Tag Archives: American History

Black History Month: Ratification of the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution (February 3, 1870)

The 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which ensured voting access for all American male citizens, regardless of race, color or previous condition of servitude, was passed by the United States Congress on February 26, 1869 and ratified on February 3, 1870 (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, public domain; click to enlarge).

Passed by the United States Congress on February 26, 1869, the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution granted Voting Rights to African American men. That amendment was officially ratified on February 3, 1870.

Text of the 15th Amendment

Fortieth Congress of the United States of America;

At the third Session, Begun and held at the city of Washington, on Monday, the seventh day of December, one thousand eight hundred sixty-eight.

A RESOLUTION

Proposing an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, (two-thirds of both houses concurring) that the following article be proposed to the legislature of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States which, when ratified by three-fourths of said legislatures shall be valid as part of the Constitution, namely:

Article XV.

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude–

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

 

“The Fifteenth Amendment and Its Results” (G. F. Kahl for E. Sachse & Co., lithographer, circa 1870, U.S. Library of Congress, public domain; click to enlarge).

 

Sources:

  1. “15th Amendment to the United States Constitution: Voting Rights (1870),” in “Milestone Documents.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, retrieved online February 3, 2025.
  2. “The Fifteenth Amendment and Its Results.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, retrieved online February 3, 2025.

 

Music of the American Civil War Era

“The Songs of the War,” Homer Winslow (Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861, public domain; click image to enlarge).

“Music has done its share, and more than its share, in winning this war.” — Major-General Philip H. Sheridan

 

“The Civil War played an instrumental role in the development of an American national identity,” according to historians at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. “Specifically for American folk music, the war inspired songwriting on both sides of the conflict, as amateurs and professionals wrote new, timely lyrics to old English, Scottish, and Irish ballads as well as original compositions.”

That new music, in turn, inspired one American artist, Winslow Homer, to capture the support he was witnessing and hearing for the United States government and its Union Army defenders during the mid-nineteenth century — support that was conveyed through the enthusiastic singing of pro-Union songs by soldiers, abolitionists and others who had dedicated themselves to the preservation of America’s Union and the eradication of the brutal practice of chattel slavery.

His sketch, “The Songs of the War,” which first appeared in print in the November 23, 1861 edition of Harper’s Weekly, featured seven of the most popular songs during the first year of the American Civil War: “The Bold Soldier Boy,” “Hail to the Chief,” “We’ll Be Free and Easy Still,” “Rogue’s March,” “Glory Hallelujah,” “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” and “Dixie.”

“The Bold Soldier Boy,” excerpt from the illustration, “The Songs of the War” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861, public domain).

“The Bold Soldier Boy” was an old folk song that had been arranged by multiple composers in different ways throughout the nineteenth century prior to Homer’s first hearing of it. The specific variant of the tune that sparked Homer’s imagination as he drew the scene in the upper left corner of “The Songs of the War” was most likely the version that had been arranged by S. Lover and William Dressler. Published by Wm. Hall & Son of New York in 1851, that variant was one of the selections that was included in book one of Dressler’s Scraps of Melody for Young Pianists.

According to Dressler’s obituary in the The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, William Dressler had created this arrangement shortly after his emigration to the United States. A native of Nottingham, England, he was a son of the “court flutist to the King of Saxony” and an 1847 graduate of the Cologne Conservatory of Music in Germany, and had become well-known across the United States as an “organist and professor of music.”

“Hail to the Chief,” excerpt from “The Songs of the War” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861).

“Hail to the Chief,” has since become familiar to generations of Americans as the triumphal tune performed by the United States Marine Band (“The President’s Own“) to herald the arrival of presidents of the United States at State of the Union addresses presented to the United States Congress, as well as other functions of the United States government. According to military music historian Jari Villaneuva, this particular piece of music “was already very popular when the Marine Band played it from a barge for the opening of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal on July 4, 1828, in the presence of President John Quincy Adams.”

During the American Civil War, “Hail to the Chief” was frequently performed by the bands of state and federal military regiments to announce the arrival of Union Army generals at special events, including the often well-attended public ceremonies when generals reviewed their troops. On September 17, 1861, for example, the Lancaster Intelligencer noted that Major-General George B. McClellan was greeted with a performance of “Hail to the Chief” as he arrived with a group of dignitaries at the camp of the Seventy-Ninth New York Volunteer Infantry on September 10.

“We’ll Be Free and Easy Still,” excerpt from “The Songs of the War” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861, public domain).

With his scene, “We’ll Be Free and Easy Still,” Homer was referencing a song that had been promoted in broadside advertisements in London, England as far back as 1832. The song had been made popular thanks to its frequent performance in music halls across Great Britain during the 1840s.

According to historians at the U.S. Library of Congress, the melody was included as “Free and Easy,” in a medley of songs for cornet that was arranged by David L. Downing circa 1861 for concert band performance, and had been included in one of the manuscript books of the Manchester Cornet Band.

The source for the tune appears to have been the chorus of “‘Gay and Happy.’ Composed and sung by Miss Fanny Forrest (with unbounded applause) (Baltimore: Henry McCaffrey [1860])…. This version, or one similar to it, was almost certainly what Winslow Homer had in mind:

I’m the lad that’s free and easy,
Wheresoe’er I chance to be;
And I’ll do my best to please ye,
If you will but list to me.

Chorus.–So let the world jog along as it will,
I’ll be free and easy still….

“We’ll Be Free and Easy Still” had become so popular by the mid-nineteenth century, in fact, that composer Stephen Foster referenced it in his 1866 song, “The Song of All Songs.

“Rogue’s March,” excerpt from “The Songs of the War” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861, public domain).

Rogue’s March can be traced to an even earlier time — the mid-eighteenth century. It “was one of the most widespread and recognized melodies in martial repertory of the era,” according to Andrew Kuntz and Valerio Pelliccioni, creators of The Traditional Tune Archive. Also known as “Poor Old Robinson Crusoe,” this English march in G Major “was played in the British and American armies when military and civil offenders and other undesirable characters were drummed from camps and cantonments, sometimes with a halter about their necks, sometimes with the final disgrace of a farewell ritual kick from the regiment’s youngest drummer.” Also according to Kuntz and Pelliccioni:

[T]he actual ceremony consisted of as many drummers and fifers as possible (to make it the more impressive) [who] would parade the prisoner along the front of the regimental formation to this tune, and then to the entrance of the camp. The offender’s coat would be turned inside out as a sign of disgrace, and his hands were bound behind him…. The sentence would then be published in the local paper.

