Table of Contents

 

“Opening Shots”:  From the Editor	1
Civilian Pages
A Mourning Bonnet by Nancy Koch	2
Winter Presentation Additions by Vince Slaugh and Lindsey Koch	2
Lititz Notes by Vince Slaugh	3
Military Pages
“Bingen on the Rhine” by Vince Slaugh	5
Soldiers’ Correspondence: The First Letter, April 1861	7
Reenacting Pages
Notes from Joe Coleman, Military Coordinator	8
Lititz 250th Anniversary	9
Calendar	10

Opening Shots

 

From Vince Slaugh, Editor:

      Welcome to another issue of the Union Standard!  In case you were wondering, Lindsey and I have been exercising much flexibility (to the point at which we apologize for the delay) in the newsletter publication date to accommodate our busy school schedules.  In the future, we will try to give a fair warning about when newsletter submissions are due, but if the newsletter has not yet been published we could likely still include your article. 

      Thank you for all who came to hear our presentation at the last unit meeting (March) on winter in the Civil War.  Lindsey and I both felt our efforts well worthwhile.  I included a couple items (as mentioned during the speech) in this newsletter that I forgot to include in the presentation.

      As always, your submissions are welcomed and encouraged.

      I look forward to upcoming events and exciting times during the 2006 reenacting season.     

Vince Slaugh

 

 

 

A Mourning Bonnet

By Nancy Koch

           

      I was excited to purchase a Civil War mourning bonnet at an auction for $9.00.  Through the experience I had a few years ago of putting together a straw Civil War bonnet for myself I was able to stitch the rows back together again, and tack on the trim.  It hardly resembled a bonnet when I bid on it.  They had it laying on a tray it was in such pieces.  Once it was mended and brushed free of dirt I needed to press it to get it back into the spoon bonnet shape.  It is made of woven flatly plaited horsehair.  The braids are transparent and rather stiff but much finer than straw.  This is formed over a wire form and tacked on.  The trim is made of black crepe and the ribbons are black velvet on black silk.  They are 3 ¾” wide.  The curtain has a double ruffle also crepe.  I am quite impressed with it and wanted to share it with you.  This type of woven horsehair was also used as a stiffener for fabric.  It was probably used inside belts, etc. It was called “crin”.  During the 1840s and 1850s crin and linen thread were used for horsehair petticoats sometimes referred to as a crinoline.

       

Winter Presentation Additions

By Lindsey Koch and Vince Slaugh

 

      The following are two articles were meant to be read aloud during last meeting’s presentation on winter, but a little absent-mindedness intervened on Vince’s part intervened.  We thought you would find them of interest, so they are included below.

     

From the January 17, 1862, Lancaster Daily Evening Express:

 

        Rules for Skating: The doctors seem already alarmed at the prospect, if we may judge from the variety of rules laid down in the medical journal for the “ladies who skate.” The object seems to be to impress women with the idea that their limbs are exceedingly delicate appendages to which muscles are unknown, that they are not to be trusted in any emergency, and should not be allowed outside the door without bandages enough to sustain a severe attack of gout. One would imagine that fresh air was poison, and only safe to be taken in grams, like arsenic, and that the lungs were a violent, dangerous, revolutionary sort of apparatus that required perpetual snubbing and keeping down. This is all sheer nonsense, so far as girls are concerned. See the amount they can eat in the pantry, or at a quiet family lunch and then judge if there is any danger of decline or consumption, excepting so far as the chicken and mince pie is concerned.

        In fact, it strikes us if any rules are laid down at all, they should be for the benefit of those precious bits of porcelain, whose fine, white hands have never felt a touch less soft than that of a perfumed handkerchief and whose damask cheek shrinks from the old brush of north wind like the delicate exotic which adorns his dainty button hole. These muffed clerks and starched gentry, are in much more danger of calamity from contact with cold air and ice and vigorous exercise than ladies with vivacity enough to skate. Let the doctors therefore lay down rules for these effeminate men; the ladies will take care of themselves.

 

From the February 25, 1863, Lancaster Daily Inquirer:

 

        The Sleighing is all that lovers of such pleasure could desire, and a ride on runners is now the chief desire of many. The fast going portion of our community are enjoying themselves immensely in the way of sleigh rides, parties, &c. Every thing in the shape of a sleigh capable of sliding over the “glassy surface” is called into requisition, form the dashing cutter and a pair of 2 40 nags, to the more humble and unassuming plain sleigh and its slow Dobin. Horse flesh is put to its utmost test, and many a good animal is left to suffer while its driver is making himself comfortable. The pleasure seeking portion of the community are evidently determined to make good use of the snow, for from early morn until the “wee house of the morn” again, the merry tinkle of the bells may be heard, oft times accompanied by the hilarious voices of the pleasure seekers.

