VOLUME 20 SPRING 2014 ISSUE

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1 VOLUME 20 SPRING 2014 ISSUE 1 A Tarheel s Thoughts on Vicksburg By William Northrop The famous quote from Josiah Gorgas is often cited by historians as an indication of the turning point of the Struggle. One can (and will) argue that viewpoint round or flat triggering that old quandary of history (what happened) vs. memory (what we think happened). Still in all, the third of July 1863 is not a date nostalgically remembered or celebrated in the South. Southern Arms experienced two disasters on that day, one in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and the other across the country in Vicksburg, Mississippi. The Battle of Gettysburg is well-documented in many an historical analysis both accurate and not-so-accurate and has thus attained its prominence in the lore of the Struggle. One might also suppose that it has something to do with Lincoln s few appropriate remarks delivered there on 19 November 1863, although there is no indication that contemporaneous, 1863 public opinion was moved to anywhere near the loving adoration with which most now view it. There is also the fact that we Tarheels identify more with the fabled Army of Northern Virginia than we do with the Army of Tennessee. (But, didn t the latter surrender in North Carolina?) The loss of Vicksburg did not blunt a Southern invasion of the North as did Gettysburg. Comparing the two sites, one recognizes that Vicksburg not only denied the Union commercial and military use of the Mississippi River, but the city sat astride the main west-east supply lines over which the Confederate armies received food, medicine, clothing, weapons and fresh troops. The fight at Gettysburg was simply an accidental meeting engagement, unless one considers shoes vital to the Southern cause. On balance, the defeat at Vicksburg was by far the more egregious loss. It opened the Mississippi to the Federals. In truth, the river had been closed to the Confederacy since the fall of New Orleans the year before, so it was a stand-off of sorts. Part of the reason that Vicksburg in particular and the Western Theater of Operations in general is less known and studied is that it was a part of the South that is (and was then) confusing, murky and vague with place names as strange as Iwo Jima, Kwajalein and Tinian of a later war. The real action was in the Eastern Yesterday we rode on the pinnacle of success today absolute ruin seems to be our portion. The Confederacy totters to its destruction. JOSIAH GORGAS, Chief, Confederate Ordnance Bureau, 5 July 1863 Theater, the bloody venue of Robert E. Lee where a significant portion of his forces were Tarheels. Yet, there is a thread that connects us Tarheels with Vicksburg, however tenuous and oblique. There were three North Carolina regiments involved in the Vicksburg campaign the 29th, 39th, and 60th North Carolina State Troops. Although they were not in Vicksburg proper during the infamous 47-day siege, they were part of Joe Johnston s Army of Relief and as such are properly designated as participants. There is even a monument in the Vicksburg National Military Park remembering them. US Park Rangers quickly point out that the Vicksburg National Military Park is one of the most monumented parks in the country with 31 states having monuments there. Clearly someone thought Vicksburg was as important as Gettysburg and that someone turned out to be Stephen D. Lee, the former The North Carolina Monument at Vicksburg.

2 Confederate General, Vicksburg veteran, and first chairman of the Vicksburg Park Commission. Research and discussions, even with the park rangers, fall short of giving one a true picture of the massive defense line around the Gibraltar of the Confederacy. One indeed needs to visit Vicksburg to understand the magnitude of what happened there. The Vicksburg Earthworks We can take all the northern ports of the Confederacy, and they can still defy us from Vicksburg. It means hog and hominy without limit, fresh troops from all the states of the far South, and a cotton country where they can raise the staple without interference. ABRAHAM LINCOLN 1862 The common description the city on the bluffs above the Mississippi fails to do justice. Vicksburg is actually built on a series of hills, surrounded by sharp, narrow ridges fronted by steep ravines, is naturally defensible and the fortifications surrounding the city brilliantly incorporate these natural obstacles. The massive forests that now cover the hills surrounding the city were not there in 1863 as the land not normally under cultivation, had been cleared by the defenders. Even the trees growing in the valleys were sacrificed to open fields of fire. Major Samuel Lockett, USMA Class of 1859, was the architect of Vicksburg s almost 9-mile, semi-circular defense line, which surrounded the city and was anchored north and south on the river. Lockett had over a year to build his defenses and when they were completed, Vicksburg was indeed the Gibraltar of the Confederacy. Lockett s plan incorporated nine major strong points sited to guard the roads and the single railroad line into Lockett at West Point the city. These strong points redans, lunettes and redoubts were constructed with earthen walls some fourteen feet thick, able to withstand the fire from field guns. Each strong point was connected by rifle pits (as well as facing parapets with head logs) and behind these were communication trenches (traverses) running to the rear. In front of the fortifications and parapets was a ditch six feet deep and eight to twelve feet wide. The ditch was situated facing a small, natural valley into In Confederate service which the defenders staked down abatis normally of felled trees and sharpened stakes often laced with telegraph wire (tangle foot). As noted, Lockett located his primary fortifications to overlook the approaches to the city. Anchoring the defenses on the north up hard against the river was Fort Hill. On the line to the east along the Fort Hill Road all the On Vicksburg Monument PAGE TWO way to the junction where the defenses turned south was the Stockade Redan complex guarding the aptly named Graveyard Road. Further to the south was the 3rd Louisiana Redan and the Great Redoubt guarding the main road to the state capital, the Jackson Road. Then in order further on, overlooking the Baldwin s Ferry Road, was the 2nd Texas Lunette. The Southern Railroad of Mississippi entered the city south of the Baldwin s Ferry Road and was guarded by the Railroad Redoubt. Other strong points continued in the line southward, terminating in the redoubt known as the South Fort on the river. The southern portion of the defenses played their own roles, but none were attacked by the besieging Union forces. It is interesting to note that in December of 1862, President Jefferson Davis and General Joseph Johnston made an inspection tour of Pemberton s forces and the defenses of Vicksburg. These two West Pointers came to surprisingly different conclusions as to the likely military outcome of the Union s efforts to take Vicksburg. Davis drew comfort from the general dispositions, concluding that Vicksburg and Mississippi could indeed hold. Needless to say, he was shocked when the city fell to Grant the following year. Johnston, on the other hand, fell back on the old military axiom that the besieged normally capitulate. In hindsight, the variance of views goes a long way toward explaining what eventually occurred. Finally, one could spend years roaming the National Military Park and still could not picture or understand the designs, armaments and most importantly, the sequence of events during the siege. Much akin to trying to understand dark matter, a layman will be lost quickly, and if you are thinking that your trusty, old FM 5-15 (Field Fortifications) is going to be helpful, forget it. Aside from the obvious construction of aircraft revetments and emplacements for self-propelled artillery and tanks one quickly sees that, not surprisingly, there were completely different standards for fortifications 150 years ago. The best bet is one of those esoteric papers from CGSC or the War College on Civil War Field Fortifications. A favorite is LTC David Chuber s Field Fortifications during the American Civil War, his Master s Thesis out of Leavenworth in (It also helps that he s a Tarheel.) Thus, one becomes re-familiarized with redans, lunettes, tenaille heads, bastions, and redoubts, which, like their names, were obviously influenced by Napoleonic doctrine. RECALL

3 SPRING 2014 First Campaign I reached Vicksburg at the time appointed, landed, assaulted and failed. WILLIAM T. SHERMAN, Major General, USA Commanding XV Corps Federal Army of the Tennessee January 1863 Sitting in Grand Junction, Tennessee, east of Memphis, Grant decided on the direct approach to Vicksburg in November He pushed south into Mississippi with his Army of the Tennessee headed for the city on the bluffs. With one column of 40,000 troops, he moved along the Mississippi Central Railroad hoping to draw the Confederate defenders out of Vicksburg and into northern Mississippi. Meanwhile, a second Yankee column of 32,000 troops under Sherman embarked by ship to make a waterborne assault on the city in the absence of most of the defenders. That was the plan. Pemberton not the sharpest tool in the shed went for the ploy and Grant s grand scheme might have worked had it not been for two unforeseen factors. Those two factors were Bedford Forrest and Earl Van Dorn. Grant s army pushed south out of Tennessee headed toward Grenada, Mississippi, where Pemberton was digging in his forces along the south bank of the Yalobusha River. Slowly pushing through Holly Springs and Oxford, the Union forces established their main supply base on the railroad at the former, but there was bad news in their rear. Back in Tennessee, Bedford Forrest cut the Mobile & Ohio Railroad on which Grant s Union forces were dependent to feed supplies into their logistics base at Holly Springs, Mississippi. Then on 20 December 1862, Earl Van Dorn added insult to injury by taking and destroying the Holly Springs depot. Grant was forced to throw in the towel and return to Memphis with his troops on half rations. On the same day Van Dorn took Holly Springs, Sherman embarked at Memphis headed toward Vicksburg in fifty-nine transports escorted by seven gunboats. On Christmas Eve 1862, Sherman landed his force just north of the city in front of the Walnut Hills along Chickasaw Bayou. Initially, the Union forces USS Cairo then and now. badly outnumbered the Confederates under John Gregg, but Pemberton finally awakened to Grant s plan began rushing forces down from Grenada via interior rail lines. It was during Sherman s attempt that the Union Ironclad, USS Cairo, was lost. Running interference on the Yazoo River for the Union landings near Chickasaw Bayou, north of the city, the ironclad gunboat ran afoul of two Confederate mines (then known as torpedoes) and sank in six fathoms in a matter of minutes. Interestingly, she was raised in 1964 and is now on display at the Vicksburg National Military Park. Sherman could not break the Vicksburg line at Chickasaw Bayou try as he might. Not only were the Union forces repulsed, but Stephen Lee led a counterattack with two regiments that netted the Confederates 21 officers, 311 enlisted, 4 colors, and 500 stands of arms. So, by 31 December 1862, the Yankees had had enough and called it quits. It had cost the Federal forces 1,776 casualties while the Confederates lost only 187 men. Second Campaign The water was high and the rains were incessant. There seemed no possibility of a land movement before the end of March or later and it would not do to lie idle all this time. ULYSSES S. GRANT, Major General, USA Commanding Federal Army of the Tennessee Grant was still determined to take Vicksburg, but his direct approach had proven disastrous. So in his second attempt from Tennessee he moved his army down the Mississippi staying on the Louisiana side fetching up at Milliken s Bend. Confederate forces on that side of the river were too sparse to offer any serious resistance. Having reached the general vicinity of Vicksburg, albeit on the Louisiana side, mounting a cross-river attack was not feasible since it was winter and the Mississippi was on the boom. There was nothing else for it, so he kept his men busy. To this end, he instituted a series of seven ill-fated efforts in the bayous, including the digging of two canals across DeSoto Point to divert the Mississippi River and bypass the guns of Vicksburg. Several interesting incidents were attendant to Grant s second campaign, which he would later characterize as experiments. One of the DeSoto Point canals involved the employment of two huge steam dredges (Hercules and Samson) to help dig, but both were quickly damaged and driven away by cross-river Confederate artillery fire. Still another effort was made to get behind Vicksburg s guns via the Yazoo River, but it was frustrated by the imposition of a small Confederate fortification Fort Pemberton between the Tallahatchie and Yazoo rivers north of the city. By the end of March 1863, Grant seemed reduced in options and politicians and the media back in Washington were clamoring for his head. Not distracted, he was as determined as ever to take Vicksburg. He decided to move his army south of the city, cross the river and bring the fight to Pemberton within the Mississippi interior east of Vicksburg. In order to do this, the Union Navy had to get their transports south of the city, a rather daunting task. Meanwhile, Grant pushed his army south on the Louisiana side with McClernand s corps cutting and corduroying the road. PAGE THREE

