Cumberland County History, a historical journal compiled annually by the Cumberland County Historical Society, has provided nearly three decades of research into the county’s long history. The journal has published several articles on Civil War soldiers from the surrounding community. They utilize several primary documents and effectively offer insight into the emotional departure from loved ones, the lives of soldiers during the war, and the enemy just beyond the Mason-Dixon Line.

James A. Holechek features the Civil War experiences of John Cantilion in his article “From Carlisle and Fort Couch: The War of Corporal John A. Cantilion.” By tracing his service in the United States army through to his untimely death in November 1863, Holechek surmises the emotions inherent to leaving loved ones behind as a soldier and, conversely, watching a loved one leave to fight in battle. Letters became the only connection between Cantilion and his wife and children. Accordingly, Holechek used these letters as a window into how the separation affected both parties.

The letters of Lt. Thomas William Sweeny are discussed and provided in part in “Carlisle Barracks –1854-1855: From the Letters of Lt. Thomas W. Sweeny, 2nd Infantry,” edited by Robert Coyer. Sweeny stayed in the Carlisle Barracks for some time during the 1850s before moving to Missouri as a general recruiter for the Union. His time spent in Missouri, as argued by Coyer, “played a major part in keeping the state from seceding.” Most of Coyer’s article centers around several letters he wrote to his wife through 1854 and 1855, part of the time he spent at the Barracks. Though these letters could not note the anguish of separation of loved ones during the war, the tense and difficult relations between the couple become apparent when reading even the first letter.

Patricia M. Coolmeyer collects the perspectives of Civil War soldiers from southern Pennsylvania through the extensive use of personal letters, diaries, and local newspapers. Her article, “Southern Sentiments: A Look at Attitudes of Civil War Soldiers,” illustrates the ways Carlisle, given its geographic proximity to the Mason-Dixon Line, often exchanged its culture and relations with the South. As a result, towns like Carlisle did not uniformly despise the South but rather saw an “active pro-Southern element.” This lack of uniformity emerged in Pennsylvanian soldiers. From one perspective, Union soldiers saw Southerners as “quite a fine looking, gentlemanly set of fellows. Others shaped their perceptions based on the beautiful landscape of the South. Each soldier found different ways to build their allegiance to the Union, but, as Coolmeyer makes clear, it did not always emerge out of a hatred of the South.

The Cumberland County Historical Society has granted us special permission to publish these articles. We encourage readers to utilize their resources, for they have compiled an extensive library filled with primary documents and modern scholarly research. Please consult their website for more information including how to contact the Society.

The Battle of Resaca took place from May 13-15, 1864 in Gordon and Whitfield Counties in Georgia as a part of the Atlanta Campaign.  A majority of the fighting took place on May 14 when Union Major General William T. Sherman and the Military Division of the Mississippi attacked Confederate General Joseph E. Johnston and the Army of Tennessee.  The battle continued into the following day without much success on either side until General Sherman sent troops across the Oostanaula River in the direction of the Confederate supply line, forcing Johnston to retire from the battle.  The Civil War Preservation Trust’s website offers an article, “Battle of Resaca: Botched Union Attack,” which describes missed Union opportunities that may have helped them win the battle.  The website also includes brief biographies of General Sherman and General Johnston as well as a map that shows troop movement on the Union and Confederate sides.  Sherman described the Battle of Resaca in a letter to his brother, Senator John Sherman:

“Johnston had chose Dalton as his place of battle, but he had made all the road to it so difficult that I resolved to turn it, so I passed my army through a pass about twenty miles south of Dalton and forced him to battle at Resaca.  That, too, was very strong, but we beat him at all points and as I got a bridge across the Oostanaula below him and was gradually getting to his rear, he again abandoned his position in the night and I have been pushing my force after him as fast as possible; yet his knowledge of the country and the advantage of a good railroad to his rear enabled him to escape me, but I now have full possession of all the rich country of the of the Etowah.  We occupy Rome, Kingston, and Cassville.”

In terms of modern scholarship, another resource that may be interesting to browse is Philip L. Secrist’s The Battle of Resaca: The Atlanta Campaign, 1864, available as a preview on Google Books, which gives a summary of the battle as well as the rest of the campaign that followed.  Also available on Google Books, Union General Ulysses S. Grant commented on the battle briefly in his book, Personal Memoirs while Craig L. Symonds’s Joseph E. Johnston: a Civil War Biography provides more of a Confederate perspective of the fighting.  The Library of Congress’s online collection of Lincoln Papers includes a transcripted letter from Daniel E. Sickles to President Abraham Lincoln describing Sherman’s movements during the battle.

