Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Gettysburg: The Topography That Saved The United States, Benjamin Wyman

Maine History

Many scholars have analyzed the Battle of Gettysburg and the factors that determined its outcome. This work argues that the topographical features on the extreme

left flank of the Union army, which the Union troops held on July 2, were the primary factors in a Federal victory at Gettysburg. Focusing on the second day of the battle and the terrain the two armies fought over on the left flank of the Union army, this article combines an analysis

of topography and leadership in what would prove to be a pivotal Confederate defeat at the high tide of the Civil War. …

Color Sergeant Andrew J. Tozier, 20 Maine Medal Of Honor Winner, James A. Christian

Maine History

Sergeant Andrew Jackson Tozier’s seizing of an abandoned rifle to defend the 20th Maine’s national flag at his lone, advanced position would earn him a Medal of Honor. As Tozier left no personal diary, or personal letters written during the war, scholars must instead turn to archival military records, published regimental histories, contemporary newspaper accounts, and the diaries and letters of Tozier’s regimental comrades. Using these sources, the article herein sketches a portrait of the man General Joshua Chamberlain lauded as “an example of all that was excellent as a soldier.” More broadly, perhaps, it depicts the experiences of a …

Not Written In Letters Of Blood: The Forgotten Legacy Of The Army Of The Cumberland, Andrew R. Perkins

Grand Valley Journal of History

While the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the Tennessee have each rightly earned their spots in the annals of Civil War history, the Army of the Cumberland has fallen through the cracks into unfortunate neglect and undue malice, despite the large number of successes and triumphs achieved by its men. This paper advances four theories explaining why this has happened, including the timing of battles, conflict between Union generals, the failures of the army's commanders, and the unfortunate influence of Southern romanticism.

Ambrose Burnside, The Ninth Army Corps, And The Battle Of Spotsylvania Court House, Ryan T. Quint

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

The fighting on May 12, 1864 at Spotsylvania Court House evokes thoughts of the furious combat at the Bloody Angle. However, there is another aspect of the fighting on May 12, that is, incidentally, at another salient. The then-independent command of Ambrose Burnside’s Ninth Corps spent the day fighting on the east flank of the Mule Shoe, and charging against the Confederate right flank at Heth’s Salient.

This paper has two parts: the first half analyzes the complexities and problems of Burnside’s return to the Eastern Theater since his disastrous defeat at Fredericksburg in 1862, starting in April 1864 and …

Gettysburg College Journal Of The Civil War Era 2015

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

No abstract provided.

“All Inferiors Are Required To Obey Strictly…” Disciplinary Issues In The Army Of The Potomac Under Grant During The Overland Campaign, Robert W. Novak

Student Publications

Between May and June 1864, the Army of the Potomac conducted yet another push toward Richmond. The intense weather, extended time under fire, and unprecedented slaughter took its toll on the rank and file. For many of the army’s best and most hardened veterans, this would be their last campaign. As their anticipation for home grew, however, their disdain for the new style of warfare grew with it. Fresh troops arrived almost daily from the cities across the north. Many of whom were conscripts or bounty men. Even the soldiers who chose not to reenlist expressed their low expectations for …

Ms-162: Col. William Brisbane Papers, Bryan G. Caswell

All Finding Aids

The Col. William Brisbane Papers consist of 133 documents covering a span of thirty-three years, from 1858 to 1891, with the bulk of these springing from Brisbane’s service in the American Civil War from 1861 to 1863. The early documents of the collection illustrate Brisbane’s personal service, containing such items as his own commission and discharge papers for the Pennsylvania Volunteers as well as an invitation to dinner at the house of his brigade commander, Winfield Scott Hancock.

Special Collections and College Archives Finding Aids are discovery tools used to describe and provide access to our holdings. Finding aids include …

Benevolent Chaos: Nurse Harriet Eaton’S Relief War For Maine, Jane E. Schultz

Maine History

Harriet Eaton, Portland citizen and Civil War nurse, kept a daily journal of two tours of duty with Maine regiments in the Army of the Potomac. The journal reveals the mistrust that local aid organization workers had regarding the sweeping benevolent objectives of the U.S. Sanitary Commission. The Maine Camp Hospital Association, a local aid society established in Portland in 1862, resisted absorption by the Maine State Relief Agency early in the war, but, in time, the two groups came to cooperate effectively with one another, despite Eaton’s continuing critique of the efficacy of federal benevolence. Jane E. Schultz is …

Mad Dan, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

Did Daniel Sickles, the Union's most notorious general, save the day for the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg? That's exactly what he wanted you to believe.

