The Gettysburg Compiler

Calm Before the Storm: Gettysburg’s African-American Community Before the Battle

African-Americans have always been a part of Gettysburg’s community fabric. Slaves belonging to Samuel Gettys, the area’s first settler, arrived as early as 1762 to build one of the first local taverns. Samuel’s son James, who founded Gettysburg in 1786, also owned slaves, including Sydney O’Brien. After her owner’s death, O’Brien obtained her freedom, and in purchasing a small lot along South Washington Street helped establish the borough’s African-American neighborhood. The free black community continued to grow over the first decades of the nineteenth century as Pennsylvania’s policy of gradual emancipation effectively ended slavery in the state by the 1840s. And with uniquely promising economic, social, and educational opportunities, Gettysburg attracted black residents, free and enslaved, from a number of neighboring states.

Biggs 1 — South Washington Street, the center of Gettysburg’s African-American community. U.S. Army Military History Institute.

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Richard D. Dunphy and The Prices and Prizes of War

By Kevin Lavery ’16

Like many immigrants during the mid-nineteenth century, Irishman Richard D. Dunphy served his new country in the Civil War, albeit not entirely willingly. The wounds he sustained during the war were grave, including the loss of both arms. He received some reward for his sacrifice from his country: a monthly pension, a Medal of Honor, and a notability lacked by other faceless coal heavers. As with other great conflicts, the war played a pivotal role in the lives of its participants, especially in the case of Richard Dunphy.

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Richard D. Dunphy: A Veteran’s Struggle Echoing into the Present

By Kevin Lavery ’16

When I first received the bundle of Richard Dunphy’s pension documents, I was prepared to begin research on an obscure figure lost to time. To my great surprise, the very first search I performed resulted in a handful of genealogy websites, several citations of his merit, and even a Wikipedia page. As I began research, it became clear that this coal heaver was not one of the faceless many who fought in the American Civil War, but rather a man of the age whose life told a timeless story of hardship and resolve.

Born in Ireland in 1841, Dunphy came to the United States before the start of the Civil War. He served as a coal heaver aboard five ships in the US Navy, most notably the USS Hartford, flagship of Admiral David Farragut. His “skill and courage” under shellfire during the Battle of Mobile Bay resulted in a Medal of Honor, as well as the amputation of both of his arms. Returning home, he married a young woman he had known before the war and they moved to Vallejo, California to start a family. Continue reading “Richard D. Dunphy: A Veteran’s Struggle Echoing into the Present”

A Life Cast Asunder: The Fate of Sanford Pettibone

By Bryan Caswell ’15

As the American Civil War entered its fourth summer in 1864, both Union and Confederacy delved ever deeper into their remaining reserves of manpower. Legions of men continued to enter the armed forces of their nations, reinforcing drastically undermanned units as well as forming regiments of their own. One such regiment was the 133rd Illinois Volunteer Infantry. Organized at Camp Butler, Illinois in May of 1864 and mustered in for only one hundred days, the 133rd Illinois was stationed at the Rock Island Arsenal, where its men guarded Confederate prisoners of war. Here the 133rd would remain until its men’s enlistment expired and they were mustered out of service in September. Continue reading “A Life Cast Asunder: The Fate of Sanford Pettibone”

“Wrecked cars and suffering humanity”: The Fortunes of the 33rd Illinois

By Bryan Caswell ’15

The men of the 33rd Illinois Volunteer Infantry were out of their minds with boredom in the closing months of 1864. Those veterans who remained from the campaigns of the year before could recall the proud service of their regiment. Mustered into service at Camp Butler, Illinois in September of 1861, the 33rd has spent the first year of its war fighting minor skirmishes in the trans-Mississippi theater. Then, in the late fall of 1862, the 33rd Illinois was transferred to the First Briagde, First Division, XIII Corps of the Army of the Tennessee.

Commanded by Major General John A. McClernand until June of 1863, when he was replaced by Major General Edward O.C. Ord, the XIII Corps would take part in one of the greatest military campaigns ever waged on the North American continent: Ulysses S. Grant’s Vicksburg campaign. The 33rd Illinois fought with distinction at nearly every major battle of Grant’s final push towards Vicksburg in the spring and summer of 1863. They drove through a Confederate delaying action at Port Gibson on May 1 before bloodlessly capturing the Mississippi state capital of Jackson two weeks later. Wheeling to the west, Grant’s army and the 33rd along with it then proceeded to drive through Confederate General John C. Pemberton’s feeble efforts to halt the Union juggernaut and avoid a siege, first giving battle at Champion Hill on May 16 and at the Big Black River Bridge on May 17. Having finally reached the city itself, the men of the 33rd Illinois would take part in both the failed early assaults on Vicksburg and the month-long siege that followed. Continue reading ““Wrecked cars and suffering humanity”: The Fortunes of the 33rd Illinois”

Tales from a Boston Customs House: Lewis Augustine Horton

By Sarah Johnson ’15

One morning as he was preparing the morning paper, Boston-based Washington dispatch examiner Joseph O’Hare’s eye caught a dispatch noting the Medal of Honor was being awarded to a Lewis Horton for courageous acts while rescuing crew members of the U.S.S. Monitor off the coast of Cape Hatteras in 1862. O’Hare was particularly struck by the name of the man, since a double arm amputee veteran named Lewis Augustine Horton worked at the local customs house. O’Hare related the dispatch to Horton, noting the similar name, to which Horton reportedly responded in genuine surprise, “By Jove! It may be for me. I was one of the volunteers that went out in the Rhode Island’s cutter and saved the crew of the Monitor.”

