News---20 ' Long, 20' High, 6' Diameter: Rodman Canon, Wonder of the 19th Century, Reproduction Exhibited In Pittsburgh

Heinz History Center To Display Copy Of Huge Fort Pitt 1864 Cannon,  Len Barcousky, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette June 10, 2013

 

Fabricating a full-size reproduction of a 20-inch Rodman cannon required the help of a 21st century 3-D computer modeling program. The artisans at LF Creative Group needed about two months to complete the job. "It takes amazing technology to make this kind of copy," LF Creative partner Travis Gillum said. "What is more amazing is that workers were able to make something this big in the 1860s."

The barrel of the Rodman reproduction is about 20 feet long and about 6 feet in diameter at its widest point. When mounted on its iron carriage, the artillery piece will stand about 20 feet tall. The model will serve as the centerpiece of the 9,000-square-foot "Pennsylvania's Civil War" exhibit that opens June 22 at the Heinz History Center. The original 20-inch Rodman cannon was cast in 1864 at the Fort Pitt Foundry, That manufacturing plant was located on the banks of the Allegheny River, just across Smallman Street from the history center. The "20-inch" refers to the interior diameter of the weapon's bore.

The giant gun was built according to a design developed by U.S. Army ordnance officer Thomas Jackson Rodman, the one-time commander of the Allegheny Arsenal in Lawrenceville. Rodman's cannons were made of cast iron and cooled from the inside out by water flowing through the center of the mold. The metal shrank inward as it cooled, producing a stronger barrel far less likely to blow up while being fired. Rodman developed several other military innovations, according to Andrew Masich, president of the Heinz History Center. "He perfected a bullet-making machine that used compression rather than casting," Mr. Masich said. "It allowed workers to crank out thousands of bullets per hour, each uniform in weight and size."

Rodman also designed new cartridges for use in breech-loading, rather than muzzle-loading, weapons. Because they offered increased strength and safety, Rodman cannons could be made much larger. Charged with 200 pounds of gunpowder, the 20-inch Rodman could fire a half-ton ball 4 1/2 miles. The barrel of the smooth-bore, cast-iron artillery piece weighed more than 58 tons and required a special railroad car to transport it to Fort Hamilton in Brooklyn. Its original role was to protect the Verrazano Narrows entrance to New York's upper bay. While it no longer keeps watch over the harbor, the cannon remains near its original location in a small park. The only other cannon Rodman made this size is at Fort Hancock in Sandy Hook, N.J. The model of the Rodman cannon is one of the largest single pieces that the Ohio-based LF Creative Group ever has produced, Mr. Gillum said. With a foot in several different worlds, LF Creative does work for both museums and theme parks, he said.

. . .  Full Text Continued at Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, June 10, 2013

New and Noteworthy---How Soldiers Die In Battle

The following is a portion of a book review written by Andrew Burtch, Canadian War Museum, published by Michigan War Studies, June 13, 2013.

The Last Full Measure: How Soldiers Die In Battle, Michael Stephenson, Crown Publishing, 464 pp., 2013, $28.00.

In The Last Full Measure, Michael Stephenson combines a compelling, encyclopedic analysis of the history of warfare with firsthand accounts of battlefield carnage. The finished product is accessible, informative, convincing, and moving. It forgoes any discussion of the geopolitical and strategic elements of warfare to get at what Stephenson defines as the core of military history—killing and dying. Whether inflicted by fire-hardened sharp sticks, swords, axes, arrows, musket balls, high velocity rounds, cruise missiles, or IEDs, violent death links soldiers across the centuries.

Stephenson states his central thesis in a discussion of combat in the Pacific during the Second World War: "The fighting ... reminds us that combat is a bloody gutter-slop: nasty, brutish and short—an abattoir that is only later cleaned up, perfumed, and decorated with the laurel crown of history" (262). He also dismantles the myth of the "Western Way of War," characterized by heroic man-to-man confrontations on the battlefield, by highlighting accounts from the sharp end, where "the last sound from the lips of the stricken is not so much the rousing call 'for the motherland' as the heartbreaking cry for mother" (xii–xiv).

. . . .

