Tag: Refighting Gettysburg

By Emily Jumba ’24

Washington D.C.’s Daily National Republican’s “Latest from Gettysburg: The Battlefield Two Days After the Battle” and Richmond, Virginia’s The Daily Dispatch’s “Our Army Correspondence” both describe the deaths of soldiers who received mortal wounds at the battle of Gettysburg and attempt to highlight the positive outcomes of the fight while struggling against disillusionment, though to varying degrees. These articles reached readers residing near the epicenter of the war, as they lived in the capital cities of each warring nation.

The Daily National Republican reprinted its article from the New York Times, as was common due to the interconnections between newspapers. The Daily National Republican was the newer of the two papers, as it was created in 1860 under the name the National Republican.[1] From its establishment, the paper aimed to specifically reach Republicans in the United States’ capital and to specifically support the Lincoln administration. Its narrow focus was perhaps due to it competing with four other daily newspapers in the city. On the other hand, The Daily Dispatch, while also being a daily paper, was founded in 1850 with the goal of remaining nonpartisan and appealing to Richmond’s industrial and commercial elites.[2] However, once the Civil War began, the paper’s editors quickly left behind their original nonpartisan ideals and shifted the newspaper’s focus to be staunchly Democrat and pro-Confederate. The opposing political leanings of the newspapers are evident in both “Latest from Gettysburg: The Battlefield Two Days After the Battle” and “Our Army Correspondence,” despite the two articles focusing in on very similar themes.

On July 9, 1863, “Latest from Gettysburg: The Battlefield Two Days After the Battle,” was published in the Daily National Republican, four days after the article’s original printing in the New York Times. This article provides its readers with a brief overview of the battle and then dives into a detailed description of the Pickett-Pettigrew Assault on July 3^rd, which began with a “storm of iron” during the artillery bombardment.[3] The author, L.L. Crounse, shifted his focus relatively early in the piece to describe the cost of the battle in human lives, telling stories ranging from that of individuals to those of whole divisions. Crounse’s graphic descriptions challenge the Victorian era notion of the Good Death. Following the principles of the Good Death, a soldier would, in theory, be injured in battle, but not die instantly, as he would have time to travel home and die, surrounded by his loved ones. In part, these family and friends would be present to provide comfort, but it was also crucially important for them to hear and document his last words so that they would know he died courageously and at peace with God, determining his eternal fate.[4] The soldier’s family and friends would ultimately be able to bury the soldier’s (intact) body in their hometown, rather than in an anonymous plot in some unknown field in a state far from home. During the Civil War, some soldiers attempted to adapt the Good Death to a battle situation, wherein they made agreements with their comrades to write home to each other’s families in the circumstance of their death to provide family members with the details on how they died, their final words, and descriptions of how they performed in battle; such letters were often accompanied by a soldier’s personal effects, intending to help provide the family with as much closure as they possibly could.

However, Crounse’s descriptions often challenged the Good Death, focusing on grisly battlefield deaths where the mangled soldiers who were dying in agony, far from home had no one to record their final words or recite a comforting biblical passage to them. For example, he informs his readers of the death of Lieutenant Bayard Wilkeson, who lingered alone for ten excruciating hours after being mortally wounded on July 1^st, stranded on the battlefield, with no one to record his dying words and certainly far from his home and loved ones. Wilkeson did not personally achieve the Good Death, and the closest his family came to remedying that fact was when his father managed to claim his body and effects after the battle so that his family at least had an idea of what happened to him.

Crounse also unabashedly shared the mass-scale carnage of July 3^rd with his readers, noting, “Our immortal men, nerved to a degree of desperation never before equaled, poured forth, such a devastating fire, and the artillery joining with its terrible canister, that the two long lines of the foe literally sank into the earth.”[5] Like Wilkeson, those two ranks of Confederate soldiers did not experience the Good Death—they were mowed down while still in their line, removing the cherished Civil War-era notion that individual men possessed actual agency to affect the course of battle. Many of them were helplessly blown apart on the field, with only the “comfort” of fellow dead or dying comrades from their regiment sprawled around them. As his reporting style reveals, while Crounse publicly challenged the notion of the Good Death to Republicans living in Washington D.C., he in turn appears to have struggled with a sense of war-disillusionment. Rather than center his article on how honorably and courageously the men fought, he focuses instead on the wanton death and mass destruction caused by the battle. However, it is clear that, despite the sobering realities of war, he was not completely disillusioned, as he attempts to portray the battle more positively toward the end of the article: “…the noble Army of the Potomac can yet fight, after all the imputations of demoralization and inefficiency which have been heaped upon it.”[6] Thus, it seems, like many writers during the war, Crounse managed to dig within himself to find a higher meaning in the human sacrifice and suffering—a sentimentalism that encouraged him to be stoic and composed in the face of such suffering. It is likely that the editors of the Daily National Republican included his article in the paper because of that somewhat more positive twist at the end, which would prevent the article from crushing its readers’ morale. Their audience was comprised of Republicans from the nation’s capital, their readership likely also included several Republican politicians. These individuals surely would not want to read an account of utter disillusionment with the war they were waging, especially after such a large Union victory which had sent the Army of Northern Virginia retreating South.

