THEN now

It’s a good story, but…

Jennifer Wilke — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 04:27:06 +0000

For many years, the only thing I knew about my great-grandfather was that he had been an Ohio soldier in the Civil War. His granddaughters, my aunt Nancy Lybarger Rhoades, told me two stories about him that she had been told by her father, my grandfather Harry Swayne Lybarger.

My grandfather, Harry Swayne Lybarger (1888-1958), was a high school world history teacher in Coshocton, Ohio. In the decades since he died, I’ve discovered an intriguing trail of Lybarger family history that he fostered and preserved.

Some of my best discoveries were unearthed from boxes stored in my aunt Nancy Lybarger Rhodes’ attic since grandfather’s passing. I eagerly studied every document, letter, page, note, scrap. I learned to read his handwriting and his odd lower case r’s.

The best find was a large ledger book. I held my breath and opened it, thrilled to read:

Early this year, the idea occurred to me that my children might be interested enough in their father’s history and observations of life as he saw it, to read what he might choose to write. Whether they might like to preserve such a record or throw it away, I decided to set it down anyway.

Grandfather began the account of his own life with an account of his father’s life. For six pages. And there the journal ends, alas, unfinished.

But in those six pages, grandfather recorded the stories his father, Edwin Lewis Lybarger, told him about being in the Civil War!

Edwin bought a gallon jug of “mountain dew” from a woman in the South for $10 in Confederate money, and the men in his mess drank it all while singing drinking songs.

Ordered to Chattanooga, father spoke to a southern woman standing with a little girl at a gate on one of the mountain sides. “Madam,” said he, “is this the road to Chattanooga?” Eyes flashing, she replied: “It is if you get there, and if not, (pointing), that is the way back.” Father’s friends kidded him a lot about this.

My grandfather also witnessed first-hand the effects of the battle of Corinth on his father:

A minnie ball went through his knee, and while he was able to return and finish the war, he was always slightly lame, and as a boy, I could always outrun him. From the time I first knew him he carried a cane frequently.

Another anecdote was especially exciting because it put my great-grandfather on the field of battle with General Sherman:

At Kennesaw Mountain, just before the capture of Atlanta, the 43^rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry was drawn up in reserve to follow up the charge made on the breastworks there. As father stood there watching the slaughter and never expecting to come out alive, once the order was given his regiment to advance, General Sherman came riding up. He stopped just in front of where father stood, viewed the scene with his staff through his binoculars and said: “Well, I guess we won’t go up there, boys.” Father said to me, “No words ever were more welcome.”

Except that …

My grandfather’s later account doesn’t match what my great-grandfather recorded in his daily diary in 1864. The battle took place on June 27, 1864, during the siege of Atlanta. It was a rare frontal attack of the enemy, and a rare defeat for Gen. Sherman. It was also his last frontal attack in the war.

But my great-grandfather wasn’t in the battle. He was ill and had been sent to the hospital.

Lt. Edwin Lewis Lybarger’s 1864 diary:

June 25 Saturday: On guard … on the skirmish line. Heavy artillery duel. Our guns silenced the enemy’s three times. Our skirmish line between the two hills, and under the fire of artillery from the front & rear. Had three men wounded in the 43^rd.

June 26 Sunday: Near Kennesaw Mountain. Heavy cannonading. Chills & fever in the evening & sick at night.

June 27 Monday: The regiment ordered to have 60 rounds of cartridges & be ready to march. Very unwell. Ordered to the rear. Went into the field hospital. Hard fighting all along the line.

June 28 Tuesday: In the hospital. Have chill & fever.

June 29 Wednesday: In hospital near Kennesaw Mountain.

June 30 Thursday: In hospital.

July 1 Friday: Left the field hospital for Rome, Ga. On board hog-cars. Got as far as Acworth.

NOTE: Lt. Lybarger did meet Gen. Sherman face to face, in Cheraw, South Carolina in March 1865, an encounter he recorded in his diary. So if he’d seen the general on June 27, it would have been recorded in his diary.

