New Years Roundup
Who says you can’t walk a battlefield in the wintertime?
Okay, I know I did in an earlier post. Nevertheless, this past Saturday morning we walked the Snavely Ford Trail at Antietam Battlefield. This easy hiking trail is under 2 miles. It begins and ends at the parking lot above the Burnside bridge and most of the trail is beside Antietam creek. It was beautiful. We had a good ten inches of snow in that area two days prior. Only a few people had walked it before us. We did not need them, but we actually could have used our snowshoes. The point here is that although the area is historic, hallowed ground…our National Parks like Antietam, Gettysburg, Harpers Ferry, and the C&O Canal are wonderful recreation opportunities. Get off the sofa, get out of the house, and take a hike! It’s a great cure for the winter blues. (or winter grouchiness, whichever the case may be.) If you are not here in Maryland to enjoy the trail yourself, here’s some pictures for you.
Learning how to be a writer…
One of the best things my dad ever did was to teach me how to read. When I was a little kid, still in elementary school, he’d take me to the public library to get books. He told me that whatever you wanted to know, someone had written a book about it. I used to think that was true, but unfortunately I have never found a book that tells you how to be a popular history writer. I wish Steven Ambrose had written about his methods of research, organization, writing habits, etc.
This is my first book. Therefore, there is a learning curve. I have never written anything this long before, and the majority of my other writing was done in a more academic style. I hope that I will do the veterans of the 509th Parachute Infantry justice. While I will not disclose any of the work until it is finished, I can talk about the process, which is exciting. Well, if you are a history geek like me, it is exciting. I’ve gathered my research through several trips to the AHEC and NARA. I’ve corresponded and conducted telephone interviews with several veterans of the 509th, which is an honor. They have been very open, forthright, and have even shared photographs that I have not seen in archives or other sources.
I’m enjoying this process so much that Sheila and I are already talking about the subject of the next project. It might be something during the Vietnam period, or Army Aviation, of which I am intimately familiar having served as an instructor pilot. A veteran of the unit suggested the 509th project to me and I am forever grateful for him steering me toward this compelling story. I know there are others out there.
I’ve completed the first draft of about a third of this book. I have a sense of urgency to finish the project by the time of the next 509th reunion this summer. I’ll share with my fellow would-be writers the perfect cure for writer’s block (procrastination). Just make up a spreadsheet with a column for the day and one for the number of words you wrote. Pick an average number of words a day you want to write like 500 or 1,000 (harder than it sounds). If you fall behind your goal average, you don’t get a day off. Treat it like a job or that long-term project will never get finished. So if you don’t hear from me, I’m in the office working, where I’m supposed to be. ;-)
Looking for 509th PIB Vets from WWII
Visiting Monocacy National Battlefield
For a thorough discussion of the battle at Monocacy, see the NPS website. I’ll give you the gist of it here. In the early summer of 1864, Confederate Lieutenant General Jubal Early and an army of approximately 15,000 crossed into Maryland near Sharpsburg. This would constitute the confederates third invasion of the North. When Early passed Harpers Ferry on July 4, 1864, personnel with the B&O railroad there alerted the Union army. Early’s mission was to draw Union forces arrayed against Robert E. Lee away from Petersburg, Virginia, by threatening the little defended Washington, D.C.
Union Major General Lew Wallace commanded the “Middle Department” that included Washington, Baltimore, Frederick, and Harpers Ferry, etc. Upon hearing of the threat posed to Washington or Baltimore by Jubal Early’s army, put together a force that would eventually number close to 6,000. Wallace rushed his force to Monocacy Junction on the B&O Railroad, just southeast of Frederick, Maryland. In this area the B&O Railroad, the Georgetown Pike (present day Hwy 355), and the National Road to Baltimore (present day Hwy 40) all crossed the Monocacy River. It was the most likely place to delay the rebels until reinforcements arrived.