The fifers and drummers of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry were actually called upon to play the “Rogue’s March” during the punishment and dismissal of one of their regiment’s own while the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers were preparing for the regiment’s departure for America’s Deep South. According to regimental historian Lewis Schmidt, the public shaming of Private James C. Robinson of the 47th Pennsylvania’s Company I began at 10 a.m. on Monday, January 27, 1862, at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, where the regiment was briefly stationed.

The regiment was formed and instructed by Lt. Col. Alexander ‘that we were about drumming out a member who had behaved himself unlike a soldier.’ …. The prisoner, Pvt. James C. Robinson of Company I, was a 36 year old miner from Allentown who had been ‘disgracefully discharged’ by order of the War Department. Pvt. Robinson was marched out with martial music playing and a guard of nine men, two men on each side and five behind him at charge bayonets. The music then struck up with ‘Robinson Crusoe’ as the procession was marched up and down in front of the regiment, and Pvt. Robinson was marched out of the yard.

“Glory Hallelujah,” excerpt from “The Songs of the War” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861, public domain).

“Glory Hallelujah” was almost certainly a reference to the chorus verse of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” the song which quickly became an anthem for the Union Army after the lyrics were written by abolitionist and suffragist Julia Ward Howe during November 1861. Set to the melody (and partially derived from the lyrics) of “John Brown’s Body,” a song sung often by Union soldiers during the earliest months of the war, Howe’s “Battle Hymn” was published in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1862 and remains one of the most popular patriotic songs in the United States.

The chorus of “Glory Hallelujah” was also then employed by Mrs. M. A. Kidder in an arrangement for piano by Augustus Cull of “Brave McClellan Is Our Leader Now, or Glory Hallelujah!“, which was published by Horace Waters of New York in 1862.

“The Girl I Left Behind Me,” excerpt from “The Songs of War” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861, public domain).

Dating back to the 1700s, “The Girl I Left Behind Me” was derived from a popular Irish folk tune that reportedly served as the melody for multiple popular and military songs during the eighteenth and ninetenth centuries, according to Kuntz and Pelliccioni.

There are a few literary references to the song or melody. For example, “The Girl I Left Behind Me,” clearly a reference to the military use of the song, was the title of a chapter (XXX) in William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair (1848)…. The English novelist Thomas Hardy, himself an accordianist and fiddler, mentioned the tune in scene notes to The Dynasts….

James Fenimore Cooper mentions the tune in his novel of the sea, The Pilot (1824)….

“The Girl I Left Behind Me” has a long and illustrious history in America…. [I]t appears in Riley’s Flute Melodies, published in several volumes in New York beginning in 1814…. The melody appears in Bruce and Emmett’s Drummers’ and Fifers’ Guide, published in 1862 to help codify and train the hordes of new musicians needed for service in the Union Army early in the American Civil War. Therein it is remarked: “This air and (drum) beat is generally played at the departure of the soldiers from one city (or camp) to another….

“Dixie,” excerpt from “The Songs of the War” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861, public domain).

The final song that Homer chose to include in his pro-Union music montage, “Dixie” (an anthem of the Confederacy), might seem to have been an odd choice on his part, were in not for the way in which he chose to illustrate it. In the foreground, a free Black man looks thoughtfully off into the distance as he sits atop a barrel labeled with the word, “Contraband,” while a still-enslaved Black man struggles to move a heavy bale of cotton in the background, his body buckling from the burden he shoulders. That image was Homer’s powerful way of reminding Harper’s Weekly readers that, although some progress had already been made in the fight against the brutal practice of chattel slavery in parts of the United States, that fight was not yet won in “Dixie,” where many who were still enslaved continued to suffer greatly.

 

Sources:

  1. “Band Instruments,” in “Collection: Band Music from the Civil War Era.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
  2. “Band Music,” in “Collection: Band Music from the Civil War Era.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
  3. Baxter, John. “Free and Easy,” in “Folk Song and Music Hall.” Self-published, John Baxter, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
  4. “Brave McClellan Is Our Leader Now, or Glory Hallelujah!”, in “New Music,” in “Local Items.” Brooklyn, New York: The Brooklyn Daily Times, 9 February 1862.
  5. “Brave McClellan Is Our Leader Now, or Glory Hallelujah!”, in “Notated Music.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
  6. “Civil War Music: Dixie.” Washington, D.C.: American Battlefield Trust, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
  7. “Free and Easy,” in “A Concert for Brass Band Voice and Piano,” in “Band Music from the Civil War Era.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
  8. Homer, Winslow. “The Songs of the Civil War.” New York, New York: Harper’s Weekly, November 23, 1861.
  9. Kuntz, Andrew and Valerio Pelliccioni. “Rogue’s March.” Wappingers Falls, New York and Basiano, Italy: The Traditional Tune Archive, November 14, 2024.
  10. Kuntz, Andrew and Valerio Pelliccioni. “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” Wappingers Falls, New York and Basiano, Italy: The Traditional Tune Archive, December 22, 2024.
  11. McCollum, Sean. “Battle Hymn of the Republic: The Story Behind the Song.” Washington, D.C.: The Kennedy Center, September 17, 2019.
  12. “Pennsylvanians at Washington” (performance of “Hail to the Chief” to honor Major-General George B. McClellan). Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Lancaster Intelligencer, September 17, 1861.
  13. “Songs of the Civil War,” in “Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.” Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
  14. “The Bold Soldier Boy,” in “Notated Music.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
  15. “The Bold Soldier Boy,” in Scraps of Melody for Young Pianists, in “New Music.” Cleveland Ohio: Morning Daily True Democrat, December 25, 1861.
  16. “The Civil War Bands,” in “Collection: Band Music from the Civil War Era.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. Library of Congress, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
  17. Thomas, Anne Elise. “Music of the Civil War.” Washington, D.C.: The Kennedy Center, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
  18. Thompson, Beth. in “The Song of All Songs,” in “Beth’s Notes: Supporting and Inspiring Music Educators.” Self-published: Beth Thompson, retrieved online January 17, 2025.
  19. Villanueva, Jari. “Hail to the Chief.” Catonsville, Maryland: TapsBugler, January 17, 2025.
  20. “William Dressler” (obituary). Brooklyn, New York: The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, July 3, 1914.

 

A New Year and Our Second Decade of Storytelling

“New Year’s” (Thomas Nast, Harper’s Weekly, 8 January 1881, public domain).

Out with the old and in with the … old? Such are the lives of researchers and students of the American Civil War and Reconstruction eras as we move forward from 2024 into the New Year of 2025.