Advice from an Old Soldier

Jennifer Wilke — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:49:49 +0000

CIVIL WAR VETERANS of 43rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Co. K (Knox County) who enlisted at Camp Chase, Ohio in late 1861, saw their first action in Missouri in Feb. 1862 with the Ohio Brigade, followed Gen. Sherman on the March to the Sea and the Carolinas campaign, and mustered out together July 13, 1865 in Louisville, Kentucky. Photo probably taken @1910.

~~~

From left: E. L. Lybarger, enlisted 11/25/61 at age 21; James Dial, enlisted 11/4/61 at age 26; Francis Logsdon, enlisted 11/1/61 at age 20; Leo Blubaugh, enlisted 12/12/61 at age 18.

~~~

ADVICE FROM AN OLD SOLDIER

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.

Be guided by what real people said, and how they said it.

Do you make good coffee?

Jennifer Wilke — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 02:25:50 +0000

What were a woman’s most important qualities in the 1860s, in the eyes of a Union soldier? Edwin Lybarger, an officer in the 43rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, received letters from a dozen Northern women between 1862 and the end of the war in 1865.

These letters are published in WANTED–CORRESPONDENCE: Letters to a Union Soldier.

In August of 1863, Edwin advertised in the newspaper for a correspondent of the Fair Sex for “agreeable, interesting and useful correspondence.”

He 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.

They continued to correspond for the duration of the war. Their plan to meet on his way home to Ohio in the summer of 1865 appears not to have been accomplished. Their correspondence ceased only after his 1867 marriage to a hometown girl.

In 1864, Edwin asked Lou Riggen these questions, presumably those that affected his opinion of a young lady’s 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, she 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 was also impressed by a woman he met in Memphis, Tennessee who chewed tobacco. In more than one of his wartime diary entries, he seems to have been most impressed by women of wit and intelligence who could entertain by performing music, who didn’t talk all the time, and who shared his Union loyalties.

Union soldiers advertised for female correspondents, but even more daring were the young ladies at home who advertised for soldiers to write to them. Some or all of the signatures might be false names on this newspaper solicitation during the war:

The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there. –L. P. Hartley (1895-1972)

How people did and didn’t express their feelings is a great research guide.

Great-grandfather’s photo album

Jennifer Wilke — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 06:04:58 +0000

Edwin Lewis Lybarger (1840-1924), my great-grandfather, compiled a photograph album at the end of the Civil War. He had served for nearly four years in the 43rd Ohio Veteran Volunteer Infantry (1861-65), in the Army of the Mississippi from Feb. 1862 until late that year, then in the Army of the Tennessee until the end of the war. He reached the rank of 1st lieutenant before the March to the Sea, and became the 43rd Ohio’s quartermaster through the Carolinas campaign., rising to the rank of 1st lieutenant and regimental quartermaster during the March to the Sea and the Carolinas campaign.

* * *

As was a common practice, he commemorated the experience in a hard-cover album containing photographs of Union leaders and commanders available for public purchase, as well as photographs received or exchanged with the officers and men he served with in his company, regiment, and brigade. Bound like a book, the album has carved, heavy front and back covers latched with two elaborate gold hinges, one now broken. The album measures 5″ wide, 6″ high, and 2″ thick. Its 50 cardboard pages have ornamented sleeves on each side, able to hold up to 100 photographs. A front handwritten index provides identifications, by page.

page 1, A. LINCOLN

page 3, GEN. SHERMAN

Lt. Edwin Lybarger met Sherman in person on the night of March 5, 1865 in Cheraw, South Carolina, and recorded the evening in his diary, which he self-published years after the war, as “Leaves From My Diary.”

Edwin’s diary entry Mar. 5, 1865:

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.”

page 4, BRIG. GEN. JAMES M. MCPHERSON

page 5, GEN. JOHN W. FULLER, Ohio Brigade

From Aug. 1861, Fuller was colonel of the 27th Ohio Volunteer Infantry, a regiment with six month’s experience and considered veterans when Edwin’s 43rd OVI arrived in Missouri in March, 1862. Gen. Pope , commanding the Army of the Mississippi, put the 27th Ohio, 39th Ohio, 43rd Ohio and 63rd Ohio into a brigade, creating what became well-known as the Ohio Brigade. Fuller assumed its command by July 1862.

