What's the History Behind Chapter II of Prologue?

 

As Chapter II of the Prologue opens, we meet our "storyteller," Jacob Thompson and his best pard Hank Johnson, both serving in Company H of the Fourth Regiment, North Carolina State Troops Infantry.. Both pards, as we learn, hail from Iredell County in North Carolina and joined up together after the firing on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor and the secession of North Carolina from the United States to throw its lot with the nascent Confederate States of America.

The two friends just have learned their regiment (commanded by Bryan Grimes) and brigade (commanded by George B Anderson)have been ordered by divisional commander Daniel Harvy Hill to cross into Maryland, thereby beginning the first movement north of the Potomac by the Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee. Much debate and soul searching follows as the two companions, along with others of their company, wrestle with their hard-fought principles of defending their homes and rights against following their orders. Jake describes some of this debate in a letter which he writes home to his father and also describes some of the over 180 mile journey on foot from Gordonsville, Virginia to the area near Leesburg in Loudon County (not too far from Harper's Ferry area)..

Is There any Historical Fact behind Jake's Letter Home?

 

Actually, yes there is. Much of the background factual information about Jake's journey from Gordonsville, Virginia is factual and accurate. Captain William T Marsh, who winds up commanding the regiment at Sharpsburg, wrote a letter from Lessburg to an un-named cousin. 

This letter is important for a few reasons. First, it is the last known letter penned by Marsh; second, it vividly describes the grueling march of D H Hill's "relief column" to join the Army of Northern Virginia hopefully in time for what became the Second Battle of Manassas Plains as well as well as the horrible sights the division saw as it marched through the battlefield just immediately after the Army of Northern Virginia's victory over John Pope's Army of Virginia.

The full copy of Marsh's letter is given below; see if you can match up the details of what he writes to what Jake writes in his letter home to his father in Olin, North Carolina in the novel!

Camp 4^th N C S Troops

 Near Potomac River Leesburg

Sept 4^th 1862

My Dear Cousin,

 Your welcome letter of the 21^st reached me a few days since whilst we were on a forced march to join the erratic Stonewall Jackson, having been forwarded from Richmond. I was glad to hear from you as I always am.

Since I last wrote I have experienced some of the hardest marching of the war &c in Summer dust—hard roads—long toilsome days marches & scarcity of water and thirst. We have now been marching tend days—eight of which without rest except a few hours at night. Within the ten days we have march an estimated distance of 187 miles. Within the eight successive days of march without a day of rest we marched 168 miles—an average of 21 miles per day many days upon only one meal per day and some without any. This force march was made to unite our forces with those of Jackson who was driving the enemy before him from the Rapidan towards Warrenton and thence towards Fairfax & Washington. We were unable to overtake Jackson & Longstreet before the battles of last Saturday and Sunday on Bull Run. We were one day behind and as we passed over the fields of strife extending from Gainesville to Bull Run for mile we were compelled to witness the awful disgusting and revolting spectacle of a battle field the day after battle. The bodies of the dead and wounded lay strewn and in heaps around us on all sides. So far as I could judge from appearances the carnage was greater than in any of the battles around Richmond especially of the enemy. I should think there was at least twenty dead bodies of the enemy to one of ours. It is estimated that their dead and wounded amounted to not less than eight thousand. The Second day’s battle was upon the old battle ground of the 21^st of July 1861. They there again met with a most signal rout—we followed them to the fortifications near Washington between Alexandria and Arlington Heights. Our Division and some others were then dispatched to this point we arrived here last night late in the night and are allowed a portion of us (Andersons Brigade) to rest and prepare rations to day—to morrow we expect to follow into Maryland. A portion of Hills Division left us this morning to cross over at Balls Bluff or Edwards Ferry. We expect to leave early in the morning—our present course for the opposite shore. Perhaps when we get into Maryland we may not have facilities of writing or sending letters to our friends at home. I therefore embrace this the earliest as well as latest opportunity to reply to your letter. From late letters received by members of my Company the Yankees have been committing more depredations upon the citizens of Beaufort County than heretofore. I hear they have taken possession of one of our farms and are cultivating the (unclear in copy of copy) with a number of runaway negroes and have a lot of troops there to protect them. I suppose they will destroy my stock fencing &c If we could only get into Pennsylvania I should take pleasure in retaliating.

You have been misinformed in reference to my reported prospect of marriage with Miss Palmer. I have no such intention nor have I ever had.  Miss Palmer’s whole family was very kind to me when I was sick there last fall and again this spring. I am under many obligations to them and shall ever entertain a grateful remembrance of their many acts of kindness—beyond this I have no aspirations. In this disclaimer I am candid and sincere and hope you will not doubt me. I am too old to joke upon such a subject and care too little for what the public may say to attempt concealment. Perhaps I may never marry. I shall certainly never marry any one I would be ashamed of even beforehand. So that whenever I become engaged if you have curiosity enough to enquire I will not deny you the information unless otherwise requested and of that—would be candid. Will you make a bargain with me to tell me your love secrets in return for my own or would I be an unfair one. You are so young and I so far advanced in years. You just in the bloom of loves springtime, I in the autumn.      

