Voices from the Attic
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Hardtack April 2021 Newsletter Voices from the Attic 1 President’s Notes Many of you “Zoomed” in for our March and listened to guest speaker, Gene Schmiel’s very interesting presentation about several Civil War personalities from his book Civil War Trailblazers and Troublemakers. If you missed the meeting, the recording can still be viewed on our Facebook page. This month we meet Wednesday, April 28th, at 6 p.m. via Zoom. Carleton Young will present “Voices from the Attic” based on his book of the same name. Imagine clearing out your family attic and discovering an enormous collection of letters written by two soldiers during the Civil War, but not knowing why the letters were there. Faced with that situation, April guest speaker Carleton Young spent more than a decade visiting battlefields and researching the two soldiers as well as other people who appear in the letters. The two brothers were members of the celebrated Vermont Brigade in the 6th Corps of the Army of the Potomac. In Voices from the Attic: The Williamstown Boys in the Civil War, he tells the story of these two brothers who witnessed and made history by fighting in the Peninsula Campaign, then at South Mountain, Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Mine Run, the Bristoe Campaign, the Wilderness, Petersburg, and Cedar Creek. They then preserved that history through their surprisingly detailed and insightful letters. No registration is required for our virtual meetings and attendance is free. Use this link to join: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89012200967?pwd=T3lzcndSNUszUnU4cFEvdWp6ck1wZz09. If you need assistance gaining access, call me directly at 719-650-8135. This presentation can be viewed live on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CivilWarRoundTableofFredericksburg/ and will be recorded for later posting. The University of Mary Washington has cancelled all outside events through the end of June. University COVID-19 regulations are dependent on State guidelines and there is a committee in place to decide what to do about summer events. If events are held at the Jepson Alumni Executive Center this summer, they will need to be social distanced and masked. Also, at this time all meals are being served; Sodexo is not having buffets. The CWRTF Executive Committee is meeting this week to discuss other meeting location options. I will let you know as soon as I have more information. Our current membership of 81 includes two new members. On behalf of the club, I’d like to welcome Robert LaChance and Richard Horner. If you have not renewed your membership, please do so. Remember, renewals after 1 April carry forward through Program Year 2021-2022. Send your dues to: Civil War Round Table of Fredericksburg, 504 Hawke Street, Fredericksburg, VA 22401. 2 Mark your calendar for 24-25 April. We need volunteers to help place the 60 gravestones in Confederate Cemetery. The stones arrived in March and are safely stored until they can be placed. Weather permitting, it will take two days to get the stones in the ground properly. The CWRTF has always answered the call when volunteers have been needed for this task. I am confident we will do so again. Mike Shephard has volunteered his time and equipment to move the stones to the cemetery on Friday 23 April. This pre-positioning will allow us on Saturday at 9:30 a.m. to move the stones to their marked locations and begin placing them quickly. Bring gloves, shovels, and a few weed- whackers to trim around previously placed stones. A few wheelbarrows would also be useful to move around excess sod/dirt. Frank O’Reilly, Lead Historian at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park, gave me great news. After interviewing several excellent candidates for this year’s summer internship with the Park, Frank found a perfect fit for Civil War Round Table of Fredericksburg 2021 Honorary Albert Z. Connor NMPS Intern. His name is Daniel Brennan. Danny lives in Strongsville, Ohio. He is finishing his sophomore year at the University of Notre Dame where he is majoring in History and Theology. Danny is active in university government and is the president of his residence hall. He has been a student teacher and a participant in the Civil War Institute. He has worked with the Irish American Archive Society at the Western Reserve. He wants to engage people of all ages and backgrounds and serve the people of the United States. He intends to go into academia. Danny is enthusiastic. A forward thinker, he will thrive in the National Park Service environment. I called to congratulate Danny on his selection. He is thrilled and honored