DU |
Duke University |
EU |
Emory University |
GDAH |
Georgia Department of Archives and History |
HSSC |
Historical Society of Schuylkill County |
LV |
Library of Virginia |
MC |
Museum of the Confederacy |
PNB |
Petersburg National Battlefield Park |
SCL |
South Caroliniana Library |
UNCC |
University of North Carolina at Charlotte |
UVA |
University of Virginia |
VHS |
Virginia Historical Society |
1. Wilson, Baptized in Blood; Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy; Brundage, The Southern Past; Goldfield, Still Fighting the Civil War. A survey of this literature can be found in Brown, “Civil War Remembrance as Reconstruction.”
2. Blight, Race and Reunion.
3. Blair, Cities of the Dead.
4. John Neff also explores the limits of reconciliation in Honoring the Civil War Dead.
5. On the role of reunion in the formation of early National Military Parks, see Smith, This Great Battlefield of Shiloh; Smith, The Golden Age of Battlefield Preservation; Waldrep, Vicksburg’s Long Shadow. Historians who have examined Civil War memory through battlefield case studies include Reardon, Pickett’s Charge in History and Memory; Desjardin, These Honored Dead; Zenzen, Battling for Manassas; Kaser, At the Bivouac of Memory; Cimprich, Fort Pillow.
6. A growing literature about the way African Americans continued to remember and commemorate the Civil War has emerged in recent years. See Clark, Defining Moments; Fabre and O’Meally, History and Memory in African-American Culture; Brundage, Where These Memories Grow; Brundage, The Southern Past (see chapters 2, 4, and 6).
1. Bowley, “The Petersburg Mine,” 16; Greene, Civil War Petersburg, 207–10.
2. A thorough analysis of racism within the Union army and USCT regiments specifically can be found in Glatthaar, Forged in Battle.
3. Greene, Civil War Petersburg, 210.
4. Figures are from Grimsley, And Keep Moving On, 224–26.
5. For an overview of the initial stages of the Petersburg campaign, see Cullen, “The Siege of Petersburg”; Eicher, The Longest Night; Wert, The Sword of Lincoln, 368–75.
6. The most exhaustive account of earthworks in the area around Petersburg can be found in Hess, In the Trenches at Petersburg.
7. Cavanaugh and Marvel, The Battle of the Crater, 3–13; on Burnside’s role in the construction of the mine and subsequent attack, see Marvel, Burnside, 390–416. Hess, In the Trenches at Petersburg, 42.
8. Measurements of the mine can be found in Cavanaugh and Marvel, The Battle of the Crater, 11–12. Henry Pleasants to Uncle Henry Pleasants, July 23, 1864, HSSC.
9. On the details of Burnside’s initial plan of attack, see Slotkin, No Quarter, 131–34.
10. Historians have written extensively about the changing attitudes of Union soldiers on issues of race, emancipation, and the recruitment of African American soldiers. Mitchell, Civil War Soldiers; McPherson, For Cause and Comrades; Manning, What This Cruel War Was Over.
11. Trudeau, “A Stranger in the Club.”
12. Historians have emphasized the training that the soldiers of the Fourth Division received prior to battle; however, there is scant evidence that this training placed them in a unique position to secure the tactical objectives on the day of battle. Rather, their training functioned more as a refresher course in the manual of arms and various movements that the units would need to execute. See Slotkin, No Quarter, 96–102; Hess, In the Trenches at Petersburg, 87; Cavanaugh and Marvel, The Battle of the Crater, 13–23.
13. Marvel, Burnside, 393–95; on James Ledlie, see McWhiney and Jenkins, “The Union’s Worst General”; on operations north of the James at Deep Bottom, see Suderow, “Glory Denied.”
14. Sergeant William Russell, Company H, Twenty-sixth Virginia, Diary, July 30, 1864, PNB; Silliker, The Rebel Yell and the Yankee Hurrah, 185; on the physical dimensions of the Crater, see Cullen, “A Report on the Physical History of the Crater,” 1975, PNB; Jackson, “Report on Artillery Operations in the Battle of the Crater,” 1934, PNB.
15. Shaver, Gracie’s Alabama Brigade, 68; Stone, Wandering to Glory, 189; Power, Lee’s Miserables, 136.
16. Weld, War Diary and Letters, July 30, 1864, 353; Cavanaugh and Marvel, The Battle of the Crater, 37–43; Trudeau, The Last Citadel, 108–10.
17. Matthew N. Love letter, August 6, 1864, PNB; Letters of Charles J. Mills, HSSC.
18. Cavanaugh and Marvel, The Battle of the Crater, 42–53; Trudeau, Like Men of War, 236–43; Miller, The Black Civil War Soldiers of Illinois, 66–73; on Griffin’s attack, see Marvel, “And Fire Shall Devour Them.”
19. Cavanaugh and Marvel, The Battle of the Crater, 53–88; Trudeau, The Last Citadel, 117–18; for a detailed overview of Confederate casualties, see Suderow, “Confederate Casualties at the Crater.”
20. Bowley, “The Petersburg Mine,” 35. On Mahone’s counterattack, see Slotkin, No Quarter, 249–70.
21. Whitman, Civil War Letters, 127; Trudeau, The Last Citadel, 118–27; Cavanaugh and Marvel, The Battle of the Crater, 87–103.