 

Lititz Notes

By Vince Slaugh

 

      As is noted in the Calendar, the last weekend of this month (April) will witness the 250^th anniversary celebration for the town of Lititz.  In honor of that town’s history, I thought I would include an interesting incident in which Lititz made news and even attracted the attention of soldiers serving in Virginia.   

     

The story begins with the February 6, 1863, Lancaster Daily Evening Express:

 

        A Miss-chief-us Re-belle Arm-miss-tice on the Carpet:  We have reports from various reliable source of a little affair which recently came off at Litiz, which created quite a sen-say-tion in that quiet and modest village.  Litiz is noted as one of the most loyal villages in the county, but it is a fact that the few citizens there who are noted for their tory proclivities are blessed with an unusually large proportion of daughters among the fruits of their love, which may be urged as the best excuse said citizens can urge for not having sent sons into the army to fight against Jeff. Davis.  A few nights since, thirty-four of these damsels held a “grand mass meeting,” at which one of the leading events was a social supper, and the other an angelic demon-stration in favor of Jeff. Davis—all dear little innocent creatures being of the  same political faith.  During the evening, one of the Misses, whose father is decidedly of the opinion that the rebels cannot be “subjugated,” proposed three cheers for Jeff. Davis.  This begin objected to by some of the more discreet, who thought that fashionable young ladies could not give three cheers  with their echoes turning into (w)hoops, the Miss-Chief of the party, by way of testing how many were sound enough “on the goose” to assume the character of that semi-aquatic fowl, proposed that all who were in favor of Jeff. Davis should rise!

        Up to this point all our reports aggress, but the reporters differ as to the number who did rise in response to the appeal.  Our correspondent says that thirty out of the thirty-four present stood up, while others report the number variously, down as low as seventeen, which is the lowest figure give.  We are justified in saying, therefore, that at least seventeen young ladies of Litiz, or those who profess to be ladies, did actually proclaim themselves in favor of Jeff Davis.  The Miss-Chief who led the “demon-stration” made a speech to the assembled beauties, in which she declared herself in favor of an arm-miss-tice with Jeff Davis, notwithstanding, (strange incongruity?) she, unlike most young ladies, was opposed to the Union.  Whether all present were opposed to Union, to a man, none of our authentic reports inform us.  We may, perhaps, be informed of this important point by the next post. 

        Seriously, the fact that such a demonstration was made by a party of young ladies claiming to be not only respectable, but descendants of the mothers of the revolution, is disgraceful, not perhaps so much to the giddy and thoughtless girls, as to their parents, who are educating their children in the school of the tories who stink in the nostrils of our revolutionary fathers. 

 

      Unfortunately for these ladies of Lititz, news of their convention reached Lancaster’s soldiers in the Army of the Potomac when they were in a particularly foul mood.  A combination of factors—mostly battlefield failures and the arrival into power of Peace Democrats who had won large gains in elections held the previous fall—led soldiers in camp to strike back against waning support for the war effort on the home front during early 1863.  The following is the beginning of a letter written by “Detfard” of the 179^th Pennsylvania, a regiment of drafted militia then serving on the Virginia Peninsula.  The Daily Evening Express published the letter on February 21, 1863, and the typesetter accidentally set the letter’s date as September, not February. 

 

LETTER FROM THE PENINSULA.

-----

The Views of a Militiaman in regard to the Northern Tories—The President’s War Policy—The Use to be Made of the Slaves—How a Sight of the Rebellion Changes One’s Opinion of Slavery—Lancaster County Militia—The 179th Regiment, its Officers, &c.

Correspondence of the Express.

Fort Yorktown, Va., Sept. 15, 1863.

