Living History Prep: Researching Pennsylvania in May 1864

My wife and I beside French Creek at Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, June 2013 (Tintype by Jim Pfeiffer)

Once or twice a year, my wife and I have the opportunity to participate in a living history event in which reenactors partner with a historical site to interpret a specific historical event.  My wife savors the opportunity to assemble a high-quality wardrobe, and I generally enjoy doing some of the background research about a particular person, place, and time.  Neither of us are big fans of "first-person" portrayals where we pretend to be a person in the 1860s, but we're happy to do it if it enables us to do something special with costumes, material culture, biography, and history.

This year, we are planning to return to Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site on May 16-18, 2014, in Elverson, Pennsylvania (~20 miles east of New Holland).  The theme of the event is "Enduring the Storm: Hopewell 1864," which excites me as an opportunity to research how Northern communities fared in 1864 -- a time of the war that I've read much less about in newspapers.  So, I recently had the Daily Evening Express microfilm sent out to Pittsburgh to do some research.  I scanned the editions of the newspaper covering May 16-18, 1864, to share with other reenactors and to spark ideas about what to interpret at the event.  Here are links to the PDFs:

• Monday, May 16, 1864
• Tuesday, May 17, 1864
• Wednesday, May 18, 1864

Going over these newspapers, a few themes emerge that might be worthwhile pursuing as topics to research further and possibly incorporate into the event:

1.  Emancipation as a moral imperative.  Instead of talking about emancipation as a military necessity, the possibility of an antislavery amendment brought moral arguments against slavery into pages of the Daily Evening Express, a Republican newspaper.  The Express ran an essay entitled "The Demon of Slavery" by Henry Ward Beecher on its front page, and editorialized that the war's objective was now "the merciless mandated, 'Slavery must die!'"  Among Lancaster's mainstream Republican community, emancipation was pretty much an afterthought in the rush to war, and then really came up in the context of confusing policy situations in which military found itself in 1862.  By 1864, we see that ending slavery went hand-in-hand with winning the war.
2. Details from the Battles of Wilderness and Spotsylvania.  Initial reports had indicated a victory with heavy losses in these first meetings between Grant and Lee, with more clashes expected.  More local news -- casualty lists from the Lancaster companies and accounts of the Pennsylvania Reserves in battle -- began to trickle in a couple days after the national news.  The five Pennsylvania Reserves companies or two 45th Pennsylvania companies suffered moderate casualties.  
3. Soldiers fairs.  News about local soldiers fairs and support for an upcoming fair in Philadelphia filled newspapers for much of the first half of 1864.  In addition to raising the morale of and materially aiding local soldiers, they seem to have served to re-energize the Northern populace and provided a welcome distraction as the war dragged on.  
4. Inflation and prices.  Trade organizations for hotel keepers and shoemakers made attempts to publish suggested prices as the war raised prices of materials.
5. Veterans home on furlough.  Most had already come home and were back in the field, but a few had their furlough in May.  Company G, 9th Pennsylvania Cavalry, was home during this time.  Sadly, one of its veterans was killed when jumping off a train at Elizabethtown. 
6. Administration of veterans' bounties. Veterans who reenlisted were promised bounties from municipalities (that received credit for their reenlistment against their draft quota).  Families were slow to receive that money, much to the indignation of soldiers who wrote letters of protest.  
7. Preparing for the election of 1864. Newspaper editors talked about the Virginia campaigns and military strategy in the context of campaign strategy.  The Union Party (Lincoln's party) would have its convention in the first week of June.  With its editorial, "The President and the War," the Express made clear its unwavering support for Lincoln saying, "The country may rely, with unfaltering trust, upon the supreme devotion of the President to the defence of the Government and the suppression of the rebellion.  He has never, in a single instance, given the slightest ground for the imputation of being governed by personal ambition, or by any other motive than devotion to the public good."

We'll see how these themes develop over the upcoming weeks and if any would be amenable to interpretation at Hopewell.  One of the next steps will be to portray a historical persona.  Last year, I portrayed Lancasterian William A. Heitshu, who married Mary Geiger, daughter of an iron master with operations in the region.  Geigertown, a crossroads two miles west of Hopewell Furnace, was named after their ancestors, and my wife and I pretended to be visiting the village on our respective business and personal matters.  The completion of the Reading and Columbia Railroad gave an excuse to talk about pig iron markets and the pig iron supply chain with some of the other reenactors.  Like I said, pretending to be historical persons is silly on some level, but it often gives an excuse for a fun train of research questions.  We'll see how our impressions develop this year, and I'll try to give an occasional update as I research the issues facing residents of Lancaster, Berks, and Chester Counties in May 1864.    

Sypher Dispathes: 'Little Wee Blue-Bellied Yankees'

Newspaper Cart and Vendor in Camp (Alexander Gardner, Library of Congress)

The following post features the second and third letters written by Lancaster's civilian adventurer and journalist J. R. Sypher in a grand tour of the Western Theater in May and June1862.  See this post <link> for an introduction to his tour.

