HARDTACK

A Publication of the Indianapolis Civil War Round Table – January 2002

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President – Dave Sutherland Secretary – Dr. Betty Enloe

Vice President – Dr. Lloyd Hunter Treasurer – Doug Wagner

Hardtack Editor – Debby Chestnut

Distribution Managers – Dorothy Jones & Peg Bertelli Quiz Master – Tony Trimble

January 14, 2002

Monday – 7:30 p.m. at the Indiana Historical Society

450 W. Ohio St.

(Parking in lot north of the Society off New York St. – Please enter via Northeast Door)

The Mississippi Marine Brigade

Presented by Dan Mitchell

Dan’s focus will be on the research he has done in examining the Mississippi Marine Brigade and its critical role in the western theater. He will discuss where and how he found the sources for his research, including written materials, such as letters, diaries, reunion publications, and the actual people he has interviewed along with places he has visited along the Mississippi. The brigade, formed by the Union War Department, engaged in both naval and land operations. It included the Mississippi Ram Fleet that captured Memphis in June l862, as well as a land unit led by Alfred Washington Ellett. It was similar to a legion, being composed of an infantry regiment, four companies of cavalry, and an artillery battery. Dan’s remarks should cause us to look at the war along the Mississippi from a fresh perspective.

About the Speaker: Dan Mitchell is no stranger to the Indianapolis Civil War Round Table. He is a past president of our organization who is also involved nationally with a host of other groups centered on military history and the Civil War in particular. President and owner of the Mitchell Insurance Agency in Franklin, he is an elected Fellow of the Company of Military Historians. Dan also belongs to the Military History Society and is a charter member of the Veterans Military Association, a collector’s organization. The latter affiliation testifies to his passion for Civil War artifacts. He is Indiana’s foremost student of the Grand Army of the Republic, and he holds an impressive collection of GAR memorabilia. In addition, he collects the material culture of various Indiana regiments, the Civil War Veterans Association, and the Mississippi Marine Brigade. Be sure and invite a friend to hear our speaker.

DINNER AT SHAPIRO’S

ALL MEMBERS AND GUESTS ARE INVITED TO SHAPIRO’S DELI AT 5:30 P.M.

TO ENJOY DINNER AND FELLOWSHIP PRIOR TO THE MEETING.

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President

The ICWRT’s Constitution and Bylaws require that the President, each year, on or before the December meeting, appoint a Nominating Committee comprised of three active members to nominate a slate of officers and report such nominations at the ICWRT’s January meeting. The submission of this nominating committee’s report does not preclude additional nominations from the floor at the January meeting. The active members present at January’s meeting shall constitute a quorum for the election of officers for the upcoming campaign. Mr. and Mrs. John Hoffman and Mr. Gerald Jones have accepted my offer to serve on this Nominating Committee. If you know anyone interested in serving as an ICWRT Officer for the 2002-2003 campaign, please advise the Hoffmans at (317) 849-1906 or Gerald Jones at (765) 378-3581.

The Round Table is looking for volunteer authors to help research and write our 50^th (l955-2005) anniversary history booklet plus an article for the Indiana Historical Society and Indiana newspapers. Please contact Jim Bishop at 248-8100 if you are interested.

Also looking for volunteers to assist Robert Dorn in greeting current members and recruiting new Round Table members. If interested, see Dave Sutherland.

Hardtack Editor

Please send book reviews, interesting articles, etc. to place in the Hardtack to me at the following: Debby Chestnut, 441 S. Catherwood Ave., Indianapolis, 46219; E-Mail: dchad@indy.net or chestnud@mail.ips.k12.in.us. Phone: 356-5117 (home) or 226-4101 (work):Fax: 226-3444. Deadline for February Hardtack: January 25^th.

Treasurer

. We still plan to deliver the Hardtack via E-mail for as many members as possible. Our goal is to reduce the costs as much as possible so that funds can be used for other purposes. Please make your E-mail address available to Dorothy Jones (joejones@iquest.net) and Doug Wagner (dougwag@msn.com).

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CIVIL WAR QUIZ

By Tony Trimble

1. Name the officer who was the last survivor of Sherman’s Civil War staff.

2. Name the future railroad president and U.S. Senator who won the Medal of Honor

in the l864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign.

3. Who said, “My religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed.”

4. What state issued its troops brass buttons adorned with a palmetto tree?

5. What distinction is held by Private Daniel Hough, 1^st U.S. Artillery?

Answers to December Quiz: 1) Robert Milroy; 2) John Bell Hood and John Pelham: 3) John B. Gordon; 4) John Pope; 5) William Howard Russell.

