Did he fight at Lookout Mountain or dine with the colonel?

The Lybarger family legend about my great-grandfather’s experience at Missionary Ridge in 1863 makes an exciting story — but what really happened is even better.

In the 1990s, my aunt wrote a “Biographical Sketch of Hon. Edwin Lewis Lybarger,” recounting his service in the Forty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry in the Civil War, and his many accomplishments after the war. Presumably from the stories her father told her about her grandfather, she wrote:

“Lybarger participated in the battle of Missionary Ridge in the Chattanooga campaign. He notes in his diary that those in his company knew the battle of Lookout Mountain (the “Battle Above the Clouds”) on November 24, 1863, was in progress across the valley. They could hear it and see the smoke, but the clouds were so thick they could not tell whether the Union troops were succeeding or failing. The next day, under General Grant’s command, they stormed the heights and took Missionary Ridge on November 25, 1863.”

A decade later, in a box of Civil War papers and memorabilia unopened for years, I discovered the first clue that this account might not be true: a 4″x6″ thin, single sheet of paper with a handwritten invitation from Col. Wager Swayne, commander of the 43^rd OVI.

Headquarters 43^rd O.V.I., Nov. 25^th 1863

Lieutenant, Will you do me the favor to dine with me tomorrow at 2 P.M.

Very respectfully, Your obedient servant

Wager Swayne, Co. 43^rdOhio

I knew that my great-grandfather revered Col. Swayne, since he named his only son Harry Swayne Lybarger, and they corresponded for years. But why would he keep a dinner invitation for the rest of his life?

The letter was written from “Hdqts, 43^rd OVI,” on Nov. 25, for a dinner to be served on Nov. 26, a Thursday. The fourth Thursday of November.

I remember shivering with the thrill of discovery — that this date was the first official Thanksgiving Day. The colonel was gathering the regiment’s officers to comply with President Lincoln’s Proclamation of Thanksgiving, issued Oct. 3, 1863. I felt like I was almost touching a paper that Lincoln had touched.

But if the 43^rd OVI was calmly in headquarters in Prospect, Tennessee planning a Thanksgiving dinner, it couldn’t have been in battle the next day, 300 miles away in Chattanooga.

Entries in Edwin Lybarger’s daily journal for 1863 confirmed my conclusion:

Nov. 17: In camp at Prospect, Tenn. Heavy details at work repairing rail road bridge.

Nov. 18: Nothing of importance going. Have plenty to eat and nothing much to do but write letters and study logic.

Nov. 25: Two years in the service today. Received in invitation to dine with Col. Swayne tomorrow. Accepted.

Nov. 26: “Thanksgiving day.” Dined with Col. Swayne together with all the officers of the 43d. & Col. Fuller our brigad[e] commander. Had a splendid dinner, served up in good style, to which I think I did ample justice.

I don’t know if my aunt heard the Missionary Ridge story from my grandfather, or read it in another account of the war. In any case, Edwin Lybarger participated in numerous Civil War battles, but not the one on Lookout Mountain.

In a biography for his children, my grandfather Harry Swayne Lybarger wrote:

“My father never said much about his war experience, but he kept a diary in four little books, which are in the safe and should never be destroyed. They are very matter of fact and he didn’t seem to yield to any literary flaire. He did not hate the South but he felt pretty keenly the injustice of the war that the south began, and never visited it again.”

Late in life, my aunt remembered the diaries, but not where they were, perhaps loaned to someone and never returned. By accident, cleaning out her closet, I found four small black books lying in the bottom of a cardboard box. Eureka. I also found my aunt’s start at transcription, unfinished. Grumbling that my great-grandfather’s a’s and o’s all looked like u’s, and that the crossing of a T never matched the upright, I nevertheless managed to transcribe all four diaries. I think I must have been the only member of the family to actually read every entry. And I loved the discovery that when he published “Leaves from my Diary,” containing his account of the March to the Sea and war’s end, he edited out any disparaging remark he made about the conduct and discipline of fellow soldiers.