On April 10, 1865, Charles Albright and George Baylor led their respective units against one another in battle near Fairfax Station, Virginia. The former commander employed his hard-driving personality when leading his Union troops on campaigns against Confederate soldiers in the South. Baylor, on the other hand, did not immediately convey the impression of a warrior given his slight frame and weight of only 120 pounds. Wounded, captured, and later released by Union forces, he proved himself as a resourceful and resilient leader in the Confederate army. These unlikely warriors shared experiences as students at Dickinson College, but the directions they took after leaving campus brought them together on the battlefield not as fellow alumni but as fervent opponents.

Albright, a devout Methodist who refused to smoke or drink, entered Dickinson in 1848 with the Class of 1852. He withdrew from the College in 1851 to study law and began to take a solid stance against slave-holding states. By 1854 Albright moved to Kansas with the Western Pennsylvania Kansas Company as part of a campaign encouraging an influx of families opposed to slavery and committed to temperance. Disappointed with the organization’s effectiveness, Albright concentrated soon thereafter on his law practice in Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania.

In 1857, as Albright began to establish his law practice, Baylor entered Dickinson with the Class of 1860. Focused on the “intransient beauty” and enlightenment of human thought, Baylor did not demonstrate any resilience to his education in the North despite his origins in Virginia. Nevertheless, he enlisted in the Confederate army one year after graduation and committed to the full duration of the conflict. Over the four years that followed, Baylor gained a reputation as a bright and phenomenal young soldier, which he strengthened throughout 1864 and 1865 on his successful raids disrupting Union lines of communication. On April 10, 1865, one day following Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Baylor’s success fell short.

Learning of a planned raid near Fairfax Station, Albright pursued Baylor’s raiders and forced them to retreat, leaving behind some casualties, prisoners, and supplies. In addition to a later report of the short battle, Albright assured his superiors that he had “whipped [Baylor] like thunder.” Resistant to the commander’s satisfaction, Baylor retorted that Albright won an “exceedingly small” advantage and had no reason to gloat. The men never spoke of their shared experience at Dickinson. These men engaged in unforgiving combat, removed themselves from any shared experiences, and, as a consequence, transformed from alumni into enemies.

Richard Lee Turberville Beale, born on May 22, 1819 to a wealthy and well-known couple in Hickory Hill, Virginia, began his boyhood education in various academies in Virginia before moving northward to Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. After graduating with the Class of 1838, Beale practiced law before being elected to the United States House of Representatives as a Democrat from Virginia. His two-year term (1847 to 1849) in office did not end his political career, as he served in the Congress again from 1879 to 1881. The intervening years included Beale’s service in the Confederate army. Enlisted in May 1861, Beale served in the 9th Virginia Cavalry until he became the leading colonel of the regiment. He recalled in his self-composed History of the 9th Va. Cavalry (1899), partially available on Google Books, his service during the army’s invasion into Pennsylvania and, later, Carlisle in 1863. The subsequent shelling of the town on July 1st evoked a nostalgic response, for as the “United States barracks blazed…[and] women screamed,” Beale noted that “recollections of boyhood were vividly recalled, as, when a student at Dickinson College, he had hunted over these grounds with his comrades, crossed the Yellow Breeches creek in a cider-trough and eaten lunch at a little spring up on the mountainside.”

Beale married Lucy Brown prior to enlisting in the army and raised six children. Because Beale owned thirty-eight slaves as well as farmland, he could provide for his family. (Of the slaves he owned, eighteen were male and twenty female, which included seventeen children and twenty-one adults.) Before he died on April 18, 1893, Beale saw his eldest son, George William Beale, marry and have children of his own.

After the Civil War ended, Beale’s account of the 9th Virginia Cavalry was found and, with assistance from George, became the published version of History of the 9thVa. Cavalry in 1899. George wrote in the introduction of the memoir that it provided an apt recognition of his father’s service and the “Southern devotion and valor” of other soldiers belonging to the 9th Virginia Cavalry.

George was born to Richard and Lucy between 1842 and 1843. He eventually entered the Civil War alongside his father in Company C of the 9th Virginia Cavalry as a lieutenant. Much of his service can be found in his own memoirs entitled A Lieutenant of Cavalry in Lee’s Army (1918). Much of his account of the war includes letters to his mother, including one that discussed the “conflagration at Carlisle” on the night of July 1st.

George and Mary A. Beale, married in 1879, raised five surviving children. George kept the Beale family’s prominence in Virginia, as seen in an address he gave in Montross, Virginia in 1910.