4 Patrolling Confederate cavalry soon spotted the Yankees and sent word back across the river. John Bowen, the Confederate commander at Grand Gulf some twenty-five miles south of Vicksburg dispatched two regiments on 4 April 1863 across to make contact and keep an eye on the Yankees. Bowen then braced his command for a potential Union assault. At that point, however, there were no Union naval units on the river south of Vicksburg, so Bowen continued to watch and report to Pemberton. During the night of 16 April 1863, Admiral David Dixon Porter ran the guns at Vicksburg and at the cost of one transport put a powerful portion of the Union fleet south of the fortress city. As matters played out, the Confederate artillery on the bluffs was improperly laid and most to their rounds flew high. They soon corrected this and a subsequent Yankee run on the river finished with drastically different results. In an effort to divert Pemberton s attention, Sherman and his XV Corps remained just north of Vicksburg on the Louisiana side, threatening a crossing there, which the Confederate command fully expected. Reports coming in from Grand Gulf made little impression on Pemberton s mind-set, but the now-famous cavalry raid of Ben Grierson had him talking in syllables. A brief sidebar comment on Grierson s cavalry raid is now indicated. Part of the success of this raid, which covered some six hundred miles in sixteen days, can be attributed to the Union numbers what Lincoln called the arithmetic. In January 1863, Earl Van Dorn and his 6,000 cavalry had been detached from Pemberton and sent to Bragg in Tennessee putting them out of the campaign. At the same time, Bedford Forrest was busy tracking down and capturing a similar Union raid led by Abel Streight that ended in Alabama. With so little cavalry left in his command, Pemberton could not even find Grierson much less stop him. By month s end, Grant had the entire XIII Corps and two divisions of the XVII Corps, along with Porter s gunboats at Hard Times Landing on the Louisiana shore just to the north and opposite Grand Gulf. He was ready for a crossing attempt on 29 April 1863 and Porter s gunboats moved ahead to suppress the Confederate forts prior to the infantry landing. But, after five hours of dueling with John Bowen s artillery, the Union fleet came away the worst for it. PAGE FOUR Battles Outside the Wire Detachments of fast-riding cavalry were ordered eastward from Port Hudson and Port Gibson the latter a scant half dozen miles from Grant's intended point of landing at Grand Gulf SHELBY FOOTE The Beleagured City Undeterred, Grant disembarked his 23,000 troops, marched them five miles south, and on the following day began landing them unopposed on the Mississippi shore at Bruinsburg. He immediately pushed inland toward Port Gibson. Although Bowen knew the Yankees had crossed the river, he did not know their strength or where they were headed because of a lack of cavalry, which was then out east looking for Grierson. So he put his 5,500 troops into a defensive position some four miles west of Port Gibson, and on 1 May 1863, the Yankees showed up. In spite of his 1-to-4 disadvantage, Bowen held his own initially. But, finally out flanked and overwhelmed by McClernand s four-division assault, Bowen withdrew his men to the outskirts of Port Gibson and held off the blue hoards until nightfall ended the fighting. Although it was clear that Bowen had successfully held up Grant for an entire day, it was also clear he would have to withdraw or be annihilated on the morrow. That night Bowen withdrew back across Bayou Pierre burning the bridges behind him. The Yankees quickly rebuilt the bridges across the Bayou. Meanwhile Bowen had been reinforced, bringing his total to about 9,000 effectives, but so had Grant, bringing his total up to about 30,000. Like an unstoppable flood, the blue forces soon flanked Bowen forcing yet another withdrawal, this time across the Big Black River, which abandoned the fortifications at Grand Gulf, freeing up the Union naval forces on the Mississippi all the way up to Vicksburg. In making his threat analysis, Pemberton saw his opponent s key problem as logistics. Grant s supply line was tied to his eastbank base at Grand Gulf. Building up supplies there required the use of the single make-shift road down the Louisiana side of the river or, in the alternative, running the guns of Vicksburg on the water. In order to take the city, Pemberton figured that Grant needed a base of supply on the Yazoo north of Vicksburg. If Grant moved east toward Jackson, his supply line from Grand Gulf would be stretched to the breaking point, or so Pemberton figured. This was indeed Grant s main problem, and the blue commander knew it. Unlike Pemberton, however, he saw it as not insurmountable. Based on the recent experience of Grierson, cut loose from his supplies and living off the land, and Grant s own on his retreat back to Memphis the previous year, he was determined to do the same again, but on a much larger scale. Speed of movement then became essential, both tactically and logistically. By 8 May, Sherman brought his corps across the river and Grant had nine of his ten divisions or about 45,000 men on the east bank. Concentrating at Rocky Springs, he struck out on 12 May 1863 in three columns, one for each corps. He intended McClernand s Corps on the left to move north and cut the Jackson-Vicksburg rail line. Sherman would move up the center able to come to the assistance of either adjacent column, and McPherson, on the right, was to move directly toward Jackson. About 1100 hours, McPherson ran headlong into a dug-in Tennessee brigade under John Gregg a couple of miles south of the little town of Raymond, fifteen or so miles southwest of the Mississippi capital. A serious fight broke out with neither side knowing the strength of its opponent, but when Gregg finally realized he was facing an entire Federal Corps, he expertly disengaged and withdrew back through Raymond toward Jackson. Enroute back, Gregg ran into General William Walker who was rushing up 1,000 South Carolina reinforcements. They positioned defensively and waited for the Yankees, but the boys in blue had occupied Raymond and were done for the day. The next day two things happened. The Battle of Raymond indicated to Grant that the Confederates were concentrated at Jackson, and so he shifted his corps to make the Mississippi capital his next objective. The second event was the arrival of Joe Johnston in Jackson to take command of Confederate forces. Grant spent 13 May 1863 gathering his forces and putting two corps on the move toward Jackson while his third corps deployed in his rear guarding the approach from Vicksburg. RECALL

5 Joe Johnston patiently listened to a briefing by General John Gregg and without inspecting the defensive positions, wired Richmond, I am too late. Then Johnston, with no Federal troops in sight and their next objective unknown, ordered the abandonment of Jackson, the capital of Mississippi. According to the records, Johnston had at the time 6,000 troops at Jackson. The arrival of reinforcements, including the 60th North Carolina, that same afternoon brought his total up to 10,000 effectives and with the expected arrival of 3,000 additional troops on 16 May, would have given him a total of 13,000 men. That was too little and too late, of course, because Johnston abandoned Jackson on 14 May after the graybacks symbolically repulsed McPherson s skirmishers. If at that point, however, Johnston had managed to combine his 13,000 effectives with Pemberton s Army of Vicksburg, it would have put the Confederates reasonably close to parity with Grant s three corps. But, that s what might have been. The next morning, McPherson was dispatched with his corps toward Vicksburg to the support of McClernand s Corps then facing Pemberton who had come out of the city and was concentrating on the Big Black River. Sherman s XV Corps spent the day looting and burning Jackson. Grant soon had a windfall in a dispatch Johnston had sent to Pemberton via a messenger who was a Union agent. Based on this and other intelligence, Grant felt he knew where Pemberton was, his strength and his plans. Leaving one of Sherman s divisions to complete the destruction of Jackson, he hurried the rest of his forces westward toward Vicksburg and the battle that would be called Champion Hill, the bloodiest day in the entire Vicksburg Campaign. The battle was remarkable in several ways. Pemberton s three divisions held the high ground and were attacked by McClernand and McPherson s corps in a bitter, all-day fight. Finally, in late afternoon, the Confederate left gave way and two of Pemberton s divisions retreated back across Baker s Creek toward the Big Black. The third Confederate division under Tarheel-born William Loring was cut off and eventually made its way behind the Federals to Johnston s Army of Relief near Jackson. The following day, 17 May 1863, Grant s forces chasing Pemberton s two divisions forced a crossing of the Big Black River at Edward s Station. The Confederates retreated into the works at Vicksburg. In the 18-day campaign, Grant had marched 180 miles, fought and won five battles, inflicted over 7,000 casualties, seized 50 tubes of field artillery and 25 larger pieces spiked and abandoned. And now he had Pemberton bottled up in Gibraltar of the Confederacy. SPRING 2014 "Vicksburg or hell!" THOMAS HIGGINS, Color Corporal, 99th Illinois, USV Federal Army of the Tennessee Assaulting the 2nd Texas Lunette, 22 May 1863 A siege is long, tedious and boring, and Grant sought to avoid it. And, while his tactical ability was far superior to that of John Pemberton, he now faced the serious defenses conceived by yet another West Pointer, Sam Lockett. By 18 May 1863, Pemberton s troops had completed their withdrawal from the Big Black River crossings and were getting snug in the prepared defenses of the city. Grant wanted an immediate attack that gave the Confederates little recovery time, and he set it for the afternoon of 19 May after an artillery preparation. Grant s plan of attack was simple enough and by necessity based on approaches to the city. He would attack along three axes: Sherman s Corps (XV) would attack along the Graveyard Road on the north, McPherson s Corps (XVII) would attack along the Jackson Road in the middle and McClernand s Corps (XIII) would attack along the Southern Railroad line on the south. Unfortunately for the Yankees, only Sherman s XV Corps was up and in position for the attack while Grant s other two were still deploying in front of the Confederate earthworks. On schedule, Sherman threw two brigades of Frank Blair s 2nd Division, some nine regiments, down the Graveyard Road and against the Stockade Redan complex. This consisted of three fortifications, the 27th Louisiana Lunette on the west, the Stockade Redan in the center, and Green s Redan to the south. The earthworks and environs were defended by three Confederate regiments, the 36th Mississippi of Louis Hebert s brigade and the 1st and 5th Missouri of Francis Cockrell s brigade. As events unfolded during the afternoon of 19 May First at Vicksburg a mythical depiction of the 19 May 1863 assault. In truth, no Union troops got anywhere near this close. 1863, the badly outnumbered Confederates made short work of the Federal assault. and Sherman could only withdraw the survivors after nightfall leaving the dead and wounded littering the area fronting the fortifications. Union forces suffered almost 1,000 casualties in this attack. Unhappy with the coordination of his first attack, but limited to the approaches to the city, Grant scheduled a second for 22 May 1863 that would employ elements of all three corps simultaneously. It was the first time in history that an attack would go in on watches synchronized the night before, but it was the same plan as his 19 May assault, and there is some old military negative about expecting different results from the same effort. After an all-night artillery bombardment on 21 May 1863 with Grant s 220 tubes plus the navy s 13-inch mortars out on the river, Sherman s boys hit the Stockade Redan complex once again at After being repulsed on their first try, they gave it PAGE FIVE

6 Sherman s attack on 22 May a second effort at 1500, but the results were the same only with a heavier subtraction in casualties. McPherson s XVII Corps attacked to the south of Sherman down the Jackson Road against the fortifications known as the Great Redoubt and the soon-to-be-famous 3rd Louisiana Redan. It became quickly evident that McPherson lacked the proper reconnaissance or such was extremely faulty, because Sam Lockett had laid out these strong points with interlocking fields of fire. McPherson s boys were caught in a crossfire that did not allow them to break wind through cotton much less break through the Confederate line. The best that can be said of this attack is that it was over quickly. The only success if one might call it that came on the south end of the Union lines from the troops of McClernand s XIII Corps. Two Federal brigades under Benton and Burbridge attacked the 2nd Texas Lunette held by that single Confederate regiment and literally bounced off with heavy losses. There was a breakthrough at the Railroad Redoubt small, but nonetheless a breakthrough. About a dozen men from the 22nd Iowa (Lawler s Brigade) managed a toehold inside the massive fortification. Surviving companies of the 30th Alabama contained the intruders until Stephen Lee sent in Waul s Texas Legion and elements PAGE SIX McPherson s attack on 22 May McClernand s Attack on 22 May of the 86th Alabama who overran and killed or captured the Yankees involved. Thus, the breakthrough was sealed. Grant learned the same lesson Robert E. Lee would learn on 3 July 1863 about a thousand miles away at Gettysburg. In those days, it was rarely a good idea to frontally assault a fortified enemy. Union losses for the 22 May attacks totaled 3,200 making an exact grand total of 4,141 for both attacks on the Vicksburg defenses. This 3-day total was almost as many casualties as Grant had incurred on his 18-day campaign to reach the city, although he quickly shifted the blame to others, as was his habit. The Siege rather an entrenched camp than a fortified place, owing much of its strength to the difficult ground, obstructed by fallen trees to its front, which rendered rapidity of movement and ensemble in assault impossible. Staff Engineer Union Army of the Tennessee Vicksburg, 1863 There was nothing for it other than to invest Vicksburg, so the Union Army of the Tennessee stacked their rifles and picked up their shovels. They were then in the grips of the five formal stages of a siege: investment, artillery attack, assault construction, breaching with artillery or mines, and final assault. Gun positions some 89 in all and entrenchments along with the mines; plus a second line out on the Big Black River to guard the rear against Joe Johnston had to be dug and fortified. Federal reinforcements and supplies poured in through Grant s newly-won supply base north of the city near Haines Bluff on the Yazoo River. By mid-june, he had 77,000 effectives in five corps on hand. Three corps were utilized investing Vicksburg while two hunkered down out on the Big Black in case Johnston found the manpower and the nerve to attempt a relief of the siege. Beyond the tedious monotony of siege warfare, the shelling and the snipers, there were several isolated incidents that beg RECALL