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New Web Address for INDIANA IN THE CIVIL WAR

Larry Ligget has informed us that his web site, INDIANA IN THE CIVIL WAR, has a new and easier-to-remember web address: http://www.IndianaintheCivilWar.com. If you are looking for other round tables in Indiana, just go to this web site and click on THE CIVIL WAR ROUND TABLES OF INDIANA. The new location is up and running, but it is still “under construction” and he asks for your patience. The OLD SITE, located at larrylig@mach500.net address will temporarily continue to be useable until all files are put on the new web site.

June 24-28, 2002 Tour

Confederate Invasion of Kentucky & Indiana

Below is the tentative schedule for the ICWRT’s 2002 Tour:

v Monday, June 24 – Pleasant Hill for lunch and talk by Dorothy Jones about how the Shakers aided soldiers of both sides. Tour Shakertown.

v Tuesday, June 25 – Battle of Perryville with David Detrick as guide.

v Wednesday, June 26 – A.M.: Battle of Mumfordville with Gerald Jones as guide. Lunch on the grounds. P.M.: Civil War Museum of Bardstown. This museum focuses on the war in the western states. Artifacts include photos, uniforms, cannons, flags, medical equipment, battle wagons, weapons and soldier’s personal items. POSSIBLE evening performance of the Stephen Foster Musical “My Old Kentucky Home.”

v Thursday, June 27 – John Hunt Morgan’s Raid in southern Indiana with Dick Skidmore as guide. Thursday night at Clifty Falls State Park Inn. Possibly a speaker from the Jefferson County Civil War Round Table discussing Madison in the Civil War.

v Friday, June 28 – Morgan’s Raid continued. Return to Indianapolis by 6:00 p.m.

Estimated Cost: $325.00, payable in two installments in March and May.

Tour Conductor: Nikki Schofield, with the assistance of Gerald Jones, Steve Jackson, Barbara and Harold Johnson. If interested, make your reservations with Nikki Schofield. Phone: 328-8782.

Book Discussion Series

The Danville Public Library will be hosting a series of five book discussions, beginning in January. The series will discuss various aspects of the Civil War and Indiana’s involvement in the war. All books discussed will be available for purchase at the library at a discounted price. No charge for attending the series, but registration is requested. To register, visit the Adult Dept. of the library or call (317) 745-2604. Each program will begin at 7:00 p.m. on the following dates:

January 9, 2002 Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe- presented by Indiana

Author, Gwendolyn Crenshaw.

February 5, 2002 Hoosier Farmboy in Lincoln’s Army by Nancy N. Baxter – presented

by the author, Nancy Baxter.

March 11, 2002 Coburn’s Brigade by Larry Ligget & Frank Welcher – presented by the

author, Larry Ligget.

April 11, 2002 Killer Angels by Michael Shaara – presented by history teacher,

Christ Cavanaugh.

May 1, 2002 Last Full Measure by Jeff Shaara – presented by Civil War buff, Bill Corbitt.

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Current Events

Confederate Flag Auctioned for $41,000

In Easthampton, Mass., an almost perfectly preserved Confederate flag that had been in the family of a Union soldier who seized it during the Civil War sold for $41,000 at auction to an anonymous bidder. The flag, commonly known as the Stars and Bars, looked more like today’s Star and Stripes than the better-known Confederate battle flag. It measured about 2 feet wide and 4 feet long, has three broad red and white horizontal stripes, and 11 stars are sewn onto a blue background in the upper left corner. The flag has some tiny rips, a few stains, and the panels are faded. What part it played when it was taken at the l862 battle of New Berne in North Carolina, no ones knows for sure.

The flag ended up in the possession of Cpl John F. Russell of Hadley, who enlisted in the 27^th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry at age 22 and died in battle l9 months later. Miriam Pratt, 85, a distant cousin of Russell’s, came across the flag in an attic a couple of months ago after hiring Kimballs to handle her sister’s estate.

Last Bones Removed from Hunley

The last of the human remains have been removed from the Hunley when leg bones of George Dixon, the commander of the Hunley, were excavated. Scientists at the marine conservation laboratory removed a block of material including sediment, clothing and the leg bones and will store the block in one piece in the morgue where the other remains of the Hunley crewmen are being kept. After the block was removed, scientists found a wrench nearly under where Dixon’s feet had been. They believe the tool would have been used to detach outside ballast weights from inside the boat in an emergency. Releasing the weights should have lightened the Hunley enough that the air inside it would force it to the surface through buoyancy. Researchers hope to complete the excavation of the Hunley by Christmas.

Author and Book Signing at Indiana War Memorial

Charles B. Dew, author of the controversial book Apostles of Disunion , will be presenting a discussion of his research and findings on the Secession Crisis of l860-61 at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, January 23, 2002 at the Indiana War Memorial, 431 N. Meridian St. Free parking all around block. Enter by the center door on Michigan St.