Unlike millions of other human beings across our pale blue dot (as Carl Sagan called our planet), we will continue to spend a significant portion of our lives looking back as 2025 progresses. We will do so not because we are backward in our ways of thinking, however, but because we’re hoping to better understand how our nation and world came to be what it is at present — as we also try to answer questions about our respective ancestors and the roles they played in shaping how we became who we are as individuals today.

My promise, as the founder and managing editor of 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story, is that our travels back in time, during what is now our second decade of operation, will continue to include adventures filled with fascinating twists and turns that will sometimes be sad, but more often than not, will be informative and positively energizing.

Our 2025 education program objectives are much the same as they’ve always been — to hunt for data that sheds light on the lives of the men who served with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, to learn more about their immediate families and descendants, to find records, photographs and other memorabilia that will corroborate the data we uncover, to use those details, documents, photographs, and memorabilia to tell the stories of those men and their families as accurately and thoroughly as we possibly can, and to motivate learners of all ages across Pennsylvania, the United States and the world to study the history of this regiment and appreciate the impact that its members made, as individuals, on their communities, our nation and our beloved “pale blue dot.”

Welcome to 2025! Let the time travels begin!!

 

A Decade and a Year in Review

Detail from stationery used in a letter by a 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer to his parents (1862, public domain).

When I launched the website for 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story in 2014, my goal was simple — to create an online space that could function as a basic “placeholder” for the research that I had been conducting, for years, about the life of my great-grandfather, Timothy M. Snyder, who had served with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry during the American Civil War.

I was simply trying to understand why Tim Snyder had continued to serve with his regiment for such a long period of time (from mid-August 1861 through early January 1866), despite having completed his initial, three-year term of enlistment and despite his having been wounded twice in battle.

Along the way, I began uncovering details about another man — Henry D. Wharton. It seemed, from letters that Henry had written to my great-grandfather’s hometown newspaper, that he had not only served beside Tim Snyder on battlefields far from home, but that he might actually have been Tim’s neighbor or friend — or possibly even his cousin.

So, I began searching Civil War-era newspaper collections for more of Henry Wharton’s letters in the hope of finding more information about my great-grandfather, but what I found was so much more — accounts of battles so poetic, so lyrical, that I felt that Henry might have become a friend of mine, had we lived in the same town, during the same decades.

I needed to know what happened to Henry. Did he survive? Did he make it home? What was his life like before the war? How did he become such a gifted writer? As I learned more about him, I realized that, yes, he did survive, and, yes, he did marry — but he never had children. (“So there’s no one left to tell his story.”)

It was that single thought that inspired me to research and write a biography about Henry Wharton, and it was that biography that prompted me, in turn, to create 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story.

I could not have imagined back then that my research would attract the attention of descendants of other men who had also served with the 47th Pennsylvania, nor that my research findings would be of help to other academic and public historians and educators in K-12 school systems, colleges and universities, historical societies, public libraries, and museums across the United States.

Nor could I have anticipated the extraordinary generosity of the volunteers who have trekked over hill and dale through cemeteries, in all kinds of weather, to photograph the graves of 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantrymen, or have ventured to far-flung flea markets and archives of small-town historical societies (or into the dusty, spider-friendly attics of grandparents — “Eek!”) in search of military records, photos and other memorabilia to help me create accurate biographies of their 47th Pennsylvania ancestors.

And I certainly could not have conceived of any future in which my audience would become a global one, with readers of my posts about the regiment’s activities and biographies of individual soldiers transformed into avid fans of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantrymen who helped to preserve a nation’s Union and end the brutal practice of chattel slavery, wherever they encountered it, whenever they had the power to do so.

But each of those scenarios did come to pass, fueled largely by word of mouth. As my research findings grew, transforming a “placeholder website” into an educational outreach initiative, WordPress and other technology tools documented the history of “The 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers’ Project,” enabling me to provide this helpful snapshot of success for you.

Key Project Statistics (as of 2 p.m. on December 31, 2024):

  • First Content Posted to Website: May 25, 2014
  • Total Website Page Views to Date: 892,101
  • Total Number of Website Visitors to Date: 745,686
  • Total Number of 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Gravesites Documented via the Project’s Virtual Cemetery to Date: 1,448
  • Total Number of Individual Officers, Enlisted Men and Regimental Support Personnel Profiled to Date: 302

I am profoundly grateful to my great-grandfather. He bequeathed the gift of all gifts to each of his descendants and to history lovers everywhere — breadcrumbs scattered, with and without thought, along the path of his life’s journey, never dreaming that his “factcrumbs” would be found, analyzed, layered and baked into satisfying, lifelong “brainfood” for present-day and future students of history.

I am also grateful to Henry Wharton for his presence of mind to faithfully chronicle the activities of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry in ways that made readers want to learn more about so many of the regiment’s individual members and their families.

As I close out both 2024 and the first decade of operations for “the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers’ Project,” I thank you, dear reader, for joining me on this journey and ask to you to stay engaged with the content on this website, its related social media accounts and our companion website, Freedmen of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, because there are more than a thousand soldiers’ stories that are still waiting to be uncovered and told.

May your New Year be filled with laughter, love and light!

 

Poetry of the American Civil War: “An Evening in Camp” (December 28, 1861)

“Our Heaven Born Banner” (William Bauly, circa 1861, U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

It is evening on the camp ground, and the fading sunlight gleams,
Over hill tops, into valleys and adown the winding streams;

Weary drill at last is ended, and the soldiers gather in
To the music of the fifers and the sweet-toned violin.

Noble sons of patriot fathers, loving freedom most of all,
Dreading more the tyrant’s sceptre than the rifle’s deadly ball;

Each within his homely quarters, on his hard unpillowed bed,
Takes the uninviting supper, by no loving mother spread.

Not for them the winter fire where the family group is found,
Pleasant converse, peals of laughter, merry jestings circling round;

Where the mother piles her knitting, and the sisters read or sew,
And the father paints in language, “miracles of long ago.”

Not for them! yet through their changes, Memory keeps her taper bright,
Lighting up the streams of day-time, and the visions of the night;

Hearts that know no selfish terror, through their tender pulses send,
Throbs of strong magnetic feeling, to the parent or the friend.

One is writing to his mother, and his thoughtful eye grows dim,
With the memory of her kindness, and her loving care for him;

Patient of his youthful follies, quick to lead and slow to blame,
Rising with his rising honor, sinking if he sink to shame.

Well she knows her pillowed slumbers are not as they were of old;
Well he knows the grief and terror that her pen hath never told;

And he sees the dark brown tresses, growing whiter day by day,
Since her country’s tocsin sounded, and she gave her all away.

