The Albemarle

The 3/8 scale replica of the CSA ram Albemarle at Plymouth, NC. Near here, the ironclad rammed and sank the Southfield and drove the Miami downriver. Later, the Albemarle was itself sunk by a spar torpedo on a steam launch commanded by Captain William B. Cushing. Cushing ran the launch over an anti-torpedo screen of chained logs and personally detonated the spar torpedo. while he swam to safety, several members of his crew drowned or were captured.

Visit the replica near the Port o' Plymouth museum. Also check out a full size replica of Cashing's launch at the Maritime museum, also in Plymouth.

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South Mills

Three miles south of the locks of the Dismal Swamp Canal near South Mills,NC, rebel forces under Ambrose Wright turned back the advance of Federal forces under general Jesse Reno, sent to destroy the locks.

Men's forces, the Ninth New York in advance, approached South Mills on April 19, 1862. The rebels had filled a ditch in front of their position with burning fence rails, obscuring their position.

Soon after the Ninth crossed the ditch, the combined fire of the rebel 3rd Georgia infantry and Giles's battery swept their ranks. Losses mounted, and the Ninth moved to the right, sheltering in a nearby woods. Some time later, the Sixth New. Hampshire turned the rebel right. Wright withdrew, ending contest.

The following day Reno, concerned over rumors of rebel reinforcements, withdrew southward. Though he claimed success for having driven the enemy from the field, he had failed to damage or destroy the canal. The threat of Confederate ironclads descending the canal never materialized, however, as Norfolk fell shortly thereafter.

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Civil War Weekend 2010

Tomorrow I set out on my umpteenth annual Civil War weekend, this time to eastern North Carolina. Sites on this one include: South Mills, Plymouth (and the Albermarle replica), New Berne, Fort Macon, Fort Fisher, Fort Anderson, and Kinston (CSS Neuse). We may take in Bethesda Church on the way down or back, plus any Civil War Trails sites we happen across.

I'm looking forward to a a great weekend. I plan to try a bit of "in the moment blogging" from my Droid - should be interesting.

SHAF Tour - Harpers Ferry

From SHAF Tour 2010

I will cover the SHAF tour of South Mountain and Harpers Ferry in several posts focused on the various separate engagements covered by the tour. An overview of Harpers Ferry seems appropriate to start, what with the concern over development plans for Bolivar Heights. The picture above shows the position of A.P. Hill's artillery on the Murphy Farm. Hill's seizure of this position flanked Bolivar Heights and sealed the fate of the garrison. It is worth noting the Murphy Farm represents a significant preservation victory made possible by the cooperation of the NPS and the Murphy family.

One of the themes of the tour highlighted the need to reappraise the performance of Federal and Confederate commanders during the campaign. Dixon S. Miles, the Federal commander at Harpers Ferry, is almost universally regarded as an "imbecile," but as Dr. Dennis Frye points out, he was forced to defend the town. His choices of Maryland Heights and Bolvar Heights for defensive positions made the best of a bad situation. Miles had perhaps 14,000 troops, most of which were green, and many of them had been in the army for only 3 weeks - barely enough time to learn how to load and fire a musket, let alone maneuver in formation.

The loss of Maryland Heights to troops under Lafayette McLaws seriously compromised Miles's defense, but this was perhaps unavoidable given the inexperience of Miles's command. With hope for relief fading, Miles permitted 1400 cavalry under Colonel Grimes Davis to attempt a breakout. The cavalry had been posted on the Murphy farm, guarding the southern flank of Miles's defensive line. As the cavalry made their escape in darkness, the infantry sent to replace them was recalled to Bolivar Heights to shore up the main line against an apparent night assault.

This night assault was a diversion planned by Jackson to cover the advance of A. P. Hill's division to the Murphy Farm, and it worked brilliantly. Frye considers this one of Jackson's most ingenious strategems, and suggests that Jackson receives little credit for it because of the low opinion most historians hold of his opponent. Given a reappraisal of Miles's efforts, Jackson's success at Harpers Ferry attains new significance. He coordinated three separate columns in a difficult convergence, disrupted his opponents defensive arrangements with a clever ruse, and seized a key position that made the enemy's line, and ultimately the town of Harpers Ferry, untenable. His efforts resulted in the largest surrender of U.S. forces prior to World War II.

Today, Harpers Ferry National Historic park includes portions of School House Ridge, Bolivar Heights, the Murphy Farm, and Maryland Heights. The battlefield portions of the park exist through the combined efforts of private individuals, CWPT, and the National Park Service. As I rethink my own opinions of Miles and Jackson's operations before Harpers Ferry, I am grateful for the areas that have been preserved, and hopeful for those that have not.