7 attention. The first was the burial truce in the afternoon of 25 May 1863 at which time a 2½ hour cease-fire was granted so that the Union dead could be buried and the wounded removed from in front of the Confederate works. A second curious incident climaxed two days later on 27 May Union Army Intelligence (I see hoof prints in, but none coming out) perceived that the Confederates were moving some of their big guns from their upper water batteries to positions inland. In order to test this analysis, David Porter was asked to send a probe against the suspect positions and to this end, he dispatched the USS Cincinnati, a City-class ironclad. Interestingly, the Cincinnati was previously sunk at Fort Pillow on 10 May 1862 but raised and put back into service. At 7 a,m,, the Cincinnati moved down river and by 10 a.m. the matter had been clarified by the sinking of the ill-fated, Union ironclad for the second time in her career. The loss of 40 of her crew settled the old notion that holds Military Intelligence is to Intelligence what Military Music is to Music. SPRING 2014 USS Cincinnati On 6 June, Grant left his headquarters and headed up the Yazoo for Satartia aboard the steamer Diligent. He went on a 2- day bender at Haines Bluff confirming the whispered rumor that he was a soak he was. On 7 June 1863, Confederate General Richard Taylor, operating on the west bank of the Mississippi under orders from Kirby Smith, simultaneously attacked Young s Point and Milliken s Bend in an effort to sever Grant s supply line from the north. He was disappointed to learn that these vital Union bases had been abandoned a month before in favor of Grant s new base at Haines Bluff on the Yazoo River, and Taylor had no way of reaching that. One refrains from mentioning the efficacy of Military Intelligence once more. Finally on 18 June, Grant was able to relieve the politicallyappointed John McClernand, an act he had been plotting for some months. Washington supported his decision, and command of the XIII Corps was taken over by Edward Ord. Four days later, Sherman was moved from command of the XV Corps to command of the rearward line in essence two corps on the Big Black River. The mining of the 3rd Louisiana Redan on 25 June 1863 was probably the most well known and exciting event of the siege. The Jackson Road was the main thoroughfare into Vicksburg, and it was guarded by the 3rd Louisiana Redan (identified by the occupying unit) and by the Great Redoubt slightly to the south. The besieging Yankee unit assigned to the area was John Logan s Third Division of McPherson s XVII Corps. After digging in their artillery, constructing their dugouts and trenches, Logan s boys began an approach trench or sap some seven feet deep and eight feet wide and now known as Logan s Approach toward the 3rd Louisiana Redan. It was difficult and dangerous work, but they finally arrived at the base of their objective on 23 June all the while braving improvised hand grenades and sniper fire. At that point, they began tunneling having previously learned the lesson of going toe-to-toe with the defenders. By all accounts, the mine shaft was some forty feet long extending under the front wall of the redan. They packed it with 2200 pounds of black powder and detonated it at 1530 on 25 June. It blew a crater some forty feet wide and twelve feet deep in the front wall of the fortification. On signal, the 45th Illinois under Jasper Maltby charged into the crater attempting to breach the Confederate line, but were met head-on by hornet-mad Confederates. Finally, Eugene Erwin, the grandson of Henry Clay, led his 6th Missouri into the crater and sealed the breach at the point of their bayonets. The fight had lasted 26 hours with each side feeding in regiments until the Federals were finally driven out. Smarting over the defeat, the Yankees decided to dig another tunnel under the position. This shaft was completed on 1 July and packed with 1800 pounds of powder. It was detonated killing six black laborers and tossing a slave named Abraham out of the works and into the Union lines. Abraham became an instant celebrity, but was soon emancipated to work for the Union quartermaster. There was no follow-up infantry attack by the Yankees this time, so consensus has it that this second mine explosion was done out of pure meanness. There is a small postscript to the story of the redan crater. Jasper Maltby, who led the 45th Illinois into the crater, was badly wounded in the fray. He recovered, was promoted and survived the war. Ironically, he was appointed the first (reconstruction) mayor of Vicksburg after the war. He died in office, and it was not until World War II that the people of Vicksburg even thought about celebrating the 4th of July again. The Army of Relief I have every reason to believe that ten days will bring relief in the person of General Johnson (sic) and 50,000 men. God send him quickly. WILLIAM DRENNAN, Lieutenant, Ordinance Staff, Featherston s Brigade, Loring s Division Army of Vicksburg, Vicksburg Journal, 1 June 1863 On 9 May 1863, Confederate Secretary of War James Seddon wired Joe Johnston in Tennessee giving him command of the forces in Mississippi. At that point, the divergence of opinions between Davis and Johnston came into play to favor Grant. Davis, having finally realized the danger, dispatched Johnston to Mississippi in an act of semi-desperation. With Pemberton bottled up in Vicksburg unable to communicate with Richmond, an Army of Relief was the only potential solution. Johnston, who had apparently written off Vicksburg as already lost, arrived in Jackson, Mississippi, on 13 May In June of 1863, Richmond poured troops into Jackson, the PAGE SEVEN

8 capital of Mississippi, for Johnston s Army of Relief from as far away as the east coast. This was while Lee had the Army of Northern Virginia enroute to Pennsylvania. At the time, Johnston s 34,000 and Pemberton s 50,000 gave the Confederates a numerical superiority over the Union forces. Johnston failed to move, however, and by the time he cranked up to threaten the siege, Grant had been massively reinforced and Pemberton had thrown in the towel. Richmond had scrambled to send units to Johnston in Jackson. A three-brigade division under John Breckinridge arrived, and one of the regiments was the 60th North Carolina under Washington Hardy, which was attached to Stovall s Florida Brigade. An orphan regiment, the 60th had been organized at Greenville, Tennessee, by adding four companies to the former 6th North Carolina Battalion in the summer of Most of its troops came from the Asheville area and Polk, Buncombe, and Madison counties. It also had a sprinkle of Tennesseans. The 60th was one of the first regiments to arrive in Jackson, probably around 13 May 1863, and had been sent from Bragg s army in Tennessee. We believe it had approximately 270 effectives and there are indications that they skirmished briefly in the defense of Jackson before retiring northward with Johnston on 14 May. There are indications that this regiment marched to the relief of Vicksburg during the first week of July, and that it retreated with Johnston back to Jackson. On the way, these Tarheels apparently skirmished with Sherman s boys at Clinton where records indicate they sustained one WIA. PAGE EIGHT * * * * The 29th North Carolina was an older regiment first organized at Camp Patton near Asheville back in July of It contained men from the mountain counties of Cherokee, Yancey, Buncombe, Jackson, Madison, Haywood, and Mitchell, and it was a veteran outfit by the time it was ordered to Mississippi on 12 May Arriving from Shelbyville, Tennessee, on 18 May 1863, two days after Sherman s boys evacuated the Mississippi capital, the regiment detrained and force-marched thirty miles to Canton to join Joe Johnston s forces. It was then ordered to Vaughan s Station. Once there, it was attached to Wilson s Georgia Brigade of William Walker s Division. They were assigned to guard and garrison duty at Yazoo City and Vernon. The regiment evacuated Yazoo City to Morton, Mississippi on 13 July Consequently, they spent their time in-theater pretty much out of the fight. * * * * Shipping out of Shelbyville with the 29th North Carolina was its sister regiment, the 39th North Carolina. It also arrived in Jackson on 18 May and marched thirty miles to Canton. The 39th was attached to Evander McNair s Arkansas Brigade at Brandon, Mississippi. From Brandon, they moved west with French s division to the Birdsong Farm on the east bank of the Big Black until they heard the news of Vicksburg s surrender. Johnston had fiddled around until it was too late, at which point he pulled back from the Big Black to Jackson followed by two Federal corps under Sherman. Johnston defended Jackson for a week before abandoning the city once again on 16 July There is a short footnote: All three North Carolina regiments, the 29th, 39th, and 60th, would be assigned to Davidson s Brigade and fight together at Chickamauga. Disaster Times Two "I have no heart to write.vicksburg has fallen". Catherine Ann Devereux Edmondston, Journal of a Secesh Lady The numbers of combatants involved in the Vicksburg Campaign are still in contention some 150 years after events. The figures for Grant s Army of the Tennessee are reasonably static at 77,000 in 15 divisions including later-arriving reinforcements. On the Confederate side the numbers are unfocused, mainly because Joe Johnston was continually whining to Richmond for more troops and reporting various strength figures. By the first week of June 1863, Johnston s Army of Relief numbered approximately 32,000. Once again we make a futile calculation: Combined with Pemberton s Army of Vicksburg and accounting for battle subtractions, the Confederate total was somewhere close to 62,000 men in 9 divisions, superior to Grant s forces at that point. The obvious problem was in the unimaginative Confederate leadership. Grant outgeneraled Pemberton in his five battles to reach Vicksburg. Joe Johnston was always meticulous in his preparation before a movement, but his movements were always retrograde in nature. In truth, any Union general who faced Joe Johnston could count on the Confederate abandoning his defenses. In retrospect, it is clear that Johnston, despite current admirers, had no real stomach for a fight. He had abandoned Harpers Ferry at the beginning of hostilities, had almost abandoned Richmond in 1862, and would abandon Atlanta after he abandoned Vicksburg and Jackson. There were always excuses, of course, but a critical view of his actions as a Confederate commander leaves a Monday-morning quarterback cold with his missed opportunities. In the public s mind today, Gettysburg is the more important of these two disasters mainly because of the high casualties. Robert E. Lee took 70,000 men into Pennsylvania, some 37 brigades. His famous charge against the Union center on 3 July involved only 8 of his brigades. Overall, he lost a little over 20,000 men or roughly a 28% subtraction to his forces, which RECALL

9 equaled Confederate losses at Shiloh plus Antietam. He also lost two guns caught in the mud and suffered serious losses in his leadership that could not be replaced. As usual, Lee was heavily outnumbered and left the field damaged, but tactical. Indeed, it is clear that Lee survived with his reputation intact. Reviewing Union losses, Lee predicted that the Army of the Potomac would not be ready for another engagement for six months. It would actually be ten months. Grant had little or no respect for John Pemberton. He viewed Pemberton, a northern man, as one who had simply fallen in with bad company. When Joe Johnston arrived in Jackson to relieve Vicksburg, Grant was similarly underwhelmed. The only Confederate General who scared the Union commander was the wholly unpredictable and free-ranging Bedford Forrest. After Vicksburg, Pemberton was no longer a player. With an army of 50,000 initially, he was completely out-generaled by Grant. Out in the open, Grant s tactical ability and numerical superiority combined with Confederate leadership incompetence led to Union victories outside the Vicksburg defenses and its eventual fall to siege. Pemberton s losses amounted to 172 guns, 50,000 small arms and almost 30,000 troops. While in retrospect, the twin disasters of Vicksburg and Gettysburg, while bad, did not alter the war that much. One can argue whether or not either one or both were the turning point of the American Civil War. Grant s victory at Vicksburg, along with his later victory at Chattanooga, positioned him to take over command of all the Union Armies. It was this, one can argue, that was the turning point. Cuss n in the Army Imust confess that I have been somewhat distraught since I heard the news a few years ago of the Army s ban on cuss n. Cuss n has been a part of our heritage since the formation of the U.S. Army, and I distinctly remember my introduction to this custom during Basic Training at Fort Bragg in the fall of My drill sergeant was a master of cuss n, and I was convinced that cuss n had to have been a part of Drill Sergeant s School as he excelled in it so well. I mean my father, a WWII veteran, cussed some, but next to Drill Sergeants of old E-1-1, he was strictly an amateur. I noticed too, that Platoon Sergeants cussed better than Staff Sergeants who in turn cussed better than Sergeants, so in my mind, promotion depended to some degree on one s cuss n ability. Never hearing the First Sergeant cuss probably meant that he evaluated the lower NCOs and perhaps helped them hone their cuss n abilities during afterhours training sessions. During AIT, I observed the Drill Sergeants didn t cuss as much which meant they had not expanded their vocabulary sufficiently to be in charge of basic trainees or perhaps had been recycled back to bring their cuss n up to par. Looking back into history, it s important to note that NCOs weren t the only ones who could cuss for effect as the officer corps also possessed some good cursers and though the officers were fewer in numbers than NCOs, they produced some legendary cussers. SFC (Ret) John R. Winecoff Perhaps the most notable was General George Patton whose cuss n was the stuff of legends and if it s true that if one picture is worth a thousand words, then his thousands of cuss words are enough to fill an entire art museum. Though not as eloquent as Patton, Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forest was able to cuss subordinates and superiors with equal fervor, and he cussed two superior not only with fervor but with threats of death if they continued to cross his path. His tirades were so convincing not only did they steer clear of him, they never charged him with insubordination. While some officers were too pious to resort to cuss n, they never-the-less would use the words of fellow officers to make their point. Consider North Carolina native Leonidas Polk, Episcopal Bishop and Confederate General. During the Battle of Perryville, it is said General Benjamin Cheatham in a furious charge loudly exhorted his troops to drive the Yankees to Hell! Unable to bring himself to use such colorful language, General Polk shouted for his troops to drive them where General Cheatham told you to! General Jubal Early s peers stated that among his other attributes he was a great swearer with imaginatively profane speech, so much so General Lee called him, my bad old man. On the other side, General Sherman had a wonderful salty vocabulary as General Meade was also said to possess, but they still ranked well below their Confederate contemporaries in the cuss n department. Perhaps cuss n in the U.S. Army can be traced back to the Continental Army s 1778 stay at Valley Forge, with the arrival of a former Prussian Army officer- Friedrich Wilhelm Ludolf Gerhard Augustine Baron von Steuben, who became known as the drillmaster of Valley Forge and who is still considered to be the father of all Army drill sergeants. Von Steuben first shocked the troops by dismounting his horse to drill them. For an officer to dismount and drill troops was almost unheard of and such a deed elevated him to the rank of sergeant, at least within the enlisted ranks, but what really raised him to his title of drill master of Valley Forge was his cuss n. When some movement or maneuver was not performed to his satisfaction by the troops, he began to swear, but since his knowledge of English was limited, he swore in German, then in French, and then in both languages together. When he had exhausted his artillery of oaths, he would call for one his aides to come forward and swear for him in English until the task was successfully accomplished. Perhaps some of von Steuben cuss n ability rubbed off on General Washington for an incident that occurred during the Battle of Mammoth Court House. General Charles Lee (no relation to Robert E.) had failed to carry out Washington's orders to fight the British, SPRING 2014 PAGE NINE