43rd OHIO VOLUNTEER INFANTRY

page 10, COL. JOSEPH L. KIRBY SMITH (first colonel)

Colonel Smith, a Pennsylvania man, was the first colonel of the 43rd OVI, greatly admired by the Ohio men in his command. He was shot in the head and fell from his white horse while rallying the regiment at the second Battle of Corinth, Oct. 4, 1862. In the middle of the battle, word swept the regiment that Smith had been killed. Lt. Col. Wager Swayne filled the breach to rally the stunned regiment, to successfully defend Battery Robinett and help win the battle. Relieved to learn later that day that the colonel had not been killed, they were again stunned when he succumbed to his wounds and died on Oct. 12, 1862.

page 11, COL. WAGER SWAYNE, 43rd OVI (second colonel)

A lieutenant colonel in the 43rd OVI during the Battle of Corinth that mortally wounded Col. Smith, Swayne became its colonel after Col. Smith died. Swayne was severely wounded while crossing the swampy Salkahatchie River in South Carolina on Feb. 3, 1865. 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. He headed the Freedman’s Bureau in Alabama after the war, and later resumed his law practice in New York City.

Lt. Edwin Lybarger admired Swayne more than any other officer, according to his son Harry’s writings years later, as evidence that he named his only son Harry Swayne Lybarger. Family documents include a letter from Swayne to Edwin after the war, assuring him that he’s very much looking forward to meeting “little Wager,” presumably an infant son that was his namesake. The family has no other evidence or information about this baby, though. Edwin and Sophronia had no other children before her death in 1882.

Harry Swayne, 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, 43rd OVVI (third colonel)

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

p. 14, LT. COL. JOHN H. RHODES, 43rd OVVI (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 two months after they left Ohio 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. An attorney, he lived the rest of his life in Clyde, Ohio.

At age 78, he wrote a letter to Edwin Lybarger, in Warsaw, Ohio, to apologize that his ill health made it impossible for him to visit as planned. The letter is dated October 4, 1914, the anniversary of the ferocious Battle of Corinth. In his letter fifty-two years later, Rhodes describes his memory of being scared and excited, wielding a sword in one hand and a small revolver in the other, but had never seen the revolver again.

page 17, DR. FRANCIS M. ROSE, Surgeon, 43rd OVVI

Rose served as the regiment’s assistant surgeon from Dec. 1861 through April, then became its surgeon and served for the duration of the war, mustering out with the regiment in 1865.

In wartime, what is the cost of a calm countenance and a steady gaze? That is the truth to find and tell.

Ms. Lee threw it out the window

Jennifer Wilke — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 05:12:01 +0000

Nelle Harper Lee in 1960

“Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy, sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”

In frustration one night in the late 1950s, writer Nelle Harper Lee threw the only copy of her first novel manuscript out the window. In tears, she telephoned her editor, Tay Hohoff at J.B. Lippincott. Hohoff firmly told her to go outside and pick up every page, so Lee did, and kept rewriting. The novel was published in 1960, won a Pulitzer Prize in 1961, and has sold 40 million copies. It remains Lee’s only novel: To Kill a Mockingbird.

In 1949, at age 23, Nelle Harper Lee went to New York City, having “got an itch to go to New York and write.” Her childhood friend Truman Capote was a rising literary star. She worked as a clerk (bookstore, ticket agent) and wrote at night and on weekends. By 1956, she had 5 short stories and a friend referred her to agent Annie Laurie Williams, who introduced her to her husband, literary agent Maurice Crain. Ten days later, Crain invited her to dinner and told her only one of her short stories, “Snow-on-the-Mountain” was good enough to publish, and had she thought about a novel. For Christmas in 1956, her friends Michael Martin and Brown, gave her the present of a year’s financial support so she could write full-time.

In January 1957, she brought Crain another short story and the first 50 pages of a novel. One week later, she brought him another 100 pages, and 50 more pages a week through the end of February. In March and April, she revised it based on Crain’s suggestions. The title was Go Set a Watchman. Crain suggested she change the name to Atticus, because it wasn’t a story about a clock.

