Civil War Oddities #34

Of 546 nuns known to have served as battlefield nurses, 289 were from Ireland, 40 from Germany and 12 from France. 

Absolution under fire: Father Corby blesses the Irish Brigade at Gettysburg, July 2, 1863

Rev. William Corby was born October 2, 1833 in Detroit, Michigan, to Daniel Corby, an Irish native and his wife Elizabeth, a Canadian. He was an American priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross and a Union Army chaplain attached to the Irish Brigade. The Irish Brigade perhaps best knows Corby for his giving general absolution on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg. Fr. Corby also served twice as President of the University of Norte Dame. The school's Corby Hall is named for him, and a statue of him similar to that at Gettysburg stands outside this building on the Notre Dame campus.

Widely remembered among military chaplains and celebrated by Irish-American fraternal organizations, his statue with right hand raised in the gesture of blessing was the first statue of a non-general erected on the Gettysburg Battlefield. He died December 28, 1897.

Civil War Oddities #33

Mrs. Bridget Divers, (“Irish Biddy”) wife of a private of the 1^st Michigan Cavalry, won fame in the war by standing picket duty day and night, riding on raids against the Rebels, and taking the places of officers in emergencies. She once rode twelve miles to reclaim the body of a captain, and brought it into camp on horseback, having been passed by the Confederate because of her sex.

Biddy served as a nurse and surgeon, and was familiar to thousands of troops, a stout, leathery-faced little woman with bleached hair and a cherry disposition. In at least one instance, in the battle of Fair Oaks / Seven Pines, she rallied a retreating Federal regiment and took it back into action.

Civil War Oddities #32

The biggest man-made explosion in history was planned for the demise of the ship Louisiana, set adrift with 215 tons of fused powder in an effort to destroy Fort Fisher, near Wilmington, North Carolina. The scheme, conceived by General Benjamin Butler, failed because of poor fuses, and the H-Bomb of the civil war became a dud.

When Federal forces finally took Fort Fisher, a Confederate prisoner, queried as to the effect of the big blast, said, “It was horrible. Woke up every man in the fort.”

The ship actually went up, piecemeal, on a sand bar at some distance from the fort, casing no damage.

Civil War Oddities #31

Eight Federal generals came from the small town of Galena, Illinois (15,000 population). They probably owed their rank to their friendship with U. S. Grant, the most celebrated wartime citizen of the place.

The list included John Aaron Rawlins, who was Grant’s chief of staff; the Seneca Chief, Ely S. Parker, an engineer who became Grant’s secretary and postwar commissioner of Indian Affairs, Jasper Maltby, a gunsmith said to have been the inventor of a telescopic sight; and Augustus L. Chetlain, a storekeeper who became Consul to Brussels and a leading Chicago banker.

Civil War Oddities #30

Joseph E. Johnston, the “dean” of Confederate generals, who was jealous of his seniority, lost his hair from an illness, and wore a hat at table during the war, to the undisguised amusement of his servants.

Under the terms of Johnston’s surrender at Sherman near Durham, North Carolina, many more men were surrendered than Lee gave up at Appomattox.

In postwar years Johnston served as pallbearer for several prominent Union generals, including U.S. Grant. His last such service was for William T. Sherman, his conqueror. While paying his respects to Sherman in the cemetery on a raw winter day, Johnston contracted a severe cold which became pneumonia and caused his death.

Civil War Oddities #29

The first Confederate general to be killed was Robert S. Garnett, shot at Corrick’s Ford, Virginia, before the first battle of Manassas/ Bull Run. He was first buried in Baltimore, and then secretly moved to a Brooklyn cemetery plot beside his wife. The family, because of strong wartime sectional feeling, did not reveal his identity. His resting place remained generally unknown until 1959.

The youngest Confederate general was William Paul Roberts of North Carolina, a cavalry commander who went to war at twenty. His claim to the title has been established only recently through a study of vital statistics.

Of the 435 Confederate generals, 77 were killed or died of wounds during the war. The last surviving lieutenant general of the Southern armies was Simon Bolivar Buckner, who lived until 1914; his son and namesake was killed as a general in World War II.