Crossing the Rapidan - Part I

The 150th seems to be flying by as we now find ourselves in the middle of the commemorations of the 1864 Overland Campaign.  With my work in Gettysburg I'm sadly missing out on the many living histories and reenactments going on around Fredericksburg.  But, giving tours on the Gettysburg Battlefield is still a great way to spend my weekends, so I shouldn't really be complaining.  This doesn't mean I can't vicariously experience the Overland Campaign 150th, though, and my favorite way to do that is through period photos from the Library of Congress' digital collections.

Three photos that have caught my eye recently are of the Army of the Potomac's crossing of the Rapidan River in early May of 1864 on the eve of the Battle of the Wilderness.  The three I'll focus on today each offer amazing views of what the AotP would have looked like on the move, and provide exquisite detail thanks to the high resolution copies made available by the LoC.

So, let's have a look at our first image:

This shot shows wagons of the V Corps crossing a river.  There are contradicting captions for this image on the LoC website, but I think it shows the V Corps' crossing of the Rapidan in early May of 1864.  I feel confident of the date because of the corps insignia painted on the covers of the wagons.

You'll see that there is a I Corps circle nested into the V Corps Maltese cross insignia.  During the AotP's reorganization in early 1864, the I Corps was discontinued and consolidated into two divisions under John C. Robinson and James S. Wadsworth.  Not wanting to let go of their old insignia, the men of the former I Corps were allowed to wear their old badges, and I reckon to distinguish their wagons from the other V Corps Divisions they utilized the combined symbol.  I haven't found documentation to back up this claim, but would be interested to know how this might have come about.  This to me shows that the spring of 1864 is the earliest date this photo could have been taken.

There are other markings seen on these wagons that are harder to decipher.

On the leftmost wagon in this shot, there's a "3 4" visible.  My first thought was this might belong to a regiment with the numeral 34.  Unfortunately it's not that simple, because the only unit in the AotP at this time numbered 34 was the 34th New York Light Artillery Battery, which was a part of the IX Corps.

All the men pictured seem rather nonchalant.  If I was in the middle of a swift river standing on a temporary pontoon bridge weighted down by several tons of wagons, ammunition, supplies, men, and horse muscle that could break loose any moment, I'd be a little uneasy.  On the bright side, the traffic jam up the road that caused these wagons to pause enabled these men to be photographed, preserving their memory for the use on blogs 150 years later.

In the background we see that there's plenty more wagons coming around the bend and maneuvering down the steep bank to the bridge.  This photo really provides an amazing view into what the seemingly endless trains of men, guns and wagons looked like when an army of 100,000 men was on the move.

Finally, there's one figure in this photo who I'd be very curious to know about.  That's the man sitting next to the dog tent and what looks like a little shack to the right of the bridge on the far bank.  What's this guy's purpose here?  Is the shack his office?  Is he tasked in some way with managing the crossing, maybe keeping track of whose going over and what they have?  I'm not sure, but I can't help imagining his job being something like this:

While he may not of asked each person who crossed five three questions, the name "Bridge of Death" would probably be a good name for the crossing he overlooked in the photo.  While mostly veterans, I think its safe to say the men of the AotP who crossed at Germanna Ford in early May of 1864 could not have imagined the grueling campaign that lay before them.  Inside of two months from when this photo was taken between 50 and 60,000 federal soldiers would be killed, wounded, or captured.

This is just the first installment of photo analysis from the AotP's crossings.  In the next few day's I'll take a look at two more images struck at about the same time, so stay tuned.

Start of a New Guiding Season

Well, we're approaching the two month mark since the 2014 guiding season opened for me at Gettysburg National Military Park.  As a part-time Licensed Battlefield Guide, I take the winter off to let the full-timers get the few visitors that come through that time of year.  During the spring, summer and fall I spend my evenings, weekends, or whenever I find time away from my 'real job,' on the battlefield.

I'm already well on my way to meeting my 90 tour minumum, and have met some really nice visitors.  Meeting people is probably my favorite part about being a guide.  I know that if someone is willing to spend $65 on a two-hour tour, they probably have an above average interest in the Civil War, or at least the desire to walk away from their experience with a bit more than what the Visitor Center can provide alone.  This almost always makes for thoughtful dialogue on the field.

