“Liberated by Military Authority”: Marylanders in the Army of the Potomac, Part 3.

In the last several posts, I’ve been telling tales of Marylanders who served in the Army of the Potomac. I would be remiss if I did not mention the important contribution of Maryland’s African American contingent. Three U.S.C.I. (United States Colored Infantry) regiments—the 19^th, 30^th, and 39^th U.S.C.I.—came from Maryland and fought with the Army of the Potomac. (Keep in mind, these weren’t the only black regiments from Maryland. Two other regiments, the 4^th and 7^th U.S.C.I., fought with the Army of the James.)

This particular story is deeply Maryland. It involves the recruitment of enslaved Marylanders into the ranks of the 19^th U.S.C.I. It reminds us that, for African Americans, entering into the service of the U.S. army was often the only way they could acquire freedom. As most novice Civil War buffs acknowledge, the Emancipation Proclamation did not free any of the 87,000 enslaved people in Maryland. When January 1, 1863, came and went, nothing had changed for them. However, Maryland was desperate for new recruits. When the federal government passed a conscription act in March, it became clear that thousands of white residents would be forced into military service unless they could allow black Marylanders to go in their place. 

In July, the War Department established a recruiting depot in Baltimore called Camp Belger, which allowed free black Marylanders a place to enlist. But soon, the War Department wanted to tap the enslaved population. On October 3, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton issued General Orders 329, an order that enabled federal officers in Maryland, Missouri, and occupied Tennessee (and later Delaware) to enlist slaves into the ranks of the U.S. Volunteers. This General Order established that slaves freely offered by their owners could be enlisted, with the owners receiving compensation not to exceed $300. Additionally, “slaves belonging to those who have been engaged in or given aid and comfort to the rebellion” could be enlisted into the Union army without compensation. Most importantly—for the slaves, at least—“All persons enlisted into the military service shall forever thereafter be FREE.”

General Orders 329’s allowance of the recruitment of the slaves of disloyal owners set the stage for a confrontation between the officers assigned to the U.S.C.I. and the citizens of Maryland, those who argued that the U.S. government had no right to liberate human property in a state that had never rebelled. As it turned out, the U.S. government didn’t care what slaveowners thought. In early March 1864, two U.S.C.I. officers forced the issue to the forefront when they recruited eight men kept inside a Maryland slave jail.

This is a story of black freedom, triumphant federalism, and compassion for human dignity. It’s also a tale that stands at the center of Maryland’s Civil War experience: Emancipation through military service. Let’s begin.

On March 6, 1864, Lt. Col. Joseph Griswold Perkins led a detachment of 107 soldiers from the 19^th U.S.C.I.’s camp of instruction, called Camp Stanton. Along with two officers (a captain and a lieutenant), he marched his men thirty miles along the western shore of the Patuxent River, bound for Upper Marlboro, the seat of Prince Georges County. On the afternoon of March 8, the detachment reached the outskirts of town. There, Perkins split his command, sending Captain William H. Jordan into the countryside with half his force. Jordan had orders to go from farm to farm, looking for willing recruits. Perkins delivered the same instructions to the other officer, 2^nd Lt. David B. Holmes, who had orders to march into the village. Turning to Holmes, Perkins said, “Take this road, stopping at all the plantations along it, and enlisting all able bodied men, who are willing to come, and if you arrive at Marlboro before I do, as the weather is bad, put your men in some public building.”

At 4 P.M., after reaching the village, Lt. Holmes entered the hotel (the Medley and Dyer Hotel), asking directions to the nearby court house, which could not be seen through the rain and fog. Apparently, the hotel-keeper, Medley, knew why the 19^th U.S.C.I. had come. The regiment was in Upper Marlboro to recruit. Without prompting, the hotel-keeper asked Lt. Holmes if his detachment intended to open the town’s jail and recruit the slaves kept inside. Holmes said he had not come for that purpose, but he knew that many Maryland slaveowners hid their human property in local jails as they waited for the storm of the Civil War to pass. His curiosity piqued, Lt. Holmes asked, “How many slaves are confined there?”

The hotel-keeper replied, “About twenty, and all but one were put there by their masters for safe keeping.”

“Well,” replied Holmes, “I think it likely I should open the jail myself!”

Meanwhile, at 5 P.M., after completing his regimental business, Lt. Col. Perkins reached the Upper Marlboro Court House, where he found the soldiers of Holmes’s platoon. Perkins went to the hotel and there he found a message waiting for him, a letter signed by the Sheriff, Shelby Clark, advising the Union officers not to open the slave jail. Initially, Lt. Col. Perkins gave orders to his troops not to enter the jail, believing that they had no authority to release criminals into the countryside. But a few minutes later, Lt. Holmes arrived and stated his opinion. For the sake of human decency and for the sake of aiding the U.S. government, the slaves held in the jail ought to be freed and enlisted into the 19^th U.S.C.I. As Holmes recalled, “I then conferred with Lt. Col. Perkins upon the propriety of enlisting all such slaves confined in the jail for safe keeping as would be willing to enter the U.S. service. He then assented to the proposition, and we then convened about the time and manner of doing it.”

The next morning, March 9, after the rain had passed, Lt. Holmes took one enlisted man with him and entered the jail. In a careful tone, he demanded access and the jailor did not resist. Holmes found the slaves imprisoned exactly as reported, separated into two small cells. The first room contained twelve women and children. The second room contained eight men, all chained to a single staple in the middle of the floor. Additionally, two white Marylanders were also so confined, both accused of helping slaves flee their masters. After interviewing some of the inmates, Holmes learned that some of them had been incarcerated two years. There was a small child, two-years-old, who had been born in confinement. One of the younger inmates, a boy, had been put in the jail by his master, John H. Sothoron. Lt. Holmes knew that name well. In October, Sothoron had murdered a comrade, Lt. Eben White of the 7^th U.S.C.I., a recruiting officer who had visited Benedict, Maryland. Fearing that Lt. White was about to liberate his slaves, Sothoron murdered him and then fled to Virginia. In retaliation, the U.S. government confiscated his plantation, “The Plains,” and converted it into a training camp for the U.S.C.I. In fact, it was that same camp—Camp Stanton—from which the 19^th U.S.C.I. had originated.

Holmes remembered the disgusting condition of the dungeon-like jail, calling it, “horribly filthy.” He explained, “Tubs at the sides and corners of the room were used for the necessities of nature and other filth. They had the appearance of being emptied but seldom. The atmosphere of the room was exceedingly offensive, and so much of the jail as was seen by me was disgraceful to any country.”