The book has no formal conclusion, perhaps because wars and their aftermaths are still ongoing in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, and any attempt to assess definitively their outcome or meaning would quickly be outdated. But Stephenson misses an opportunity to use his considerable store of evidence to answer a question he raises at the close of his Civil War chapter. If war is such a devastating experience (in General Sherman's words, if "war is hell"), why does it continue to exist? Why is it that a man like Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., wounded and thoroughly disillusioned, resigned his commission, yet less than twenty years later, "Like some American samurai, … discovered a fervent belief in the mystical importance of a warrior's unquestioning obedience unto death" (165).

Why, in short, do men so easily forget the atrocities of past wars just in time for the next one? Of course, many historians have fruitfully explored the meaning and memory of death and the heroic ideal after the battle, but we are left to wonder about Stephenson's thoughts on the subject.
This book is a thoughtful, respectful treatment of a difficult subject. Its author deftly balances personal, sometimes extremely graphic accounts of death and mutilation with enlightening historical analyses, steering clear of the purely anecdotal war stories or "pornography of violence" that John Keegan warned against. I recommend The Last Full Measure to both scholars and general readers with any interest in military history.

The full text of the review is found at Michigan War Studies, June 13, 2013

New And Noteworthy---Chancellorsville NPS Guide Tours on Video: Jackson's Flank Attack and The Wounding of Stonewall Jackson

Civil War Battlewalks---The Battle of Chancellorsville: Jackson's Flank Attack and Civil War Battlewalks---The Battle of Chancellorsville: Wounding of Stonewall Jackson, Frank O'Reilly, Pennsylvania Cable Network, 2006. $19.95 each.

Both battle walks occur within the National Park Service's Fredericksburg-Spotsylvania National Military Park and both tours are given by Frank O'Reilly, one of the NPS historians that work in the park. He is the author of The Fredericksburg Campaign: Winter War On The Rappahannock. O'Reilly's in depth familiarity with the story and ground of the Battle of Chancellorsville is evident in both segments. He concisely covers past and present interpretations of the events and offers his own evaluation of the evidence. 

The Battle of Chancellorsville: Jackson's Flank Attack is 49 minutes in length and The Battle of Chancellorsville: Wounding of Stonewall Jackson is 40 minutes in length.  The Pennsylvania Cable Network has long filmed the battle walks of the NPS historians at Gettysburg National Military Park. PCN's expertise continues to be evident as it starts to work in Virginia.  There are no shaky cameras, no sun flares, and no editing distractions.  While viewing the tours, a map such as the Earl McElfresh's watercolor map of the terrain at the time of the battle is recommended by CWL.

News: Kick Starting The Angels Of Our Nature: A Film Set In The Civil War

Angels of Our Nature film's producers describe their effort as a short film that follows a Civil War sketch artist who meets his long lost twin brother on the opposite side of the war.  The film is to be created in Mississippi. Angels of Our Nature about the early days of the war. Battle sketch artist Cale Bacall travels with a regiment of eager yet inexperienced Confederate soldiers into hostile combat, where he must come to terms with his own conflicting ideologies on war and death at the hands of his fellow countrymen.
Cale Bacall's loyalties are complicated, however, when he recognizes a long lost face from his past, fighting for the Union. It is the face of a cunning and battle hardened soldier who he hasn't seen since he was a young boy -- his twin brother.

They cite The National Geographic's article on Civil War battlefield sketch artists as the inspiration for the story line.  Investments from $5 to $10,000 are appreciated and will be rewarded with items such as autographed storyboards, autographed scripts, autographed posters, DVD copies of the film and screen credits. Angels Of Our Nature's creators discuss the film and its inspiration at the Kick Starter website. 

 

New and Noteworthy---The Gettysburg Campaign: Numbers, Losses, Strengths, Maps, Synopses In Color

The Gettysburg Campaign In Numbers and Losses; Synopses, Orders of Battle, Strengths, Casualties and Maps, June 9-July 14, 1863, J. David Petruzzi and Steven A. Stanley, Savas Beatie Publishing, 210 pp., 42 maps in color, 10 charts, $32.95.

Q: Of what does the Gettysburg Campaign consist?
A: 16 battles, 23 skirmishes, 3 fights 1 siege, and 1 raid

One of the more attractive, useful and informative reference books of the sesquicentennial is now available from Savas Beatie Publishing and authors David Petruzzi and Steve Stanley. The Gettysburg Campaign In Numbers and Losses; Synopses, Orders of Battle, Strengths, Casualties and Maps, June 9-July 14, 1863 presents over 40 color maps and synopses of 44 engagements occurring in June and July during The Pennsylvania Campaign.