By looking into the speeches and writings of the Secession commissioners sent by the early seceding states to those wavering, Professor Dew has come to startling and disquieting conclusions on the “real” reasons for the breakup of the Union. Once a new Confederate nation was founded, the reasons for defending it may have been many, but Dew’s research shows that the arguments that made secession a reality in the first place were almost entirely those appealing to racial pride, and the necessity of defending the “honor” of the white race. In the minds of those sent to persuade their sister states into secession, the real threat posed by Lincoln and his “black Republicans” was neither political nor economic. The threat was that the black man was now on the verge of being made the equal of the white, and if that threat were to come true, the entire philosophical basis for Southern society would be gone.

Confederate Vice-president Alexander Stephens’ “Corner-stone” speech, which states that the Confederate government was founded on the “great truth, that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition, has often been dismissed as one man’s vast oversimplification of a great reservoir of grievances and other reasons for secession. Professor Dew, however, has found that this “great truth” was indeed the underlying premise of all secession rhetoric and argument.

Audience question and discussion period will follow the presentation. Professor Dew will be available afterwards for book signing.

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Mary Edward Walker

Civil War Doctor

Mary Edwards Walker, one of the nation's 1.8 million women veterans, was the only one to earn the Congressional Medal of Honor, for her service during the Civil War. She, along with thousands of other women, were honored in the newly dedicated Women in Military Service for America Memorial in October 1997.

Controversy surrounded Mary Edwards Walker throughout her life. She was born on November 26, 1832 in the Town of Oswego, New York, into an abolitionist family. Her birthplace on the Bunker Hill Road is marked with a historical marker. Her father, a country doctor, was a free thinking participant in many of the reform movements that thrived in upstate New York in the mid 1800s. He believed strongly in education and equality for his five daughters Mary, Aurora, Luna, Vesta, and Cynthia (there was one son, Alvah). He also believed they were hampered by the tight-fitting women's clothing of the day.

His daughter, Mary, became an early enthusiast for Women's Rights, and passionately espoused the issue of dress reform. The most famous proponent of dress reform was Amelia Bloomer, a native of Homer, New York, whose defended a colleague's right to wear "Turkish pantaloons" in her Ladies' Temperance Newspaper, the Lily. "Bloomers," as they became known, did achieve some popular acceptance towards the end of the 19th century as women took up the new sport of bicycling. Mary Edwards Walker discarded the unusual restrictive women's clothing of the day. Later in her life she donned full men's evening dress to lecture on Women's Rights.

In June 1855 Mary, the only woman in her class, joined the tiny number of women doctors in the nation when she graduated from the eclectic Syracuse Medical College, the nation's first medical school and one which accepted women and men on an equal basis. She graduated at age 21 after three 13-week semesters of medical training which she paid $55 each for.

In 1856 she married another physician, Albert Miller, wearing trousers and a man's coat and kept her own name. Together they set up a medical practice in Rome, NY, but the public was not ready to accept a woman physician, and their practice floundered. They were divorced 13 years later.

When war broke out, she came to Washington and tried to join the Union Army. Denied a commission as a medical officer, she volunteered anyway, serving as an acting assistant surgeon -- the first female surgeon in the US Army. As an unpaid volunteer, she worked in the US Patent Office Hospital in Washington. Later, she worked as a field surgeon near the Union front lines for almost two years (including Fredericksburg and in Chattanooga after the Battle of Chickamauga).

In September 1863, Walker was finally appointed assistant surgeon in the Army of the Cumberland for which she made herself a slightly modified officer's uniform to wear, in response to the demands of traveling with the soldiers and working in field hospitals. She was then appointed assistant surgeon of the 52nd Ohio Infantry. During this assignment it is generally accepted that she also served as a spy. She continually crossed Confederate lines to treat civilians. She was taken prisoner in 1864 by Confederate troops and imprisoned in Richmond for four months until she was exchanged, with two dozen other Union doctors, for 17 Confederate surgeons.

She was released back to the 52nd Ohio as a contract surgeon, but spent the rest of the war practicing at a Louisville female prison and an orphan's asylum in Tennessee. She was paid $766.16 for her wartime service. Afterward, she got a monthly pension of $8.50, later raised to $20, but still less than some widows' pensions.

(continued)

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On November 11, 1865, President Johnson signed a bill to present Dr. Mary Edwards Walker with the Congressional Medal of Honor for Meritorious Service, in order to recognize her contributions to the war effort without awarding her an army commission. She was the only woman ever to receive the Medal of Honor, her country's highest military award.