A.C. Lee, an attorney

The protagonist was modeled after her father, A.C. Lee, a lawyer and descendent of Robert E. Lee. She named this character for Cicero’s best friend, Titus Pomponius Atticus, a “wise, learned and humane man.” Finch was her mother’s maiden name. The editors at publisher J.B. Lippincott thought her characters were strong and three-dimensional, but that the story had structural problems, a series of anecdotes rather than a fully conceived novel. Lippincott’s only woman editor, Theresa (Tay) von Hohoff, volunteered to work with her.

By the end of the summer in 1957, Lee resubmitted the manuscript. The new draft was better, but it wasn’t right yet, according to Hohoff. Lippincott offered Lee a contract with an advance of a few thousand dollars. As Hohoff worked with her, she said, “I began to discover a vivid and original personality hiding behind her intense reserve.” She needed an overarching story, deep and big enough to encompass everything else, continuing tension arising from a major conflict, enough to keep readers turning the novel’s pages.

The racist trial she added to the plot was not, as many speculated, based on the Scottsboro Boys trial, but a true story in Monroeville in November 1933 when Lee was a child. Naomi Lowery (white, married) accused Walter Lett (black) of raping her. Lett claimed innocence, then tried to escape, so his guilt was assumed. In March of 1934, he was convicted by a jury of 12 white men and he was sentenced to death. This was commuted to life imprisonment, but time on death row resulted in Lett’s being sent to Searcy Hospital for the Insane in Mt. Vernon, Alabama, where he died of TB in 1937.

The trial became a part of Lee’s story, and Monroeville became fictional Maycomb, Alabama. The story took place over 3 years, from the summer of 1932 to Halloween night, 1935. Jean Louise “Scout” Finch told the story, from ages 6 to 9, with the adult Scout framing the story. For the next two years, Lee rewrote, calling it a “hopeless period of writing the novel over and over.” She worked with Hohoff in New York some of the time, and spent long stretches in Monroeville, revising and spending afternoons reading and sipping Scotch. It was her idea to change the title to To Kill a Mockingbird, and to write under the name Harper Lee, because she couldn’t stand being called Nellie.

Her friend Truman Capote read the manuscript and recommended edits, as did her former English teacher, Miss Gladys Watson. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee was published on July 11, 1960.

Later, Lee said, “I sort of hoped that maybe someone would like it enough to give me encouragement. Public encouragement. I hoped for a little.” The book was picked up by the Book-of-the-Month Club and the Literary Guild. A condensed version of the story appeared in Reader’s Digest magazine. On May 2, 1961, the novel won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It spent 43 weeks on the New York Times best seller list, selling 500,000 copies.

Gregory Peck and Nelle Harper Lee with Horton Foote's screenplay of To Kill a Mockingbird

In January 1961, the movie rights were sold to Alan Pakula and Robert Mulligan, with Horton Foote writing the screenplay (despite his worry that he couldn’t do it justice). In the spring of 1963, the film was nominated for 8 Academy Awards, winning an Oscar for Gregory Peck for best actor, and for Horton Foote for best adapted screenplay.

In Monroeville, Harper Lee played golf in order to be alone and think about her next book. She was a slow writer. Her method was to “finish a page or two, put them aside, look at them with a fresh eye, work on them some more, then rewrite them all over again.” Her pattern was to write steadily for 6 days, then stop and take a break for two. “Writing has its own rhythm,” she said, and was “the loneliest work there is.”

Tay Hohoff retired from Lippincott, and died in 1974. Lee’s sister Alice told BBC film producer Peter Griffiths in a 1982 interview that Lee was finishing a second novel when a burglar broke into her apartment and stole the manuscript. There was no more talk about a second novel by Harper Lee.

: Nelle Harper Lee at age 80

In a July 31, 2011 interview with Paul Toohey in The Daily Telegraph (“Miss Nelle in Monroeville”), Lee’s close friend Rev. Dr. Thomas Lane Butts said that Lee is in an assisted-living facility, wheelchair bound, partially blind and deaf, and suffering from memory loss. Butts also said that Lee told him why she never wrote again: “Two reasons: one, I wouldn’t go through the pressure and publicity I went through with To Kill a Mockingbird for any amount of money. Second, I have said what I wanted to say and I will not say it again.”

Sources: Jan. 30, 2006 interview in the New York Times; July 31, 2011 interview by Paul Toohey, in the Daily Telegraph; Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee, by Charles J. Shields (Henry Holt, 2007)

Don’t throw it out the window. Save the file. Do something else for a while.

