Showing posts with label 5th MD INF. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 5th MD INF. Show all posts

Thursday, August 14, 2014

Diary of Charles H. Lynch: June 24, 1863

Orders received from General Hooker to evacuate the Maryland Heights. All supplies and munitions that could be moved loaded on canal boats and taken to Washington by way of the Ohio & Chesapeake Canal. Great quantity of stores was left, salt beef, pork, beans, rice, coffee, and sugar. Some of it was gathered up by people from Harper's Ferry. A guard was sent with the boats but most of the troops were ordered to join the Army of the Potomac on its march up through Maryland to meet the Confederates who seem to be pushing on up into Pennsylvania. Our detachment was sent on guard with the canal boats. We left on the last two boats. There were about thirty in all. The rebels, under the cavalry leader J. E. B. Stuart, captured the first fifteen boats. After helping themselves to the supplies the boats were burned up. We passed the boats that had been destroyed. It took us two days and one night to complete the trip, a distance of sixty miles. Left the boats at Georgetown, then marched through the town to Tenallytown, going into camp. At the time our brigade consisted of the 12th West Virginia, the 5th Maryland, and our detachment. These regiments having been with us at Winchester and had lost many members.

SOURCE: Charles H. Lynch, The Civil War Diary, 1862-1865, of Charles H. Lynch 18th Conn. Vol's, p. 24

Monday, August 11, 2014

Diary of Charles H. Lynch: June 15, 1863

Last night we were under arms, ready for a call to duty at any moment. Prisoners report that Ewell has about forty thousand men with eighty cannon under his command. While in the fort waiting for orders we talked over the events that might happen when daylight came. About 2 A. M. we silently marched out of the Star Fort to the Martinsburg Pike. The movement was very slow which kept us guessing, wondering what was in store for us. When out on the road about four miles, just at break of day, at Carter's Farm, near Summit station on the Harper's Ferry & Winchester Railroad, the enemy opened a fierce fire upon us. The cavalry were to the right of us, marching in fours or parallel to the infantry lines. They broke and ran through our lines, causing much confusion. While we were re-forming, the enemy kept up a severe fire on us. They were well posted across a deep railroad cut. A case of ambush, waiting in the dark for us, having a good range of the pike. Our regiment soon had line formed, with the 5th Maryland on our left. Ordered to charge on the battery which the enemy had well posted and supported. Charging through the woods and the severe firing of the enemy, our lines became broken, when we were ordered to fall back and re-form. The second charge in the woods on the battery. We were again ordered to fall back and re-form. The 18th Connecticut was now the only regiment left on the field with General Milroy. After a short drill by our Colonel, under fire all the time, I heard him report to the General that he was now ready for orders. Our company, C, being center and color company, the Colonel's position was right in our rear, so that we heard all his orders, even in battle. The Lieutenant-Colonel and the Major were on the right and left of the regiment to repeat orders. The 18th Connecticut Regiment made the third and last charge un-supported, all others having left the field. We held the enemy in check until the General, his staff, and escort, left the field, guided by scouts through fields, on to Harper's Ferry. That was a hot fight in that early June morning. The cannon and musketry firing was a grand and awful sight to us young fellows, who were getting our first lessons in a real battle, a hard one and against great odds.

Coming out of the woods after the third and final charge, our Major Peale directed us to go to the right and get away. I followed his orders. For some reason, best known to himself, the Colonel ordered a halt and a surrender to the enemy, when he and between four and five hundred were made prisoners. Major Peale and between two and three hundred got away. I was one of those who followed the Major and reached Harper's Ferry after a long and tedious march. Tired and discouraged, we dropped to the ground for rest and sleep. Our regiment was badly broken up. Many killed, wounded, and prisoners. The trials of the past few days were something fearful to endure. It was wonderful that we came out as well as we did. Short of rations, sleeping on the ground. Cool nights follow the hot days. On the march through Charlestown. Saw the Confederate cavalry on the Berryville Pike. In case of an attack we are ready. While marching on to Halltown a force of cavalry came to meet us from Harper's Ferry. Stopped for the night on Bolivar Heights.

In the battle I lost my pocket-book, containing over five dollars with gold pen and silver pen-holder. We were obliged to fill our pockets with cartridges. As they were loose we used them first, so must have pulled my pocket-book out in the excitement.

SOURCE: Charles H. Lynch, The Civil War Diary, 1862-1865, of Charles H. Lynch 18th Conn. Vol's, p. 20-2

Sunday, January 13, 2013

Review: For Liberty


By Larry B. Bramble

Larry Bramble in his book “For Liberty: My Ancestor’s Story of Immigration and the Civil War,” does what any good amateur genealogist, or family historian, should do.  He sets the lives of his ancestors in their proper context against the larger historical backdrop.  Unfortunately that is all that can be said about it.

Tracing the military history of his great-great-grandfather, Philip Lenderking, of the 5th Maryland Infantry, and his four brothers; Frederick, of the Fremont Body Guard and the 181st Ohio Infantry; Rudolph, of the 2nd Michigan Infantry; George of the 27th Michigan Infantry and Louis, of the 12th Maryland Infantry; as well as his great-great-grandfather Taugart Snyder of the 12th Pennsylvania Cavalry.

The compiled service records of each featured soldier, and the pension records of Frederick and Philip Lenderking, all from the National Archives, and seven reports from the “Official Records” are the only primary source material I was able to unearth in Mr. Bramble’s bibliography, though there are excerpts from letters mentioned in his text they are not noted in the bibliography.  Mr. Bramble also sighted in his bibliography one magazine article and seven printed works, two of which were the King James Bible and Webster’s Dictionary.  The rest, and indeed a very large percentage of his research, was done online using a wide variety of websites, some more credible than others.  I counted 102 citations to online sources with 28 of them being Wikipedia articles.

Mr. Bramble relates the experiences of his ancestors in a linear narrative, chronologically as they happened.  But with so few primary resources to rely upon, Mr. Bramble is left to give a thumbnail sketch of each battle his family members participated in, gleaned in large part from only secondary sources, with a few statistics thrown in.

Throughout the book are many photographs, illustrations and maps.  Many of the maps are hand-drawn and had to be so reduced in size for publication that many of them are illegible, and therefore are not at all useful in supplementing the text.

What Mr. Bramble has attempted to do is admirable.  It is important to be able to set the lives of your ancestors against the backdrop of the historical past, by doing so you get a much clearer understanding of who they were and where they fit into the larger historical picture.  But with such scant primary resources to pull from, and such heavy use of online and secondary sources, Mr. Bramble has written a book that will only be useful to the members of his family.

ISBN 978-1257976003, Lulu.com, © 2011, Softcover, 268 pages, Maps, Photographs, Illustrations, Footnotes, Bibliography. $16.49.  To purchase click HERE.