And another reads the message that a Father’s hand hath sent,
Strong in courage, wise in council, glowing with a high intent;

“All his prayers go forth to bless him–he has been his pride and joy,
And the hopes of past and present crowd around his darling boy.”

With a quivering lip he folds it, but his keen and steady eye,
Speaks the strong, unshaken courage, that shall conquer or shall die;

Gentle words a wife has written, there the husband reads to-night,
And his manly tears are hidden in the fading winter light.

Then he folds his daughter’s billet in a warm and close embrace,
Her’s, who holds the prisoned sunbeams of eight summers in her face;

Ah! he cares not for the blunders, through each blurred and crooked line,
All the glances of her blue eyes and her bady graces shine.

Needs must tremble they who called him from such pleasures to the strife,
He will keep his vow of vengeance at the peril of his life;

Where the sunbeams linger longest, heeding not the frosty air,
With his pale young forehead shaded, sits another reading there.

One who loved him like the poets, shared this in the days gone by,
And each line looks kindly at him through that sister’s speaking eye.

“Sits she in the dear old Study, reading what I read to-night,
Tracing out the rhythmic numbers, in the flashing crimson light;

Or, perchance, the lamps are lighted, and she pens the gentle line
That gives olden warmth and comfort to this stranger life of mine.”

There a young man holds a locket, gazing on a face so dear,
That the past becomes the present, and the far away the near;

Over streams, and hills and vallies, he is standing by her side,
And her dark brown eyes are liquid with the gush of love and pride.

Sweeter than the sounds of summer is the language that she speaks;
Fairer than June’s fairest blossoms, are the roses on her cheeks,

And he feels to-day more worthy plighted heart and hand,
Than when peace and smiling plenty blessed his sorrowing Fatherland.

Breaking on the evening’s bustle calls the drum to muster roll,
And the soldier’s sterner duties shade the fancies of his soul.

Turning to their straw and blankets, quiet slumbers close them round;
Nothing but the sentry’s pacing breaks the silence of the ground,

And the stars look kindly on them from the blue etherial sea,
Leading on the Hosts of Freemen through the gates of victory.

MELROSE

 

Source:

“Select Poetry [from the West Chester (Pa) Times].” Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Sunbury American, 28 December 1861.

 

Through a War Correspondent’s Eyes: The Art of Winslow Homer

Winslow Homer, 1880 (public domain).

Winslow Homer (1836-1910) was a Boston native who became one of the most important artists in nineteenth-century America. Best known for his pastoral landscapes and seascapes, he was also a notable chronicler of the lives of average American Civil War-era soldiers.

Apprenticed to Boston lithographer J. H. Bufford during the mid-1850s, he subsequently turned down a job offer by Harper’s Weekly later that same decade to become a staff illustrator, choosing, instead, to make his living as a freelancer and founder of his own art studio in New York City.

American Civil War

“The Civil War Surgeon at Work in the Field,” Winslow Homer, 12 July 1862 (National Library of Medicine, public domain).

During the early 1860s, however, Winslow Homer was ultimately persuaded to serve as a war correspondent for Harper’s Weekly, leading him to create some of the most evocative illustrations of the American Civil War era.

In 1862, for example, he showed Americans what it was like to be “The Civil War Surgeon at Work in the Field” by sketching a group of Union Army surgeons and wounded soldiers and then turning that sketch into a powerful illustration for a July edition of Harper’s Weekly. In November of that same year, he documented “A Sharp-Shooter on Picket Duty,” perched high up in a tree in the Virginia countryside, protecting his fellow members of the Army of the Potomac.

“Thanksgiving in Camp” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, 29 November 1862, public domain).

That same month, he also preserved, for all time, a Thanksgiving celebration of one pensive group of Union Army soldiers who were stationed far from the arms of loved ones.

Why Was His Work So Popular?

Homer’s work captured the hearts and minds of Harper’s Weekly readers for three simple reasons. He had a great eye and great instincts to match his great skills as an illustrator.

“Sleeping on Their Arms” (Winslow Homer, Harper’s Weekly, 21 May 1864, public domain).

According to a 2015 Yale News article about Homer by Amy Athey Mcdonald, “Artist-reporters” of the Civil War era “had to be more than merely good draftsmen. They had to be astute observers, have an instinct for story and drama, the ability to sketch quickly and accurately, and no small amount of daring, as they faced battles, injuries, starvation, and disease first hand.”

Post-War Life

After the Civil War ended, Winslow put a fair amount of distance between himself and the United States. In 1866, he traveled to France, where he spent ten months studying and honing his skills. According to the late H. Barbara Weinberg, a renowned American art scholar and former curator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, “While there [was] little likelihood of influence from members of the French avante-garde” during this phase of Homer’s life, “Homer shared their subject interests, their fascination with serial imagery, and their desire to incorporate into their works outdoor light, flat and simple forms (reinforced by their appreciation of Japanese design principles), and free brushwork.”

Recognized as a master of oil painting in the United States by the 1870s (while still just in his thirties), he also began to explore his talent as a watercolor artist.

“The Cotton Pickers” (Winslow Homer, 1876, public domain).

And, he began to document the post-war lives of men and women who had been freed from chattel enslavement. Painted in oil in 1876, “The Cotton Pickers” illustrated the harsh reality of the Reconstruction era–that many Freedmen and Freedwomen were still engaged in the same backbreaking work that they had endured while enslaved before the war. According to author Carol Strickland, “Although the artist left scant record of his convictions about race, his paintings of Black people are unlike those of his contemporaries.”

“The Gulf Stream” (Winslow Homer, 1899, public domain).

When speaking to Strickland for a 2022 profile of Homer, Associate Professor Gwendolyn DuBois Shaw observed that “before Emancipation, artists had elicited sympathy for enslaved people by portraying them on the auction block, for example. But the market for such work evaporated after the 1860s…. Caricatures derived from minstrel shows appeared in paintings, but ‘it was really unusual for Homer to stake so much on Black subjects connected to Reconstruction.'” His work in this regard, however, was not only limited to the Reconstruction era; in later years, he depicted the struggles of the Black men, women and children that he met while visiting the Bahamas.

“The Life Line” (Winslow Homer, 1884, public domain).

But it was, perhaps, through his paintings of the sea that he became best known to a wider audience across America. According to Weinberg:

He enjoyed isolation and was inspired by privacy and silence to paint the great themes of his career: the struggle of people against the sea and the relationship of fragile, transient human life to the timelessness of nature.