Facts to fiction:

Read an excerpt of Jennifer Wilke’s historical novel-in-progress, The Color of Prayer,

inspired by these historical facts and Edwin Lybarger’s Civil War diaries.

Feb 14 2012

Advice from an Old Soldier

Four veterans of Company K, 43rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry

Photograph taken @ 1900. From left: EDWIN L. LYBARGER (enlisted 11/25/61 at age 21), JAMES DIAL (enlisted 11/4/61 at age 26), FRANCIS LOGSDON (enlisted 11/1/61, age 20), LEO BLUBAUGH (enlisted 12/12/61 at age 18). These Ohio veterans enlisted together at Camp Andrews (near Mount Vernon, Ohio) in late 1861, in a Knox County company being raised by William Walker, who served as captain until spring 1862. Company K joined the 43rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry and left Ohio in Feb. 1862. With 3 other Ohio regiments, they formed the “Ohio Brigade,” commanded by Col. John Fuller. They served for the duration of the war, mustering out together on July 13, 1865.

~ ~ ~ ~

The following letter was published in the New York Times the month the war began in 1861, written by a veteran soldier who remained anonymous.

April 24, 1861

To the Editor of the New York Times:

Allow an old soldier who has seen service to offer a few practical suggestions to our men who are marching South.

Avoid drinking water as much as possible while marching. When you feel dry rinse your mouth with water, but do not swallow it. Water alone should not be drank, but mixed with vinegar; or a little cold coffee is the only wholesome beverage in a campaign.

While marching or on sentry never sit down for a second-bear up! The change of posture will affect your powers more than the actual marching.

Have plenty of buttons, needle and thread, rags of linen and some strong twine in your knapsack — you will all want it.

White linen gaiters over brogans are the best, boots offering too much reflection to the sun’s rays. The gaiters are made white and shiny again by applying a mixture of common chalk and water with a rag or sponge, and let the gaiter get dry under the air or sun.

If you have a long march in warm weather before you, cut off the body of your pantaloons to the middle of the thigh and sew the legs to your drawers, fastening the suspenders to the drawers, it will relieve you greatly. Drawers are essential.

Keep a vial of sweet oil and every night rub your gun with a rag dipped in oil. In the morning, or when starting, rub a cream, it is the best way to preserve it from rust and keep it in working order. When not using it put a piece of cork or something else in the mouth of your gun to keep out the dust, rain, &c.

When marching, put some of the weight you have to carry on your breast — for instance, part of the cartridges, so as to relieve and counterpoise the weight to be carried.

Have some lard in a small tin box to grease your boots or shoes with, to keep them smooth and sort, particularly in wet weather or passing through a swampy country.

When on the march never let a weak comrade get behind the company — assist him in carrying on load. When once left behind he is at questionable mercies of the rear guard, and may perish before the ambulance comes up.

Finally, avoid spirituous liquors as you would poison.

Jan 24 2012

Do you make good coffee?

In August of 1863, Union Army Sgt. Edwin Lybarger was on provost guard in Memphis Tennessee with his regiment, the 43rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He advertised in the newspaper for a correspondent of the Fair Sex for “agreeable, interesting and useful correspondence.” His diary gives some indication that he did it on a dare with his friend, Co. K Captain John Rhodes.

Edwin received a reply from a young lady signing herself “Fannie Jerome.” After they had exchanged several letters, “Fannie” revealed her real name to be Lou Riggen. He confessed his real name, and they continued to correspond for the duration of the war. She seems to have resisted his appeals to send him her ”likeness” (photograph).

In 1864, he wrote to Lou to learn more details about her accomplishments, abilities, and sensibilities:

Do you like music? Play on the piano? Can you bake bread?

Can you bake mince pies? Make good coffee?

Keep house? Can you eat your share of a dinner?

Do you like History, Poetry, or Novels best?