Holmes asked the eight black men if they were willing to join the ranks of the 19^th U.S.C.I. If so, he could release them from their confinement immediately. All eight declared their willingness to sign up. At this point, Lt. Col. Perkins arrived and surveyed the scene. Like Holmes, he was appalled by the horrid conditions. He wrote, “The filth and stench was so utterly inhuman, that I had but little time to discriminate, although I was informed; and since then in the communications referred to above; I have no reasons to think that any of them were confined for any offence than trying to escape or assisting others to do so.”

Lt. Col. Perkins repeated the same lines as Lt. Holmes. If the inmates were willing to enlist they could be “liberated by Military authority.” “Yes,” they replied, anything to be out of the unpleasant holding pen. Confident in the righteousness of his decision, Lt. Col. Perkins ordered Lt. Holmes to summon a blacksmith. He declared, “I will not have any man enlisted into the military service of the United States with irons on.”

In a few minutes, Holmes and the blacksmith returned and cut the fetters. Perkins placed guards at the door so the jailor could not interfere with the enlistment process, and thus, these eight men swore into the service of the 19^th U.S.C.I. While the door remained open, the twelve women and children fled into the countryside. Apparently, this was Holmes’s doing. Somehow, he convinced (or threatened) the jailor to leave the main door ajar. “The jailer made no objection to their going,” Holmes later wrote. “He left the door open for a considerable length of time while they were getting ready to come out. There were no oaths, threats, or disorder. No one protested or said anything against our proceedings.”

Just as Perkins, Holmes, and the new recruits departed the prison, the county sheriff, Shelby Clark, approached them, complaining that the two Union officers had released criminals. He now demanded that the eight men be returned to their holding pens, and the soldiers ordered to seek out the women and children who had fled. Lt. Col. Perkins replied that he would do none of that. He pointed out that the War Department’s General Order 329 allowed him to recruit enslaved men of disloyal owners. Having learned that Sothoron owned at least one of the incarcerated men, it was within his power to enlist all of them. When Clark called him a thief, Perkins responded by saying that the War Department order protected him from arrest.

Perkins casually admitted that he had no authority to release the women and children, but explained, “If any others have got out, it has been through the neglect of the county officer here.” Sheriff Clark then asked if he would track down the escaped women and children, but Perkins replied that an act of Congress—the Second Confiscation Act of July 1862—prevented him from helping to recover any runaways. No U.S. soldier was allowed to re-enslave anyone. At this, Perkins and Clark parted ways, but Lt. Holmes—his ire raised by the deplorable conditions he had seen—shouted an imprecation at the Maryland sheriff, as he admitted, “expressive of my abhorrence of the administration of laws which would confine in such a manner human beings called slaves, for trying to run away from such a country.”

The incident did not end there. Sheriff Clark wrote a letter of complaint to the War Department and to the Governor of Maryland, Augustus Bradford, calling for an investigation into the “outrages” committed by Perkins and Holmes. Although the sheriff accused the U.S.C.I. officers of theft, the War Department stood on their side. Even though the Union officers had confiscated property inside a loyal slave state, Assistant Secretary of War Charles Dana issued orders to remove Clark from his office, operating under the assumption that he sympathized with the Confederates. Colonel Samuel M. Bowman, the Union officer who had dispatched Perkins and Holmes, admitted that his two officers might have committed an illegal act by opening the slave prison’s doors, but he could not see anything morally wrong in it. Writing to the War Department, Bowman opined, “Lieut. Col. Perkins had no orders from me to open the jail. His vindication rests solely upon the truth of the facts alleged in his statement and in the statement of Lieut. Holmes. In enlisting the slaves confined for safe keeping he was clearly right. In releasing others chained with them, as stated, in a filthy prison, his conduct was at least humane. These officers say they do not wish to avoid investigation, provided it is done soon, while the witnesses are within reach.” 

This explanation satisfied Dana.

The War Department’s action is worthy of note. In overriding the county sheriff and making no effort to recover the escaped women and children, the Department demonstrated its commitment to furthering the reach of the Emancipation Proclamation. If Lincoln’s document had been carefully constructed to insulate loyal slave states from its revolutionary effects, then none that mattered in Maryland, where Union army recruiters had the power to liberate people and did so to fill their ranks.

It should be mentioned that human decency stood at the center of this story. A twenty-first-century reader might think it would be an obvious choice for U.S. army officers to free incarcerated slaves held in a fetid cell, but it’s important to remember that, in the nineteenth-century, people did not always act with compassion when human dignity was imperiled. In short, Lt. Col. Joseph G. Perkins and 2^nd Lt. David B. Holmes were exceptional men, officers who acted out of compassion, justice, and civility. In so doing, they upheld the power of the government, they strengthened the manpower of their regiment, and they liberated twenty innocent prisoners.

Shockingly, it’s difficult to find any material on these two men, whose actions held such tremendous importance to Maryland’s Civil War history. Joseph Griswold Perkins was the easiest to track. He was born on April 20, 1838, the grandson of three Connecticut governors. As a child, he lived in New London, Connecticut. He attended Brown University for a year, but then dropped out to study law. Right before the Civil War, he was admitted to the Connecticut Bar, but then quit his practice to enlist. He was among the first four volunteers from Connecticut to enlist at the war’s commencement, joining Company A, 1^st Connecticut Rifles. Later on, Perkins became Governor William Buckingham’s assistant adjutant general. In 1862, he was commissioned captain and commanded Company L, 1^st Connecticut Heavy Artillery. In 1863, he received a commission as lieutenant colonel and joined the staff of the 19^th U.S.C.I. Cited for gallantry at the Battle of the Crater, Perkins ended the war as a brevet brigadier general. He served in the U.S.C.I. until 1867, guarding Brownsville, Texas. In 1869, Perkins married a woman named Louisa Griswold and raised three children with her. He served as a state senator, dying on January 27, 1913, at age 74.

I’ve found no biographical information about Lieutenant David Holmes.