In Richmond, “Our Army Correspondence” surprisingly revealed a somewhat less disenchanted tone than its northern counterpart, and focused more on highlighting episodes in which the Good Death was, in fact, achieved—likely to bolster morale in the Confederate capital following General Lee’s enormous loss at Gettysburg.  This article was originally published on July 21, 1863, and was written in Martinsburg, West Virginia ten days after “Latest from Gettysburg: The Battlefield Two Days After the Battle,” was published in the New York Times. Rather than focus on the battle itself, this account centers more on the Confederate retreat, relaying news of some of the casualties back to the homefront, and interestingly enough, the political climate of Martinsburg regarding secession, which is portrayed as still highly sympathetic to the Confederate cause, despite the state’s recent addition to the Union. (Perhaps this emphasis on Martinsburg’s southern sympathies was meant to help buoy Confederate morale by implying that that loyalty to and support for the Southern cause was still more widespread than the recent statehood movement would lend one to believe). The article’s author does maintain some of the tenets of the Good Death in the stories that he chooses to tell. For example, he relates the death of General Paul Semmes to his readers. Semmes’s femoral artery was severed during the battle, and while he did put a tourniquet above the wound and survived beyond the battlefield, he eventually passed away in Martinsburg a week later. Even though they both lingered after receiving mortal wounds during the battle, Semmes’s and Wilkeson’s deaths are described very differently. Semmes had doting nurses tending to his needs in Martinsburg and, embodying the noble and composed manner expected in the Good Death, he “perceived [a change in his condition for the worse], and told his attendants that he would not survive.”[7] He told the nurses to write to his family, got to share a few poignant words with them, and asked that his sword and Bible be given to his wife upon his death. According to the author, “He also expressed his resignation to his fate, and died as he had often expressed a wish to die—in service to his country.”[8]

Semmes fulfilled almost all of the requirements of the Good Death, only deviating from it in two ways—he was not at home with his family as he died, although he experienced the next best thing of being surrounded by doting nurses who conveyed his final words to his family; and he was not buried back at home, although that had been his original plan. His body was supposed to be shipped back to his relatives in Georgia, but it began decomposing too quickly and he had to be buried in Martinsburg. His death was extremely different than Wilkeson’s lonely and painful one in the middle of a battlefield. The author may have included Semmes’s story because it was a rare occasion of the Good Death actually being fulfilled in the wake of battle, and while the death itself was not necessarily a morale booster, the manner in which it occurred would help to smooth away some of the horrors of war that were also printed in the papers, and (in a way), almost justify his death in the name of sentimental sacrifice to a beloved cause.

While not nearly as strong as in “Latest from Gettysburg: The Battlefield Two Days After the Battle,” there is still a slight undercurrent of disillusionment in “Our Army Correspondence.” The author still chose to focus on the cost of the battle in human life, even if he did include an example of the Good Death being fulfilled. Unlike many other post-battle newspaper articles, he did not describe the details of the fighting, portraying his side’s army as gallantly and courageously fighting, but instead focused on the outcome of the battle for the combatants themselves. He does not completely abandon the cherished ideals of the brave and noble soldier—upon describing Semmes’s death, he certainly explores those characteristics—but he also makes it clear that the Confederate army was in retreat and had lost a staggering number of honorable men. To an audience in Richmond, the Confederate capital, this would be a sobering thought, compared to some of the other Southern accounts of the battle of Gettysburg which painted it as a gallant Confederate victory.

While these two articles were published in newspapers based in the warring capitals, they both wrestle with portraying the soldier’s Good Death and balancing threads of disillusionment and war-weariness with necessary morale-boosting patriotism. They both achieved their goals by relying on sentimental tropes and rhetoric with which to frame their narratives. The conflicting feelings of each author reveal that by mid-July of 1863, people on both sides of the war were not only feeling direct challenges to their pre-war cultural ideals (i.e., the Good Death), but also wrestling with how to maintain continuous enthusiasm for the war. Certainly full disillusionment with the war had not set in; the Good Death was not entirely extinct, and there was an important higher meaning to the suffering and sacrifices both sides had endured.  However, there were clear and significant challenges with which they were forced to reckon as the war continued on through the summer of 1863. The staggeringly high number of casualties from Gettysburg only added to these already extant feelings. As authors and editors in both capitals wrestled with their personal feelings about the war, they likewise wrestled with questions as to how to accurately bring the sobering realities of war home to their readers while simultaneously upholding their perceived duties to maintain public morale.

Bibliography

Faust, Drew Gilpin. This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War. 1st ed. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008.

Library of Congress. “Daily National Republican.” W.J. Murtagh & Co. Accessed April 11, 2023. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86053570/.

Library of Congress. “Daily National Republican. (Washington, D.C.) 1862-1866, July 09, 1863, Image 1,” July 9, 1863. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86053570/1863-07-09/ed-1/seq-1/.

Library of Congress. “The Daily Dispatch.” J.A. Cowardin. Accessed April 11, 2023. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024738/.

Library of Congress. “The Daily Dispatch. (Richmond, Va.) 1850-1884, July 21, 1863, Image 1,” July 21, 1863. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024738/1863-07-21/ed-1/seq-1/.

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[1] Library of Congress, “Daily National Republican” (W.J. Murtagh & Co.).

[2] Library of Congress, “The Daily Dispatch” (J.A. Cowardin).

[3] Library of Congress, “Daily National Republican. (Washington, D.C.) 1862-1866, July 09, 1863, Image 1,” July 9, 1863.

[4] Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War, 1st ed. (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2008), 10.

[5] Library of Congress, “Daily National Republican. (Washington, D.C.) 1862-1866, July 09, 1863, Image 1,” July 9, 1863.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Library of Congress, “The Daily Dispatch. (Richmond, Va.) 1850-1884, July 21, 1863, Image 1,” July 21, 1863.