On the morning of July 9, 1864, Confederate forces moved forward out of Frederick and began to engage Union forces. Although outnumbered three-to-one, the Federals under Lew Wallace successfully blocked Early’s confederates in the daylong battle. By nightfall, the Union had withdrawn from the field and sustained casualties of approximately 1,300 men dead, wounded or captured.
While considered a Confederate victory, as Early’s men continued to hold the field, the rebels were delayed for an entire day and sustained casualties of approximately 900 killed, wounded, or captured. The delay gave the Union time to reinforce Fort Stevens in the District of Columbia, which Early moved forward and attacked two days later. The Confederates fired on Fort Stevens, but Early knew that now that Union reinforcements had arrived, he did not have the resources to take the fort and threaten Washington further. Early withdrew the next day, July 12th, and headed back to Virginia.
Today, Monocacy National Battlefield has a modern visitor’s center/museum/gift shop and a 5-stop auto tour. It’s a relatively small affair, but it is certainly worth an afternoon of your time. At each auto stop there is a walking trail. Therefore, you can either just look around and read the waysides, or have a pleasant walk of a few hundred yards or up to a mile and a half. This ground on which the Civil War was fought also has a history that dates from colonial times. For example, the walking path at the Thomas Farm, auto stop number four, goes by the site of the Middle Ferry over the Monocacy River. This ferry site dates from before the French and Indian War. The Best Farm, stop number one on the auto tour, was formerly l’ Hermitage, a plantation established in 1794 that at one point kept up to 90 enslaved African Americans. The NPS has done an archeological dig on the site and information can be found on the website.
Riding on the C&O Canal
For an excellent history of the area and a step-by-step guide to what you'll see along the towpath trail, check out The C&O Canal Companion by Mike High.
George Washington’s life-long dream was to open up the length of the Potomac River to navigation. The aim at first was to link his home in Mount Vernon with his land holdings in the Ohio country. However, the Revolution was his first distraction. After the war, Washington participated in the Patomack Company, whose goals were to build skirting canals around the several falls on the river. His next distraction was the call to serve as first President of the United States from 1789 to 1797. During his presidency, Washington added to the development of the Potomac River corridor by ordering the construction of both a Federal Armory at Harpers Ferry and the new capital city near Georgetown that would bear his name.
Washington died in 1799, but the work of the Patomack Company continued with additional funding from both Maryland and Virginia. The several skirting canals at Little Falls, Great Falls, and the Harpers Ferry area were completed by 1802. However, due to floods and high water part of the year, versus drought and low water in other parts of the year, the Potomac was only navigable for a few months out of the year. Additionally, Harpers Ferry was a long way from the Ohio.
The opening of the Erie Canal in New York State in 1825 was a modern marvel. Business in the lower Potomac Valley needed a better means of transportation to the Ohio. In order to make Georgetown a port city to rival New York, Maryland and Virginia needed a canal of their own. Unable to secure government funding, a private company, the Chesapeake and Ohio canal company was formed to take on the project. A groundbreaking ceremony was held on July 4, 1828 to begin digging a canal the whole length of the Potomac from Georgetown. As it happened, on the same day in Baltimore a groundbreaking ceremony was held for the construction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, also headed for the Ohio.
Overcoming legal issues, funding problems, and construction challenges, the C&O canal made it to Cumberland, Maryland (at the “top” of the Appalachians) and formally opened on October 10, 1850. To create this manufactured river, the canal consisted of a complex system of feeder dams, lift locks, and aqueducts. The canal covers 184.5 miles from Georgetown to Cumberland and an elevation difference of 605 feet. It took canal boats, pulled by mules walking the adjacent towpath, a week to travel the canal one way. The canal was already outdated technology when it opened, as the B&O Railroad had beaten them through the Appalachians by close to a decade.
Although the canal was never an extremely profitable endeavor, it operated commercially for nearly 75 years. The C&O canal survived the Civil War, economic downturns, and a number of floods over the years. By the flood of 1924, it was determined that it was not cost effective to repair the canal further. The federal government purchased the canal, then owned by the B&O Railroad, in 1938. It was the depression years, and the Civilian Conservation Corps was put to work on repairing the structures along the canal. Nevertheless, after the end of the depression and World War II, the government wasn’t sure what to do with the canal.
