White House of the Confederacy May 1861 – April 1865

was located in Montgomery Alabama, and it served in this capacity for only a few  months in early 1861. On the other hand, the second white house was in Richmond, Va., and served as the home of President Jefferson  Davis and his family. It was built in 1818 by Dr. John Brockenbrough.  Eventually, after renovation, the house was rented to the Davis family  and it became the social center of the Confederacy as well as serving as the unofficial command center of the Confederacy.  Davis, a West Point graduate, often received and held conferences there  with heads of state as well as his cabinet members and war generals  such as R.E. Lee and J. Johnston. 

George  Patton, whose dad commanded the 22nd Virginia infantry. George was, in  turn, the father of his name sake who commanded the US 3rd Army in World War 2. Two additional children were born to the Davis family in the white house including William and Winnie. Very sadly, son Joe died after a 15‘ fall from the east portico. President Davis suffered a plethora of health problems recurring bouts  of malaria, facial neuralgia, cataracts, unhealed wounds from his  service in the Mexican war, insomnia and bone spurs in his heel. All of  this is not to mention ever increasing problems trying to maintain  momentum in the war effort. 

Shortly  after the fall of Richmond and just 10 days before he was shot,  President Lincoln visited the Confederate White House on April 4, 1865.  He happened to be in nearby City Point and  traveled up the James River to tour the captured city and spend a few hours at the White House. The White House is now a museum and is located in Richmond within the sprawling medical campus of VCU. 

was present  during all events occurring during the life of the Confederacy at the  White House including the demise of Richmond by the Confederate army. It  was planted  in 1824, it is believed, to commemorate the last visit of M. Lafayette to the USA. He and 5000 French soldiers defended Richmond from the British in 1791. The tree is located just to the south side of the  building in the garden and this older photo (far right side-see black bar) was taken just after the fall of Richmond. It looks as if a Union sentinel is positioned at the entrance.  A dead limb from  this witness tree (current tree) was used to make this gorgeous ink pen and it was found by Dennis Gallahan of Spotsylvania,  Va.  

was  from just south of Charlottesville. He led his famous partisan ranger unit called Mosby’s Rangers, 43 Battalion of the Virginia Cavalry, operated mostly in the northern counties of  Virginia. Mosby took his cavalry (1900 men) on raids known for their quickness and eventually he was given the sobriquet the “Gray Ghost.”  His style and orneriness sprang from his younger days being bullied at the U. of Virginia where one day he shot his  adversary with his pistol in the head. He got fined and imprisoned.  Eventually, with kindness from the governor and the prosecuting attorney he studied law and became an attorney.  

was  that on March 9, 1863. He and the rangers did a very gutsy raid on  Fairfax Court House Va without firing a shot. Union General E.H.  Stoughton was captured whilst sleeping and the raiders also took 58 horses. Lincoln was totally upset and proclaimed – “I can make more generals, but horses  cost money.”

After a raid, Mosby and his men would escape from pursuing Yankees by blending in with the local people in their towns and farms. In this case the Yankees did a thorough search of every house including the big house - Old Denton, The Plains, Va.

looking for Mosby he crawled out the window into the limbs of a nearby walnut tree where he had refuge until the soldiers departed. This home is now on the National Register of Historic places and this  witness tree is the 7 largest walnut tree in Virginia. A reading of Mosby and his rangers is highly recommended. Mr. Garon Stutzman supplied the wood for the pen entered on this site. Mr. Luke  Greer modified every pixel in this photograph to make it the best known  image of J.S. Mosby. 

to General Grant on April 9, 1865, a larger group of north and south  combatants still fought in North Carolina with other battles still raging in the West. Likewise, in Washington D.C. other nastiness was brewing in the hearts of those wishing great harm to the Union. Maryland itself was a hot bed of unrest and many were not loyal to the Union. One such  group was the Surratt family, who symphonized with the Confederacy and ran a tavern on the outskirts of our nation’s capital in Maryland. The Tavern served as a meeting point for Southern spies to exchange information. 

came upon financial problems, and rented out the tavern and moved to Washington D.C. where she frequently met with Booth. At about 10:30PM on April 14, 1865 Booth shot the  President in the back of his head at Ford’s Theater, ran across the  stage and into the back alley where David Harold was waiting with their horses.  Harold and Booth arrived at Surratt’s Tavern at about midnight to secure pre-arranged guns and ammunition. One account says Booth never got off his horse, but accepted a drink of  whiskey and said “I think I got him”!  From here the two men rode off into the night. Later, Mary Surratt was accused of conspiracy and was the first woman ever executed by the Federal Government. On  the federal trial commission was non – other than General Lew Wallace of Indiana.

