Tag Archives: Humanities and the Arts

National Poetry Month: The Meaning of Life During War and Peace

“Launched by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996, National Poetry Month is a special occasion that celebrates poets’ integral role in our culture and that poetry matters. Over the years, it has become the largest literary celebration in the world, with tens of millions of readers, students, K–12 teachers, librarians, booksellers, literary events curators, publishers, families, and — of course — poets, marking poetry’s important place in our lives.”

— American Academy of Poets

 

As we come to the close of National Poetry Month in 2025, we take a look back at poems that were written during the American Civil War, Reconstruction, Gilded Age, Progressive, World War I, and Roaring Twenties eras of American History by the famous (Thomas Buchanan Read and Walt Whitman) and less famous (Martha A. John), as well as by members of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry and their families who penned poems to express their insights about life and death during and after the war.

Read, reflect, remember, and share because humanities education programs really still do matter.

  • “A Comet” (Martha A. John, a sister of Private George Dillwyn John, in A Souvenir: Incidents, Experiences, and Reflections,” 1902);
  • “An Evening in Camp” (in The Sunbury American, December 28, 1861);
  • “Drum-Taps” (Walt Whitman, in Leaves of Grass, October 1865);
  • “The Battle of Cedar Creek” (Private H. B. Robinson, October 1864);
  • “The Friendly Trio” (Jesse L. Bernheisel, a son of Private Luther Bernheisel, in Berny’s Poems; Hints Towards Happiness, 1927); and
  • “Sheridan’s Ride” (Thomas Buchanan Read, in The Daily Evening Telegraph, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, November 9, 1864).

Inkwell and book (excerpt of an illustration by F. Y. Cory, in Memoirs of a Baby, Josephine Daskam, author, 1893, public domain).

 

Sources:

  1. “An Evening in Camp.” Sunbury, Pennsylvania: The Sunbury American, December 28, 1861; and West Chester, Pennsylvania: The West Chester (Pa.) Times.
  2. Bernheisel, Jesse L. Berny’s Poems; Hints Towards Happiness. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Self-published, 1927.
  3. John, Martha A. “A Comet, in A Souvenir: Incidents, Experiences, and Reflections. Sterling, Illinois: Sterling Gazette Print, 1902-3.
  4. Robinson, H. B. “The Battle of Cedar Creek.” Cedar Creek, Virginia: Composed following the October 19, 1864 battle; preserved in The H. B. Robinson Collection, in The Maurer Family Archives, Amy Lowers Maurer, curator).
  5. “Sheridan’s Ride.” Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: The Daily Evening Telegraph, November 9, 1864; Cleveland, Ohio: The Evening Post, November 17, 1864; Davenport, Iowa: The Democrat, November 25, 1864; Brownsville, Nebraska Territory: Nebraska Advertiser, December 1, 1864; and Sacramento, California: The Sacramento Bee (in “Entertainment”), December 17, 1864.
  6. Whitman, Walt. “Drum-Taps,” in Leaves of Grass. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: David McKay, 1891 (first published by Whitman in Drum-Taps, New York, October 1865).

 

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.

 

The Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina: Unpredictable Outcomes

“The Commencement of the Battle near Pocotaligo River” (Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, October 1862, public domain; click to enlarge).

And among them Strife and Tumult joined, and destructive Fate, grasping one man alive, fresh-wounded, another without a wound, and another she dragged dead through the melee by the feet; and the raiment she had about her shoulders was red with the blood of men. Just like living mortals joined they and fought; and they each were dragging away the bodies of the others’ slain.”

—Homer, The Iliad, Volume II, Book 18

 

October 22, 1862 was a deadly day for the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, and the succeeding days throughout that month and beyond proved to be deadlier still, as one member of the regiment after another succumbed to the wounds they had sustained in battle—or to complications that arose from the multiple surgeries that had been performed by Union Army surgeons in valiant, but vain attempts to save their lives.

Excerpt from “A Golden Thread” (John Melhuish Strudwick, circa 1885, public domain).

What will be striking to any student of history engaged in even just a cursory review of this regiment’s medical and death records during this period of American Civil War-era service, is the seeming fickleness of who lived or died—as if Lachesis and Atropos had debated and determined their fates while Clotho spun out the thread of each life, giving them no say in their individual destinies.

Or was it the decision-making mind and finger of God? “You, but not you.”