22. Casualty figures taken from Slotkin, No Quarter, 318; and Hess, In the Trenches at Petersburg, 104.
23. Holt, A Mississippi Rebel in the Army of Northern Virginia, 288; Bartlett, Memoir, 119; Silliker, The Rebel Yell and the Yankee Hurrah, 187.
24. Matthew N. Love to his mother, August 6, 1864, PNB; Dorsey Binion to his sister, August 10, 1864, HSSC.
25. Hamilton R. Dunlap Diary, August 1, 1864, HSSC; Henry Family Letters, July 29–August 12, 1864, HSSC.
26. Miller, The Black Civil War Soldiers of Illinois, 65.
27. Quoted in Trudeau, “A Stranger in the Club,” 113.
28. Christian Recorder, June 18, 1864; Christian Recorder, November 4, 1865.
29. Quoted in Cornish, The Sable Arm, 27; Christian Recorder, August 6, 1864; Baltimore Sun, August 2, 1864; Daily Evening Bulletin, August 1, 1864; Harper’s Weekly, August 20, 1864.
30. Accounts from Cornish, The Sable Arm, 277–78.
31. Cleveland Fisher letter, August 8, 1864, HSSC; Silliker, The Rebel Yell and the Yankee Hurrah, 193.
32. Alonzo Rich letter, July 31, 1864, PNB; Charles J. Mills to his mother, July 31, 1864, Letters of Charles J. Mills, HSSC; Edward L. Cook letter, August 4, 1864, HSSC.
33. Edward K. Whitman letter, August 1, 1864, EU; letter from a Union soldier, August 6, 1864, Navarro College; Edward L. Cook letter, August 4, 1864; Kilmer, “The Dash into the Crater,” 775–76. See McPherson, For Cause and Comrades, 117–30.
34. John F. Sale to his aunt, August 24, 1864, John F. Sale Letters, LV.
35. Rugemer, The Problem of Emancipation, 57–91.
36. Ibid., 108–24; Oates, The First of Jubilee, 129–45.
37. Hadden, Slave Patrols, 167–96.
38. Thomas A. Smith to his sister, August 4, 1864, Thomas A. Smith Letters, UVA; Stevens, Captain Bill, 58; Holt, A Mississippi Rebel in the Army of Northern Virginia, 287.
39. Laban Odom to his wife, August 2, 1864, Laban Odom Letters, Microfilm Library, GDAH; James Paul Verdery to sister, July 31, 1864, Eugene and James Paul Verdery Papers, DU.
40. Matthew N. Love to his mother, August 6, 1864, PNB; Dorsey Binion to his sister, August 10, 1864, HSSC; William Pegram to his wife, August 1, 1864, in Carroll, War Letters, 99.
41. Lee Barfield, “Confederate Letters Written by Mr. Lee Barfield of Dooly County, Georgia, 1861–1865,” GDAH; A.T. Fleming to Mrs. N. J. R. Fleming, August 3, 1864, HSSC; Edmund Lockett Womack to Sallie, July 31, 1864, HSSC.
42. For a thorough analysis of the scale of the massacre of USCTs, see Suderow, “The Battle of the Crater.” Jerome B. Yates to his wife, August 3, 1864, in Evans, The 16th Mississippi Infantry, 281; Henry Van Lewvenigh Bird account, cited in Suderow, “The Battle of the Crater,” 223; James Paul Verdery to sister, July 31, 1864, Eugene and James Paul Verdery Papers, DU. William Mahone’s Virginia brigade may have understood the danger that armed blacks represented even more than the men of other units that participated in the battle. The five regiments that comprised the Virginia brigade all hailed from areas in the immediate vicinity, including Richmond, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Portsmouth. The Sixty-first Virginia was raised in Petersburg in October 1862. Both the Petersburg Grays and the Petersburg City Guard—both of which joined the Twelfth Virginia Infantry—were part of the security detail at the hanging of John Brown in Charles Town, Virginia, on December 2, 1859. Mahone himself was born and raised in Monroe in Southampton County where Turner’s Rebellion took place.
43. Rugemer, The Problem of Emancipation, 56; Oates, The First of Jubilee, 126.
44. John C. C. Sanders to Pa, August 3, 1864, J. Bailey Thompson Collection, Special Collections, University of Alabama; J. Edward Peterson to sister, August 1, 1864, J. Edward Peterson Papers, Moravian Music Foundation, Winston-Salem, N.C.
45. Alexander, Fighting for the Confederacy, 462; Pegram letter, in Carroll, War Letters, 100; Carmichael, Lee’s Young Artillerist, 13; Paul M. Higginbotham to his brother, August 1, 1864, VHS.
46. Petersburg Daily Express, August 1, 1864.
47. Richmond Dispatch, August 2, 1864.
48. Richmond Examiner, August 2, 1864.
1. Henderson, Petersburg in the Civil War, 135; Levine, Confederate Emancipation.
2. Greene, Civil War Petersburg, 260–72.
3. Weeks, Gettysburg, 13–35.
4. Robertson, “English Views of the Civil War.”
5. Wallace, History of Petersburg National Battlefield, 20.
6. A Guide to the Fortifications and Battlefields around Petersburg. On tourism in the South during the postwar period, see Silber, The Romance of Reunion, 66–92; Wallace, History of Petersburg National Battlefield, 19.