[8] Ibid.

By Emily Jumba ’24

Beaufort, South Carolina’s The Free South’s“Victory! Gettysburg; General Lee Defeated; Thirty Thousand Prisoners” and Delaware, Ohio’s The Delaware Gazette’s “The Great Battle in Pennsylvania” both describe some of the aftermath of the battle of Gettysburg, although with extremely different tones. Both newspapers expressed strong pro-Union sentiments and supported the Republican party. Federal treasury agents founded The Free South in January of 1863 in Beaufort, South Carolina, which, by 1863, was mostly home to freedmen and occupying Union soldiers, both of whom were supportive of the Union.[1] Beaufort began experimenting with Reconstruction soon after the battle of Port Royal, in late 1861. The fact that this small pro-Union paper was based in South Carolina, which not only was a slave state, but was also the first to secede from the Union, makes the position of The Free South somewhat unique. The Delaware Gazette, on the other hand, was the product of a northern state and was slightly older, having first been published in 1855 in Delaware, Ohio.[2] This paper initially leaned towards the Whig Party, but after the party’s collapse, it switched its loyalties to the new Republican Party, which likely represented many of its constituents, as Ohio was both a free state and a loyal member of the Union. The varied focus and tone of these staunchly pro-Union papers’ reports on the aftermath of Gettysburg is intriguing to unpack.

“Victory! Gettysburg; General Lee Defeated; Thirty Thousand Prisoners” (The Free South) reports mostly on the Confederate retreat from Gettysburg in a straight-forward “factual” manner, without much flourish or pathos. The article also focuses on tallying the number of prisoners the federal troops managed to take, between the quantity of wounded men the Army of Northern Virginia left behind in Pennsylvania and those that surrendered mid-battle or during the retreat. It is important to note that, while the article focuses on numbers, some of them are just estimates, as the article was written less than two weeks after the battle, and it draws heavily from articles in the New York Herald, which were published even closer to the battle, on July 3^rd and 7^th.[3] Occasionally these estimates are a bit high; at one point, the Free South article approximates the total number of prisoners taken by the Army of the Potomac at a quarter of General Lee’s forces.[4] In addition to the prisoner counts, the article also briefly mentions which generals on each side were casualties, but gives no further details about the circumstances of their injuries or deaths, staying true to its lean and blunt reporting style.

The Free South’s heavy emphasis on prisoners is a consistent pattern throughout the newspaper’s short time in publication (from January of 1863, to November of 1864).[5] After various battles occurred, the paper often reported on the number of prisoners taken both by federal and Confederate troops. This may be due to the Beaufort population consisting of predominately freedpeople. United States Colored Troops had been fighting in the war since the fall of 1862, opening the potential for African Americans to be taken as prisoners of war during the time frame the paper was in print.[6] This scenario was of particular concern for the consumers of The Free South (whether they could read the news for themselves or had it read to them by Union occupiers), as on numerous occasions, when Confederate soldiers encountered African American soldiers who surrendered, they killed them rather than accept their surrender, and when they did take African Americans prisoners, they often refused to parole them or sent them back into slavery.

Both of these scenarios were featured within the paper in early Fall of 1863, just two months after Gettysburg. On September 19, 1863, an article described the delay in the exchange of prisoners because, “the rebels refused to eat their words,” regarding the USCT troops who had been captured.[7] A month prior, the United States War Department released General Order 252, in which Lincoln demanded the equal treatment of prisoners and threatened to execute a Confederate prisoner for every USCT soldier that the rebels murdered.[8] If there were any freedpeople from Beaufort who had joined the USCTs, such occurrences could potentially involve them and significantly impact the lives of their loved ones back at home, who were trying to establish new lives for themselves. In addition, the white federal soldiers occupying Beaufort were also likely interested in reading these statistics because they would also want to see the reports of USCT prisoners taken, especially as the Confederates committed similar atrocities against the white officers commanding USCT units. On a broader scale, by following statistics of prisoner tallies, the soldiers could track the progress of the war and which side seemed closer to winning while they remained stationed at Beaufort, away from the action of the war.

This article only briefly mentions the possibility of the Union suffering heavy losses to General Lee, but does not dwell on the idea, perhaps, in part, as an attempt to bolster previously sagging Union morale by focusing more squarely on the enemy’s losses than those sustained by the North’s for its reading constituency. Additionally, as there were no USCTs involved in the battle of Gettysburg, concerns about brutal treatment of captured federal troops and officers was not as much of a concern as it would have been in the wake of other battles. This common theme of focusing on prisoners of war as part of a larger emphasis on a battle’s raw numbers likely was a trend that carried over from the paper’s typical battle reporting style.

“The Great Battle in Pennsylvania” (Delaware Gazette)also mentions prisoners taken after the battle of Gettysburg and some numerical counts, although its aftermath-focus is centered on the battle’s cost in human lives. The article builds to the reveal of the horrors of battle by first relaying the events of the Pickett-Pettigrew Assault on July 3^rd in a grandiose manner, almost as if relaying the plot of a dramatic novel. The account contains a series of events and surrounding context that are described in sentimental detail, such as: “There was not wanting to the peacefulness of the scene the singing of a bird, which had a nest in a peach tree within the tiny yard of the white-washed cottage.”[9]  The article’s author immediately annihilates this bucolic image by describing cannon shot beginning to tear through the house as the bird is mid-song. The descriptive scenes eventually culminate in a description of men’s violent (but honorable) deaths that awaited on the battlefield: “They rushed in perfect order across the open field, up to the very muzzles of the guns, which tore lances through them as they came.”[10] The author clearly wants his audience to immerse themselves in the full picture of the fighting and the horrors that the soldiers experienced, with tugs at both the imagination and the heartstrings of the reading public, even though he himself was not present at the battle.

