Question of the Week: 1/22-1/28/24
Many parts of the country have been experiences storm and lots of snow this past week…
In your opinion, what’s the most exceptional story/quote about winter weather during the Civil War?
Many parts of the country have been experiences storm and lots of snow this past week…
In your opinion, what’s the most exceptional story/quote about winter weather during the Civil War?
Private Edward M. Burruss, Company D, 21st Mississippi Infantry, wrote this in a letter home to his parents describing the attack on Fort Sanders at Knoxville:
“Two regiments of our brigade & two from Genl. Bryant’s were ordered for the ‘Forlorn Hope.’ It was the turn of the 13th & 17th [Mississippi] to go on picket that morning & of the 18th & 21st to support – consequently it fell to the lot of the 13th & 17th to bear the brunt of the fight while we supported…It was an intensely, bitterly cold morning – water froze on my whiskers while washing my face & if there had been no other reason this should have been sufficient to defer the charge – It was awful – almost apalling to think of fighting – of getting wounded on such a morning. However Longstreet had ordered it & it must be done & not a murmur did I hear.
About half an hour before day break we were drawn up in line of battle as near the fort as possible without being seen & awaited the signal which was to be the opening of a battery in quick succession on our right as soon as the gunners could see to shoot. My eyes were watery from cold but this became more so from deeper cause as I looked down the line of half clothed, less than half shod heroes & saw their knees actually smiting together & their teeth russling like dry bones – but not from fright; watched their look of calm confidence & then thought of the terrible struggle that awaited them.”
My GGF Pvt. Francis Burns was one of the lads in the 13th that horrible winter of fighting.
The extreme weather conditions that General Thomas Rosser led his cavalry on a raid to Beverly, West Virginia, January 7-18. His horsemen had to cross two mountain ranges covered in icy and many feet of snow. They experienced snow, sleet rain, high winds and lightning. They had to cross numerous rivers and streams of icy water without bridges or pontoons. They took nothing to shelter themselves from the elements other than what they wore.
The cold, wintry days in East Tennessee had taken a toll on Longstreet’s veterans in 1863/1864. Shoes were scarce for many soldiers, and, inevitably, when capturing Union prisoners, they would take their shoes. One Union soldier could not complain too much saying that when he surrendered, his shoes surrendered too.
Crossing the Indian Ocean at the bottom of the world at Christmas, 1864, the CSS Shenandoah was thrown about by mountainous seas and screaming winds of a typhoon. Masters Mate Hunt remembered family holiday dinners at home, but, “In the place of pendant evergreens my eyes rested upon the smoky, swaying lamps, still dimly burning in the ward room, and instead of receiving the time-honored salutations from family friends, and bright-faced girls, whose lips give so sweet an intonation to the old phrase, I heard it from rough bearded men, sunburned and swarthy, and in place of preparing for a gay holiday, I donned my sou’weaster and moodily made my way to the deck to stand a four hours’ watch. . . . My solemn advice to the world at large is, never to go off the Cape of Good Hope in a cruiser to enjoy Christmas.”
I’ll go with The Mud March. I chose a snippet of a war correspondent’s report on what the weather had wrought. It goes “The army, in fact, was embargoed: it was no longer a question of how to go forward-it was a question of how to get back.”
That correspondents name was Swinton.
“It was a desperate time-rain, sleet, snow, horses falling and breaking their legs; wagons stalled and overturned, soldiers shrieking from painful, frozen wounds, men lying frozen dead in fence corners and straw stacks, with only the snow for a winding sheet-the very air breathed a frozen sound of death-all was gloom and despondency, while shoeless and bleeding feet tracked the snow more plainly than at Valley Forge; but ‘Old Jack’ quailed not.”
From a Confederate soldier after the 1862 battle of Glorieta, in New Mexico: “In the night a severe snow storm arose and snow fell to the depth of a foot and several of our wounded froze to death.”
Fighting in a Civil War battle is a more horrific experience than most of us will ever experience — having to worry about freezing to death afterward is just adding, well, injury to injury.
Reading about the harsh winter in East Tennessee in 1863, when Longstreet and the lads were hunkered down there. It was said to be the worst winter in TN history.