10 choosing retreat instead. He had been a pain in Washington s derriere for some time and upon confronting him on the battlefield Washington s famed temper burst forth. Here, historians still debate what Washington actually said, but General Charles Scott of Virginia, a connoisseur of cuss n himself, recalled that Washington, swore on that day till the leaves shook on the trees on that evermemorable day he swore like an angel from Heaven. Perhaps the best live performance by a commissioned officer I personally observed was in the field at Fort Bragg a number of years ago. My whole platoon s performance was not up to standards and was most unsatisfactory in our major s opinion. Assembling the whole platoon, he launched into one of the best cuss n outs I ever observed not only observed, I was one of the recipients. He questioned our ancestry, our performance, our worth to society in general and the Army and National Guard in particular and no one could feel forgotten. The platoon leader, platoon sergeant, and squad leaders received special attention for their actions or inactions since the beginning of annual training. All of this delivered in a voice so quiet at times you had to strain to hear, but hear we did, and when it was over I realized I had been in the presence of a master, a little like the Sermon on the Mount, but in a different direction, if you get my meaning. Perhaps that inspired me to give what I consider my best performance, also delivered at Fort Bragg. At 0 dark-thirty, we had to respond to a threat by manning our fighting positions in full MOPP gear. As platoon sergeant now, I awakened members of my platoon, a squad leader and one of his members being the first to receive the call. I saw them putting their gear on, and then moved to check the rest of the platoon. Returning a short time later, I was incensed that the two not only took off the gear I had seen them putting on, they had gone back to bed. I then launched into what I still consider my masterpiece. It was not given in the quiet manner of the major, but neither was it a screaming and hollering affair, and it continued as they dressed in rapid time. So good was it that the sergeant finally managed to interject in a meek voice, Sergeant, please don t cuss us no more. I ceased my tirade and continued about my duties, satisfied that had the major witnessed this performance, he would have been pleased at my desire to inspire the troops, and somewhere in the great beyond the drillmaster of Valley Forge smiled. June 14th: The birthday of the U.S. Army The following is a description of the birth of the U.S. Army from Robert Wright, The Continental Army (Washington, D.C.: Center of Military History, 1983), pp : The 14 June date is when Congress adopted the American continental army after reaching a consensus position in The Committee of the Whole. This procedure and the desire for secrecy account for the sparseness of the official journal entries for the day. The record indicates only that Congress undertook to raise ten companies of riflemen, approved an enlistment form for them, and appointed a committee (including Washington and Schuyler) to draft rules and regulations for the government of the army. The delegates correspondence, diaries, and subsequent actions make it clear that they really did much more. They also accepted responsibility for the existing New England troops and forces requested for the defense of the various points in New York. The former were believed to total 10,000 men; the latter, both New Yorkers and Connecticut men, another 5,000. At least some members of Congress assumed from the beginning that this force would be expanded. That expansion, in the form of increased troop ceilings at Boston, came very rapidly as better information arrived regarding the actual numbers of New England troops. By the third week in June delegates were referring to 15,000 at Boston. When on 19 June Congress requested the governments of Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire to forward to Boston such of the forces as are already embodied, towards their quotas of the troops agreed to be PAGE TEN raised by the New England Colonies, it gave a clear indication of its intent to adopt the regional army. Discussions the next day indicated that Congress was prepared to support a force at Boston twice the size of the British garrison, and that it was unwilling to order any existing units to be disbanded. By the first week in July delegates were referring to a total at Boston that was edging toward Maximum strengths for the forces both in Massachusetts and New York were finally established on 21 and 22 July, when solid information was on hand. These were set, respectively, at 22,000 and 5,000 men, a total nearly double that envisioned on 14 June. The expert riflemen authorized on 14 June were the first units raised directly as Continentals. Congress intended to have the ten companies serve as a light infantry force for the Boston siege. At the same time it symbolically extended military participation beyond New England by allocating 6 of the companies to Pennsylvania, 2 to Maryland, and 2 to Virginia. Each company would have a captain, 3 lieutenants, 4 sergeants, 4 corporals, a drummer (or horn player), and 68 privates. The enlistment period was set at one year, the norm for the earlier Provincials, a period that would expire on 1 July Responsibility for recruiting the companies was given to the three colonies delegates, who in turn relied on the county committees of those areas noted for skilled marksmen. The response in Pennsylvania s western and northern frontier counties was so great that on 22 June the colony s quota was increased from six to eight companies, organized as a regiment. On 25 June the Pennsylvania delegates, with authority from the Pennsylvania RECALL

11 Assembly, appointed field officers for the regiment. Since there was no staff organization, company officers and volunteers performed the necessary duties. On 11 July delegate George Read secured the adoption of a ninth company that his wife s nephew had organized in Lancaster County. In Virginia Daniel Morgan raised one company in Frederick County, and Hugh Stephenson raised another in Berkeley County. Michael Cresap s and Thomas Price s Maryland companies were both from Frederick County. All thirteen companies were organized during late June and early July. They then raced to Boston, where their frontier attitudes created disciplinary problems. Selection of Commanders The inclusion of troops from outside New England gave a continental flavor to the army at Boston. A desire to broaden the base of support for the war also led John Adams to work for the appointment of a southerner as the commander of all the continental forces, raised, or to be raised, for the defense of American liberty. On 15 June Congress unanimously chose George Washington. Washington had been active in the military planning committees of Congress and by late May had taken to wearing his old uniform. His colleagues believed that his modesty and competence qualified him to adjust to the Temper & Genius of the New England troops. Washington was given the rank of General and Commander in Chief. Congress clearly respected Washington, for it granted him extensive powers which combined functions of a regular British commander with the military responsibilities of a colonial governor. His instructions on 20 June told him to proceed to Massachusetts, take charge of the army of the united colonies, and capture or destroy all armed enemies. His was also to prepare and to send to Congress an accurate strength return of that army. On the other hand, instructions to keep the army obedient, diligent, and disciplined were rather vague. The Commander in Chief s right to make strategic and tactical decisions on purely military grounds was limited only by a requirement to listen to the advice of a council of war. Within a set troop maximum, including volunteers, Washington had the right to determine how many men to retain, and he had the power to fill temporarily any vacancies below the rank of colonel. Permanent promotions and appointments were reserved for the colonial governments to make. Although sectional politics were involved in Washington s selection, in strictly military terms he was in fact the best-qualified native American. He had begun his military career in 1752 in the Virginia militia as one of four regional adjutants responsible for training. During the first phase of the French and Indian War, he served with gallantry as Edward Braddock s volunteer aide at the battle of the Monongahela, and later as the commander of Virginia s two Provincial regiments defending the colony s frontiers. In 1758 he commanded a brigade composed of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania units on John Forbes expedition against Fort Duquesne. Washington was the only American in that war to command so large a force. The experience of these years taught him the importance of discipline, marksmanship, and professional study. Exposure to Forbes ideas on adapting European tactics to the American wilderness also contributed significantly to his military education. Above all, he came to the conclusion that only unyielding commitment to hard work and SPRING 2014 attention to administrative detail could keep troops in the field. On 16 June, the day after Washington s appointment, Congress authorized a variety of other senior officers for its new army. Details were again settled by the Committee of the Whole. Positions for five major staff officers were established: an Adjutant General, a Commissary of Musters, a Paymaster General, a Commissary General, and a Quartermaster General. These officers were expected to assist the Commander in Chief with the administration of the grand army. The forces allocated to New York already were considered a separate department and were authorized their own deputy quartermaster general and deputy paymaster general. A military secretary and 3 aides for Washington, a secretary for the separate department, and 6 engineers (3 for each force) completed the staff. Congress also created the ranks of major general and brigadier general. The number of generals remained uncertain for several days as Congress debated. Between 17 and 22 June it finally decided on 4 major generals, each having 2 aides, and 8 brigadier generals. These totals allowed each colony raising troops to have a share of the patronage. Congress then took steps for issuing paper money to finance the army, and on 30 June it adopted the Articles of War. Selection of the subordinate generals and senior staff officers led to political maneuvering as delegates sought appointments for favorite sons. On 17 June Congress elected Artemas Ward and Charles Lee as the first and second major generals and Horatio Gates as the Adjutant General. Ward received seniority because he was in command at Boston and because Massachusetts had furnished the largest contingent of troops. Ward was a Harvard graduate with many years of political experience. After two years of active duty as a field officer in the French and Indian War, he had compiled an excellent record as a militia administrator. Lee and Gates were professional English officers in their forties who were living in Virginia on the half-pay (inactive) list. Both had served in the French and Indian War and were associates of politicians in England and America who opposed British policies. Lee had also seen service in Portugal and in the Polish Army. Gates had ended the Seven Years' War as a major in the Caribbean. His appointment as Adjutant General (with the rank of brigadier general) reflected Congress' hope that his staff experience would enable him to provide Washington with strong administrative assistance. On 19 June two more major generals were appointed to satisfy other colonies contributing large troop contingents. Philip Schuyler, a New York delegate with close ties to Washington, was expected to take command of the troops in his colony. A member of one of New York s leading families, the 42-year-old Schuyler had been a major in the French and Indian War, specializing in logistics. His experience, political connections, and extensive business interests in Albany were particularly valuable in his new command. Connecticut s delegation could not agree on a nominee for that colony s major general. In the end Israel Putnam s status as a folk hero outweighed consideration of seniority, and he received the appointment. Putnam, at 57, had seen extensive service in the French and Indian War, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. He had also been an early, vocal leader of the Connecticut Sons of Liberty. The process of selecting brigadier generals on 22 June was the product of a compromise. Congress allotted these appointments in proportion to the number of men contributed by each colony and followed the recommen- PAGE ELEVEN

12 dations of the colony s delegates in the actual selection. Congress, however, created problems by ignoring seniority and status. When it elected Massachusetts Seth Pomeroy, William Heath, and John Thomas as the first, fourth, and sixth brigadier generals, respectively, Thomas felt he had been slighted. The situation was resolved when Pomeroy declined the appointment, citing age, before Washington handed out the commissions. Congress then made Thomas the first brigadier general, although it did not fill the vacancy created by Pomeroy s withdrawal. Thomas, a surgeon militiamen, and former Provincial born in 1724, had gained combat experience primarily in medical roles. Heath, 13 years younger, was strictly a product of the militia. Richard Montgomery of New York became the second ranking brigadier general. Born in Ireland in 1738 and educated at Dublin s Trinity College, he had entered the British Army in After combat service in North America and in the Caribbean, he resigned in 1772 when he failed to receive a promotion to major. He moved to New York, married into the powerful Livingston family, and in 1775 won election to the New York Provincial Congress. Montgomery s appointment was intended to complement Schuyler s logistical and administrative skills with combat experience. David Wooster and Joseph Spencer of Connecticut became the third and fifth brigadier generals. Born in 1711 and educated at Yale, Wooster had served in Connecticut s navy during King George s War. He later commanded a regiment in the French and Indian War. Spencer, three years younger, had also served in both wars. The two men initially refused to serve under Putnam, disputing his seniority. They had to be coaxed into accepting their commissions. Delegate John Sullivan of New Hampshire, a 35-year-old lawyer, became the seventh brigadier general instead of Nathaniel Folsom. Nathanael Greene of Rhode Island completed the list. In retrospect, the June 1775 decision of the Continental Congress to create the Continental Army seems remarkably free from political strife. Delegates of all shades of opinion supported each step, and arguments largely concerned technical details. Unanimity resulted from a conviction that British actions required defensive measures and from carefully worded compromises. Those individuals committed to the ideal of the citizensoldier saw Congress adoption of the short-term New England force as an acceptance of a yeoman army. Others, remembering practical lessons of the colonial wars, believed that they were forming an army based on the Provincial model. Officer selection was another area of compromise; the fact that Washington and Schuyler were given blank commissions from Congress to distribute to the regimental officers confirmed local selections while retaining a nominal national level of appointment. I fly for vengeance! The following article appeared in the popular magazine, Saturday Evening Post, (copyright 1942). It details the action in the air over Pearl Harbor during the attack by the Japanese on December 7, William c. Miller of Thomasville was a Navy gunner on Lt. Clarence E. Dickinson's plane. Miller was killed that day, one of two Davidson County servicemen lost the ' day of infamy that signaled the beginning of WWII for America. The other Davidson County veteran lost that day was Harold Tussey, who went down with 1,176 others on the U.S.S. Arizona. By LT. CLARENCE E. DICKINSON, U.S.N. In Collaboration With Boyden Spar You would damn well remember Pearl Harbor if you had seen the great naval base ablaze as we of Scouting Squadron 6 saw it from the air, skimming in ahead of our homeward-bound carrier. The shock was especially heavy for us because this was our first knowledge that the Japs had attacked on that morning of December seventh. We came upon it stone cold, each of us looking forward to a long leave that was due him. It wasn t that we pilots didn t sense the tension that gripped the Pacific. You could feel it everywhere, all the time. Certainly the mission from which we were returning had the flavor of impending action. We had been delivering a batch of twelve Grumman Wildcats of Marine Fighting Squadron 211 to Wake Island, where they were badly needed. On this cruise we had sailed from Pearl Harbor on November 28 under absolute war orders. Vice Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., the commander of the Aircraft Battle Force, had given instructions that the secrecy of our mission, was to be protected at all costs. We were to shoot down anything we saw in the sky and bomb anything we saw on the sea. In that way, there could be no leak to the Japs, There was no trouble at all, and we headed back from the Wake errand with a feeling of anticlimax all of us, that is, except one young ensign. The Wildcats had taken off for Wake at PAGE TWELVE a point about 200 miles at sea, escorted by six scout dive bombers, and this ensign was in the escort. The mist was heavy, and once, looking down through it, he saw three ghostlike shapes that resembled ships. Immediately the scouting line closed in for a search, but found nothing. However, the ensign, rightly or wrongly, was convinced to the end of his life not many days away that what he had seen was Japanese warships. If he did, and if mist hadn't hampered the search, the course of history might have been changed. As we steamed back toward Pearl Harbor, the rest of us gradually came to look upon the incident as just another scare. Bad weather delayed us and we were getting home on Sunday instead of on Saturday, as planned. While the engines were being warmed up on the flight deck early on Sunday morning, my rearseat gunner and radioman, W. C. Miller, a lad of twenty-one or twenty-two, had a word for me as he stood on the wing and helped adjust my radio cord. He said that his four-year tour of duty was to end in a few days and that there was something funny about it. Mr. Dickinson, he went on, out of twenty-one of us fellows that went through radio school together, I m the only one that hasn t crashed in the water. Hope you won t get me wet today, sir. Miller, I replied, next Saturday we all go home for five RECALL