Simultaneously, details such as these conveyed to communities back at home that the soldiers’ fight was a courageous, romantic display of sentimental sacrifice in the face of a brutal enemy, and under enormously trying circumstances, that ultimately won the day in the name of Union and patriotism. Courage and sentimental sacrifice were expected, hallmark facets of Civil War soldiers’ conduct, as they tied into essential Victorian ideals, such as martial masculinity, honor, and righteousness, that both soldiers and civilians believed in to help justify the horrors and grief ensuing from war.[11] For example, at the end of the article, the author depicts Jesus standing over the battlefield, welcoming the righteous dead through the gates of Heaven—and what made these dead righteous was that they fought courageously, upholding their honor until their dying moment.[12] Civil War soldiers on both sides often believed that if they were righteous, Providence would at least ensure their souls went to Heaven if it did not protect them from injury in battle. The author likely included such evocative details in part because he was writing for an extremely pro-Union audience in Delaware who likely sought such affirming framing in reading about the details of a large Northern victory. The article in The Free South utterly skips past this sort of description, focusing squarely on numbers and cold calculations of POWs rather than on the human details of, say, how those large numbers of soldiers reached a position in which surrender proved the only option.

Although published within a mere day of each other, both for pro-Union audiences, and both clearly recognizing the Union victory at Gettysburg, the difference in these two articles’ tone and content reveals the important role that not only the expectations, but also the needs of the readership played in shaping how Civil War battles were portrayed in the press.[13] One paper was consumed by a community of newly freed former slaves who were in the process of starting new lives in a state that was still fighting against the Union, as well as by Union occupiers who were expected to continue their tenure at Beaufort until the end of the war; their desire for battle news likely was motivated by practical, pragmatic concerns about numbers and raw facts that could alter the scales for or against an ultimate Union victory and emancipation. The other paper was produced for a well-established town of largely white civilians in central Ohio with pro-Republican leanings who craved a battle narrative that propped up both their cultural and political ideals that justified the sacrifice of so many white soldiers on behalf of Union and democracy. These two articles underscore just how intertwined the press and individual readership communities were in shaping how the war was reported and recorded for future generations.  

Bibliography

“Gettysburg Prisoners of War – Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine (U.S. National Park Service).” https://www.nps.gov/fomc/learn/historyculture/gettysburg-prisoners-of-war.htm.

“Battle History | Gettysburg PA.” https://www.gettysburgpa.gov/history/slideshows/battle-history.

“Beaufort National Cemetery–Civil War Era National Cemeteries: A Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary.” https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/national_cemeteries/south_carolina/beaufort_national_cemetery.html.

Delaware Gazette. “The Great Battle in Pennsylvania.” July 10, 1863, sec. Image 2. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83035595/1863-07-10/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=07%2F01%2F1863&index=2&date2=07%2F16%2F1863&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&words=Gettysburg+prisoners&proxdistance=5&state=&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=Gettysburg+prisoner&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=range&page=2.

Library of Congress. “Delaware Gazette (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886.” https://www.loc.gov/item/sn83035595/.

Library of Congress. “The Free South (Beaufort, South Carolina) 1863-1864.” Stickney, Latta & Reed. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026962/.

Linderman, Gerald. Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat in the American Civil War. New York: The Free Press, 1987.

The Free South. “Important Order from President Lincoln.” August 15, 1863, sec. Image 2. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026962/1863-08-15/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=01%2F01%2F1777&index=4&date2=12%2F31%2F1963&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&lccn=sn84026962&words=prisoner+prisoners&proxdistance=5&rows=20&ortext=prisoner&proxtext=&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=range&page=1.

The Free South. “Once Free, Always Free.” April 25, 1863, sec. Image 1. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026962/1863-04-25/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=01%2F01%2F1777&index=5&date2=12%2F31%2F1963&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&lccn=sn84026962&words=prison+prisoner&proxdistance=5&rows=20&ortext=prisoner&proxtext=&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=range&page=1.

The Free South. “Protection of Colored Troops.” August 15, 1863, sec. Image 2. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026962/1863-08-15/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=01%2F01%2F1777&index=4&date2=12%2F31%2F1963&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&lccn=sn84026962&words=prisoner+prisoners&proxdistance=5&rows=20&ortext=prisoner&proxtext=&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=range&page=1.

The Free South. “The Exchange of Prisoners—Status of Officers of Negro Regiments.” September 19, 1863, sec. Image 2. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026962/1863-09-19/ed-1/seq2/#date1=01%2F01%2F1777&index=9&date2=12%2F31%2F1963&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&lccn=sn84026962&words=prisoner+prisoners&proxdistance=5&rows=20&ortext=prisoner&proxtext=&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=range&page=1.

The Free South. “Victory! Gettysburg; General Lee Defeated; Thirty Thousand Prisoners.” July 11, 1863, sec. Image 1. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026962/1863-07-11/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=07%2F01%2F1863&index=3&date2=07%2F16%2F1863&searchType=advanced&language=&sequence=0&words=Gettysburg+prisoners&proxdistance=5&state=&rows=20&ortext=&proxtext=Gettysburg+prisoner&phrasetext=&andtext=&dateFilterType=range&page=1

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[1] Library of Congress. “The Free South (Beaufort, South Carolina) 1863-1864.”