What church to you belong to?

On Sept. 29, 1864, Lou Riggen answered his letter:

Keep house? I once kept house for six months to the edification of the whole family except Lou Riggen. My! what an endless task of intricate labor. Brooms, carpets, beds, cobwebs, dinners, suppers, breakfasts, with all their attendant auxiliaries of good butter, sweet milk, done bread & not burnt either. ‘To be or not to be’ good was always the dread question until dinner stood in all its dread array on the table. Sometimes it was and sometimes it wasn’t.

Edwin and Lou corresponded for the rest of the war. Their plan to meet on his way home in the summer of 1865 was not accomplished. He continued to correspond with Lou after returning to Ohio and, apparently reluctant to end their correspondence, finally told her had married another girl. Her response, her last letter, eloquently expresses her dismay that he had ignored her request to return her letters to her.

The letters written to Union officer Edwin Lybarger from 1862-1866

by Lou Riggen and other women,

are published, with historical social commentary, in

WANTED–CORRESPONDENCE:

Letters to a Union Soldier (Swallow Press, 2009).

Jan 13 2012

Portraits of heroes

After the Civil War, my great-grandfather Edwin L. Lybarger compiled a portrait album of the Union Army commanders and friends he admired. The album has a tooled, hard leather cover and measures 5″ wide, 6″ high and 2″ thick, latched with two elaborate gold hinges. The album contains one carte de visite per page, each in its own gold-edged pocket. A numbered index identifies most of the photographs, although some need no introduction.

Page 1: Abraham Lincoln

Edwin Lybarger was a staunch Lincoln supporter. From his diary:

Nov. 8, 1864: In camp near Marietta, Ga. Election day. Voted for “Ole Abe.”

From Wisconsin soldier Ed Leving’s diary: “A soldier who votes for McClellan, is looked upon by his comrades as an ignoramus or a coward & wants to get out of the service & so votes for McClellan.”

The former Union general of the Army of the Potomac was the Peace Democrats’ candidate, and veteran soldiers wanted nothing to do with him or his party. President Lincoln was re-elected with the vote of 86% of the soldiers, and 55% of the total vote. Within a week, Sherman led his army on the March to the Sea. (from The March to the Sea and Beyond by Joseph Glathaar, 1985)

Page 3: Gen. William T. Sherman

In his diary, Edwin records the night of March 5, 1865 in Cheraw, South Carolina, when he met Gen. Sherman face to face and was impressed by the general’s “colloquial powers.”

Page 4: Brig. Gen. James McPherson

During the Union’s Atlanta campaign in 1864, McPherson took command of the Army of theTennessee, reporting to Gen. Sherman.

From Lt. Edwin Lybarger’s diary:

June 22, 1864: Moved from Roswell Ga.to the front. The Army of the Tenn. attacked by the rebs. Gen. McPherson killed. The enemy repulsed with terrible slaughter. Our Brigade (Sprague’s) driven out of Decaturwith a loss of 254 men. The 43^rd came up too late to participate.

June 23: Marched in to Decatur found the enemy had left. Buried our dead and brought off our wounded. Tore up the railroads for twenty miles towards Augusta Ga.

Page 5: Col. John Fuller

From Aug. 1861, Fuller was colonel of the 27th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, a regiment with six month’s experience in the field by March 1862, when Edwin’s 43rd OVI left Ohio for the first time and arrived in Missouri. Gen. Pope, commanding the Army of the Mississippi, banded the 27th Ohio, 39th Ohio, 43rd Ohio and 63rd Ohiointo a brigade. In July 1862, Col. Fuller, formerly a book publisher in Toledo, Ohio, was given command of the Ohio Brigade.