The Battle of Gaines’ Mill took place on June 27, 1862 in Hanover County, Virginia and was the third of the Seven Days’ Battles and its largest engagement. After the battle of Beaver Dam Creek, Union Major General George B. McClellan determined to change his base to the James River in order to protect his Army of the Potomac from what he felt was a much superior Confederate Army. Confederate General Robert E. Lee unleashed a relentless attack against Union Brigadier General Fitz John Porter throughout the day. McClellan driven by fear and indecision was convinced that his Union Army was vastly outnumbered and failed to provide adequate reinforcements for Porter’s V Corps. As the battle raged, the Confederate Army awaited the arrival of Major General Stonewall Jackson to turn the tide in the battle. Jackson arrived later than Lee expected which proved costly for the Confederate soldiers. By the time Lee executed his all out attack on the Union Army with Jackson present, it was 7 P.M. and darkness was approaching.

The final assault from the Confederate Army was successful in finally breaking Porter’s line. McClellan eventually provided reinforcements but only about one tenth of the forces he had at his disposal. The Union troops arrived just as Porter’s soldiers fell back into a retreat. The Confederate Army pushed McClellan’s army into a further retreat, ending the Union General’s hopes for capturing Richmond and gave Lee his first major victory of the campaign. The battle was not won without staggering losses from both sides. Estimated casualties for the Confederates totaled 8,700 while the Federals suffered 6,800. McClellan avoided a major defeat but felt that his Army was vastly inferior to the Confederacy, something that would plague McClellan and the Union Army for the rest of his tenure as general-in-chief of the Union Army. In a telegram sent to Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, McClellan professed:

“I have lost this battle because my force was too small…The Government has not sustained this army….If I save this army now, I tell you plainly that I owe no thanks to you or to any other persons in Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this army.”

The Civil War Preservation Trust website provides a wealth of information on the battle including images, maps, recommended readings, online resources and scholarly articles. The Official Virginia Civil War Battlefield Guide by John S. Salmon is partially available on Google Books and offers a clear overview of the battle with maps and gives directions and information for visiting the battlefield. One of best reviewed and definitive accounts of the battle is featured in Stephen W. Sears’ To the Gates of Richmond: The Peninsula Campaign. For primary accounts from both sides, consult volume 11 of the Official Records.

Charles Rawn, a lawyer who lived in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, wrote over 11,000 daily entries between 1830 and 1865. The entire journal is now online thanks to the efforts of Pennsylvania University State Professor Michael Barton and the Historical Society of Dauphin County, Pennsylvania. Rawn, who was born in Georgetown in July 1802, moved to Harrisburg in 1826 and got married seven years later. His journal entries largely contain notes about his daily life – from various legal matters to financial expenditures. While “he rarely mentioned grand ideas or personal feelings in his daily record,” Professor Barton argues that “[these] records are valuable guides to understanding everyday life in antebellum America.” Rawn was a “record keeper rather than a story teller,” as Baron explains. Yet Rawn’s journals include some interesting notes about political events in Harrisburg, including President-Elect Abraham Lincoln’s visit in 1861. On February 22 Rawn described:

“[Lincoln] rode in a Barouche drawn by 6 White Horses to Coverlys Hotel where he was addressed by Gov. Curtain & [replied?]. The enthusiasm of the people was perfectly and literally wild & unrestrainable…. Altogether it was such a day & time as Harrisburg has never before witnessed. The number Military here in time of the Buckshot Wars was approached nearly perhaps to the number here yesterday. Mr. L’s appearance is younger considerably than was generally expected and he is not so tall [nor so?] Rawboned as we had been given to believe from his pictures and what we had read.”

In addition, Rawn took detailed notes when he traveled into Virginia three months after Confederates attacked Fort Sumter in April 1861. On July 22, 1861, the day after the First Battle of Bull Run, Rawn observed:

“Dead, wounded and dying being brought in continually. I saw several of the wounded. One man with a Buck shot in the neck….From all accounts which of course are measurably wild and unforgettable [?] in a degree the slaughter on both sides has been immense—in the thousands. There was desperate fighting—desperate fright in some quarters and desperate getting out of the way in all many directions and in all imaginable disorder by some of our troops as I make out by the statements.”

The Battle of Milliken’s Bend took place on June 7, 1863 in Madison Parish, Louisiana and represented one of the most famous and courageous episodes for Black troops during the Civil War. While the opposition of Black troops in the Union Army persisted, the effort and bravery of the soldiers at Milliken’s Bend inspired the Union, beginning to convince the nation of the merit of Black troops and debunking the myth that Black soldiers would not fight.

