Lee’s Courthouse Camp at Spotsylvania, Va., May 10, 1864

to take Richmond is long, Lee finally faced his match with General Grant. His goal was to directly take the Confederate Capital in his Overland Campaign resulting in a series of major  engagements starting at the Battle of the Wilderness, followed by  Spotsylvania and then the North Anna and several other confrontations.  Thus, after heavy fighting at Spotsylvania, Grant wished to lure Lee’s troops out of its entrenchments so he sent W.S. Hancock eastward. Then, Lee thinking that he was being flanked by Grant’s entire army sent his own infantry east to the highly defensible banks of the North Anna River. 

built line in the shape of an inverted V with its pinnacle at Ox ford protecting that crossing on the river. But Union  troops could cross lower on the river at the Chesterfield Bridge which  they did but some, under General Warren stayed to the north attacking the left side of the inverted V defenses. This effectively split the union forces not allowing them to easily move from one side of the inverted V to the other by having to cross the river twice, but the Confederate army could easily move within the inverted V. It turns out that the set trap was never sprung and some have speculated that it was related to inefficiency of the high command since Lee and others were sick or otherwise indisposed. Many have speculated that it was Lee’s last best chance to defeat the Union army. Both sides lost  about 2000 men. 

at the North Anna that are and inside and near to the top of the inverted V. One of these is an ancient Eastern Red Cedar and the other is a white oak and both are witness trees. The cedar is at the intersection of the Virginia Central RR and the Ox Ford Road- the VA Central was a vital supply link to Lee. The oak is directly along the left (west) side of Ox Ford Road and about 150 yards south of the ford. These tree  specimens were found by my friend Mr.Dennis Gallahan, of Spotsylvania, Va. He and Mike Rooney of Dallas Texas helped with the write up of this piece. 

to  be General in Chief of all Union armies. His approach was to  have a concerted and unified effort made against all Confederate armies at the same time throughout the Southland. He and General Meade would  assume the responsibility to attack Lee’s army of Northern Virginia and  eventually take Richmond. As Sherman marched on Atlanta, Grant in central northern Virginia engaged Lee’s army west of Fredericksburg at a place called the wilderness. It consisted of a tangled brush, and immature trees and rolling hills making warfare almost impossible. The Union would suffer about  18,000 casualties over 48 hours and that was many more than lost by the Confederates. Then, after 48 hours of intense combat, neither side was  the victor.  

which was a surprise to Lee whose usual Union antagonists  departed the field. To the relief of President Lincoln and the joy of  his men, the general continued his advance toward Richmond with engagements at such places as Spotsylvania, North Anna, Cold Harbor and Petersburg ultimately ending nearly a year later with Lee’s surrender at Appomattox. 

 Much of this battle occurred on the Ellwood plantation. The home itself was built in the 1790s. In the battle of Chancellorsville (May, 1863) the Ellwood house served as a  Confederate hospital. The family burial place also served as a site for  the burial of Stonewall Jackson’s amputated left arm. Then, in 1864  General Gouverneur Warren set up headquarters here.  Both Lee and Grant had visited the house in 1863 and 1864.

and near where the slave cabins used to be located stands a very unique  witness tree and the first of its kind to be located. It is a beautiful old Kentucky Coffee tree belonging to the legume family of plants. We had picked up a dead  branch from this tree in a corn field adjoining it. As I was trimming the limb a ranger came scrambling over to me thinking that I was cutting  on this witness tree. Suffice it to say that once formalities were over he allowed me to keep my prize even after I volunteered to put it back into its original spot only to rot. He was from a neighboring town in Montana and could see the wisdom of letting me keep the wood to make the pen that is so beautiful and is pictured here. 

By mid 1864, Union General David Hunter was instructed to inflict damage on the Shenandoah and he ended up burning the Virginia Military Institute and other colleges and homes in the area of Lexington. After his defeat at the battle of Lynchburg and retreat, General Lee ordered General Early to take the Second Corps and link up with General  John C. Breckenridge to clear the Shenandoah Valley of all Union influence. After securing the Valley, Early was to invade Maryland, putting pressure on the Federal capital, Washington D.C. By  the first week of July, Confederates had entered Maryland and caught Union forces largely off guard. Major General Lew Wallace and roughly 3,200 inexperienced troops of the Middle Department, headed west from Baltimore, MD and took up a position just south of Frederick, MD at Monocacy Junction along the Monocacy River.  Grant, who was facing Lee in Eastern Va., ordered  the third division of the Sixth Corps north, hoping they would reach Maryland in time to slow Early’s advance. By the morning of July 9th, nearly 6,600 Union troops had gathered near Monocacy Junction, with Wallace in command. Early’s 15,000 Confederates were to the north in Frederick - the stage for battle was set.
 