7. Trowbridge, The Desolate South, 115; Carter, Magnolia Journey, 20; Chamberlain, The Grand Old Man of Maine, 109.
8. W., letter, 1870, VHS.
9. William Griffith died in 1873, at which time control of the estate fell to his son Timothy, who was only twelve years old at the time of the battle. The young Griffith maintained the site along the lines set by his father, but worked to expand the number and variety of artifacts for display in the museum’s “relic house.” A collection of the museum’s relics, including two bullets that met point to point, was featured in the Century Company’s popular four-volume Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, published in 1888. Susie Griffith rented the battlefield out for the 1903 reunion and reenactment of the battle and reported a “very large crowd present.” The battlefield continued to generate revenue under the auspices of the Griffith family until 1925, when it was sold to the Crater Battlefield Association. Wallace, History of Petersburg National Battlefield; Susie R. Griffith to Mrs. M. A. Stephenson, November 10, 1903, Susie R. Griffith Papers, VHS.
10. Pollard, The Lost Cause, 537; Pollard, Southern History of the War, 197.
11. “The Battle of the Crater”; Happel, “John A. Elder.”
12. Hahn, A Nation under Our Feet, 206–15; Blair, Cities of the Dead, 23–49.
13. “Elder Picture—Virginia Artist,” Richmond Dispatch, September 28, 1869.
14. “The Battle of the Crater,” 98. Mahone purchased the painting for display in his Petersburg home. The painting is currently on display at the Commonwealth Club in Richmond, Virginia.
15. Blair, Cities of the Dead, 106–15.
16. Ibid., 119.
17. Linderman, Embattled Courage, 266–97. It should be noted that Linderman’s study focuses on Union veterans. For an interesting analysis of the continuing ties of esprit de corps in a Union regiment after the war, see Dunkelman, Brothers One and All, 251–77.
18. Petersburg Daily Index-Appeal, May 11, 1875.
19. “Second Re-union of Mahone’s Brigade Held on the Anniversary of the Battle of the Crater,” box 2, MC.
20. Ibid.; Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy, 40.
21. “Second Re-union of Mahone’s Brigade.”
22. McCabe, “Defense of Petersburg,” 289.
23. Stewart, Description of the Battle of the Crater, 14.
24. On Mahone’s life, see Blake, William Mahone of Virginia.
25. On Mahone’s military career, see ibid., 38–69.
26. See ibid., 79–85; Petersburg Daily Times, November 19, 1869, clipping in scrapbook 1, William Mahone Papers, DU.
27. Abram Fulkerson to William Mahone, February 19, 1869, Papers of McGill-Mahone Families, UVA. In addition to consolidation, Mahone also championed plans to bring immigrants to Virginia to further economic development and participated in a convention calling for direct trade with Europe. Clipping in scrapbook 1, William Mahone Papers, DU.
28. “The Battle of the Crater,” 98–102; Stephen May, “Flawed Look at How Artists Painted the Conflict,” Washington Times, September 19, 1998, B2; see letter from John Elder to William Mahone, February 13, 1869, Papers of McGill-Mahone Families, UVA. F. H. Smith to William Mahone, August 11, 1868, Papers of McGill-Mahone Families, UVA; Blake, William Mahone of Virginia, 59; John C. Brown to William Mahone, September 14, 1871, correspondence, box 3, William Mahone Papers, DU; see “Charter of the Confederate Burial and Memorial Association,” subject files, box 205, William Mahone Papers, DU.
29. R. A. Richardson to William Mahone, June 24, 1868, Papers of McGill-Mahone Families, UVA.
30. De Peyster, “A Military Memoir of William Mahone,” 26.
31. Ibid., 31.
32. Newspaper clippings are from the Mahone Scrapbook, Mahone Family Papers, LV; James B. Hope to William Mahone, April 13, 1875, Papers of Mc-Gill-Mahone Families, UVA. An account of the involvement of veterans from the Sixty-first Virginia Infantry can be found in Trask, 61st Virginia Infantry, 34–36.
33. “Second Re-union of Mahone’s Brigade.”
34. See the letter from James B. Hope to William Mahone, April 17, 1875, Papers of McGill-Mahone Families, UVA; in addition, see correspondence in boxes 4, 8, and 11, William Mahone Papers, DU. Mahone’s close supporters included Joseph Minnitree; V. D. Gromer, who would be Mahone’s choice for lieutenant governor in 1881; the future Readjuster governor William E. Cameron; and James B. Hope, who was editor of the Norfolk Landmark.
1. Robert W. Bagby, “Gen. Mahone and the Third Georgia Re-union,” Enterprise, July 27, 1883, clipping in scrapbook folder 4, Mahone Family Papers, 1866–1900, LV.