Come back. Keep at it until readers won’t be able to resist turning the page.

Almighty purpose

Jennifer Wilke — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 02:22:13 +0000

“The prayers of both [North and South] could not be answered;

that of neither has been answered fully.

The Almighty has his own purposes.”

– Abraham Lincoln, 2nd Inaugural Address, March 5, 1865

ALEXANDER GARDNER, photographer

This photograph, printed despite the crack in the glass plate, is considered to be the last photograph of Lincoln. It was taken by Alexander Gardner, a former photographer with Mathew Brady, in his studio in Washington on April 10, 1865, four days before Lincoln was shot at Ford’s Theater.

WET PLATE COLLODION PHOTOGRAPHY (1850s – 1870s)

Invented in 1851, the wet collodion photographic process produced a glass negative and a beautifully detailed print. Preferred for the quality of the prints and the ease with which they could be reproduced, the method thrived from the 1850s until about 1880.

Demonstration of wet plate collodion photography.

One of Mathew Brady’s traveling photograph studios during the Civil War, carrying the chemicals, glass plates, and portable dark room for taking wet plate collodion photographs.

Read better writers. Quote them. I’ve used the Lincoln quote for the overriding theme of my Civil War novel, and its title: THE COLOR OF PRAYER.

Maybe imperfections don’t matter as much as I think they do.

Sherman broke her heart, twice

Jennifer Wilke — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 01:16:17 +0000

Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson was 34 years old, over 6 feet tall, handsome, brilliant, kind, charming, and universally well-liked when he took command of the Army of the Tennessee in March 1864. Gen. Wm. T. Sherman granted his request for a leave of absence to go to Baltimore and marry Emily Hoffman, “a girl of rare beauty and worth.” The wedding date had been set when Sherman rescinded his permission, needing McPherson’s help to plan the campaign to capture Atlanta. Sherman wrote a letter of apology to Miss Hoffman.

On May 5, Maj. Gen. James B. McPherson sent a message to his troops in Chattanooga to encourage them for the new campaign. My great-grandfather was a 1st lieutenant in the Army of the Tennessee, and kept a copy of that inspiring and prescient circular:

We are about to enter upon one of the most important campaigns of the war and to measure our strength on the battle-field against a large and well commanded foe…Stand firmly by your posts…the successful issue of the battle may depend upon your individual bravery and the stubbornness with which you hold your position. –Maj. Gen. Jas. B. McPherson

On July 22, Atlanta still untaken, McPherson was meeting with Sherman when they heard cannon fire from an unexpected direction. McPherson rode out to investigate the source, taking only a few other officers with him. They rode into a party of the Fifth Confederate Tennessee regiment sneaking through the woods, in a break between the Union’s 16th and 17th Corps. McPherson wheeled his horse to try to escape but was shot by a Confederate corporal. The ball found his heart.”I have lost my bower,” General Sherman grieved. He wrote again in regret and sympathy to Miss Hoffman. Upon hearing of her fiance’s death, the lovely Miss Hoffman went into her room and remained there for a year. She never married.

Find and use an obscure, intriguing detail in recounting a famous historical event. All the better if it’s heart-breaking.

650 Buried Here

Jennifer Wilke — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 22:12:40 +0000

CAMP LAWTON, near Millen, Georgia

October - November, 1864

Confederate prison camp for captured Union soldiers

Robert Sneden's watercolor of Camp Lawton, 1864

In the summer of 2010, near Millen, Georgia, a team of Georgia Southern University archeology students discovered artifacts on the site of a 42-acre Civil War prison, Camp Lawton. The prison camp was created in late 1864 for Union soldiers transferred from Andersonville, and evacuated less than two months later, as Gen. Sherman’s Army of the Tennessee approached on its march toward the sea.

A Union private, Robert Knox Sneden of the 40th New York Volunteer Infantry, was a prisoner from Nov. 1863 until exchanged in Dec. 11, 1864, imprisoned at Andersonville and Camp Lawton. He left an extensive description as well as watercolors of both prison camps, published in his memoir, Eye of the Storm. Sneden’s drawings were used by the archeologists in 2010 to help identify the camp’s location.