With clear writing and interesting anecdotes, each engagement is described in a brief synopsis.  Offered immediately after the synopsis is a listing of the units engaged, their commanders, the number of soldiers entering the engagement, and the number of killed, wounded in missing.  The narrative style of the synopses is accessible and engaging. The bar graphs are clear and offer important visual comparisons of strengths and losses. The four Battle of Gettysburg bar graphs show July 1, July 2, July 3 and the total casualties; the colorful graphs are compelling. Those leading groups that discussing the campaign will find the ten bar graphs very useful.

Photographs of the major commanders in engagement offered within each synopsis; the majority are from the Library of Congress. Several are images from historical societies and the author' collections. Striking are the images of Captain Robert Bell commander of  the Independent Adams County Cavalry and Colonel Jacob G. Frick commander of the Wrightsville and Columbia defenses.

The Gettysburg Campaign In Numbers and Losses; Synopses, Orders of Battle, Strengths, Casualties and Maps, June 9-July 14, 1863, J. David Petruzzi and Steven A. Stanley is essential for most readers of The Pennsylvania Campaign and The Battle of Gettysburg.  Those taking the battlefield guide exam will likely keep within arm's reach The Gettysburg Campaign In Numbers and Losses.

News---Environmental History: A New Lens Through Which To View The American Civil War

ASU Professors To Write Book On Civil War From New Perspective, Appalachian State University News Service,  May 29, 2013.

With more than 55,000 books in print about the Civil War, one might assume that there is no new information to be gleaned about the event that separated states, communities and families.  But there is a topic that has received scant attention — the environmental history of the Civil War.

Professor Timothy Silver and associate professor Judkin Browning from the Appalachian State University Department of History have aligned their academic interests on a project that has received a $100,000 collaborative research fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies. Silver is an environmental historian and the author of “Mount Mitchell and the Black Mountains: An Environmental History of the Highest Peaks in Eastern America” (University of North Carolina Press) and “A New Face on the Countryside: Indians, Colonists and Slaves in South Atlantic Forests, 1500-1800” (Cambridge University Press).

Browning is a military historian and the author of “The War Begins Anew: The Seven Days’ Campaign, 1862” (Praeger Publishers) and “Shifting Loyalties: The Union Occupation of Eastern North Carolina” (University of North Carolina Press), as well as other books about Civil War leaders and military campaigns. “Essentially, we plan to recast the Civil War as an environmental event and not so much as a military conflict,” Silver said.  The book will illustrate the war’s disruptive influence on the relationships between people and nature and how natural factors, such as disease, malnutrition and weather, helped shape the course of the war, according to information from ACLS.

“I have always been interested in how war disrupts or changes the relationship between people and the environment,” Silver said. “The Civil War is the only semi-modern war fought on American soil and arguably, I think, the second largest movement of people and animals in American history — the first being Europeans colonizing the Americas.”
The historians will document how the large-scale movement of troops and animals changed communities and towns, including the effects of disease outbreaks, such as measles and typhoid in humans and diseases that affected animals, such as hog cholera and glanders in horses. Silver said that Union and Confederate soldiers accused each side of releasing diseased horses in an effort to infect their enemy’s herds.

Silver and Browning will turn to rosters, soldiers’ diaries and letters, and published materials for their research.  “We like to say our sources are hiding in plain sight,” Silver said. “The great thing about working on the Civil War is that it’s the most written about event in American history. A surprising number of sources have been published or are available digitally. We are using sources that a lot of historians have used before but never really looked at through the lens of environmental history.”

As a military historian, Browning has many examples of battles that were determined in some ways by the weather. For example, the largest battle in Kentucky might not have happened if it had rained more in the area during the summer and fall of 1862.
The full text is continued at Mountain Times.com

CWL: The American Civil War's environmental history has been addressed within the past five years. Most notable is Lisa M. Brady's fine War Upon The Land: Military Strategy and the Transformation of Southern Landscapes During the American Civil War [2012], Kate Nelson's exceptional Ruin Nation: Destruction and the American Civil War [2012] and Kelby Ouchley's encyclopedic Flora and Fauna of the Civil War: An Environmental Reference Guide [2010]

 

Challenged Story----Descendant of POWs on Stamp: Is It Family Folk Lore?

Following is a portion of the discussion regarding the barber's declaration that the three Confederate POWs in the famous photograph are his relatives. 