As I have said we are about to enter Maryland and what opposition we may meet I cannot say. If we go to Washington of course we shall have much fighting to do. So far a kind protecting providence has held me in his hand and shielded me from all danger. It may still be my good fortune to be preserved. May be the Angel of Death may mark me as a victim. Many of my best friends in the army—among them the noblest and most patriotic—have fallen. Every part of our land has to mourn the loss of some of these—every instance of which tending more and more to alienate the two sections of country and render the separation more sure and permanent.

I see by the papers that my friend Maj. Gedtis [spelling ??] of Hertford Co. has been appointed solicitor. I suppose he will resign his place in the army. The Maj is so [copy lost here] a gentleman the 31^st Regt will be the looser thereby.

I shall expect to hear from you soon and often as you are my only female correspondent except A[rest unclear]. It is cheering and refreshing to get a letter from you.

Give my kind regards to your sisters. 

Yours sincerely

 W.T. Marsh

Note:  Copy of original letter transcribed by author of novel and transcribed copy is in the library of the Antietam National Battlefield Park, Sharpsburg, Maryland.

 

About the Dedication

The dedicatory page to the officers and men of the Fourth Regiment, North Carolina State Troops, is very similar to dedications made by surviving veterans in their own actual memoirs.

I made the conscious decision to use the Fourth NC because the regiment lost all its serving field officers in the Sunken Road during the Battle of Sharpsburg on September 17, 1862.

 Chapter 1 of the Prologue 

This chapter accomplishes three main goals. First, it helps set the actual historical situation prevelent in the Eastern Theater, and to some extent in the Western Theater, as viewed in the South by the time the Army of Northern Virginia is poised to enter Maryland. Second, it serves to educate the reader about the uniforming and equipment and other items carried by the soldiers in the ranks of both sides at this stage of the War. (Note: The illustration in the chapter of a typical CS soldier in the ranks is the author himself.) Third, the chapter serves to introduce Jacob "Jake" Thompson, the supposed author of the "memoir" about his adventures and experiences during the Maryland campaign of the Army of Northern Virginia 150 years ago.

Next blog: Discussing the actual letter which helped me construct Jake's own letter home to his father in North Carolina. Stay Tuned!

  

About the cover of None But Heroes:

http://anamericanlegacy.com/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=4

The link above will take you to the painting which is the cover art for the novel as well as forming the background for the title page. The painting is actually titled "Father to Son" but it was such a perfect illustration for the novel, since it could almost (also) be the "memoir's"  fictional author with his best friend Hank Johnson. The setting is the Fourth North Carolina in the sunken wagon road on the morning of September 17, 1862, before the fighting actually began and while there was still relative silence on the field of battle. The young soldier in the extreme right background of the painting is the artist's son Seth.

Charles H Marvil, of Sharpsburg, Maryland, is the artist behind the amazing image that is the cover for None But Heroes. Charlie and I served together as re-enactors in the Chesapeake Signals Detachment. He retired as a re-enactor at the beginning of this year (2012) and I returned as an active signalist a couple years ago. Together with his family, Charlie lives in a house on the southern outskirts of Sharpsburg that was standing at the time of the battle; the garret of the house was used by Confederate sharpshooters against advancing Federal troops of the Ninth US Army Corps during the mid afternoon of that bloody day in September 150 years ago.

Musings on the Novel's Title

My first blog post talked briefly about the reasons for this blog and its importance to understanding the history behind the novel, None But Heroes.

In this installment, I am going to show the actual historical quote and circumstances behind my choice of the words for the book's title.

In the second volume of his Lee's Lieutenants (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1943), Douglas Southall Freeman concentrates the major focus of the book on Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson. The book is, however, a treasure trove of other highly useful information about the Army of Northern Virginia and about many of the historical characters found in the novel, including James Longstreet and Daniel Harvey Hill.

In Chapter VIII, Freeman describes the many weighty matters that General Lee and other officers had to weigh as the Army of Northern Virginia prepared to move northward into Maryland. The many weeks of marching and fighting by the men of the army had worn them down to the point where straggling became a serious and major problem; the coming campaign in Maryland did little to alleviate the issue and concerns on all levels on how to effectively deal with it.

Alexander Cheves Haskell, a Captain at the time on the staff of Brigadier General Maxcy Gregg of Major General A P Hill's famed Light Division, wrote about the straggling issues in a letter to his sister (Louise Haskell Daly) that, as the campaign began and continued, the "weak solider fell away with the indifferent" as Freeman put it, until "none but heroes are left" (Volume II, Lee's Lieutenants, Chapter VIII "The Imponderables of Invasion", pg. 149, footnote 26.). There were many in the Army of Northern Virginia who justly claimed the very flower of General Lee's army made the crossing and campaign into Maryland in September, 1862.

Next post will talk about the choice of cover art and give you all some information about the very talented artist who did the original painting.