By the 1950s, there were a number of ideas of what kind of development should take place along the north side of the Potomac. One of the most popular ideas was to create a motor parkway along the route of the towpath so people could see the beauty of the river all the way to Cumberland. Lucky for us today, in 1954 the canal had a champion in the form of Associate Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. Largely due to his efforts, we get to walk or bike the towpath today in peace and quiet, rather than share it with cars.
Justice Douglas was an avid outdoorsman who worked to save the environment and the natural state of rivers. When in Washington, D.C., he would hike along the canal, stating that he “was grateful that an accident of history created a continuous strip of park land along one of America’s most beautiful rivers.” In March of 1954, Justice Douglas led a group of conservationists and reporters on a hike of the entire 184.5 miles of towpath from Cumberland to Georgetown.
Although Justice Douglas’ walk didn’t resolve the issue of what to make out of the canal immediately, the event did publicize the effort to preserve the canal. On January 8, 1971, President Richard Nixon signed the law that designated the C&O Canal a National Historical Park (NHP). Today, the National Park Service maintains the towpath trail and restores the structures along the canal. They not only maintain the physical structure of the park, but also interpret the history of the canal through five visitor centers for an estimated 3.8 million visitors a year.
Visitor Centers are located at Georgetown, Great Falls, Brunswick, Williamsport, Hancock, and Cumberland, Maryland. There are also numerous access points along the canal that range from a small gravel parking area to a larger paved parking lot with restroom facilities. Costumed interpreters and canal boat rides are available during the summer months at the Georgetown and Great Falls Visitors Centers. Anywhere on the length of the canal are excellent opportunities for walking, running, or bicycling. The towpath is packed gravel with a marker at each mile.
We now live about three miles from the Williamsport Visitors Center, which is at about mile 99.7, considered roughly the midpoint of the canal. We enjoy this park so much that a conservative estimate would be that we’ve been on the towpath, either walking Sydney (our cattle dog) or riding bicycles, four days a week for the last two months. The family has been to the visitors centers at Cumberland (mile 184.5), Hancock (124), and Brunswick (54). I’ve ridden my mountain bike from Hancock to Harpers Ferry (mile 60). Some of those sections I’ve been on several times. And the best news of all is that I’ve lost over 20 pounds in the last two months.
Besides the exercise and the solitude, I enjoy the history that you find all along the canal towpath. Along with the structures of old mills and lock houses, I like to scout the crossing points along the river used during the Civil War. My goal is to walk or ride my bike over every mile of the canal. I’ve met several people on my bike rides that share the same goal. I have not yet visited Georgetown or Great Falls, but I understand it can get crowed there in the summer months. I like the less populated areas of the canal. A mile or so from an access point and you are in a world all of your own: just you, the river, the forest, and the history.
For more information on the C&O Canal NHP and its history, visit the park’s website at http://www.nps.gov/choh/. The Western Maryland Historical Library Project has digitized historical maps and photos online at http://www.whilbr.org/candocanal/index.aspx. Or check out the book The C&O Canal Companion by Mike High (John Hopkins University Press, 2001) for mile by mile descriptions and an excellent history of the Potomac River valley.
Go visit the Army Heritage Trail!
The AHEC is open M-F from 9:00 am to 4:45 pm for research or to view indoor museum displays. Weekend hours are available from April to October. The great thing about the Heritage Trail is that it is open every day from sunup to sundown. On summer weekends there is usually a reenactor event. Check out their website for details and directions.
Next post: Bicycling on the C & O Canal!
Another Move, Honoring a Traitor, and Augmenting Reality
My friend Paul over at History Delivered put up an interesting post. He made us aware of an article on the Smithsonian website about how an American was the force behind a memorial in London that honors Benedict Arnold. Paul asks us how we feel about honoring a man whose name is synonymous with traitor. Can a person do something so bad that it trumps the good? In this case we’re talking about Arnold offering up the plans to West Point to the British versus his leading Continental troops to victory at Quebec and Saratoga. I won’t repeat Paul’s argument…I hope you’ll visit his blog and read it for yourself. Nevertheless, I’ll add to the questions he poses and ask if a historical figure can be remembered as so great and good that we fail to study and learn from their faults and foibles as well?
