An 1882 William Tipton image taken from Cemetery Ridge looking over the ground the 28th Virginia crossed in their advance. NPS

    This story has been retold several times, most notably in Gettysburg Historian Kathy Harrison’s “Nothing But Glory”, Pickett’s Division at Gettysburg (Longstreet House, Hightstown, NJ, 1987) where she describes Spessard fighting like a man possessed in the point-blank combat at the Angle, and his subsequent escape from capture. Harrison then relates that, “Captain Spessard was one of those fortunate enough to…. escape back to Seminary Ridge, where he saw to it that his son Hezekiah was properly cared for in the field hospital.”
    Other authors have depended on this narrative for the details of the Spessard story. It can often be found verbatim on internet pages and published narratives. Yet, I was curious why no details had ever emerged of the time the captain must have spent with his son as he lay dying in a Confederate field hospital? There is no mention in the Official Records, Hunton’s memoir, or the post-war letter written by William Jesse, a former member of the 28th Virginia who described Captain Spessard that day. In the absence of evidence we have assumed that after Pickett’s Charge, the captain sought out his son.
    What did happen to the Spessards after the charge? Tim Mallick, of northern Virginia, investigated this story, initially seeking only to determine what Confederate field hospital treated the younger Spessard and where he is buried. He found Private Spessard’s military service records for at the National Archives, and they noted that he died on July 19, 1863. There were no details on the location or circumstances of his death, nor his final resting place. If he died after July 3, then it had to be in a field hospital, but where?
There are two possibilities where Hezekiah might have received medical treatment. If he was removed from the field by comrades or a Confederate stretcher team, they most likely would have taken him to the division hospital at Bream’s Mill and the Currens Farm on Marsh Creek, west of Gettysburg. This is where the majority of Pickett’s wounded were taken. Several years ago the park acquired a medical roster of the wounded of Pickett’s Division at Bream’s Mill compiled by surgeon Edward Rives of the 28th Virginia Infantry, from the holdings of the Highland County Historical Society in Hillsboro, Ohio. Hezekiah Spessard’s name is not listed in this journal, nor is a grave marker noted for him in the journal of Dr. J.W.C. O’Neal, who made a number of notations on the graves found at Bream’s Mill, the Currens Farm, and Black Horse Tavern. That Hezekiah was not treated at his division’s field hospital made it unlikley that his father or anyone from his division removed him from the field.
    If Hezekiah had fallen closer to Union lines and been removed by Union soldiers, he most likely would have been transported to the Second Corps hospital at the Schwartz Farm, but his name does not appear on any rosters of Confederate prisoners (or burials) at that site. Where he might have been taken remained a mystery.
    Tim Mallick continued to dig into the story and discovered a letter in the Spessard family papers at the Craig County Historical Society in New Castle, Virginia. It turned out that Hezekiah had been removed from the field by Union soldiers of the 3rd Corps and that he died at their corps field hospital on July 19. This hospital was located south of the Union 2nd Corps hospital on the Schwartz farm. Unfortunately, Hezekiah’s grave at the hospital was either not properly marked or the marker was lost by the time Dr. O’Neal visited the site to record the Confederate burials there. Hezekiah’s remains are most likely among the many unknowns shipped to Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond in 1872-1873.

  Though he was never reunited with his dying son, Captain Michael P. Spessard remained with the 28th Virginia Infantry and was promoted to the rank of major in 1864, a role in which he served until surrendered and paroled at Appomattox Court House. Personal tragedy visited him again after Gettysburg when his second wife and their daughter both died in 1864. Upon his return home after the war he resumed farming in Craig County and married for a third time in 1868, fathering five more children. He served as county sheriff and in public office in New Castle until his death in 1889. He was buried alone on his farm in a small plot that was unfortunately neglected until ten or twelve years ago when a family member and volunteers from the Virginia Sons of Confederate Veterans cleaned up the plot, erected a fence and gate around the site, and installed a new headstone to replace the old stone that was broken.

Michael Spessard's original headstone. Courtesy Tim Mallick.

    After the charge, Spessard evidently searched for his son Hezekiah at the division hospital at Bream’s Mill and failing to find him, marched away from Gettysburg uncertain of his whereabouts. It was not until late July when he received a letter from his wife that he knew when and where his son had died, but never had the opportunity to attempt to retrieve his body. He never returned to Gettysburg. Eppa Hunton, the colonel of the 8th Virginia, once wrote that he never returned to Gettysburg after the war because the memories of the battle it would arouse were too painful to experience again. No doubt, the same was true for Michael Spessard. The personal tragedy he suffered there eclipsed all other events that July 3 afternoon.

John Heiser,
Historian

The Valentine, left in a Gettysburg home when the armies approached.

After the battle, a Gettysburg resident found this note on the back of a valentine:

A "Rebel" note written onto its back.

“July 2nd, 1863.  Mr. Yankee: Your house is not torn up at all, compared with the way your Soldier did at Fredericksburg.  I only killed one goose + took one pair stocking.  Rebel.”  

The valentine is in the collection of Gettysburg National Military Park.  A copy is on display in the museum.  Photos courtesy of the Gettysburg Foundation.

Katie Lawhon, Management Assistant

Frank A. Wallar. NPS

   He went by Frank rather than Francis or Ashbury. When he died on April 30, 1911, Earl Rodgers, Wallar’s former commander of old Company I, 6th Wisconsin, recalled; “Wallar was one of the few soldiers who at no time during the four years of service was absent from roll call. He stood in the ranks and fought in every battle and skirmish.” For a soldier who served in the Iron Brigade this was a high distinction. Few men who served in regiments of that famous unit made it through the entire war.
    Wallar’s post-war photograph suggests a man of determination and grit; someone not to be trifled with; an individual possessed of courage and conviction. A viewer of his photograph is immediately drawn to his eyes. They are steady and determined yet also speak of what he saw and lost in the years of 61-65.
    On July 1, 1863, during the charge of the 6th Wisconsin Infantry upon the Railroad Cut, Wallar captured the flag of the 2nd Mississippi Infantry, for which he was awarded the Medal of Honor and promoted from corporal to sergeant for “conspicuous bravery on the battle-field.” By the time he mustered out in July 1865 he was a 1st Lieutenant. During the war no one questioned whether Wallar was due both the medal and promotion for his actions at Gettysburg, but years later two veterans of the 6th Wisconsin claimed that they, and not Wallar, captured the flag of the 2nd Mississippi. The first was Frank Hare, a Company B veteran who had lost a leg from a wound at the Wilderness, who claimed at a reunion in Milwaukee in 1880 that he had captured a flag at Gettysburg “but did not know what-one.” Since it was well known that the 6th had captured only the 2nd Mississippi’s flag at Gettysburg it was clear that Hare was obliquely claiming credit for it. Someone alerted Wallar who wasted no time in securing sworn statements from men in the regiment, and official documents from his service, attesting that he had captured the flag. He confronted Hare with this evidence “who quietly retired from his position.” [“A Settled Question,” Milwaukee Sunday Telegraph, July 29, 1883, copy GNMP Library]
    Cornelius W. Okey, who had served in Company C, 6th Wisconsin, probably was unaware of the business between Hare and Wallar for in 1883 he published an article titled “Echoes of the Iron Brigade,” in which he described, in great detail, how he captured the flag of the 2nd. In Okey’s account, he was badly wounded at the instant he seized the flag and, bleeding profusely, “gave the flag, which was now entirely in my possession, to a sergeant, I think of Company H, and started for the rear.” Okey went on to relate how he eventually ended up a Cuyler Hospital in Germantown, Pennsylvania, soon after July 6. Shortly after his admission to this hospital he claimed that he was surprised by a visit from the sergeant, whose name Okey omits, who gave him the following statement: As near as I can remember I only had the flag in my possession for a few minutes when I was wounded through the thigh. I broke the staff in two taking the butt end for a cane with which to get off the field, and gave the flag to Corporal John F. Waller. Okey did not need to state the obvious – that he and not Wallar should have received the Medal of Honor – any reader would understand this from his account of the event and the alleged “statement” from the unnamed sergeant of Company H, which gave the appearance of legitimacy to his claim. [Echoes from the Marches of the Famous Iron Brigade, (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms Intl., 1978, 62-65]
    By the time Okey published his account, Wallar had moved with his family to Petonka, South Dakota, where he was farming, but someone sent him a copy and asked him to respond. Okey aroused Wallar’s ire and his reply pulled no punches. What follows is Wallar’s full account as published by the Milwaukee Sunday Telegraph on July 29, 1883.