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 Lt. Edwin Lybarger’s journal, on the March to the Sea with the 17th Army Corps of the Army of the Tennessee, in Mower’s 1st Division, Sprague’s 2nd Brigade, 43rd OVVI: 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 diary of Col. Oscar L. Jackson, 63rd OVVI, on the March to the Sea with the 17th Army Corps of the Army of the Tennessee, published as The Colonel’s Diary in 1922:

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…

Federal infantrymen who came up could only make an inspection of the miserable stockade in the pine woods where thousands of captured Federal soldiers had died. The first Federals found three corpses in the huts and buried them at the end of a long freshly dug trench that bore a crude board sign: 650 BURIED HERE…

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.”

The most resonant truth might be in the simplest detail.

The War Prayer, by Mark Twain

Jennifer Wilke — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 22:48:04 +0000

In 1905, Mark Twain’s publisher thought “The War Prayer” was traitorous. It was not published until after Twain’s death, when the U.S. was nearing entry into the Great War.

It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety’s sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way.

Sunday morning came — next day the battalions would leave for the front; the church was filled; the volunteers were there, their young faces alight with martial dreams — visions of the stern advance, the gathering momentum, the rushing charge, the flashing sabers, the flight of the foe, the tumult, the enveloping smoke, the fierce pursuit, the surrender! Then home from the war, bronzed heroes, welcomed, adored, submerged in golden seas of glory! With the volunteers sat their dear ones, proud, happy, and envied by the neighbors and friends who had no sons and brothers to send forth to the field of honor, there to win for the flag, or, failing, die the noblest of noble deaths. The service proceeded; a war chapter from the Old Testament was read; the first prayer was said; it was followed by an organ burst that shook the building, and with one impulse the house rose, with glowing eyes and beating hearts, and poured out that tremendous invocation

“God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!”

Then came the “long” prayer. None could remember the like of it for passionate pleading and moving and beautiful language. The burden of its supplication was, that an ever-merciful and benignant Father of us all would watch over our noble young soldiers, and aid, comfort, and encourage them in their patriotic work; bless them, shield them in the day of battle and the hour of peril, bear them in His mighty hand, make them strong and confident, invincible in the bloody onset; help them to crush the foe, grant to them and to their flag and country imperishable honor and glory –

An aged stranger entered and moved with slow and noiseless step up the main aisle, his eyes fixed upon the minister, his long body clothed in a robe that reached to his feet, his head bare, his white hair descending in a frothy cataract to his shoulders, his seamy face unnaturally pale, pale even to ghastliness. With all eyes following him and wondering, he made his silent way; without pausing, he ascended to the preacher’s side and stood there waiting. With shut lids the preacher, unconscious of his presence, continued with his moving prayer, and at last finished it with the words, uttered in fervent appeal, “Bless our arms, grant us the victory, O Lord our God, Father and Protector of our land and flag!”

The stranger touched his arm, motioned him to step aside — which the startled minister did — and took his place. During some moments he surveyed the spellbound audience with solemn eyes, in which burned an uncanny light; then in a deep voice he said:

“I come from the Throne — bearing a message from Almighty God!” The words smote the house with a shock; if the stranger perceived it he gave no attention. “He has heard the prayer of His servant your shepherd, and will grant it if such shall be your desire after I, His messenger, shall have explained to you its import — that is to say, its full import. For it is like unto many of the prayers of men, in that it asks for more than he who utters it is aware of — except he pause and think.

“God’s servant and yours has prayed his prayer. Has he paused and taken thought? Is it one prayer? No, it is two — one uttered, the other not. Both have reached the ear of Him Who heareth all supplications, the spoken and the unspoken. Ponder this — keep it in mind. If you would beseech a blessing upon yourself, beware! lest without intent you invoke a curse upon a neighbor at the same time. If you pray for the blessing of rain upon your crop which needs it, by that act you are possibly praying for a curse upon some neighbor’s crop which may not need rain and can be injured by it.