What about the men they recruited? What happened to the eight slaves who were confined inside the jail? That question is also difficult to answer. When the U.S. mustering officer arrived at Camp Stanton on March 31, he ratified the Oath of Allegiance for nineteen new recruits. Most likely, all of these men had been recruited by Perkins’s detachment during its excursion to Upper Marlboro, but it’s impossible to tell which ones had been confined inside the jail. The best I can do is provide a list of all nineteen, knowing that among that number were the men liberated on March 9, 1864. They were:

·         Pvt. James W. Pinkney

·         Pvt. William H. Roberts

·         Pvt. Henry Briscoe

·         Pvt. John T. Douglas

·         Corp. Charles S. Steward

·         Sgt. William E. Wilkes

·         Pvt. John L. Derry

·         Pvt. Charles Robinson

·         Pvt. Samuel Fountain

·         Pvt. Robert L. Queen

·         1^st Sgt. Thomas Spadley

·         Pvt. Hamilton Davis

·         Pvt. David Hazleton

·         Pvt. Lafayette Lewis

·         Pvt. Robert R. Clark

·         Pvt. John W. Diggs

·         Pvt. Charles O. Gallawson

·         Pvt. Robert W. Gibson

·         Pvt. John J. L. Maybury

Two of them, Derry and Gibson, were killed at the Battle of the Crater, July 30, 1864.

This 1860 map shows the streets of Upper Marlboro, Maryland. The principal locations of the story--Medley's Hotel, the Court House, and the jail--are all clearly marked. 

Yes! You, too, can visit the site where Lt. Col. Perkins and Lt. Holmes liberated twenty enslaved Marylanders from a horrid slave jail. I've marked the location where that slave jail once stood. Presently, this is the driveway to the PG County Fire Department.

“Lt. Col. Duryée Will Oust Every One of Us if Possible!” Marylanders in the Army of the Potomac, Part 2.

In my last post, I told the story of one of Union Maryland’s unsung heroes, Col. Nathan Dushane, who lost his life leading the Army of the Potomac’s Maryland Brigade at the Battle of Globe Tavern. In this post, we’ll learn about an unlikeable Maryland commander, Lt. Col. Jacob Duryée, a man who took counsel of his ambition and connived to deprive the state of capable military leadership. In truth, Duryée wasn’t a Marylander at all, but a New Yorker who hated the Marylanders.

Civil War historians have known about Jacob Duryée for a long time. Battle of Antietam scholars first bumped into his name in June 1960 when Civil War History published a widely read account called, “A Federal Surgeon at Sharpsburg.” This primary account was written by Dr. Theodore Dimon, the surgeon of the 2^nd Maryland Volunteer Infantry. (I, for one, first learned about Dimon and Duryée in 1989, when I read John Michael Priest’s Antietam: A Soldiers’ Battle. That book makes use of Dimon’s account.) Dimon’s narrative gave readers a one-sided, positive depiction of Duryée. Dimon portrayed him as a stunning, attentive leader, and his bravery was on full display as he led the 2^nd Maryland in its near suicidal attack across Burnside’s Bridge.

Years later, while researching in the Maryland State Archives, I saw a different side of Lt. Col. Duryée. The documents kept by the office of the Adjutant-General painted an unflattering portrait. They revealed Duryée to be a cruel, manipulative officer who cared little for the State of Maryland.

Letters written to the state’s Union Party governor, Augustus Bradford, made it abundantly clear that Duryée did not deserve command of his regiment. Throughout the spring and summer of 1862, the vainglorious Duryée conspired to remove as many Maryland-born officers as he could, harassing, brutalizing, and slandering anyone who threatened his authority. In the end, his despotic tendencies came back to bite him, and in an arrogant huff, he resigned his commission, leaving behind one of Maryland’s hardest fighting regiments, a choice he would later regret.

This is the story of Lt. Col. Duryée’s malevolent rise to power and his haughty downfall.

Jacob Eugene Duryée was born in New York City on March 7, 1839, the son of a prominent Union officer, Brig. Gen. Abram Duryée. Jacob Duryée was one of the Union’s first soldiers. At the war’s outset, he accompanied Company F, 7^th New York State Militia (the elite “Dandy Seventh”), during its bloodless thirty-day deployment inside the District of Columbia. On June 3, he returned with his regiment to New York City, and summarily joined his father’s volunteer regiment, the 5^th New York Infantry (commonly known as Duryée’s Zouaves”), which was then serving at Fort Monroe. The Governor of New York promoted Duryée to first lieutenant of Company G (under command of Captain Judson Kilpatrick), and with the 5^th New York, he participated in the Battle of Big Bethel on June 11, 1861.

In September, President Lincoln commissioned Lt. Duryée to the rank of lieutenant colonel, transferring him to the 2^nd Maryland Infantry, which was then stationed at Camp Carroll, near Baltimore. As one of the few officers with combat experience, Duryée was welcomed by the Marylanders with open arms. But quickly, he grew to despise the men he commanded. He hated being second-fiddle to a Maryland colonel, and as the months passed, he schemed to get command of the regiment.

In early April 1862, at 953 officers and men, the 2^nd Maryland reached the front lines. The regiment unloaded at Newbern, North Carolina, a Union-occupied town on the Neuse River. The Marylanders joined the 10,000-man unit called the “Coastal Division,” commanded by Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside. Newbern represented a whole new world for the Marylanders. Union troops had been in occupation of the city ever since a dramatic battle occurred there on March 14, 1862. Throughout the spring, Burnside’s men had taken Morehead City, Beaufort, and Washington, leaving Newbern under heavy guard. Many of Burnside’s troops idled away their days, drinking and whoring.

For Lt. Col. Duryée, occupation of Newbern offered an opportunity for advancement. He found political allies in the form of his new divisional commander, Maj. Gen. Burnside, and his brigade commander, Brig. Gen. Jesse L. Reno. It’s not clear how Duryée started his conspiracy, but it is clear that, one by one, his rivals for regimental command began disappearing. 

The 2^nd Maryland’s commander, Colonel John Sommer, vanished first. In the midst of the Camden expedition, Brig. Gen. Jesse L. Reno placed Sommer under arrest for “disobedience of orders.” Rather than offer Sommer a court martial, Reno locked him away, and on April 20, 1862, under the duress of incarceration, Sommer resigned his commission. Immediately, the Marylanders suspected something fishy. One of them wrote, “No sooner had the regiment encamped on this soil then there was a dead set made against Col. John Sommer, nor did they rest day or night until the Col. was compelled to resign.”

Next, charges were brought against two line officers, Captain John D. Stinchcomb of Company E and 2^nd Lieutenant John W. Davis of Company D. The division staff accused both men of public intoxication. Both officers faced a trial and were cashiered. The officer who defended Lieutenant Davis argued that the verdict might have been justice, except that none of the many other cases of public intoxication were ever prosecuted. He wrote, “Those are the first and last cases I have heard of although I have seen officers so drunk in the streets of Newbern that they could not walk and so drunk as to fall off their horses in the streets and like the sow that was once blessed returned to its wallowing in the mire again.”