2. At least six Virginia politicians and editors engaged in duels in this period (Moore, “The Death of the Duel”). For a thorough overview of Lost Cause ideology, see Alan T. Nolan, “The Anatomy of the Myth,” in Gallagher and Nolan, The Myth of the Lost Cause, 11–34. The most thorough treatment of the Lost Cause movement can be found in Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy; Pressly, Americans Interpret Their Civil War, 101–26. On James Longstreet’s postwar career, see Piston, Lee’s Tarnished Lieutenant, 129–36; Wert, General James Longstreet, 407–27.
3. For two recent studies that examine conditions in the postwar South that shaped early histories of the war, see Blight, Race and Reunion, especially 293 for a brief reference to the influence of Mahone and the Readjusters on Lost Cause ideology, and Goldfield, Still Fighting the Civil War.
4. On Mahone, the state debt, and the Readjusters, see Dailey, Before Jim Crow; Hahn, A Nation under Our Feet, 367–93; Moore, Two Paths to the New South; Degler, Other South, 270–315. Quote from Degler, Other South, 276–78.
5. On the history of the funding debate and regional alignments, see Blake, William Mahone of Virginia, 156–95; Dailey, Before Jim Crow, 15–47; Degler, Other South, 280–81.
6. Bagby, John Brown and William Mahone, 5.
7. “General Mahone Can’t Understand the Times,” clipping in Harrison Southworth Scrapbook, UVA.
8. “The Soldier and the Debt,” 1880, clipping in scrapbook 1, William Mahone Papers, DU; “Sympathizing with Mahone,” New York Herald, September 6, 1880, reprinted from Southern Intelligencer, clipping in scrapbook 1, William Mahone Papers, DU.
9. Richmond State, September 1, 1880, clipping in scrapbook 13, box 210, DU; “Mahone as a Soldier,” Troy Messenger, April 1881, clipping in scrapbook 19, box 212, DU; Iowa Intelligencer, March 24, 1881, clipping in scrapbook 19, box 212, DU; Landmark, March 2, 1881, clipping in scrapbook 5, box 207, DU.
10. “Mahone’s Private Life,” Capital, May 22, 1881, clipping in scrapbook 19, box 212, DU; Wedge, May 1882, clipping in scrapbook 28, box 215, DU.
11. Blake, William Mahone of Virginia, 199–212.
12. Degler, Other South, 282–85; Blake, William Mahone of Virginia, 182–95; Lawrence L. Hartzell, “The Exploration of Freedom in Black Petersburg, Virginia, 1865–1902,” in Ayers and Willis, The Edge of the South, 140–43.
13. Statistics can be found in Dailey, Before Jim Crow, 67; Alexander, Race Man, 21.
14. Williams, A Sketch of the Life and Times of Capt. R. A. Paul, 16–17.
15. “Past and Present,” National Republican, April 22, 1881, clipping in scrapbook 19, box 212, DU; “The People of Virginia Must Save Virginia,” Richmond State, September 12, 1881, DU.
16. A Correspondence between Generals Early and Mahone, in Regards to the Military Memoir of the Latter, 1881, 3, DU.
17. “Longstreet, Mosby, and Now Mahone,” Charleston Mercury, reprinted from New York Herald, clipping in scrapbook 19, box 212, DU; “A Mahone Movement in Georgia,” Constitution, December 14, 1881, clipping in scrapbook 28, box 215, DU. On the spread of independent movements throughout the South, see Degler, Other South, 288–91.
18. Petersburg Index-Appeal, December 6, 1881. On Virginia’s legislative program to aid disabled Confederates, see Dickens, “An Arm and a Leg for the Confederacy”; Mahoneism Unveiled!
19. “A Soldier from Bethel to Appomattox,” Richmond Whig, May 30, 1872, clipping in scrapbook 29, box 215, DU; “William Mahone: One of His Old Brigade Speaks,” National Republican, August 1882, clipping in scrapbook 29, box 215, DU.
20. See Levin, “‘On That Day,’” 27–28.
21. Quoted in Bernard, War Talks of Confederate Veterans, 216–18.
22. “The Crater!” Richmond Commonwealth, August 21, 1880, clipping in William Mahone Scrapbook, Mahone Family Papers, LV. As a point of comparison, Carol Reardon concluded that Virginia’s veterans of Longstreet’s Corps maintained their allegiance throughout the postwar years (“James Longstreet’s Virginia Defenders,” in Gallagher, Three Days at Gettysburg, 245–69).
23. “The Crater!” Although it easy to view Weisiger’s account as politically motivated, his own understanding of the battle had changed little since April 1872, when Mahone requested an account to aid in his ongoing debate with Cadmus Wilcox and the fallout surrounding the De Peyster sketch. Weisiger claimed that he had received orders to wait for the command to charge but noticed Union soldiers forming for an attack and deemed it necessary to proceed on his own. Weisiger made no mention of having interacted with Mahone once through the covered way and poised for the attack. Given the confusion both in and around the crater, it is possible that Weisiger did not see Mahone taking steps to organize an attack. More important, there is no record of Mahone having responded to Weisiger’s letter (David Weisiger to William Mahone, April 25, 1872, correspondence, box 4, March–April 1872, William Mahone Papers, DU).
