Civil War Oddities #88

Massachusetts’s clergyman Stephen Barker was so stirred by Lincoln’s first call for volunteers that he gave up his parish and became chaplain of the Thirteenth Massachusetts Regiment.

This regiment was organized in July 1861 as the Fourteenth Massachusetts Infantry (but afterwards changed as above) under the command of Colonel William B. Green, of Boston, and was immediately ordered to Fort Albany, which was then an outpost of defense guarding the Long Bridge over the Potomac, near Washington. Refusing to be left behind, his wife became a nurse. Though she had no formal training, she served in field hospitals for more than three years before becoming a superintendent for a U. S. Sanitary Commission.

Civil War Oddities #87

When attorney John S. Mosby (1833-1916) decided to become a Confederate partisan ranger, he knew that members of irregular units were in far greater danger than conventional soldiers. Very early, Federal actions had made it clear that rangers not shot on sight would be relentlessly hunted. Undeterred by danger, Mosby’s wife frequently stayed close to him even during his famous raids in the Loudoun Valley of Virginia.

Federal soldiers once broke into the house where the pair was sleeping, but found no one there but Mrs. Mosby. Warned by her to get out quickly, Mosby had climbed into a tree wearing only his underwear. He remained in his perch and kept very quiet until the Federals departed, enabling him to return to bed with his wife.

The enclosed photo is an artist’s depiction of John S. Mosby and his wife.

Civil War Oddities #86

Members of the crew of the 100-ton Confederate privateer Retribution rejoiced on the afternoon of January 10, 1863. Having captured the coal brig J. P. Elliott, they estimated how much prize money the vessel would bring when taken to port and sold.

Their elation proved to be premature. When Confederates replaced crewmembers of the captured vessel, the wife of the Elliott’s mate was left aboard. As soon as the Retribution was out of sight, she broke out a store of rum and the captors became thoroughly drunk. Then the wife, not named in the official report, put irons on Confederates and sailed the bark into St. Thomas, where she delivered it and her captives to the U.S. Consul.

Civil War Oddities #85

Having been wounded at Fort Donelson, Tennessee, Lt. Col. James O. Churchill of the Eleventh Illinois Regiment found himself in a hospital bed beside that of Col. John A. Logan on the steamer New Uncle Sam. Soon Brig. General U.S. Grant’s chief surgeon came aboard the headquarters steamer, examined Churchill, shook his head, and said there was nothing he could do for him.

Hours later the wounded man opened his eyes to find a woman bending over him. Having followed Federal forces as closely as the war zone permitted, Mrs. Logan had come to nurse her husband. Finding Churchill to be the more seriously injured one, she turned her attention to him. Under her constant care, Churchill recuperated so rapidly that the hospital boat City of Memphis took him board and kept him until he was able to return to his unit.

Civil War Oddities #84

August 23, 1862, found the Federal commander in chief face-to-face with the wife of an officer who had a grievance. Gabriel R. Paul, a West Point graduate and a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army, believed “some things in Washington were out of kilter.” Over and over, he had seen men whose service had not been continuous receive promotions he felt should have gone to career officers. During the 1862 Confederate invasion of New Mexico, he commanded vital Fort Union with the temporary rank of colonel. When enlistments of his men expired, he was demoted to his former grade.

Mrs. Paul spent many nights with her husband, talking about “things wrong with the seniority system of the U. S. Army.” When she felt she fully understood the situation, the wife of a man whose father and grandfather had fought with Napoleon made the long journey from New Mexico to Washington to plead with Lincoln to promote her husband over others who had not spent their careers in uniform.

After their August 23, 1862, session, the president said of Mrs. Paul, “She is a saucy woman and I am afraid she will keep tormenting till I may have to do it.” On September 5, Paul’s name was presented for promotion to the rank of brigadier general. Failing to get Senate confirmation, he continued to serve as lieutenant colonel until he was renominated and confirmed in April 1863.

“It took a while for her to do it,” said a subordinate in the division Paul commanded, “but Mrs. Paul eventually got what she wanted for her husband.”

Civil War Oddities #83

Mrs. John Charles Fremont was in Missouri with her husband when he aroused the wrath of Lincoln. On August 30, 1861, the Federal major general issued a famous “emancipation proclamation” concerning the territory over which he had military control. As soon as word about Fremont’s action reached Washington, the president firmly requested that he rescind it.

Furious, Fremont’s wife, the daughter of the powerful Missouri senator, Jesse Hart Benton, went to the capital to intercede. Lincoln is known to have seen Jessie Fremont on at least two occasions in early September, but he refused to modify his stand. Disappointed and angry, she returned to her husband in the war zone and remained with him until he was relieved of command in November 1861.