 

Sources:

  1. McDonald, Amy Athey. “As Embedded Artist with the Union Army, Winslow Homer Captured Life at the Front of the Civil War.” New Haven, Connecticut: Yale News, 20 April 2015.
  2. Strickland, Carol. “Not Just Seascapes: Winslow Homer’s Rendering of Black Humanity.” Boston, Massachusetts: The Christian Science Monitor, 7 June 2022.
  3. “Thanksgiving in Camp (from ‘Harper’s Weekly,’ Vol. VII).” New York, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, retrieved online 28 November 2024.
  4. “The Army of the Potomac — A Sharp-Shooter on Picket Duty (from ‘Harper’s Weekly,’ Vol. VII).” New York, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, retrieved online 28 November 2024.
  5. Weinberg, H. Barbara. “Winslow Homer (1836-1910).” New York, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, October 2004.

 

 

 

The Thanksgiving Messages of Pennsylvania’s Civil War-Era Governor, Andrew Gregg Curtin

Andrew Gregg Curtin, Governor, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, circa 1860 (public domain).

Proclamation of a Day of Thanksgiving. – 1862.

Pennsylvania, ss.
(Signed) A. G. Curtin.

IN THE NAME AND BY the Authority of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Andrew G. Curtin, Governor of the said Commonwealth.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas, It is a good thing to render thanks unto God for His Mercy and loving kindness:

Therefore, I, Andrew G. Curtin, Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, do recommend that Thursday the 27th day of November next, be set apart by the people of this Commonwealth, as a day of solemn Prayer and Thanksgiving to the Almighty: – Giving Him thanks that He has been graciously pleased to protect our free institutions and Government, and to keep us from sickness and pestilence; and to cause the earth to bring forth her increase, so that our garners are choked with the harvest; and to look so favorably on the toil of His children, that industry has thriven among us and labor had its reward; and also that He hath delivered us from the hands of our enemies, and filled our officers and men in the field with a loyal and intrepid spirit and given them victory; and that He has poured out upon us (albeit unworthy) other great and manifold blessings:

Beseeching Him to help and govern us, in his steadfast fear and love, and to put into our minds good desires, so that by His continued help we may have a right judgement in all things:

And especially praying Him to give to Christian churches grace to hate the thing which is evil, and to utter the teachings of truth and righteousness, declaring openly the whole counsel of God:

And most heartily entreating Him to bestow upon our Civil Rulers, wisdom and earnestness in council and upon our military leaders zeal and vigor in action, that the fires of rebellion may be quenched, that we, being armed with His defense, may be preserved from all perils, and that hereafter our people living in peace and quietness, may, from generation to generation, reap the abundant fruits of His mercy; and with joy and thankfulness praise and magnify His holy name.

Given under my Hand and the Great Seal of the State at Harrisburg, this twentieth day of October in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty two, and the Commonwealth, the eighty-seventh.

By the Governor:

Eli Slifer,
Secretary of the Commonwealth.

 

Thanksgiving Proclamation. – 1863.

Pennsylvania, ss.
(Signed) A. G. Curtin

IN THE NAME AND BY the Authority of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Andrew G. Curtin, Governor of the said Commonwealth.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas, The President of the United States, by his proclamation, bearing, date on the third day of this month, has invited the citizens of the United States to set apart Thursday, the twenty-sixth day of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Prayer, now I, Andrew G. Curtin, Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, do hereby recommend, that the people of Pennsylvania do set apart and observe the said day accordingly, and that they do especially return thanks to Almighty God, for the gathered harvests of the fruits of the earth;

For the prosperity with which He has blessed the Industry of our people;

For the general health and welfare which He has graciously bestowed upon them;

And for the crowning mercy by which the blood-thirsty and devastating enemy was driven from our soil by the valor of our brethren freemen of this and other States;

And that they do especially pray for the continuance of the blessings which have been heaped upon us by the Divine Hand;

And for the safety and welfare and success of our brethren in the field, that they may be strengthened to the overthrow and confusion of the rebels now in arms against our beloved country;

So that peace may be restored to all our borders, and the Constitution and laws of the land be everywhere within them re-established and sustained.

Given under my Hand and the Great Seal of the State at Harrisburg, this twenty-eighth day of October in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three and of the Commonwealth, the eighty-eighth.

By the Governor:

Eli Slifer,
Secretary of the Commonwealth.

 

Thanksgiving Proclamation. – 1864.

Pennsylvania, ss.
(Signed) A. G. Curtin.

IN THE NAME AND BY the Authority of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Andrew G. Curtin, Governor of the said Commonwealth.

A PROCLAMATION.

Whereas, It is the honored custom of Pennsylvania to set apart, on the recommendation of the Executive, a day for returning thanks to the Giver of all Good, the Shepherd and Bishop of our Souls: Now, therefore,

I, Andrew G. Curtin, Governor as aforesaid, do recommend that the people throughout the Commonwealth observe Thursday, the twenty-fourth day of November instant, as a day of Thanksgiving to Almighty God,

For the gathered fruits of the earth;

For the continuance of health;

For the prosperity of industry;

For the preservation of good order and tranquility throughout our borders;

For the victories which He has vouchsafed to us over armed traitors,

And for the manifold blessings which he has heaped upon us, unworthy.

And that they do, moreover, humbly beseech Him to renew and increase his merciful favor to us during the year to come, so that rebellion being overthrown, peace may be restored to our distracted country, and, in every State, with grateful and loving accord, the incense of Praise and Thanksgiving may be offered by all the people unto His Holy Name.

Given under my Hand and the Great Seal of the Commonwealth at Harrisburg, this second day of [L. S.] November in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four and of the Commonwealth, the eighty-ninth.

By the Governor:

Eli Slifer,
Secretary of the Commonwealth.

 

Proclamation By the Governor.
The 7th of December Appointed a State Thanksgiving Day.

PROCLAMATION.

With feelings of the most profound gratitude to Almighty God, I invite the good people of the Commonwealth to meet in their places of public worship, on Thursday, the seventh day of December next, and raise their hearts and voices in praise and thanksgiving to Him, not only for the manifest ordinary blessings which, during the past year, He has continued to heap upon us,

For abundant and gathered harvests;

For thriving industry;

For general health;

For domestic good order and government;

But also most expressly and fervently for His unequalled goodness in having so strengthened and guarded our people during the last four years that they have been able to crush to the earth the late wicked rebellion–to exterminate the system of human slavery, which caused it.

As we wrestled in prayer with Him in the dark time of our trouble, when our brothers and sons were staking life and limb for us on a bloody field, or suffering by torture or famine in the hells of Andersonville or the Libby, so now, when our supplications have been so marvellously [sic, marvelously] and graciously answered, let us not withhold from Him the homage of our thanksgiving.

Let us say to all, “Choose, ye, this day, whom he will serve, but for us and our house, we will serve the Lord.”