    Yours of the 3d is received, also echoes of Gettysburg. You ask me to read and tell what I know about it. I know that C. W. Okey is a damned liar, and doubt if he was at the battle of Gettysburg at all. I will tell you just how I got the flag. We, the Iron Brigade, was formed in line of battle facing to the north, (if memory serves me aright), and advanced to the edge of a piece of woods where we came to a halt. We had been there but a few minutes when fighting commenced on our right, between a quarter and half a mile away and there was no men of ours on the right of the brigade where the fight was going on and our men were falling back leaving a part of a battery in the hands of the enemy. At this time Colonel Dawes moved his regiment in that direction, at a double quick, arms at a right shoulder shift. When we got within about three hundred yards of the enemy, where they were in a railroad cut just deep enough for good breastworks, they commenced a slow fire and the nearer we got the hotter the fire. And we did not fire on them till we were within less than two hundred yards of them. Then we kept up a steady fire, advancing all the time till within a few rods of the cut; then there was a general rush and yell enough to almost awaken the dead. Up to this time our line was as straight and in as good order as any line of battle ever was, while under fire. After that the line was not in such good order, but all seemed to be trying to see how quick they could get to the railroad cut. I had no thought of getting the flag till at this time, and I started straight for it, as did lots of others. Soon after I got the flag there were men from all the companies there. I did take the flag out of the color bearer’s hand, but just as I made a dash for it someone shot him and he fell forward and the flag had not struck the ground till I had it, and my first thought was to go to the rear with it for fear it might be retaken, and then I thought I would stay, and I threw it down and loaded and fired twice standing on it. While standing on it there was a 14th Brooklyn man took hold of it and tried to get it, and I had to threaten to shoot him before he would stop. By this time we had them cleaned out, when some were ordered to take the two pieces of artillery back that we recaptured. Others were ordered back with the prisoners we had taken. Others were ordered out on the skirmish line, and there was where I was ordered. I still had the flag, and when ordered to go on the skirmish line, asked Colonel Dawes what I should do with the flag, he said, ‘give it to me” and I did. Just then a sergeant of Co. H came up wounded, and was going to the rear, and the colonel told him to take it and take care of it. I then went on the skirmish line, and staid there until the 11th Corps gave way on the right, and we fell back to the edge of the city [actually back to near the Seminary] where battery B was stationed around what was left of us as a support to the battery. We repulsed several charges of the enemy, but when they got even with our right flank we fell back through the city, taking two of the guns of the battery with picket ropes, firing all the way back through the city.
    I afterwards saw the sergeant, after we came home on furlough, and I asked him how the staff got broken and he told me that when he went back to the city he entered a house and went to bed, and when we were driven back he thought that if the flag was left standing in the room they (the rebs) would get it, so he broke the staff in two and put the flag in bed with him, and in that way saved it.
    Now if C. W. Okey has a part of the staff, there is where he got it. I thought very little of the 14th Brooklyn man who tried to steal the flag from me on the battle field, but I think less of Okey to wait almost 20 years and then try to steal the honors of capturing the whole flag, by stealing a piece of the staff 20 years ago. But he is not the first one that has come up and claimed that he got the flag. There was a Co. B man [Frank Hare] at the reunion in Milwaukee, who claimed to have captured the flag. I did not know his object in so claiming, but got a few of the boys to certify to my taking the flag, and I still have them. Perhaps Okey would like to have them read or read them, so I will give you a copy of them. [“A Settled Question,” Milwaukee Sunday Telegraph, July 29, 1883, copy GNMP Library]

1886 Image of the Railroad Cut. Wallar captured the flag of the 2nd Mississippi near the left foregrond of the photograph. The crest of the ridge in the background is where the bridge over the cut is today. NPS

    Wallar did not mention the official after-action report of Lt. Colonel Rufus R. Dawes, who commanded the 6th Wisconsin at Gettysburg, probably because the Official Records of the war had not yet been published. But Dawes report confirmed that it had been Corporal F. Ashbury Wallar who captured the 2nd Mississippi flag before the Confederate surrender occurred. [War Department, War of the Rebellion: The Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1889, v. 27, pt. 1, 276.]
    But even Wallar’s memory was not infallible and he omitted many details from his story, perhaps because he did not personally observe them in the excitement of battle or did not think they were important. There were several men of the 6th killed or wounded while trying to capture the colors of the 2nd Mississippi before Wallar got them. One of them may very well have been Okey, because he was wounded on July 1, and in a post-war account of the battle Lt. Colonel Dawes mentioned that Okey was shot in the melee for the colors. Elements of Okey’s account may very well be true. Also, the color bearer of the 2nd Mississippi, Sergeant William B. Murphy, was not wounded, but was captured.
    This story is a reminder that combat is a messy, chaotic business, and memory, particularly of a battle like Gettysburg, can be suspect. For some veterans, like Hare, having served at Gettysburg, done their duty and survived was not enough. They sought to rise above the rest and seek honors or glory they had not earned. In other cases, like Okey, they may have felt they were deserving of accolades not received and hence chose to exaggerate their deeds.
    One final note to this post; The Wallar family of DeSoto, Wisconsin sent three sons to serve in Company I, 6th Wisconsin. Frank and Sam joined in the summer of 61. Thomas, the youngest, enlisted in 1864. Miraculously, all three survived the war.

[For further reading about the colors story and the 6th Wisconsin at Gettysburg see, Lance J. Herdegen & William Beaudot, In the Bloody Railroad Cut at Gettysburg.]

D. Scott Hartwig,
Supervisory Historian

Freedom Transit's trolleys provide free transportation between the Museum/Visitor Center and the national cemetery, Steinwehr Avenue, Baltimore Street, and downtown Gettysburg.

On the busiest days of the summer at Gettysburg National Military Park, parking lots at the Museum and Visitor Center can sometimes fill up.  And we haven’t even hit the 150^th anniversary year yet.  Fortunately, thanks to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT), the York Adams Transportation Authority, the Gettysburg Foundation and other community partners, a solution is on the way.  “Smart Parking” will be installed and field tested this summer to reduce traffic congestion, reduce CO2 emissions and improve the visitor experience.