is a catalpa witness tree that measures 5 feet, 11 inches at the trunk.  A photo of the tree with the tavern in the background is shown here. A  copy of a photo of Ms Surratt is an inset to the  left. The top of the tree had most likely been struck by lightning since the primary truck is missing and burnt wood is apparent at its base.  This disregarded piece of history was reclaimed to make the Surratt’s Tavern witness tree pen. Mr. Dennis Gallahan of Spotsylvania ,Va. provided enormous help with this entry. 

 under the direction and financing by William Fitzhugh atop of Stafford  Heights overlooking Fredericksburg. The Fitzhughs had relatives and were good friends with well-known Virginians such as George Washington, Tom Jefferson and George Mason. The Lacy family eventually purchased the manor but abandoned it during the Civil War during which time it served briefly as Union headquarters and as a major Union hospital during the battle for Fredericksburg. In the spring of 1862, when Federal forces occupied the area under General McDowell, Abraham Lincoln visited the general at Chatham and thus gave it the distinction of being only one of three places hosting both Lincoln and Washington. 

one of the greatest poets in American History came to Chatham to search for his wounded brother. The pain suffering and anguish that  he witnessed at the Chatham “Hospital” affected him profoundly and ultimately led him to serve as a nurse for the remainder of the war. At one point he  wrote - “At  the foot of a tree, immediately in front, a heap of feet, legs, arms, and human fragments, cut, bloody, black and blue, swelled and sickening–in the garden near, a row of graves.” Apparently, these human remains were being tossed out of the window landing near a tree. 

still present on the manor grounds that witnessed these events are the two catalpa trees that are growing close to a manor –house window on the front lawn. But it turns out that a number of other trees were nearby at the time and these were the two black  locusts and one white ash that still grace the front lawn manor grounds over- looking the river. Each has been examined by the annual ring dating method and they all date to the early 19th century. The photo show the manor and the white ash (lower left) the catalpa (upper right) and the black locust (lower right). Pens made from dead plant limbs are pictured here with the black locust on top and the white ash as the bottom image.

is located in central Virginia at the confluence of the James and Appomattox rivers. It was the site of Union General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant's field headquarters during the 9 month siege of Petersburg nearing the end of the civil war. City Point became a crucial Union port and supply hub. At least 100,000 Union troops and 65,000 animals were supplied out of the town, and in August 1864 

detonated a time bomb on a docked barge, hoping to disrupt work at the port. As many as fifty-eight people were killed, but the wharf was soon rebuilt and service to the front continued. City Point also was the site of the sprawling Depot Field Hospital, which served 29,000 patients. President Lincoln visited General Grant here on June 20 -22 -1864  and again March 24 – April 8, 1865. 

grew a sycamore tree as shown in the photo. The tree died in the early part of the 21st  century, and its wood was parceled out to Mr Stan Lucien of Maine to make craft items. I contacted him and did  a trade for witness woods from Maryland and Virginia for several pen blanks of the City Point sycamore. It is truly a classic tree given all of the many events that it witnessed over the course of nearly 9 months at a crucial time in the Civil War. 

General Grant doggedly pursued General Lee’s forces through Northern Virginia starting at the Battle of the Wilderness, then Spotsylvania, followed by the North Anna and the deadly encounter with the Confederates at Cold Harbor. Grant ended up crossing the James River and putting a 10 month siege on Petersburg with Lee’s forces literally frozen to do any maneuvering.

General Lee used the building at Violet Bank as his headquarters until late in 1864. He heard the thundering roar of tons of powder exploding at the crater when it occurred on July 30 that took hundreds of Union and Confederate lives. General Lee knew this witness magnolia tree since he saw it every day at his Violet Bank office. .

 apparently was given to this place because there used to be an amazing bloom of violet flowers on the bank of the property every year. The witness tree is a cucumber magnolia that was planted in 1718 and one of the largest of its type in the world. It is probably the oldest witness tree wood represented in the entire collection of witness pens. In early 2020, I contacted Wendy Alvis at what is now the Violet Bank Museum and she kindly collected dead limbs from the tree and sent them to me. A beautiful pen was made from one of the larger limb pieces that I received.