This randomness dawns with startling clarity when examining the vastly different outcomes of Sunbury, Pennsylvania brothers, Samuel and Peter Haupt, and of company commanding officers Charles Mickley, George Junker and William Wallace Geety.

Captain Charles Mickley of G Company was killed instantly, early on in the Battle of Pocotaligo on October 22, 1862—brought swiftly to the ground by a rifle shot to his head. He never knew what hit him—or what happened to the men of his company who were marching head on with him into an intense barrage of canister and grape shot, mingled with rifle fire and artillery shell shrapnel.

Captain George Junker of Company K was felled by a minié ball fired from a Confederate rifle during his company’s advance on the Frampton Plantation. Initially stabilized in the field before being transported back to Hilton Head, where he was hospitalized at the Union Army’s post hospital, he died there the next day. He, too, had been shot in the head.

But First Lieutenant William Wallace Geety miraculously survived the gunshot that he sustained to his head—despite having been initially described by The New York Times in its list of Pocotaligo casualties as “mortally wounded.” His survival subsequently became the subject of multiple newspaper reports and medical journal articles. According to the Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of Dauphin County, he was wounded in action when “grape shot struck him between the eyes and passing to the left destroyed the eye, shattered the bones of the face, injuring the nerves and lodged near the carotid artery. While lying upon the field he was for a while given up for dead.”

The Union Army surgeons who treated him throughout his convalescence provided even more telling and precise accounts, documenting that William W. Geety had been struck between the eyes by a one-half-inch-diameter iron ball propelled by a cannon shrapnel shell which had exploded on impact in front of him while he was commanding his men on the field. As the shrapnel peppered the air around him, the ball traveled upward through his head before striking the back of his skull, where it then reversed course, traveled down toward his left jaw and neck, and lodged behind the carotid artery. In the process, his left eye was destroyed along with nerve sensation on his left neck and face, which was also disfigured. When battlefield surgeons realized that one of the major fragments was located perilously close to his carotid artery and could not be removed without killing their patient, they opted to leave that piece of shrapnel in place, stabilized Geety, and continued to care for him until he could safely be moved to one of the Union’s larger and better equipped hospitals for more advanced treatment.

Finally well enough to pen a letter home to his wife and children on November 19, 1864, Geety wrote:

I have lost my left eye, the base of the nose has been taken out. My jaw has been splintered besides some other bones about the brain being cracked. I am very thankful that I got through so safely, as my life was despared [sic] of at first.

In later accounts, he recalled that the grapeshot had struck him near the bottom of his nose, and “after knocking a piece out of my skull, turned and lodged in my throat against the carotid artery from whence I had it cut, at the same time part of the casing of the shell struck me in the face, making a longitudinal cut across my left eye, breaking the lower jaw, and staving in the upper jaw bone on the right side of the face. The socket for the lower jaw to work is broken off, so that every time I open my mouth the jaw flies out of joint.”

Astoundingly ambulatory just a month after the battle, he continued to receive medical care at the Union Officers’ Hospital in Beaufort, South Carolina, and was actually able to walk around the city under his own power.

* For more information about what happened to First Lieutenant William W. Geety after he was released from the Union Army’s hospital in South Carolina, read “First Lieutenant William W. Geety — Battling Back from a Nearly Fatal Head Wound.”

But a Foot Wound Was Fatal?

Atropos, one of the Three Fates in Greek mythology, cuts the thread of life (bas relief image, public domain).

Also wounded that same day, but seemingly less seriously than their commanding officers had been, were the Haupt brothers of the 47th Pennsylvania’s C Company (the color-bearer unit). Private Samuel Haupt was struck in the chin—presumably by one of the countless artillery shell fragments flying through the air as the enemy unleashed a barrage of cannon fire on their company as it advanced toward its target—while his brother, Sergeant Peter Haupt, was struck in the foot that had been fired by a musket or rifle ball.

Sam survived, but Peter did not.

A seemingly minor wound, ballistic injuries to a foot are often extremely painful and traumatic—even today. According to the editors of Ballistic Trauma: A Practical Guide, “There are three mechanisms whereby a projectile can cause tissue injury:

  1. In a low-energy transfer wound, the projectile crushes and lacerates tissue along the track of the projectile, causing a permanent cavity. In addition, bullet and bone fragments can act as secondary missiles, increasing the volume of tissue crushed.
  2. In a high-energy transfer wound, the projectile may impel the walls of the wound track [and] radially outwards, causing a temporary cavity lasting 5 to 10 milliseconds before its collapse in addition to the permanent mechanical disruption produced….
  3. In wounds where the firearm’s muzzle is in contact with the skin at the time of firing, tissues are forced aside by the gases expelled from the barrel of the fire, causing a localized blast injury.”