24. Clipping in William Mahone Scrapbook, Mahone Family Papers, LV.
25. “Gen. Mahone and the Crater,” Harrison Southworth Scrapbook, UVA.
26. On the Danville riot, see Dailey, Before Jim Crow, 119–25; Degler, Other South, 292–300.
27. Clippings in Harrison Southworth Scrapbook, UVA.
28. “Gen. Lee in Rockbridge,” clipping in scrapbook 32, box 216; “The Gallant Fitz in Buckingham Courthouse,” clipping in scrapbook 32, box 216, both in William Mahone Papers, DU.
29. Blake, William Mahone of Virginia, 234–54.
30. Noe, “‘Damned North Carolinians’ and ‘Brave Virginians.’”
31. Lane, “The Truth of History”; Noe, “‘Damned North Carolinians’ and ‘Brave Virginians,’” 1111.
32. Norfolk Landmark, October 9, 1895; Portsmouth Star, October 9, 1865.
1. Stith Bolling was the first president of the Petersburg National Battlefield Association. During the war he served as a captain in the cavalry and as an assistant adjutant general on the staff of Major General William Henry Fitzhugh Lee. “Cannon Flash and Roar on Historic Crater Battlefield,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, November 7, 1903.
2. “Cannon Flash and Roar,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, November 7, 1903; “The Battle of the Crater,” Petersburg Daily Index-Appeal, November 7, 1903.
3. “Cannon Flash and Roar.”
4. Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy, 140; Smith, Managing White Supremacy, 29.
5. “Cannon Flash and Roar”; “The Battle of the Crater.”
6. Rogers, “The Crater Battle,” 14; Wise, The End of an Era, 11–12.
7. Smith, Managing White Supremacy, 20, 26–28. See also Wallenstein, Blue Laws and Black Codes, 1–9; Dailey, Before Jim Crow, 161–69.
8. William H. Stewart, ed. “The Charge of the Crater: Personal Statements by Participants,” MC; Alfred Lewis Scott Memoir, Special Collections, VHS. Scott served in the Ninth Alabama Infantry Regiment.
9. Day, “Battle of the Crater,” 356; Vance, “Incidents of the Crater Battle,” 178.
10. Dodge, A Bird’s-Eye View of Our Civil War, 248–51.
11. Glatthaar, Forged in Battle, 231–64.
12. Thomas, “The Colored Troops at Petersburg,” 777.
13. D. E. Proctor, “The Massacre in the Crater,” National Tribune, October 17, 1907.
14. Frank Holsinger, “The Colored Troops at the Crater,” National Tribune, October 19, 1905; J. Q. Adams, “Battle of the Crater,” National Tribune, June 25, 1903.
15. Delavan Bates, “A Day with the Colored Troops,” National Tribune, January 30, 1908.
16. On Bowley’s view of the war, see the introduction to Watson, Honor in Command, 1–41. Quote in ibid., 139.
17. Ibid., 137; on the massacre of USCTs, see 152–56.
18. Henderson, Gilded Age City, 121–48.
19. Ibid., 311–26.
20. On Virginia’s black militia companies, see Cunningham, “They Are as Proud of Their Uniform as Any Who Serve Virginia.”
21. Quoted in Henderson, Gilded Age City, 330–31.
22. Petersburg Lancet article quoted in Kachun, Festivals of Freedom, 149.
23. Cunningham, “They Are as Proud of Their Uniform as Any Who Serve Virginia.”
24. Brundage, The Southern Past, 138–82.
25. Franklin, George Washington Williams; Williams, A History of the Negro Troops, xiii–xiv.
26. Williams, A History of the Negro Troops, 249–50; Thanks to Peter Luebke for pointing out this likely reason as to why Williams fails to reference the massacre at the Crater.
27. Johnson, A School History of the Negro Race, 3–4, 126–28.
28. Shaffer, After the Glory, 180–85.
1. New York Times, November 15, 1903; Foster, Ghosts of the Confederacy, 145–49; Traxel, 1898, 144–53.
2. Captain Fred E. Waldron to Ella Merrit, June 20, 1865, Ella Merrit File, SCL. Waldron’s letter went unanswered, and this lack of response prompted another letter, this time written from New York City in late September. It is unknown whether Waldron ever received a response to this second letter.
3. Petersburg Daily Index-Appeal, October 15, 1885.
4. Petersburg Daily Index-Appeal, May 4, 1887.
5. “To Buy the Crater Farm,” New York Times, March 1, 1896.
6. Gould, The Story of the Forty-eighth, 393; Veterans from the Forty-eighth Pennsylvania reached out to Confederate veterans at least one year before their trip to Petersburg. Captain John C. Featherston, who served in Mahone’s Division at the Crater, was invited to Pottsville, Pennsylvania, in April 1906 to deliver an address to help raise funds for their proposed monument.
7. Embick, Military History of the Third Division, 70–82.
8. “Famous Fight at the Crater,” New York Times, July 30, 1895; John S. Wood, “The Famous Crater and Other Landmarks May Soon Disappear,” New York Times, April 24, 1916.
9. John D. Wells, “The Scars of War: Battlefields of Northern Virginia Forty-five Years After,” Metropolitan, February 1907, 531–49.