on the banks of the upper reaches of the Rappahannock River. As such it was a strategic location and supply depot of the Union Army in May of 1864. Likewise, literally anything going on in nearby Fredericksburg spilled over to Port Royal in 1862 and 1863. It was during this time early in the war General Jackson’s Corps stayed in the Port Royal Area. 

during the Civil War and writes in her diary that at times shelling in Port Royal was fast and furious.  She also writes that she hosted many Confederate officers such as JEB  Stuart, Rooney Lee and Major Pelham -the boy wonder artillerist. The Plantation carried all of the marks of privilege and high breeding.  Obviously, any visitor would have seen and walked along the paths of Gay Mont. 

were designed and planted by J.H. Bernard. The paths of the gardens were lined with American Boxwood's which is a small important shrub in the area of tide water America. Left untouched for hundreds of years the trees  eventually grew larger and died or were replaced. A beautiful piece of American boxwood from one of these historic trees at Gay Mont was supplied to me by Thomas Jewell through his wife Trevy of Historic woods of America. 

formally the Libby & Son Ship Chandlers & Grocers, It was the only building in the area to have running water, was considered an ideal site by the Confederate authorities for a prison for Union soldiers. The building was 3 stories at the front, 4 stories in the rear, and measured almost 45,000 square feet. By 1863, the rooms became so crowded that the prisoners had to sleep "spoon-fashion". They were head to foot in alternating rows along the floor. They were packed so tightly that when they slept, it became the responsibility of the highest ranking man in each room to call out "spoon over”! This was done throughout the night to enable everyone to roll over in unison.  

 cold, and lice, yet many were able to buy extra provisions and receive packages from home. The prisoners suffered from the intense cold weather. The windows at the prison were broken out during the summer for relief from the heat. Smallpox and other diseases were increasing dramatically. By 1863, the daily rations were getting smaller and then consisted of a couple of ounces of meat, 1/2 pound of bread, and a small cup of beans or rice. Conditions at Libby were not much different than conditions in tens of other facilities both North and South, basically miserable! 

the Libby prison was dismantled and shipped to Chicago where it was reconstructed as a museum (tourist site) for the Chicago Colombian Exposition in 1893. Ultimately, it was torn down and sold for parts and artifacts. Mr. Cary Delery of the Historical Shop in New Orleans had a piece of a yellow pine beam from the prison. He made it available to me as trade for making some pens from this wood for sale in his shop. I received it in early 2018.

in May of 1863 was just as bloody as the  Battle of Vicksburg which occurred in early July. It turns out that houses near or on battlefields commonly served as headquarters and frequently as hospitals for the Union or Confederate forces. Confederate General Pemberton's field headquarters was established in the Isaac Roberts house on the morning of May 16, 1863. (The site is private property and inaccessible to the  public.) 

as General Bowen's division swept past  to regain Champion Hill, Pemberton waved his hat to inspire the men. A  group of ladies standing nearby sang "Dixie."  When Bowen's counterattack was driven back, Pemberton sadly issued orders for his army to retire from the field. Late that night, Grant made the Roberts house his headquarters, but as it had been converted into a Confederate field hospital,  the Union commander slept on the porch. A view of the champion hill battlefield as it presently appears.

was supplied by Mr. John Spicer. The sycamore wooden piece of the house was  salvaged before the house fell into complete destruction by the elements of nature. One can see the darkened exposed wooden surface on the top end of the pen and the fine characteristic wood grain of sycamore on the barrel piece of the pen.

in the Virginia counties of Spotsylvania and Orange, is significant to the nation because of the role the house and grounds played during the American Civil War. Much of the Battle of the Wilderness was fought on the plantation itself. Ellwood was built in the 1790s by William Jones and has been a working farm ever since. The house served as a Confederate hospital after the Battle of Chancellorsville (1863) and as Gen. G.K. Warren's headquarters during  the Battle of the Wilderness(1864). Within a year’s span two flags flew over the house 

and the blue swallowtail flag of the U.S.  Army of the Potomac’s Fifth Corps. In 1863, it served as a Confederate recovery hospital for six months following the Battle of  Chancellorsville. The family cemetery became the burial site for  General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s amputated left arm. One year later Union General Gouverneur K. Warren set up his headquarters in the parlor here. 

was a giant of a tree both in size and what it witnessed of the last 170 years. It overlooked the wilderness Run valley of Spotsylvannia and Orange counties Va. A specimen piece was obtained from Historic woods of Fredericksburg Va. after the tree died. It is one of the most beautiul pens in the collection based on its graceful lines, deep brown offset coloration and fine figuring.