[2] Library of Congress. “Delaware Gazette (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886.”

[3] The Free South. “Victory! Gettysburg; General Lee Defeated; Thirty Thousand Prisoners.” July 11, 1863, sec. Image 1.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Library of Congress. “The Free South (Beaufort, South Carolina) 1863-1864.”

[6] “Beaufort National Cemetery–Civil War Era National Cemeteries: A Discover Our Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary.”

[7] The Free South. “The Exchange of Prisoners—Status of Officers of Negro Regiments.” September 19, 1863, sec. Image 2.

[8] The Free South. “Important Order from President Lincoln.” August 15, 1863, sec. Image 2.

[9] Delaware Gazette. “The Great Battle in Pennsylvania.” July 10, 1863, sec. Image 2.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Gerald Linderman, Embattled Courage: The Experience of Combat in the American Civil War (New York: The Free Press, 1987).

[12] Delaware Gazette. “The Great Battle in Pennsylvania.” July 10, 1863, sec. Image 2.

[13] “The Great Battle in Pennsylvania” was published on July 10, 1863, and the “Victory! Gettysburg; General Lee Defeated; Thirty Thousand Prisoners” was published on July 11, 1863.

By Emily Jumba ’24

Pairing: The Bedford Gazette, July 10, 1863, Image 2 (“The First Onset—Death of Reynolds”) and The Western Democrat, July 21, 1863, Image 2 (“Another Account”)

In the days, weeks, and months following the Battle of Gettysburg, journalists and newspaper editors feverishly attempted to recapture the full details, implications, and meaning of the massive fight that had transformed one small, formerly obscure, south-central Pennsylvania town into a household name. While some reporters struggled to ascertain the exact facts of the battle amidst the chaotic aftermath, others wrote with clear political agendas intended to sway the hearts and minds of their readership and, in turn, bolster their respective side’s support for the war effort. Still others searched for meaning in the aftermath through the prisms of religion, world history, and other lenses.  In this mini-series, students will explore the myriad ways that 19^th-century newspapers, throughout the North and South, “re-fought” the Battle of Gettysburg, its factual components, and its larger significance in print in the immediate aftermath of the fighting.

The Bedford Gazette’s “The First Onset—Death of Reynolds” and The Western Democrat’s “Another Account” both discuss not only the fighting of the battle of Gettysburg, but also the experiences of civilians throughout the battle. Both papers were from small towns, although they supported opposing sides of the war.  The Bedford Gazette operated out of Bedford, Pennsylvania and had a population of 1,328 people in 1860.  Charlotte, North Carolina (the home of The Western Democrat) was closer to the size of Gettysburg, with 2,265 people in 1860.  Although both newspapers came from similarly sized towns, the focus of their descriptions of the battle differed significantly.  Surprisingly, The Bedford Gazette delves into far greater detail on the specifics of the fighting and the people involved in it compared to its southern counterpart, despite the former’s article having been written sooner after the battle, when fewer battle details may have been confirmed.  In addition, the articles portray the experiences and character of the civilians whose homes were caught in the crossfire in vastly different way, perhaps as an additional means of war propaganda.

The Bedford Gazette was based in rural southern Pennsylvania, about ninety miles west of Gettysburg.  Immigrants (particularly Germans) predominately settled the area during the latter half of the eighteenth century.  The article “The First Onset—Death of Reynolds,” was originally published in Baltimore, although, curiously, the name of the Baltimore paper was not cited by The Bedford Gazette.  The article may have been borrowed from the unnamed Baltimore newspaper for two reasons: It has a heavy focus on the struggle of the Eleventh Corps (unlike many other post-battle articles that attempted to describe the first day’s fighting and often focused on the actions of the First Corps), and it painted the Pennsylvanian civilians in an overall positive light.  Residents of Bedford possibly felt ties to the Eleventh Corps because a significant number of immigrants (many of them German) filled its ranks. Many of the original European settlers of the Bedford area were German immigrants; thus, while local regiments did not fight with the Eleventh Corps, an ethnic connection existed between the two.  In the socio-economic hierarchy of the nineteenth century United States, German and Irish immigrants fell towards the bottom, and therefore were not generally portrayed in a very positive light.  This article, to the contrary, does portray people of German ethnicity as courageous soldiers who fought well, which likely appealed to the descendants of German settlers in Bedford. 

In addition, the article may have been chosen for re-printing in Bedford because it also portrays the civilians of Gettysburg in such a positive light, braving the bullets flying through the streets to aid Union soldiers in need: “They appeared elevated by noble impulses above the sentiment of fear,” the article gushed.[1]  As fellow Pennsylvanians living not far from the battlefield, Bedford residents would be eager  to consume news about the brave actions of their fellow civilians caught in the fighting.  Additionally, the paper’s glowing portrayal of Gettysburg’s largely German and Pennsylvania-Dutch community also would have struck a chord with the heavily German community of Bedford, particularly because so many newspaper reports of the time were rife with derogatory commentary about the supposed coarseness, selfishness, rudeness, and unattractiveness of Pennsylvania’s German settlements. The editor of the paper also likely hoped that this segment would serve as propaganda for supporting the war effort because it showcased the deep devotion to the war effort that even non-combatant civilians held in their hearts. This article stands out not only for mentioning the civilians at all, but also for highlighting their contributions to the war that defied typical nineteenth-century gender roles; instead of merely hiding out in their basements or fleeing the town altogether as passive and helpless victims, the women of Gettysburg were lauded for venturing out into the danger of battle to bring refreshments to the soldiers. In addition to praising and showcasing the supposed strength of Union morale among the northern citizenry and their unwavering devotion to the war effort, the paper also seems to imply that if the women of Gettysburg can risk their lives in patriotic service to the Union, then certainly so can their men on future battlefields.

