

(Battle Flag, Twentieth Maine Regiment, Retired after the Battle of Gettysburg; Maine State Museum; Augusta, Maine. I am indebted to Thomas A. Desjardin's Stand Firm Ye Boys From Maine: The 20th Maine and the Gettysburg Campaign for details about this segment of the battle on Little Round Top; July 2, 1863)

Gettysburg's Unknown Soldier

noreply@blogger.com (David Heald) — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 00:44:00 +0000

A comment on a recent posting over at Distant Temple Bell resulted in a whole new line of inquiry, some reconnections with old acquaintances, and the making of a new friend. It's a small world, made even smaller by these happy serendipitous encounters on the internet. Wonderful stuff.

The comment was in response to my post about Memorial Day, specifically General Orders #11, issued from the Headquarters of the Grand Army of the Republic, marking May 30th as the official observance of the day--"for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land."

The commentator pointed me in the direction of a series of posts by Errol Morris, an Academy Award winning film director, on his New York Times blog. "Whose Father Was He?" is a five-part inquiry into a photograph of three children found on the body of a Union soldier, Amos Humiston, who died on the first day of the Battle Of Gettysburg.

As I noted in my earlier post "A Harvest of Death," the new technology of photography brought home the mayhem and violence of the battlefield. But more often the opposite occurred. After a battle, images from home were sometimes found alongside corpses. On the field at Gettysburg, the body of a Yankee soldier was found with an ambrotype of three children "tightly clasped in his hands."

By happenstance, the ambrotype came into the possession of a tavern keeper who, in turn, passed it on to a Philadelphia physician whose wagon had broken down on his way to tend the wounded on the Gettysburg battlefield. The physician published a description of the photograph and the identity of the soldier was established. Morris goes on to retell the tale, a tale of lost and found, of light and dark, of altruism and greed.

Morris' narrative itself relies on the meticulous research of Mark Dunkelman in his book Gettysburg's Unknown Soldier: The Life, Death, and Celebrity of Amos Humiston. Morris interviews Dunkelman, who narrates a compelling story of happy serendipity as he uncovers more and more about the life of the soldier who died far from home and the legacy of a photograph that became the inheritance of a nation.

Denied the presence of kin at the hour of death, soldiers like Humiston removed photographs from haversacks or cartridge boxes and spent their last moments gazing upon images of loved ones.

In his interview with Morris, Mark Dunkelman mentions having had dinner with two clergy colleagues of mine, one of whom was pivotal in providing an invaluable lead that led to further contacts with Humiston family members. Having read "Whose Father Was He?," I contacted Mark to put in a plug for My Morbid Obsession and to inquire further about my colleagues. I found Mark to be gracious and engaging. I heartily commend his books, and his website on the 154th New York, "The Hardtack Regiment."