The computerized system will be activated when parking lots at the Museum and Visitor Center fill up – including overflow lots along Taneytown Road near the National Cemetery.  Once the smart parking system is activated, new electronic message signs that will be installed along Route 15 will direct visitors to park at The Outlet Shoppes at Gettysburg, located at Routes 15 and 97 (Baltimore Pike).   Freedom Transit shuttle busses will provide transportation from the Outlet Mall to the museum and to additional sites in the town of Gettysburg, for free.

Freedom Transit at the Lincoln Train Station.

Using Freedom Transit has the added advantage of increasing public awareness of this fairly new system that links the museum with the national cemetery, businesses along Steinwehr Avenue, and the heart of historic downtown Gettysburg.  Increased visitor awareness and ridership has tremendous potential for positive economic impacts for all of the attractions and businesses along the entire route of the Lincoln Line, from Steinwehr Avenue, to Baltimore Street and the downtown. 

Construction is expected to begin soon with completion before summer 2012 so we will have a full year to test it out before the big 150^th anniversary year. 

Thanks to support from the Gettysburg Foundation all rides on Freedom Transit are free through 2013.

by Katie Lawhon, Management Assistant, January 26, 2012

Joseph B. Rosengarten. Ed and Faye Max Collection

detailed account of Reynolds life and death that took up 28 pages of text. The story he told to the Historical Society gathering of Reynolds final moments differed in important details from that which he had written to Bates in 1876. In this version Reynolds was “personally attending to the hasty formation for the charge of the ‘Iron Brigade’ when he was fatally wounded by one of Archer’s skirmishers, at a moment when his aides were riding to the various regiments carrying the instructions of the general ‘to charge as fast as they arrived.’” In the same paragraph Rosengarten then proceeded to contradict his account that it was one of Archer’s skirmishers. He continues:
    Reynolds at once ordered it [Iron Brigade] to advance at double-quick, and followed as the leading regiment, the Second Wisconsin, under Fairchild, hurried into the woods, full of rebel skirmishers and sharpshooters; as soon as the troops were engaged there, Reynolds turned to look for his supporting columns and to hasten them on, and as he reached the point of woods he was struck by a ball fired, it is supposed, by a rebel sharpshooter in one of the trees, and was fatally wounded. [Addresses Delivered Before the Historical Society of Pennsylvania Upon the Occasion of the Presentation of a Portrait of Maj.-Gen. John F. Reynolds, (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1880, pp. 6-34.]
    For the first time, a member of Reynolds staff suggested that the general had been shot by a sharpshooter. Why the change in story from what he had written Bates? Recall, in that version it was Rebels who “lay on the edge of the woods” that had shot Reynolds. There are other issues with Rosengarten’s account. Veil, a central figure in the letter to Bates, has disappeared. In this version Rosengarten has Reynolds being carried from the field in a blanket “swung over muskets, on the shoulders of his men.” Who are the men? He does not tell us. Rosengarten further has Reynolds personally attending to the formation of the entire Iron Brigade and sending orders to each of its regiments to charge as fast as they arrived, when there is no evidence that he had time to do anything but order the 2nd Wisconsin to charge into Herbst’s Woods. Nearly all of this is at odds with what Rosengarten wrote earlier and is absolutely at odds with Veil’s account and that of Reynolds’ sisters, written within two days of his death and based on information provided them by the staff. Readers of the first post in this series will remember that Veil’s 1864 account of Reynolds death, written for David McConaughy of Gettysburg, is highly consistent with what Reynolds sisters wrote in July 1863.
    Why did Rosengarten alter his account and suggest that Reynolds had been shot by a sharpshooter in a tree? We can only speculate since there is no other evidence at hand. A guess is that it sounded more dramatic if the general was killed by a sharpshooter than by a random shot. It is also possible that Rosengarten, not being personally present when Reynolds was shot, had his thinking influenced by some account he had read between 1876 and 1880, or by someone he had spoken with.
    In the same Historical Society ceremony (which must have lasted for hours based on the length of everyone’s speeches) Colonel Chapman Biddle, who commanded the 121st Pennsylvania on July 1, and did not reach the field until well after Reynolds death, joined Rosengarten in stating that Reynolds was killed by a minie-ball fired by one of “Archer’s sharpshooters.” [See Addresses Delivered . . ., p. 65] With Rosengarten and Biddle, both respected veterans of the battle and Reynolds old 1st Corps, the sharpshooter tale had gained a legitimacy and traction it would never relinquish.
    General Abner Doubleday added additional weight to the sharpshooter story with the 1882 publication of his widely read Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. In Doubleday’s account, Reynolds felt anxiety as to the result of the Iron Brigade’s clash with Archer “and turned his head frequently to see if our troops would be up in time. While looking back in this way, a rebel sharpshooter shot him through the back of the head, the bullet coming out near the eye.” The only factual part of Doubleday’s account was that a Confederate had killed Doubleday. The only regiment of the Iron Brigade engaged when Reynolds was killed was the 2nd Wisconsin, and he had turned his head back to look for the other regiments of the brigade when he was killed. Also, the bullet had not struck him in the back of the head and neither had it come out near the eye. The bullet had not exited his body but glanced down into his breast probably after striking a bone. But Doubleday, the general who assumed command of the 1st Corps following Reynolds fall, added considerable weight to the story that it had been a sharpshooter that had killed the general. [Abner Doubleday, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg (Harrisburg: The Archive Society, 1992, reprint of 1882 edition), p. 131.]
    Reynolds orderly, Charles Veil, remained strangely silent during this period. Following Reynolds death he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the 1st U.S. Cavalry, and subsequently earned brevets for the battles of Todd’s Tavern and Five Forks. His service records indicate that he was honorably mustered out of the service on January 1, 1871, but Rosengarten’s 1876 letter to Samuel P. Bates contained a note that Veil had been found guilty of unbecoming conduct and been mustered out in January 1876. But, Rosengarten also added that Veil “was a very fine soldier in my time.” Perhaps Veil became something of an outcast after his discharge from the army, although there is no evidence to suggest this, he may have simply been too busy with the routine of life to engage in writing about the war, or he may have felt that publicly refuting Rosengarten, Biddle and Doubleday to be impolite But when Benjamin Thorpe published his 1903 article (see part 1 of this series) about picking off Reynolds from a cherry tree at 900 yards it stirred Veil to action, and on July 9, 1903 he responded in the popular Union veterans’ newspaper The National Tribune. Veil was “quite sure that Mr. Thorp is mistaken,” and that at the time he was shot the general was in the woods “and it was not possible for sharpshooters to reach him.” Veil continued:
    To understand his [Reynolds] position more fully , his horse was facing the enemy, while the General turned in his saddle so as to be looking to the rear, the ball striking him directly in the back of the neck and just over his coat collar, so that when he fell from his horse and I rapidly glanced over his person I could discover no wound, the coat collar having covered it, leaving me under the impression that he had been struck by a spent ball and probably only stunned.
    The averment that the woods were occupied by Confederate sharpshooters, up the trees is all imaginary. The foliage was too dense to enable men to get a distant view and, then, they didn’t have time to get up the trees anyway, for our cavalry skirmishers were occupying the ground in front or beyond the house [McPherson house] and woods, when the General arrived on the ground. [Charles H. Veil, “Death of General Reynolds,” National Tribune, July 9, 1903.]