Additional harassment forced other company commanders to resign. Captain William F. Bragg of Company D resigned, led away under a corporal’s guard. Then, Captain William E. Conoway of Company G resigned, saying he “could not stand” Lt. Col. Duryée’s leadership any longer. And then, Captain Robert Karns of Company I resigned quietly. Major Henry Howard Jr. also faced harassment, however, he refused to resign. Wrote an officer, “Major Howard has been treated as ungentlemanly as a man could be, and I know of no other cause than that he knew too much for them.” (This was, perhaps, an indication that Howard knew of Duryée’s plans to seek the colonelcy of the regiment.)

Who were Duryée’s fellow schemers, the ever-present “they” mentioned in these letters?

Well, Duryée had several friends in the 2^nd Maryland who supported him. The regimental chaplain, Reverend Robert S. Hitchcock, joined Duryée’s cabal. So wrote Captain Andrew Brunner of Company B, “There is but one officer here that does the regiment any injury that is Rev. R. S. Hitchcock, our chaplain.” Lieutenant Charles E. Bowen of Company D called Hitchcock a “contemptible tool,” and that the enlisted men in his regiment had such a small opinion of him that they “will not listen to his preaching.” Bowen explained:

Now for Mr. Hitchcock, I say, Mr., because, in my judgment, it should be a sin in the sight of God to apply the term Rev. to him, as he is a hypocrite of the deepest dye. I have seen him drunk and under the influence of whiskey or brandy, often since he has been attached to his regiment. Why, Sir, he was turned out of the Presbyterian Church in Baltimore for being drunk in the pulpit. What more could we expect of him[?] I would not believe him on his oath in a transaction where he or any of his friends were at stake.

Duryée could also count on the assistance of Lieutenant George A. Zimmermann of Company I, who became captain in the month of April 1862. Apparently deeply anti-Maryland, Zimmermann couldn’t stand the other officers in the regiment. In complaining to Governor Augustus Bradford, Lieutenant Bowen confessed, “Why, sir, I have heard Lt. Zimmermann damn the State of Maryland for every thing he could think of and that too before the Lt. Col., and he laughed at it, and he, Zimmermann, was then compensated for doing so by being placed as acting Quarter Master of this Regiment.”

Finally, Duryée had the assistance of Captain Malcolm Wilson of Company F. Although Bowen didn’t mention Wilson by name, it appears that this officer brutalized him on more than one occasion. After Lieutenant Bowen had chosen to defend his comrade, Lieutenant Davis, at his court-martial, Wilson began taking it out on him. One afternoon, when Bowen served as officer-of-the-day, Captain Wilson approached Bowen and began calling him names, labeling him a “damned negro.” When Bowen tried to remonstrate, Wilson grabbed Bowen by the throat and began choking him, then threw Bowen to the ground. All the while, Lt. Col. Duryée watched approvingly. When the scuffle had ended, Bowen arose and went to Duryée for protection. Duryée told him to get lost. He called Bowen an “unprincipled man,” apparently for defending Lieutenant Davis, and told him that he had received his just desserts.

Furious, Bowen complained to Governor Bradford, demanding something be done to end Duryée’s despotic rule and to terminate the machinations of his cruel minions. “I have been treated worse than you could imagine,” Bowen wrote. Predicting that his promotion to the vacant captaincy of Company D would likely be blocked by Duryée, Bowen guessed, “Was I [a] betting man, I would not be affraid to bet heigh that I am not made captain of Co. D. (My Comp’y).”

Bowen tried to make it clear to the governor that Duryée was leading a vast conspiracy to purge the Maryland-born officers from the regiment. “If we had a Marylander for our commander we would be treated as soldiers and gentlemen (which I am in hopes we will have and we can if you will, I think) but to the contrary we are commanded by a northern adventurer, I mean Lt. Col. J. E. Duryee who will oust every one of us if possible. At this time there is but five captains in the Regiment which goes to prove what I say.”

Governor Bradford took Lieutenant Bowen’s complaints seriously. On June 26, 1862, Bradford commissioned a new colonel, Thomas B. Allard, to take command of the 2^nd Maryland. When news of Allard’s imminent arrival reached Newbern, Duryée, Hitchcock, Zimmermann, and Wilson conspired to stop him. They drafted a letter and sent it to the Baltimore American, saying that the officers would resign and mutiny would prevail among the rank-and-file if Duryée was no longer the regimental commander. Publication of this letter shocked Baltimore’s residents, who questioned Bradford’s apparent decision to go against the will of the regiment. However, some of the 2^nd Maryland’s officers assuaged Bradford’s fears. All of this, they said, was false reporting. Captain Brunner explained:

I have seen in several news sheets of the day notices that should any one be made colonel of this regiment other than Lieut. Col. Duryee that the officers would resign and mutiny would arise amongst the men. Nothing of the kind was ever thought of with the exception of Capt. W. C. Bigelow of Co. A & Capt. Malcolm Wilson of Co. F, who spoke of resigning, and as to anything like mutiny occurring, the least signes of anything like it are has not occurred.

But this didn’t solve the crisis. When Colonel Allard arrived at Newbern, as soon as he set foot on the wharf, several of Maj. Gen. Burnside’s officers arrived and escorted him to an officer examination board, a tribunal that meant to test Allard’s knowledge of military affairs. At the end of the examination, Burnside’s board declared Allard “incompetent” and consequently relieved him of his command. The Maryland-born officers were incensed. It happened so quickly that none of them even realized that Allard was in camp!

When Allard finally made his way to the regimental headquarters tent, now deprived of his shoulder boards, Lieutenant Charles Bowen found him and told him not to worry. The examination board had been meant to break him. Bowen explained to the Governor:

The whole proceedings were gotten up expressly for Colonel Allard. Such a thing was unprecedented in the Division; the like never had been done before. Why, Sir, Col. Allard was not permitted to visit the Camp, nor did he see but three officers of the Regiment to my knowledge, as very few knew it, and those that did kept it still.

Bowen made it clear that Duryée was behind it all. He wrote, “I believe the plan was concocted, if not directly by Lieut. Col. J. E. Duryeé, [then] indirectly through the agency” of his friends at Burnside’s headquarters.