Great Seal of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (public domain).

Come, then, ye people whom He hath so helped and led; come, ye war-worn and mutilated men whom He hath spared to return to your dear homes, let us throng the gates of His temples; let us throw ourselves on the knees of our hearts with a wilful joy at the foot of His throne, and render aloud our praise and thanksgiving to Him, because He hath made the right to prevail; because He hath given us the victory; because he has cleansed our land from the stain of human slavery, and because He hath graciously shown forth in the eyes of all men the great truth that no government is so strong as a republic controlled under His guidance by an educated, moral and religious people.

By the Governor:

Eli Slifer,
Secretary of the Commonwealth.
Harrisburg, November 7, 1865.

 

Sources:

  1. Curtin, Andrew Gregg. Proclamation of a Day of Thanksgiving – 1862, in Pennsylvania Archives: Fourth Series, Vol. VIII: Papers of the Governors, 1858-1871, Samuel Hazard, John Blair Lynn, William Henry Egle, et. al., editors. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Wm. Stanley Ray, State Printer, 1902.
  2. “Thanksgiving Proclamation.” Reading, Pennsylvania: Gazette and Democrat, November 21, 1863.
  3. “In the Name and by the Authority of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Andrew G. Curtin, Governor of Said Commonwealth: A Proclamation.” Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Daily Telegraph, November 10, 1864.
  4. “Proclamation by the Governor.” Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The American Presbyterian, November 10, 1865.

 

Through the Eyes of a Captain: The Sights, Sounds and Side Effects of the Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina

Captain John Peter Shindel Gobin, Company C, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, circa 1863 (public domain).

Five days after the Battle of Pocotaligo was waged on October 22, 1862 between Union and Confederate troops in South Carolina, Captain John Peter Shindel Gobin set pen to paper to document the events that had led up to and taken place that terrible day. His powerful account revealed a scale of carnage that shocked the readers of the November 15, 1862 edition of The Sunbury Gazette.

The commanding officer of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry’s color-bearer unit, Company C, Captain Gobin was a lawyer from Sunbury, Northumberland County who would later go on to command the entire regiment and, post-war, would be elected to the Pennsylvania State Senate and then as lieutenant governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. His account of this often overlooked American Civil War battle is one that merits the attention of historians because of the statistics and insights he shared with close friends.

Headquarters, Co. C, 47th Reg’t.,
Beaufort, S.C.,
Oct. 27, 1862

Dear Friends:–For the first time since our terrible engagement on the main land, I find time to write you an account of the affair. As my last informed you, during the St. John’s Expedition, I contracted the intermittent fever, and on my arrival here, was placed in the officers’ hospital.–Good nursing and an abundance of quinine, however, soon placed me on my feet, and on Monday, the 20th, I went to camp well, but still weak. On Tuesday morning our regiment received orders for six hundred men to embark on a Transport, with two days’ rations, at 1 o’clock P.M. I selected sixty men, and embarked. Our destination was unknown, although it was the general opinion that it was the Charleston and Savannah Railroad bridges. We steamed down the river, and were all advised by Gen. Brennan [sic, Brannan], who was on the boat with our regiment, to get as much sleep as possible. I sought my berth, and when I awoke next morning, found we were in the Broad River, opposite Mackay’s Point. A detachment of the 4th New Hampshire, sent on shore to capture the enemy’s pickets, having failed, we were ordered to disembark immediately. Eight Companies of our regiment, (the other two being on another Transport) were gotten [ready], and at once took up the line of march. After about three miles, we came in sight of the pickets, when we halted until joined by the 55th Pennsylvania, 6th Connecticut, and one section of the 1st U.S. Artillery. We were again ordered forward–a few of the enemy’s cavalry slowly retiring before us, until we reached a place known as Caston, where two pieces of artillery, supported by cavalry, were discovered in position in the road.–They fired two shells at us, which went wide.

While our artillery ran to the front and unlimbered, our regiment was ordered forward at double quick. The enemy however left after receiving one round from our artillery, which killed one of their men. We followed them closely for about two miles, when we found their battery of six pieces, posted in a strong position at the edge of a wood, supported by infantry and cavalry. They opened upon us immdiately, which was replied to by our artillery, posted in the road. This road ran through a sweet potato field, covered with vines and brush. Our regiment was thrown in mass and deployed on my company [Company C], which brought my right in the road. We were ordered to charge, and with a yell the men went in. We had scarcely taken a dozen steps before we were greeted with a shower of round shot and shell from the enemy’s artillery. A round shot stuck the ground fairly in front of me, covering me with sand, bounding to the right and killing the third man in the company to my right. It was followed by a shell, that gave us another shower of sand, and flew between the legs of Corporal Keefer, the man on my left, tearing his pantaloons, striking his file coverer, Billington, on the knee, and glancing and striking a man named Gensemer on Billington’s left, and bringing them to the ground, but fortunately failing to explode. Almost at the same instant Jeremiah Haas and Jno. Barlow were struck, the former in the face and breast by a piece of shell, the latter through the leg by a cannister shot. The shower we received here was terrific. Nothing daunted, on they rushed for the battery, but it was almost impossible to get through the weeds and vines. When within a hundred yards the enemy limbered up, and retreated through the woods. We followed as rapidly as possible, but we had scarcely entered the woods, when we were again greeted with a terrific storm of shell, grape and cannister from a new position, on the other side of the woods.

Samuel Y. Haupt, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers (circa 1863, public domain).

Ordering my men to keep to the right of the road, we pushed forward through a wood almost impenetrable. We were at times obliged to crawl on our hands and knees.–In the meantime the enemy’s infantry opened upon us, and assisted in raking the woods. Sergeant Haupt [sic, Peter Haupt] here received his wound. When at length we pushed through, we found ourselves separated from the enemy by an impassable swamp, about one hundred yards in width. The only means of getting over was by a narrow causeway of about twelve feet in width. Seeing this, our regiment fell back to the edge of the woods, lay down and engaged the enemy’s infantry opposite us. In the meantime two howitzers from the Wabash, [that] had been placed in position in the rear of the woods, commenced shelling the enemy, whose artillery, was on the right of the road on the opposite side of the swamp. The latter replied, the shells of both parties passing over us. Our situation was extremely critical. Exposed to the cross-fire of the contending artillery and the infantry in the front, with the limbs and tops of trees falling on and around us, it was indeed a position I never want to be placed in again.–Here Peter Wolf while endeavoring, in company with Sergeant Brosious, Corp. S. Y. Haupt and Isaac Kembel, to pick off some artillerymen, received two balls and fell dead. I had him carried five miles and buried by the side of the road. Corp. S. Y. Haupt, had the stock of his rifle shattered by a rifle ball, that embedded itself.