Detail from mid-July 1863 Brady photograph of the McPherson farm looking south to Herbst Woods. Note the mature nature of the woods and lack of undergrowth. NPS

    Within the next seven years, Veil wrote his reminiscences of the war for his family. These were edited and published in 1993 by Herman J. Viola, as The Memoirs of Charles Henry Veil (New York: Orion Books). Veil reminiscences were consistent with his wartime and 1903 accounts with two exceptions. He claimed now to have been the only person present with Reynolds when he was shot, and he wrote that the Confederates were so close that as Veil dragged the general’s body off they called out for the private to “drop him.” The latter may well be true since it is documented that Confederate soldiers were within 50 yards. But Veil’s 1864 letter to McConaughy is clear that he was not alone with the general when he was shot. This part of the reminiscences is purely the embellishment of an aging veteran seeking to place himself as the central actor in a dramatic moment of the greatest battle of the war. [Charles Henry Veil, “An Old Boy’s Personal Recollections and Reminiscences of the Civil War” GNNMP Library, Vertical File 5-Veil, Charles H.]

Herbst Woods c. 1900, showing the monument marking the approximate location where Reynolds fell. The monument was placed in 1886. NPS

    One fact that is clear from the Union accounts of Reynolds death is that the only Confederates that could have been responsible were those of General James J. Archer’s Alabama and Tennessee brigade. In the regimental files of Gettysburg NMP we have copies of several post-battle letters and numerous post-war accounts from veterans of this brigade. One of the more significant letters, for our purposes, is from Major A. S. Van de Graaff, of the 5th Alabama Battalion, to his wife on July 8, 1863. Van de Graaff’s entire battalion, consisting of four companies with a total of about 135 men, were deployed as skirmishers for the brigade, along with two companies of the 13th Alabama. Surely, had the major known that a general of Reynolds stature had fallen in front of his brigade, he would have claimed credit for it or at least mentioned it in his letter. There is not a word. Lt. Colonel S. G. Shepard, 7th Tennessee, as the senior surviving officer of the brigade, wrote the after-action report for Archer’s brigade on August 10, 1863. He too makes no mention of Reynolds fall. The only remark about Reynolds death is found in General Henry Heth’s after-action report, written on September 13, 1863, well after knowledge of Reynolds death would have reached the Army of Northern Virginia. Heth claimed that Reynolds had been killed by one of the first shells fired by Mayre’s battery of Pegram’s battalion! [A. S. Van de Graaff to Wife, July 8, 1863, GNMP Library, Vertical File 7-AL5Bn]
    In 1899 Ferguson S. Harris, formerly a captain in the 7th Tennessee visited Gettysburg to go over the field with the battlefield commissioners of the four year old national military park. Harris described his visit in an article published in the Lebanon Democrat on August 10, 1899. When the group walked to the spot where Reynolds was killed, which Harris wrote “could not have been seventy-five yards from our line,” one of the commissioners asked him if it was not a fact that a member of Company B, 7th Tennessee had shot Reynolds. Harris replied that “I had always understood it that way,” but he admitted that this information came not from his wartime experience but from a visit Harris made to Nashville during the city’s centennial (which would be 1879), where he told of an old soldier living in the neighborhood who claimed to have killed Reynolds. In March of 1900 Harris found the name of the “old soldier,” and passed this information to William Robbins, a member of the GNMP Battlefield Commission and a former officer in the 4th Alabama Infantry. The soldier was Samuel J. Duke, Company B, 7th Tennessee, and described as a “quiet & good man and now about 63 years old,” who owned a farm on the Cumberland River near Chestnut Mound. Service records confirm that Duke did indeed serve in this company and regiment, but his claim to be the man that shot Reynolds suffers on numerous counts. 1) In the existing wartime correspondence from Archer’s brigade, there is not a single mention of Reynolds, or of the death of any notable officer in their front on July 1. 2) Harris did not know who Duke was in 1899. 3) The 7th Tennessee was directly confronted by the 2nd Wisconsin at the time of Reynolds death. [F. S. Harris, “From Gettysburg,” Lebanon Democrat, Aug. 10, 1899; William Robbins journal, typescript, March 5, 1900 entry, GNMP Library]
    So who shot J. R.? We will never know what soldier pulled the trigger but the evidence we do have permits us to make the following conclusions. First, we can eliminate friendly fire as the cause of Reynolds death. As Veil makes clear Reynolds horse was facing the Confederates when a bullet struck him in the neck. Since the 2nd Wisconsin was facing the enemy and not Reynolds, they could not have fired the errant bullet, and the next regiment in the brigade, the 7th Wisconsin, had not yet appeared on McPherson’s Ridge. Second, he was shot by a member of Archer’s brigade. No other Confederate units were in the area at the time. Third, and finally, he was not shot by a sharpshooter. The action was extremely fluid at the moment of Reynolds death and as Veil noted there was no time for sharpshooters to set up in concealed positions. Based on Veil’s account and the sketch that accompanied Alfred Waud’s drawing of Reynolds death, the shot that killed Reynolds came from south of Herbst Woods which meant that the soldier was likely either a skirmisher or a member of the 13th Alabama, which occupied the right flank of Archer’s brigade, and which Archer ordered to move against the flank of the 2nd Wisconsin. This would account for why Confederate soldiers had closed to within 50 yards of Reynolds party when he was hit. Although Veil did not mention it, probably because he was consumed with getting Reynolds body off the field, was that these nearby Confederates did not pursue or fire upon him because moments after Reynolds fell the 7th Wisconsin appeared on McPherson’s Ridge immediately south of Herbst Woods and occupied the Confederates full attention.
    At the end of the film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, after Ransom Stoddard, played by Jimmy Stewart, tells the true story of what happened the night that Liberty Valance was killed, newspaper editor Maxwell Scott indicates that he is displeased. “You’re not going to use the story, Mr. Scott,” asks Ransom. “No sir,” responds Scott, “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” Mr. Scott’s adage has been applied countless times through the centuries in the recounting of historical events, particularly those events that stand out as prominently as Gettysburg. What really happened is often less interesting or exciting than what can be invented. John Reynolds being felled by a random shot or a bullet fired by a skirmisher is far less dramatic than if he is picked off by a sharpshooter in a tree hundreds of yards away. In the long and lengthy historiography of Gettysburg, we might revise Maxwell’s Scott’s line to, when the legend encountered fact, the legend often prevailed.

D. Scott Hartwig,
Supervisory Historian

MELT THE BELLS

Melt the bells, melt the bells,
Still the tinkling on the plains,
And transmute the evening chimes
Into war’s resounding rhymes,
That invaders may be slain
By the bells.

Melt the bells, melt the bells,
That for years have called to prayer,
And, instead, the cannon’s roar
Shall resound the valleys o’er,
That the foe may catch despair
From the bells.

Melt the bells, melt the bells,
Though it cost a tear to part
With the music they have made,
Where the friends we love are laid,
With pale cheek and silent heart,
‘Neath the bells.

Melt the bells, melt the bells,
Into cannon, vast and grim,
And the foe shall feel the ire
From each heaving lung of fire,
And we’ll put our trust in Him
And the bells.