Lew Wallace was ultimately successful. His efforts had delayed Jubal Early’s advance long enough for additional Union reinforcements to reach Washington D.C. By the time Early’s men reached the capital on July 11, help had arrived in the Federal capital. Some fighting and skirmishing occurred near Fort Stevens on the city’s outskirts, but Early was unable to take Washington. Early and his men withdrew back into Maryland and eventually crossed the Potomac River back into Virginia - their campaign was over. This is a little known battle of the war but an extremely important one. General  Lew Wallace went on to write the book Ben Hur the most acclaimed novel of the 19th century and he was selected as one of two Indiana’s people to the US Hall of Fame. 

of a dead limb used to make the pen. It is in the foreground of  Gambrill mansion (photo- NPS headquarters) built in the 1890s, Just to the left in the photo (not  shown) is the Gambrill mill (1830) which was used as a hospital during the war. The wood was especially punky and insect ridden. It had to be  infused with a plasticizer to make it useful. Such a condition makes for an interesting final product with unusual coloring and highlights. 

In the spring of 1864, Union Major General David Hunter was sent to threaten the Bread Basket of the Confederacy, the Shenandoah Valley. His actions in the valley  between May 15 and June 18, 1864 are known as the Lynchburg Campaign. Hunter had clashes with the Union forces at Port Republic and General William “Grumble” Jones at Piedmont on June 5 with some success. Close to mid- June he began destroying everything in sight ending with the burning of the Virginia Military Institute as well as much of Lexington. Hunter then set out for Lynchburg, 

Confederate General Early, in an effort to create the illusion that he was being strongly reinforced, had empty trains run up and down the track, whistles blowing. The local populace was recruited to raise a cheer every time one of these “troop trains” arrived. Local bands struck up martial airs all within the earshot of the Union line. Prostitutes were allowed to pass through the lines to help spread the tale of the great influx of troops to their Yankee customers. Hunter was completely taken in and soon retreated after some bloody fighting resulting in a total of about 1000 total causalities in the battle.  

was Early’s headquarters located at the Spring Hill Cemetery. Here, near the old sugar maple tree, Early's reinforcements were gathered. A dead limb of this tree furnished wood for a unique pen. 

 at Gettysburg in July of 1863, the Union Army now under U.S. Grant  began a pursuit of Lee’s Army in Northern Virginia. Nagging Grant on the Western flank was the Shenandoah Valley still in Confederate hands. Grant ordered General Franz Sigel on a mission of  conquest and destruction of the valley in May of 1864. His Army of  10,000 men was met by Confederate John Breckinridge with 4,100 men who out maneuvered Siegel and won the battle. 

Breckinridge, with permission of President Davis, got the help of 257  cadets of the Virginia Military Institute who marched 80 miles to do battle with the Union forces. They played a key role in the Confederate victory. Each year as a commemoration of the event, in May, there is a cadet march from VMI to New Market.

on the battlefield near to the New Market Civil War museum there is a huge red bud tree (a legume) having small growth rings and measuring over 3.5’ in diameter. It was there at the time of the battle! This species is a relatively small native tree that grows slowly and puts out an amazing display of red blooms in the springtime. The tree was estimated  to be about 180 years old. 

On 12th-14th of July, 1864, the attack on Fort Stevens was witnessed by President Lincoln. As the bullets flew past him a young officer bellowed out  “Get down you damn fool”. The officer turned out to be the future Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. The Union Army, under Horatio Wright pursued Early’s army at it withdrew from the Nation’s  capital.  

by elements of Crook's command and on the morning of July 18th a vanguard of the Union infantry moved through Snicker’s gap, Virginia, and crossed the Shenandoah river at Judge Richard Parker’s Ford. Early’s three  divisions moved to defend the area west of the ford. The battle result was inconclusive but it allowed Early’s men to retreat to Northern Virginia where other major battles with the Union army awaited him later in 1864.

As a side note, Judge Richard Parker served as the judge at the trial of John Brown whose men raided the Harpers Ferry Arsenal on Oct 16-18, 1859.

is in the photo by Luke Greer (above) and he also collected it. The tree was more than 5.5 ft in diameter. And it was enclosing a stone wall the history of which is unknown. Luke is a professional photographer and a good friend. His contemporary black and white photo of the battlefield site is shown here. The pen was made from a dead limb piece of this historic tree that he collected and kindly sent to me for the collection.  