In Peter Haupt’s case, the high degree of damage to his foot was compounded by the fact that his wound was caused by a musket or minié ball that was made of lead—a substance known to cause blood poisoning and damage to human tissue and organs—and likely also by surgical procedures that were less than sterile, which resulted in a subsequent infection. His cause of death at the Union Army’s post hospital at Hilton Head, South Carolina on November 14, 1862—just over three weeks after the battle—was “traumatic tetanus,” according to the Union Army’s Registers of Deaths of Volunteer soldiers.

The Consequences of Human Conflict

Random, divergent and seemingly senseless fates.

Whether determined by the finger of God, the pre-battle machinations of the Moirai of Greek mythology, or the sheer dumb luck of being positioned at precisely the wrong spot in the regiment’s line of march that terrible day, the final outcomes of the 47th Pennsylvanians who did or did not make it home stand as a testament to the often inexplicable and heartbreaking nature of war.

 

Sources:

  1. “A Soldier’s Death” (obituary of Captain W. W. Geety). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Harrisburg Telegraph, 20 January 1887.
  2. Affidavit Regarding Peter Haupt’s Death (written by Second Lieutenant Daniel Oyster on August 14, 1863 and certified by Captain John Peter Shindel Gobin on August 20, 1863, Company C, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, Fort Taylor, Key West, Florida). Washington, D.C.: Officer of the United States Commissioner of Pensions.
  3. Burial Ledgers, in Record Group 15, The National Cemetery Administration, and Record Group 92, United States Departments of Defense and Army (Quartermaster General). Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration: 1861-1865.
  4. Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of Dauphin County, Containing Sketches of Representative Citizens, and Many of the Early Scotch-Irish and German Settlers. Chambersburg, Pennsylvania: J. M. Runk & Company, 1896.
  5. “Extraordinary Case” (account of the injury and treatment of William Wallace Geety). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Patriot & Union, June 12, 1863.
  6. Haupt, Peter, in Registers of Deaths of Volunteer Soldiers, United States Army, 1862. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  7. Homer, The Iliad, II, Book 18 (A. T. Murray, translator). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1924.
  8. Junker, George, in Registers of Deaths of Volunteer Soldiers, United States Army, 1862. Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  9. “Lead Toxicity: Biological Fate,” in “Environmental Health and Medicine.” Atlanta, Georgia: Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, United States Centers for Disease Control, May 2023.
  10. Letter from Captain James Kacy from Beaufort, South Carolina, October 25, 1862, regarding H Company casualties sustained during the Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina, October 22, 1862. Bloomfield, Pennsylvania: The Perry County Democrat, November 6, 1862.
  11. “List of Casualties: Forty-Seventh Pennsylvania Volunteers—Col. T. H. Good.” New York, New York: The New York Times, October 29, 1862.
  12. Mahoney, Peter F., James Ryan, et. al. Ballistic Trauma: A Practical Guide, Second Edition, pp. 31-66, 91-121, 168-179, 356-395, 445-464, 535-540, 596-605. London, England: Springer-Verlag London Limited, 2005.
  13. Reimer, Terry. “Wounds, Ammunition, and Amputation.” Frederick, Maryland: National Museum of Civil War Medicine, 2007.
  14. Reports of Col. Tilghman H. Good, Forty-seventh Pennsylvania Infantry and Report of Col. Tilghman H. Good, Forty-seventh Pennsylvania Infantry, commanding First Brigade, Tenth Army Corps, in The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Prepared Under the Direction of the Secretary of War, By Lieut. Col. Robert N. Scott, Third U.S. Artillery, and Published Pursuant to Act of Congress Approved June 16, 1880, Series I, Vol. XIV. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1885.
  15. Schroeder-Lein, Glenna. “The Wounded,” in “Essential Civil War Curriculum.” Blacksburg, Virginia: Virginia Center for Civil War Studies, Virginia Tech University, retrieved online November 8, 2023.
  16. “The Killed and Wounded in the Battle” (casualty list from the Battle of Pocotaligo). New York, New York: The New York Herald, October 29, 1862.
  17. “Younker, George [sic],” in United States Records of Headstones of Deceased Union Veterans, 1879-1903.” Washington, D.C.: U.S. National Archives and Records Administration.
  18. “Zurückgefehrt” (announcement of the return to Pennsylvania for reburial of the remains of Captain George Junker, Henry A. Blumer, Aaron Fink and Henry Zeppenfeld). Allentown, Pennsylvania: Der Lecha Caunty Patriot, December 3, 1862.