Page 10: Col. Joseph L. Kirby Smith, 43^rdOhio Volunteer Infantry (1862)

Colonel Smith, a West Point and Pennsylvania man, was the first colonel of the 43rd OVI, greatly admired by the Ohio men in his command. At the second Battle of Corinth, on Oct. 4, 1862 he was shot in the head and fell from his white horse while rallying the regiment. Amid the hard-fought battle, word swept the regiment that Smith had been killed. Lt. Col. Wager Swayne filled the breach to rally the stunned regiment and successfully defend Battery Robinett, helping the Union win the battle. To the regiment’s relief, Col. Smith had not been killed on the field, but sadly succumbed to his moral wounds on Oct. 12, 1862.

Page 11: Col. Wager Swayne, 43^rdOhio Volunteer Infantry (1862-1865)

A lieutenant colonel in the 43rd OVI during the second Battle of Corinth that mortally wounded Col. Smith, Swayne became its colonel after Col. Smith died. On Feb. 3, 1865, Swayne was severely wounded while crossing the swampy Salkahatchie River in South Carolina. While helped to an ambulance wagon, he kept repeating, “The Lord sustains me.” He was successfully evacuated to New York City, losing his leg but surviving.

My great-grandfather admired Swayne more than any other officer, as evidence that he named his only son Harry Swayne Lybarger. Family documents include a letter from Swayne to Edwin and his first wife Sophronia after the war, assuring him that he’s very much looking forward to meeting “little Wager,” presumably an infant son who was his namesake. But little Wager must have died in infancy; the family has no other evidence or information about him. Edwin and Sophronia had no other children before her death in 1882.

Harry Swayne Lybarger, born in Spring Mountain, Ohio, was Edwin’s only child with his second wife, Nancy Moore, born when she was 44 years old and Edwin was 48. Years later, Harry wrote: “I met the great Colonel Swayne once at Mount Vernon, Ohio, in 1897, when he came from his law office in New York City to attend the Grand Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic of Ohio, the year my father was its commander.”

Page 12: Col. Horace Park, 43^rd OVI (1865)

Park began the war as captain of Company F in the 43rd OVI, from Oct. 1861, an indication that he helped to raise the company (100 volunteers). He was the regiment’s lieutenant colonel when Col. Swayne was wounded in South Carolina, assumed command and was promoted to colonel. He mustered out with the regiment on July 13, 1865.

Page 14: Lt. Col. John H. Rhodes, 43^rd OVI (and former Co. K captain)

John Rhodes began the war as a sergeant in Company B of the 43rd regiment, then became captain of Company K in early 1862, after the illness and resignation of the first (and recruiting) captain, William Walker. Rhodes was a lieutenant colonel of the regiment by the end of the war, and mustered out with the regiment on July 13, 1865.

A sketch of Sgt. Edwin Lybarger reading an Army manual is signed “J.H.Rhodes.”

John Rhodes and Edwin Lybarger remained lifelong friends.

Page 16: Dr. Francis M. Rose, Surgeon, 43^rd OVI (1862-1865). Dr. Rose probably saved Edwin’s life and leg after he was wounded at the 2nd Battle of Corinth in 1862.

Dec 30 2011

“I shall send you my likeness once you send me yours.”

During the Civil War, it could be risky business for a young lady to give her photograph to a soldier, who wanted it for company, for the memory of home, to keep his hope of returning to her. The romantic implications were serious, implying a promise or even an engagement. And should romantic fancies fade, as they so often do, a girl’s reputation might be seriously tarnished if her unreturned photograph was in the possession of a less than scrupulous man.

A solider had his “likeness” or “shadow” taken in uniform, by photographers and in studios as he could find them. Many men had a new photograph taken with each rise in rank. A respectable young lady had her photograph taken in studios with backdrops and furniture, in genteel poses. Less respectable young ladies were photographed wearing only a smile, a furtive photographic pleasure for many a soldier far from home and the watchfulness of nice girls.

Out of fashion by the mid-1850′s, daguerreotypes were images made on a copper plate. Delicate to preserve, they were usually kept in small hinged, velvet-lined padded cases, with protective glass cover.