George Meade’S Mixed Legacy, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

George Gordon Meade was 47 years old the morning of June 28, 1863, when command of the Army of the Potomac was unceremoniously dumped into his lap by General in Chief Henry Hallcck, and there is no reason to doubt Meade's protest that the move rendered him the most surprised man in the entire Union Army. Meade had never wanted to be a soldier in the first place, much less take direction of an army that at that moment was facing perhaps its most daunting challenge. But compared to his immediate predecessors, Maj. Gens. Ambrose Burnside and Joseph Hooker, what …

Charles S. Wainwright: The Development Of Loyal Dissent From 1861-1865, J.J. Beck '13

The Gettysburg College Journal of the Civil War Era

Charles S Wainwright had participated in all three days of battle at Gettysburg. He witnessed his close friend and compatriot General Reynolds struck down on the first day. On July 5th, 1863, Wainwright traveled to what would later be known as Pickett’s Charge. Upon seeing the battlefield scattered with the bodies of the dead and smelling the stench of bloat, he lamented: “There was about an acre or so of ground here where you could not walk without stepping over the bodies, and I saw perhaps a dozen cases where they were heaped [sic] one on top of the other”. …

“To Think Of The Subject Unmans Me:” An Exploration Of Grief And Soldiering Through The Letters Of Henry Livermore Abbott, Rebekah N. Oakes

The Gettysburg Historical Journal

“‘To think of the subject unmans me:’ An Exploration of Grief and Soldiering Through the Letters of Henry Livermore Abbott,” explores the challenges to both the Victorian ideals of manliness and the culture of death presented by the American Civil War. The letters of Henry Abbott, a young officer serving with the 20^th Massachusetts, display the tension between his upper class New England world in which gentleman were to operate within an ideal of emotional control and sentimentality, and his new existence on the ground level of the Army of the Potomac. After the death of his brother, this …

Ginther Collection (Sc 464), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "Additional Files" below) for Manuscripts Small Collection 464. Photocopies of typescripted letters written by brothers William A. and Joseph Ginther to their father, George Ginther, brother David, and sister of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, while serving in the Union Army with the Department of the Potomac.

In Defense Of Colonel Richard P. Roberts, Commanding Officer Of The Pennsylvania 140th Regiment, Gregory Jason Bell

Theses, Dissertations and Capstones

Richard P. Roberts was the colonel of the Pennsylvania 140th regiment from its organization in September 1862 until his death at Gettysburg in July 1863. During this time period, Captain David Acheson of Company C fostered a “growing dislike” for the colonel that led him to portray the colonel negatively in his writings. Unfortunately for the colonel’s reputation, Acheson’s letters have been widely published, leading at least one historian to accept Acheson’s poor opinion of the colonel as fact. However, other primary sources exist which collectively demonstrate a positive regimental opinion of the colonel and further suggest that Acheson’s criticisms …

Ms-025: Joseph G. Patterson, Company G, 90th Regiment Pennsylvania Infantry, Christine M. Ameduri

All Finding Aids

The collection consists of 28 letters written by Joseph G. Patterson to his mother and father, written between April 1862 and January 3, 1863. The bulk of the letters were written in April, July and October. One letter is addressed to his brother, John. The letters include a patriotic boy-soldier's first hand account of camp life, his wish to continue his education once he is no longer serving in the army, and information about cousins and friends who are also serving in the army, and with whom he gets to meet occasionally. The letters are arranged chronologically.

Special Collections and …

Ms-020: The Papers Of John H. Warner, Melodie A. Foster

All Finding Aids

The John H. Warner collection consists of thirty-eight letters written by Warner to family members and friends during the period October 1, 1862 - May 5, 1865. The affectionate, optimistic letters provide a picture of camp, and later hospital life during the Civil War through the eyes of a young soldier from New York.

Special Collections and College Archives Finding Aids are discovery tools used to describe and provide access to our holdings. Finding aids include historical and biographical information about each collection in addition to inventories of their content. More information about our collections can be found on our …

Building A Battle Site: Roads To And Through Gettysburg, Elwood W. Christ

Adams County History

On the morning of 1 July 1863, lead elements of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia advanced on the town of Gettysburg situated in the lush farm lands of south-central Pennsylvania just eight miles east of the South Mountain in Adams county. The Southern reconnaissance in force made early that summer morning was destined not only to change the history of the struggling Confederacy, but also to set the infant United States republic, indeed the world, on courses towards more democratic forms of government.

Although many historians have dwelled on those three fateful days in 1863, few …

Union Civilian Leaders, Allen C. Guelzo

Civil War Era Studies Faculty Publications

The American Civil War was a war of civilians. The fact that 3 million or so of them happened to be in uniform was almost incidental, since the soldiers, sailors, and officers of both the Union and Confederate armies were mostly civilian volunteers who retained close contacts with their civilian social worlds, who brought 1f9Culent civilian attitudes into the ranks with them, and who fully expected to return to civilian life as soon as the shooting was over. By the same token, civilian communities in both North and South kept closely in touch with their volunteers all through the war, …