“Another Account” in The Western Democrat is far less unit-specific in its description of the battle and portrays the civilians living in Pennsylvania as timid people who quickly fled town before the battle.  Rather than just focusing on July 1, 1863, this article describes all three days of the battle and describes the general movements of the Confederate troops on each day.  The units discussed are typically the usual names that appear in many newspapers regarding each part of the battle, rather than those in the northern article that focused on many 11^th Corps troops.  Similar to its counterpart though, this paper describes its own soldiers’ fighting as valiant and heroic.  For example, when describing General Archer’s surrender, the “Another Account” article notes that his troops held out as long as possible while being greatly outnumbered to lessen the shame of surrendering: “[They were] taken prisoners…while obstinately refusing to yield a point that they were attempting to hold against overpowering numbers.”[2]   This article also takes a dramatically different approach to describing the northern civilians. It claims they fearfully abandoned their homes prior to the battle, which were full of food that the Confederates stole and items that they destroyed. In addition, it claims that the invasion shattered supposed  northern illusions of the southern army, stating, “The people were terrified, and wondered greatly that the poor, starving and weak Confederate army could be of such gigantic proportions.”[3]  Not only does the article show the Pennsylvanians  as cowardly and not being willing to stand up to defend their property, but it also tries to argue that the Confederate troops got the best of the northerners, whose land had thus far avoided most of the ravages of war.  The foodstuffs and other acquisitions that the Confederates made off with was a comparatively small  victory, but the editor was clearly scrambling to use that victory as propaganda to help put a positive spin on the otherwise disastrous Confederate defeat  which, he likely feared, would sink public morale.

Both “The First Onset—Death of Reynolds” and “Another Account” describe the battle of Gettysburg and the way civilians reacted to it, yet they include different details that could be used as propaganda to boost the morale of readers (particularly regarding their portrayals  of civilians).  Both attempted to accurately relay the facts of what happened during the battle; indeed, even the differing portrayals of the civilians contained varying elements of truth.  Each person experienced the battle differently, and while some people did flee the battle, others did attempt to provide refreshments for soldiers or help the wounded.  The large discrepancies between the articles mostly stem from the decision over which stories the editors wanted to tell and in what light, rather than whether specific actions actually happened or not.  In both cases, they chose civilian stories that would appeal to their audience and portray the Gettysburgians in a specific manner that benefitted their respective side, showcasing how even the common citizen could be weaponized as a propaganda tool in both the northern and southern press.

Works Referenced

“Bedford, PA Population.” Accessed December 2, 2022. https://population.us/pa/bedford/.

“Charlotte, NC Population.” Accessed December 2, 2022. https://population.us/nc/charlotte/.

Civil War Institute at Gettysburg College. The XI Corps, German Immigrants, and the Battle of Gettysburg, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umqYkyvMCg8.

“German-Americans and the Eleventh Corps Historical Marker.” Accessed December 2, 2022. https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=70404.

“Gettysburg, PA Population.” Accessed December 2, 2022. https://population.us/pa/gettysburg/.

“History of Bedford.” Accessed December 2, 2022. https://www.pa-roots.com/bedford/history/historyofbedford.html.

The Battle of Gettysburg. “11th Corps Organization at Gettysburg.” Accessed December 2, 2022. https://gettysburg.stonesentinels.com/armies/army-of-the-potomac/11th-corps/.

The Battle of Gettysburg. “Monument to the 11th Corps at Gettysburg, Photograph and Map Location.” Accessed December 2, 2022. https://gettysburg.stonesentinels.com/union-headquarters/11th-corps/.

The Bedford Gazette. “The First Onset—Death of Reynolds.” July 10, 1863, sec. Image 2. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/data/batches/pst_intramural_ver01/data/sn82005159/00296028459/1863071001/0316.pdf

The Western Democrat. “Another Account.” July 21, 1863, sec. Image 2. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/data/batches/ncu_lumber_ver01/data/sn84020712/00295879191/1863072101/0116.pdf

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[1] The Bedford Gazette. “The First Onset—Death of Reynolds.” July 10, 1863, sec. Image 2.

[2] The Western Democrat. “Another Account.” July 21, 1863, sec. Image 2.

[3] The Western Democrat. “Another Account.” July 21, 1863, sec. Image 2.

By Emily Jumba ’24

Pairing: Raftsman’s Journal, July 15, 1863, Image 2 (“The Victory at Gettysburg”) AND Union County Star and Lewisburg Chronicle, July 7, 1863, Image 1 (“Union Victory! The Gettysburg Battles”)

In the days, weeks, and months following the Battle of Gettysburg, journalists and newspaper editors feverishly attempted to recapture the full details, implications, and meaning of the massive fight that had transformed one small, formerly obscure, south-central Pennsylvania town into a household name. While some reporters struggled to ascertain the exact facts of the battle amidst the chaotic aftermath, others wrote with clear political agendas intended to sway the hearts and minds of their readership and, in turn, bolster their respective side’s support for the war effort. Still others searched for meaning in the aftermath through the prisms of religion, world history, and other lenses.  In this mini-series, students will explore the myriad ways that 19^th-century newspapers, throughout the North and South, “re-fought” the Battle of Gettysburg, its factual components, and its larger significance in print in the immediate aftermath of the fighting.