In December of 1862, Horton was an ordinary seaman aboard the U.S.S. Rhode Island. On the night of December 30, the Rhode Island was towing the Monitor of Hampton Roads fame when a terrible storm started. In the storm the Monitor sprung a leak and began to sink. Horton and six other seamen volunteered to undertake a rowboat rescue mission to save the crew. All but four officers and twelve men were rescued. After two successful trips, on the third trip the men found the Monitor had completely sunk. After waiting for a period of time for potential survivors, the men turned the cutter about and began to make for the Rhode Island. The Rhode Island appeared to be about two miles away, but the rain and fog from the storm severely reduced visibility and the men lost sight of her. The men chose to row northwest in hopes of coming across another vessel patrolling the coast and continued to row all night long to keep them out of the strong northeast current that threatened to send them deep into the Atlantic Ocean. Continue reading “Tales from a Boston Customs House: Lewis Augustine Horton”

“A Very Brutal Man”: Lewis Horton, David Todd, and Prisoner Torture

By Sarah Johnson ’15

In the late summer of 1861, just after the battle of Bull Run, Union seaman Lewis Horton was captured while serving on the U.S.S. Massachusetts and taken to Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia. In transport, Horton would recall being shackled to his comrades and marched through the streets for people to jeer at and being forced to spend a night in a building used for convict slaves. Hobnails, Horton remembered, had been hammered partly into the walls and floors of the building, making it too torturous to lie down or lean against the walls. Once he arrived in Richmond, Horton would meet the commandant of the prison, Lieutenant David Todd. Todd was none other than the half-brother of Mary Todd Lincoln, one of several of her siblings to swear loyalty to the Confederacy.

As commandant of Libby Prison, Todd would make a name for himself because of his shocking cruelty to prisoners. Prisoners were given rotten food, nearly no medical treatment, and lived in filth. In addition to this, Horton would recall he was “…a very brutal man. I saw him saber a poor fellow one day because the prisoner had a small bit of lighted candle in order to see to dress his wound. He cut him to the bone. On the least provocation Todd would inflict cruelties on the poor fellow.” Horton and others would also recall that Todd ordered several men to be executed just for trying to look out a window.

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Wounds of War

By Allie Ward ’14

When you think about Civil War soldiers what images come to mind? Do you picture one of the countless carte de visite’s soldiers left behind for loved ones to remember them by? Do you see the horrific images of death made famous after battles? Or perhaps you think of camp and the multitude of photographs of regimental life. Very few people will first think of images of Civil War amputees.

Despite their humanity, images of Civil War amputees are not what most people think of when they think, at all, about the Civil War. The war’s human destruction is a topic widely known; the humans who lived with that destruction, often forgotten. Continue reading “Wounds of War”

Inside the Leister House – July 2, 2013

By Avery Lentz ’14

As our readers certainly remember the summer of 2013 was the 150th Anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. On the days of the July 1-3, 1863, the pivotal battle of Gettysburg was fought between the Union Army of the Potomac and the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, possibly to decide the fate of the nation. By 1863, the death toll had reached catastrophic levels and both North and South were growing fatigued by war. Confederate General Robert E. Lee was looking for a final knockout blow against the Union Army. After his victory at Chancellorsville in May 1863, Lee took his army of 80,000 men north into southern Pennsylvania, slowly being pursued by Union Gen. Joseph Hooker’s army of 93,000 men. On June 28th, Hooker was replaced by Gen. George Gordon Meade.The two armies collided in Gettysburg two days later.

The first two days of the battle were extremely costly for both sides, racking up close to 15,000 to 20,000 casualties total every single day. The events that took place on the night of July 2, 1863 shaped the decisions and outcomes on July 3. General Meade called a council of war among his generals to find out what condition his army was in and whether they should continue to defend Cemetery Hill/Ridge. This pivotal meeting during this pivotal battle happened in the small quarters of the Leister farmhouse on Cemetery Ridge. It’s hard to imagine that people like Lydia Leister lived on the land that turned red with the blood of men in blue and gray. Continue reading “Inside the Leister House – July 2, 2013”

At All Costs: The Stand of the 16th Maine at Gettysburg

By Bryan Caswell ’15

The order to hold to the last, to continue fighting, to refuse to break no matter the cost, is often held to be a noble and heroic concept, especially in the Victorian context of the nineteenth century and the American Civil War. The most famous action of this kind at the Battle of Gettysburg is of course the stand of the 20th Maine on Little Round Top on July 2, 1863, which has been popularized through the writings of Michael Shaara and the 1993 film Gettysburg. The 20th Maine’s commanding officer, Col. Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, reflects upon this unique brand of orders in the film, philosophically wondering what “to the last” can mean, even as his men prepare to receive the enemy. Paradoxically, such a stand only becomes glorious when it is not forced to fulfill the true measure of its orders. Gallant reinforcements arrive to stem the tide; the enemy is broken before the can succeed; the defenders lose hope and retreat rather than being annihilated. Indeed, seldom is the occasion on which men have truly stood “to the last.” One is the case of the 16th Maine at Gettysburg.

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