Allard was forced the leave Newbern immediately. Getting back on the ship that brought him, he returned to Baltimore. Lieutenant Bowen encouraged Governor Bradford to fight his dismissal, to commission Allard a second time and return him to the front. Bowen could not imagine following a tyrannical leader such as Duryée into battle. “Now, Sir,” he implored, “for the sake of the officers and Privates of this Regiment, send him back, for if you do not, the Lord knows what will become of us.”

Bradford did as Bowen asked, reappointing Allard to command and appealing to the War Department, reminding the Secretary of War that the authority to appoint officers to command the volunteer regiments was a sacred right of the governors. If Secretary Stanton wished to have the support of loyal Marylanders, then the army needed to accept Bradford’s choice for the 2^nd Maryland’s colonelcy.

As this controversy was hashed out, Lt. Col. Duryée led the 2^nd Maryland into its first major combat. At Antietam, the 2^nd Maryland executed a dramatic charge against the Rohrbach Bridge (afterwards Burnside’s bridge), losing 67 out of 187 officers and men.

After the Battle of Antietam concluded, Duryée learned that Allard would be returning to the regiment and resuming his command. Unable to accept this, he drafted a letter of resignation and submitted it to General Burnside. Years later, Duryée recounted his meeting with Burnside, presenting himself as the victim. After the battle, Governor Bradford had arrived on the field, escorting the newly-recruited Maryland Brigade, but he purposefully snubbed the 2^nd Maryland, whose wounded were crammed into a cowshed hospital. “We needed the Governor’s sympathy,” wrote Duryée, “besides our wants were many, especially for medical supplies, &c.” Seeing governors from other states assisting their men, Duryée concluded that he must do something to bring the governor’s attention to the losses of the 2^nd Maryland. He said, “Then to feel that I was entirely unable to help them at this time of their great distress, made the matter to me very trying.”

As Duryée told it, on September 21, he went to Burnside’s headquarters and offered to resign. In his mind, it was the only way to relieve the sufferings of his wounded men. Initially, Burnside refused to accept Duryée’s resignation, but after sleeping on it, he changed his mind, saying, “I see no other course, for as matters appear to me now, you would not get any assistance from the Governor to help you recruit the regiment.” Continuing, “I accept your resignation with great regret, and especially that it should be entirely owing to the unjustified treatment you and your regiment have received from the Executive of the State of Maryland.”

It is unlikely that Duryée’s version of events is true. Governor Bradford would not have purposefully withheld medical supplies from the 2^nd Maryland on a mere matter of commissioning. Further, it is impossible that Bradford had the power to determine which regiments in the Army of the Potomac received medical attention. He did not possess that authority. Finally, in Duryée’s narrative, he offered up a key paragraph that amounted to a bald-faced lie. According to him, when he offered his resignation to Burnside, Duryée said, “In these three strenuous campaigns just ended, I have commanded the regiment in every battle and engagement, actually filling two positions, while the Colonel [Allard] who had been commissioned by the Governor and had never commanded, in fact had never seen the regiment, was in Baltimore during these most trying times.”

Bull-snot.

There was no way Duryée could have uttered those words. Duryée knew—as did Burnside—that Colonel Allard had attempted to take command of the 2^nd Maryland back in July. However, due to their scheming, they sent Allard back to Baltimore. He wasn’t loafing around in Baltimore because he wanted to avoid service. He was stuck there because Duryée and his accomplices had sent him away.

Duryée did not want to admit that Bradford had won. Allard planned to return in October, and Duryée needed to leave before he could mete out vengeance.

As Duryée told it, he returned to the regimental encampment, formed up “the remnant of the few brave soldiers left in the regiment and bade them farewell, shaking hands with everyone.” As he related, “I could see plainly by the expression on the face of every man that they all regretted my going fully as much as I did leaving them.”

Again, I call bull-snot. At the very least, Lieutenant Charles H. Bowen, the officer who called the governor’s attention to Duryée’s schemes, was happy to see him go.

In the end, the moral of this tale is clear. Whatever Duryée did at Antietam to prove his bravery, it did not merit command of the 2^nd Maryland. By scheming his way to the top, he violated the very essence of what the Army of the Potomac strived to be—a meritocracy. No one in his regiment—save his cabal of close associates—could ever have taken him seriously. Duryée left the Army of the Potomac on September 22, 1862, the day the Civil War was forever changed by the announcement of the Emancipation Proclamation.

After the war, President Andrew Johnson nominated Duryée for a brevet brigadier generalship for “gallant and meritorious services” during the war. The U.S. Senate confirmed him on July 19, 1867.

It might also be said that Duryée left the world under curious circumstances. He died on May 25, 1918. He insisted on being laid to rest at Antietam National Cemetery. In the end, his remains were entombed under the soil of the very state he despised.

Lieutenant Colonel Jacob Eugene Duryée (1839-1918) has long been remembered as a hero from the Battle of Antietam. While that may be true, Duryée was also a tyrannical commander who despised the State of Maryland.

“I Have Seen as Much Service as any Other Officer from Maryland”: Marylanders in the Army of the Potomac, Part 1.

On October 12, 1880, the Maryland Historical Society held a massive program at the Baltimore Academy of Music in commemoration of the 150^th Anniversary of the founding of Baltimore. One of the keynote speakers was Brig. Gen. Charles Phelps, an ex-Union general, ex-U.S. Congressman, and a future recipient of the Medal of Honor. In the middle of his speech, General Phelps reflected upon the lives of two citizens of Baltimore, “each better known in his heroic death than his unpretending life.” For the Confederacy, he mentioned an officer who was killed at Gettysburg. For his Union hero, Phelps named Colonel Nathan T. Dushane, “who rose from the work-bench to strike an honest craftsman’s blow for the rights of labor and the rights of man, connected, as he understood them to be, with the existence of constitutional government.”

In choosing Dushane as Maryland’s representative Union hero, Phelps had made a wise choice. Dushane was an ideal candidate. Kind-hearted and brave, he led Union Marylanders with aplomb, giving up his life amid the Petersburg Campaign of 1864.

From my own personal point of view, it is difficult to be a Marylander and a fan of the Army of the Potomac. We don’t have many characters like Rufus Dawes, Joshua Chamberlain, or Emory Upton to throw in people’s faces. However, it’s time to change that. We have Nathan Dushane. This is his tale.