13 months, so probably this will be our last flight together. Just stick with me and the first thing you know we11 be on the Ford Island runway. That s all we ve got to get by this morning s flight. Miller and I were both North Carolinians, and had been flying together since I joined the squadron in April He was dependable and cool, the kind of man I like to have at my back when I m in the air. He climbed into the rear cockpit, faced the tail in his regular position, and the squadron was off; eighteen planes flying in nine two-plane sections; seventy-two eyes to scrutinize a 100-milewide corridor of ocean through which our carrier and its accompanying destroyers could, follow safety. It was 6:30 a.m. When the squadron reached 1000 feet, the prows of the vessels seemed to be making chalk-white v s on slate. As we took off, the task force was 210 miles off Barber s Point, which is at the southwest tip of the island of Oahu. Barber s Point is about ten miles west of Peart Harbor. SPRING 2014 Flying Straight Into History Several times on the way in I had Miller take a bearing with his direction finder on a Honolulu radio station, to be sure we were on the prescribed course. The last time he did it, it was about five minutes past eight and we were twenty-five miles or so off Barber s Point. It seems amazing now, but they were still broadcasting Hawaiian music from Honolulu.. I noticed a big smoke cloud near my goal, then saw that it was two distinct columns of smoke swelling into enormous cloud shapes. But I paid little attention. Smoke clouds are familiar parts of the Hawaiian landscape around that season, when they burn over vast fields after harvest. Four ships lay at the entrance to Pearl Harbor, one cruiser and three destroyers. I could tell they were ours by their silhouettes. Ahead, well off to my right, I saw something unusual shell splashes in the water, recklessly close to shore. It couldn t be target practice. This was Sunday, and anyway the design they made was a ragged one. I guessed some coast-artillery batteries had gone stark mad and were shooting wildly. I remarked to Miller, through my microphone, Just wait! Tomorrow the Army will certainly catch hell for that. When we were scarcely three minutes from land I noticed something that gave a significant and terrible pattern to everything I had been seeing. The base of the biggest smoke cloud was in Pearl Harbor itself. I looked up higher and saw black balls of smoke; thousands and thousands of them, changing into ragged fleecy shapes. This was the explanation of the splashing in the water. Those smoke balls were antiaircraft bursts. Now there could be no mistake. Pearl Harbor was under air attack. I told Miller and gave him the order, Stand by. Ensign McCarthy s plane was three or four hundred yards to my right. I zoomed my ship as a signal. As Mac closed in, I was charging my fixed guns. I gestured and he charged his. Mac signified, by pointing above and below, that he understood the situation. When we were probably three miles from land, we saw a four-engined patrol bomber that we knew was not an American type. It was a good ten or twelve miles away. Mac and I started for him as fast as we could go, climbing. We were at 1500 feet, he was at about 6000 feet. He ducked into the smoke cloud which loomed like a greasy battlement. We darted in after him and found ourselves in such blackness we couldn't see a thing. Not even then were we aware that the source of the smoke in which we hunted was the battleship Arizona. Mac and I came out and headed back for Barber s Point for another look. In a few minutes we were over it at 4000 feet, flying wing to wing. A glance to the right at McCarthy s plane was almost like seeing Miller and myself in a mirror there they were, in yellow rubber life jackets and parachute harnesses, and almost faceless behind black goggles and radio gear fixed on white helmets. Mac s gunner, like mine, was on his seat in his cockpit, alert to swing his twin machine guns on the ring of steel track that encircled him. Things began happening in split-second sequences. Two fighters popped out of the smoke cloud in a dive and made a run on us. Mac dipped his plane under me to get on my left side, so as to give his gunner an easier shot. But the bullets they were shooting at me were passing beneath my plane. Unlucky Mac ran right into them. I put my plane into a left-hand turn to give my gunner a better shot, and saw Mac's plane below, smoking and losing altitude. Then it burst into yellow flame. The fighter who had got Mac zipped past me to the left, and I rolled to get a shot at him with my fixed guns. As he pulled up in front of me and to the left, I saw painted on his fuselage a telltale insigne, a disk suggesting, with its white background, a big fried egg with a red yolk. For the first time I confirmed what my common sense had told me; these were Jap fighters, Zeros. I missed him, I m afraid. A Casualty of the Zeros Those Zeros had so much more speed than I did that they could afford to go rapidly out of range before turning to swoop back after McCarthy. Four or five more Zeros dived out of the smoke cloud and sat on my tail. Miller was firing away and was giving me a running report on what was happening behind me. It was possibly half a minute after I had seen the Jap insigne for the first time that Miller, in a calm voice, said, Mr. Dickinson, I have been hit once, but I think I have got one of them. He had, all right. I looked back and saw with immense satisfaction that one of the Zeros was falling in flames. In that interval, watching the Jap go down, I saw McCarthy flaming plane again, making a slow turn to the right. Then I saw a parachute open just above the ground. I found out later it was Mac s. As he jumped he was thrown against the tail surface of his plane and his leg was broken. But he landed safely. Jap fighters were behind us again. There were five, I should say, the nearest less than 100 feet away. They were putting bullets into the tail of my plane, but I was causing them to miss a lot by making hard turns. They were having a field day no formation whatever, all of them in a scramble to get me, each one wildly eager for the credit. One or more of them got on the target with cannon. They were using explosive and incendiary bullets that clattered on my metal wing like hail on a tin roof. I was fascinated by a line of big holes creeping across my wing, closer and closer. A tongue of yellow flame spurted from the gasoline tank in my left wing and began spreading. Are you all right, Miller? I yelled. Mr. Dickinson, I've expended all six cans of ammunition, he replied. Then he screamed. It was as if he opened his lungs wide and just let go. I have never heard any comparable human sound. It PAGE THIRTEEN

14 was a shriek of agony. When I called again, there was no reply. I m sure poor Miller was already dead. I was alone and in a sweet fix. I had to go from a left-hand into a right-hand turn because the fast Japanese fighters had pulled up ahead of me on the left. I was still surprised at the amazing maneuverability of those Zeros. I kicked my right rudder and tried to put my right wing down, but the plane did not respond. The controls had been shot away. With the left wing down and the right rudder on and only eight or nine hundred feet altitude, I went into a spin. I yelled again for Miller on the long chance that he was still alive. Still no reply. Then I started to get out. It was my first jump, but I found myself behaving as if I were using a check-off list. I was automatically responding to training. I remember that I started to unbutton my radio cord with my right hand and unbuckle my belt with my left. But I couldn't unfasten my radio cord with one hand. So, using both hands, I broke it. Then I unbuckled my belt, pulled my feet underneath me, put my hands on the sides of the cockpit, leaned out on the right-hand side and shoved clear. The rush of wind was peeling my goggles off. I had shoved out on the right side, because that was the inside of the spin. Then I was tumbling over in the air, grabbing and feeling for the rip cord s handle. Pulling it, I flung my arm wide. There was a savage jerk. From where I dangled, my eyes followed the shroud lines up to what I felt was the most beautiful sight I had ever seen--the stiff-bellied shape of my white silk parachute. I heard a tremendous thud. My plane had struck the ground nose first, exploding. Then I struck the ground; feet first, seat next, head last. My feet were in the air and the wind had been jarred out of me. Fortunately, I had jumped so low that neither the Japs overhead nor the Marines defending Ewa Field had time to get a shot at me. I had come to earth on the freshly graded dirt of a new road, a narrow aisle through the brush to the west of Ewa Field, and had had the luck to hit the only road bisecting that brush area for five miles. Except for a thorn in my scalp, my only injury was a slight nick on the anklebone, where machine-gun bullets had made horizontal cuts in my sock. My main worry was to get out of the parachute tangle and on to Pearl Harbor to stand by for orders. As I got clear, a big red automobile van appeared, headed toward Barber s Point. I flagged it and the driver stopped and got out. He was a Japanese, excited almost to incoherence. I yelled to him that he must turn around in a hurry and take me to Pearl Harbor. In good English he protested, with a show of white teeth, that he had to pick up a friend down by the point. Listen, I can t waste a minute, I said. You ve got to take me to Pearl Harbor. Understand? I ve commandeered your truck. I was striding toward him. He began to run. He scampered up into the cab and roared away before I could grab him. My.45 Colt automatic on this, my first day of war, was miles off at sea, aboard the carrier. I couldn t shoot him. So I cursed him, feeling pretty futile. This is guessing, but I suspect the assignment of that Jap in the red moving van was to pick up Japanese who had parachuted near Barber s Point there were two or three, it later developed. It is also possible that he had been assigned to patrol the roads in the vicinity of Ewa Field and, sighting my parachute, had supposed it was Japanese. I walked and ran for about a quarter of a mile to the main PAGE FOURTEEN road, bordered by cane fields. I knew this was the way to Pearl Harbor. There were curious tremors underfoot. Those were the bombs. It seemed, too, as if many carpets were being beaten. That was machine-gun fire. Heavier overtones came from antiaircraft batteries not far off. I could orient myself by the smoke obscuring much of the sky. The nearer and smaller column tapered to earth near by. So I knew that there on my right hand, possibly two miles away, was Ewa Field, the Marine air base. But five miles ahead everything was blackly curtained by smoke. The first automobile that came along, a blue sedan about two years old, was headed my way. I stepped out and signaled by waving my white helmet. The car rolled to a stop where I stood. A nice-looking gray-haired man was driving. The woman beside him, wearing a blue-and-white polka-dot dress, was stout, cheerful and comfortable looking. They smiled cordially. I'm sorry, sir, I said, but I must have a lift to Pearl Harbor. I ve just been shot down. The man accepted the urgency in my voice without, I think, really grasping the significance of what I had said. He reached behind him and opened a door. I got into a back seat crowded with picnic things a wicker basket brim-full of wax-paper packages; a vacuum bottle, and a brown paper bag of bananas. On the floor was a bottle wrapped in a clean dish towel. The woman was speaking as much to her husband, I thought, as to me, when she half turned her head and said that it was too bad they wouldn t have time to take me to my destination, because they were going on a picnic. Mars at a Picnic I m sorry, ma am, I said, but you have got to take me to Pearl Harbor. But we turn, up here, and go to Fort Weaver. Our friends are waiting for us. We are bringing the potato salad and they have the chicken. The husband was driving slowly, still unable to believe what I had been telling him that the noises we were hearing were from bombs dropped by Japanese, that the guns were our own guns shooting back. He continued to be concerned about his wife s state of mind. It seemed to me he was trying to smooth her fur, to lead her out of her normal world as gently as he could. She was insisting that her husband was spoiling the picnic and being unforgivably rude to their friends. Japanese planes droned overhead. Taking a hand myself, I told her to look. Japanese planes? Those? Yes, ma am. Suddenly she became tender and solicitous. Had I really been shot down? Was I hurt? Would I like something to eat? I told her I was thirsty. That was true enough. My mouth was so dry it was an effort for me to speak. But all they had was a bottle of whiskyit was what was wrapped in that dish towel. I didn t take any because I figured I would have to fly again that day. By this time we were approaching a few houses and a general store in the cane fields. As far as I was concerned, the war was going to have to wait until I had a coke. We stopped. There are hundreds of stores like it scattered over the Hawaiian Islands, shopping places for Jap and Filipino laborers of the cane and pineapple plantations. There was no door; the entire front end was open, draped with dried fish and with papayas stacked in mounds in a wide bin. There were thirty or forty Japanese women inside, with babies in their arms and big- RECALL