Melt the bells, melt the bells,
And when foes no more attack,
And the lightning cloud of war
Shall roll thunderless and far,
We shall melt the cannon back
Into bells.

Melt the bells, melt the bells,
And they’ll peal a sweeter chime,
And remind of all the brave
Who have sunk to glory’s grave,
And will sleep thro’ coming time
‘Neath the bells.

    General Beauregard’s call, and the patriotic fervor of the moment, were well in evidence at the time, and provided material for the manufacture of a number of guns. The Quinby & Robinson, # 38, was produced before the fall of Memphis to the Federals in June of 1862.

The trunion on the Quinby & Robinson, #38. GNMP

So much material of this sort was donated that much of it was sent downriver to New Orleans, to facilities there, for similar purposes. It, of course, was lost to the Confederates when the “Crescent City” was taken in late April. Combing through the “spoils of war,” one Union correspondent there could not but help notice a bias reflected in the donations.   There were no ancient bells, no bells of historic worth, no old Spanish or French relics – those the Southerners had kept, and had contributed instead the products of Northern skill. With only a dozen exceptions, the bells had upon their rims or tops the names of Northern makers – of the Buckeye Works of Cincinnati, the Allaire Works of New York, of Fulton Foundry, Pittsburg, and of the foundries of Troy, of Louisville, and other places. 
    Inspired by this capture, a Northern poet produced the following. Entitled “Beauregard’s Bells,” the work took due note of their change in status.

Oh, swing them merrily to and fro;
They’ll not boom with a traitorous blow.
Shaped into cannon, not one – they lie
Eloquent tokens of victory.
Sing out, O bells, on the summer wind;
Farragut’s name with thy music twin[n]ed.
The Crescent slips from the serpent’s hold,
Though bound in many an angry fold;
Oft ye have pealed for the bridal morn,
Tolled for souls into mystery born,
Roused, on plantation, master and slave,
Yet, ye were doomed, till won by the Brave.
O, ring ere long for the shout of peace;
Jubilant ring when this strife shall cease.

Ring out Rebellion, dark as a pall;
Ring for Stars and Stripes floating o’er all.
Laugh out on the Northern winds, I pray;
Peal out, for this is your marriage day.
Wedded to Freedom, ‘mid hills and dells,
Ye are no longer Beauregard’s bells.

    That these bells were not to be converted into Confederate guns perhaps saved some of them, for a time at least, from the damage of other patriotic fires. Post-war, many Southern artillery pieces were “subject to conversion” into all sorts of other things, from

The tablet on Seminary Ridge marking the position of Ross's battery, to which #38 belonged. This is an example of one of the tablets that might have been melted down for the war effort. NPS

Grand Army of the Republic medals to the large “Winged Victory” sculpture that sits atop the Pennsylvania Memorial. Much of this bronze, being a polyglot mixture of different purities, later triggered complaints from those who encountered it again. But the hunger for metal by a nation at war dies hard, and during World War II, a plan was actually drawn up that envisioned the gradual removal of not just cannon, but other bronze and iron memorials in support of the war effort, should the demand call for it. No guns or monuments were surrendered, but a number of more peripheral elements (curbside bollards, low iron fences, signs, etc.,) were lost. On “the outside,” however, a number of communities across the nation had taken “that old cannon” from its honored resting-place in the cemetery or the courthouse square during a scrap drive and had thrown it into the national furnace, “for the cause.”
    Thus we return to Quinby & Robinson # 38 or to the #15 Augusta Foundry Napoleon, with its obvious casting flaws, resting at the Peace Light. In his History of the American People, Woodrow Wilson had remarked upon the dedication of the Southern people, observing they had been willing to sacrifice so much for their beliefs. The greater, and perhaps more fortunate, secret is that over six generations ago, when faced with a “cause” of their own, our predecessors determined to maintain all these bits of bronze and iron, across the battlefield so that we may more readily see and understand what their own , our own, ancestors did here. Imagine, for example, Cemetery Ridge without General Meade, Round Top without General Warren, or Seminary Ridge without the batteries arrayed against the Federal positions. So much of the story is in the metal, placed by those who heard the roar of the guns – and perhaps, the ringing of the church-bells after all had ceased.

Bert Barnett, Park Ranger

Situation around 10:45 a.m. The 13th Alabama would be off the southern edge of the map at the time the 2nd Wisconsin crested McPherson's Ridge. NPS

    Two of the earliest accounts of Reynolds death were written by his sisters Eleanor and Jennie on July 5, to their brother William Reynolds. No, neither Eleanor or Jennie were eyewitnesses, but both of them met with five members of Reynolds staff, including Captain Mitchell, and Private Veil, all of whom had accompanied the general’s body to Baltimore and then to Lancaster, where he was buried, and the two sisters learned details of their brother’s death from them. Their letters are consistent on particulars of Reynold’s death. Charles Veil was the closest man to Reynolds when he was shot; the enemy were very near – Jennie wrote they were only 50 yards away – and they (Veil, Mitchell and Baird) evacuated the body quickly to avoid possible capture. Eleanor added an important detail about her brother’s death, apparently told to her by Veil, which is buried deep in her long letter. She writes, “He was exposing himself very much & the balls were falling like hail. It was not a sharp shooter but a chance shot [emphasis added].” Evidently, there were already questions of whether Reynolds had been picked off by a sharpshooter and Veil was clear he had not. [Eleanor Reynolds to My dear Brother, July 5, 1863, Jennie Reynolds Gildersleeve to My dear Brother, July 5, 1863, Eleanor Reynolds Scrapbook, Reynolds Papers, Franklin and Marshall College Library. F&M has digitized these letters and they are available on-line at http://library.fandm.edu/archives/Reynolds/splash.php]
    On July 11, H. B. Rosengarten, the brother of Major Joseph Rosengarten of Reynolds staff, wrote Eleanor that he had learned from Joseph that a Sergeant Jones, Company F, 14th Brooklyn [probably H. Sergent Jones], retrieved Reynolds sword, belt, and cap and gave them to one of Wadsworth’s staff officers. [H. B. Rosengarten to Miss Reynolds, July 11, 1863, Eleanor Reynolds Scrapbook]
    The earliest letter that I am aware of from a member of Reynolds staff with details about his death is one written on August 4, 1863 by William Riddle, another aide-de-camp. Writing to a Lieutenant Bouvier, Riddle, who was carrying orders when Reynolds was shot, related essentially the same details found in Eleanor’s and Jennie’s letters. “He threw himself into the very front & the place was won & the enemy captured or scattered – but at what a sacrifice for here while pushing into position the 2nd Wisconsin Rgt., he recd. a minie ball in the back of his neck near the base of his skull and in less than a moment ended the life of the man called by Genl. Hooker, the ‘best soldier in the army.’” Riddle did compress events. The Confederates were not captured or scattered until after Reynolds death, but the other details are accurate. Also important, for our investigation, there is no mention of a sharpshooter. [Wm. Riddle to Lt. Bouvier, Aug. 4, 1863, Reynolds Papers].
Eight months later Charles Veil wrote a detailed account of Reynolds last moments for David McConaughy of Gettysburg. McConaughy was an attorney and also one of the founders of the newly created Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Association. Veil provides the best description we have of Reynolds death. Veil wrote that as Reynolds road toward Herbst Woods “he saw the enemy advancing through the woods, facing the Cashtown Road (Chambersburg Pike). The general saw at a glance that something desperate must be done or our troops would be entirely flanked . . .” He then saw the 2nd Wisconsin, which Veil misidentified as the 19th Indiana, approaching, and ordered it “forward into line” at the double quick, “& ordered them to charge into the woods, leading the charge in person. The regiment charged into the woods nobly, but the enemy was too strong, & they had to give way to the right. The enemy still pushed on, & was now not much more than 60 paces from where the General was. Minnie balls were flying thick. The General turned to look towards the Seminary (I suppose to see if the other troops were comeing on.) As he did so, a Minnie Ball struck him in the back of the neck, & he fell from his horse dead.” 
    Veil continued: When the General fell the only persons who were with him was Capts. Mitchell & Baird, & myself, when he fell we sprang from our horses, the General fell on his left side. I turned him on his back, glanced over him but could see no wound except a bruise above his left eye. We were under the impression that he was only stunned, this was all done in a glance. I caught the General under the arms, while each of the Capts. took hold of his legs, & we commenced to carry him out of the woods toward the Seminary. When we got outside of the woods, the Capts. left me to carry the word to the next officers in Command of his death. I in the meantime got some help from some of the orderlies who came up about this time, & we carried the body towards the Seminary, really not knowing where to take it to, as the enemy appeared to be comeing in our right & left. When we arrived at the Seminary I concluded to carry the body to the Emmittsburg Road, & done so, Carrying it to Mr. George’s house, (a small stone house) as we were laying him down, I first found the wound in the back of the neck. [Charles Veil to David McConaughy, April , 1864, Special Collections, Gettysburg College Library].
    The action Veil describes is quick and chaotic. Reynolds leads the 2nd Wisconsin into the woods, they come under fire, not only in front but also a flanking fire that causes the regiment to move farther right, almost certainly to escape the enfilading fire and for the entire regiment to gain the cover of the woods. But the enemy continue to push on, meaning after the 2nd Wisconsin has become engaged. They could not have pushed on in front of the 2nd Wisconsin, which continued to advance through the woods against the 7th and 14th Tennessee. These troops Veil describes could only be the 13th Alabama, whom Archer moved to enfilade the 2nd Wisconsin’s left flank, or some of Archer’s skirmishers, it is impossible to know which. Whoever they were Veil writes they advanced to within 60 paces [recall that Jennie Reynolds wrote that she was told the Rebels were only 50 yards away, which is consistent with Veil], and that “Minnie balls were flying thick,” which is not a statement that describes sharpshooter fire. And between Veil’s account and the statement of Joseph Rosengarten that a sergeant of the 14th Brooklyn retrieved some of Reynolds personal effects, we can safely dispense with the story related in Tucker’s High Tide at Gettysburg [see part 1], that a party from the 76th New York carried Reynolds body from the field.