10. Scott and Wyatt, Petersburg’s Story, 312–12, 340–41.
11. Carter R. Bishop, “The Cockade City of the Union: Petersburg, Virginia,” 1907, UVA. Bishop saw little action during the war. Admitted to the Virginia Military Institute in 1864, he was called into service at the beginning of April 1865 but was captured. In 1875 he returned to Petersburg to begin a career as a bank cashier and civil engineer. His rank was honorary.
12. The decline of Petersburg’s economy is tracked in Henderson, Gilded Age City, 473–79; Scott and Wyatt, Petersburg’s Story, 288–94.
13. Petersburg Daily Index-Appeal, May 3, 1907; speech by Walter A. Watson, Walter A. Watson Papers, VHS.
14. Petersburg Daily Index-Appeal, May 3, 1907; Petersburg Daily Index-Appeal, May 19, 1907.
15. Wallace, History of the Petersburg National Battlefield, 43–50.
16. Ibid., 50–52; George S. Bernard to Gordon McCabe, November 1, 1911, Virginia Miscellaneous Papers (Section 6), VHS.
17. Senator Wadsworth may have been interested due to the fact that his father, Major General James W. Wadsworth, was mortally wounded at the Wilderness, and later a fort constructed by Union forces on the Weldon Railroad in 1864 had been named for him. Wallace, History of Petersburg National Battlefield, 56–58; “Park at Old Petersburg,” New York Times, April 3, 1927.
18. Johnson, Douglas Southall Freeman, 54–57; Freeman, Robert E. Lee; Freeman, Lee’s Lieutenants.
19. Johnson, Douglas Southall Freeman, 78–80.
20. “Tragic Petersburg Crater Draws Civil War Pilgrims,” New York Times, August 23, 1925.
21. “Civil War Field for Golf Course,” New York Times, April 22, 1928.
22. “The ‘Crater’ and Battlefield Museum,” UNCC.
23. On at least two occasions during the association’s ownership of the battlefield, the bodies of soldiers were uncovered in the area around the crater. In March 1928, one Union soldier was unearthed and reburied by the A. P. Hill Camp. The flag that draped the casket was sent to the governor of Massachusetts. “Fuller Receives Flags of North and South in Boston Ceremony,” New York Times, March 6, 1928. Three years later, in March 1931, the bodies of twenty-nine Union soldiers were handed over to the A. P. Hill Camp for reburial. Carter Bishop requested that all Confederate veterans attend the service, which was to take place in Petersburg along with a company from the National Guard. See “To Honor Union Soldiers,” New York Times, April 9, 1931.
24. Wallace, History of the Petersburg National Battlefield, 96–97. Even after the National Park Service purchased the Crater, area residents pushed for the reopening of the golf course as a municipal project. Support for this project could be found in Petersburg’s civic organizations as well as the city council.
25. United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Markers for Erection in the Petersburg National Military Park, “Battle of the Crater,” Douglas Southall Freeman Papers, box 1, Battlefield Parks, 1934–1937, UVA.
26. Wallace, History of the Petersburg National Battlefield, 98–99.
27. Richmond Times-Dispatch, April 23, 1937.
28. “Will Re-enact Battle of Crater in Virginia,” New York Times, April 25, 1937; Richmond Times-Dispatch, April 30, 1937.
29. “Battle of the Crater Dialogue,” Douglas Southall Freeman Papers, box 5, UVA; “Battle of the Crater,” program, author’s collection.
30. Wallace, History of the Petersburg National Battlefield, 99–100; Richmond Times-Dispatch, April 30, 1937; Petersburg Progress-Index, August 2, 1937; Harrison, Home to the Cockade City, 87.
31. Richmond Times-Dispatch, April 29, 1937.
1. On postwar heritage vacations, see chapter 2 in Rugh, Are We There Yet?
2. In 1954, the National Park Service recorded 206, 864 visitors. Conway, History of Petersburg National Battlefield, 118.
3. Ibid., 100–102, 108–11.
4. Superintendent’s Annual Reports, PNB; Conway, History of Petersburg National Battlefield, 118–22. While Mahone’s role at the Crater was generally celebrated, he continued to come under fire in reference to his foray into Virginia politics and leadership of the Readjuster Party. As late as the 1940s, critics accused Mahone of disloyalty to his men and to the Commonwealth. See Harrison, Home to the Cockade City, 114–17; Moger, Virginia, 69.
5. “Interest in Park Dates from 1865,” newspaper and date unknown (c. 1956), in PNB files; Petersburg National Military Park, 1942, author’s collection; Lykes, Petersburg Battlefields, 12–22.
6. “Educational Value of Battlefield Park Stressed,” Petersburg Progress-Index, May 15, 1934; Superintendent’s Report (Monthly Narratives): Report on Administrative and Personnel, May 1937, PNB.
7. Conway, History of Petersburg National Battlefield, 138–39; Trevvett Matthews, “Battlefield Park Map Is Prized Possession,” unknown newspaper, PNB.
8. Conway, History of Petersburg National Battlefield, 4–7; Shackel, Memory in Black and White, 161.
9. Kammen, Mystic Chords of Memory, 593–94.
10. Report of the Preliminary Plans of the Virginia Civil War Commission to the General Assembly, 21.
11. Virginia’s Opportunity, 21.
12. “The Civil War Centennial in Petersburg”; Virginia’s Opportunity, 10.
