In April 1861, the blood of Patriots still coursed through the veins of many young men in Massachusetts. While thousands of men and boys with no military experience rushed to recruiting offices around the state, hundreds of others waited for a call they knew could not be long in coming. Like many of their forebears,…
In August 1861, William Wintersteen left his widowed mother in New Jersey and made his way to Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he enlisted in the 2nd New York Cavalry. [Originally envisioned as a regiment of U.S. Regular Cavalry, several companies came from states other than New York]. An officer officially mustered Wintersteen, (aka Winterstein and Winterstean)…
Under-aged and under-sized when he enlisted with the 16th Michigan Infantry, George Dallas Sidman soon proved himself an able and eager soldier. Born in or near Rochester, New York, on November 25, 1844, Sidman had moved with his family to Owosso, Michigan, prior to the war. Four months shy of his 17th birthday, Sidman claimed…
With my revision of the Aldie, Middleburg and Upperville manuscript progressing, I thought I would focus my attention over the next several posts on stories related to the battles, but which may not find their way into my final narrative. The 16th Michigan, of Col. Strong Vincent’s Brigade, shouldered the burden of the fighting during…
Officers in the Regular Army, especially veterans of the Mexican War, had “a regular’s contempt for ‘fancy volunteers.’” Men like George McClellan denigrated untrained and undisciplined volunteer officers as the dregs of society, kicked out of “county courthouses, & low village bar rooms.” Unyielding in his disdain, McClellan sought to double the number of officers…
The War Department order dismissing captains John Ordner, Henry Pratt, Wilkerson Paige and Layton Baldwin, along with lieutenants William Snyder, Aaron Bliss, Luther Barney, Henry Field, John Hart and Theodore Weed came down while the Cavalry Corps, including the 10th New York, was on the Stoneman Raid; the convicted officers did not learn of their…
Just 12 days after Lieut. Luther Barney filed his case against Col. John Lemmon on February 4, 1863, Lemmon retaliated, charging Capt. John Ordner with signing a fraudulent pay voucher and receiving $86.67 for the use and risk of a horse which Ordner did not own. Lemmon termed “Capt. Ordner’s conduct as an officer [as]…
The passage of time tends to blur lines and erase details. With our passing, most of us slip into relative obscurity. Though family and close friends may retain a grip on our essence, we become little more than a name on a page or a headstone to others. Reaching back more than 155 years to…
I continue, when time allows, to search the many letters written to Austin Blair, Michigan’s wartime governor, which are held in the Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library. Civilians, rather than soldiers, wrote some of the most intriguing letters in the collection. In many cases, the civilians, usually men with some standing within a community,…
I am pleased to welcome Dan Murphy to Small But Important Riots. I had the pleasure of meeting Dan, along with author and historian Patrick O’Donnell, a couple months ago when I guided them over the Aldie, Middleburg and Upperville Battlefields. Dan is an author, historian and cavalry re-enactor, in addition to his day job. …