Five days after leaving Lancaster, Josiah Sypher finally reached the encampment of Gen. Negley's division on May 7, 1862.  A letter he wrote the following day describes his journey from Louisville to Columbia, Tennessee, essentially retracing the route that the 79th Pennsylvania marched between October 1861 and March 1862.  Sypher's comments touch on the state of the railroads, the desire among soldiers for newspapers, and conditions in Nashville and Columbia.  Sypher had just missed the excitement following the capture of Capt. Kendrick's detail and the expedition to Pulaski by a battalion from the 79th Pennsylvania, which I posted about two weeks ago. 

His next letter, dated May 12, recounts the forward movement of some infantry, artillery, and cavalry commanded by Gen. Negley from Columbia to Pulaski.  After Negley and his bodyguard, a section of artillery coincidentally commanded by Sypher's brother, Lieut. A. J. Sypher, led the march followed by the 79th Pennsylvania mounted on wagons and the 7th Pennsylvania Cavalry.

Enslaved African-Americans along the route made an impression upon J. R. Sypher, a staunch if not Radical Republican who took the time to "converse with a large number of these peculiarly situated people."  See his second letter posted below for an interesting description of those conversations, and Sypher's impression of their view of the world and of the Yankees ("wee men wid blue bellies, so small that you couldn't hardly shoot 'em.").  Sypher concludes by focusing on the vexing question of what the Union Army will do with the slaves in occupied territory, "the most important interrogatory of the age," and describing how he struggled to give an answer to an old man "whose soul was panting for freedom."            

Map of Tennessee from Columbia to Pulaski (Extracted from 1863 Map)
<View here>

With apologies for a corrupted image files late in the letter, here is Sypher's letter from May 8 published in the May 14, 1862, Daily Evening Express: (alternate link)


And from the May 19, 1862, Daily Evening Express: (alternate link) 

The 9th Pa Cavalry Arrives at Munfordville

Unidentified cavalry soldier with bugle
(Library of Congress)

Last time we heard from the 9th Pennsylvania Cavalry, which included Capt. John Wise's Company F from Lancaster County, it was shortly before Christmas and the regiment was drilling at Camp Andy Johnson near Louisville.  On February 4, 1862, they arrived at Munfordville--where the 79th Pennsylvania had been since mid-December--and enjoyed a reunion with friends from back home.

The letter, written by an unidentified officer in Company F, 9th Pennsylvania Cavalry, began by recounting the Battle of Rowlett's Station on December 17, 1861, in a way that shows how large its memory had grown to the Union soldiers around Munfordville.  Next, "Cavalier" remarks on how the cavalry had superseded infantry in scouting missions out into the surrounding countryside--probably a good thing for the Army of the Ohio as the infantry regiment as scouting force was an accident waiting to happen.  Finally, our cavalryman tells of encountering the 79th Pennsylvania.

With apologies for the poor scan quality, here's the letter from the February 17, 1861, Daily Evening Express: (alternate link)  

News: First Shots and Sibley Tents

Union regiment in camp with Sibley tents (Mathew Brady via Fold3.com: ID B-305)

In a Daily Evening Express letter from an unnamed 79th Pennsylvania soldier, we have a new "first" in the life of the Lancaster County Regiment (and apparently Pennsylvanians in the Western Theater): the first shots exchanged with the enemy.  The occasion was a scouting party out in the countryside beyond Munfordville and the Green River in the direction of Horse Cave, Kentucky.  Slaves provided reliable intelligence, and one of Col. Hambright's companies scared away rebel cavalry.  There were no reports of casualties. 

Also exciting for the Lancasterians was the arrival of Sibley tents, teepee-like canvas structures that were received very favorably by the soldiers for their warmth (especially with the addition of a stove in the center). 

Finally, from the January 31, 1862, it is now apparent that the author of the letter signed, "A Pennsylvania," in Franklin County's Semi-Weekly Dispatch is Capt. Morris D. Wickersham of Company E, 79th Pennsylvania.  I didn't connect the dots in last week's post, but the letter is the same and its full text can be viewed here.

Here's the letter describing the scouting party from the February 4, 1862, Daily Evening Express: (alternate link)

Here Comes the Cavalry, Part II: The Lochiel Cavalry

Capt. John Wise
Company F, 9th Pa. Cav.
(Source)

In my post about Confederate cavalryman and raider John Hunt Morgan, I mentioned how the central division of Gen. Don Carlos Buell's Union Army of the Ohio basically lacked any, or at least any effective, cavalry to counter Morgan.  Helping to change that situation was the arrival of two Pennsylvania cavalry regiments, the 7th and 9th Pennsylvania Cavalry, which had been training at Camp Curtin.  Company F of the 9th Pennsylvania (aka "Lochiel") Cavalry was recruited in Lancaster and led by the celebrated balloonist John Wise.  Its nickname, the "Old Guard Cavalry," references Lancaster County's stalwart support (i.e. the "Old Guard") for the Whig Party a generation before the Civil War. 

Although he started off slow in 1861 and 1862, one soldier, Pvt. George Unkle, corresponded regularly with the Daily Evening Express through the end of the war. His (presumably) first letter was written from Camp Andrew Johnson in Jeffersonville, Indiana, just across the river from Louisville, Kentucky.  The regiment remained there until mid-January when it was ordered to the army's front along the Green River where the 79th Pennsylvania and the rest of its division was encamped.