In order to boost the strength of his Army for an attack on the Confederate-controlled city of Vicksburg, Union General Ulysses S. Grant stripped his forts along the Mississippi river including the 150-yard wide Union camp Milliken’s Bend that laid fifteen feet above the right bank of the Mississippi. Of the 1410 soldiers left at Milliken’s Bend, 160 were whites, a part of the 23rd Iowa. The others were ex-slaves from Mississippi and Louisiana that were organized into three incomplete regiments, the 9th and 11th Louisiana and the 1st Mississippi.

The Confederates launched an attack on Milliken’s Bend on the night of June 6 led by Confederate Brigadier General Henry E. McCulloch who planned to attack at night to avoid the heat and reduce the amount of assistance the fort’s defenders could receive from the Union gunboats. By 2:30 AM on June 7, the Confederate regiments encountered the Union pickets. With the order to withhold their fire until the Rebels were within musket-shot range, the battle turned into a bloody and scathing hand-to-hand fight noted as the longest bayonet-charge engagement of the war. By noon, the Federal warship Choctaw sent by Acting Rear Admiral David D. Porter turned the tide of battle firing shells on the Confederate Army causing the soldiers, already exhausted from the extreme heat to retreat.

The estimated casualties were high for the Black troops. Union Colonel Herman Lieb’s 9th Louisiana regiment sustained 66 killed and 62 mortally wounded, almost 45 percent of the entire regiment. Despite their losses, the greater significance of the battle lies with the effort and gallantry of the Black troops. Admiral Porter described the aftermath in a letter to General Grant, “The dead Negroes lined the ditch inside of the parapet or levee and were mostly shot on the top of the head. In front of them, close to the levee, lay an equal number of rebels, stinking in the sun.”

The Battle of Milliken’s Bend produced a change in army sentiment about Black troops that gradually echoed throughout the Union. Assistant Secretary of War Charles A. Dana noted their accomplishment proclaiming, “The bravery of the blacks at Milliken’s Bend completely revolutionized the sentiment of the arm with regard to the employment of negro troops.” One of the most widespread testimonies on the battle was from Captain M.M. Miller, a white captain of the 9^th Louisiana who commented, “I never more wish to hear the expression ‘the nigger won’t fight.” Come with me a 100 yards from where I sit and I can show you the wounds that cover the bodies of 16 as brave, loyal and patriotic soldiers as ever drew bead on a rebel.” Black historian W.E. DuBois eloquently described the transformation of the Black solider from slave to man:

“He was called a coward and a fool when he protected the women and children of his master. But when he rose and fought and killed, the whole nation proclaimed him a man and brother. Nothing else made emancipation possible in the United States. Nothing else made Negro citizenship conceivable, but the record of the Negro soldier as a fighter.”

A useful general interest website for teachers and students appears online at Milliken’s Bend:  Honoring the Contributions of Black Soldiers in the Civil War (edited by Louis Elloie, Jr.)

One of the more complete descriptions of the battle can be found in Benjamin Quarles’ The Negro in the Civil War, one of the leading secondary sources on Black troops which is partially available of Google Books. Martha M. Bigelow’s article “The Significance of Milliken’s Bend in the Civil War” provides a good overview on the battle and highlights the significance of the Negro troops. For primary materials on the battle, teachers should utilize the Official Records, volume 24 for reports on the battle including ones from Union Admiral David Porter and Confederate General Henry E. McCulloch. Also available from the Library of Congress are the Papers of Cyrus Sears, 11th Louisiana.

On November 23-25, 1863 the Battle of Chattanooga took place in Hamilton County, Tennessee.  Beginning in late September, the Confederate forces under the direction of General Braxton Bragg  placed Major General William Rosecrans’s Union forces under siege and cut off its supply line.  In October and November, Union General Ulysses S. Grant and the Union soldiers were able to capture Orchard Knob, Lookout Mountain, and also forced the Confederates off of Missionary Ridge.  The National Park Service’s website provides an overview of the battle as well as information on planning a visit to the battlefield.  The website also offers two pamphlets that may be useful: The Campaign for Chattanooga (1932) and Chickamauga and Chattanooga Battlefields (1956). The battle could be connected to a lesson on Sherman’s March to the Sea in 1864 since Union General William T. Sherman was able to use Chattanooga as the base for his march as a result of the Union victory in 1863.  Grant commented on Chattanooga in his memoirs:

“Sherman had, as already stated, crossed to the north side of the Tennessee River at Brown’s ferry, in full view of the troops on Missionary Ridge until they met their assault.  Bragg knew it was Sherman’s troops that had crossed, and, they being so long out of view, may have supposed that they had gone up the north bank of the Tennessee River to the relief of Knoxville and that Longstreet was therefore in danger.  But the first great blunder, detaching Longstreet, cannot be accounted for in any way I know of.  If he had captured Chattanooga, East Tennessee would have fallen without a struggle.  It would have been a victory for us to have got our army away from Chattanooga safely.  It was a manifold greater victory to drive away the besieging army; a still greater one to defeat that army in his chosen ground and nearly annihilate it.” 