 

St. Charles County Historical Society Donates David H. Smith Papers to 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story

Honorable Discharge (excerpt), First Sergeant David H. Smith, Company H, 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers, December 25, 1865 (public domain).

A challenging year for many Americans due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a faltering economy, and civil strife, 2020 proved to be a remarkably constructive one on many fronts for a humanities project dedicated to preserving and educating children and adults about the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry—a Union Army unit which made history during the American Civil War as the only regiment from Pennsylvania to participate in the 1864 Red River Campaign across Louisiana, and which also was involved in guarding Mary Surratt and the other key conspirators involved in Lincoln’s assassination in 1865.

One of the most important developments in 2020 was the donation by the St. Charles County Historical Society in St. Charles, Missouri of its David H. Smith Papers collection to 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story.

David H. Smith was one of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers who served for the duration of the war. Following his enrollment at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania on August 22, 1861, Smith mustered in at Camp Curtin in Harrisburg on September 19 of that year as a private with Company H. Described as a nineteen-year-old farmer with light hair, blue eyes, and a light complexion who was five feet, nine inches tall, he was promoted to the rank of corporal on October 21, 1862—the day before the regiment was bloodied badly in the Battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina. He then re-enlisted with the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers in mid-October of 1863 at Fort Jefferson in the Dry Tortugas, Florida, where half of the regiment was stationed at the time, and was subsequently promoted to the rank of Sergeant on September 18, 1864—one day before the Battle of Opequan, Virginia, and promoted again to First Sergeant on April 21, 1865—exactly one week after Lincoln’s assassination. Smith then continued to serve until the regiment was honorably mustered out at Charleston, South Carolina on Christmas Day of that same year.

According to Adam Pesek, a collections volunteer with the St. Charles County Historical Society who reached out to Laurie Snyder, the managing editor of the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteers’ project, society personnel made the helpful overture because they had made a decision to downsize the society’s collection, and were seeking to redistribute a range of items to other organizations whose ties to those items were stronger.

Society archivist Amy G. Haake explained that she and her colleagues had made the decision to donate Smith’s papers when they realized “that Smith had no connections to St. Charles County, whether through marriage or otherwise,” and wanted to find a group which would ensure that the historic documents would be preserved and made publicly available for study by other historians and history students. Among the original documents are certificates related to promotions received by Smith during his tenure with the 47th Pennsylvania, as well as his reenlistment and honorable discharge paperwork.

“My plan is to digitize Sergeant Smith’s papers in 2021, research and write a biographical sketch of his life, and then make each of Smith’s documents and his biography publicly available online via our project’s website and Facebook page. I will then also donate Smith’s papers to a museum or historical society in Pennsylvania,” said Snyder. “These precious papers not only document Smith’s service to the nation; they provide tangible links to a defining time in our nation’s history—reminding us all of the sacrifices made by the heroes who left hearth and home to fight for the Union of a country they loved more than life.”

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47th Pennsylvania Volunteers: One Civil War Regiment’s Story is an educational initiative dedicated to documenting and raising public awareness about the history-making role played by the 47th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry during the American Civil War, as well as the contributions made by its members, post-war, to America’s growth and the advancement of its democratic ideals. Integrated in October of 1862 (prior to President Abraham Lincoln’s official release of the Emancipation Proclamation), this regiment went on to become the only regiment from Pennsylvania to participate in the Union’s 1864 Red River Campaign across Louisiana and the only regiment from Pennsylvania to have men held captive as prisoners of war at Camp Ford—the largest Confederate prison west of the Mississippi River, and was also involved in guarding Mary Surratt and the other key conspirators in Lincoln’s assassination in 1865 during the early days of their imprisonment.

Founded in 1956, the St. Charles County Historical Society (SCCHS) is a nonprofit organization which was initially established to preserve the history of St. Charles County, Missouri. In 2009, it merged with the St. Charles Genealogical Society in order to expand upon its mission “to foster an understanding and appreciation of all aspects of Saint Charles County history” to ensure that genealogical records of county residents are also preserved.