Every year I've been guiding there seems to be a different trend in terms of who is visiting the park.  So far this spring I've had a lot more families with young kids than I had last year.  Geographically speaking, most of my tours so far have been folks from west of the Mississippi.  Last spring I remember having mostly New Englanders, and have no idea what may have caused the shift in demographics.  A like scenario is that it's all just dumb luck and coincidence, and I'm probably just reading too much into it.

My most unique tour so far was a gentlemen from Ohio.  I suspected right off the bat it was going to be a memorable tour when one of the ticket supervisors came back to the guide room and said 'I have a guy out here who says he's looking for a guide with no ego...any takers?'  None of the other guides seemed too eager to take it- not because they all have big egos (with some exceptions), but because any special request like that is usually the sign of an odd duck who you may not want to be stuck in the car with for two hours.

Joseph Kershaw

As it turns out, the gentlemen from Ohio was about as passionate about the history of the battle as anyone I've ever met.  He wanted to focus on Joseph Kershaw's South Carolina Brigade on July 2nd.  Specifically, he wanted wrap his head around how informed Kershaw was when in the mid-late afternoon of July he arrived in position a few hundred yards away from the Peach Orchard, where Dan Sickles' men of the Union III Corps had unexpectedly taken up an advanced position.  It quickly became apparent that he was just as, if not more informed than I was about that particular situation.  All of the accounts I could rattle off the top of my head he was already aware of, humbling me a great deal.

After orienting ourselves in that area of the battlefield, it seems he was looking for somebody to debate with on the various leadership decisions made that afternoon, and I was more than happy to be a contrarian to his views.  I wouldn't call those two hours a tour, more of a friendly debate that turned out to be a lot of fun.  Our conversation made me think about the events the afternoon of July 2nd in a new way, showing that I sometimes have just as much to learn from visitors as they do from me.

Wow

Wow, so almost a year now and I'm finally on my second post.  Well progress is progress I guess.

A lot has happened in the past year.  Some things have been good and others not so much, but most notably I was finally ordained a Gettysburg Licensed Battlefield Guide.  This accomplishment I am most proud of and am very much looking forward to begin guiding in the spring.  It will be great to finally be able to get paid for something I've been doing for fun for more than a decade.  I have fond memories of being a young (and sadly at the time 'farby') reenactor hanging out at the Angle on Cemetery Ridge and talking to anyone who would listen to a 12 year old pontificate about Pickett's Charge.  I'm a bit more polished in my presentation now- something for which I hope my future tours will appreciate.

In other news I've settled in downtown Frederick, Maryland, which I'm certain is the best place to live in the region.  History, great food and beer are in abundance which is all I could really ask for- and all within walking distance.

I do hope to be more active this year, so if you happened to stumble upon this post please check back soon.

Getting Started

I have been staying tuned to the Civil War blogosphere for some time now, and have often thought about blogging myself.  Well, as you can see, I've decided to make the leap.

I will actually have two blogs going by April.  Shot & Shell, my personal one; and The Great Task Before Us, an official blog I will maintain for my employer, the Gettysburg Foundation. 

I am very proud of being able to work on Great Task.  The goal there is to reach out to the membership of the Gettysburg Foundation and ask them to send me whatever information they have on their Civil War ancestors which will be the foundation of the blog.  It seems like an ambitious undertaking considering I expect a deluge of enthusiastic GF members sending in information on great-great-great-grandpa, but I think modern internet research sources like Ancestry and Footnote will make the project manageable.  I certainly want to give it as much historical integrity as I can, so being able to access primary source documents at the click of a mouse while researching all the soldiers and sailors being sent in to me will be very convenient.

Shot and Shell will be my own personal research projects, notes on my hobby; Civil War living history, and any thoughts that I have on the much anticipated Civil War Sesquicentennial (or not so much anticipated depending on who you ask).  Needless to say, what appears on this blog are my own thoughts which have no correlation with the Gettysburg Foundation, Friends of Gettysburg or the National Park Service blah blah blah.  I will have to work up a more formal disclaimer at some point.

Thanks for reading and I hope to have some cool things ready to go here soon.