In 1917 her Congressional Medal, along with the medals of 910 others was taken away when Congress revised the Medal of Honor standards to include only “actual combat with an enemy” She refused to give back her Medal of Honor, wearing it every day until her death in 1919. A relative told the New York Times: "Dr. Mary lost the medal simply because she was a hundred years ahead of her time and no one could stomach it." An Army board reinstated Walker's medal posthumously in 1977, citing her "distinguished gallantry, self-sacrifice, patriotism, dedication and unflinching loyalty to her country, despite the apparent discrimination because of her sex."

After the war, Mary Edwards Walker became a writer and lecturer, touring here and abroad on women's rights, dress reform, health and temperance issues. Tobacco, she said, resulted in paralysis and insanity. Women's clothing, she said, was immodest and inconvenient. She was elected president of the National Dress Reform Association in 1866. Walker prided herself by being arrested numerous times for wearing full male dress, including wing collar, bow tie, and top hat. She was also something of an inventor, coming up with the idea of using a return postcard for registered mail. She wrote extensively, including a combination biography and commentary called Hit and a second book, Unmasked, or the Science of Immortality. She died in the Town of Oswego on February 21, 1919 and is buried in the Rural Cemetery on the Cemetery Road.

A 20¢ stamp honoring Dr. Mary Walker was issued in Oswego, NY on June 10, 1982. The stamp commemorates the first woman to have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor and the second woman to graduate from a medical school in the United States.

INDIANAPOLIS CIVIL WAR ROUND TABLE

Campaign 2001-2002 Presenter’s & Speakers

MEETING DATES PRESENTER SUBJECT

September 10, 2001 Nikki Schofield The Confederate Secret

Service in Canada

October 8, 2001 Bill Anderson The 19^th Michigan

November 12, 2001 David Fraley The Battle of Franklin, TN

December 10, 2001 Dale Phillips Ben Butler and the Occupation

of New Orleans

January 14, 2002 Dan Mitchell The Mississippi

February 11, 2002 Steve Jackson My Boys in Blue: A Tribute

March 11, 2002 Dick Skidmore John Hunt Morgan: Then and Now

April 8, 2002 Peter Carmichael TBA

May 13, 2002 Gary Ecelbarger Frederick W. Lander: The Great

Natural American Soldier

June 10, 2002 Herman Hattaway Presidency of Jefferson Davis

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ICWRT’s Preservation Committee at Work

ICWRT Adopts the Position Held by

The 27^th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment at Gettysburg

Early morning, July 3, 1863, the 27^th Indiana was ordered to assault the Confederates who were occupying the lower slope of Culp’s Hill. The regiment advanced over 100 yards across the meadow towards the hill until the defenders’ fire forced it to retire. The regiment began the engagement with 340 officers and men: 110 became casualties during the assault, including four color bearers killed and another four wounded. One company in the 27^th was raised in Marion Co. Their regimental monument is in Spangler’s Spring, at the eastern foot of Culp’s Hill. A stone in the meadow marks the furthest point of the regiment’s advance, and another in McAllister’s Woods, about l50 yards east of the regimental marker, identifies the regiment’s left flank prior to the assault.

Scope of the Work:

To gather a team of ICWRT volunteers to provide one day of work (9:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.) in the spring and/or fall to:

· Clear brush from the branch that forms the east boundary of our position.

· Cut low-hanging limbs from trees and remove any downed limbs.

· Rake leaves from turf area (about ¾ acre) and scatter in the adjacent woods.

· Collect litter around adopted area.

· Inspect monument for vandalism.

The spring work is scheduled for April 6 or April 13. Volunteers are responsible for their own transportation, accommodations, and tools (no power tools allowed). Once we have a sense of how many are volunteering, we can coordinate calendars to see what weekend fits most schedules and figure out transportation options.

The Enlistment Form below is being provided for those wanting to volunteer for one of the spring dates. Please return to Ray Shortridge at the address listed on the Enlistment Form.

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27th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment at Gettysburg Enlistment Form

If you wish to volunteer to help maintain the position of the 27th Indiana at Gettysburg this spring,

please fill out this form and return to: Ray Shortridge, 1930 New Haven Drive, Indianapolis, IN 46231 or email the information to: rayshortridge@netscape.net

Name: ………………………………………………………

Phone Number: ……………………………………

Email: ……………………………………………………..

Preferred Date: _______ Saturday, April 6 or ______ Saturday, April 13

Transportation (about 10 hour drive): Is your preference to:

_____ drive your own vehicle _____ convoy with others _____ share the cost of a van

with other volunteers

Lodging: Is your preference to:

____ arrange your own _____ stay at a motel if the ICWRT can obtain group rates

Preferred arrival at Gettysburg day: ____Thursday ______ Friday

Preferred departure from Gettysburg day: _____ Saturday _____ Sunday