The Clearfield Raftsman’s Journal and Union County Star and Lewisburg Chronicle both published accounts of the battle of Gettysburg within two weeks of the fight’s conclusion.  Published in two different, small, central-Pennsylvanian towns, Clearfield was comprised of fewer than one thousand people, while Lewisburg boasted just a slightly higher population than Gettysburg (2400) in 1860.[1]  Unlike the larger papers rooted in urban hubs such as New York City, Philadelphia, or Richmond, small-town newspapers such as these likely experienced less pressure to include fanciful political propaganda about the war effort than did the major papers that both served as the political organs of those larger cities and sought to reach a national audience.  Thus, while both articles from these small-town papers focus on celebrating the Union triumph at Gettysburg, they both do so through surprisingly up-front and level-headed reporting, despite varying in their overall area of focus and tone.

The Raftsman’s Journal’s “The Victory at Gettysburg” is the more exuberant of the two articles, with it boasting of the various ways that the Confederate army and citizens would be demoralized after the battle of Gettysburg.  It begins with a broad overview of the battle, accounting for which side led after each day’s fighting, and then quickly shifts to a discussion of the battle’s various disheartening influences upon the Confederates that surely hung heavily upon them as they retreated south.  Influenced not just by a sense of national, but also state-wide pride, the author of the article describes the “unsurpassed in the world” abundance the Confederates found when they invaded Pennsylvania, from the flourishing crops to the plentiful reserves of young men who had not yet enlisted.[2]  The author claims that the Confederates would return South and tell their loved ones of the Northern bounty to the effect of “demoraliz[ing] public opinion in Rebeldom,” shattering the falsehoods that the Confederate government fed to them about the supposedly devastating impacts of the war on the Union.[3] On the contrary, the scenes greeting the rebel army were hardly the picture of a war-weary people, or of a land ravaged by war and on the desperate verge of surrender.  Although the tone of the piece is somewhat boastful, the article is unique for its insightfulness not only on the impact of the battle itself on the now-weakened Confederate army, but also on the accurate depiction of how personal observances of the enemy’s heretofore unblighted landscape and untouched resources did indeed cause Confederate soldiers—as well as the communities to whom they wrote home—to rethink prior notions of whole-hearted northern desperation and physical weakness.

“Union Victory! The Gettysburg Battles,” published in the Union County Star and Lewisburg Chronicle, takes a more no-nonsense approach to reporting on the battle and spends most of the article describing how various generals fared in the fight.  Rather than focusing on a defeated and demoralized Confederate army, the author informs the paper’s readers about the experiences and battle performances of several Union generals and lists those who were wounded or killed.  Out of these generals, the most time is spent on General John Reynolds and the ramifications of his death on July 1^st.  It is clear that the author’s main task was merely reporting the news to the people of Lewisburg, a relatively small Pennsylvania town located northeast of Gettysburg, rather than projecting a sensationalized story to a national audience in competition with the political propaganda of other big-name papers. The difference in audience and reach thus likely allowed the author to focus more on a mere reporting of the facts (as they had heard them thus far, only a couple of days removed from the battle) to the paper’s readers.  Like the Raftsman’s Journal article, the article conveys a sense of uniquely local pride as it mentions, in particular, the noble fighting of a few companies from the surrounding area while glorifying the fallen members of those companies for sacrificing themselves on behalf of “the Gigantic struggle of the Age between Liberty and Despotism”.[4]

While these two articles take different approaches to their descriptions of the battle of Gettysburg, their reports are far less sensationalized than many of the articles published in the major newspapers that followed the war.  Free from the pressure of having to win over an audience from competing papers and divested of the responsibility to sway a nation’s heart and mind as to the promise and righteousness of the Union war effort, these rural, small-town papers dwelled more on delivering factual narratives and celebrating their “home-town” heroes.    Of course, the papers still contain some bias (i.e, the claims to the utter demoralization of the Confederate nation, the emphasis on local hometown companies as the best-performing troops of all, and the claims to the state’s boundless war-time prosperity), but they also spend a significant amount of time trying to unpack the facts of battle and what their constituents could reliably take away as the major outcomes of the fight.  Both articles use the term “victory” in their titles, yet they have vastly different tones, with the Clearfield article glowing triumphantly and the Lewisburg paper walking readers through the factual occurrences of the battle narrative. These articles demonstrate some of the more localized perspectives and agendas (or lack thereof!) of small-town Northern newspapers on the battle of Gettysburg and the war effort as a whole that often are overlooked in favor of the large-scale, sensationalized and hyper-politicized reports from the leading urban newspapers on each side. Nevertheless, like their larger counterparts, these papers, with their different angles and reporting tone, still remind us of the myriad of different ways that Civil War newspapers could interpret “victory”.

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[1] “Clearfield, PA Population,” accessed November 4, 2022.

“Gettysburg, PA Population,” accessed November 4, 2022.

“Lewisburg, PA Population,” accessed November 4, 2022.

[2] “The Victory at Gettysburg,” Raftsman’s Journal, July 15, 1863, sec. Image 2.

[3] Ibid.