        When I read the account of a recent “demonstration” by certain “young ladies” of Litiz, as reported in the newspapers and through private letters received from home, I felt ashamed to acknowledge that  was from the northern part of the country.  It is indeed very singular that parents professing even a nominal allegiance to the United States Government, do not teach their children better; that they cannot appreciate the blessings which they have so long enjoyed, and which have been so ruthlessly assailed by traitors in arms.  What, in the name of Heaven, do such men mean, in giving aid and comfort to traitors, since they must see that it is only treason which has brought our beloved country so nearly to the verge of ruin.  Can it be possible that there are men in the loyal and patriotic county of Lancaster, who really prefer the success of a party, to the success and honor of their country’s flag, which was baptized by our fathers in blood and by our mothers in tears?  It is a pity that all these modern tories cannot be forced to spend a few months in the dominions of Jeff. Davis, that they might thereby practically discover the difference in living in a land of liberty and under an oligarchy of Slavery.  If they could even see Secessionism face to face, as we see it hereabouts, I think they would cease to denounce the Federal Government, and forego their adulations of the usurpations of Jeff. Davis & Co.

        Although we are “conscripts” and perhaps suspected of not being too willing to fight, I wish some of the infernal sympathizers at home could hear the denunciations and threats of this camp against treason—at home as well as in the South—against “a fire in the rear” as well as against any that may come from the front.  I think some of them would not sleep as soundly as they do now.  I assure you such things would not be tolerated here, where such people would be — put in the guardhouse!  The general feeling among the conscripts is that had it not been for the tories of the north presenting a divided sentiment to the rebels, this rebellion would have been crushed out ere this; that had it not been for this, we might not have been here to-day; that had it not been for this, thousands of gallant volunteers now sleeping in unknown graves might have been spared to their friends and families at home.  I tell you, sirs, that this feeling grows strong in this section of the army, and a day of terrible retribution will assuredly come to these traitors at home. 

[Continued…

 

 

 

 

‘Bingen on the Rhine’

By Vince Slaugh

 

One Poem as an Expression of Battlefield Loss

 

      In the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Perryville, Kentucky, the approximately five hundred Lancasterians who comprised the Lancaster County Regiment and had just experienced their first major battle had to confront the deaths of about forty comrades.  On the day after the October 8, 1862, battle, soldiers of the 79^th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry buried their own fallen in a long trench—an emotionally demanding experience.  Also, survivors watched as others succumbed to their wounds in the days after the battle.  John B. Chamberlin, hospital steward and regular correspondent to the Lancaster Daily Inquirer, described his experiences and emotions in a letter dated October 13 and printed on October 24.  Of particular interest is a section describing the death of Pvt. Emanuel Rudy:

Poor Emanuel Rudy, whom I reported as wounded in the groin, in the list of Company A, has since died.  Poor fellow, I was with him to the last moment.  His death strangly reminded me of the last verse in Mr. Norton’s “Bingen on the Rhine” that I loved to declaim semi-monthly in my school boy days at the Lancaster High school:

His trembling voice grew faint and hoarse,

                His grasp was childish weak:

His eyes put on a dying look—

                He sighed and ceased to speak;

His comrade bent to lift him,

                but the spark of life had fled

The soldier of the Legion

                In a foreign land was dead!

And the soft moon rose up slowly,

                And calmly she looked down

On the red sand of the battle field

                With bloody corpses strewn;

We buried him near to the place where his bravery had purchased death.  He was a brave soldier, a kind friend, and a true, honest man. 

 

      In dealing with friend Rudy’s death, Chamberlin recalled a poem he committed to memory during his school days of the 1850s.  He borrowed from popular poetry (see next paragraph) about the French military in Algeria (think Zouaves) to explain his emotional response to a complex mixture of glory and tragedy intertwined in a martial death.  In doing so, he drew on perceived historical examples of courage to reconcile those emotions with the senselessness and destruction that surrounded him on the Civil War battlefield.  It offers a portal into studying psychology of the Civil War soldier and his reaction to traumatic events. 

      Beyond Chamberlin’s post-battle allusion, the poem, “Bingen on the Rhine,” appeared in Civil War Lancaster on at least one other occasion—during the war’s first summer.  On July 20, 1861, the Lancaster Daily Evening Express  printed the poem in its entirety and prefaced it elsewhere in the paper:

 

A Stirring Old Poem:  We publish on our fourth page to-day that soul stirring poem by Mrs. Norton, “Bingen on the Rhine,” which is now invested with a fresh and peculiar interest, even to those who have read it “many a time and oft before.”  It is one of those good things which never grow old.