Harpers Ferry Update from CWPT

From SHAF Tour 2010

As noted in my earlier post, I received a rapid response to an email I sent to CWPT about the risk to Bolivar Heights at Harpers Ferry. Here's the situation as described by Jim Campi of CWPT:

"CWPT is part of a coalition of groups that is fighting to save of the Old Standard Tract. The coalition has won a few fights to prevent development of this key property over the past 5-6 years. But, as you know, we have to win EVERY attempt to develop this historic parcel – the developers only have to win once."

Jim also forwarded a notice about several local meetings to raise awareness and determine courses of action to combat the backhanded and arbitrary methods used by the developer and the State of West Virginia that usurped zoning juridiction from the local government:

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STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA PREEMPTS LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

Developers of the Old Standard Quarry twice tried to upgrade the density of use, and thus the value, of the nearly 400-acre Old Standard Quarry on the edge of Harpers Ferry. Annexation to the City of Charles Town some five miles distant was tried without success. They also sought rezoning from Jefferson County without success. Then it recently was discovered that they had quietly pushed through state legislation that exempted “brownfield districts” from state planning and zoning laws, and had regulations implemented making themselves governments unto themselves free to develop the land any way they wished free of local control. The scheme was only exposed when it was discovered that a final plat subdividing the property for over 2,000,000 square feet of commercial space had been recorded in June 2010.

ACT NOW! YOUR PARTICIPATION AND ATTENDANCE IS ESSENTIAL!

The Jefferson County Commission is working hard to unravel these schemes through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and other means, and has scheduled two important meetings with the state delegation to figure out how these circumstances came about and how to reverse course and restore local planning control. Here’s the schedule:

August 16 (Monday) 3:00-5:00 p.m. Overview of Old Standard Application for “Brownfield District” designation.
August 19 (Thursday) 3:00 p.m. for discussion with state delegation about how this legislative scheme evolved

Both meetings are at the Charles Town Library at the corner of Washington and Samuel Streets in Charles Town, West Virginia

A STRONG SHOWING OF CITIZEN SUPPORT IS ESSENTIAL TO BACK UP OUR LOCAL OFFICIALS. BRING YOURSELF, BRING YOUR FRIENDS!
BE THERE AND BE PART OF A SHOW OF SOLIDARITY!

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What can you do? 1. Attend the meetings, if possible. 2. Support CWPT. They understand the situation and context and have been involved with local organizations in the struggle against this development threat for the past several years.

What's in this for you besides preserving hallowed ground? I will send Guild Press's The Civil War CD-ROM to the first person to email me at cwbattlefields@gmail.com a donation receipt from CWPT dated on or after August 5, 2010 in the amount of $50.00 or more. The CD contains the Army Official Records and a few aditional supporting works. Who can't use a digitized copy of the OR's?

Harper Ferry Update

I received a response from Jim Campi of CWPT this morning. They are working on this one, and Jim forwarded some information on local meetings being held to discuss this issue. I will post the details later today.

I am also trying out a Blogger app
for my new Droid. I'm hoping it will come in handy on my upcoming Civil War weekend.

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The Siege of Harpers Ferry 2010

From SHAF Tour 2010

Colonel Dixon S. Miles positioned his Federal troops along Bolivar Heights to defend Harpers Ferry against Stonewall Jackson's wing of the Army of Northern Virginia. He faced long odds in what many historians consider an indefensible position.

We face those same odds today in the wake of development plans for the section of Bolivar Heights pictured above. The cleared section of the ridge has been slated for industrial / commercial development. In the words of Dr. Dennis Frye, "picture a super-Wal-Mart, then picture 16 buildings of that size and cover that ridge in the distance with them." This is the threat.

If you had heard the passion in Dennis's voice when he spoke about this, you would understand his frustration with recent attention given to the Wilderness Wal-Mart, sited close to the Wilderness Battlefield, when actual battlefield land at Harpers Ferry is about to be paved over and lost forever.

How we got to this point is irrelevant. And it's possible this battle may be lost. The zoning is in place and the preservation community does not seem to be mobilized for this fight. So consider this a call to action. As soon as I find out more, I will post it here. Let's hope CWPT is aware of this crisis and planning a campaign to prevent the destruction of a critical portion of a battlefield that witnessed the largest surrender of united States forces prior to World War II.

UPDATE: Check out Harry Smeltzer's post over at Bull Runnings, which has some additional detail on the developers responsible for this mess.