15 ger children clutching at their mothers brownish, sack-like dresses. These straw-sandaled women were sorrowful and silent. But the kid in charge of the store, who was about nineteen, was looking up at the Jap planes and laughing. He turned a smirking grin on me. Pearl Harbor Drama I asked for a coke twice before he moved. He fiddled around and half opened the lids of two chests, pretending he didn t have what I wanted. I looked in the first box. There, in plain sight, were several bottles. Scowling, I seized one, wrenched off the cap and started out. He was just behind me at the front when I whirled on him and shook the bottle in his face. This one, I said, is on the house. As we started off again, the owner of the blue sedan identified himself to me as a civilian government official. He seemed to feel that by reason of his office he was in duty bound to assist me without regard to personal hazard, let alone inconvenience. His wife agreed and refused to be left behind, for safety s sake. Jap planes were strafing the road with machine guns and cannon. Through the rear window I could see a low-flying Jap, his guns winking like malefic jewels. He missed us, but hit a sedan fifty feet in front of us, in which another couple was riding. Riddled with tiny holes and jagged cannon slashes, the sedan careened, turned over and landed in a ditch in a cloud of yellow dust. As we sped on, we saw other bullet-torn automobiles that had either rolled or been pushed into ditches and fields along the way. We got to Pearl Harbor just in time to see the big dive-bombing attack that was going on about nine o clock in the morning. It was just fifty-five minutes since Miller had taken that final bearing by tuning in on the Honolulu radio station. The leaning column of smoke I had seen then was now close enough for us really to see its source. There was so much smoke the sun was obscured and lemonyellow gun flashes pierced the somber backdrop. Except for the fiercely burning Arizona, all the ships were letting go with everything they had--battleships, cruisers, destroyers, submarines and little boats. The whole system of shore defenses was in action. From Fort Weaver, clear on the other side-- where this couple with me had planned to spend a lazy day--the Army had angry guns shooting at the darkened sky. But where were all our planes, Navy and Army? When we reached the southeast segment of the harbor, at the entrance of Hickam Field, I left the blue sedan and that admirable couple. I hope I thanked them adequately in my hurry. All over Hickam Field there were fires-answers to the questions in my mind about our planes. Rows of planes were blazing on the field. So were hangars, barracks and other buildings. Guns were rattling and pounding around the field. Men were fighting fires. I ran a quarter of a mile to the entrance gate of the Navy reservation, a shore entrance to everything we mean when we speak of Pearl Harbor. It was in a smoking uproar. A few hundred little brown men with shoe-button eyes were having themselves a time in the air above and around us. Specialists were needed for this situation flying specialists in squadrons. As I was such a specialist, I was in a frantic hurry. The Navy had spent years training, forging me; and I felt tardy. A Jap plane was flying low and strafing the Marines on guard duty at the entrance. But you can t strafe Marines without having SPRING 2014 them strafe back. I saw one of the Marines standing, feet wide apart, steadying his aim with his elbow fixed in the gun-sling strap. Firing as coolly as if on the rifle range, he emptied a clip into the Jap plane. It crashed into a near-by hill. I am sure that this was the plane the Marines on guard at the gate claimed afterward. Hitch~htiking to War My saffron life jacket and my white helmet were like a signal to a naval officer who was passing in a station wagon a lieutenant commander who was hurrying back to the Detroit. He picked me up and drove me a mile farther, to Officers Club Landing. He must have had more than a dozen men stuffed into that car. Some were civilian employees. These people were responding to a Navy broadcast in which they had been asked to come and man their posts. They weren t obliged by discipline, but apparently they were obliged by something in their hearts. So they were swarming to their work, wherever it might be in that noise and smoke. I got out of the station wagon and resumed running, toward Hospital Landing, which was some three miles farther on. At that landing I hoped to get a boat and be ferried across the channel to Ford Island, where the naval air base was located. While shortcutting across a park-like area, I came upon another Marine who was calmly taking aim and shooting his rifle at Jap targets overhead. He was standing in grass littered with his own cartridge shells. He was wearing his thin steel helmet, and I envied that because just as I was running past him we two were showered from the sky by fragments of 5-inch antiaircraft shells. I got another hop in a station wagon from a Filipino clad in sailor whites. Apparently he was a steward for some captain and had been sent ashore the day before to do some marketing. The floor of the station wagon was loaded with vegetables, and piled on top of them were about as many men as could squeeze in. All of us jumped out at Hospital Landing, except the driver, and joined a throng of a hundred or so soldiers, sailors, Marines and civilian employees on the channel edge. What we saw then was so overwhelming that I felt as if something had me by the throat. Thirty yards out in the channel, and seeming to tower over us, moved the vast gray bulk of an old-type battleship. She was traveling slowly, and on her deck stretcher bearers were rushing to carry away the wounded, while steel was roaring skyward from her 5-inch antiaircraft: weapons, her lesser cannon and machine guns. Beyond her, at the far end of Battleship Row, lay the Arizona, the blackest sort of smoke belching from her broken, twisted wreckage amidships and forming fantastic, ominous shapes in the sky. One fighting top and tripod mast canted out of this incredible shambles. On all the ships in that double two-mile lane guns were blasting at the planes. Yet all the terrific power of the biggest guns on those battleships was ineffective now. They were made to fight monsters like themselves, not a swarm of gadflies. The ship near us was trying to get out to sea, and the Japs were trying to sink her in the channel, where her 29,000 tons of steel hull, machinery and guns would choke Pearl Harbor and bottle up the fleet. There was a tremendous ear-splitting explosion. A bomb had struck on her deck close to one of her antiaircraft guns. Thirteen hundred men, I guess, were aboard the ship. Some were killed, more were hurt, but only one antiaircraft gun stopped firing. Everywhere I could see, the crew was well under control. For the first time in my life I was seeing a naval vessel PAGE FIFTEEN

16 PAGE SIXTEEN in action, and I was just watching in that helplessness in which you find yourself caught sometimes in dreams. But this was real enough, and what was striking at the battleship was a newer weapon, my kind of weapon. Dive bombers. All the time I was watching the attack I was trying to evaluate the ability of the Japanese as dive bombers. They had concentrated at least the equivalent of one of our own dive- bomber squadrons in an effort to knock out the ship. Eighteen, possibly twenty, planes took part, going at it one by one. They were so eager that bombs fell first on one side of the old battle wagon and then on the other. We on the landing had to throw ourselves flat before each explosion because the concussion was terrific. If caught standing, you would be knocked flat. Lying down on the concrete or on rocky earth, I had a frantic impulse to claw myself into the round. Dodging Death For years I had been questioning statements I heard about how a man could dodge a bomb dropped from an airplane. And there we were, doing it! We would see one leave a Jap plane possibly 1500 feet above ground. Each time we stood, bewitched by the sight. Suddenly the bomb would appear to be swelling. Slanting toward us in its fall, it would seem to grow bigger and bigger. At some point in its fall we would have to make up our minds whether it would fall on our side of the battleship or beyond it; if beyond, we would stand and watch. The battleship got clear of the channel all right, and rounded on a point of land opposite the hospital. Just at that time I had turned about to watch the bombing attack on the destroyer Shaw, which was going on behind us. As I watched, a bomb tipped her bow, and after the explosion fire broke out. Just then a motor launch picked us all up and shuttled us across to Ford Island. A lot of damage had been done there. Three or four squadrons of PBY s, which are big patrol planes sometimes called Catalinas, had been massed on the point of the island. Only charred remains were left. I could distinguish the stumps of their tails. One PBY was afloat in the channel and its crew was struggling to taxi it to a cradle in which it might be pulled by tractor out of the water onto the ramp, before it could sink. It was full of just such big jagged holes as I had seen made in my own wing, and again in that automobile on the road. Only one engine was working and the pilot and crew were having a difficult time. I could scarcely believe what I was seeing. Hangars were afire and their glass-wall fronts were black with holes. In front of the nearest hangar was the appalling wreckage of those Catalinas. There was nothing shipshape anywhere in sight. As we watched from the concrete ramp, there was a great flare across the channel, and a tremendous blast. The destroyer Shaw had blown up. Fire had reached her magazine. I saw a big ball of red fire erupt from her. It shot up like a rocket to about four or five hundred feet. Spellbound, I saw it burst open from the middle. It was like a rotten orange exploding, I was thinking, when the concussion knocked me on my face. Someone yelled, Here comes a Jap plane! We swarmed into the undamaged hangar. Not one but a number of planes roared across Ford Island with their guns going. I was behind a steel column in that hangar. In a few minutes I was on my way again, to the other side of the air field, where the carrier planes are based. The island is a little more than a mile long, and in places about three quarters of a mile wide. Right down its middle is a runway. Sprinting on that stretch of concrete I saw that it was strewn with pieces of shrapnel, misshapen bullets from Jap machine guns and empty cartridges that had fallen from their planes. I could guess, from the quantity of this stuff, that they had done a lot of systematic strafing here to keep our fliers on the ground. They love to strafe. It seems to be characteristic of them, a thing that has been noticed in many of the battle areas. Marines at Ewa Field told me they saw a Jap gunner quit firing long enough to thumb his nose at them. Another Jap, while strafing the Marines, was moved to let go the handles of his gun, clasp his hands high above his head and shake them in that greeting with which American prize fighters sa1ute their fans. Then he grabbed his guns and shot some more. This will help to explain why the United States Marines could hardly wait. The Ties of Conflict When I reached the other side of the air field, could find only three of the eighteen pilots with whom I had left the carrier about three hours before. Communications were pouring into the command center. I went to find out if the Japanese carriers had been located. My commanding officer, Lt. Comdr. H. L. Hopping, was there. He had been able to get in with just a couple of bullet holes in his plane. Others of our squadron trickled in until we had about half our planes and pilots on the ground. We were all so glad to see one another alive that it was a deeply touching scene. It was not until afterward that I began to realize that some of those men previously had not been especially good friends. In some cases they had not even liked one another. There were one or two older officers regarded by younger men as unbending, crotchety martinets. I had such feelings about one older officer. But when I came face to face with him that day, he shook hands and put an arm around me as if I were his son, and I could scarcely believe he was talking to me when he said, Boy, I am glad to see you! Thought you were a goner! Well, I was just as glad to see him, and then, to make it better still, he pulled a nickel from his pocket and said, Somebody go and get this officer a cup of coffee or a coke. (Two nights later, when again we met, he was his austere self again.) All over the island, after the first attack, guns had been taken out of damaged planes and set up on tripods hastily improvised out of pipe. Sandbags had been piled around some of these. As a consequence, lots of Jap planes were shot down when they came back at nine o clock. Out of the Ashes It must have been about half past nine when, with a whoop of delight, I saw Earl Gallaher walk into the command center, to report for instructions. Lieutenant Gallaher was the executive officer of Scouting Squadron 6. As flight officer, I was third in the squadron that is, next to Gallaher, who was second in command. We shook hands in an effusive greeting and then just stood there for a few seconds, grinning at each other. There wasn t time to say much. We were expecting to be sent after those Jap carriers as soon as they were located. So we went back to see what planes we could find, and managed to get together nine planes that we could man. We had bombs put on them and the rear guns manned. There were still a lot of Jap planes overhead. Lieutenant Commander Hopping came over from the command center and prepared to take off. RECALL

17 He was going on a scouting flight himself to run down a report that Japanese troop transports had been sighted twenty miles off Barber s Point. The air was filled with false tips. Japs in the islands were sending out confusing messages from secret radio stations. We had several planes tuned up, so the generators would work and had manned the radios. So we heard these messages on American frequencies; carriers sighted here, carriers sighted there, troop transports and carriers approaching this place, transports just off that point. Well, our squadron knew positively that there simply could not be Jap transports twenty miles off Barber s Point. We had flown in from the west, scouting over an area so wide that no ship could have moved across it since we had seen it. Hopping was an extremely courageous man. Unwilling to tell us to go on what he considered a useless flight, he went alone and nearly got shot down by our own people. As soon as his plane was off the runway, it seemed as if all the ships and men with guns in Pearl Harbor were trying to bring the skipper down. There was a kind of contagion about it. Somebody manning a machine gun on a destroyer was the first; after that, others simply took it for granted that the plane trying to get in the air was a Jap. I was listening on the radio and heard the skipper reporting as he searched an area thirty or thirty-five miles off the island. He said he had sighted nothing. He got back about eleven, and an hour later our patched- up, half-strength squadron of nine planes was in the air. Our orders were to search for the Jap carriers. We were in three sections, three planes each. The skipper had one section, Gallaher had one, and I had one. Seven of the planes were our own; we also had two from Bombing Squadron 6. In the rear seat of a borrowed plane, in Miller s place, I had a volunteer, a man named Young. We headed north-northwest. Although we went out to sea about 200 miles and searched for four hours, we saw no trace of the Jap fleet. As we neared home, we saw a solitary Army plane. From the haste with which he started climbing as soon as he saw us coming, we knew that he was going upstairs to attack us. Fortunately, before he started his run he recognized us as friendly. As we were flying by Wheeler Field, a couple of their machine guns opened up on us. There was no general barrage of big stuff, and the machine guns did no damage except to our nerves and tempers. After reporting, we were on the field, standing by until dark for any further orders. Everywhere we heard fantastic rumors. Those of Scouting Squadron 6 who were present and accounted for finally decided to get a little sleep. We had our orders: to be up and standing by at four o'clock the next morning. We picked our way over to the new Bachelor Officers' Quarters, only to find it had been transformed into a combination hospital and nursery. All the children on the island had been corralled there, on the second floor. This was the only concrete structure on the island and it did offer a little protection from bomb splinters and machine-gun bullets. The rest of the building was jammed with survivors from the Arizona, many of them burned, some terribly. The hard-pressed doctors and hospital corps men were being assisted by just about all the wives of the officers stationed on the island. The Arizona men who were rated ambulatory cases were running about as if at a masquerade. Practically all of them had been brought ashore without clothing, so the various officers wives SPRING 2014 had scattered to their homes to ransack closets. Not even bachelor officers wardrobes had been sacred. Even so, there was a Jack of garments. We went to sleep on cots. The next thing I knew, it was four a,m., and I was dressing in the dark. We got orders to take off immediately and fly out to the carrier. We didn t think much of that idea. We thought considerably less of it as somewhere a gunner began shooting red-hot pin points into the overcast sky. He was directing his tracer bullets at the only point of light he could see overhead. Then it seemed as if every gun within a ten-mile radius was being fired. That lasted about ten minutes, until, one by one, they discovered they were shooting at a star. Mr. Hopping was impatient to take off. Happily for us, it was daybreak by the time we started down the runway, and men on the destroyers down that way could see who was aloft. After flying in absolute radio silence some eighty miles to a rendezvous at sea, we found our carrier. She was out there with the task force, of course, and she was flying the biggest American flag that I had ever seen on a ship. It was her battle flag, flown only in battle. Seeing her out of sight of land, in fighting trim, we were more than ever grateful for the bad weather that had delayed our return from Wake. Under normal conditions she would have been at her dock by six o clock on Saturday night and so would another carrier, the Lexington. On the maps of the harbor carried by the Japs the data were so nearly up to the minute that the two carriers were shown where we ourselves had expected them to be- until that bad weather delayed us. I have been attached to one ship or another for about a fourth of my life. Almost invariably you develop a warm feeling for your ship, but for a carrier the feeling is deeper. When you fly as one of the air group of a carrier, you fly a land plane over water. No matter how confident you are of your ability as navigator, each time you actually find your carrier on an otherwise empty sea your heart sings a little. Everyone on the carrier was wild with curiosity, and the experiences of each of us were heard over and over, with flattering attention. We got a few scraps of information on what had happened to other members of our squadron. One had jumped a Jap fighter about the same time I was shot down and in the same area, near Barber s Point. The Marines at Ewa Field had witnessed the action. Apparently, our man was doing a fine job and was getting the best of the Jap a real test of his skill, because our scout bombers weren t designed to outmaneuver fighters. He was so intent on keeping his fixed guns pouring bullets into the rear of his adversary that when the Jap pulled up the nose of his plane possibly there was a dead pilot at the stick and it lost forward speed, our man s plane collided with it. Pilot and rear-seat man both jumped. But there wasn t sufficient altitude, and their parachutes failed to open in time. As we listened to stories like this one, a pattern of understanding soon formed and we realized that revenge was going to be our job. We would have to get those Jap carriers somehow, somewhere, someday, and not waste time and hurt our personal efficiency by brooding over the deaths of our friends. We knew our job was being shaped for us when our skipper, Hopping, and Earl Gallaher went high up in the island the superstructure to tell the admiral what they had seen ashore. PAGE SEVENTEEN