Several weeks ago, I received an email from Jeff Mummert at the Civil War Augmented Reality Project. Jeff asked me to review their project on this blog and I am honored to do so. I have never met Jeff or anyone else connected with the project but I’ll admit that I’m intrigued by what they are working on. Of course I share their passion for history, and as some of you will recall, my “day job” for the last 14 years has been running a computer consulting and website development business (http://www.ridinthewave.com/).
They have a Kickstarter site to help with the funding for their project. I highly recommend that you visit the site to find out what this project is all about. In essence, they are developing software to run on tablet PCs that will help students learn about historical sites, while standing on the ground. For example at Gettysburg, the student will look out at the terrain in front of them, then on the tablet PC they will see the same view with unit dispositions superimposed on that sight picture. This video (also on the Kickstarter site) can better explain what they’re doing:
I think this technology is fascinating. It also has some amazing potential for learning. However, and don’t take my opinion as a criticism of the work that the Civil War Augmented Reality Project is doing, I don’t agree that this technology is best serving the public, as it is meant to be used “on site.” After all, the target user of this technology is already there, on the site. While the student or visitor has their attention drawn to the technology in their hands, will they be more likely to miss the thrill of being on the site? What about the teacher, docent, park ranger, or guide who has developed their knowledge and honed their presentation to bring the history alive? Don’t we owe them an attentive audience?
I’m a big fan of technology. However, we often ask, “Can we?” and forget to ask, “Should we?” or even, “Do we need to?” After 14 years in the business, I have seen this many times. Sheila and I often talk about the availability of our historic sites and archives. We are so pleased to see that historic sites like Gettysburg and large museums like the Smithsonian are free. Anyone can go to NARA and look at the nations documents…for free! The sarcastic punch line is always the same… “You just gotta get here.” I think we should be using our technology to assist the students who do not have the means to travel to the sites, to the museums, and to the archives. In a perfect world, a person with few resources could go to their public library, sit down at a computer, and via the Internet obtain an image of any document, or virtually walk through any museum or visit any historic site. But there’s no taking away from it Jeff, what you guys are working on is COOL. ;-)
Trippin' through Gettysburg
As I’ve mentioned before in this blog, my friend John works as a park ranger at Gettysburg National Military Park and rents a house on the battlefield from the NPS. Of course I wanted to visit my friend that I hadn’t seen in three years, but I was also looking forward to another visit to one of my favorite Civil War battlefields and getting a personal tour from the most knowledgeable person I know about the battle and the war.
I had visited Gettysburg on several occasions over the years since my first visit back in 1988. However, this was the first time I had toured the Battlefield and the town with a guide. Even for those of you who are familiar with the battle (as I thought I was), I highly recommend touring the battlefield with a licensed guide or attending one of the presentations given by the NPS staff. John was able to show me, on the ground, parts of the battle that have gotten little attention from both historians and popular culture. I won’t go into the history of the battle, but leave you with the guidance that there is much more to the battle than what is portrayed in the movie Gettysburg. The more you learn about it the more you want to know.
I invoke the Hollywood version of the battle (one of my favorites mind you), because during our tour John pointed out several items that the movie got wrong. He also gave me the background on a few of the monuments that over the decades since the battle have been placed for politics and tourism as well as honoring the sacrifices of our soldiers. Actually, the history of the battlefield as “hallowed ground” versus “tourist attraction” is as fascinating for me as the battle itself. For example, the term “high-water mark of the Confederacy” applied to Gettysburg, and specifically Pickett’s Charge, was coined by a tourism promoter years after the battle. If we are speaking in terms of Confederate military strength, one could argue that there are other points during the war when things looked much worse for the Union. In terms of geography, organized Confederate forces fought in the same campaign about 35 miles north of Gettysburg near Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, in what is known as the Skirmish of Sporting Hill.