Nathan Thomas Dushane was born on February 3, 1817, at St. George’s Hundred, in New Castle County, Delaware. His parents died when he was only five-years-old, but in their absence, he received an education from his legal guardian, a lawyer named John Sutton. After his schooling, Dushane moved to Baltimore, where he became a carpenter’s apprentice. After years of work, he became a master builder and architect. On December 12, 1839, he married a woman named Mary Eliza Patterson, and over the course of his life, she bore him ten children (however, six died before the Civil War). Dushane also dabbled in politics. He served as a member of the First Branch of Baltimore’s City Council, representing the 12^th Ward. From 1854 to 1856, he served as a Delegate to the Maryland Legislature, and during the war, he held the title of “Commissioner for the Opening of Streets” in the city of Baltimore.

When the war broke out, Dushane was among the first Baltimoreans to volunteer for federal service. He helped organize the first Union volunteers in the city, which, at the time, was no small feat. Armed Confederate sympathizers roamed the streets, targeting anyone who attempted to support the U.S. government or even dare to wave the American flag. On June 11, 1861, in an unusual move, Abraham Lincoln overrode the authority of the governor of Maryland by personally commissioning Dushane as the lieutenant colonel of Maryland’s first volunteer regiment, the 1^st Maryland Volunteer Infantry. I do not know what Lincoln saw in Dushane, but based on the extent and quality of his service, Lincoln’s judgment cannot be questioned. In elevating Dushane to command, Lincoln had jump-started an incredible military career and given Maryland one of its longest serving Union officers.

Dushane’s first combat occurred one year after his commissioning. He accompanied the 1^st Maryland during its confusing engagement at Front Royal, May 23, 1862. On a sunny day, Maj. Gen. Richard Ewell’s division stormed into this quiet Valley town in order to cut the rail line that connected Maj. Gen. Nathaniel Banks’s army to its supply base at Harpers Ferry. Unwisely, Banks had stationed only a handful of soldiers at Front Royal, while the bulk of his army quartered at nearby Strasburg. Several units guarded Front Royal, but the 1^st Maryland constituted the majority of the garrison. Early in the morning, Ewell’s vanguard overran four companies stationed south of the town, and throughout the day, they hammered the other six, driving them north along a road that connected Front Royal to Nineveh. 

Lt. Col. Dushane led the six companies that made the futile last stand. Late in the evening, the 6^th Virginia Cavalry launched a mounted charge, surrounding the Marylanders who were then defending an orchard owned by a man named Thomas McKay (on land presently across the street from the Warren County Volunteer Fire Department). At 7 P.M., after the 1^st Maryland’s colonel had fallen with a saber blow to the head, and when it became clear that the enlisted men could not escape, Dushane was forced to surrender his battalion. After the Battle of Front Royal concluded, the 1^st Maryland counted up 592 casualties, including 535 officers and men taken prisoner.

Dushane was slightly wounded during the battle’s final moments. His captors marched him and seventeen other officers under guard, taking them through Harrisonburg, then Staunton, then via rail to Waynesboro, then Charlottesville, then Lynchburg, and then finally to Salisbury Prison Camp in North Carolina. There, the officers were held in captivity for two and half months. On August 11, 1862, after the Dix-Hill Cartel negotiated for the parole of the Maryland officers, the rebels released them. One week later, August 18, Dushane and this comrades arrived at Camp Parole, Annapolis. Not long after that, Dushane received word that the new governor of Maryland, Augustus W. Bradford, had elevated him to the rank of colonel. On August 22, 1862, the War Department advanced the 1^st Maryland’s colonel, John Reese Kenly, to brigadier general, and under Kenly’s recommendation, Bradford promoted Dushane to the regiment’s vacant colonelcy.

After three months at the parole camp, Dushane returned to his regiment, which was then deployed as border guards along the upper Potomac. When he arrived there, the 1^st Maryland looked markedly different. It contained a batch of new recruits who had joined up in the summer of 1862. Further, the regiment was now brigaded with four other Maryland regiments that had been raised that summer—the 4^th, 6^th, 7^th, and 8^th Maryland—and together, they now formed Brig. Gen. Kenly’s “Maryland Brigade.” Dozens of prisoners who had survived the horrid confines of Belle Isle arrived in November, having been paroled and exchanged, but it took months to restore their health. In July 1863, Kenly’s brigade received orders to join the Army of the Potomac, which was then in pursuit of the Army of Northern Virginia following the Battle of Gettysburg. Dushane led the 1^st Maryland throughout summer, and shortly before the Battle of Bristoe Station—when Kenly took command of the 3^rd Division, 1^st Corps—Dushane ascended to command of the Maryland Brigade.

Like most officers in the Army of the Potomac, Colonel Dushane thought highly of himself. When he learned that another officer—Colonel Richard N. Bowerman of the 4^th Maryland—wanted to receive a promotion to brigadier general and assume command of the Maryland Brigade in Dushane’s place, Dushane tried to head off this scheme. Writing to Maryland’s adjutant general, John Summerfield Berry, Dushane explained:

Colonel R. Bowerman of the 4^th Md. Vol. has made application to the War Department to be made a Brigadier to command Maryland troops and I feel it to be my duty in justice to myself to lay the subject before you that you may take measures to prevent what will be, in my judgment, prejudicial to the service and a manifest injustice to myself. Although I am the oldest colonel in the service, without exception, from Maryland and have been in command of the Maryland Brigade for the last seven months, I have never thought of making application for any higher grade—my ambition has been to discharge my duties as Colonel, in such a manner as would reflect credit to the state’s and aid in furthering down the rebellion, but now than an officer much my junior in rank and in no sense superior in military skill or ability is pushing his claims to promotion I feel it to be but justice to myself to say that if another Brigadier is to be appointed from among the officers of the Maryland Brigade that my claim should not be overlooked.

I joined the 1^st  Md. Vol. Inft’y in the dark days of the republic. [I] have been constantly in the field since June 1861—have seen as much service as any other officer from Maryland—have in turn commanded my regiment for 7 months, the Brigade, and, at times, the Division, and have the satisfaction to know that in all cases I have discharged my duties in a manner that have been entirely satisfactory to my superior officers—I do not ask that my name shall be pressed upon the Department, unless it has been determined to give an appointment of this kind to Maryland in that case I want enlist your influence to prevent which I conceive to be an injustice being done to me.—

Nothing ever came from Bowerman’s scheme and Dushane remained in command of the Maryland Brigade throughout the winter. In April 1864, he returned to his hometown Baltimore in the company of the veteran portion of his regiment, those soldiers who had enlisted back in 1861 who chose to reenlist for three additional years of service. Leaving Major Benjamin F. Schley in temporary command of the regiment, Colonel Dushane led his 300-man veteran battalion back to Baltimore on a thirty-day furlough.