[4] “Union Victory! The Gettysburg Battles”, Union County Star and Lewisburg Chronicle, July 15, 1863, sec. Image 1.

By Emily Jumba ’24

In the days, weeks, and months following the Battle of Gettysburg, journalists and newspaper editors feverishly attempted to recapture the full details, implications, and meaning of the massive fight that had transformed one small, formerly obscure, south-central Pennsylvania town into a household name. While some reporters struggled to ascertain the exact facts of the battle amidst the chaotic aftermath, others wrote with clear political agendas intended to sway the hearts and minds of their readership and, in turn, bolster their respective side’s support for the war effort. Still others searched for meaning in the aftermath through the prisms of religion, world history, and other lenses.  In this mini-series, students will explore the myriad ways that 19^th-century newspapers, throughout the North and South, “re-fought” the Battle of Gettysburg, its factual components, and its larger significance in print in the immediate aftermath of the fighting.

The Wilmington Journal published both “The Bane and Antidote” and “Latest from the North,” just a week apart from each other, shortly after the battle of Gettysburg. Both articles are aimed at reassuring the Confederate readers of the paper of a positive outcome for the South, yet they accomplish this goal very differently.  One article presents the battle as a clear-cut Confederate victory, while the other is included in the Wilmington Journal to demonstrate the supposedly desperately low state of home front morale in the North that had manifested in brazenly false publications of war propaganda, as well as the possible dangers of that Union propaganda to the Confederate cause, should it not be called out and condemned before the Southern reading public. 

The first article, “The Bane and Antidote,” which was published July 9, 1863, promotes the battle as a massive Confederate victory, comparing General Robert E. Lee to Napoleon Bonaparte, and repeatedly (though erroneously) stating that 40,000 Union troops surrendered to him.  Unlike many other post-battle articles that dwell on specific details of the fighting and the number of deaths and woundings, this piece focuses on prisoners of war.  Such an emphasis is important as the article goes on to suggest that those 40,000 soldiers surrendered because they were tired of fighting, simultaneously making Northern soldiers seem incapable of continuing much longer, while emphasizing the Confederate determination to keep fighting (as they reportedly did not surrender at all).  The article refers to Lee’s army as “never-defeated veterans,” compared to Meade’s “tired” army.  Such a statement is clearly Confederate propaganda to twenty-first-century eyes, but not so to many of the readers of this paper. Juxtaposed with General Joseph Johnston’s July 4 capitulation at Vicksburg (the title’s “bane”), this article is intended to lift Southern spirits with the positive news of the Gettysburg “antidote,” despite the piece’s authors not actually knowing the battle’s results for sure or even how many days of fighting had just taken place at Gettysburg!

The editors of the newspaper reprinted the “Latest from the North” from the July 6, 1863, evening edition of The Baltimore American in the July 16, 1863, edition of the Wilmington Journal.  This article includes many more specific details from the battle and argues that the battle of Gettysburg was a major Union victory that sent Lee into a disorganized and hasty retreat.  This marked change in reporting was not due to any new knowledge acquired by the Journal’s editors, however. Rather, the editors included the article clipped from The Baltimore American merely to demonstrate to their readers the type of war “propaganda” constantly being disseminated throughout the North, which starkly contrasted with the victorious tone and supposed “facts” in their own articles. Such propaganda was supposedly both illustrative of the North’s sagging support for the war effort, as it demonstrated a desperate need for such a  “fanciful” morale booster, and a pernicious attempt not only to falsely raise the hopes of the Northern public but also strike a blow to Southern morale.  In an introduction that the editors added to the clipped article, they state that they still do not know the specific details of the battle, but DO know about The Baltimore American, which they describe as, “the vilest Lincoln sheet in all the North, and has lied more on behalf of the Lincoln dynasty, than even the New York Times, or Forney’s Philadelphia Press”.  The editors made the concession that they received the article from a generous “friend,” yet still went forth in insulting The Baltimore American because they distrusted it so much.  Even the behind-the-scene connections of supposed “friendship” were not enough to prevent the Wilmington Journal editors from showing their disdain for the enemy paper and its reporting, as they portrayed it as pernicious “propaganda”.

While the two articles approach the battle differently (and were each originally written for newspapers supporting different sides of the war), they were both written to reassure their constituencies that their respective armies were winning the war, and it was only a matter of time before the conflict would end.  However, most interestingly, despite their vastly contrasting arguments, both articles also became key propaganda tools for the South: The Wilmington Journal brought both its own factually unfounded and wildly exaggerated reporting (pitched as truthful journalism) as well as The Baltimore American’s (actually impressively factual) article to the table as “proof positive” that the Confederacy had achieved not only a significant military victory at Gettysburg, but had sent partisan Northern newspapers into a flurry of panic and manipulative false reporting in an attempt to compensate for such a “disastrous defeat.” The Journal’s clever ability to weaponize both its own journalism and that of the enemy into morale-boosting tools to rally the fighting spirit of its Southern readers in the wake of two great battles— the outcome of one of which the editors truly did not even know—showcases the enormous power, influence, and cunning of Civil War-era journalism.

The Wilmington Journal. “Latest from the North.” July 16, 1863, sec. Image 1. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/data/batches/ncu_lumber_ver01/data/sn84026536/00295879117/1863071601/0114.pdf.
The Wilmington Journal. “The Bane and Antidote.” July 9, 1863, sec. Image 2. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/data/batches/ncu_lumber_ver01/data/sn84026536/00295879117/1863070901/0111.pdf.