18 By Tuesday morning, after the task force had dropped into Pearl Harbor for oil and provisions, the hunt started again. The task force was in charge of Vice Admiral Halsey, who believes in action, and we knew we would do some real punching. We didn t catch the carriers on this jaunt, but the area was infested with long-range Jap submarines and we potted plenty of them. The Wednesday-morning scouting flight turned up several subs, and we were sent out to get them. I took off after one of them around noon, when our carrier was 200 miles north of Pearl Harbor. As my rear-seat man I took along a lad named Merritt, who was about twenty-one years old. He turned out to be an extremely reliable radioman and gunner. The sub had been seventy-five miles to the south when seen at six a.m. and naturally had had time to move elsewhere in the interim. I flew a big rectangle over the probable area. After about an hour I spotted her, lying on the surface, about fifteen to eighteen miles distant. I headed for her, meanwhile radioing the carrier: This is Sail Four [or something of the sort]. Have sighted submarine. Am attacking. I was about 800 feet off the water, and to make a good divebombing attack I would have to start from 5000 to 6000 feet, at least. So I began climbing, too, desperately hoping the sub wouldn t submerge before I could unload. She didn t, and as soon as I was within range, her deck guns began throwing shells at me. Is the bomb armed, Mr. Dickinson? Merritt kept asking me. He was referring to the removal of the arming wires, which prepare the bomb to explode on contact. It is the pilot s job to do this and the gunner s job to remind him, lest the bomb fall a dud. This kid Merritt was getting his first chance for revenge and he was determined not to have a failure on his hands. Look here, I finally said. The bomb is armed. For God s sake, relax. Maybe we can get this sub. Take my word for it, the bomb is armed. At the same time, the carrier was calling me for a progress report. I replied that I would call in after dropping my bomb. The Jap s two deck guns fired at least twenty-five antiaircraft shells at me. I had had him in sight for almost eight minutes. Yet he had made no attempt to submerge. All he was doing was turning to the right a few degrees. Obviously, there was something wrong with him. The plane from our carrier that had found him at six o'clock in the morning and had dropped a bomb fairly close to him. So probably he was unable to submerge. Now the Japs were firing a couple of machine guns, too. The explosions from the antiaircraft guns occasionally washed a slight tremor into the plane. I was getting nicely set when my gunner spoke again, Is the bomb armed, Mr. Dickinson? I dived. All the way down I could see those heathen still shooting. When I was about thirty stories higher than the Empire State Building I yanked the bomb-release handle. By the time I was able to pull out of the dive, and turn so as to get my plane s tail out of my line of vision, it was probably fifteen seconds after the bomb struck. It dropped right beside the submarine, amidships. Only one of her two big guns was still firing. The bomb explosion had apparently killed the Japs at the other gun. In a few seconds I had the plane turned and was flying back toward the sub. It had stopped, had no perceptible headway and had started to settle--as nearly as I could tell, on an even keel. The fact that she had no forward motion satisfied me right then that this was not a dive. She was really settling! In about three quarters of a minute after my bomb struck, the sub had gone under. Right after she disappeared, from her amidships, as near as I could tell, there was an eruption of oil and foamy water, like the bursting of a big bubble. Seconds later, fifteen or twenty, I suppose, there was a second disturbance. Another bubble-like eruption of foam and oil churned to the white-capped surface of the sea. This time I saw some debris. I reported to the carrier what I had done and what I had seen. But I was careful to say that possibly the submarine had been sunk. You simply can t be sure on such evidence. with a song in my heart Pop and country music helped us through the difficult times of WW2 It seems that a majority of Americans look at our war in Afghanastan as an inconvenience rather than a battle with killers who, if they have their way, would destroy our country. Those who lived during the 1940s when we were in a life-ordeath struggle against Germany, Italy, Japan, and their allies sometimes wonder about the difference in the attitude of today s generation which seems reluctant to be involved in our battle against evil. What s different? It could be that today s music world gives no attention to the heart break that comes when over 2,000 of our finest are killed by an enemy that would bring death to all of us if they found it possible. During World War II, pop and country music both kept our spirits high and helped us through difficult times. What happened back in World War II? By Barrie Davis Colonel (retired), NCARNG We ll Meet Again is a 1939 song made famous by British singer Vera Lynn with music and lyrics written by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles. The song is one of the most famous of the Second World War era and resonated with soldiers going off to fight and their families and sweethearts. The assertion that we ll meet again is optimistic, as many soldiers did not survive to see their loved ones again. The meeting at some unspecified time in the future would have been seen by many who lost loved ones to be heaven. So, will you please say hello To the folks that I know. Tell them I won t be long. They ll be happy to know That as you saw me go I was singing this song. PAGE EIGHTEEN RECALL

19 SPRING 2014 We ll meet again, Don t know where, Don t know when; But I know we ll meet again Some sunny day. Keep smiling through Just like you always do Till the blue skies Drive the dark clouds far away. Young men marched off to war leaving their sweethearts behind. They knew the separation would be tough on their girlfriends, and they pled: I just got word from a guy who heard from the guy next door to me. A girl he met just loves to pet, and she fits you to a T. So Don t sit under the apple tree with anybody else but me Til I come marching home. I m Getting Tired So I can Sleep was written by Irving Berlin. It was about a soldier who longs to sleep so he can dream of his girl back home. Songs like these gave hope of GIs and to home folks that a reunion would be possible some day. I recall the words went something like this: I m getting tired so I can sleep. I want to sleep so I can dream. I want to dream so I can dream of you. I ve got your picture by my bed. T will soon be placed beneath my head So I can dream of you. Lalapaluza Lu came out in 1942, performed by Sammy Kaye and the Glee Club. Emily Donahue said, This is a humorous song about a girl named Lu. All the men wanted to join the military to win the war for her. It is a song of pure entertainment but has a message that rang true to many military men. The women in their lives had a great impact and were reason enough to fight in the war. Saga of the Sad Sack. came out in 1945 near the end of WW2. Sad Sack was a character drawn by Sgt. George Baker, It appeared in in the weekly Yank magazine. No matter how rough it was on real GIs, poor Sad Sack had it worse. Americans proved able to laugh at themselves no matter how dire the circumstances. There s a Blue Star Shining Bright first was sung by Red Foley in It explained the blue stars hung in windows all across the USA. A blue star on a banner in a home or work place indicated that a family member or employee was proudly serving their country in the military. We lost over 6,000 Marines capturing Iwo Jima Isle from the Japanese. It was a costly victory, and Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys noted it in a song you could find on most juke boxes. Here are some of the words: When the Yanks raised the Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima Isle There were tears in their hearts tho they smiled. When the Yanks raised the Stars and Stripes on Iwo Jima Isle Ev ry heart could sing once again And the sight of Old Glory over Iwo Jima Isle Swelled the hearts of our fighting men. In the dark days when we realized we could lose the war, pop music boosted our spirits. Vera Lynn sang: When the lights go on again all over the world And the ships will sail again all over the world Then we ll have time for things like wedding rings and free hearts will sing When the lights go on again all over the world. The music world did not overlook humor. One way we raised our spirits was ridiculing the enemy, and Spike Jones came out with a ditty that had us laughing at Hitler: Some of its words: When der fuehrer says we is de master race We heil heil right in der fuehrer s face. Not to love the fuehrer is a great disgrace, So we heil heil right in der Fueher s face! Is this nutsy land so good? Would you leave it if you could? Ja this nutsy land is good. We would leave it if we could. We bring the world to order. Heil Hitler s world disorder. A song once believed to be of Romanian origin was composed by a German in It told of the love of a soldier for his sweetheart and became popular again during WW2 with the Germans and then with every army fighting in Europe. We listened to Axis Sal play Lili Marlene on our low frequency radios as we fought air battles with the Luftwaffe. Underneath the lamp post by the barracks gate Standing all alone, every night you ll see her wait. She waits for a boy who s gone away, And though he s gone, she hears him say, Oh promise you ll be true. Fare thee well, Lili Marlene, Til I return to you, Fare thee well, Lili Marlene. In 1943, the British were taking a tremendous beating from the German Luftwaffe. The situation seemed hopeless as Hitler prepared to invade the British Isles. But hopeful words and a beautiful melody boosted our spirits. There ll be bluebirds over The white cliffs of Dover Tomorrow. Just you wait and see. There ll be love and laughter And peace ever after Tomorrow When the world is free. Today s music world is infatuated with rap chanted loudly and with no melody. We like the feel of percussion instruments that impart a strong beat but no sentiment. It s a different generation and a different life style. Rap just does not express the sentiment as does music. The losses we suffer in Afghanistan and Iraq are as real as those that saddened us during WW2, and those in the military who pay with their lives are just as dead. Unless it s a family member or very close friend who is gone, the losses appear to many Americans as little more than an inconvenience, and too soon life is back to normal again. PAGE NINETEEN

20 An artillery record to forget! Nobody talks about this record-setting time-on-target at Ft. Bragg It was during the Vienam conflict, and members of the 30th Infantry Division, an Army National Guard unit headquartered in North Carolina with units in South Carolina and Georgia, thought it would be ordered to provide Guard units to fight in that unpopular war. Training was serious among all branches of service, especially for the Red Legs of the artillery. A joint shoot on the artillery ranges at Ft. Bragg was planned by XVIII Airborne Corps to insure that active, Guard, and Reserve units could work together. A weekend was designated. The 30th Division's four artillery battalions traveled early Saturday morning from their home stations. They took assigned positions on the vast Ft. Bragg reservation. Surrounding the Tarheels were active Army, Reserve, and Marine Corps artillery, ranging from 105mm howitzers to the Marine s 155mm guns with their extraordinarily long tubes. The schedule called for firing all day Saturday with a goal that all guns be registered and ready for a time on target shoot at exactly 1130 hours Sunday. Registration was conducted without incident, except that the Marines failed to note the hill that stood between their long-barreled guns and the assigned target. The first rounds fired by the Marines blasted the top off the hill, much to the consternation of a host of safety officers. The guns were relocated, and because no damage, other than loss of a hilltop, was noted, no written report was made of the incident. Sunday morning dawned sunny, clear, and beautiful. Last minute registration of the guns confirmed all were laid accurate- PAGE TWENTY By Barrie Davis, Colonel NCARNG (ret) FORMER COMMANDER, 30TH DIVISION ARTILLERY ly and were ready for the big shoot. Fire direction centers carefully computed time of flight for the projectiles from their guns. This time would be subtracted from 1130 to determine when the command to fire would be given for each weapon. Gun crews waited impatiently for the fire command as 1130 approached. The observation posts were crowded. Nearly every soldier without an assigned task jockeyed for the best position to see what would be the greatest number of artillery pieces to fire a single time-on-target since WWII. It definitely was a big event! The firing began, and exactly at 1130 on that Sunday morning the entire top of the hill disappeared in a huge explosion, as hundreds of artillery shells hit it within a split second. It was spectacular! But that was not the end of the story! Every church within 15 miles of Ft. Bragg vibrated and shook from shock waves from the artillery barrage. Then the sound wave followed, rattling windows and totally interrupting sermons. Very few members of the congregations had experienced anything like it, and all of them lost no time in advising the XVIII Airborne Corps commander that they were not happy. You never heard about that record-breaking shoot? It is not surprising. The training was excellent. Time-on-target was perfect. The camaraderie was awesome. But the fall-out was enough to make everyone concerned happy to put memories in moth balls and forget about it. Which we did. And now you know the rest of the story. General Custer s Horses They were beautiful, well mannered, and a nice to ride General Custer acquired his two favorite horses, Vic and Dandy, soon after assuming command of the newly formed 7th Cavalry. Vic, the Kentucky thoroughbred, was his battle horse. Vic, because of his speed and quickness became Custer s Dandy choice for the fast charges and maneuverings of battle. It was Vic that carried his General into battle on the 25th of June Libbie Custer and others claim Vic was killed on Custer Hill, along with his master, perhaps used as a breastwork after being mortally wounded during the fight. Others have listed Vic as a prisoner of war, emerging from the battle under the ownership of Walks-Under-The-Ground. Where was Dandy during the battle? Dandy was with the extra mounts kept with the pack train. Therefore, it is assumed that Dandy survived the battle on Reno Hill. Much of what became of him after the return to Ft. Lincoln is revealed to us by Libbie Custer in her book, Following the Guidon. She states that Dandy was acquired by Custer during the Wichita campaign in Kansas during the winter of 1868 and Apparently the 7th Cavalry was to be outfitted with new horses for the upcoming campaigns. Five hundred horses were sent to the 7th, and as Libbie tells it, the horses were paraded before General Custer s tent for review. Custer spotted a spirited bay horse that he had selected out of the group, and after trying the RECALL

