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  • Civil War Pens Home
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Chatham Manor and the Battle of Fredericksburg, Va.

This gorgeous stately manor was built in 1771

 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. 

Interestingly, Walt Whitman

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. 

Now, the most likely trees

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.

Windsor Mansion and the Battle of Port Gibson, MS. 1861-1863

This stately mansion built near Port Gibson was completed in 1861

and was the largest columnar based house in Mississippi. After overseeing construction of the $175,000 structure for  2 years, Smith Coffee Daniel ll (age 34) died of either malaria or yellow fever just a few weeks after it was completed. 

During Grant’s campaign in 1863 in his attempts to take Vicksburg there were many failures including his idea to land troops at Grand Gulf about 10 miles up - river from Windsor. From there he successfully moved down river to Bruinsburg landing where some 17,000 Union soldiers were ashore and marched right past the Windsor mansion. It turns out that many of these men would ultimately find their way back to Windsor as it was used as a Union hospital. There is no known photo of Windsor. The sketch was made by a Union soldier who was there.

The battle of Port Gibson erupted early on May 1, 1863

as the Union soldiers encountered Confederate soldiers in the craggy,  overgrown tangle around Port Gibson shortly after midnight. After a brief lull, the battle roared to life once more at dawn. Confederate Gen. Edward Tracy was killed while directing the defense of the right flank from McPherson's attacks. The battle continued for most of the day as successive Confederate lines buckled under the weight of the Union advance.  A counterattack was repulsed in the late afternoon and the Southerners were forced from the field.  The Battle of Port Gibson firmly secured a Union beachhead east of the Mississippi River and enabled Grant to push east unopposed toward Jackson and ultimately to Vicksburg. 

The ultimate fate of the four story Windsor Mansion

was sealed on Feb 17, 1890 when it was engulfed in flames and Ms Catherine Daniell was found helplessly beneath an Oak tree at a safe distance. The house and all of its contents was reduced to ashes except for the columns that still stand. It is one of the most heavily visited tourist sites in Mississippi. 

The oak tree under which Catherine stood is most likely the one shown here. It is an old live oak whose age far surpasses that of 156 years since the days of its construction and the ravages of  the Civil War. The pen was constructed from a dead limb taken from this tree. 

Grant’s Headquarters Siege Of Petersburg VA

City Point, Va. (now Hopewell)

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 

The Confederate Secret Service

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. 

Near Grant’s headquarters

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. 

Wallis home the Battle of Kennesaw Mountain June 27th 1864

In Sherman’s Atlanta campaign

there were many skirmishes and several battles in his route from Chattanooga, Tn., south through Georgia. Certainly, the greatest barrier to Atlanta was 8-10 mile battle line made by the Confederates that covered the entire length of Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia. Sherman thought that the line was too thin to serve as a barrier but he was grossly mistaken. It turned out to be the largest frontal assault made by the Union army during the campaign and he was repulsed at each site of attack. Ultimately, the battle was considered a Confederate  victory, but Johnston’s army retreated to Atlanta. 

Early in the 19th century

the Wallis house was built and at the time of the battle was just about a mile from the battle line. Union General O. O.  Howard made his headquarters here, but at one point it was a Confederate hospital. Furthermore, at the battle of Kolb’s farm, General Sherman was at this house. The home site is being sought after by the NPS for inclusion within the Kennesaw Battlefield Park..

It is in a state of disrepair

but the old walnuts, and oaks still grace  its landscape. The oldest witness tree, a huge White Oak probably died 20-30 years ago. Only its massive stump still remains as seen in the photo along with Mr. JR Gee my brother-in law who has helped acquire many of the wood samples in multiple locations for this entire pen project. 

Lee’s Headquarters at Violet Bank June 1864 –April, 1865

During the Overland Campaign

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.

In the initial part of that siege

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. .

The name Violet Bank

 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.

Arlington House Plantation & The National Cemetery

Confederate General Robert E Lee

was a man of great integrity and honor. He served so valiantly in the Mexican War, and as Commandant of West Point that at the outset of the Civil War he was asked by Lincoln’s administration to be the leader of the Union Army. After a short time of personal thought and reflection, he demurred. He could not bear the thought of raising arms to his family or to his native state, Virginia. His home was a plantation within a stone’s throw of Washington, D.C. 

The plantation home

began construction in the early 1800s by George Washington Parke Custis, the grandson of Martha Washington. The estate passed to Mary Anna, his daughter, who married – Robert E. Lee.  By mid -1861, Federal troops occupied the plantation and by 1864, Quartermaster General Meigs ordered that that property be made into a National Cemetery following the huge loss of Union troops at the Battle of the Wilderness. Few people realize that this, most famous of all US National cemeteries in this country, was originally General Lee’s plantation.  

Presently, Arlington National Cemetery

is home to an extremely diverse and significant collection of trees and landscapes. The more than 8,600 trees are comprised of 300 varieties and species. Some of the cemetery’s oldest trees pre-date the first burials and are nearly 250 years old. Other memorial trees in Arlington represent specific military groups, such as a red maple in  section 27 that remembers U.S. colored troops and freed slaves during Civil War times. A large limb of this tree fell and a section of it was picked up by Mark Turcotte of Imperial Pen work in Kathleen Georgia. He traded it for some piece of my tropical wood collection in early 2016.  

Gay Mont Plantation Port Royal Virginia

Port Royal's is located

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. 

Helen Bernard lived at Gay Mont

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. 

The gardens 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. 

Selma Plantation – Winchester Va. The house that isn’t.