13. Jon Wiener, “Civil War, Cold War, Civil Rights: The Civil War Centennial in Context, 1960–1965,” in Fahs and Waugh, The Memory of the Civil War in American Culture, 237.
14. Cook, Troubled Commemoration, 88–113.
15. On the 1961 Manassas reenactment, see Shackel, Memory in Black and White, 161–65; Bamberger quoted in Arsenault, Freedom Riders, 335.
16. Robert Cook, “Unfinished Business: African Americans and the Civil War Centennial,” in Grant and Parish, Legacy of Disunion, 57; Randolph quote in Cook, “(Un)Furl That Banner,” 897; “The Civil War Centennial and the Negro,” 3.
17. Cornish, The Sable Arm; Quarles, The Negro in the Civil War.
18. “Tan Troops Played Vital Role in Both Armies of Civil War,” Richmond Afro-American, February 4, 1961; “Colored Troops in Forefront on the Day That Richmond Fell,” Richmond Afro-American, March 16, 1963.
19. Lerone Bennett Jr., “The Negro in the Civil War,” Ebony, June 1962, 132–37; “These Truly Are the Brave,” Ebony, August 1968, 164–77; “Paradox of the Black Soldier” editorial can be found on 142 of the latter issue.
20. Letters to Ebony quoted in Cook, Troubled Commemoration, 168–69.
21. “Yesterday in Negro History,” Jet, August 1, 1963, 11; “Seeks Unclaimed Bonuses of Civil War Ancestors,” Jet, January 23, 1964, 10.
22. Interview with Frank Smith, July 23, 2007, Washington, D.C.
23. Howard N. Meyer, “The Neglected Tool,” Crisis, November 1963, 529–32.
24. The Negro History Bulletin, December 1961, 58; editorial by Benjamin Quarles in Negro History Bulletin, December 1960, 50, 52. Examples of textbooks used at this time include Morris Goodman, A Junior History of the American Negro, vol. 1 (New York: Fleet, 1969): “The Negro enlisted man was a fine soldier. He went into the service knowing what he was fighting for: to gain self respect, the respect of others, and a new chance for his sons and daughters. The Negro soldiers fought nobly, even though their training and supplies were not as good as those whites received” (115).
25. Editorial in Freedomways, Winter 1963, 5; Cook, “Unfinished Business,” 61–63.
26. Pritched and Toppin, “The Relationship between Black Voting Power and Desegregation in Petersburg,” 2–3.
27. Williams, “The Civil Rights Movement in Richmond and Petersburg,” 18–36.
28. Arsenault, Freedom Riders, 114–17.
29. “The Event Deserves Attendance,” Petersburg Progress-Index, July 29, 1964.
30. Stephens, “Participation of Negro Troops in ‘the Battle of the Crater,’” 97.
1. “New Historical Markers at Park to Cite Blacks,” Petersburg Progress-Index, July 9, 1974; “Battlefield Park Named as Site of Black History,” Petersburg Progress-Index, July 16, 1974; LeeNora Everett, “Petersburg Battlefield Stressing Black Soldier,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, July 14, 1975. The marker was not formally dedicated until 1988 owing to financial difficulty.
2. For a thorough analysis of post–civil rights historical revisions to public and private historical institutions, see Brundage, The Southern Past, 270–315; on Colonial Williamsburg, see Greenspan, Creating Colonial Williamsburg, specifically chapters 6 and 7; Joanne Melish, “Recovering (from) Slavery: Four Struggles to Tell the Truth,” in Horton and Horton, Slavery and Public History, 103–33.
3. Brundage, The Southern Past, 295.
4. On the historiography of slavery, see Peter Kolchin, “Slavery and Freedom in the Civil War South,” in McPherson and Cooper, Writing the Civil War, 241–60; on recent developments in Civil War history, see Joseph T. Glatthaar, “The ‘New’ Civil War History: An Overview,” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, July 1991, 339–69.
5. “Afro-American History Interpretation at Selected National Parks” (report prepared by research team, Department of History, Howard University, 1978), 145, PNB.
6. Ibid., 146, 151.
7. The lack of scholarship related to black history available for purchase was part of a much larger problem concerning the content of history textbooks used in public schools throughout Virginia. In 1948, the Virginia General Assembly, controlled by the Democratic Party, created a textbook commission to impose its own version of history in Virginia public schools. The assembly mandated that students—both black and white—learn the state’s history from books authorized and edited by the commission. Changes to these textbooks were made during the 1950s and 1960s and reflected a traditional Lost Cause version of slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction. Even by the end of the 1970s students in scattered Virginia counties could be found reading the popular title Virginia: History, Government, Geography, by Francis B. Simkins, Spotswood H. Jones, and Sidman P. Poole. Students learned that during the 1850s slaves “were not worried by the furious arguments going on between Northerners and Southerners over what should be done with them. In fact, they paid little attention to these arguments.” See Dean, “‘Who Controls the Past Controls the Future.’”