In the 1850′s and through the war, ambrotypes were made on glass plates, the image looking like a negative until blacking was painted onto the glass, the reflecting silver making it a positive image. These were often hand-tinted. Tintypes, on a metal plate, made an image with a dim tone and grey highlights, but they were more durable and cheap, and were sturdy enough to put into an envelope and mail.

Invented in 1851, the wet collodion photographic process gradually replaced the other types of photography. This process produced a glass negative and a beautifully detailed print. Given the quality of the prints and the ease with which they could be reproduced from the glass plates, the method thrived from the 1850s until about 1880.

Popular from 1860 on, a carte de visite was an albumen print, a 2-1/2″ x 4″ print on cardboard. The camera could make 8 separate negatives on single plate, so these images were faster to process and cheaper to buy. “Cardomania,” they called the fad, as it became popular to give away one’s portrait. Cartes de visite were also sold of celebrities: President Lincoln, General Grant, Queen Victoria.

Demonstration of wet plate collodion photography.

Jan 21 2011

650 Buried Here

CAMP LAWTON, near Millen, Georgia, a Confederate prison camp for Union soldiers

October - November, 1864

When Sherman’s 17th Army Corps arrived at Camp Lawton in early December 1864, eager to liberate Union prisoners, they discovered the camp abandoned. In a long trench, they found a plank with the inscription “650 Buried Here.” Sherman’s order to burn the railroad station and government buildings in Millen was reportedly in retaliation at this news.

From the diary of Lt. Edwin L. Lybarger, 43rd OVVI, Mower’s Brigade, 17th Army Corps, Army of the Tennessee:

Dec. 1, 1864: On the march; the 1st and 4th divisions of the 17th A.C. [Army Corps] tearing up railroad; camped on Jones’ plantation, said to be one of the finest in the state.

Dec. 2: On the march; camped at Millen, Ga., where we had a slight skirmish. The railroad and all government property destroyed.

Dec. 3: Marched to a station numbered 7. Encamped for the night. Forage plenty, soil sandy, affording abundance of sweet potatoes; we didn’t take any, no, not any.

From The Colonel’s Diary, by Col. Oscar Jackson, 63rd OVVI:

Dec. 1, 1864: Move east at the usual hour. We are tearing up the Georgia Central Railroad. Our division today destroyed from the 95th to the 91st mile post from Savannah and went into camp on Judge Cook’s plantation, seven miles from the camp of last night.

Dec. 2: My company on forage duty today. Getting to the head of the column before it reached the town of Millen, Georgia, I asked permission to enter in advance of the troops to see what I could find, which condition was granted by the General in command on condition that I would keep my company well together and be cautious as I was told that the enemy had been there a few hours previous and it was not yet known that they were gone…While I was occupying the town, the enemy ran a train down near town and raised a little excitement for us…Millen is one of the noted pens the rebels have been keeping our prisoners in. The stockade is north of the town where, it is said, they did have twenty thousand. They have been removed to Savannah, the last train load only being got off this forenoon before I got into town. The railroad from Augusta intersects the Georgia Central here and there are find depot buildings, but the town, I should think never had over two thousand inhabitants, and it was completely sacked after our troops occupied it.

Dec. 3: Our corps is burning the depot, destroying the railroad, etc. General Sherman is around watching how it is done. He is a very plain, unassuming man and today is in undress uniform but has that big shirt collar on as usual. His order to General Blair this morning was to make the destruction “tenfold more devilish” that he had ever dreamed of, as this is one of the places they have been starving our prisoners. Reach camp this evening near station number 7, Scarborough, some eight miles from Millen.

from Sherman’s March by Burke Davis, Vintage Books (1988):

“[Division cavalry commander Hugh J.] Kilpatrick turned to his assignment to rescue Federal prisoners in the filthy pens at the crossroads settlement of Millen–where many survivors of the now abandoned Andersonville prison had been taken. The cavalry was too late As his riders on the banks of the Ogeechee, Kilpatrick saw the last of the prisoners being herded into boxcars by Confederates on the opposite side of the stream…