 

The poem, as printed in the Daily Evening Express: [hopefully without any typing mistakes on my behalf]

 

AN OLD POEM FOR NEW TIMES

-------------

Bingen on the Rhine

 

A soldier of the Legion

        Lay dying at Algiers;

There was lack of woman’s nursing,

        There was dearth of woman’s tears;

But a comrade stood beside him,

        While his life blood ebbed away,

And bent with pitying glances,

        To hear what he might say:

The dying soldier faltered,

        As he took that comrade’s hand,

And he said, ‘I never more shall see

        My own, my native land;

Take a message and a token

        To some distant friends of mine,

For I was born at Bingen—

        At Bingen on the Rhine.

 

Tell my brothers and companions,

        When they meet and crowd around.

To hear my mournful story,

        In the pleasant vineyard ground,

That we fought the battle bravely—

        And that when the day was done,

Full many a corpse lay ghastly pale

        Beneath the setting sun:

And ’midst the dead and dying,

        Were some grown old in wars—

The death wounds on their gallant breasts,

        The last of many scars;

But some were young, and suddenly

        Beheld life’s morn decline,

And one had come from Bingen—

        From Bingen on the Rhine!

 

Tell my mother that her other sons

        Shall comfort her old age,

For I was still a truant bird

        That thought his home a cage;

For my father was a soldier,

        And even when a child,

My heart leaped forth to hear him tell

        O. struggles fierce and wild;

And when he died and left us

        To divide his scanty hoard,

I let them take wate’er they would—

        But kept my father’s sword;

And with boyish love I hung it

        Where the bright light used to shine.

On the cottage wall at Bingen—

        Calm Bingen on the Rhine.

 

Tell my sister not to weep for me,

        And sob with drooping head,

When the troops come marching home again,

        With glad and gallant tread—

But to look upon them proudly,

        With calm and steadfast eye,

For her brother was a soldier, too,

        And set afraid to die;

And if a comrade seek her love,

        I ask her in my name

To listen to him kindly,

        Without regret or shame;

And to hang the old sword in its place,

        My father’s sword and mine,

For the honor of old Bingen—

        Dear Bingen on the Rhine.

 

There’s another—not a sister—

        In happy days gone by,

You’d have known her by the merriment

        That sparked in her eye;

Too innocent for coquetry—

        Too fond for idle scorning;

Oh, friends.  I fear the lightest heart

        Makes, sometimes, heaviest mourning.

Tell her the last night of my life—

        (For ere this moon be risen.

My body will be out of pain,

        My soul be out of prison.)

I dreamed I stood with her and saw

        The yellow sunlight shine

On the vine clad hills of Bingen—

        Fair Bingen on the Rhine.

 

I saw the blue Rhine sweep along—

        I heard or seemed to hear,

The German songs we used to sing,

        In chorus sweet and clear;

And down the pleasant river,

        And up the slanting hill,

The echoing chorus sounded

        Through the evening calm and still,

And her glad blue eyes were on me,

        As we passed with friendly talk,

Down many a path beloved of yore,

        And well-remembered walk;

And her little hand lay lightly,

        And confidingly in mine—

But we’ll meet more at Bingen—

        Loved Bingen on the Rhine!’”*****

 

His voice grew faint and hoarse—

        His grasp was childish weak—

His eyes put on a dying look—

        He sighed and ceased to speak;

His comrade bent to lift him,

        But the spark of life had fled;

The soldier of the Legion

        In a foreign land was dead!

And the soft moon rose up slowly,

        And calmly she looked down

On the red sand of the battle field

        With bloody corpses strewn;

Yes, calmly on the dreadful scene,

        Her pale light seemed to shine,

As it shone on distant Bingen—

        Fair Bingen on the Rhine!

—Mrs. Norton.

 

As it turns out, John Chamberlin was not the only student who memorized Caroline Norton’s poem in his younger days.  Celebrated American author of the late nineteenth century, Stephen Crane, included the poem as part of his short story describing the experience of a correspondent in a small boat helplessly floating on an ocean indifferent to his fate.  Perhaps another more literary-attuned member would like to take on the challenge of comparing Crane’s use of “Bingen on the Rhine” to Chamberlin’s for the next newsletter…         

 

Soldiers’ Correspondence

 

The First Letter, April 1861

 