In about twenty minutes the fire became too hot for them, and they again “skedaddled“ just as Gen. Terry’s Brigade, 75th Pennsylvania, in advance, were ordered up to relieve us. They followed them up rapidly, until they arrived at Pocotaligo creek, over which the rebels crossed, and tore up the bridge, and ensconced themselves behind their breastworks and in their rifle pits.–We were again ordered forward, deployed to the right, and advanced to the bank of the creek, or marsh, which was fringed by woods. We lay a short time supporting the 7th Connecticut, when their ammunition became expended, and we took the front. Here occurred the most desperate fighting of the day. The enemy were reinforced by the 26th South Carolina, which came upon the breastworks with a rush. We gave them a volley that sent them staggering, but they formed in the rear of the first line, and the two poured into us one of the most scathing, withering fires ever endured. Added to it, their artillery commenced throwing grape and cannister amongst us, but we soon drove the artillerymen from their guns, and silenced them. The colors on the left of my company attracting a very heavy fire, I ordered the Sergeant to wrap them up.–This caused quite a yell among the Confederates, but we soon changed their tune.–We fired until our ammunition was nearly expended, when we ceased. This caused the enemy’s artillery to open upon us, while the musketry continued with redoubled energy. Eight men of my company fell at this last fight. We held our position, unsupported, until dark, when we were ordered to fall back. We did so and covered the retreat. We were the first regiment in the fight, and last out of it. Our men fought like veterans, and did fearful execution among the enemy. Our loss was very heavy, losing one hundred and twelve men out of six hundred. I detailed my entire company to carry their dead and wounded comrades to the boat, which I did not reach until 4 o’clock A.M., bringing with me the last man, Billington. In consequence of having no stretchers or ambulances, we were compelled to carry our wounded in blankets. They were, however, all taken good care of.

Although we did not succeed in burning the bridge, yet we were not defeated. We drove the enemy five miles, compelling him to leave a number of his dead and wounded on the field. We captured two caissons, and a number of prisoners, and were only prevented from capturing or scattering the whole force by the destruction of the bridge over Pocotaligo creek, and their immense reinforcements. I shall never forget the sound of those locomotive whistles in my life. Gen. Beauregard commanded the rebels.

My men fought as men accustomed to it all their life. Nothing could exceed their valor. In addition to the loss in my own company, of the color guard, composed of Corporals from other companies attached to it, all but two were struck. Every man seemed determined to win.

My loss is as follows:–Killed–PeterWolf, Sunbury, Pa.; George Harner [sic, Horner], Upper Mahanoy; Seth Deibert, Lehigh county.–Wounded, Sergeant Peter Haupt, Sunbury, Pa., cannister shot through foot; will save the foot; Corporal Samuel Y. Haupt, rifle shot on chin; will be ready for duty in a week. His rifle was struck with a piece of shell, and after shattered by rifle ball. Corporal William Finck, near Milton; rifle shot through leg–amputation not necessary; private S. H. Billington, Sunbury, struck on knee by shell; will save the leg; private John Bartlow, cannister shot through leg; will save the leg; private Jeremiah Haas, struck in face and breast by piece of shell; will soon be well; private Conrad Halman [sic, Holman], Juniata county, shot in face by rifle ball–teeth all gone; will recover; private Theodore Kiehl, struck in the mouth by a rifle ball; lower jaw shattered, but will recover; Charles Leffler [sic, Lefler], Lehigh county, rifle shot through leg–will recover without amputation; Michael Larkins [sic, Larkin], Lehigh county, wounded in side and hip in a hand to hand fight with a mounted officer; killed the officer and captured his horse; able to be about; Thomas Lothard, Pittston, Pa., grape shot through right side; will recover; Richard O’Rourke, Juniata county; rifle ball through right side, will recover; James R. Rine [sic, Rhine], Juniata county, struck on leg by round shot–not serious.

Killed ………… 3
Wounded …. 13
Total ……….. 16

This being over one-fourth of the number engaged, I think, is pretty heavy. However I think most of the wounded will be fit for duty again. They are all comfortable and well cared for. None of their wounds will, from present appearances, prove mortal. I will write again in a few days. With love to all, I remain

Yours, J. P. S. G. 

*Note: Captain Gobin’s assessment of his wounded men was, unfortunately, overly optimistic with respect to Sergeant Peter Haupt. While undergoing treatment at a Union Army hospital, Sergeant Haupt developed traumatic tetanus–a direct cause of the lead injected into his system by the cannister shot that had felled him. He subsequently died from tetanus a related lockjaw.

 

Sources: 

  1. “Army Correspondence.” Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Sunbury Gazette, November 15, 1862.
  2. Haupt, Peter, in U.S. Registers of Deaths of Volunteer Soldiers, October 1862. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.

 

Research Update: New Details Learned About Abraham Jassum, One of Nine Formerly Enslaved Men Who Enlisted with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers

Enlistment form for Abraham Jassum, Undercook, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, 5 October 1862, p. 1 (Compiled Military Service Records, U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, public domain; click to enlarge).

Fleeing the brutal practice of chattel slavery in South Carolina during the fall of 1862, a Black youth walked into a recruiting station for the Army of the United States in Beaufort, South Carolina and told an officer there that he wanted to become a soldier. His name, according to his enlistment paperwork, was Abraham Jassum, and he was just sixteen years old.

Sadly, much of that teenager’s life has remained a mystery that has stubbornly resisted unraveling–until now. Thanks to documents recently copied by the U.S. National Archives for 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story, researchers now know that Abraham Jassum was born into slavery in Charleston, South Carolina sometime around 1846.

Although specific details about what happened to this teenager between the dates of his birth and army enlistment have not yet been found, researchers do already have several ideas. One theory is that Abraham’s surname was not actually “Jassum” because that surname does not appear to have been present on any federal census records for any plantation owners or other enslavers in South Carolina between 1840 and 1860, nor was it used for any Black Freedmen in South Carolina on federal census records that were completed after the American Civil War. Furthermore, there appear to be no U.S. Civil War Pension records that exist for any soldier with the surname of “Jassum.”

Another theory is that, by the time that Abraham reached the age of sixteen, he had been transported to Beaufort to be used as an enslaved laborer there (or was “sold as property” by his enslaver in Charleston to a plantation owner or other enslaver near Beaufort), and that he was freed by Union soldiers when Beaufort was occupied by the Union Army.

Fortunately, the Compiled Military Service Records (CMSR) file for Abraham Jassum does contain important details about his life between October 1862 and October 1865.