Dushane and his veterans spent one month in Baltimore, from April 2 to May 5, 1864. As it happened, they missed the opening engagements of the Overland Campaign. While they received a much needed rest, Schley’s battalion participated in the crossing of the Rapidan River and endured ghastly combat in the Wilderness, at the Spindle Farm, and along the Po River. During the opening phase of the campaign, the Maryland Brigade suffered 36 killed, 216 wounded, and 120 missing.

Meanwhile, on May 5, just as the fighting was heating up in the Wilderness, Dushane’s men boarded trains bound for Washington, D.C., then Alexandria, and finally Belle Plain. On May 11, the veteran detachment reached Belle Plain, and there, the Marylanders saw the first casualties from the Overland Campaign. The landing zone was overflowing with wounded ready to be transported back to Washington. Dushane even encountered men from his own regiment (from Schley’s battalion) who had been wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness. Embracing one of them, he swore, “We are going forward, my dear boys, to avenge your wounds!”

The next day, as Dushane’s detachment passed through Fredericksburg and it encountered another detachment from the 1^st Maryland—about sixty or seventy men—commanded by Major Schley. This was the detachment that was on its way home. These were the soldiers who had enlisted in 1861, but who chose not to reenlist. Their enlistment was about to expire on May 19. It was an awkward moment as the two detachments intermixed and bid each other “good luck” and “goodbye.” “It was a sad hour,” recalled a 1^st Marylander, “for although glad to escape the exposures, hardships, and perils attendant upon active field service, there existed many heartfelt regrets at parting with comrades to whom so many ties had bound them in an ever enduring friendship.”

On May 19, after two weeks of travel, Dushane’s detachment reached the Army of the Potomac’s encampment. Within hours of their arrival, the thunder of artillery called them to arms. As it happened, their old adversary from Front Royal—Lt. Gen. Richard Ewell—was leading an attack against the Union wagon train along the Fredericksburg Road. Dushane didn’t have any orders to join in the battle, but nevertheless, he headed to the sound of the guns. Marching south down the Fredericksburg Road, he turned the 1^st Maryland to the west and onto the fields owned by a farmer named Peyton. In minutes, the 1^st Maryland found itself embroiled in the bloody affray known as the Battle of Harris Farm (named for another structure a bit farther south). Again, without orders, Dushane joined in the counterattack made by Brig. Gen. Robert O. Tyler’s division of heavy artillery. During the counterattack, Dushane’s horse was killed, and Dushane was thrown violently against a tree.

At the Battle of Harris Farm, the Maryland Brigade suffered 10 killed and 68 wounded—most of them from the newly-arrived veteran battalion—but they contributed to the repulse of Ewell’s corps. For the Marylanders, the climax of the battle came when the two battalions of the 1^st Maryland—Dushane’s veterans and the battalion of 1862 recruits under Captain Omer P. Cram—were finally reunited after being separated for almost two months.

Colonel Dushane’s abrupt dismounting did not hold him back. He recovered from his injuries, and on May 23, he resumed command of the Maryland Brigade. For the next three weeks, he led the 1^st Maryland in a series of battles: North Anna River, Shady Grove Church, Bethesda Church, Cold Harbor, and the Petersburg assaults of June 18. During these engagements, the Maryland Brigade lost another 121 officers and men.

However, Dushane’s luck finally ran out at the Battle of Globe Tavern, part of the 5^th Corps operations against the Weldon Railroad. Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant wanted the 5^th Corps to destroy the rail line that connected Petersburg to Weldon, North Carolina. (This line served as an essential route through which supplies passed from Wilmington.) On August 17, while leading the Maryland Brigade, Dushane was shot through his clothing, but otherwise unhurt. Heavy rains held off further fighting until the morning of August 21. At around 9 A.M., two Confederate divisions stormed Union-held earthworks that encircled the section of railroad slated for destruction. The 1^st Maryland occupied the front line that day, and Colonel Dushane was among the first to fall. I’ve never seen a primary account of his death, but it appears that he was struck in the face by a solid shot, his head instantly lopped off. The 1^st Maryland suffered lightly, losing only two killed (Colonel Dushane and one enlisted man). One officer and 12 other enlisted men were wounded.

The news of Dushane’s death struck his Marylanders hard. He had been with them since the beginning of the war and had been in command of the Maryland Brigade for almost one year’s time. “No words can do justice to his character,” remembered a veteran in the postwar years. “His kind acts are indelibly stamped on the minds and hearts of all who knew him. His conspicuous gallantry during the last series of battles in which he was engaged greatly increased the esteem and regard with which he was held among his fellow-officers and men.” Another veteran later explained, “His loss was deeply deplored by every officer and man of his command, all of whom placed the utmost confidence in his bravery, skill, and judgment. His presence on the field under the hottest fire always inspirited and encouraged the troops, and they will ever cherish with pride the memory of his bravery, as well as the fatherly care he ever manifested for them.”

The men gathered up Colonel Dushane’s earthly remains and sent them back to Baltimore. His funeral took place at 3 P.M., August 25, at his home, 57 Paca Street (presently, this is the corner Paca Street and Saratoga Street). According to the Baltimore Sun, “A large concourse of persons gathered long before the appointed hour for the obsequies to begin.” Members of the Order of Masons and the Oddfellows (Dushane had been members of both) provided pallbearers, while five companies belonging to the 194^th Pennsylvania Infantry provided a military escort for the hearse. The funeral took place at his Paca Street residence and then followed a course westward for about three miles to Western Cemetery. As with most of these Civil War era funeral processions, Dushane’s horse and his African American servant (whose names are now lost to history) followed behind the hearse.

But that was not the only time Dushane was eulogized. On April 27, 1866, at a massive ceremony held at the Maryland State House, Governor Thomas Swann received the battle flag of the 1^st Maryland. General Kenly, the first commander of the Maryland Brigade, arrived to make the presentation. Overwhelmed by the gesture, Governor Swann offered up a speech, one that made sure to mention the sacrifice of Dushane, whom Swann had known personally from his career in state politics. Swann recollected:

And let us take a moment amid these imposing ceremonies to drop a tear upon the grave of Dushane, my personal friend, sir, as well as of yourself, . . . and the gallant men who have laid down their lives that the Union might be preserved; and, General, what, might I ask, have you accomplished? What has been the result of these generous and patriotic labors? Maryland, you know, has sent to the field more than one-tenth of her whole population. And I am here today, knowing the loyal sentiments of the State of Maryland, to say to you that every man who has been standing up in this great battle for the Union would have given their lives rather than that one star should have been plucked from that glorious galaxy. Maryland has done her part.