8. “Afro-American History Interpretation,” 147. For a survey of this literature, see Kolchin, “Slavery and Freedom in the Civil War South.” On the historiography of slavery through the 1980s, see Peter J. Parish’s bibliographical essay in Slavery, 167–88.
9. Interview with Mel Reid, Jerry Brown, and Ben Hawley, July 23, 2007, Washington, D.C. None of the individuals interviewed remembers learning about black Civil War soldiers in primary school, which suggests that historians use caution in assessing the influence of publications from the 1960s in the nation’s public schools. The wide gap between professional historians and the general public can be seen in the critical assessments that both movies received following their release. See Leon F. Litwack, “The Historian, the Filmmaker, and the Civil War,” in Toplin, Ken Burns’s The Civil War, 119–40; Martin H. Blatt, “Glory: Hollywood History, Popular Culture, and the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment,” in Blatt, Brown, and Yacovone, Hope and Glory, 215–35.
10. “Black, Blue, and Gray: The Other Civil War,” Ebony, February 1991, 98–105; “History Buffs Keep Memory of Civil War Soldiers Alive,” Jet, March 12, 1990, 32; interview with Frank Smith, July 23, 2007.
11. “Memorial for Black Patriots Announced in Nation’s Capital,” Jet, September 2, 1991, 31; “Ceremony Held for 100th Anniversary of Monument Honoring Famed Black Regiment,” Jet, June 23, 1997, 20–21.
12. Goldfield, Still Fighting the Civil War, 283–89.
13. Marie Tyler-McGraw, “Southern Comfort Levels: Race, Heritage Tourism, and the Civil War in Richmond,” in Horton and Horton, Slavery and Public History, 151–67; on recent debates about the public display of the Confederate flag, see Coski, The Confederate Battle Flag, specifically chapters 9–13.
14. Allen B. Ballard, “The Demons of Gettysburg,” New York Times, May 30, 1999.
15. Interview with John Hennessy, July 18, 2007, Fredericksburg, Va. In May 2005 the Petersburg National Battlefield cosponsored a two-day conference at Virginia State University on African Americans and the Civil War. Topics focused on a wide range of subjects relating to the African American experience during the Civil War and postwar years.
16. Sutton, Rally on the High Ground; “Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. Wins Move for National Sites to Recognize Slavery’s Role in Civil War History,” Jet, May 29, 2000, 20.
17. For a thorough analysis of the reactions to the National Park Service decision, see Dwight T. Pitcaithley, “‘A Cosmic Threat’: The National Park Service Addresses the Causes of the American Civil War,” in Horton and Horton, Slavery and Public History, 169–86.
18. Getz, “Looking to the Higher Ground.”
19. Petersburg National Battlefield: Final General Management Plan, 39. Much has been made of the significance of the Rally symposium in leading to more recent shifts in interpretation, but it should be noted that many battlefield sites were already in the process of expanding their site interpretations to include subjects related to the African American experience. Interview with John Hennessy, July 18, 2007.
20. Petersburg National Battlefield: Educator’s Guide, 8–9, 18–19.
21. Interview with Mel Reid, Jerry Brown, and Ben Hawley, July 23, 2007; interview with John Hennessy, July 18, 2007.
22. Petersburg National Battlefield: Final General Management Plan, 39–40. Letters of response to the Park Service’s proposal can be found on 82–168. F. M. Wiggins, “Retracing the Path of Slavery,” Petersburg Progress-Index, July 8, 2007. A calendar of events focused on the home front during the war and sponsored by the PNB includes the programs “Life and Work of Petersburg’s Enslaved” and “Siege of Petersburg: Let Your Voices Be Heard!” Brochures can also be found in the community with titles such as “African-Americans at Petersburg” and “African Americans on Lee’s Retreat, April 1865.”
23. Interview with Richard Stewart, July 16, 2007, Petersburg, Va.; interview with Rosalyn Dance, July 16, 2007, Petersburg, Va. Ms. Dance currently serves as a state delegate from Virginia’s Sixty-third District.
24. Mary Ellen Bushy, Ann Creighton-Zollar, Lucious Edwards Jr., L. Daniel Mouer, and Robin L. Ryder, “African Americans in Petersburg: Historic Contexts and Resources for Preservation Planning, Research and Interpretation” (report presented to the City of Petersburg, Department of Planning and Community Development, 1994), 1–3.
25. Interview with Rosalyn Dance, July 16, 2007.
26. For analysis of the film’s historical themes from Ed Ayers, Gary Gallagher, and Stephen Cushman, see Bob Thompson, “Hollywood as ‘History’: Big Battle Is Impressive, but Where’s Slavery?” Seattle Times, December 27, 2003.
27. Edward Sebesta and James Loewen, “Dear President Obama: Please Don’t Honor the Arlington Confederate Monument,” History News Network, George Mason University, http://hnn.us/articles/85884.html (accessed August 2, 2010). The memorial was developed by the African American Civil War Memorial Freedom Foundation and Museum and was transferred to the National Park Service on October 27, 2004. The National Mall and Memorial Parks of the National Park Service currently manage the site.
28. Gallagher, “Reevaluating Virginia’s ‘Shared History.’”