Since I had visited the area before, it is interesting to see what is changing and what stays the same. The park is conducting projects to restore the terrain to what it looked like during the battle. Read about it in the park newspaper. There have been some trees removed around the Devil’s Den since my last visit. There are now some new peach trees in the Peach Orchard. The NPS has acquired a new “witness” house on the Emmitsburg Road, and the new Visitor Center opened in 2008 (which is fantastic!). Some things never change: the debate is raging in town about a proposed casino and hotel on US 15. That was voted down the last time I was there back in 2006. The casino promoters are back for another attempt at a permit.
Therefore, this trip to Gettysburg brought up several of those internal debates I have with myself. The primary being: At what level should we teach, or expect the public to know, history? Moreover, is a little drama such a bad thing if we can engage the public to tune in to the lessons of history? How far should we go to protect our historic sites? Does a place like Gettysburg deserve protection from what is built nearby? The analysis of these questions, whether I discuss and debate them with others or just in my head, is what excites me about public history.
I’ll close by saying, "Thanks again, John!" for the fantastic tour and a great steak dinner.
The Army Heritage and Education Center
The AHEC is several things in addition to a repository for primary source documents pertaining to military history. Originally, (and still its primary function) the AHEC was created to support the Army’s War College at Carlisle Barracks. In 2002, they moved to their current campus, off base, so you don’t have to have your vehicle and ID checked to park there. If you visit, plan an extra afternoon to visit the museum and the Army Heritage Trail. The trail is a walking path of about a mile that has interactive exhibits that are recreations from army history. For example, you can go into Redoubt #10 from the battle of Yorktown, get into a WWI trench, or walk through a WWII era tarpaper billet.
The fact that the AHEC is a library as well as an archive makes it a “first stop” for researching military history. Before you visit in person, look at several of the AHEC’s online resources, like their list of finding aids and the online catalog. Finding aids have been created for many unit histories and military history subjects. These documents are available online. With these finding aids and the online catalog, you will know what secondary works are available as well as primary source documents. Looking for secondary sources through interlibrary loan with your local public library will save you days of research time at the AHEC. Knowing the primary source material available will help you determine if you need to visit in person, and if so, estimate how many days you will need in the library.
When you enter the main building of the AHEC, you will have to sign in with security before going in the research library. Lockers are provided to store your coat and any carry cases. You can only bring laptops, cameras, writing paper, and pencils into the research room. A research assistant is available to help you fill out your “pull request” from the library. Don’t try to go it alone, use their expertise. The staff is extremely knowledgeable, very friendly, and eager to help you with your project.
While all libraries and archives have similar procedures, they also differ from place to place. Unlike NARA, at the AHEC you cannot bring in a flatbed scanner. I use a small digital camera to take pictures of documents (reproduction costs would kill you) that are too lengthy to take notes on. I used the same camera at AHEC to reproduce photographs. A photo station is set up in the research room for this purpose. You mount your camera on a photo stand and adjust two studio lights beside the table on tripods. I at first had my doubts, but this system worked beautifully. For textual items, I just set my camera to a “copy” preset and use it handheld. I reproduced 13 photographs and over 200 pages of documents in one long day at the AHEC.
I am a huge fan of digitizing primary documents so we don’t have to travel to an archive to look up this information. However, I know we will never be able to put every document and picture held in repositories online. There is just too much. You have to travel to where it is stored. Also, there is just no beating the thrill of holding the document in your hand, or to read the contents in its entirety for yourself, unedited and not interpreted for you by someone else. Again, I urge anyone who is interested in any subject to visit the appropriate archive and look up the information. I do not consider myself to be a scholar, an academic, or an intellectual. No one asked me what my qualifications or reasons were before allowing me access to any materials at either the AHEC or NARA. It is our history. Go get it.
Picture credits from the top:
- Screen capture of AHEC website, 6/1/2010.