What’s my lesson for this post? Well, for years after the Civil War, Marylanders saw wisdom in remembering the sacrifice of the state’s fallen hero, Colonel Nathan Dushane. Today, I ask my fellow Marylanders—Marylanders who belong to a generation far, far removed from the Civil War—to take a lesson from the past and not forget his sacrifice either.

Colonel Nathan T. Dushane (1817-1864) was one of Maryland's longest serving Union officers, until his death at the Battle of Globe Tavern.

“I Could Not Restrain My Tears”: The Life and Death of the 7th New York Heavy Artillery, Part 6.

On April 16, 1865, 1^st Lt. Frederick E. Lockley found himself inside his headquarters at Fort McHenry, Maryland. He commenced writing a sad letter to his wife. On February 27, his worn-out regiment had come off the front lines, and since that day, the 7^th New York Heavy Artillery had lost no additional men to the rebels.

But then, a single death caused this usually steady officer to collapse in grief. Lockley had learned of the death of Abraham Lincoln.

Lt. Lockley called Lincoln’s assassination a “fearful tragedy.” He confided to his wife, Elizabeth: 

I could not have believed that the death of a public character could have afflicted the individual mind with so poignant a feeling of grief as ‘this sudden taking off’ of our national chief has produced. Men grieve for him as for the loss of a parent. He has carried us through the maelstrom of civil war with so undaunted and skilful a hand; he has shown such an impassibility to any human infirmity of temper, rising like a demigod above all the angry and senseless invective with which his name and character have been assailed.

In the wake of Lincoln’s death, Lockley was wrote as if all human history was coming to an end: “[Lincoln’s] death creates such a gap in all our plans for our political future. For four years of political convulsion his name has been upon our lips so constantly that he has become identified with the age and the events which are to grow out of it. We cannot dissociate his name from our purview; with him away it seems as if our history had come to a sudden collapse.”

That morning, Lockley had tried to soothe his feelings by attending church. (He did not say where, but it was surely in Baltimore.) It was Easter Sunday, but the festive attitude of that religious holiday did nothing to brush aside the gloom that could be seen everywhere. The church’s minister—“Dr. Johnson”—tried to assuage the grief of his listeners by suggesting that sorrow over a “public figure” did not resonate as deeply as the loss of a personal friend. However, Lockley wasn’t buying it. Lincoln’s death hurt as badly as the death of any comrade on the battlefield. He explained:

The exercises were painful. Sitting there with Meditation for your counsellor, as I listened to the preacher’s powerful contrast between the exuberant feeling which brightened every face as we gathered together at our last Sabbath worship to render God thanks for our signal victories, and to sing poeans at our delivery from the dark wilderness of desolation, and our feelings now. A great nation humbled in the dust, a great man fallen this day in Israel. Dr. Johnson says that the talk of the public heart being afflicted at the death of a public character, is mere exaggeration—people grieve but for their own friends. Until today I would have sworn by that scripture. But this event disproves the doctor’s saying. I could not keep my countenance composed—I could not restrain my tears—and I noticed there were but few dry eyes in church. The president does not seem a stranger to us. Common danger and common affliction have knitted the people’s heart to his—he has been with us in every moment of reverse and humiliation—the destiny of the country was in his hand—and every man knew that if human wisdom and a patriot’s integrity could preserve our honor unsullied—the foresight and the truth were in that leaders brain and heart to go through triumphantly with us. Particularly was he the soldier’s friend. During this fearful carnival of blood when the enraged passions of man were lashed into a tempest—and statesmanship was thrust aside until in the shock of encountering armies one side or other was borne to the ground, we all knew and felt that in the President we possessed a friend who was ready to every appeal—who watched the struggle in silent awe, and whose hand was extended to avert the strife the moment it could be done without compromising our national honor.

When Lockley departed the church, his thoughts returned to the dead from the Civil War; or rather, Lockley considered the fate of war dead, generally. He recalled a story about Lord Byron who visited the battlefield of Waterloo in May 1816. While there, a tour guide had pointed out the grave of a friend he had known. Inspired by the visit, Byron incorporated the experience into several stanzas of his poem, “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.” At this point, Lockley (who had been born in London)—a veteran of a vastly different war—recalled those same lines:

There have been tears and breaking hearts for thee

And mine were nothing—had I such to give;

But when I stood beneath the fresh green tree

Which living waves where thou didst cease to live,

And saw around me the wide field revive

With fruits and fertile promise, and the Spring

Come forth her work of gladness to contrive,

With all her reckless birds upon the wing

I turned from all she brought to those she could not bring.

Lincoln’s death made Lockley recollect the fate of his unfortunate regiment, the 7^th New York Heavy Artillery. He remembered the confused attack at Alsop’s farm, where 76 men had been killed or wounded. He remembered the brief moment of triumph at Cold Harbor where his regiment had pierced the Confederate line, even when all the nearby veteran regiments refused to go forward. He remembered the death of Colonel Morris, felled by a rebel sharpshooter while passing between two rifle pits. He remembered the calamitous assault on June 16, 1864, when 301 members of his regiment were captured. He remembered the rout at Reams Station, when his regiment retreated, leaving behind its young commander, Major Edward Springsteed. He remembered it all, and now the tears began to flow.

Sometimes, one death can symbolize the death of a generation. 

At the end of his letter, Lockley tried to push these dour thoughts from his mind. In a few short weeks, he was going home to his wife. He had to focus on the positive. “What are national troubles to you?” he concluded. “Love to the babes—a rapturous kiss—ah—nice!”

In 1905, Frederick Lockley died a few days shy of his eighty-first birthday. He is buried in Oregon. His gravestone reads: “First Lieut. Co. F. 7^th  N.Y. Vol. Heavy Artillery. A Brave Soldier. A Good Citizen. A True Friend. His life was gentle and the elements So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up And sing to all the world, ‘This was a man’.” (A line from Shakespeare.)

Here, Baltimoreans await the arrival of Abraham Lincoln's funeral train. I assume Lt. Lockley is in the crowd.