While battles and battle maneuvers

turn out to be some of the most interesting aspects of the Civil War, one must pause and consider what brought on the war in the first place. Volumes have been written on the divisive politics leading up to the war. The main conflict were the issues of the Southern States wishing to preserve a life style, economy, and the perceived rights of their states and this  was at odds with the ideas of the Northern States. One of the main political players in this drama was Mr. James Mason of  Virginia, Then U.S. Senator J.M. Mason is known for his reading of the final speech of then dying J.C Calhoun on March 4, 1850. The speech warned of disunion and dire consequences if the North did not guarantee the South permanent equal representation in Congress. Complaining of personal liberty laws  that "Although the loss of property is felt, the loss of honor is felt still more." 

By 1861 he was expelled

from the U.S. Senate for his support of the Confederacy. He was one of the two Confederate envoys to England in Nov., 1861 on the RMS Trent which was stopped by the USS Jacinto which precipitated the “Trent Affair.” It is to be noted that there were many political players in the controversy both North and South and Mason was only one of them. Mason’s home in Winchester was one of the first buildings to be destroyed by Union troops, undoubtedly because of his authorship  of the fugitive slave act. Ms. Cornelia McDonald’s diary refers  to this incident – “They have begun to tear down Mr. Mason’s house. All day axe and hammer are at work demolishing that pleasant, happy home. I saw the roof taken off today, that roof the shelter of which had never been denied to the homeless.” Thus, only the trees remain as witnesses to the loss of the Mason home.

The old Sycamores line the road from the Mason house

to the streets of Winchester.  One of these trees lost a large limb in 2016 and was sent to me by Mr.  Robert Saunders in early 2017. I met him at Glen Burnie when exiting  that plantation home during a visit there in mid Sept., 2016. He was a security person with an interest in wood working. He sent me several pieces from historic trees in northern Virginia. Undoubtedly, the sycamores witnessed most of the events of the Civil War surrounding Winchester, Va., including the movement of thousands of Union and Confederate troops coming and going as this area was hotly contested. 

The Libby Prison Richmond Va. 1861-1865

The Libby building in Richmond Va.

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.  

Prisoners complained of short rations

 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! 

Eventually, in 1888

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.

The Rippavilla Plantation Spring Hill Tennessee

Dates back to the early 1800s

The mansion house itself was completed by Nathanial Cheairs in 1855. Its location, just a mile south of Spring Hill and a hundred yards removed from the Colombia Pike, meant it was destined to witness the uncanny events surrounding the skirmishes and battles of Spring Hill, Tn., in late Nov., of 1864. It was here that 30,000 troops of Union General Schofield did a quiet march through the night along the pike, mostly unchallenged by Confederate JB Hood’s army. It was here that Confederate General NB Forest threatened to beat General Hood to within an inch of his life for allowing this massive failure to stop the Union army from marching northward to Nashville. 

By like turn, it was here on the morning of Nov 30, 1864

that General Hood had breakfast with his commanders and heaped abuse on them with language that that may have  scoured the wallpaper of the mansion. It was here, in the dining room, that Hood outlined his plans for what would be the Battle of Franklin late on Nov 30th. The deadliest in the shortest time frame in the entire war.

This mansion had been occupied by Union soldiers in 1862 and after the battle of Spring Hill it also served as a hospital. There are still blood stains on the floor. Some feel that the house is haunted. I have visited many Civil War site mansions and homes but this is one of the finest. The furniture and many artifacts in the mansion are original and the grounds are exceedingly well kept.

Not far away is the Ferguson mansion

that was originally a part of the same plantation and it too played an important role in the war. Union General Stanley used it as his headquarters during the Spring Hill battle but in May of 1863, Confederate General Earl Van Dorn was murdered by Doc Peters for having a relationship with his wife. Near to the Rippavilla mansion are many witness trees including a massive American beech a magnolia, and a sugar maple. A dead limb of the American beech provided enough wood for a pen which is now part of the collection.

The Robert's House Champions Hill

The Battle of Champion Hill

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.) 

Early in the afternoon,

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.

Wood from the Roberts house

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.

The Bower House

The ferocious Antietam Battle

left many, many thousands of the heart-sick, hungry and hurting men in both blue and grey to seek throughout the autumn countryside a place to heal. The ones in blue lingered on the Potomac’s Maryland side. The tattered, famished men in grey made their way to vast fields around Bunker Hill, Virginia, where they had a month to  eat, care for wounds, de-louse, write, or just lay down on that  autumn’s glorious garment. Great organized revivals bathed  spirit-wounds. Home and loved ones became a sweet possession. 

The Luckiest were the hundred

 or so on the staff of Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, as commander of Cavalry for the Army of Northern Virginia, who found Adam Stephen Dandridge’s home and 318-acre farm, the already legendary  “Bower,” six short miles from Gen. Stonewall Jackson’s and Robert E. Lee’s chosen grounds for respite and reflection. It appears that Lee, Jackson, and James Longstreet also took repast together at the master’s table there. For years after, those men and  women living “The Bower Moment” have written in their books of those  unforgettable “perfect 25 days,” made possible by the obliging farm/household workforce of some sixty people.  

The White Oak

 

from which this pen was made was supplied by Mr  Neil Super a wood turner in Shepardstown WVa. He indicated that the oak in the front lawn of the photo is long gone but a few other witness oaks  still survive in the area near  the Bower house. The wood is classic and has no insect or fungal induced damage.

Ellwood Manor circa 1790

Was located on the Wilderness Battlefield

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 

The Confederate Hospital flag

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. 

The venerable Ellwod catalpa

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. 

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  • Civil War Pens Home
  • 1861 The Opening Year
  • 1862 The War Ramps Up
  • 1862 PART 2
  • 1863 The War Rages On.
  • The War Drags On 1864
  • 1865 The Closing Year
  • Ships & Gunboats
  • Historic Sites