A sketch map that accompanied Alfred Waud's sketch of Reynolds death. Note where Waud indicates the first came from that killed Reynolds. LOC.

    Twelve years later, in January, 1876, Joseph Rosengarten wrote his recollections of Reynolds death for historian Samuel P. Bates. Rosengarten, importantly, was not present when Reynolds was shot, a point he does not clarify in his correspondence to Bates. While his account agreed with Veil’s in certain aspects, such as Veil was closest to the general when he was hit, he added other details absent from the other accounts, and some that were at variance with what Veil wrote. The major claimed that Reynolds, after ordering the 2nd Wisconsin into Herbst Woods, observed “the Rebels were moving up the open hollow north of the woods, he sent others of his staff who had brought up these brigades of the 1st Division to do what they could to check them.” I think Rosengarten was confused. Reynolds could not have seen the hollow north of Herbst Woods, but he could have seen the hollow south of the woods, where the 13th Alabama was moving against the flank of the 2nd Wisconsin. This would then be consistent with Veil’s account of Confederates advancing to within 60 paces of Reynolds. They could only have done this south of the woods, because the 14th Brooklyn and 95th New York were in position north of the woods and would have prevented any Confederates from approaching this closely.
Rosengarten continued his account: he was moving toward the point of the woods, when there was a sharp fire from the Rebels, who lay on the edge, and it was drawn upon Reynolds, by his little escort, he was struck while still in the woods, several of his orderlies were hit, and for a few moments there was some confusion; his horse, a powerful black moved off towards the point of the woods, and just in a grove of trees near the open, Reynolds staggered and fell from his horse; Veil, his faithful and devoted orderly, was nearest to him, and springing to the ground, raised the general and held his head in his lap for a moment until others of the staff joined him; it was not at first easy to realize that the General was dead, except a slight bruise on his cheek where he had struck the ground in falling. There was almost no sign of death, and even when he was carried from the front in a hastily contrived litter very few of those about him believed that the shot was fatal from the first. [Major Joseph G. Rosengarten to Samuel P. Bates, Jan. 13, 1876, Penna. Historical and Museum Commission].
    Most of this is accurate but one passage is problematic. Rosengarten claims that Reynolds escort drew fire upon the party, from Confederates who lay on the edge of the woods, and that this fire not only hit Reynolds but also several orderlies. Veil is quite clear that only he, Baird and Mitchell were with Reynolds when he was hit, there is no mention of an escort, and that the other orderlies came up after the general was killed and helped Veil remove the body. Also, once the 2nd Wisconsin had already entered Herbst Woods and was heavily engaged, it defies belief that any Confederates remained along the woods edge, unless they were down near Willoughby Run, which would place them well over 100 yards away. The question is where did Rosengarten obtain his information about Reynolds death? Clearly, it was not from Veil. Was it Baird or Mitchell? Did he invent some details or was he given incorrect information about Reynolds from sources other than Baird or Mitchell? Answers to these questions are unknown, but historians, including this one, have cited Rosengarten’s account of Reynolds death for years, without realizing that he was not present the moment the general was killed.
    There is one other significant thing about Rosengarten’s account, which goes to the heart of the “who shot J.R.” question. There is no sharpshooter in this version, only Rebels “who lay on the edge” of Herbst Woods. As we shall see Rosengarten’s revised this in a future account.
    When I began this series I anticipated it would be a two part series, but this post has gone on long enough, so there will need to be a part 3. In the next post of this series we will examine Rosengarten’s subsequent account of Reynolds death, Veil’s post-war writing on the subject, and what the Confederates of Archer’s brigade had to say about the incident. The deeper we delve into this the more interesting it gets and the more we learn about how certain battlefield stories gain traction and trace their roots. See you in two weeks.
D. Scott Hartwig,
Supervisory Historian

The George Spangler barn in 2008, shortly after the Gettysburg Foundation purchased it. It has since been cleaned out and partly stabilized. Under Stewardship 150, historic buildings at the Spangler farm will be rehabilitated and the barn will be used for education programs.

National Park Service with preservation and education projects at Gettysburg National Military Park for this and future generations. Projects will help lay the groundwork for the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War and advance the Foundation’s mission to “…enhance preservation and understanding of the heritage and lasting significance of Gettysburg.” 

The Foundation’s Stewardship 150 initiative provides support for the park’s sesquicentennial programs, from scholarly seminars, to special events and ceremonies.  More importantly, through fundraising the Foundation will leave a legacy of improved preservation and enhanced education programs. These efforts will transcend the special programs and events that will take place in 2013 on the battlefield, in the classrooms and in the museum because they will last for generations.

