Question of the Week: What Civil War event is remembered at the wrong place?
Let’s talk locations. What Civil War event is commemorated at a specific location, but actually occurred at another spot? Think something like a wrong location for a regimental marker on a battlefield.
Outside of the Civil War community, the “end” of the war is almost universally understood to be Appomattox.
So True!
The veneration of the tree where Albert Sidney Johnston allegedly was mortally wounded at Shiloh. He was shot at one location, the wound was discovered at another and he died at a third. That tree was carrying a lot of remembrance freight for a long time.
Also the so called Surrender Tree at Appomattox.
The precise site at which Abraham Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address. I have heard at least four locations given: (1) the large modern rostrum in the National Cemetery; (2) the site of the Gettysburg Address Monument in the National Cemetery; and (3) the site of the Soldiers National Monument; and (4) somewhere in Evergreen Cemetery.
The Sailors Creek monument dedicated Ewell’s resistance but located at Gordon’s crossing.
The Stonewall Jackson wounding monument at Chancellorsville marks the area where Jackson was wounded, but not THE spot. It was placed where it was for the benefit of travelers on the road so they could see the monument as they passed through the battlefield. Also, the marker for the Lee-Jackson Bivouac is likely on the wrong corner of the intersection where the two generals met (for instance, why meet on the downslope-side of a ridge that faced the enemy when you could meet on the protected opposite side?).
A bit before the Civil War, the Battle of Chrysler’s Farm fought in the War of 1812 in the Province of Ontario, Canada, resulting in a defeat of the forces of the United States cannot be coomermorated on the battlefiled because its location is at the bottom of fhe Saint Lawrence Seaway. However it is not without Civil War connections. Winfield Scott was a drummerboy during his participation in the battle.
At Gettysburg, there is a marker at the target and culmination of “Pickett’s Charge” that signifies that location as “The High Water Mark Of the Confederacy”. The implication is that it is the farthest north Lee’s army was able to penetrate into Pennsylvania during what became the Gettysburg Campaign. Yet elements of Lee’s army were able to get to York, which is further east and north of Gettysburg, and those forces were able to go farther north from York and hazard Harrisburg. So that “High Water mark” in and of itself appears to be in error.