21 SPRING 2014 Custer s horses: Vic and Dandy. horse, decided to purchase the horse from the government, for his personnel use. The horse was described as being of good blood, though not perfectly proportioned, and a little on the small side. The name Dandy was supposed to have been bestowed on the animal because of his spirited manner, and the proud little peacock airs he never forgot except when he slept. Dandy soon proved that Custer had a keen eye for horses. Dandy endured the harshest cold of the plains winters, and even adapted to the lack of forage in the snow covered plains by digging for grass and eating the bark of the cottonwood trees. This ability to survive in this manner separated the sturdier Indian ponies from the grain fed army horses who would often whither away and die under these conditions. he also survived the dehydrating heat and lack of potable water that often occurred during the dry season. In other words, Dandy was a trooper. Another characteristic of Dandy was his manner of movement. According to Libbie, he never walked, but went... with a little dancing trot that was most fatiguing to the rider. Many cavalrymen hated this type of mount, that would bounce them along for mile after dreary mile. However, the General, likewise indefatigable, saw this as a sign of alacrity and endurance, which Dandy clearly showed on many a long march. Also, no matter how bad the conditions or how long the march, Dandy was blessed with an unwavering good disposition, never exhibiting erratic behavior. Dandy s possessed an air of competitiveness that did not allow him to march behind another horse. He had to be in the front of the column, and was at times difficult to keep abreast of other horses. It was customary when on the march to tether the horses during the night, less they stray or be frightened away by the enemy. Dandy was so devoted to his master that he would often not be so restricted and would graze at will, but keeping within the areas of Custer s tent. Dandy also passed another important test, he got along well, often playfully, with Custer s ubiquitous stag hounds. Dandy was about five years old when acquired. He maintained his energetic style for many years, but age finally began to creep upon him. Libbie stated that the General, preparing for the 1876 campaign, stated, 'I must take an extra horse this summer in addition to Vic, for Dandy must be favored a little; he begins to show a little let-down in strength. She goes on to say that Dandy was wounded during the stay on Reno Hill. Specifics of the injury were not given. After the battle, Dandy was sent to Mrs. Custer in Monroe, Michigan, and she in turn gave the horse to Custer's father. The horse, so identified with the three sons he had lost, seemed to be a wonderful comfort to him. Mrs. Custer had some trepidation about father Custer riding Dandy as the former was well into his seventies, and the latter still had some of his bouncing gait. However, whether Dandy had gotten settled in his old age, or whether he exhibited some innate sense of respect for the elder Custer, he let him (father Custer) mount leisurely, an seemed instantly to tame down in gait and manner. Dandy and his new rider hit it off quite well, and soon it became a custom for the two to appear in the local parades and ceremonies. They once led the grand procession at the Michigan State Fair. Father Custer would allow no one to feed or General Custer groom his horse, and as time went on, the "in consequence of too many oats the graceful proportions of youth were fast losing themselves in a real aldermanic outline. Libbie quotes Father Custer as saying in a serious moment, I don't know how I could have lived without that horse. He's been a comfort to me for thirteen long years. Then one day, no whinny of greeting met Father Custer as he undid the stable door. For the first time in all his twenty-six years Dandy was ill. In spite of the attempts of two veterinary surgeons to save him, he died, constantly under a vigil by the entire family. Dandy was apparently buried in an orchard on the farm. THE TROOP MESS Why do we call good food a military mess? It is alleged that the term MESS originated in the Revolutionary War. The term Mess is Forth, was used to signify that it was time to serve. Also, the term, Cook up a Mess was used. It became synonymous with the military kitchen ever since. RECIPE: The following is a recipe for a Mess for one hundred men. The term S.O.S. has several names that soldiers have given to it over the years. One of them is not Save Our Soul. S.O.S. 25 pounds ground meat 1 pound chopped onions 1½ pounds sifted Flour 16 14½ ounce cans Evaporated Milk 2 gallons Beef Stock or water (for milk) Salt to taste ¼ ounce (1 mess kit spoon) Pepper 100 slices Bread, toasted 1. Cook meat, stirring frequently. 2. Cook onions in bacon fat; add flour and mix thoroughly. 3. Mix milk and beef stock or water; heat. 4. Add hot milk to fat and flour mixture gradually. Heat to boiling point; boil 1 minute, stirring constantly. Add salt and pepper. 5. Pour sauce over meat; simmer until meat is well done,but not over cooked.. 6. Serve on toast. Yield: 100 servings, 6 ounces each. NOTE: Chopped green peppers or pimientos may be added to sauce and simmered with meat. PAGE TWENTY-ONE

22 North Carolina Military Historical Society Civil War North Carolina, 1864 Saturday, 10 May :30 a.m.-4 p.m. The annual symposium and general membership meeting of the North Carolina Military Historical Society is scheduled for Saturday, 10 May 2014 in in the Long Leaf Pine Room of the North Carolina Museum of History, Raleigh. The symposium is free of charge to any who wish to attend, and no prior registration is required unless you wish to reserve a $5.00 sub-sandwich lunch. Meals will be available only for those who reserve one no later than Thursday, 1 May by ing the Society at ncmilhistsoc@yahoo.com, or calling the Society President at Meals will be payable at registration. The theme of this year's symposium is Civil War North Carolina, The meeting will last from 9:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. and feature five outstanding speakers offering presentations on various events in our State during the pivotal year of The ramifications of North Carolina s participation in the defining American war of the Nineteenth Century continue to shape the history and destiny of the United States to this day. Though the attention of past historians has focused on events in Virginia and the western theater in 1864, there were several battles and events taking place in North Carolina that were of major importance. Our excellent slate of speakers will guide us through these and explain their significance. Andrew Duppstadt, Assistant Curator of Education with the N.C. Division of Historic Sites, will speak on the 1864 Battle of New Bern and Seizure of the USS Underwriter.. Chris Meekins, an Archivist with the N.C. Division of Historical Resources, will offer a presentation on The Battle of Plymouth. After lunch, Dr. Chris Fonvielle, Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, will explore the sinking of the iconic Tar Heel warship, the CSS Albemarle, and the role of U.S. Navy Lieutenant William Barker Cushing in its demise. Next, Morris Bass, Operations Manager of the Governor Caswell/CSS Neuse Historic Site, N.C. Division of Historic Sites, will discuss the building and operations of another of North Carolina s famous ironclads, the CSS Neuse. The final presentation of the day will be by Dr. Gary Freeze, Professor of History at Catawba College who will speak on the history of Salisbury Prison and how it influenced and was influenced by the surrounding community. Living historians of the period will be on hand displaying uniforms, weapons, and accoutrements. They are an invaluable historical resource and will be able to discuss not only the recruitment, training, and fighting tactics of the day, but the life of the common soldier and sailor, as well. Several potential lunch-time or post-symposium activities are available. Attendees may visit the Capitol Building built in 1840, across the street from the PAGE TWENTY-TWO Andrew Duppstadt Dr. Gary Freeze Dr. Charles Fonvielle, Morris Bass Chris Meekins Museum of History; the North Carolina Museum of Natural Science, adjacent to the Museum; the State Archives a half block to the east of the Museum; or, remain at the Museum for a self-guided tour of the North Carolina Museum of History s first floor Chronology exhibit containing various military and civilian items, and its permanent North Carolina military history gallery, A Call to Arms, on the 3rd floor. The Society will sponsor raffles throughout the day for donated items. Funds generated from the sale of raffle tickets help defray the cost of the symposium, publication of the Society s semiannual magazine Recall, and support the Society s own North Carolina Military History Museum at Kure Beach. Donations for the raffle are greatly appreciated and may include books, magazines, prints, figures, uniforms, artifacts, and like items. If you have items you wish to donate they may be hand-carried to the meeting, or mailed to/dropped off with the North Carolina Military Historical Society, c/o Sion H. Harrington III, 503 South 11th Street, Erwin, North Carolina Questions regarding potential donation items may be directed to the Society via at ncmilhistsoc@yahoo.com, or by calling (910) Free parking is plentiful and adjacent to the museum. A meeting of the Society s Board of Directors will follow the close of the symposium. The North Carolina Military Historical Society cordially invites you to attend our free symposium and learn about the Civil War in North Carolina in Mark your calendar, and join us for a day of interesting speakers, fascinating information, and good fellowship! RECALL

23 North Carolina Military Historical Society Class of Membership: o ANNUAL ($20.00 a year) o LIFE ($200 one time) Amount enclosed: $ for calendar year (Jan.-Dec. 2004) o NEW MEMBER o RENEWAL NAME ADDRESS CITY STATE ZIP TELEPHONES: (Office) (Home) Please make check payable to NCMHS and mail to:nchms, 7410 Chapel Hill Road, Raleigh, NC :00 a.m.- 9:30 a.m. Registration 9:30 a.m. - 9:35 a.m. Welcome Administrative Announcements Schedule of Events 9:35 a.m.- 10:00 a.m. Business Meeting President s Report, Treasurer s Report, Membership Report, Old Business, New Business, Election of Directors, Adjourn 1st Raffle 10:00 a.m. - 10:45 a.m. Andrew Duppstadt, Asst. Curator of Education, North Carolina Div.of State Historic Sites The Battle of New Bern/Seizure of the USS Underwriter 10:45 a.m. -11:00 a.m. 2nd Raffle Break 11:00 a.m. - 11:45 a.m. Dr. Gary Freeze, Professor of History, Catawba College Salisbury Prison 11:45 p.m.-12:00 p.m. 3rd Raffle 12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m. Lunch 1:00 p.m. - 1:45 p.m. Dr. Chris Fonvielle, Professor of History, UNC-Wilmington Cushing and the Sinking the CSS Albemarle 1:45 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. Morris Bass, Operations Manager, Governor Caswell/CSS Neuse Historic Site, North Carolina Division of State Historic Sites The CSS Neuse 2:30 p.m. - 2:45 p.m. 4th Raffle Drawing Break 2:45 p.m. - 3:30 p.m. Chris Meekins, Archivist, North Carolina Division of Historical Resources Battle of Plymouth 3:30 p.m.- 3:45 Final Raffle Closing Remarks. ANNUAL MEETING AND SYMPOSIUM The North Carolina Military Historical Society May 10, 2014 Theme: Civil War North Carolina, :00 p.m.- 4:30 Board of Director s Meeting (Board members only) Administrative Notes: The NC Museum of History military exhibit "A Call to Arms" is open on the Third Floor of the Museum, as well as the new First Floor chronology exhibit containing military items. We extend a special welcome to the living historians of the Carolina Living History Guild. Feel free to take breaks as needed. Enjoy refreshments in the refreshment area or meeting room, but please do not take them outside of these two areas. Refreshments courtesy of Trudy Conrad. SPRING 2014 PAGE TWENTY-THREE

24 The North Carolina Military Historical Society 7410 Chapel Hill Road Raleigh, North Carolina or current resident NONPROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID CARY, NC Permit No. 551 EDITOR S TACK ROOM By Richard M. Ripley This Recall story, A Tarheel s Thoughts on Vicksburg, is one of the best articles since publication of this journal started in Its author, William Bill Northrop, has done a fine job in his research and writing. We thank you, Bill, for the article and your loyal Recall support. Thank you, Barrie Davis, for hanging with me for all these years. We still are able tocomplete an issue somehow. Recall subscibers and other friends, we need your help and support with articles. Last year, I said my cupboard was bare. Right now it is close to empty. Can anybody write an article on operations in Iraq and Afghanistan? We have had some on Iraq but nothing on Afghanistan, where the war has been going on for years. Someone should be willing to share their experiences in that theater of battle. The Annual Symposium and Membership Meeting of the North Carolina Military Historical Society (NCMHS) will be held on May 10, 2014, at the North Carolina Museum of History, Raleigh, N.C. Please note the program and speakers on pages 22 and 23 of the Recall. I recommend that you consider membership in Army Historical Foundation. The Foundation s mission is to build the National Buseum of the U.S. Army, which will be located at Fort Belvour, Virginia. Despire the fact that it is the oldest branch of the Armed Forces, the Army is the only one without a National Museam. The Foundation magazine, On Point, is an outstanding military history publication. Your membership contributes tobuilding the National Army Museau. You can find more information by contacting the Army Historical Foundation, P.O. Box 96703, Washington, D.C Murphy s Laws of Combat: 1. Friendly fire isn t. 2. Anything you do can get you shot, including doing nothing. 3. The enemy is in range. So are you. 4. If you are short of everything except the enemy, you are in combat. Contribute Articles to Recall Readers are invited to submit material to Recall. In choosing material for publication, the editor of Recall will give preference to articles of unusual significance and transcripts or abstracts of difficult-to-locate records. Material submitted for publication will be reviewed by persons knowledgeable in the areas covered for validity, significance, and appropriateness. All material will be edited for clarity and conciseness. Manuscripts should be sent to the Editor, 4404 Leota Drive, Raleigh, N.C Tel rripley@nc.rr.com. Photos, Interviews Sought to Document Tar Heel Military Experience In 1998, the N.C. Division of Archives and History began Phase III of its effort to better document the state s 20th century military experience. Previous phases have focused on the period from 1900 through the end of the Korean War. Though still actively collecting and preserving items from this era, the Archives is seeking to honor North Carolina veterans who served North Carolina and the nation from 1954 through the present. The Military History Collection Project also is engaged in an extensive oral history program. People around the state are encouraged to tape interviews with veterans of all time periods and services for deposit in the Military Collection of the State Archives. If you have items to share, please mail them to or contact: Ken Simpson, Coordinator, Military Collection Project, North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 109 East Jones Street, Raleigh, N.C ; or call In this issue A Tarheel s Thoughts on Vicksburg... 1 Cuss n in the Army... 9 June 14th: The Birthday of the U.S. Army I Fly for Vengeance With a Song in My Heart An Artillery Record to Forget General Custer s Horses Why Do We Call Good Food a Military Mess? N.C. Military Historical Society Symposium