Chaplain Bradley climbed to one of the guard posts and looked down on the huts and holes where prisoners had lived: ‘It made my heart ache . . . such miserable hovels, hardly fit for swine to live in.’ He saw the shed where prisoners had been punished with stocks for seven men, ‘and they appeared to be well worn.’ Bradley heard men cursing Davis and the rebels as they left the place…

Captain Storrs of the 20th Connecticut, who drank some of the ‘very bad-tasting water’ from the stream, thought the rebels had chosen the swampy site to hasten the deaths of prisoners from malaria: ‘I am afraid if the soldiers generally could visit this pen there would be no quarter given beyond here.’

John Potter of the 101st Illinois wandered over the ground in a vain search for souvenirs: ‘It was the barest spot I ever saw. The trees and stumps and roots to the smallest fiber had been dug out for fuel, not a rag or a button or even a chip could be found.’

Alex Downing, almost sickened by the sight of the pen, was one who helped to destroy it: ‘We burned everything here a match would ignite.’ Not long afterward, some of Slocum’s men burned most of the village of Millen, including the hotel, depot and other buildings. They also burned a plantation house on the outskirts, and shot a pack of bloodhounds they found there.”

Mar 22 2010

The colloquial power of Gen. Sherman

In his diary of March 5, 1865, my great-grandfather Lt. Edwin L. Lybarger, 43rd OVI, recorded an evening in the company of Gen. Sherman:

“Headquarters 43^rd at a Mr. Woodwards in Cheraw, who had a letter from Gen. Hardee recommending the family to the clemency of Gen. Sherman. Sherman called in the evening and we had the pleasure of hearing the colloquial power of Gen. Sherman. He conversed for half an hour in an easy manner with Mr. Woodward and his Mother-in-law, but showing in every thing he said, his implacable hatred of the rebel cause.”

He said among other things that he did not want the South to come back in the Union, for we could drive them out and people the country with a better race. That all the men, women and children in Charleston ought to have been killed and the city destroyed when they fired on Sumpter and [we] would have had no war and that he should pursue his vocation with perseverance while the war lasted. When asked where he expected to go next, he replied, “I have about 60,000 men out there and I intend to go pretty much where I please.”

The 17^th Corps crossed the great Peedee and camped on the East bank.”

Sep 22 2009

Aunt Nancy’s 90th birthday brought the good news

On Sept. 17, 2005, her 90th birthday, Nancy Lybarger Rhoades received the news that Swallow Press at Ohio University would publish the Lybarger Civil War letters, a project she had nurtured for many years.

Nancy Rhoades (1915-2007) was the granddaughter of Edwin Lewis Lybarger (1840-1924), who served in the 43rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, 1862-1865. In 1991, in a trunk in her attic, she discovered 168 letters written by several dozen women family members, friends, and sweethearts to Edwin throughout the war.

Nancy transcribed these letters, and they were published in 2009 by Ohio University’s Swallow Press, with a social commentary by Lucy E. Bailey, on the significance of women’s war work in the North during the Civil War.

WANTED–CORRESPONDENCE: Women’s Letters to a Union Soldier

Edited by Nancy L. Rhoades and Lucy E. Bailey

Fact to Fiction:

Aunt Nancy let me read the transcripts in 1996, and I read late into the night. By morning, I felt committed to writing about this family history. Since we didn’t have Edwin’s letters, only those he received and saved, I determined to write a novel in order to tell his story too.

My aunt was always the keeper of the family flame, and had been a reference librarian most of her life. It took me several years to gain her permission to write Edwin’s story as fiction. In addition to the letters, she trusted me with Edwin’s other war papers, and I made some great discoveries.