This discussion is on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's webpage for the article.

Here is a portion of the discussion:

Eric Lindblade · Part Owner at Green Bay Packers

"Simply put this story does not add up with the historical records we have:

        I pulled the service records for all three (and looked them up in the NC Troop roster) and theyall come from the same region of North Carolina (Ashe, Alleghany, Wilkes Counties). Only one minor problem, the Andrew who is mentioned as being a member of the 30th NC was wounded in the right lung at Chancellorsville and died of wounds on June 19, 1863, almost an entire month before the battle of Gettysburg.

In addition to that the ages of the men make the story a bit difficult, Andrew was listed as being 21 years old when he enlisted on September 21, 1862, Ephraim Blevins is listed as 18 years old at the time of his enlistment on August 15, 1862. Somewhat difficult to be the father when you are only separated by three years.

This does not mean one or two could not be identified, but I am still very skeptical of this, especially with the identification of Andrew Blevins."

• Bryant Henderson · University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  

  "Re Andrew Blevins of the 30th NC: Even in the case that his wounding at Chancellorsville and subsequent death on June 19 MIGHT POSSIBLY have been erroneous, the 30th NC Regiment of Ramseur's Brigade did not take part in the Confederate assault of the third day at Gettysburg. They had been positioned in what was called "long lane" opposite the bend in the federal lines below Cemetery Hill. They did not fight at Gettysburg after the first day, out on the Forney Farm at Oak Hill."

   

  Eric Lindblade · Part Owner at Green Bay Packers
• "There is only one Andrew Blevins listed on the rolls of the 30th NC. Each one of these men are listed as being in three separate regiments, in three separate brigades, in three separate divisions in the Army of Northern Virginia. That to me is another of the red flags of this story. I do not believe anyone has claimed that these men are survivors (or if they have I missed it) of Pickett's Charge (of the three regiments only the 37th NC took part). Sadly I would have loved for this story to be true, but there are just too many holes in the historical record that do not match up with the story from Mr. Dollinger."

News----Gettysburg POWs' Photograph On US Stamp Recognized By Descendant

 A Postal Service Event In Gettysburg Features A Descendant of Rebels In A Famous Stamp  Photo, Tom Barnes, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 23, 2013.

Ever since 1949 -- when he was only 10 years old -- Clate Dolinger of southwestern Virginia has known that the three Confederate soldiers in a famous Civil War photo taken in July 1863 were his ancestors. "The soldier on the right is Andrew Blevins, and he was my granddaddy's granddaddy," he said in a cell phone interview Wednesday. "The one on the left is his son, Ephraim Blevins, and the one in the middle is my grandmother's great-uncle, John Baldwin."

Mr. Dolinger spoke to a reporter while making a six-hour drive from his home in Pembroke, Va., to Gettysburg, Pa., where today he will speak at a news conference held by the U.S. Postal Service as it unveils a new postage stamp honoring the battle of Gettysburg and, in particular, a part of it called Pickett's Charge, fought July 3, 1863. The stamp shows Southern forces under Gen. George Pickett trying unsuccessfully to dislodge Union forces from a hilltop stronghold.

On the back of each sheet of Gettysburg stamps will be the photo taken by famed Civil War photographer Mathew Brady, showing the three Confederate soldiers related to Mr. Dolinger. They were taken prisoner on the battle's last day. The photo shows them carrying extra bedrolls but without weapons. They shuttled to various prison camps and often were put on burial detail.
"Humiliated and knowing they would be transferred to a POW camp, they collected extra clothing and blankets from the dead, to prepare for their internment," Gettysburg officials said in a news release. The three Southerners weren't released by Northern officials until after the war ended in April 1865.

Mr. Dolinger said he stopped into his local post office a couple weeks ago and saw a sheet of the new Pickett's Charge stamps, with the photo of his family members on the back.
"I told the postal clerk that I wanted five sheets of these stamps," he said. "She said why, and I said, 'Because that's my kin.' She said, 'The men in the photo are your people?' and I said yes. They were drafted into the [Confederate] army and they had to go."

The Virginia postal official called Washington, D.C., and told them about Mr. Dolinger, and he was invited to speak at today's stamp ceremony. Mr. Dolinger, now a 73-year-old barber, is still cutting hair every day for only $4 a head.  Full Text Continued At Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, May 23, 2013