The George Spangler Farm:  This farm and its surrounding 80 acres is perhaps the most well preserved site of a Gettysburg field hospital still standing. The Spangler Farm offers a rare opportunity to interpret the role of medicine at Gettysburg and in the American Civil War. Built in the early 1800s, the farm consists of a main house, a summer kitchen, and a bank barn. The Foundation has completed the Historic Structures Report which will guide the rehabilitation of the historic farm and its buildings.

Treasures of the Civil War:  This exhibit will be installed in the museum’s Gilder Lehrman Special Exhibits Gallery in 2013, showcasing objects related to famous personalities of the war — President Abraham Lincoln, Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, Gen. George G. Meade, Gen. John Reynolds, Col. Joshua L. Chamberlain and others — as well as the belongings of ordinary soldiers and civilians. Artifacts and displays will draw attention to the war experience of both great leaders and common people, and what they tell us about the war.

The Soldiers' National Monument is in need of restoration.

Soldiers’ National Cemetery:  Stewardship 150 funds four projects in the national cemetery:  rehabilitation of the New York State Monument (recently completed); rehabilitation of the Soldiers’ National Monument; rehabilitation of the Speaker’s Rostrum; and preparation of a Historic Structures Report for the Cemetery Lodge located just inside the Baltimore Street gate of the Cemetery.

The Gettysburg Lincoln Experience:  The Foundation is exploring technology opportunities (smart phones, apps, etc.) to allow visitors to better understand the sites that were important to Abraham Lincoln’s visit to Gettysburg — from the Train Station to the David Wills House, south on Baltimore Street, past civilian homes such as the Rupp House toward the Soldiers’ National Cemetery and back. Through technology, new interpretive opportunities would bring Lincoln’s brief but momentous visit to Gettysburg alive for visitors of all ages.  

Education 150: The educational value of Gettysburg is paramount. The Gettysburg Foundation has launched a program to improve educational opportunities for middle school students – our future leaders. In partnership with Gettysburg National Military Park, the Student Conservation Association, Gettysburg College, and others, the Foundation is planning a program designed for teachers to participate in a four-day immersion and experiential workshop at Gettysburg. The project targets Title 1 schools in Pennsylvania, Maryland, DC and West Virginia. Workshops will emphasize the development and use of creative curricula for teaching all students about the Civil War – with a particular emphasis on assisting underserved and under-resourced schools. 

Friends of Gettysburg's volunteer work day, 2011. Photo courtesy of the Gettysburg Foundation.

America’s Volunteer Program: Friends Rebuild History: As an outgrowth of the Gettysburg Foundation’s existing, and extremely successful, annual volunteer workday, Stewardship 150 will create opportunities for volunteer vacations, add volunteer work components to Friends of Gettysburg’ spring and fall muster events; and add various workday opportunities for visitors to Gettysburg throughout the year.  Projects would include building fences, painting buildings, cleaning headstones, and more. Implementation will begin in 2012.

To find out how you can become involved in leaving a legacy through Stewardship 150, visit www.gettysburgfoundation.org.

Thanks to Cindy Small, the communications and marketing manager for the Gettysburg Foundation, for her assistance with this blog.

Katie Lawhon, Management Assistant, 12/28/11

General John Reynolds, standing center, with General Ambrose Burnside, probably around November 1862. LC

sharpshooter who picked him off. Jacob Hoke, in The Great Invasion of 1863, one of the early histories of the battle, writes that, “General Reynolds, anxious as to the result rode forward a short distance to reconnoiter, and raising his field glasses to his eyes he sought to take in the full situation, when a ball from a sharp-shooter’s musket struck him in the back of the head, coming out near the eyes, and he fell dead.” Two highly influential 20th Century histories of the battle by Glenn Tucker, in High Tide at Gettysburg, and Bruce Catton, in Glory Road, concurred with Hoke, that it was a sharpshooter, but each added additional details.

Tucker wrote:
    Reynolds, expecting support, had turned in the saddle to look toward the crest of the ridge behind him. It was 10:15 A.M. He was struck in the back of the neck by a Minie’ ball fired by a marksman from a tree on the bank of the stream. The ball passed through his head and came out the other side of the eye.
    . . . Reynolds fell forward without speaking a word. His frightened horse was dashing toward the open fields when his aides caught it. The body dropped lifeless from the saddle. They wrapped him in an army blanket, and a detail from the 76th New York carried him to the seminary and on to the little stone house of George George on the Emmitsburg road.

Catton’s described the incident:
    Now Reynolds was studying the battle, trying to make out just how much weight lay back of the Rebel attack, and a Southern sharpshooter in an old stone barn got him in the sights of his rifle and shot him dead.

 

Alfred Waud sketch of the death of Reynolds. Waud included a detailed description of Reynolds death with his sketch. Since he was not present when Reynolds was shot he probably obtained his information from members of Reynolds staff. LC

   The only thing consistent in these accounts – and we could cite numerous other ones – is that Reynolds was shot by a sharpshooter. Otherwise, none are in agreement with one another. Hoke has Reynolds peering through his field glasses when he is hit in the back of the head by a sharpshooters ball that kills him instantly. We don’t know where the sharpshooter is but it sounds like he is behind Reynolds. Tucker tells us the sharpshooter was in a tree on the bank of a stream, which can only be Willoughby Run. He also adds the detail that Reynolds horse spooked and started to dash toward an open field until one of his aides caught it and that it was not until this point that the general fell from the saddle. We also learn that it was a detail from the 76th New York, from Brigadier General Lysander Cutler’s brigade that carried him from the field.
    Catton disagrees with Tucker. The sharpshooter was not in a tree along Willoughby Run, he was in an old stone barn, which can only be the Edward McPherson barn.
    The belief that Reynolds fell to a sharpshooter’s bullet began long before these histories were written. There were at least two Confederate veterans who came forward after the war to claim that they were the sharpshooter that had fired the bullet. Who was first is hard to establish. Perhaps the earliest was Ben Thorpe, of Satterwhite, North Carolina. In 1903 the Pittsburgh Leader newspaper related his story. We are told that Thorpe was 16 in 1863 and a sharpshooter in the 26th North Carolina. Each man in the 26th was a sharpshooter, “trained by long practice to pick a squirrel from the top of a tall tree.” Ben was sent up a cherry tree that morning and had been perched there for nearly one half hour when a group of officers rode up on a little knoll 900 yards away and halted. Thorpe’s lieutenant appeared below the cherry tree and called up to Thorpe, “Ben, do you see the tall, straight man in the centre of that group? He is evidently an officer of some high rank and is directing operations which threaten our line. Sight your gun at 700 yards and see if you can reach him.” Ben let fly but “saw” that the bullet struck short of its mark. He elevated the sight on his “long-barrelled rifle” to 900 yards and fired. This time the horse plunged forward and the rider fell from his saddle. “Ben, it did its work,” said Thorpe’s lieutenant (who remains nameless in the story). Not until afterwards did Thorpe learn who he had shot and he admitted that he was “genuinely sorry,” since Reynolds was known as such a brave, good soldier. ["He Shot General Reynolds," Vertical File V-5 Participant Accounts, John F. Reynolds, Gettysburg NMP Library.]
    In 1947 a sensational story circulated that a Mount Airy, North Carolina man that made and sharpened the tools by which the bronze monument of General Reynolds on the Pennsylvania Monument was carved, had actually shot the general 47 years earlier. His name was Frank Wood. We are not told what regiment he belonged to only that he and fellow sharpshooter, “Private Cox,” became separated from their company early in the battle and “found themselves” in a railroad cut. The story continues: “From this cover they surveyed the scene. A few hundred yards away they saw on a big horse a man, gold braid on his hat, epauletts on his shoulders, scabbard and boots with spurs and other accoutrements speaking of high rank. He was standing up in his stirupps, waving his sword and shouting to his men. ‘Give them hell, boys. Give them grape. Give them hell. Give them grape.’” Private Cox asked Wood if he thought he could pick off the Union general. The range was great, (we are not told any specifics on the range other than Reynolds was a “few hundred yards away”), but Wood gave it a try, took deliberate aim and fired. Reynolds fell from his horse dead. ["Killed General, Later Sharpened Tools to Carve Monument to Him," Vertical File V-5 - Participant Accounts, John F. Reynolds, Gettysburg NMP Library.]