My best discoveries were Edwin’s daily journals, which Nancy thought had been lost, loaned to someone and never returned. But when I saw four small bound notebooks in the bottom of a box, I knew immediately what they were. They were written over four years, 1862 through 1865, a mainly straightforward log of his whereabouts each day. I spent several months transcribing them, my progress impeded by Edwin’s often illegible handwriting. But the ink was durable, I was persistent, and I eventually succeeded in discovering Edwin’s day by day itinerary throughout the war. This became the accurate bones for my novel.

Some years have passed since I first read the Lybarger letters, but after extensive research and several revised drafts, I have completed a novel that is based on Edwin Lybarger’s Civil War diaries and letters. The title has evolved from Civilities to The Arithmetic to The Color of Prayer.

I hope Aunt Nancy would be pleased.

Jul 14 2009

Stealing men’s hearts

In 1909, my great-grandfather Edwin Lybarger and his wife Nancy (Moore) traveled from Warsaw to Newark, Ohio for the GAR Encampment of Civil War veterans. They stayed with Uriah Brillhart and his wife Ida (Severn). The Brillhart family had lived in Spring Mountain, and Uriah would have been a young boy when Edwin returned in 1865 at the end of the war.

Among his papers, Edwin kept this old newspaper clipping:

“Capt. E. L. Lybarger at last is the possessor of a pretty little maltese kitten. For several years the Captain has been the lover of beautiful cats but could not keep them in his possession. He has bought them, had them given to him by the dozens but something happened to each of them, they either died or strayed away to some other place.

Capt. Lybarger was attending the G.A.R. encampment at Newark, Ohio this week and one day he was visiting at the home of Mr. and Mrs. Uriah Brillhart. The Brillharts owned a little maltese kitten which as soon as was seen by the captain captivated his heart. The Captain told Mr. Brillhart of his luck with cats and said that if he had any way of taking the kitten home with him that he would steal it. The conversation was then turned to other topics and the subject was dropped.

When the Capt. And Mrs. Lybarger were getting aboard their train for home Friday, Mr. Brillhart handed the general a small box saying that it was a souvenir of the encampment. After the train pulled out the box was opened and there snuggled up within the box was the baby cat. The captain carried the kitten home with him and it is now drinking milk and eating strawberry short cake.”

~ ~ ~ ~

Abraham Lincoln loved cats and could play with them for hours. When asked if her husband had a hobby, Mary Todd Lincoln replied, “cats.”

President Lincoln visited General Grant at City Point,Virginia in March of 1865. The Civil War was drawing to a close and the enormous task of reuniting the country lay ahead, yet the President made time to care for three orphaned kittens. Abraham Lincoln noticed three stray kittens in the telegraph hut. Picking them up and placing them in his lap, he asked about their mother. When the President learned that the kittens’ mother was dead, he made sure the kittens would be fed and a good home found for them.

Jun 30 2009

Col. Wager Swayne, 43rd OVI

From the journal of Harry Swayne Lybarger, son of Edwin L. Lybarger, 43rd OVI:

“[My father's] first Colonel Smith, a Westpointer, was killed in action. His next colonel, Wager Swayne, he probably thought more of than any man living, so much so that he named his only son Harry Swayne Lybarger.

Col. Swayne lost a leg from a cannon ball shot, crossing a bridge, on a charge ordered by General Mower, which my father always said was unnecessary. I met the great colonel once at Mt. Vernon, Ohio, in 1897, when he came from his law office in New York City to attend the Grand Encampment of the GAR while my father was Grand Commander of Ohio.”

Oct. 4, 1862

(2nd) Battle of Corinth, Mississippi, Oct. 4, 1862

After days of hard marching, on Oct. 3, 1862 the Ohio (Fuller’s) Brigade arrived in Corinth, Mississippi late in the day on Oct. 3 after the Army of the Mississippi’s fight with the enemy had come to a stop for the night. One of four regiments in the brigade, the 43rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry was commanded by a West Pointer, Col. J. L. Kirby Smith, and Lt. Col. Wager Swayne, an Ohio man.