      Next month marks the 145^th anniversary of the war’s outbreak—the firing on Fort Sumter and subsequent massive mobilization for war in communities throughout the North.  Although it would take over a year before Lancaster’s first companies saw combat, it took less than one week before Lancaster’s first companies to leave the county headed for war.  The Confederate bombardment of Fort Sumter began on April 12, 1861, and the first letter to the Lancaster Daily Evening Express appeared on April 20.  Long before the phrase, “embedded reported,” ever existed, the Express had Pvt. Benjamin H. Ober—a printer in his early thirties from the city’s Southwest Ward.  The paper’s “locals editor” before the war, Ober marched off with the Lancaster Fencibles, one of the city’s two prominent militia organizations, after arranging to send letters to the newspaper office.  The newspaper published his letters under the heading, “Notes from a Knapsack.”  Traveling from Lancaster to Harrisburg, the Fencibles became Co. F, 1^st Pennsylvania (not the 1^st Pennsylvania Reserves), a ninety days unit that saw little action as it hardly reached Virginia before its term expired.  If you read the November/December 2005 newsletter, you will recall that Ben Ober subsequently recruited another company that became Co. K, 77^th Pennsylvnia, and served in the Kentucky and Tennessee.  The following letter appeared in the April 20, 1861, edition of the Lancaster Daily Evening Express.  As usual, mistakes in the original letter or typesetting were retained.                   

       

NOTES FROM A KNAPSACK.

-------------

[from our own reporter.]

                                Harrisburg, April 19.

      The first contribution of the Old Guard for the defense of our glorious old flag arrived here a little before 4 o’clock to-day.  Owing to the engagements of Capt. Franklin of the Fencibles as District Attorney, he did not accompany us, but will join us in a day or two.  In the meantime the company is under the command of first Lieutenant Locher, who is ably seconded by Lieutenant Dysart.

        Upon our arrival here we were marched through several of the principal streets, for the purpose, of “showing us up,” and the sentiment was universal that the Fencibles are the finest-looking body of men which has thus far been reported.  At different points we were greeted with the most heart cheers. 

        But before proceeding with the “regular order” of things, permit me to say a word of our departure from Lancaster.  The grand and affecting “reception” which you gave us will remain engraved upon our hearts forever, and if “the worst should come to the worst”—if we meet the enemies of our country face to face, you, I pray God, will have no occasion to regret your cheering smiles and hearty God-speeds.  The manifestation of your interest in us this day will sustain us in the darkest hours of trial and in the thickest of the fight.  The scene along West King and North Queen, was such a one as to inspire us with the loftiest feelings of patriotism—the warmest love of our country, and one which will probably fall to our lot but once more in this life—when we return victorious from the battle field, an our country’s flag has been once more placed where it has been ruthlessly torn down by traitorous hands.  If we assist in accomplishing this, then greet us as you to-day bade us farewell, and we will feel amply rewarded for the service we did our country.

        The “boys” are all well and in high spirits.  We are now quartered at the Park House and Staley’s Hotel, which are opposite each other.  We will proceed to “Camp Curtin” to-morrow morning, unless ordered to Washington during the night.  Upon our arrival here, the news of the attack upon the Philadelphia and Massachusetts volunteers in Baltimore by the Secessionists was received and considerably exaggerated by the time it found its way to our quarters.  The report was coupled with another, to the effect that we were to proceed to Baltimore immediately.  The report had the effect of raising our enthusiasm, and, illy as we are prepared to meet an enemy, we were ready to rush into the breach.  We would just as readily fight and whip the traitors in Baltimore as in Charleston or Montgomery, and I hope to have the extreme felicity of dating my letters from those points before many months have run their course. 

        There are now about three thousand troops at “Camp Curtin,” and the numbers which are constantly arriving from all quarters will probably swell the number to four thousand.  We are just taking our first lesson in camp life.  Some of the boys feeling tired, are selecting the softest side of a plank floor to sleep through the night.  Many are out enjoying themselves.  Without exception, they have conducted themselves with much propriety, though there are a little hilarious.  The will tame down by degrees.  The “awkward squad,” among whom you must class “our own”—as this unwarlike correspondence abundantly proves—is especially doing well. 

        The city is all action to-night.  Military bands and martial music are heard in all directions.  The Fencibles Band is greatly admired, and will no doubt be attached to one of the regiments. 

        The Jackson Rifles, Capt. Hambright arrived here a half hour since, and are now quartered at Coverley’s, I have not yet visited them, but will do so in a few moments, and if not too tired will add a postcript. 

        I write this brief letter under a great disadvantage, but as many warm hearts at home are anxiously awaiting to hear of our first day’s “experience,” I did not feel warranted in defering until to-morrow.

        The Fencibles will probably be organized to-morrow, when I will furnish you with a complete list of the members, as well as of the Jackson Rifles. 

BEN.

 

 

Notes from Joe Coleman, Military Coordinator