- WWII in-service airborne recruiting poster, AHEC.
- Text document from William B. Breuer Collection, AHEC.
An Excellent Adventure at NARA
Picture descriptions, from the top:
The Still Pictures research room at Archives II. Image from Microsoft Case Study.
The Textual Records research room at Archives II. Image from Microsoft Case Study.
LTC William P. Yarborough, Commanding Officer of the 509th Parachute Infantry Battalion (left) and LTC Roy A. Murray, Commanding Officer of the 4th Ranger Battalion, aboard the Winchester Castle, study model of the beach where troops aboard the ship will make their assault on Anzio, Jan 1944. NARA image SC 186957.
Infantrymen of the 509th Parachute Infantry moving out with a tank from the 7th Armored Division near St Vith, Belgium, January 24, 1945. NARA image SC 279944.
Memorial Day Once Again
May is upon us once again. The last day of the month will bring us Memorial Day Weekend. For most Americans that means the official start to summer. Here on the Lake Michigan shore it also means the informal beginning to the tourist and resort season. (Our town’s population more than doubles during the summer with the return of all the snowbirds.) That being said, how could I not take the opportunity to talk about the real meaning of Memorial Day?
The tradition of a day of remembrance for fallen soldiers began as early as the end of the Civil War. Various communities around the nation held their own day to honor their dead. The first attempt at a nationwide observance was the proclamation of “Decoration Day” by General John Logan, the commander-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, the national organization of Union Army veterans. General Logan proclaimed that May 30th of 1868, and each year thereafter, be set aside to decorate the graves of fallen Union soldiers. Most communities in the South did not participate, mainly due to a lack of Union graves, not to mention a lingering resentment toward the North.
The name “Memorial Day” did not come into use until after 1882. The sentiment of the holiday became accepted nationally after World War I when the country came together to honor all of our war dead. Now the day is officially Memorial Day by a Federal law passed in 1967. It is celebrated on the last Monday in May as per the National Holiday Act of 1971, passed to ensure that we get a three-day weekend for Federal holidays. Although Texas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana, and Tennessee still have alternate days set aside to honor their Confederate war dead.
Many Americans seem to forget the meaning of the day. Some believe that this was fostered by the creation of the guaranteed three-day weekend in 1971. Some, like the Veterans of Foreign Wars, believe that returning the date for Memorial Day to May 30th would help to re-educate Americans and encourage a more traditional day of remembrance and honoring of our fallen warriors. Over ten years ago, separate bills to do just that were introduced into the House and Senate. Unfortunately, neither bill made it out of committee (the place that most bills go to die). However, in 2000 a resolution was passed into public law to encourage a National Moment of Remembrance, “which invites everyone to pause where they are at 3:00 p.m. on Memorial Day in a uplifting act of national unity.”
I do not glorify the sacrifices that were made in wars past and present. In fact, I view them as a tragedy. Nevertheless, wars do happen and someone has to go and fight them. As a historian and a veteran who was raised in a family of veterans, I am saddened to see the growing numbers of naïve and idealistic, not to mention the legions of the ignorant and apathetic. Memorial Day is a learning opportunity and an excellent day to take a reality check. I don’t want to be a buzz kill or party pooper and take away from the tradition of the barbeque, or the tailgate, or the camping trip you have planned for this Memorial Day weekend. By all means, enjoy. However, I do encourage you to take a moment to remember the sacrifices of others and pass on that reverence to your children…so that they can pass it on to theirs.A History Mystery: Who's in first?
The Locks were formally opened on July 4, 1917 with a grand celebration. The "official" first ship through what was then known simply as the Government Locks, was the steamship Roosevelt. However, the FOBL was recently contacted by the daughter of Elmer Reed who always maintained that HE piloted the first vessel through the Locks on that opening day. Elmer was a local outdoor enthusiast with a passion for canoeing. When the gates of the locks were opened to allow boats into the canal leading to Lake Union, Elmer allegedly jumped in front of the Roosevelt...in his canoe!