to have been chosen for the Civil War Round Table of Fredericksburg and has been learning about the club through our website. Danny is very excited to meet us. He and the rest of the summer interns should arrive at the end of May. Special thanks to Ted Watkins for this month’s contribution to Hardtack. Several years ago, Ted shared with me a compilation of his great grandfather’s letters and diary, so I was very 3 pleased to see it in narrative. You will find his article of page seven. Stories like Ted’s make Hardtack worth reading. Who’s next? See you on the 28th. Your Obedient Servant, Roger L. Leturno President Civil War Round Table of Fredericksburg 4 Civil War Round Table of Fredericksburg Program Schedule DATE SPEAKER PRESENTATION APR 28, 2021 CARLTON YOUNG Voices from the Attic MAY 26, 2021 DR. JENNIFER MURRAY The Victor of Gettysburg: George Gordon Meade and the Civil War JUN 16, 2021 GEOFF WHITE Civil War Music JUL 28, 2021 TBD TBD AUG 25, 2021 TBD TBD SEP 22, 2021 “DOC” NORTON Marines at First Manassas OCT 27, 2021 GREG CLEMMER Old Alleghany: The Life and Wars of General Edward Johnson Rappahannock Valley Civil War Round Table DATE SPEAKER PRESENTATION MAY 10, 2021 RYAN QUINT The Battle of Dranesville JUNE 14, 2021 DAVID WELKER The Battle of Chantilly (or Ox Hill) JULY 12, 2021 SARAH KAY BIERLE The Battle of New Market AUG 9, 2021 DARRELL COCHRAN The U.S. Regulars SEP 13, 2021 PETER CARMICHAEL The War for the Common Soldier OCT 11, 2021 BRIAN WITHROW U.S. Grant (1st Person) NOV 8, 2021 DOUG CRENSHAW Richmond: 7 Days DEC 13, 2021 GARY CASTELLINO The Battle of Chickasaw Bayou: An Interactive Program Check the Rappahannock Valley Civil War Round Table website for updates/changes. 5 Watkins’ Civil War Experience Contributed by Ted Watkins When Roger asked for contributions to Hardtack, I offered to put together a brief synopsis of my Civil War documents. Being from New Jersey, I wasn’t terribly interested in the civil war as a youngster, although I did have a blue kepi in the 1950s (probably because of the Grey Ghost TV program). Spending a few years in South Carolina didn’t increase my interest much, although I did learn that it wasn’t ancient history! After we moved to southern Stafford, and I started reading letters from “Camp near the Rappahannock” and “Camp near Falmouth”, my interest in the period grew well beyond simply knowing who the president was at the time. When Carlton Young described his April talk, I figured this would be a good time to do some word processing. There isn’t much similarity between Carlton’s new found box of letters, and the ones my Grandmother used to read to me in the ‘50s. His recent discovery was not on family (unless his research has discovered a connection). Mine, were letters written mostly by my namesakes, Frederick N. Watkins and Frederick W. Watkins, my Great Great Grandfather and Great Grandfather respectively, hereafter referred to FNW and FWW. Carlton’s letters apparently include descriptions of battles, while mine were written to my Great Great Grandmother, Harriet Titus Watkins, and do not contain much in the way of blood and gore. I have left misspellings and miss-punctuations in the quotations from my documents. The rest of the errors are mine. FNW enlisted as a sergeant in the 25th NY Union Rangers, or, as he indicated, were referred to early in the war in Washington City as Kerrigan’s Horse Thieves, His first letter, written from Alexandria, included this description of army life. “While I am writing one of my room mates came in and said that he and another chap had stole a horse and sold it for a dollar and chewed his share of the plunder. Yesterday I visited the Marshall house where poor Elsworth was shot. The stairs is all gone. I enclose a small piece of one of the bannisters as a relick. There was a sad affair took place this afternoon. There was a man of the Mosart Regiment chasing a woman charging her with stealing 25 dollars which she denied. She was running away from him, he shot her down and killed her instantly. He is to be shot tonight at sun down.” During the 7 days battles at Richmond, FNW was stuck on the wrong side of a bridge after the battle of Gaines Mill, and was captured by confederates. He wrote a short note to his wife from “Tobacco Warehouse Prison #4” regarding his captivity and treatment. His next letter was written from Harrison’s Landing, after having been exchanged, which practice was halted by Lincoln shortly after. The description of his treatment as a former prisoner is noticeably different from that in the earlier letter: “We arrived at the landing just after dark. We met the rebel prisoners going towards Richmond. They looked as if they had been well fed.