Bay Street Looking West, Beaufort, South Carolina, circa 1862 (Sam A. Cooley, 10th Army Corps, photographer, public domain).

What is known for certain is that he enlisted for military service on October 5, 1862 as an “undercook“–a designation that was first authorized for use by regiments serving with the Army of the United States by the U.S. War Department. Examined and certified as fit for duty by William F. Reiber, M.D., an assistant regimental surgeon with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, Abraham Jassum was then assigned to the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers’ F Company.

Military records at the time of his enlistment noted that he was five feet, six inches tall and had black hair, black eyes and a black complexion. Muster sheets subsequently described him as a “Negro.”

During his three-year term of enlistment, he traveled with the 47th Pennsylvania to its battle, garrison, occupation, and other duty assignments in Florida, Louisiana, Virginia, Washington D.C., and South Carolina. While stationed with his regiment in Louisiana, he was documented as having been officially mustered into the regiment in June 1864, along with the other Black soldiers of the 47th Pennsylvania.

Additional military records of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry confirm Abraham Jassum’s service in 1864 and 1865, describing him as a “cook” or as a “private,” which appears to indicate that he may have been promoted at some point prior to his honorable discharge.

Issued his honorable discharge paperwork on October 4, 1865, while his regiment was assigned to Reconstruction-related duties in Charleston, South Carolina, he was given a small travel allowance to enable him to return to his place of enlistment (Beaufort, South Carolina), which seems to indicate that he chose to settle in Beaufort, at least initially, rather than remaining in the city where he had been born (Charleston), and instead of relocating north with his former regiment when it returned to Pennsylvania.

Researchers will continue to search for records that can shed more light on what happened to Abraham Jassum after the war, and will post updates if and when new data is uncovered.

 

Sources:

  1. Bates, Samuel P. History of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-5, vol. 1. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: B. Singerly, State Printer, 1869.
  2. Jassum, Abraham, in Civil War Veterans’ Card File, 1861-1866 (Company F, 47th Pennsylvania Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
  3. Jassum, Abraham, Civil War Muster Rolls (Company F, 47th Pennsylvania Infantry). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
  4. Jassum, Abraham, in Compiled Military Service Records (Company F, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  5. Jassum, Abraham, in Registers of Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-1865 (Company F, 47th Pennsylvania Infantry), in Records of the Department of Military and Veterans’ Affairs (RG-19). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State Archives.
  6. Schmidt, Lewis. A Civil War History of the 47th Regiment of Pennsylvania Veteran Volunteers. Allentown, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1986.

 

Sheridan’s Ride: A Poem Commemorating the Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia

Sheridan Rallying His Troops, Battle of Cedar Creek, Virginia, October 19, 1864 (U.S. Library of Congress, public domain).

Barely three weeks after the conclusion of the epic Battle of Cedar Creek in Virginia, a poem celebrating the valor displayed during the Union’s victory over the Confederacy that fateful October 19, 1864 began appearing in newspapers across the United States. Penned by Thomas Buchanan Read, Sheridan’s Ride was subsequently recited in public at community events nationwide and is presented here, in its entirety, in commemoration of the battle in which the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry lost the equivalent of nearly two full companies of men in killed, wounded and missing in action, as well as soldiers who were captured by Rebel troops and dragged off to the Confederates’ notorious Andersonville and Salisbury prisoner camps.

Sheridan’s Ride

Up from the South at break of day,
Bringing to Winchester fresh dismay,
The affrighted air with a shudder bore,
Like a herald in haste to the chieftain’s door.
The terrible grumble and rumble and roar,
Telling the battle was on once more,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.

And wider still those billows of war
Thundered along the horizon’s bar,
And louder yet into Winchester rolled
The roar of that red sea uncontrolled,
Making the blood of the listener cold
As he thought of the stake in that fiery fray,
And Sheridan twenty miles away.

But there is a road from Winchester town,
A good, broad highway leading down;
And there, through the flush of the morning light,
A steed, as black as the steeds of night,
Was seen to pass as with eagle flight–
He stretched away with his utmost speed;
Hill rose and fell — but his heart was gay,
With Sheridan fifteen miles away.

Still sprung from those swift hoofs, thundering south,
The dust, like the smoke from the cannon’s mouth,
Or the trail of a comet sweeping faster and faster,
Foreboding to traitors the doom of disaster;
The heart of the steed and the heart of the master
Were beating like prisoners assaulting their walls,
Impatient to be where the battle-field calls;
Every nerve of the charger was strained to full play,
With Sheridan only ten miles away.

Under his spurning feet, the road,
Like an arrowy Alpine river flowed,
And the landscape sped away behind
Like an ocean flying before the wind;
And the steed, like a barque fed with furnace ire,
Swept on, with his wild eyes full of fire.
But lo! He is nearing his heart’s desire —
He is snuffing the smoke of the roaring fray,
With Sheridan only five miles away.

The first that the General saw were the groups
Of stragglers, and then the retreating troops;–
What was done — what to do — a glance told him both,
Then striking his spurs with a terrible oath,
He dashed down the line ‘mid a storm of huzzas,
And the wave of retreat checked its course there because
The sight of the master compelled it to pause,
With foam and with dust the black charger was gray;
By the flash of his eye, and his red nostrils’ play,
He seemed to the whole great army to say:
“I have brought you Sheridan all the way
From Winchester down to save the day!”

Hurrah, hurrah for Sheridan!
Hurrah, hurrah, for horse and man!
And when their statues are placed on high
Under the dome of the Union sky,
The American soldiers’ Temple of Fame,
There with the glorious General’s name
Be it said in letters both bold and bright:
“Here is the steed that saved the day
By carrying Sheridan into the fight,
From Winchester — twenty miles away!”

 

Sources:

  1. Sheridan’s Ride.” Philadelphia, Pennsylvania:  The Daily Evening Telegraph, November 9, 1864.
  2. “Sheridan’s Ride.” Cleveland, Ohio: The Evening Post, November 17, 1864.
  3. “Sheridan’s Ride.” Reading, Pennsylvania: The Daily Times, November 17, 1864.
  4. “Sheridan’s Ride.” Davenport, Iowa: The Democrat, November 25, 1864.
  5. “Sheridan’s Ride.” Brownsville, Nebraska Territory: Nebraska Advertiser, December 1, 1864.
  6. “Mr. Murdoch’s Readings.” Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh Gazette, December 6, 1864.
  7. “Tennyson Club Lectures.” Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: The Post, December 6, 1864.
  8. “Entertainment.” Sacramento, California: The Sacramento Bee, December 17, 1864.