The North Anna Battlefield Becomes a Swimming hole May 1864
A totally unusual photograph taken on May 24th or 25th 1864
is a closer view of Union soldiers swimming in the North Anna River just after the battle there which was the 3rd in sequence of Grant’s Overland Campaign to take Richmond beginning earlier in May, 1864. In a larger photographic view of the Chesterfield bridge is a party from the 50th New York Engineers building a road on the south bank of the river while, in the background, Union wagons and horses traverse the canvas pontoon bridge at Jericho Mills. Also, seen in this photo is a railroad bridge of the Richmond and Fredericksburg line still smoldering after
Union troops demolished the structure
on the afternoon of May 25. Ultimately, while deciding to relax, some of the men jump into the river. The photo was taken by veteran northern war photographer Timothy O’Sullivan who was working for the Washington D.C.-based photo firm run by Alexander Gardner. O’Sullivan was Gardner's chief photographer working in the field during the last year of the war and he created some of the iconic images of the Overland Campaign.
On the far bank of the river
there are a number of trees shown in the photograph and one of these happens to be an American Beech that it is now well over 200 years old. It contributed a dead limb so that a beautiful pen could be made from it. Help on this project by Dennis Gallahan is greatly appreciated.
Yellow Tavern, Virginia – The Lost Battlefield- May 11, 1864
From the very beginning of the Civil War
the main goal of the Union was to try to take the Confederate Capital- Richmond. Thus, there were major failures at Bull Run, the Peninsula campaign, and Fredericksburg. At this point in the war Grant’s Overland Campaign was in full swing with a major long term bloody battle raging at Spotsylvania, Va.
General Phil Sheridan suggested that he be permitted to swing the entire Union Calvary of 10,000 men south to attack a relatively unguarded Richmond. Quickly, General Stuart of the Confederate Calvary realized what was happening and he headed his troopers south whilst asking Fitzhugh’s Lee’s men to harass the rear of the Union column.
Both groups of troopers reached Yellow Tavern about the same time
Included In the Union force was the Michigan 5th led by none other than George Armstrong Custer (of the Little Big Horn River fame here in Montana). Private John Huff, a Union private, hurriedly fired his pistol into a group of mounted Confederates riding along the Telegraph Road, wounding General Stuart who died of his wounds the next day. General Robert E. Lee received notice of Stuart's death and remarked, "I can scarcely think of him without weeping". He was widely recognized as one of the best cavalrymen of the entire Civil War- South or North.
A monument to General Stuart’s death exists today
north of Richmond. It is within a few
yards of where the General was shot. Most of the battlefield is now in housing developments, roads and sidewalks, thus it has been lost. But immediately across the
Street from the monument to Stuart is a pin oak tree that witnessed him being shot in May of 1864. The tree is 4.5 ‘ in diameter and gave up a dead limb for a pen to be
placed in the collection in honor of General Stuart it is estimated to be over 200 yrs old.
Mr. Dennis Gallahan of Spotsylvania, Va. was instrumental in finding this tree.