I own a diary by a Confederate Captain in Stonewall Jackson’s Corps that contains a daily account of their 13-day march from the lower Shenandoah Valley to Guiney Station in November-December 1862. He describes a Valley pass, waterfalls, ice-covered rocks, and a brutal journey on the road in high winds, freezing temperatures and snow, with the men having hardly any tents or even blankets. It continues with the brief respite at Guiney Station – where men freeze to death on guard duty – and then on to Fredericksburg, leaving us one of the few “in real time” accounts of the battle there from the Confederate side. For me, this is the most exceptional winter tale of the Civil War I have ever read.
Here are a few evocative stories about February, 1864, almost exactly 160 years ago today, selected from the eyewitness accounts of veterans of the Richmond Libby Prison escape, the greatest escape in American history.
These American POWs were starving, had no warm clothes, and had to traverse 50 miles of swampy Virginia–all while while being pursued by every white person in Virginia, along with their dogs. ALL of the escapees were Union officers, so all could read and write well.
Afraid of being spotted during the daytime, all the POWs had to lie down on the freezing ground and wait until dark:
“I should like to if I were able to describe the thoughts and feelings that possessed us on that thrillingly exciting day. We were compelled to remain in agony from cold for 12 long hours in that unenviable position. It seemed almost as though the sun did really stand still, and that night, long wished for night, would never come….
“That day I thought our feet certainly would freeze; and as necessity will often set the wits to work, I fell upon an expedient which undoubtedly saved us. Before leaving prison I had taken the precaution to put on two shirts–one of them a woolen one; this I pulled off; and having taken off our shoes and we lay down close together, and rolled our feet up in it, and found great relief”. [from “Incidents of War and Southern Prison Life”, by Captain D. C. Caldwell, 1864]
Lt. Wells remembered, “hunger, fatigue, and loss of sleep were closing in upon me with a deathlike grip. I pushed on, however, and though from sheer exhaustion often stumbled and fell to the ground. ” [James M. Wells, “With Touch of Elbow”, 1909]
But help arrived just when it was most needed, as Lt. Earle described: “Finding that our strength was becoming exhausted, we planned to approach a farm-house and confiscate a chicken, which we intended to eat raw. While we were reconnoitering the out-buildings of a farm-house, we were discovered by a negro. He knew at once we were ‘Yankee officers ‘scaped from prions, ‘but he gave us such an assurance of sympathy that we trusted him at once.
“We were taken immediately to his cabin, and were soon before a blazing fire. A guard of colored people were posted to prevent surprise, and the mother of the family began to prepare us something to eat. How the pones of corn bread, shaped in the old granny’s hands, disappeared, and how delicious was that meat. I have always thought it was stolen expressly for us, from the slaveholders pantry.
“We were thoroughly warmed and well fed, and started out with new courage and definite directions regarding our route.” [from “Libby Prison Life and Escape”, 1895 p23]
These accounts were lifted from my recent book “The Greatest Escape, a True Civil War Adventure”. (Lyons Press) I include many more eyewitness accounts of direct encounters with enslaved Virginians who risked their lives to aid the escape and, if I do say so myself, they’re fascinating.
And if you’ve made it this far, dear reader, you might like to note that I am conducting a walk and talk to celebrate this 160th Anniversary of this breakout on Saturday, February 10, at 12 noon. Meet us in Richmond at the site of spy Elizabeth Van Lew’s mansion on Church Hill (now Bellevue Elementary) and we’ll walk down to the location of Libby itself. The Virginia Holocaust Museum (right next door) is aiding us, and we will be able to duck in there and get warm (and have some coffee). All are invited, and it’s FREE!
One word: Romney.
An honorable mention goes to the soldiers on the road to Stones River/Murfreesboro, who slept on their arms and their pants froze in a sleet storm; they had to crack the ice to get moving again.
A second honorable mention goes to the descriptions of the ice storm in early December 1864 that postponed Thomas’ counteroffensive at Nashville.
Back in the 1980s, when I was a seasonal Ranger at the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Battlefield Park, our short video overview of the battles in the area had this to say about the bitter cold the night after the Battle of Fredericksburg—or something very close to it:
“Many of the wounded [in front of the stone wall] slowly froze to death.” I’m not sure where this myth started, but Bob Krick’s invaluable book “Civil War weather in Virginia” has the weather records for that date: a high of 56 and a low of 40 the following night.
The wounded surely had a rough night, but they didn’t freeze to death!