In 1887, John W. Fuller recounted the battle in “Our Kirby Smith,” an address to Ohio Commandery of the GAR (Union veterans):

“The Ohio Brigade was ordered to the crest crowned by Battery Robinet, to resist any further advance of the enemy. Col. Smith’s regiment was formed on the left of Battery Robinet, facing on the west; the other regiments of the Brigade (63rd, 27th, 39th Ohio) were to the right of the Battery facing to the north…As soon as it was light enough to see, our own batteries drove the Rebels back…As the Ohio Brigade occupied the crest of a ridge near the center of Rosecrans’ line of battle, we had a magnificent view of the enemy as he came out of the woods, in fine style, and marched over and through the obstructions with such noticeable gallantry. Our guns were all turned in that direction…[Col. Smith was executing the order to 'change front forward' to face the advancing enemy.] An enemy column which advanced along the west side of the road got close to the battery, and our men sheltered themselves behind stumps and logs and fired sharply.

‘Those fellows are firing at you Colonel,’ said one of the 43rd’s men. ‘Well, give it to them,’ answered the Colonel and immediately thereafter fell from his horse…I saw some men picking up a wounded officers whose face was stained with blood. I did not then know it was Col. Smith…[Amid shouts that their colonel was shot], the regiment seemed dazed and liable to confusion; but Lt. Col. Wager Swayne immediately began to steady the ranks…”

Fighting was fierce. In his official report, Fuller described the brigade’s impassioned defense of the battery: “…and every rebel who showed his head above the parapet of the fort, or attempted to enter it by the embrasures, got his head shot off.”

Stunned by the loss of Col. Smith, the 43rd rallied behind Lt. Col. Swayne. The Ohio Brigade held Battery Robinet, and Gen. Rosecrans’ Army of the Mississippi won the battle. The 43rd had 25% casualties, the 63rd had 50% casualties. Swayne gained command of the 43rd OVI and the rank of colonel.

Nov. 25, 1863

An invitation to the first national Thanksgiving dinner

Col. Swayne wrote a letter to Lt. Edwin Lybarger, on Nov. 25, 1863, inviting him to dine the following day, Nov. 26. My great-grandfather kept that dinner invitation for the rest of his life, and it took nearly 150 years to find out why. See Lookout Mountain or dinner with the colonel

Feb. 3, 1865

The Bridges, on the Salkahatchie in South Carolina

From Edwin Lybarger’s journal:

Feb. 1, 1865: The Army of Sherman being now in readiness to move started for some point, Sherman and God, only know.

Feb. 2, 1865: The enemy found in our front, harasses us all he can and seems determined to dispute every inch of ground. We lose several in killed and wounded during the day. Notwithstanding the resistance we made about ten miles.

Feb. 3, 1865: The enemy more stubborn than yesterday. Col. Swayne has his right leg carried away by a cannon ball. The first division ordered to cross the Salkahatchie river and drive the enemy from his strong position. Sprague’s Brigade, the 43^rd, in advance took the main road, with a deep swamp on either side. Two rebel batteries were in front completely commanding the road for a distance of half a mile. There were eleven bridges to cross with plank torn off. The last one about 60 yards long over the river and not more than 150 yards from the enemy’s main line. The 1^st and 3^rd brigades were to effect a crossing higher up stream. Two companies of the 43^rd were armed with boards to plank the bridges. Ten men were to carry axes, to cut away the Arbutis, whilst the remainder of the regiment with fixed bayonets were to charge over the bridges, and river, and if possible take the forts. At the same time, the 1^st and 3^rd Brigade were to charge the enemy in front and rear. The 43^rd behaved exceedingly well under most trying circumstances, marched up the only road that was passable under a heavy fire of shot and shell, under which some 20 of our brave soldiers fell. The 63^rdOhio following lost equally severely but the enemy’s works were taken.

THEN now

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