Lieut. Gen. John Bell Hood’s Army  of Tennessee marched on the Columbia Pike toward Spring Hill, Tn, to get astride Maj. Gen. John M. Schofield’s Union army’s supply  line. Hood was pursuing Schofield as the Yankees withdrew north from  Columbia towards Nashville knowing that Hood’s army was going to try to  take Nashville. Cavalry skirmishing between Union and Confederate  troopers continued throughout the day as the Confederates  advanced. On November 29th, Hood’s infantry crossed the Duck River and converged on Spring Hill. In the meantime, Schofield reinforced two brigades holding the crossroads in town there guarding the Union supply trains 

and Confederate cavalry led by Gen Nathan Bedford Forrest attacked from east to west attempted to dislodge Schofield's army from the Columbia Pike.  During the evening, the rest of Schofield’s command passed unmolested from Columbia through Spring Hill to Franklin and within a few hundred yards of Hood's men in their camps for the night. This was, perhaps, Hood’s best chance to isolate and defeat the Union army. The engagement has been described as “one of the  most controversial non-fighting events of the entire war." The next day, Hood would meet Schofield 12 miles north at Franklin in one of the bloodiest battles of the entire Civil War.  

heavily punctured with lead bullets recently fell in a storm that hit the Spring Hill area. It was located just south of Spring Hill within two hundred yards of the Columbia Pike and near to the Rippavilla Plantation.  It is an excellent example of an ever dwindling number of witness trees  that still exist in Civil War Era America.  

legend grows substantially when his Confederate cavalry routs a much larger Union force in Mississippi at the Battle of Brice’s Crossroads in the summer of 1864. Union General Sherman, who was leading the Atlanta campaign, insisted that Forrest be neutralized and ordered a force from Memphis to hunt down Forrest’s command. On June 1, some 5,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry troopers under the command of General Samuel D. Sturgis trudged out of Memphis in search of the elusive Forrest. 

Brice’s Crossroads for its muddy roads and dense woods (mostly blackjack oak) to mitigate the Union’s numerical advantage and called for his men to attack the leading Yankee cavalry, which would force the trailing infantry to hurry to the battle and fight before recovering from the march. The plan worked to perfection. In the afternoon, Forrest orchestrated a series of attacks all along the Union front, which broke the Yankee lines and sent the Federals from the field in disarray with the Confederates in hot pursuit. The chase continued into the next day. The Battle of Brice’s Crossroads stands as his greatest military victory. 

is covered with blackjack oak and some of these witness trees still stand and are over 4-5’ in diameter. Every book on the subject of Brice’s Crossroads includes a description of these trees and their protective role in the battle. The pen was made from a dead branch from one of these oaks in the center of the battlefield. 

and was the final battle of the Sheridan’s Valley Campaigns. Confederate General Jubal Early launched a surprise3 attack against the encamped Union army. One of the main Confederate advances was a night march across the Shenandoah river and then they followed an old trail near the base of Massanutten mountain.  They crossed the river again and did a very early morning attack that routed seven Union infantry divisions. General Early failed to continue his attack north of Middletown.  

General Sheridan dramatically riding to the Battlefield from Winchester  Va., on his horse Rienzi, was able to rally his troops to hold a new defensive line. A Union counterattack that afternoon routed Early’s army. In hindsight, most would agree that Early could have easily won the victory had he listened to General Gordon and continued to press the morning offensive north of Middletown.  

witness  tree was pointed out to me by Mr. Eric Campbell of the National Park  Service.  The tree is located near a clearing near to where union General Thoburn  was attacked by General John Gordon's  and General Kershaw’s divisions after they made an all- night march at the base of Massanuten mountain and re-crossed the Shenandoah river. This white oak is a classic oak witness tree and it is great to have a pen made form it in the collection.

at 3rd Winchester, General Jubal Early retreated south to a gentle rise in the landscape known as Fisher’s Hill. Here on Sept 21 and 22, 1864, his men were entrenched and ready to do battle with Union General Sheridan and his overwhelming Union force. 

is a huge Chestnut Oak tree that served as a look out and signal station for the Confederates. 

has been removed but the majority of the tree still survives. It, unlike many witness trees, is a classic “witness” tree since it actually participated in the war.