A mid-July Matthew Brady image looking southeast into the edge of Herbst Woods near where Reynolds fell. LC

    In 1952 the York [PA] Sunday News revisited the Ben Thorpe story. In this version Thorpe was only a short distance off the Cashtown (Chambersburg) Road, at the edge “of an ancient orchard.” Thorpe climbed a cherry tree, as he had in his 1903 account, but this time the officer at the base of the tree was a Captain Webb, who Thorpe relates was killed two days later in Pickett’s Charge. This time Thorpe fired three times before he hit Reynolds; the first shot with his sights set at 1,100 yards, the second at 900 yards, and the third, and fatal, shot at 800 yards. The story the Sunday News carried had been told to Lender Hensel, a Lancaster resident who met Thorpe on a business trip to North Carolina in the early 1900’s. Hensel believed Thorpe because “there was no reason for him to lie. His story was not ‘old soldier boasting,’ it was told in an apologetic tone. He was, he said, ‘a Bible man.’” ["The Man Who Shot General Reynolds," Sunday News, Nov. 23, 1952, Vertical File V-5 - Participant Accounts, John F. Reynolds, Gettysburg NMP Library.]
    Thorpe may have been a humble fellow and “a Bible man” but there are significant problems with his version of Reynolds death. There are, in fact, issues with every account that has Reynolds being killed by a sharpshooter. But, let us first take a closer look at Thorpe and Frank Wood. The first clue that something is amiss is revealed by searching the muster rolls of the 26th and 55th North Carolina. I include the 55th because this is the only regiment Wood could have been in, since they were the only North Carolina unit engaged at the time of Reynolds’s death. Neither Thorpe or Wood ever served in these regiments, in fact, no one by the name of Benjamin (or Ben) Thorpe is on record as having served in any regiment from North Carolina during the war. The same is true for Frank Wood. There was also no “Captain Webb” in the 26th Regiment, and no “Private Cox” in the 55th Regiment. There were many phony veterans in the post Civil War era and Thorpe and Wood, if that is indeed their real names, were members of that group. Even had these men been present in the battle there accounts abound in outright fictions. In addition, the 26th North Carolina was not engaged in the action in which Reynolds was killed, and while the 55th North Carolina was, they were nearly three-quarters of a mile north of the spot that Reynolds lost his life engaged in a desperate battle with General Lysander Cutler’s brigade.

Map showing major landscape features of the McPherson Ridge, Herbst Woods area, and the approximate location that Reynolds fell. GNMP

    Tall tales such as Thorpe’s and Wood’s may have had some influence on Hoke, Tucker and Catton, and others, when they wrote their versions of Reynolds death. But precisely where Hoke, Tucker and Catton discovered some of the details they included is unknown, although we will explore some likely sources in part 2 of this post. Whatever their source, each account is problematic. If, as Hoke writes, Reynolds had his glasses up to his eye when he was shot in the back of the head, then he would have been looking at the Confederates, which means the sharpshooter had to have infiltrated Union lines to get behind the general to make his shot. This is simply not possible. In Tucker’s account the sharpshooter is in a tree along Willoughby Run. This would have been a spectacularly amazing shot since one cannot see Willoughby Run from where Reynolds was hit. Neither, as we shall see, is there any evidence that Reynolds horse bolted after he was hit, or that a party of the 76th New York carried him from the field. That regiment was fighting the 55th North Carolina at the time nearly a half-mile away. Catton has the sharpshooter in the McPherson barn, although he doesn’t mention it by name. But it is the only stone barn in sight of where Reynolds was shot so it is a safe assumption that this is what Catton meant. But four guns of Battery A, 2nd U.S. Artillery was positioned only yards away from this barn, and when Reynolds was shot had been relieved by the 2nd Maine Battery. There were also cavalrymen of Buford’s division around the farm. In addition, the 95th New York and 14th Brooklyn Infantry advanced to near the farm buildings at the time of Reynolds death. We can eliminate the McPherson barn as a possible hiding place for the man that shot Reynolds.
    Once we have eliminated all of these versions of Reynolds death as implausible or outright fabrications, we are still left with the question, who shot J.R.? In our next post we will examine the existing accounts of men on Reynolds staff that were with him when he was shot, and an obscure Confederate account, to see if they help resolve this mystery.
D. Scott Hartwig,
Historian

The planning process is considering a range of alternatives including: keeping the building in its current site and “mothballing” it; reusing the building in its current site; relocating the building to a new site; and demolishing the building to return the area to its appearance at the time of the fighting of this pivotal Civil War battle in July 1863.

These alternatives will be included in the environmental assessment which will be available for public review and comment in early 2012.  The document will identify the NPS’s preferred alternative.

In preparing the environmental assessment, the park is responding to a March 2010 decision of the United States District Court directing the NPS to undertake a “site-specific environmental analysis on the demolition of the Cyclorama” building and to consider “non-demolition alternatives” to its removal before “any implementing action is taken” on the building. 

An environmental assessment is a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) document which will describe and evaluate alternatives regarding the future of the Gettysburg Cyclorama building, a National Register eligible structure located on North Cemetery Ridge on the Gettysburg battlefield.

The 1962 Cyclorama building was designed by noted architect Richard Neutra and was constructed on North Cemetery Ridge, an area of the Gettysburg battlefield where major battle action occurred.

In 1999, the NPS approved a General Management Plan for Gettysburg NMP that called for (among numerous other actions) the demolition of the Cyclorama building in order to provide for the long-term preservation of the Cyclorama painting (a National Historic Object) and the rehabilitation of the historic landscapes of the battlefield.  During the general management planning process the NPS consulted with the Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Officer, the President’s Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, numerous interested parties, and the public. 

The Pennsylvania State Historic Preservation Officer and the President’s Advisory Council on Historic Preservation both approved the demolition of the building in order to rehabilitate the 1863 battlefield, as did the majority of the public comments received.

Gettysburg National Military Park is a unit of the National Park Service that preserves and protects the resources associated with the Battle of Gettysburg and the Soldiers’ National Cemetery, and provides an understanding of the events that occurred there within the context of American history. 

Katie Lawhon, Management Assistant

12/16/11