Some other resources that may be helpful to browse are Battles and Leaders of the Civil War which gives a firsthand account of the campaign and battle from General Grant, and Three Days Battle at Chattanooga which provides a copy of the dispatch on the battle from General Meigs to the Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton.  The Library of Congress’s website contains a few different letters with transcriptions, including one from General Grant reporting the beginning of the conflict and one reporting its end.  Also, the Civil War Preservation Trust’s website provides historical articles on the battle, including “Chattanooga, Lookout Mountain, and Missionary Ridge Battles” that gives a detailed summary of the actions and consequences for the Union and Confederate forces at each location.

James Smith Colwell, who worked as a lawyer in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, was one of the men who answered President Abraham Lincoln’s call for 75,000 volunteers after Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861. Colwell joined the Carlisle Fencibles, a local volunteer company under the command of Robert Henderson, as a first lieutenant. Six weeks later the Fencibles left Carlisle for Camp Wayne in West Chester, Pennsylvania, where they received training and were designated Company A of the 7th Regiment, Pennsylvania Reserve Corps. His wife, Ann, had not been happy with that decision. “You left me without talking about it,” as Ann reminded him. While James admitted that “[he] err[ed] frequently,” he observed that “it [was] nearly always an error of the judgment & not of the heart.” Yet in this case he argued that it was impossible to get out of the army. “I do not see how I could get out of the service without bring[ing] disgrace and dishonour on myself & my little family,” as Colwell explained. Colwell had in mind his four children – two sons and two daughters. Colwell’s oldest daughter, Nannie, was about six years old in December 1861 when she announced in her “first letter” that she “[could] read” and “[sent him] a big kiss.” Colwell was able to return to Carlisle on furlough, but on September 17, 1862 he died during the Battle of Antietam. Local newspapers published obituaries, including the Carlisle (PA) American, which noted that “[Colwell’s] high moral character and exemplary life had made him a bright example in our midst.”When Civil War veterans in Carlisle established a local chapter of the Grand Army of the Republic in February 1881, they decided to call it the Captain Colwell Post.

The Battle of Spotsylvania took place from May 8-21, 1864 in Spotsylvania County, Virginia following the Battle of the Wilderness.  Union General Ulysses S. Grant and his forces attacked Confederate General Robert E. Lee during Grant’s attempt to advance to Richmond.  Although the fighting was fierce the Confederate Army was unable to stop the progress of the Union troops as Grant was able to continue moving towards Richmond on May 21.  The National Park Service’s website provides an overview of the battle as well as links to a virtual tour of the battleground.  Also included is information for visiting the battlefield which may be valuable for teachers looking to plan a field trip to the area.  The Civil War Preservation Trust’s website has historical maps as well as a collection of photographs with different markers and monuments located in the battlegrounds.  Gordon C. Rhea commented on the significance of the battle in his book The Battles for Spotsylvania Courthouse and the Road to Yellow Tavern:

“Grant’s simple message carried the matter-of-fact assurance that the general meant to stay the course.  He was holding true to his clear vision of the road to victory.  The Wilderness had sorely tested his resolve, and after two days of bitter combat he was forced to concede that Lee had maneuvered him to impasse.  But he wisely recognized that the Wilderness was just a tactical reverse, not the end of the campaign.  Grant’s strategic objective of destroying Lee’s army remained unchanged.  His task now was to find another way to bring the wily Virginian to battle on terms more favorable to the Federals.”

Another resource which may be useful is The War of the Rebellion: a Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies which provides several letters of correspondence between different commanding officers during the Battle of Spotsylvania.  James McPherson’s Battle Cry of Freedom, available in limited view on Google Books, gives another overview of the battle and its participants.   Also, the Library of Congress’s collection of Lincoln Papers provides a few different original letters along with transcriptions regarding the battle including one from General Grant to President Abraham Lincoln that gives Grant’s personal account of the Union Army’s progress.