“You have heard your servant’s prayer — the uttered part of it. I am commissioned of God to put into words the other part of it — that part which the pastor — and also you in your hearts — fervently prayed silently. And ignorantly and unthinkingly? God grant that it was so! You heard these words: ‘Grant us the victory, O Lord our God!’ That is sufficient. The “whole” of the uttered prayer is compact into those pregnant words. Elaborations were not necessary. When you have prayed for victory you have prayed for many unmentioned results which follow victory–”must” follow it, cannot help but follow it. Upon the listening spirit of God fell also the unspoken part of the prayer. He commandeth me to put it into words. Listen!

“O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

“Ye have prayed it; if ye still desire it, speak! The messenger of the Most High waits!”

It was believed afterward that the man was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what he said.

Grandmother’s 1896 trip to Italy

Jennifer Wilke — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:39:26 +0000

At the age of 10, my grandmother Ethel Finney (1885-1969), the daughter of Presbyterian missionaries in Egypt, was invited to join a wealthy family on a tour of Italy. She wrote a letter about the trip to her 11-year-old cousin Lucile, in Ohio. Praising Ethel’s descriptive abilities, the church published her letter in the United Presbyterian, Sept. 24, 1896. Reading this letter 100 years after she wrote it, I adore this wide-eyed girl who looked at a dog carved in marble and almost heard it barking.

Dear Cousin Lucile – I suppose you would like to know what I saw when I was in Naples, Rome, Florence, Venice, and Milan.

In Naples, we went to see the museum. [Naples National Archeological Museum]. It had so many queer things; such a lot of old paintings from Pompeii. Our guide would always be admiring the “expressions” on the dog’s face and the cock and goat. There was some lovely mosaic work for the floor and wall. It seems so strange that, in the olden times, they knew so much.

I saw some very large statues, one of Hercules, the three golden apples in one hand and the other resting on a lion.

There was another statue of a group [the Farnese Bull] in which they were trying to catch a bull for a sacrifice; they were all confused; the dog was barking very loud, it seemed.

In the afternoon we went to see Pompeii. We did it in the rain; if I could see it in sunshine I would like it better, but what I saw was enough to give me an idea of it. It seemed so strange to see the people that were once real, true people, that could talk and walk, but are now mere forms to be wondered at. There were lots of jars that were found in the ruins, and ever so many other things, and the big door of the city was especially interesting.

Next day, in Rome, we went to St. Peter’s Basilica, where the statue of St. Peter is; all the Catholics go and kiss his big toe, and it is all worn off by the kissing.

I saw some old manuscripts of the Bible; some were illustrated and some were plain writing, of a few centuries ago. We went to the catacombs, but as soon as we got started I thought we would get lost. I had read a story of a man who got lost in them, and he wandered about, till after a week or so he saw a light and followed it. The memory of this frightened me more than ever, and I wanted to come out; so we came out.

In a little chapel there was the tomb of St. Sebastian, who was martyred, and a marble statue of him with golden arrows piercing him. It was a dreadful place! Such a cold, misty air! Boo! It makes me shiver to think of it!

In Venice, St. Mark’s Basilica is a wonderful place. On the roof are little dovecotes for the pigeons. This is the place where the pigeons are so numerous. A man goes around selling little bags of corn at two cents a bag. I threw a few grains on the ground, and all the pigeons came around me and would peck at my shoes. There was a lady feeding them out of her hand, and one got on her hat, and she got cross.

We went on a gondola up the Grand Canal in Venice and around another way. It is very much fun to ride in a gondola.

Then we went to Milan and we saw the famous “Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci, but you can hardly recognize it; the copies are better. It is quite a large canvas. Once it was plastered over, and Napoleon the Great had his stables there. with the damp and plaster put together, no wonder it got spoiled.

Next day we left Milan, and that finished my sightseeing, and that finishes my letter.

Your cousin, Ethel F.

AND THEN . . .

Ethel graduated from college and taught high school French for several years until marrying Harry Swayne Lybarger in 1913 in Coshocton, Ohio. Harry was a history treacher. Ethel gave French and piano lessons. They had four children, and never quite enough money to go around.

In 1924, returning to Egypt after the death of her mother, she wrote her children a marvelous, vivid description of what it looked and sounded and felt like to be engulfed in a three-day sandstorm.

In the 1950′s, until her eyesight failed, she worked as director of the Johnson-Humrickhouse Memorial Museum, which had a collection of Eastern art and Native American artifacts remarkable for a town of 12,000.